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Hey d00dz, do you realize all the shit that you don’t ever have to put up with. I bet you don’t. Blair has a helpful story for you.
“This is about speaking up, creepers, and what good men don’t always see. Names have been changed.
Some time ago, I was having lunch with a group of friends—four men, one woman, and me. I’ve known most of the group for five or six years. We were talking about shared past experiences when one of the men mentioned that he missed Larry. “Gotta like a man who can make a good cup of coffee,” he said.
“No, I don’t,” I blurted out, and described how that man knew precisely where the lines of “inappropriate” behavior were drawn, and had spent the last couple of years nudging those lines whenever he came across a woman he considered “available.” I mentioned he’d been called out for failing to heed polite turn-downs, that he got offended when the turn-down became less polite. I mentioned how women who weren’t even the focus of his attention breathed a sigh of relief when he left the room.
None of the men discounted my experience or my descriptions. But every one of them said they hadn’t seen or noticed anything like that. I do want to be clear that their responses were not in the spirit, tone, or words of dismissal. Instead, they were genuinely puzzled that their observations had missed something they assumed would be obvious. One said he felt bad he hadn’t realized what was going on.
So I pushed the issue.
Without explaining what I was going to do, I got up and stood behind one of the men. I put my hands on his shoulders, then stretched my fingers as far down his chest as possible while still seeming to give a platonic shoulder rub.* I pulled him back against my chest, digging my fingers in when he resisted. That action alone let him know I acknowledged he didn’t want me to be pulling on and touching him, and I didn’t care.
“You look so tense,” I said in a nice, soft voice. Not sexy, not husky, but more intimate than standard conversation. Not intimate enough to be “inappropriate,” though. “You just let me give you a rub and I’ll make you feel better. I can tell you need that.”
Then, while he sa[t] immobile with surprise, I leaned past him to pick up his coffee cup, keeping my chest close to his face and my other hand firmly on his shoulder. To the others, it likely looked as if I was just resting my hand there. That man, though, could feel the pressure I exerted to keep him pressed close to me. He would have had to make an obvious, rude-looking push to get away. “I’ll get you some more coffee, too. You just let me take care of that.”
I gave the man a sweet smile in answer to his shocked stare, then returned to my seat, put my napkin back on my lap, and said, “That’s what Larry does.”
The man I’d touched totally understood in that moment. He’d experienced how it felt—even at the hands of a friend—to have your personal boundaries violated and your “polite” signals of resistance ignored. The other men had that slack expression that comes when surprising facts suddenly jolt long-held assumptions. “Creepy” was uttered, as was “awful” and “scary.
Their words held a tone of… almost fear? As if they were suddenly running through all sorts of past interactions in search of similar behaviors, and finding some.
Now they are able to see it.
*The “long-fingered” shoulder rub is a common tactic used by creepers who want to look like they’re being so tender and nurturing while actually making the woman fear he’s going to grab a breast at any moment.”
Pro-Tip – Your experience is not everyone’s experience. Repeat until that sinks in.
Pretty much all you need to know about the motivations of your average MRA dude. :)
Back with more insightful analysis is Anita Sarkeesian. The idea of but what about the male in distress plot point is dicusses as well as framing the issues within the bounds of our society.
I’m still waiting for Drakken to be redone and released, not only does it start a female protagonist, but it also has Dragons! And I lourve dragons to bits!
“It is because society tells us that women are objects, not subjects, that when society is presented with a case of male violence or sexual abuse, everyone looks at it from his point of view: “Oh, he must have been provoked to have done that,” “He was a nice man who just snapped,” “He must have been confused by her signals,” “Maybe he’s been falsely accused, how terrible to have to go to jail for that.” With every victim-blaming, rape / violence apologist comment, society reveals through whose eyes it looks, and the answer is invariably the man’s. It is because society tells us that women are objects, not subjects, that even good men, when speaking out against violence against women, tell other men to imagine her as “somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother, somebody’s daughter, or somebody’s sister,” it never occurring to them that maybe, just maybe, a woman is also “somebody”.
It is frightening to consider just how deeply entrenched objectification of women really goes. We must certainly combat sexual objectification, but the battle will not end there. Women are objectified in more profound ways than we realise, and we must tear down every entwined shred of the patriarchy, in order to achieve our modest goal of being recognized and treated as human beings.
”
— Source: The Objectification of Women – It Goes Much Further Than Sexy Pictures
It is embarrassing when your hometown makes news on the Internets for having induhviduals who think that rape apologia is a-fucking-okay. These vats of douche have co-opted what was a successful campaign against sexual violence at the University of Alberta and other locations back in 2010. Here is the original poster.
Great poster. Great message promoting the idea that it is sexual assault when there is no consent. Let’s take a look at what our home town misogynists ginned up with their mad photoshop skillz.
How to prove your ‘movement’ is absolute shite.
Yah. They went there. Victim blaming, rape apologia all sung to the insidious drone of “what about the menz!!11!!!1!!!!”. And as with all Men’s Rights Activist content, it is nothing but baseless assertions tinged with whinging about how tough men have it in society. Almost like the Patriarchy didn’t exist. Making shit up is nothing new for MRA’s though, as evinced here:
Karen Straughan, spokesperson for Men’s Rights Edmonton, believes the original “Don’t be that guy” campaign demonized men.
“It frames all men as potential sexual predators,” she said.
Ah yes, because somehow the idea of consent being a necessary part of any sexual encounter demonizes men.
Lise Gotell, chair of women and gender studies at the University of Alberta, worked on the original “Don’t be that guy” campaign. She believes the new posters send the wrong message.
“They’ve perverted the message,” she said. “And they’ve transformed it into a rape apologist message and it’s just very disturbing.”
It is very disturbing because the message being sent reinforces the rape culture women have to deal with every day.
I’m disgusted with these MRA failsauces and their blatant misogyny. Go to rainn.org to get the real deal on what is happening violence and rape with regards to women.
Nothing you shouldn’t already know.
Pop-culture is another avenue through which white/Western imperialism and misogynistic standards are spread. This is how the thin, able-bodied white woman ideal was created and WoC and “third-world”/Global South women and girls were devalued, denigrated and taught to hate their physical appearance, and even take dangerous measures to mimick the thin, able-bodied white woman ideal.
Like it is hard to find patriarchy on the Internets.
It’s easy to think that the misogyny is just a feature of the those who just don’t know better, or who espouse a certain set of values like the dear followers of the GOP in the US. But no, when you live within a patriarchal system, which we do (and I will repeat this fact forever my MRA friends), the misogyny is everywhere and it touches everybody. Go read the entire article on Rumpus.net, but I excerpt a section here that made me cheer. Thank you KMA Sullivan for writing such a great piece.
“It was exhausting. Exhausting to figure out how to respond to the relentless misogyny from men who are otherwise kind and educated, who would never think of themselves as chauvinist assholes. I have heard more than once from this crew, “Most of my favorite poets are women.” If I were to guess, I’d bet that the lot of them vote pro-choice, support the Violence Against Women Act, and consider women well capable of intelligent, complex thought. I certainly don’t assume that all men under 40 would engage in the kind of language and behavior described above; indeed, I know of many who would never do so. And yet, after the past several weeks, its frequency is far beyond what I thought possible.
What is up with all this dehumanizing language? Honestly, I have no idea. But I do know this. If “good guys” feel perfectly at ease using degrading language that objectifies women when talking not only to one another but also to women they purportedly respect, then the bullshit that came out of the GOP this past election cycle (vaginas that can tell the difference between consensual sex and rape, for example) can be explained. A big pile of reasonably aware and well-intentioned people doing thoughtless shit creates a solid set of stairs for unreasonable, ignorant assholes to say and do what most of us (men and women alike) would deem shockingly destructive.”
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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