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Is not what Kate Lister or feminist in general are doing. They’re saying that they are afraid of being alone with a man, this is just how they feel.
Isn’t it though? That’s the subtext of saying you are afraid of men. It pretty directly carries the idea that all men are a group that should be feared by women for the potential dangers they represent.
Here in France, 96% of sexual assaults are performed by men. I don’t think you could find a country where the statistic goes the other way. “a few correlations from time to time” really doesn’t reflect the reality of the situation. It’s not some correlation, it’s a systemic issue in our society.
That does little to establish the likelihood of any given man to sexually assault a women. A stat like that is talking about a populate that is comprised entirely of perpetrators of sexual assault. This would be like saying saying “96% of drowning happens in bodies of water” The stat we would need to see instead would be “what % of men will commit at least one instance of sexual assault in their lifetime” and the population sample would need to be all men that resided in a specific location for say 60 years of their life. I’m sure someone more skilled with statistics than myself could express what I’m trying to say more accurately but I hope I explained well enough you can see what I was trying to convey atleast.
I actually agree that critical thinking goes out the window ! “I chose the bear!” is meant to express that women are afraid of men. The fact that most women would actually be terrified of an encounter with a bear or that they are statistically safer with a man than with a bear is irrelevant. Women want to send a message and instead of listening, you are correcting them on a technicality.
When a message predicates itself on a falsehood it should be criticized. How can you have a worthwhile discussion when your invitation to the conversation is a a lie? It’s like a time share or a MLM, the premise is a lie so everything that follows is not tainted by that even if there is some truth in it.
The fact that you are only talking about the discourse and not the actual problem makes me wonder if you really want the issue to be resolved
So disagreeing with a conversation being built on a lie and advancing a stereotype implies I want oppress women? That’s reaching pretty hard. I’m not saying women aren’t experiencing an unfair circumstance and that their feelings are invalid. I’m saying that this is the wrong way to discuss it because it means the audience who needs to hear it most is presented with cognitive dissonance upfront and a very vocal portion of the women trying to share their experience are shocked and insulted that the men won’t listen or try to defend themselves. Of course that was going to happen when you open the conversation up with nonsense rhetoric and now we silenced women with credible stories to share while galvanizing the very men who need to hear this shit the most from trusting the women with the stories to tell.
You wouldn’t bring loud-mouthed, personal insult slinging demagouges to a debate and expect a favorable outcome would you?
This is a terrible comparison. When woman say they are afraid of men, it’s a dominated group being afraid of its dominators. With your black perso/alligator question, it’s a case of dominators being afraid of a group its dominating.
It doesnt matter what order you put the adjectives in. It’s a terrible comparison because any comparison like this is predicated on stereotypes whether they are gender, racial, religious, or whatever. There is no valid stereotype for individual psychology at such a broad demographic level.
This is a fantastic response and despite
areour disagreements on the topic I just want to thank you for being real about it. Thank you for the apology as well but want to say that you certainly did not owe me one for your conduct. These long texts degrade the value of what would probably have been a really good conversation in person and I do not doubt that my choices of words and phrasing probably came off as dismissive. Passion is an important part of perspective and we seem to have had a very different set of circumstance we grew up an continue to live in.I grew up as a white male in a rural town with parents who were way too young but thankfully grandparents who were able to prevent us from living in total poverty. One year an uncle of mine died in a car jacking to a few black men and more than half of my close family just up and decided all black people were bad over night. A spark lighting powder keg of pent up confirmation bias. I was to young to understand it well at the time since I was in 2nd grade but my best friend at the time was the only black kid in my school within like 4 grades and when I couldn’t invite him to my birthday party later that year and no one could explain why. I was oblivious and angry but looking back he was depressingly somehow already accepting of the injustice. We played basketball at recess and still talked plenty but we drifted apart and it took me a long time to understand why.
There is obviously much more like this than just the one incident but suffice to day I’m in my 30s now, moved away to a large city, and I don’t keep in contact with really any of my family with the exception of a 1 cousin (who is also a bit racist at times but serving 3 tours in the military opened his eyes for the most part)
Granted I’m coming at this hatred of stereotypes for selfish injustices rather than countless erosions of my perceive value as a person but I’m passionate about the value of treating others equally none the less.
This analogy helps I guess. I’ll be honest, I still strongly dislike the concept at a level that also feels blindingly obvious to me too but because I want to argue that anyone should be at least somewhat suspicious of any stranger offering you a drink regardless of gender.
I just find this whole viral event to be of diminished impact because it hinges on so many women saying something so exist because there are a lot of men who do need to hear from women they trust that their actions (even those with innocent intent) carry the power to strike fear in those same women that they would feel awful for scaring… But they aren’t going to hear that because this preposterous doubling down that any random bear is less dangerous than any random man is the thing all the loud and obnoxious assholes who make toxic masculinity and what-a-bout-ism their whole personality are going to latch onto.
Have the conversation, make your feelings known, but starting off on this false pretense just ruins the impact so throughly that it’s hard to not be frustrated. I know it’s a technicality and that it’s petty but most people resist change and introspection because it is hard and awkward to navigate. This gives them an out so the reach is now crippled.
I strongly agree that stereotypes are used by oppressors to terrorize and diminish the oppressed but with one added facet… The oppressors often do not see themselves as the oppressor. Most people with advantages in life don’t often see them as advantages. They still have difficulties and issues and traumas that they focus on and when someone comes along saying “I’ve had it worse in this particular regard” they don’t stop to compare objectively they just keep doing exactly what they are already doing until it impacts them. And if that ends up impacting them negatively, of course they are going to resist. Just like anyone would want to regardless of their relative situation when they feel they are being treated unjustly.