What constitutes Misogyny?

[Canadian_watcher]

Stephen interjects to remind us that male on male violence is a problem in this world. You have just done so, too. Yes, thank you both, it is. I can see that both of you are concerned about violent males among us. I am, too.

There's a difference between your position and mine: you see it as male violence, I just see it as violence. You only see violent men, I also see violent women. You see male violence, I see male victims. To you your group is the victim, the Other is dangerous, even if they're dangerous to each other as well.

Well, I was only responding to that which was recently discussed in this thread - both of you made points about male on male violence. I see the male victims in those stories, and I said as much. I think it's terrible. I think that in both cases (your story of being threatened because of your flowing locks and wallflowers account of male-male military rape, alluding that it was rape of homosexuals) the argument could be made that that is a reaction to a social hatred of the feminine. No?

After all, I'm also concerned about domestic violence where most of the violence is by women. Most male violence is against men, most female violence is against men. Could be evidence of a widespread violent hatred of men amongst women, definitely not evidence of misogyny.

yes, and since it is evidence of misogyny, it isn't relevant to this thread. Not saying it isn't important. Incidences of lesbian domestic violence might or might not relate to misogyny.. what do you think?

As you see the massive preponderance of male victims as somehow less important because it's "male-on-male" violence, so it is here. It's a fundamentally and fatally flawed approach to "ending violence" if you see the group which provides the majority of victims of violence as a dangerous group of genetic predators.

I don't see it as less important at all. Females have fought for an end to violence against men, too. From the poem above we have Cindy Sheehan as just one example. As mothers, women fight hard and loud to protect male children from gang involvement, the military machine, bigotry, sexual predators, bullies, etc. As wives they supported striking male workers. Some fought against abortion and forced sterilization of both males and females.

I wish you'd stop stubbornly assuming that feminist activities exclude males. Women fight for men all the time - if you could stop being so defensive, you'd see that.

This:

There's as little outrage as truth. It's a pack of lies. The fact is that rape on campus is very rare, unless you count sex under the influence as automatically rape (of the woman, drunk men are never counted as being raped) in which case it's pretty common. Campuses have also done their best to stop it, mad take back the night marches, money spent on improving street lighting at night, that sort of thing.

That is malarkey on SO many levels, Stephen, and you know it. You know all the arguments against what you've just said. They parallel those you could make if I were to say: "In fact, incidences of female on male domestic assault are almost nil."

By the way. I read that bit about respect up there. Thanks. Back at ya.

[brekin]

You really need to stop making such huge sweeping generalizations and using
others as mouthpieces. What you wrote below in quotations is what you think I said
and do you notice you don't actually put what I said? At all? Does that seem fair to you?

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

Sometimes it is simply the unwillingness to validate a woman's experience because "she must be hysterical... she must be too close to the subject to think rationally about it" We saw an example of this when brekin warned me 'not to go there' with the story of my sexual assault. Why should I not go there? It is my experience. He might say he was eager to help me, protect me. I don't think so. He wasn't so eager to stand up for me against the disrespect of the Furnace Guy.

You can go anywhere you want. But, you are going to lose respect and appear ridiculous when
to prove a point about a silly furnace man encounter you throw a traumatic episode from your
past in a juvenile way, taunting way in people's faces.

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

Okay all you lovers of me,
Here's another real life experience:

analyze that. let's see what you're made of.

If someone is in a thread on Satanic Ritual Abuse and they bring up something mild and get criticized and start trading insults do you think it is the right time for them to bring up a something completely on the other end of the spectrum that they were subjected to, just to prove a point?

How does that make that person or anyone else more vulnerable? I'd say it creates a situation where you are trying to shame others into silence or compliance.

I was helping you by trying to give you my take on what may have happened in your Furnace man encounter because I had a similar position in the past. This is something I do all the time and is done to me. When a man or woman does it I don't assume they aren't validating my whole gender's experience. Generally, I tend to think people share what has helped them and are sharing it with me because they respect me. Don't worry, I won't be doing that for you again.

I was not in your words trying to "protect you", but advising you for your own benefit, and others, that I don't think this was the way or time to choose to share this. Why? Because it would be conflated with the furnace man story and would be seen as using a horrible example from your past to shame others into silence or shock them out of anger over being challenged on the Furnace man story. Which would not be the way a personal story like that I felt should be best given or received. Good thing that didn't happen right?

When someone advises me that maybe I shouldn't share something so close to me out of anger to certain unsympathetic people to prove a point or try and shame them at an especially volatile point I assume they are doing so because they have my best interest and everyone else's in mind. They are you can say trying to make keep things constructive and respectful. Don't worry, I also won't be doing that for you again.

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

What he was really saying in relation to the sexual assault story was: "This isn't fair. You can't hand us an example that we can't blame you for in some way! You can't' make yourself vulnerable in front of us because then we'll look like bad guys if we attack you!"

Why are you creating dialogue? What I was "really saying" is up there for everyone to read. Do you think people can't read and make their own conclusions? Do I take what you write, not quote it, but go on and create internal monologues of what I think you are thinking? Trust me, we all can do this.

Possibly I'm sure some people who were angry about the Furnace man episode and wanted to pursue that and saw your divulging your traumatic experience then as a way to morally high-jack the thread and putting you above any criticism or reproach. I saw it as someone who was trapped, angry and felt like they they had been disrespected again and because others didn't see this,felt like they ad to defiantly share that they had been a clear victim of misogyny in the past.

I think you have a problem with being challenged. I think you need to understand that people who most respect you and see you as a true equal are the ones who will challenge you. (Not the same as everyone who challenges you always respects you.)

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

He failed to see that this whole thread makes us vulnerable, and attacking at any point in the discussion is the same type of insult.

It is obvious that not agreeing with your interpretation at any point, challenging or debating your conclusions, or even plain disagreeing you see as an "attack". I would disagree then that this thread makes most vulnerable. I would say it does the opposite. If most opinions outside of your narrow band are seen as an insult then this thread is not about becoming more vulnerable, lowering defenses and sharing. It is about blaming, labeling, shaming and forcing your viewpoint.

And I don't want any part is then. So please don't throw my name up with what a "he was really saying"
or create imaginary dialogue to provide bullet points for your world view because I don't want to have to come back in here. This thread is like fukushima and I'm trying to keep out of the evacuation zone.

[Stephen Morgan]

Stephen interjects to remind us that male on male violence is a problem in this world. You have just done so, too. Yes, thank you both, it is. I can see that both of you are concerned about violent males among us. I am, too.

There's a difference between your position and mine: you see it as male violence, I just see it as violence. You only see violent men, I also see violent women. You see male violence, I see male victims. To you your group is the victim, the Other is dangerous, even if they're dangerous to each other as well.

Well, I was only responding to that which was recently discussed in this thread - both of you made points about male on male violence. I see the male victims in those stories, and I said as much. I think it's terrible. I think that in both cases (your story of being threatened because of your flowing locks and wallflowers account of male-male military rape, alluding that it was rape of homosexuals) the argument could be made that that is a reaction to a social hatred of the feminine. No?

I don't think so. Firstly, I'm not feminine and don't look feminine. Big beard. Manly face. Barrel chest. That sort of thing. I didn't think those soldiers being raped were gay either, if anything I think they were eager not to be thought gay, as is often the case with male victims of sexual violence. I'd think it was more likely the rapists were gay, what with fucking men up the arse, and that.

But you're still thinking of it as male-on-male violence with male victims, and I disapprove.

After all, I'm also concerned about domestic violence where most of the violence is by women. Most male violence is against men, most female violence is against men. Could be evidence of a widespread violent hatred of men amongst women, definitely not evidence of misogyny.

yes, and since it is evidence of misogyny, it isn't relevant to this thread. Not saying it isn't important. Incidences of lesbian domestic violence might or might not relate to misogyny.. what do you think?

I think this thread isn't tightly constrained to things directly affecting misogyny.

As you see the massive preponderance of male victims as somehow less important because it's "male-on-male" violence, so it is here. It's a fundamentally and fatally flawed approach to "ending violence" if you see the group which provides the majority of victims of violence as a dangerous group of genetic predators.

I don't see it as less important at all. Females have fought for an end to violence against men, too. From the poem above we have Cindy Sheehan as just one example. As mothers, women fight hard and loud to protect male children from gang involvement, the military machine, bigotry, sexual predators, bullies, etc. As wives they supported striking male workers. Some fought against abortion and forced sterilization of both males and females.

You're confusing women and those working on behalf of women, allegedly, the women's movement. Individual women do admirable things.

I wish you'd stop stubbornly assuming that feminist activities exclude males. Women fight for men all the time - if you could stop being so defensive, you'd see that.

I was just thinking how I don't oppose violence against women. Or at least I would never say I oppose violence against women. I oppose violence. If an act of violence is against women I will be against that, but if I espoused an opposition specifically to violence against women it would carrying the implicit assumption that I'm not, or not as much, against violence against men and children.

This:

There's as little outrage as truth. It's a pack of lies. The fact is that rape on campus is very rare, unless you count sex under the influence as automatically rape (of the woman, drunk men are never counted as being raped) in which case it's pretty common. Campuses have also done their best to stop it, mad take back the night marches, money spent on improving street lighting at night, that sort of thing.

That is malarkey on SO many levels, Stephen, and you know it. You know all the arguments against what you've just said. They parallel those you could make if I were to say: "In fact, incidences of female on male domestic assault are almost nil."

I'd just point out that you're wrong. But campus rape is rare, but there are still compulsory programmes like recounted here. Actually, so is domestic violence. I've got this academic paper about it in front of me. More common than rape, which is no surprise because it's a less serious crime and those are generally more common.

A quick video about domestic violence, but don't watch the rest of his videos because you won't like them:



Makes some good anti-charity points which I sympathise with, it's unbelievable how much people like the head of OXFAM get paid.

By the way. I read that bit about respect up there. Thanks. Back at ya.

Well, we're both rather similar, I think, and we're after similar things.

[barracuda]

I'd just point out that you're wrong. But campus rape is rare,

Did you read that article? Last paragraph:

Of course, if we were man-hating feminists, we might consider that the alternative scenario – that rape crisis centers are underutilized for other reasons than the absence of a crisis – might have some truth to it. And we might look at a huge number of studies with a variety of methodologies that report similarly high numbers. For example this study:

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0197-6664(199101)40%3A1%3C65%3AARATCS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

uses a relatively careful methodology that has little ambiguity and reports a rate of 20% for unwanted attempted intercourse and 10% for unwanted intercourse (rape). In the vast majority of these cases (91% and 72% respectively) the woman involved said "no" to intercourse explicitly. Also worth noting from the study is who they told: most told either a roommate, a close friend, or no one. Less than 1% told a counselor. What?! Maybe that explains why no one is calling rape crisis centers – because this is a hard thing to talk to a stranger about? Nah… only some sort of f**king feminazi would advance such a notion.

So even this strange and vaguely offensive article takes it for granted that 20% of women on campuses faced unwanted attempted intercourse, and 10% were raped. I don't call that rare, but maybe you consider something like having freckles to be rare.

[Canadian_watcher]

You really need to stop making such huge sweeping generalizations and using
others as mouthpieces.

you really need to stop telling me how I ought to react to the things you say.

You can go anywhere you want. But, you are going to lose respect and appear ridiculous when
to prove a point about a silly furnace man encounter you throw a traumatic episode from your
past in a juvenile way, taunting way in people's faces.

Thank you for trying to tell me how to win friends and influence people.

If someone is in a thread on Satanic Ritual Abuse and they bring up something mild and get criticized and start trading insults do you think it is the right time for them to bring up a something completely on the other end of the spectrum that they were subjected to, just to prove a point?

what would an example of 'mild' Satanic Ritual Abuse be?

How does that make that person or anyone else more vulnerable? I'd say it creates a situation where you are trying to shame others into silence or compliance.

I was sharing a story, not shaming or silencing anyone. On the other hand, here's what you wrote in response to my story:

In all earnestness I don't think you should be posting this right now in relation to this thread.
It doesn't have anything to do with what we were just talking about and I think you are posting
this out of place that isn't going to be good for anyone. I thinking sharing something like this in
this way just isn't what maybe could be good for you right now.

I'm less concerned about what others think or their reaction to this but where you are coming from right now
for your sake

I was helping you by trying to give you my take on what may have happened in your Furnace man encounter because I had a similar position in the past. ...
Don't worry, I won't be doing that for you again.

that's a relief.

I was not in your words trying to "protect you", but advising you for your own benefit, and others...

what's the difference?

Because it would be conflated with the furnace man story and would be seen as using a horrible example from your past to shame others into silence or shock them out of anger over being challenged on the Furnace man story. Which would not be the way a personal story like that I felt should be best given or received. Good thing that didn't happen right?

The furnace man and the bathroom men have similarities. If you don't see them it is because you aren't listening to the voice who experienced it. You are attempting to negate my experience, and that is not cool.

When someone advises me that maybe I shouldn't share something so close to me out of anger to certain unsympathetic people to prove a point or try and shame them at an especially volatile point I assume they are doing so because they have my best interest and everyone else's in mind.

and yet you claim you weren't trying to protect me?

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

What he was really saying in relation to the sexual assault story was: "This isn't fair. You can't hand us an example that we can't blame you for in some way! You can't' make yourself vulnerable in front of us because then we'll look like bad guys if we attack you!"

Why are you creating dialogue? What I was "really saying" is up there for everyone to read. Do you think people can't read and make their own conclusions?

You've pretty much just spent two or three paragraphs explaining that you think that is precisely what I was doing. Shaming and silencing, remember? I think you accused me of it three times just in the last post. And here you go again:

Possibly I'm sure some people who were angry about the Furnace man episode and wanted to pursue that and saw your divulging your traumatic experience then as a way to morally high-jack the thread and putting you above any criticism or reproach. I saw it as someone who was trapped, angry and felt like they they had been disrespected again and because others didn't see this,felt like they ad to defiantly share that they had been a clear victim of misogyny in the past.

It is obvious that not agreeing with your interpretation at any point, challenging or debating your conclusions, or even plain disagreeing you see as an "attack".

oh please.

[wallflower]

In re military rape, I did not mean to allude to either the perpetrators or victims as homosexuals. What I wished to point out was that the violence is primarily a result of an urge to oppress another. Sexual assault of female active-duty service members as well as sexual assaults in service academies has received a great deal of attention and Congress mandates annual reports about the incidents and response. Sexual assaults against women service members is a much greater magnitude than of men. That sexual assaults against men happen at all is an issue which is only now becoming widely known and discussed. As it is being discussed the point is made that rape is primarily a crime of violence not sex. Consistent with that most of the perpetrators of the violence identify as heterosexual; are heterosexual.

Stephen Morgan writes in re Toby Morgan's citing a National Institute of Justice study on campus sexual assaults: "There's as little outrage as truth. It's a pack of lies." Stephen Morgan goes on to assert: "The fact is that rape on campus is very rare, unless you count sex under the influence as automatically rape (of the woman, drunk men are never counted as being raped) in which case it's pretty common. Campuses have also done their best to stop it, mad take back the night marches, money spent on improving street lighting at night, that sort of thing."

My reaction is that a an unjustified assertion of "It's a pack of lies" to a systematic study of an issue is to lend little credibility to such an assertion. Such an assertion seems nuts to me.

Misogyny is defined rather simply as hatred of women and girls. It is understood as both an individual attribute of persons: He's a misogynist as well as a cultural ideology or belief system.

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

Wallflower - You must, by now, be beginning to see what constitutes misogyny.

I'm a bit dim witted. I would point out that I don't deny the existence of misogyny. In the case of a misogynist it can be relatively easy to see that person's dislike of women. But to a great extent we take our belief systems for granted. How we understand the world is profoundly shaped by our beliefs, but for the most part we are unconscious of how these beliefs shape our realities as we tend tend take our realities as "reality."

Forces and impacts of a physical kind are well understood and predictable. But people are not billiard balls. When a ball is struck it's movement is predictable, much less so predictable is what will happen when a person is struck. Causes in the interdependent world of living things are not so well understood as the physics involved in purely material things. Yet we often presume that what makes people do what they do, the causes for what we do, are as simple and predictable as physics. This presumption of simplicity is a pitfall I think.

Gregory Bateson pointed out this rush for explanation about what people do that we tend to make dormative hypotheses. He recounts an oral doctoral examination depicted by Moliere long ago:

[T]he learned doctors ask the candidate to state the 'cause and reason" why opium puts people to sleep. The candidate triumphantly answers in dog Latin, "Because there is in it a dormative principle (virtus dormitiva)."

Bateson goes on to show that dormative hypotheses really don't tell us very much.

If we assert that sexism is caused by misogyny. Then what constitutes misogyny? What I'm interested in discovering are reasons for sexist behaviors and violence against women and girls that are less circular than that they are caused by misogyny. To say that misogyny is what causes sexism doesn't really tell me much about what misogyny is. Or if misogyny is defined as hatred of girls and women what one can do to change people's hatred.

We confront misogyny as a complex interactive system. When I said that I'm still not sure what constitutes misogyny I was not denying that misogyny exists. What I was trying to point out is that even with reading a very long and smart thread as this one, what I come away with is that misogyny is complex and the constituent parts and the relationships between them not clear to me. But the complexity is precisely why I feel this discussion is so valuable and accounts for my gratitude to Candian_Watcher for starting and maintaining it.

[Canadian_watcher]

In re military rape, I did not mean to allude to either the perpetrators or victims as homosexuals.

okay, sorry.. I misinterpreted it due to the reference to 'don't ask don't tell'

That sexual assaults against men happen at all is an issue which is only now becoming widely known and discussed. As it is being discussed the point is made that rape is primarily a crime of violence not sex. Consistent with that most of the perpetrators of the violence identify as heterosexual; are heterosexual.

Yes, rape is a crime of control/power over.. at least that's what the literature says. I'm not sure what motivates rapists, really. Maybe sometimes it *is* about sex. But that's not really the point I want to make. I want to talk about the fact that male rape is only now being spoken of.. and still in very hushed tones. I would argue that this goes to the shame the victims feel and that this might be an aspect of hatred of the feminine again. Male victims of rape might feel a double dose of shame because not only were they physically violated but they fear that they will be perceived as having been made into a woman ... ? I don't know.. I'm just throwing it out there.

Stephen Morgan writes in re Toby Morgan's citing a National Institute of Justice study on campus sexual assaults: "There's as little outrage as truth. It's a pack of lies." ...

My reaction is that a an unjustified assertion of "It's a pack of lies" to a systematic study of an issue is to lend little credibility to such an assertion. Such an assertion seems nuts to me.

me too.

...to a great extent we take our belief systems for granted. How we understand the world is profoundly shaped by our beliefs, but for the most part we are unconscious of how these beliefs shape our realities as we tend tend take our realities as "reality."
...
If we assert that sexism is caused by misogyny. Then what constitutes misogyny? What I'm interested in discovering are reasons for sexist behaviors and violence against women and girls that are less circular than that they are caused by misogyny. To say that misogyny is what causes sexism doesn't really tell me much about what misogyny is. Or if misogyny is defined as hatred of girls and women what one can do to change people's hatred.

point taken. I believe the roots are very deep, and I'm not sure there's a way to get under the earth and pull them out. Instead I think we have to keep spotting and picking off the fruits. Go at towards the roots from their obvious and accessible manifestation. Defoliate. Cut branches. Hammer copper spikes into the trunk.

the complexity is precisely why I feel this discussion is so valuable and accounts for my gratitude to Candian_Watcher for starting and maintaining it.

thank you for thanking me. It has been (mostly) a pleasure to keep this discussion going.

[23]

I was just thinking how I don't oppose violence against women. Or at least I would never say I oppose violence against women. I oppose violence. If an act of violence is against women I will be against that, but if I espoused an opposition specifically to violence against women it would carrying the implicit assumption that I'm not, or not as much, against violence against men and children.

Yes. Exactly so. Opposing violence, in all forms, is the righteous position to take. And no one group of victims deserve more protection from violent acts than another group.

Violence is violence. No matter the gender, race or age of the victim.

As a recent example... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ec0_1303444048 .

The employees who stood by and did not intervene were complicit in the violence that occurred, IMO. They enabled it to continue as long as it did.

[barracuda]

I don't think so. Firstly, I'm not feminine and don't look feminine. Big beard. Manly face. Barrel chest. That sort of thing. I didn't think those soldiers being raped were gay either, if anything I think they were eager not to be thought gay, as is often the case with male victims of sexual violence. I'd think it was more likely the rapists were gay, what with fucking men up the arse, and that.

Really? Do you also believe the perpetrators of male rape in prisons are "gay", or are they simply men sticking their dicks in whatever happens to be nearby in the absence of their personal preference?

[Canadian_watcher]

I was just thinking how I don't oppose violence against women. Or at least I would never say I oppose violence against women. I oppose violence. If an act of violence is against women I will be against that, but if I espoused an opposition specifically to violence against women it would carrying the implicit assumption that I'm not, or not as much, against violence against men and children.

Yes. Exactly so. Opposing violence, in all forms, is the righteous position to take. And no one group of victims deserve more protection from violent acts than another group.

Violence is violence. No matter the gender, race or age of the victim.

I.e. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ec0_1303444048

My family cringes every time we hear the news report a story that accounts for the number of women and children who are killed in any event. Why do they continue to report news this way, acting as if those deaths are more tragic? That bothers me.

I'm risking getting overly metaphysical here, but I think every person is a universe unto him/herself and it is a tremendous loss for the whole of humanity to lose anyone to violence or negligence.

That being said, too, I'd easily pull the lever on violent, serial offenders. Not as a first course of action, but as a last resort. Proof beyond shadow of doubt necessary, too.

[brekin]

brekin wrote:
You really need to stop making such huge sweeping generalizations and using
others as mouthpieces.

Canadian_watcher wrote:
you really need to stop telling me how I ought to react to the things you say.

When your reactions include distortions and misrepresentations of what I say then
trust me I will continue to tell you how I you out to react to things I say. Which include
like I said extrapolating sweeping generalizations from what I say, creating imaginary dialogues
and fabricating what "I really meant to say".

brekin wrote:
If someone is in a thread on Satanic Ritual Abuse and they bring up something mild and get criticized and start trading insults do you think it is the right time for them to bring up a something completely on the other end of the spectrum that they were subjected to, just to prove a point?

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

what would an example of 'mild' Satanic Ritual Abuse be?

Uh, I didn't say they bring up a mild example of Satanic Ritual abuse. I said they bring up something mild. In comparison to a thread on that subject they bring up something that is grey and in which they themselves aren't sure is an actual example. That was what originally was trying
to be inferred in the Furnace Man story. For example, say some teen tricker or treaters on Halloween come to their door and that person perceives their behavior as disrespectful to them and thinks it could be related to Satanism some how, the teens subscribe to occults beliefs or something. Maybe they do, maybe they don't. Some people disagree and challenge that and a flame war results. The person decides then at that point to bring up an experience of ritual abuse in a taunting way. Muddies the waters a bit doesn't it?

brekin wrote:
How does that make that person or anyone else more vulnerable? I'd say it creates a situation where you are trying to shame others into silence or compliance.


Canadian Watcher wrote:
I was sharing a story, not shaming or silencing anyone.

What ever. You were trading insults, and address your story to

Okay all you lovers of me,
Here's another real life experience:

and tell them to:

analyze that. let's see what you're made of.

Canadian Watcher wrote:

On the other hand, here's what you wrote in response to my story:

brekin wrote:

In all earnestness I don't think you should be posting this right now in relation to this thread.
It doesn't have anything to do with what we were just talking about and I think you are posting
this out of place that isn't going to be good for anyone. I thinking sharing something like this in
this way just isn't what maybe could be good for you right now.

I'm less concerned about what others think or their reaction to this but where you are coming from right now
for your sake.

I stand by that.

brekin wrote:
I was not in your words trying to "protect you", but advising you for your own benefit, and others...

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

what's the difference?

Well for one I assume most people can protect themselves if they are told of a perceived risk.
The difference would be:

I would advise against going down that road because I think the bridge is not safe to help you.
vs.
I won't let you go down that road because the bridge is not safe to protect you.

brekin wrote:
Because it would be conflated with the furnace man story and would be seen as using a horrible example from your past to shame others into silence or shock them out of anger over being challenged on the Furnace man story. Which would not be the way a personal story like that I felt should be best given or received. Good thing that didn't happen right?

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

The furnace man and the bathroom men have similarities. If you don't see them it is because you aren't listening to the voice who experienced it. You are attempting to negate my experience, and that is not cool.

Ah no. I listened. I heard your thoughts. I didn't attempt to "negate your experience". I'm sure it happened, I'm sure you originally told it the way it happened, I'm sure you thought his behavior was possibly sexist. But you know what? I didn't share your interpretation of the events or his motivations. That's what people do. You know what i could be wrong. You could be wrong. The Furnace man could be doing more for women's rights then anyone in this thread. We don't know. The situation was ambiguous. But to disagree is to negate someones experience.

Could you tell me what the similarities are between the two experiences? Because at this point, if you are choosing to conflate the two incidents we might as well break it down.

brekin wrote:
When someone advises me that maybe I shouldn't share something so close to me out of anger to certain unsympathetic people to prove a point or try and shame them at an especially volatile point I assume they are doing so because they have my best interest and everyone else's in mind.

Canadian_Watcher wrote:

and yet you claim you weren't trying to protect me?

See bridge example above.

Canadian_Watcher wrote:
Quote:
What he was really saying in relation to the sexual assault story was: "This isn't fair. You can't hand us an example that we can't blame you for in some way! You can't' make yourself vulnerable in front of us because then we'll look like bad guys if we attack you!"


brekin wrote:
Why are you creating dialogue? What I was "really saying" is up there for everyone to read. Do you think people can't read and make their own conclusions?

Canadian Watcher wrote:
You've pretty much just spent two or three paragraphs explaining that you think that is precisely what I was doing. Shaming and silencing, remember? I think you accused me of it three times just in the last post.

I honestly don't understand what you are saying here.

[barracuda]

You know what i could be wrong. You could be wrong.

Canadian_watcher is telling you how she felt about the incident, and about your response to her telling of it. She is highly unlikely to be wrong about that.

It's as if you don't even share a common vocabulary with her.

[brekin]

barracuda wrote:

brekin wrote:
You know what i could be wrong. You could be wrong.

Canadian_watcher is telling you how she felt about the incident, and about your response to her telling of it. She is highly unlikely to be wrong about that.

Oh, I don't doubt the validity of her feelings. Far from it. I know what she feels is real.
However her feelings don't solely determine the reality of the event and answer whether the Furnace Man
is a "sexist prick". That was what we were discussing.
If I feel disrespected by someone that is my truth.
If I think they disrespected me because they are _____, then that is an entirely different matter.

One that should be open to debate. Because I share my take on the incident and what the
Furnace man could possibly thinking and feeling, now I'm what, insensitive?

I learned long ago my feelings aren't the only lens to see the world.

It's as if you don't even share a common vocabulary with her.

Bingo!!! We have a winner.

[Peregrine]

Stephen.

I don't even know what your situation is, how can I have empathy? That's why I say don't let me stop you being more specific.

Um, I was pretty specific back on page 55.

I got a third less pay specifically because the owner of the company doesn't think women belong in the construction industry. He thinks, & has stated to my face that we are physically weaker than the blokes. Yet here I was busting my ass, trying to prove a point that yes I was working a hell of a lot harder than the pooch-screwing schlub dragging his feet, yet, he gets paid more because the boss has predetermined that I don't do a good enough job specifically because of my gender.

I'm really curious about your point of view on this.

Also, this:

The next time I was threatened, after that, there were these two lads, each bigger than me, who were chiding me as I walked alone along the street, for my flowing hippy-style locks. So I charged at them like a fucking maniac. If they had been karate masters revelling in their physical strength and superiority I would have been in trouble, but they were just a couple of idiots demonstrating their psychological weaknesses by picking on someone smaller on his own, so they took off like a couple of scalded cats and easily outpaced me.

I have to admit, I like you a whole lot & enjoy your posts (except, of course, I don't agree with the ones on women's issues). I'm sorry you had to go through such a frightening ordeal. And in all silliness, I'm kinda enjoying the image of a burly looking bloke with long hair & beard charging like a maniac. Makes me blush. However, do you think the blokes would have reacted the same had you been female?

[barracuda]

Oh, I don't doubt the validity of her feelings. Far from it. I know what she feels is real.
However her feelings don't solely determine the reality of the event and answer whether the Furnace Man
is a "sexist prick". That was what we were discussing.

I understand. However, I learned long ago that in the context of a person's experience of abuse or disrespect, unless I was there as a witness to the event, my hypothetical interpretations of what may have been the case add very little to anyone's understanding of their feelings of having been abused. So I routinely accept such a narrative as within the scope of the teller's reality and proceed from there with my understanding of it. It's called sympathy.

The Furnace man could be doing more for women's rights then anyone in this thread. We don't know.

Sure, he may have been the avatar of Vishnu, or a member of the secret police, but such conjecture offers almost nothing in the form of relating to canadian_watcher's experience of the event. Probably less than nothing.

It's as if you don't even share a common vocabulary with her.

Bingo!!! We have a winner.

And it's all your fault.