What constitutes Misogyny?

[Plutonia]

narcissism in its one of its many possible incarnations is the problem here.

It seems to me that the problematic personae in our culture are given to believe the following:

"I know that I am better than most of those who surround me, although I am not quite sure of the points of difference between myself and them, still I know that I am much better than them. Other people seem to be weak, vulnerable and helpless. A large amount of them fail to make it, the preponderance of them are stressed out and the rest don't know where life will take them.

I'm not similar to these people and that's why I must be on the top, that is why I must be in the center of attention and that's why I should outshine them"

Yes, it's all about 'me' Never about 'you' or 'them', except as second-rate beings."

from here: http://www.articletrader.com/society/dating/how-to-deal-with-a-narcissist--methods-to-control-the-situation.html

Now you are accusing me of being a narcissist!!??

Well, I could be wrong because you haven't been explicit, and maybe this is me being narcissistic, but I do feet that finger is pointed at me.

[Edit: Lol "feet" ^^^}

C_W, do you not understand the concept of Projection at all?

Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person unconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, such as to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others have those feelings.[1]

Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted unconscious impulses or desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them.

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and by redirecting libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or "projecting," those same faults onto another person or object.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection

The Medium of Violence

"The Medium Is The Message" - Marshall McLuhan

In the wake of the recent high school shooting tragedy in Colorado, the nation's collective attention is focused on the problem as pundits prescribe remedies like new types of doctors to cure our ills. Parents are partly to blame. The school has some fault. Our increasingly violent popular culture consisting of TV programs, songs, books, video games and web sites also bears part of the blame. And our overall society takes blame for being violent. The irony of President Clinton's lamenting the tragedy on national TV while bombs fell in Serbia was only too evident for many Americans.

The fingers keep pointing like they do each time a great tragedy occurs. Not surprisingly, they point away from ourselves to other groups, to other forces in society and culture. They never point back on ourselves and question if all of us are responsible in some way in creating or supporting the violent "zeitgeist" of the post-modern world.

Pointing fingers may not point in the right direction but we need to remember that the act of pointing itself is more important than the location of the point. Fingers need direction to point towards and direction needs place. So, these efforts at locating the "evil" of Columbine High School are similar to most everything we do in our content oriented western culture in our perpetual attempt to put everyone and everything in its own place. (A place for everyone and everyone in their own place) Once in place, this evil has been isolated, cut away from ourselves like a bad, cancerous seed. It can now be analyzed and perhaps "bombed" out of existence. If it can't be destroyed then at least it might be "locked" away from us normal, good people in the rest of society.

When will we realize that all of us are the problem, that violence is a type of air we all breathe today? When will we realize it infiltrates the water we drink, the screens we all view, the sounds we all hear? It is not any particular place. Not Hollywood. Not Madison Avenue. Not Serbia. Not Littleton, Colorado. Not anywhere but rather everywhere. It is the type of "medium" Marshall McLuhan once talked about but we run around in this medium searching for "messages," or clues. In our search for "clues" to the big "villain," the one "evil" we run around like a bunch of children on a collective scavenger hunt.

But even this hunt itself is influenced by the polluted environment we all live in, the air we all breathe, the increasingly short attention span of our collective interest. We will forget in a number of weeks, our attention directed toward some new "blockbuster" event of the moment. Something new will wedge its way onto the cover of People Magazine, some new "celebrity" interest will surely push its face onto the cover of Entertainment Weekly. In our post-modern world, events are little more than products and brands, competing for the public attention of the moment. And this attention gets shorter and shorter as information increases, as the "hits" keep on coming over our radios, onto our television and computer screens, onto our bestseller lists.

The experts and pundits are similar to paparazzi, attracted to the "celebrity" events of the moment like bugs around a yellow summer porch light. Pulled toward popular events by the "flash bulb" gravity of public attention. Once the flashes die down they swarm onto the next popular event of the moment.

Government commissions will again be created. Think tank "wise-men" will write long reports. School officials will hold countless meetings. But in the end, nothing will really change and our ship of state will continue full speed ahead into the ice bergs like a modern Titanic without anyone at the helm. The captain has retired for the night and there are only a few kids up in the crow's nest with cheap binoculars. And the result will be more serious violence in our schools. And more. And more.

And also the marketing machine of late capitalism will continue little affected by the tragedy. Manufacturing its entertainment products that help the nation return to its state of sleeping trance. Feeding its continual muzak back into culture, surrounding all of us in the new information medium like a vast "data smog" so that it becomes increasingly difficult to see the proverbial forest for the trees.

We blame Hollywood for making products that cause all of the violence. We blame the schools for not recognizing the problems. We blame the increasing number of guns in culture for the violence. We blame particular types of parents.

Yet in our pointing finger blame, we fail to see that the violence is itself a "product" of our modern culture. And that we are all "manufacturers" of this violence.Only when we realize that this violence is made everywhere and not just in Littleton, Colorado will the winds of change slowly start to roll in over our republic.

http://www.expertson.com/Branding_Symbo ... lence.html

[Canadian_watcher]

Not only do I understand projection, I also understand avoidance.
Projection is the classic technique of the narcissist. So is gaslighting. So is manipulation.

You want to know why I feel the way I feel? Because of the following post, which you have not made an answer to.

This has been your stated position since this threads inception 99 pages ago. I agree that that is one way to read our situation though I find it limiting and biased towards middle class values. Let me show you:

I would posit that women of all classes have a lower social standing than that of men [within a dominant culture that exploits both the ruthless and weak attributes of it's constituents].

Yes, this is true. It just so happens that, as I see it, Misogyny is one KEY element of the power structure. Misogyny is used very effectively to the ends of this very exploitation you are talking about.

They are less represented in highly paid professions [which administer the exploitative institutions which enrich a few and subjugate the many],

they are less represented on Corporate Boards [Praise Be!],

their numbers are fewer in governments [which are corrupted and owned by corporatist $$],

Yes, these structures are corrupt. You are suggesting that opting out of them would be more empowering or that women should be thankful that they do not participate in them? I disagree. How can one effect change without participating?

crimes against the body are generally less harshly punished than those against property [within a justice system that favours the rich over the poor] ,

Sure, but I fail to see how this negates a discussion of this topic from a feminist perspective.

more women than men are raped (outside of prison) [except that boys are raped in the same numbers as women and children have no rights at all] ,

FFS this is getting Stephen Morgan level stupid at this point. {edit: I am not implying that the Morgan is stupid - just that these types of round-abouts are why I don't debate him) Go ahead and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I have to re-explain it a thousand times... FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, each time I say "rape" please consider me to mean ADULT to ADULT rape OUTSIDE of prison.

governments routinely attempt to thwart female biological freedoms [whose availability may be provisional on the ethnicity and/or class of the woman],

sure, and we can discuss that - issues of class and race are part of the feminist struggle.

and more women than men live in poverty [the state of poverty being more or less imposed by the existing social order where the few at the top exploit the many.]

Yeah - and women have a special place in that pecking order. I want to be able to discuss THAT.

See?

Yes, I see perfectly clearly. You are like a dog with a bone - a bible thumper - you are making your point quite clearly but I'm not BUYING IT. You can rest assured I have heard you but I'm not down with it.

I wrote this and you have not made an answer, except to change the subject in asking me what you have potentially said to cause this perceived rift between us. My answer to that is that I feel you are focussed on moving this discussion away from misogyny.

[Stephen Morgan]

Fighting the Power of Pink: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... r_of_Pink/

Not viewable by foreign-types, BBC Radio documentary.

ETA: can we stop with the slanders, please? I don't want C_w to think I'm prodding for a debate again, but she (you if you are she) is being needlessly confrontational.

[Plutonia]

Not only do I understand projection, I also understand avoidance.
Projection is the classic technique of the narcissist. So is gaslighting. So is manipulation.

You want to know why I feel the way I feel? Because of the following post, which you have not made an answer to.

This has been your stated position since this threads inception 99 pages ago. I agree that that is one way to read our situation though I find it limiting and biased towards middle class values. Let me show you:

I would posit that women of all classes have a lower social standing than that of men [within a dominant culture that exploits both the ruthless and weak attributes of it's constituents].

Yes, this is true. It just so happens that, as I see it, Misogyny is one KEY element of the power structure. Misogyny is used very effectively to the ends of this very exploitation you are talking about.

They are less represented in highly paid professions [which administer the exploitative institutions which enrich a few and subjugate the many],

they are less represented on Corporate Boards [Praise Be!],

their numbers are fewer in governments [which are corrupted and owned by corporatist $$],

Yes, these structures are corrupt. You are suggesting that opting out of them would be more empowering or that women should be thankful that they do not participate in them? I disagree. How can one effect change without participating?

crimes against the body are generally less harshly punished than those against property [within a justice system that favours the rich over the poor] ,

Sure, but I fail to see how this negates a discussion of this topic from a feminist perspective.

more women than men are raped (outside of prison) [except that boys are raped in the same numbers as women and children have no rights at all] ,

FFS this is getting Stephen Morgan level stupid at this point. {edit: I am not implying that the Morgan is stupid - just that these types of round-abouts are why I don't debate him) Go ahead and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I have to re-explain it a thousand times... FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, each time I say "rape" please consider me to mean ADULT to ADULT rape OUTSIDE of prison.

governments routinely attempt to thwart female biological freedoms [whose availability may be provisional on the ethnicity and/or class of the woman],

sure, and we can discuss that - issues of class and race are part of the feminist struggle.

and more women than men live in poverty [the state of poverty being more or less imposed by the existing social order where the few at the top exploit the many.]

Yeah - and women have a special place in that pecking order. I want to be able to discuss THAT.

See?

Yes, I see perfectly clearly. You are like a dog with a bone - a bible thumper - you are making your point quite clearly but I'm not BUYING IT. You can rest assured I have heard you but I'm not down with it.

I wrote this and you have not made an answer, except to change the subject in asking me what you have potentially said to cause this perceived rift between us. My answer to that is that I feel you are focussed on moving this discussion away from misogyny.

Right, well, I've been working on a response to it which requires me to think carefully about what you've said and my time is limited because I have a job to go to everyday. So consider my response pending.

Edit: 'Not only do I understand projection, I also understand avoidance. Projection is the classic technique of the narcissist." Lol what?!

[compared2what?]

I'm not particularly interested in the gays, but any disadvantages under which they labour due to being men will obviously be remedied by the remediation of those injustices. I mean I'm interested in all injustices, but those against men being the most widely accepted gain the most of my attention.

Hmm. Let's go to the tape:

(1) Massive injustices committed against the men who are wrongfully accused, tried and/or convicted for crimes on a daily basis in huge numbers are brought to your attention.

(2) You show no interest in them. Nor do they gain your attention. On the contrary, you're politically opposed to the whole general enterprise of showing interest and/or paying attention to them, on the grounds that to do so would further obscure the already socially invisible, non-specific and unquantifable injustice suffered by men who are wrongfully accused of rape by malicious and crazy women.

(3) Curiously, you also show no interest in reducing either the prevalence of said injustice or the degree of damage done to its victims via the only known effective method for doing so -- ie, via systematic reform and oversight designed to prevent the abuse of power by the state authorities who actually administer (in)justuce.

(4) You are keenly interested in penalizing women who make false allegations of rape for being presumptively evil, wicked and oppressive, although there's neither any hard evidence that's what they are/aren't, nor any realistic reason to think that penalizing bad people for being bad would -- suddenly and for the very first time -- have a positive or remedial effect on them or on anybody else.

I fully concede that you simply might not be aware of which methods of crime-reduction and miscarriage-of-justice-prevention are effective and which aren't.

But if so, I say again that you do a disservice to the depth of your interest in all injustice by attending exclusively to the few instances, forms or aspects of it that have the potential to act as a proximate occasion for the hostile condemnation of women and/or feminism.

[Stephen Morgan]

Just check the comments left below a story about a judge who found a man not criminally responsible for sexual assault.
Even in the face of "victory" the woman hating is fast and furious:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/05/06/tasha-kheiriddin-tories-should-act-on-drunkenness-defence/

Both the legal finding and the commentary are examples of the reality and the rhetoric women live with every day - it informs and reinforces in our minds that we are seen as villains & second class citizens.

You seriously think people generally see women as villains rather than victims?

Anyway, I don't want to prod you into debate, but thanks for the link, very interesting stuff. Interested in the workings of the law, I am. Apparently this defence has only succeeded on three occasions, which reinforces my initial impression in the other thread that you have to be quite extremely drunk to claim this defence. In at least one of those cases it was used by a woman who killed a man, allegedly while too drunk to establish mens rea, so this isn't something which has been dreamed up to protect rapists, in fact the legal finding seems impeccable to me. The commentary is also quite reasonable, for blog comments. If I'm looking for sober analysis then comments left on websites aren't where I go, but those are quite good. The only ones I can see even a feminist opposing would be the ones about date rape, which is a valid point in the context of this case, as your own feminism-inspired opposition to the rapist going free, which seems to have been a common response, opens the door to those cases where women have used the defence and the double standard on drunken responsibility in the common approach to the issue of drunken consent often taken by feminists.

Even though I know that these viewpoints are not shared by all people or hopefully even nearly all people, it hurts to see it. And I see it all the time, everywhere I look.

We see what we want to see.

[Stephen Morgan]

Hmm. Let's go to the tape:

(1) Massive injustices committed against the men who are wrongfully accused, tried and/or convicted for crimes on a daily basis in huge numbers are brought to your attention.

I've got no idea what group you're talking about here, or what relation it bears to the gays.

(2) You show no interest in them. Nor do they gain your attention. On the contrary, you're politically opposed to the whole general enterprise of showing interest and/or paying attention to them, on the grounds that to do so would further obscure the already socially invisible, non-specific and unquantifable injustice suffered by men who are wrongfully accused of rape by malicious and crazy women.

Not socially invisible, not unquantifiable, not non-specific. I don't intend to get into another debate on the prevalence of false rape allegations, as you've shown we've done that, but I could point you to a number of cases of men taking their own lives, being lynched, a mentally disabled man having "rapest" tattooed on his head and "I like little boys" on his chest, a woman who was allegedly falsely accused of rape who said she felt like she'd been raped herself, and so on, as examples of the level of harm false accusations cause, especially without laws guaranteeing pre-conviction anonymity to the defendant, something which the feminists in parliament are opposing even now, that having been the only good thing the libdems got their little coalition to do.

(3) Curiously, you also show no interest in reducing either the prevalence of said injustice or the degree of damage done to its victims via the only known effective method for doing so -- ie, via systematic reform and oversight designed to prevent the abuse of power by the state authorities who actually administer (in)justuce.

I don't accept that as a known effective method. There needs to be a greater deterrent effect for false allegations, assuming we're still talking about rape here. Women who can be shown to have made allegations maliciously should be prosecuted. Obviously feminist sensibilities are focused entirely on rape victims and they tend to extend that sensitivity even to those proven not to be rape victims.

(4) You are keenly interested in penalizing women who make false allegations of rape for being presumptively evil, wicked and oppressive, although there's neither any hard evidence that's what they are/aren't, nor any realistic reason to think that penalizing bad people for being bad would -- suddenly and for the very first time -- have a positive or remedial effect on them or on anybody else.

I like to see justice done. I don't expect all false accusers to be punished, obviously they should have the same protections as any defendant with the burden of proof resting on the prosecution, and I don't expect the deterrent effect to wipe out the crime either, but those studies of false rape allegations which also address the reasons given for false rape complaints generally come up with absurdly trivial reasons. Under the current regime, even without a conviction, a woman making a false rape complaint would be able to claim financial compensation from the government, garner attention and sympathy and potentially ruin the life of any man she chooses to target.

Not something a normal woman would be inclined to do, I should think, but find yourself a woman who's a sociopath or suffers from one of a range of behavioural disorders and it's a different matter. IT needs to be combated in the same way as drug dealing, remove the possibility for profit. Set up government monopolies on drugs handed out on prescription to addicts at a set quality level in a safe environment and out-compete the dealers, leaving them bankrupt. So it is with fake rape, remove any chance of anything being gained by a rape complaint without a conviction, and then limit potential gains to imprisonment of the accused, with proper protections to make sure the innocent aren't punished.

Also, false complainants in rape cases are very often mentally ill, one way or another, the false complaint being just a manifestation of their disregard for others. Look at Crystal Mangum, high profile case, unpunished for a mass-rape complaint which was without doubt entirely fraudulent, now up on a murder charge.

I fully concede that you simply might not be aware of which methods of crime-reduction and miscarriage-of-justice-prevention are effective and which aren't.

Correct me if you disagree, but surely the proper way to reduce crime is to ensure the equitable distribution of wealth and power so as to ensure a lack of need to commit crimes against property and a lack of inequities of power which cause the forms of psychological weakness associated with violent criminality. On the other hand the correct way to approach miscarriages of justice is to ensure that all defendants have proper legal representation, that the judiciary will protect their interests and that their potential persecutors, whether prosecutors, police or dishonest complainants, are afraid of what might befall them personally if they misconduct themselves. More police in prison, that's my motto. The one who killed that London lad, for example, at the G20, then got off scot-free after the inquest said he'd murdered the bloke. Ought to be in prison.

But if so, I say again that you do a disservice to the depth of your interest in all injustice by attending exclusively to the few instances, forms or aspects of it that have the potential to act as a proximate occasion for the hostile condemnation of women and/or feminism.

No, no, those just happen to be the only ones I mention in threads about feminism, although they are very common and egregious. I've told you before that I consider the feminist movement and the grand systems of injustice which rule our world to be mutually sustaining. The impunity of those making false accusations of rape is just one area where the two systems elide into each other.

[compared2what?]

You misunderstood what I was saying, but that's okay.

[compared2what?]

I'm an original thinker. Perhaps that's a problem here.

Perhaps, but not to me. It was perceiving that quality in you that first won my heart, in fact. I'm an original thinker by default, simply because virtually nothing makes any sense to me at all, to the point that many aspects of daily life would be little more than a riot of chaos and confusion from my perspective if I didn't habitually originate some understanding of and/or approach to them via the application of thought.

That's hard-wired not elective. As it may be for you, too, to some extent. Though I certainly don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm just doing a little tentative, shot-in-the-dark (potential) empathizing, on the grounds that it can't hurt.

In any event: Me. ( , I know, right?)

I'm differently brained in ways that science can quantify, measure and remark on. just not in any particular way that's either recognized by science as a named condition (a la autism-spectrum conditions) or recognized by the world as much of anything at all. As a consequence, all thinking done by me is original of a necessity. It's not always high-quality original thinking, sadly. But it is always original. That has its pros and cons as a permanent aspect of being, in my experience of it. But it's absolutely nothing but a plus as a trait in others, as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate it...not exactly above all things, I guess.

But it's up there.

[Plutonia]

This has been your stated position since this threads inception 99 pages ago. I agree that that is one way to read our situation though I find it limiting and biased towards middle class values. Let me show you:

I would posit that women of all classes have a lower social standing than that of men [within a dominant culture that exploits both the ruthless and weak attributes of it's constituents].

Yes, this is true. It just so happens that, as I see it, Misogyny is one KEY element of the power structure. Misogyny is used very effectively to the ends of this very exploitation you are talking about.

I couldn’t agree more, C_W. It’s a key tool in the tool box.

They are less represented in highly paid professions [which administer the exploitative institutions which enrich a few and subjugate the many],

they are less represented on Corporate Boards [Praise Be!],

their numbers are fewer in governments [which are corrupted and owned by corporatist $$],

Yes, these structures are corrupt. You are suggesting that opting out of them would be more empowering or that women should be thankful that they do not participate in them? I disagree. How can one effect change without participating?

Well, is it unimaginable that some women (me) don't wish to participate in corrupt (and corrupting) institutions? And that a person like me questions the popular assumption that participating is the only way to effect change?

Let me illustrate my reasoning. On Reservations, the Band Council administers the institutions of education, health, culture etc so let them stand in for the “professional class”. The Bands Council receives direction in the forms of law (Indian Act), policy and money, from the federal government. So the Band Councilors are in the difficult position of being between a powerful colonial government whose historical policy has been to annihilate them as a culturally distinct and acknowledged independent First Nations, and the people they are supposed to be serving. Any moral difficulties of the band councilors experienced are relieved by the relatively enormous financial benefits they receive for their work. How is this different than Suharto, or Mubarak any other proxy colonial government except that it happens within a larger, subsuming nation and is therefore invisible to the world?

When it’s expedient to the feds that Native children be forced into Residential Schools, the Band Council administers that and when that policy becomes untenable, it’s changed. When the feds decide to make it illegal for a Native person to even speak to a lawyer, the Band Council administers that too until the feds say not to. The Indian Act changes but what doesn’t change is that there is an Indian Act.

Traditionalists refuse to validate the imposed, alien institution of Band Council governance by participating in it because they remember how their people used to govern themselves, which BTW, around here was matrilineally.

But say a Traditional woman who is concerned about the health of her community joins the administration with the idea of reforming it. Wait! Reform? How do you reform a proxy government whose intention is to assimilate you? But never mind that now. Say this woman is naïve and hopes reform is possible. Two things other than reform are likely to happen. One is that, incrementally she will take on the values of the dominant culture which is transmitted from the feds, and which are inherent in the system that she is participating in. People are mimeticly (which is to say biologically) vulnerable to their environment, as I’ve pointed out but there is also such a thing as morphogenetic fields, which may be related and possibly even egregores, but that’s another discussion; which is to say that she is more likely to be changed*, than to make change.


But say she discovers that there is a sterilizing agent in the vaccines being administered by the Public Health Nurse? (as has happened) Or that the Chief has cut a crooked deal to transfer reserve land to the local church, who are in the process of selling it to a logging company, for a big whack of money? (as has happened) How long do you think she will last in her position if she complains about? And what do you think will happen if she takes her insider knowledge to her community to organize protests? Right. In about two seconds she’s going to feel a very big boot on her very vulnerable neck. I’ve experience that boot and you know what I did? I shut up and ran away.

Do you see what I’m saying? That in relation to the dominant culture, we, who don’t live on reserves are in the same position as Native people?

But you yourself have provided the same solution I’m proposing in that link to handling narcissists- how’s that for irony?

I’ve re-worded it to reflect my position towards "handling" institutions of dominance:

Firstly, the best technique to deal with a [dominant culture] is to be familiar with your own tendencies to [dominate others]. When your own feelings of self-worth are reliant on what others think or feel about you, you make yourself vulnerable to [the dominant culture.]

Secondly, try to develop a secure haven, a place to keep away from the [dominant culture], and keep control of your own qualities and your own life. Do you've a friend living at sufficient distance that you can retreat to renew. Or perhaps you can build a regular work, or hobby, reason to put a few distance between the two of you regularly. [Which is to say, participate in an alternative culture which features egalitarian relationships, in this case a women’s culture?]

Thirdly, get as far away from [the dominant culture]
as you can. Hardcore [cultures of domination] are occasionally intolerable to deal with. At times you just need walk away, the possibility for harm is so great

Fourthly, if you can not walk away for some reason, make sure you take advantage of the resources and support that's offered to assist look after your self esteem and self worth, and to teach you how to communicate and act towards [the dominant culture], in a means that gets the best outcome FOR YOU without bringing out the nastiest features of [the dominant culture].

http://www.articletrader.com/society/da ... ation.html

It might surprise you C_W that I, at one time went to see Gloria Steinem speak and that I enjoyed it very much and was not the least critical. The thing she said that night that has stayed with me is that working class women have more freedom to define themselves and live creatively, than more privileged women professionals, who experience more pressure to conform to standards of appearance, sexuality, lifestyle, values etc. That does seem to be the case, which makes the “lower class” an invaluable site of resistance to the dominant culture, and thus can help make a safer, fairer social order for women- don’t you agree?

crimes against the body are generally less harshly punished than those against property [within a justice system that favours the rich over the poor] ,

Sure, but I fail to see how this negates a discussion of this topic from a feminist perspective.

Erm, my perspective is a feminist perspective. Also a humanist perspective as well as autistic perspective, a mixed race perspective, a working poor perspective, a activist perspective, a Canadian perspective, a survivor of abuse perspective etc.

more women than men are raped (outside of prison) [except that boys are raped in the same numbers as women and children have no rights at all] ,

FFS this is getting Stephen Morgan level stupid at this point. {edit: I am not implying that the Morgan is stupid - just that these types of round-abouts are why I don't debate him) Go ahead and pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about so that I have to re-explain it a thousand times... FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, each time I say "rape" please consider me to mean ADULT to ADULT rape OUTSIDE of prison.

Nuff said about this point.

governments routinely attempt to thwart female biological freedoms [whose availability may be provisional on the ethnicity and/or class of the woman],

sure, and we can discuss that - issues of class and race are part of the feminist struggle.

Thank you for including me I guess.

and more women than men live in poverty [the state of poverty being more or less imposed by the existing social order where the few at the top exploit the many.]

Yeah - and women have a special place in that pecking order. I want to be able to discuss THAT.

There is a possibility of not having a ‘pecking order”, just not within the dominant culture because it is built on hierarchies of uneven power relations and exploitation that cannot in my view be reformed out of it, because it is that.

See?

Yes, I see perfectly clearly. You are like a dog with a bone - a bible thumper - you are making your point quite clearly but I'm not BUYING IT. You can rest assured I have heard you but I'm not down with it.

More of a cat, surely?



*Cognitive dissonance:
When an individual holds ideals which directly oppose his actions, a psychological phenomenon can ensue known as cognitive dissonance, producing mental stress, anxiety, perhaps guilt.

and

The psychology of prior investment:
Is the reluctance to abandon a direction of action in which one has already invested.

Egregore you'll have to look up yourselves.

[Plutonia]

Since you have an interest in the law and injustice Morgan, you may be interested in this guy, who took the Native’s constitutional argument to the Canadian judiciary and landed up in jail for it. He wasn’t in jail for long fortunately, but the story of the blatant legal chicanery resorted to by the Canadian establishment in the case of Native rights is instructive:
http://sisis.nativeweb.org/clark/currvit.html

[Plutonia]

I'm differently brained in ways that science can quantify, measure and remark on. just not in any particular way that's either recognized by science as a named condition (a la autism-spectrum conditions) or recognized by the world as much of anything at all. As a consequence, all thinking done by me is original of a necessity. It's not always high-quality original thinking, sadly. But it is always original. That has its pros and cons as a permanent aspect of being, in my experience of it. But it's absolutely nothing but a plus as a trait in others, as far as I'm concerned. I appreciate it...not exactly above all things, I guess.

Perhaps you are of this ilk of different: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_sensitive_person


Edit for spelling

[compared2what?]

Plutonia, that thing you linked to on prison rape is a forty-year-old piece of alarmist right-wing propaganda the original purpose of which was to scare white kids away from smoking pot

Yes, sorry about that. I reacted to a taunt from C_W and posted thoughtlessly. A misstep you've made great use of.

You're being unfair to me in saying that. But there's no way for me to demonstrate it other than to go back and catalog all the prior analogous missteps that I forebore to comment on earlier out of a sense of fairness, since we all make innocent mistakes, after all. Seriously, that Baumeister thing just tipped the scales for me, in that it acted as a reminder that many (maybe all) innocent mistakes arise in large part from the intentional befuddlement of innocent people by vile and self-interested men and women.

I now understand why the discussion of the rape aspect of the misogyny question has been so persistent and fraught. At the risk of being chastised again, I'll say that I happen to see a connection between boys being raped and women being raped (one being that rape victims might just grow up to be rapers) and therefore worth looking at.

I wouldn't just say that I see a connection, I'd say that there is one. So: Definitely agree.

I also agree that it's worth looking at, though I'm not sure that looking at it primarily as something that's connected to the rape of women is worth the cost. In fact, since you'd unavoidably be doing so at some expense to the experience of all the men who are raped as boys but do not go on to rape women in adulthood -- as well as, among others, all the boys (and girls) who are raped by men who have been raped as boys, as well as all boys who are or have been raped, period, given that they all both are and deserve to be looked at as survivors of childhood rape rather than as rapists, no matter what kind of men they grow up to be -- I'm reasonably sure that those costs would be prohibitive.

Likewise, I'm reasonably sure that looking at that connection as a primary approach to looking at the rape of women is not worth the costs you'd unavoidably be incurring at the expense of the experience of all the women who are raped by men who weren't raped as boys, as well as all the women who are, since they do experience being raped by an adult male rapist rather a sexually abused child and do also deserve to be looked at survivors of the rape they themselves survived rather than part and parcel of the damage done by some other act of rape that's wholly unrelated to them.

In short, the consequences of childhood sexual abuse are worth looking at as consequences of childhood sexual abuse. The authors of the study you linked to earlier did exactly that. These were their findings:



Some rapists were raped in childhood. And when they were, it's worth looking at in context, for any number of reasons. But since there's not enough correlation between being raped as a boy and raping women as an adult that you can posit a cause-and-effect relationship and since giving that hypothesis primacy deflects attention from the known impact of childhood sexual abuse on adult survivors of it, I'm not sure what you think is being overlooked here that shouldn't be. No one is cursing all rapists as sociopathic monsters who were born evil.

It seems reasonable to me to assume that a man who rapes women does not hold the women he rapes in high regard. That has some implications wrt misogyny in a general sense, irrespective of such unknown and unknowable factors as how he feels about himself and why he feels that way. I take it as granted that he is or once was a sensitive and suffering being of some kind, just because I take that as granted for all people. That includes sociopathic monsters who were born evil, although I do have to file them under "in some sense not presently possible for me to determine or understand" absent a better justification. And it definitely includes rapists.

But bad acts are still bad acts, whether you love, hate or are utterly indifferent to the actor. Sympathy for all, in and of itself, isn't a sufficient basis for forming an effective sociopolitical response to them.

What am I missing here?

[Canadian_watcher]

^ great post.

[Canadian_watcher]

this stood out for me.

But say a Traditional woman who is concerned about the health of her community joins the administration with the idea of reforming it. ...

But say she discovers that there is a sterilizing agent in the vaccines being administered by the Public Health Nurse? (as has happened) Or that the Chief has cut a crooked deal to transfer reserve land to the local church, who are in the process of selling it to a logging company, for a big whack of money? (as has happened) How long do you think she will last in her position if she complains about? And what do you think will happen if she takes her insider knowledge to her community to organize protests? Right. In about two seconds she’s going to feel a very big boot on her very vulnerable neck. I’ve experience that boot and you know what I did? I shut up and ran away.

*Cognitive dissonance:
When an individual holds ideals which directly oppose his actions, a psychological phenomenon can ensue known as cognitive dissonance, producing mental stress, anxiety, perhaps guilt.

and

The psychology of prior investment:
Is the reluctance to abandon a direction of action in which one has already invested.

Egregore you'll have to look up yourselves.

Is it perhaps that you could not achieve what you hoped to achieve by that method and now believe that there is no value whatsoever in trying?

I do understand what you are saying, Plutonia - and thank you for that reply. I am looking forward to answering more fully later. And properly (and by that I mean without the adversarial attitude). I see that I have blind spots too.
(wanting to put a smiley face here but respecting your boundaries...)