Newsgroups: soc.women
Subject: Re: more thoughts on a new slant to rape stats
From: rivero@mdcbbs.com
Date: 9 Apr 92 11:59:36 GMT
Organization: M&E (Division of EDS), Cypress CA
Nntp-Posting-User: sandy

In article <1992Apr8.183415.12789@acsu.buffalo.edu>, camurphy@acsu.buffalo.edu (Cindy) writes:
> rivero@mdcbbs.com writes:
> 
>>In article <1992Apr2.171937.10395@acsu.buffalo.edu>, camurphy@acsu.buffalo.edu (Cindy) writes:
>>> rivero@mdcbbs.com writes:
>>> 

  GOING TO TRY TO TRIM THIS AS I GO. 



>>>>  The comment was meant to address the attitude exprssed by Susan
>>>>Brownmiller,"All men are potential rapists, and that's ALL they are",
>>>>a statement roughly equivilent to saying all blacks are lazy, all chicanos
>>>>steal, all jews are greedy, all polish people are stupid or all women are
>>>>whores.
>>> 
>>>>  Who, among you, believes these lies?
>>> 
>>> i happen to believe that most men don't rape, and that they believe they
>>> are anti-rape for whatever reason (moral, feminist, etcetera).  however,
>>> a woman cannot, out of a sense of fairness, trust each and every man.
> 
>>  Out of fairness, we should give each and every human the benefit of the
>>doubt! 
> 
>>> all men are POTENTIAL rapists.....................
> 
>>  All humans are potential murderers, yourself included. [..] By your 
logic above, I should keep ALL women away from my pregnant wife.
> 
>>  Hardly!
> 

  Seems like a double standard. It's okay to trust women, but not okay to trust
men?




> by my logic i did not say that all women should hide indoors and avoid
> men, i said that suspicion and anger were justified.  i hardly want to
> be crippled in leading my life by having to avoid all men.  besides,
> your bringing up this comparison is hardly fair considering not only
> statistics on the percentage of men who rape, but my personal experience
> (valid and not unusual) of sexist treatment at the hands of many
> people.  

  But the so-called "statistics" regarding rape have been repeatedly shown
to be highly exaggerated to terrify women into supporting a feminist extreme
agenda.

  As for your personal experience, allow me to remind you that people will find
what they look for. As Tom Lehrer said, when correctly viewed, everything is
lewd! I could tell you things about Peter Pan, and the Wizard of Oz? There's
a dirty old man!

  You find what you look for. If you are predisposed to see everything
as sexist oppression, even having the door held open for you becomes
offensive. Behaviorsmwhich used to be considered tokens of respect and esteem
are now treated as incults.Just walking away to avoid the confusion is
interpreted as sexual discrimination. I's a no win situation, and like
Torquemada, onr sees heretics fit for burning at every turn.

  On LA LAW, there was an episode where this female lawyer sued the law
partners for sexual discriminition. While she won her case, during the trial
it came out that the majority of the abuse she suffered had nothing to do with
her being a woman, it had to do with her not being a very nice person. She
could not accept that fact, so all abuses HAD to be sexist treatment.

  One finds similar situations in life. Nobody is obligated to love you, and
the law of averages assures me that there are people around you who don't
like you very much and oppose your activities just for the hell of it. But
that's not necessarily sexist, just anti-social (and the two are not the same).

  The problem is that "sexist treatment" has, in some cases, becme the catch
all label for any treatment one does not like.

  I don't believe in sexist treatment and I do not believe in discrimination
either for or against ones gender, race, or religion. I DO, however,
reserve the right to dislike and avoid idiots and assholes wherever they may be
and nobody can yet sue me for this. But, I can slmost lay money that those
same idiots and assholes will claim my avoidence is based on sexism or
prejudice, because that's easier than admitting the alternative.


> 
>>  Neither can I point at the streetwalker and accuse all womrn of being
>>potential whores.
> 
>>  Both crass asuumptions totally dismiss the idea that the greater majority of
>>women are decient peple whom are WORTHY of being truested, and the same holds
>>true for the majority of men.


> 
> excuse the FUCK out of me.  making comparisons between "rapists" and
> "whores" is completely apples and oranges.  do you really believe that 
> women who prostitute themselves (or men who hustle, for that matter) are
> in any way comparable to rapists?  i don't. 

  That's got nothing to do with the logic of your argument that the entire
gender be criminalized for th actions of a tiny minority.  You evade the
point with finesse, but the point remains. By mistrusting all men for the
actions of a few men, you are practicing a gender based discrimination.





> and that ideally it's just a straightforward transaction for sexual
> favors and that prostitutes are not to be generally vilified.

  I happen to agree with this last. I would rather share a pizza with a hooker
than with a lawyer or politician!


> i DO think of rape as terrorism.  


  Okay. But who creates more terror? The actual minority of raposts, or the
sponsors of highly inflated claims of an "epidemic" that results
in the generilzation of all men as potential rapists?



> as far as your phrase "NORMAL contact with males" i don't think that
> women should have to have regular contact with men in order to be deemed
> "normal" or in order to entitle themselves to what is termed "heterosexual
> privelege." 

  Okay, miscommunication. The phrase normal cntact means normal contact, not
an implication of normalcy of the participants. Normal contact as in, not
staring assuming each other starred in "Hand That Rocks The Cradel" or "Silence
Of The Lambs".

  BTW where did you get the term "hetersexual privelege" and what does it mean?


 ideally....IDEALLY....the world would be 99% benign and
> men would just be human beings with penises,.....

  The converse is to call women "human beings with vaginas". Both are rather
insulting, reducing the individual exclusivly to their sexual
organs. It isn't nice applied in either direction, is it?



 but realistically separatist
> space is a necessary thing.

  It is necessary only to those interests which promote themselves through
fear and anger. It's much easier to control and manipulate a fearful
population than a complacent one. Look at the abuses carried out in the 50's by
fear of communis? Look at the 250,000 burned by fear of the devil?


  Let's examine the need for seperatism from two points of view. Men are
Ogres or they are not.

 1. Men are Ogres. As you say, separatist space is a necessary thing.

 2. Men aren't Ogres. Separatist space is a necessary thing, but only
to the political leadership. Fear of the non-xistant Ogre terrifies you into
following the lead of the leadership. Like Dorothy, fear of the paper-mache
Wizard of Oz has terrified you into doing something you would not otherwise
do. Tackle the Wicked Witch head on on her own turf!  But you can never be
alowed to look too close at the Wizard, for if you see that it's paper-mache,
how will you ever go off to fight the witch?  Seperatism is needed, because if
it were found out that most men aren't realy the Ogres they have been painted
to look like, the feminist leadership would lose it's power and influence (as
it is doing right now). 

  It is interesting to note that the church, which used far of the devil
(and some mouldy Rye bread) to control the population lost the majority
of it's hold on people with the invention of the printing press. Omce reading
of the Bible became available to the general population, the ability
to manipulate them fell away, and religion gave way to the nation-state as the
dominant mode of social organization.

> 

>> you can't blame
>>> women for fearing, even feeling hostile towards, men, when so many men
>>> are not just rapists but perhaps merely willing to treat women as though
>>> they are not quite human.
> 
>>  No, but I can (and DO) blame women who have exaggerated the degree of
>>rape merely to fuel their oen political careers. Feminism has become
>>dependant on sexual stories to maintan a place in the public media.

> 
> .."feminism" being a few women who you identifiy with all women and with
> general trends.  look, if stories and statistics about horrible things
> that happen are what make feminism a "scoop" in the media, that's not
> the fault of all women or even all feminists. 

  As I have pointed out to another poster, control of the voting population is
acheived by control of the mass media. Therefore, the public face of any
politicl movement is set by thse who are able to capture the media's
attention. You may have the greatest philosophy in all creaton, but if
nobody gets to hear about it, it's wasted. TV won't come looking for you.
There are too many people ready to spoon feed their view of politics to the
tube, and having gone to that trouble, concerns for your point of view are NOT
uppermost in their minds.

  If you disagree with the feminists who are on the media, it is up to YOU
to take a stand for what you believe in. That's what the first amendment is
for, you know. That's what public access cable TV is for. And as long
as I am on that subject, it is very EASY to launch your own TV show through
public access. There is enough good work being done where the audience
for public access TV is growing, and it's fun. I suggest you give it a try!
You might just find your forum! 

  TV is not a benign channel of random information. It is the 20th century
battle field. The revolution in the Phillipines was the first war fought almost
entirely through TV. The war was declared, fought with world opinion and 
declared over, with almost no real fighting or dieing. 

  

 prurience and sensationalism
> might become a tool but are not the invention of women.  besides, rape is
> not "sexual", it's violent. 

  It's both. Getting hit on the head with a steel bowl is violent, but
not sexual. Making love is sexual, but not violent.



>>And to kee that media exposure, the rates of claims that such and such sexual
>>crimes are taking place have been elevated to mythical proprtions. The
> 
> bullshit....bullshit....bullshit.

  Eloquent, but thin.

  Most people have heard the expression that one woman in three will be
raped during her lidetime. I have here in front of me a NOW newsletter
forwarded to me by KNBC newswoman Kelly Lange when I challenged her use of
the "1 in 3" statement in her series about women arming themselves (which I am
in favor of, by the way). 

  On the cover of this NOW newsletter, which Ms. Lange cited as her source
for the "1 in 3" stat, is the claim that a rape occurs every 6 minutes. 
That's 10 an hour, 240 a day, or 87600 per year, aganst a total female
population of over 120,000,000 in the U.S.  Amortized acrosds the average
female lifetime, that's about a 1 in 20 chance, not 1 in 3., Why the diference?

  Let's face it, saying that 1 woman in 20 will be raped doesn't have the gut
level "punch" in the media that 1 woman in 3 does. So, this exageration
gets the air time, and because there is no opposing viewpoint, people,
including the "moderate" feminists, accept it as fact and respond
accordingly, assuming that men should, as a class, not be trusted. 
And because they now believe that a "1 woman in 3" rape rate justifies
seperatism, they never get the nopportunity to meet the majority
of men who are decent, family-oriented chaps. And so, the myth
of the untrustworthy male is perpetuated by people who don't even
realize they were lied to.


> 
>>women who profit from instilling fear in their fellow women have terrified
>>many more women than the real rapists ever did. 
> 
> that is because talking about an experience of being sexually abused or
> raped has been highly discouraged in the past, rape has been silenced,
> women who have been raped have been treated as pariahs.

  But the situation has gone too far the other way. Crying "rape" is such
a quick way to get some free press (or at least some sympathy), that false
charges and allegations are not only rampant, but encouraged. The excesses
and results of false rape charges and their consequences have already been
posted here, and I need not repeat them (but will email to
any interested parties).



> 

> the tool of misogynists, overt and subtle, now, is to quote the most
> "extreme" of feminists (protective, unconsciously misogynist ones)
> and to say that this is what all women will believe.  

  The tool of the feminist extreme is to take criticism of the feminist
extreme and call it misogyny! I love women, it's the bitches I can't stand!

 I am responding to what YOU said. YOU said that men, as a class were
worthy of distrust. YOU said that seperatism was justfied! YOU said that
men are just "human beings with penises".



> 
> the media is not anti-male.  it is pro stereotypes a la 18th century
> novels of rapacious rakes and quivering victim women.

  Not the media I watch or work with. Nobody who values a Burk score
dares use such imagery these days.


> 
>>  it is a huge male responsibility to stop behaving
>>> as though they have some god-given privelege of all women being required
>>> to be "nice" to them, and learn that women were not put here for male
>>> enjoyment. 
> 
>>  It is the female responsibility to stop responding to inaccurate portrayals
>>of men.
> 
> it is the responsibility of men to prove themselves exceptions.

Your prejudice is showing.


>> And incidentally, your comment about men expecting women to be nice to
>>them is roughly equivilent to the demand for women to stop behaving as 
>>if men were merely cash objects, suitable only for female enjoyment.
> 
> that's a nice little misogynist stereotype you've dumped there.
> "women are after men for their money, men after women for their bodies"
> ----ever occured to you that a large number of women enjoy being
> financially independent and don't like feeling BOUGHT? 

EXACTLY! The stereotype is unfair and innaccurate, as is the one that all
men are interested in is women's "niceness".



 i think
> this has been pointed out a thousand times before.  not to mention you
> are automatically ignoring lesbians in your discourse, as well as
> displaying a callous insensitivity to the economic inequality
> (different pay for equal work, inequal opportunity, etcetera) between
> women and men.

  I don't believe I was ignoring lesbians specifically.

  As for the issue of different pay for different work, that claim has
also been disputed, first and formost by the U.S. Dept. of Labor, which shows
that the average "full time" woman works 8 hours per week less than the average
"full time" male.


> 
>> you can't blame women for the so-called "war between the
>>> sexes" and compare the "feminist oppression" (bullshit) of men to the
>>> oppression of marginalized "races" and "ethnic" groups.  it just
>>> does not compare.
> 
>> On the contrary, the tactics of media misrepresentation and the "big lie"
>>are identical in all of them. None of the basic premises on which any
>>of the above discriminations are based is vaid. Not all blacks are
>>lazy, not all Chicanos theives, nor all men rapists.
> 
> i dont' control the media.  big corporations do.  they thrive on
> mixed up, fucked up, twisted stereotypes. 

BINGO! You got it! But publishers are also  big corporations. Gloria
Steinham is a big corporation. Ms. Magazine is a big corporation.
Max Factor is a big corporation (it's chairman is the 5th richest
man in the world). Revlon is a big corporation. Political groups 
function as non-profit corporations. Start to get the picture?




 i don't believe that men
> are all rapists and that's EXACTLY WHAT I STATED AT THE BEGINNING OF
> MY FIRST POST.  i don't invent "stereotypes."  besides....women can't
> even stay out of "male neighborhoods", it's a forced integration,
> and when men don't want women around historically they've been able to 
> get rid of them.  you're ignoring misogyny COMPLETELY, especially your
> own.
> 

  There has been a weird phenomenon in health clubs here in Los Angeles.
Stafting in the late 70's, virtually every male-only health club was sued for
sexual discrimination and either became co-ed or went out of business.
In their place have opened women-onoy health clubs, whch are safe from
discrimination suits because of a woman's "natural right to privacy away from
the eyes of men". Seems like the opposite of the situation you describe.

  Besides, I can't go into your restroom no more than you can come into
mine, so let's dump this "forced integration" crap, okay?



>>  You know something? I have not heard a man use the phrase "barefoot
>>and pregnant" that I can recall. I hear lots of feminists use it, though.
>>It's true I wanted my wife to  be pregnant (that's why I married her), but
>>never barefoot! She had the very best and most expensive shoes available! :)
> 
> barf, barf, puke.  you don't even realize how sexist you are or else
> you think it's funny.  

  I would not have put the smiley f it was not intended as a joke. Let's
lighten up and stay focused on ideas and concepts. We're not here to
hurt each other, right?

  In any event, you skipped over the part where I enquired as to where you
heard men using "barefoot and pregnant".

> 
>>> female anger does not need to be
>>> punished by misogyny.........
> 
>>  But if the anger is directed at a man who has committed no crime, then
>>he has a right to feel anger in return! That's not misogyny, that's
>>just standing up for his rights as a human.
> 
> "rights as a man entitled to male privelege", you mean.  
>

  No, a right to be treated like a decent human being, free from
prejudice on the basis of gender. What could possibly be wrong with that?


>> women's anger and fear and distrust are perfectly
>>> justified.  
> 
> i back this up 100%.
> 

  Dare I suggest that you feel your own fear and distruct are justfied.
Fine. But you are hardly one to make that decision for other women
whoes experience may differ from yours. 

  I'm not advocating blind trust, mind you. It is a wicked world out
there are there are some mean monsters of both genders walking arpund out
there.

  But, in light of the demonstrated exaggeratyions and hate campeigns
used to manipulate the media on several issues relating to the sexes, all I am
asking is that women be allowed to make up their own minds and not be
dictated to about how scummy males all are.


>> It is prejudice, based on gender, criminalizing an entire
>>class for the actions of a few.
> 
> a pretty damn large few,.........

  Your opinion, unsubstantiated.


> and i wasn't just talking about rape, bub.
> i was talking about general unfair treatment, too.

  Okay, let's examine "unfair". If you read the Preamble to the Constitution,
it promises "Life, Liberty, and the p=Pursuit of Happiness". Doesn't mean you'll
get it, onlt that you can chase after it. You're not going to get
everything that makes you happy, and the world is basically an unfair
place. The strong take and the weak surrender. Only when the force of nessecity
is equal on both sides does the fiction of "justice" come into play.
Thus speaks 40,000 years of human history. 

  For every ambition, there is a possability of failure, and the aspects
of failing are never fair. By definition, every human that breathes
experiencs unfair treatment, or else he or she just isn't doing much
with their life.

  I have been treated unfairly. The man who can't see his kids anymore 
has been treated unfairly. Gary Dotson has been treated unfairly. 
Cindy Lynn Ray has been treated unfairly. Everyone who lost on Oscar night
has been treated unfairly.

  There is not one person on this net who can write and claim to have been
treated fairly for their entire life.

  So, we're all treated unfairly.  Get used to it, that's life, and blaiming it
on men, or blacks, or whatever won't change it anytime soon.


>>> the rapist mentality and the conceptualization of women as commodities
>>> or children who had "better be nice" is a poisonous way to view
>>> relations between members of the human race. 
> 
>>  Where do you get the "better be nice" crap? Who have you been hanging out
>>with? Nobody talks like that anymore, except in cheap 3rd rate movies from
>>the 50's!
> 
> listen to yourself!  now stop pretending sexism is a thing of the past.
> calling it a product of the 50's, and sexual repression (i.e. prudish
> women and domineering men) is ignoring the reality today.  i still get
> the "be nice" attitude ALL OVER the place. 

  I think this is a manufactured situation. In this part of the country,
the majority of men don't play those games. Of course, I work in two
rarher arrow fields, engineering and the film business. I don't hang out at the
truck stops. so I can't vouch for them. But, like the Penatagon still
worrying about the spread of communism, it appears to be a rather weak
argument.

  Obviously, reality lise somewhere in between. My view of the world may not be
the sum total of reality, but then, neither is yours.


> 
>>  What humans owe to each other and themselves is, as you say, reality.
>> But feminism has made much political gain over the use of inaccuracies and
>>outright lies which foster such blind mistrust as you appear to exhibit.
>>That is part of the backlash against feminism. Even it's ardent
>>adherents and supporters (which I used to be) view any organization
>>that exists on misrepresentations as destructive of society as a whole.
> 
> backlash against feminism comes from deep-seated misogyny, which you
> should examine, and a fear of threat against male privelege.

  No, the backlash against feminism (which is NOT an attack on women as
a whole) is a response to blatent media attacks on men as a class.
No political structure can last long when it exists on falsehoods,
and the feminist movement (at least that portion which commands the media)
is now paying the price for their "by any means possible" attitudes.

> 
>>Maybe this confusion is why very NON-traditional methods of interaction, 
>>free of feminist expectations and political games are catching on. If you
>>meet someone at a nightclub or disco, you see the same distrust and
>>prejudice as you display in your post. In contrast, it has been refreshingly
>>easy to find hiking, hunting and sailing partners of the opposite gender,
>>and that holds promise for a fun summer. I don't try and tell them to be
>>"nice", and they don't treat me like a criminal (After all, we're both
>>carrying high powered rifles). So far, it's working pretty damned good.
> 
> well, goody for you.  i don't go to nightclubs or discos, too much date
> rape.  i have plenty of friendly and professional interactions with men.
> what if i prefer to spend time with women?  that's my business, not an
> aberration or hatred that stems from my very being.

  Nobody ever said it was. Correct me if I am wrong, but I don't believe
I have ever said anything to indicate an anti-gay stance in any of my postings.
I don't like anti-gay jokes, and I've been to too many of my friends funerals
of late to ignore the AIDS crises. Who you sleep with is your affair and if you
are happy, then good for you! Too few people acheive that status!

  I'm not ant-gay, nor anti-woman. I'm anti-feminazi (which means I don't
want to throw out the good things that the early movement accomplished).

> 
>>women can't bear the burden of healing imaginary slights
>>> against male privelege and still take their (women's) own rights.
> 
>>  But they can bear the burder of imaginary slights against women?
>>There's a problem there, I fear.
> 
> i don't imagine rape, sexism, and a lot of other horrors into existence.
> 

  No, but if there is a difference between 1 woman in 3 and 1 in 20 in
the various feminist claims, then someone, somewhere, is "creating"
crimes to wave about.



>>> this isn't my manifesto, just a few relevant points.  don't type me as
>>> the archetypal feminist  and don't expect me to be insulted by the
>>> phrase "manhating hairy lesbian."
> 
>>  I think possibly you confuse me with someone else. "manhating hairy lesbian"
>>is not a phrase I use or even tolerate in my presence. I find it highly
>>offensive, for reasons related to the above thoughts.
> 
> there you go, root of your problem.  you take it all personally.

  There's just no way to make you happy, is there?  :)  <- note smiley

  A person is the sum of all his beliefs and experience. Morality is a part
of a person, and I find the use of hate names directed at individuals,
if not "offensive" (possible bad choice of words) but definately
uncomfortable. hen you get to that state of using such terms, it signifies
that all real possability of communication has ceased, and what follows
is usually counter-productive.

  So, yeah, while I don't agree with your politics, and have some
trouble with your atitude, I take offense if someone calls you
a "manhating hairy lesbian" in my presence. Deal with it.


> 
>>  but i see a lot of childish, parasitic
>>> assumptions being made here about what "women OWE men."
> 
>>  What women "owe" men is what men "owe" women. Mutual respect and the
>>opportunity to demomstrate that we can be nice civilized human beings.
>>This is terrifying to those politicians who build their careers
>>on mutual fear and distrust, but that's their problem, not mine.
> 
> never said i wouldn't like to see some of that too.  but you haven't
> shown respect, earned mine, nor earned my trust.  and life is just
> like that until utopia shall occur.

  Like I said, we all see what we go looking for. You look for hate, mistrust
and sexism. That's what you find. I prefer to look for respect, affection, 
playfulness, kids, and a good copper bowl for the eggs. That's what I find
(except for the bowl).



> what the hell is a schemata.  did i just invent a word?
> 
> and, yes i realize that "manhating hairy lesbians " aren't in your
> vocabulary, you seem to disacknowledge lesbians from existence.
> or just not to care, or wish them out of existence.

  Ahhh, no. I think your projecting some of your views on me. I don't
have a problem with lesbians or homosexuals at all. But, it seems like
maybe you do?



<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
|  Michael Rivero rivero@mdcbbs.com Homo Cyberneticus-Computational Man  |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|           After all, if you don't love yourself, how can you           |
|                        expect anyone else to?                          |
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>