“It’s funny about MAN’s attitude toward rape in war.”
The title of this essay is taken from the opening statement in the chapter on rape in war in Susan Brownmiller’s book, “Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape.â€
Her sentence in turn follows an excerpt from “War As I Knew It,†the memoirs of General George S. Patton (“Old Blood and Guts). Patton writes, “I told him that although I would do my best to keep such incidents to a minimum there would unquestionably be some raping. I told him that he should forward the details of all such incidents to me so that I could have the offenders properly hanged.â€
Brownmiller in turn writes, “It’s funny about MAN’s attitude toward rape in war. UNQUESTIONABLY there will be some raping. Unconscionable but unquestionable. When men are men, slugging it out, unquestionably there will be some raping.â€
In war, men must “slug it out†in squalor, filth, sustained panic, and horror. They are immersed in brutality, killing and getting killed, watching as their best buddies are torn to pieces and living every second with the knowledge that they could be next.
“Unquestionably,†under the hideous and maddening conditions of war, some men who might live inoffensively in civilian life commit the atrocity of rape.
There are multiple reasons for this but two stand out in my mind.
One is that the conditions of war cause law and order to inevitably collapse. Thus, those men who are the least moral and well-socialized to begin with take advantage of the situation to commit this crime even though they might not have done so within the tighter structure of civilian society.
Another reason is that, under the enforced brutality and terror of war, the aggressive and sexual impulses of some men become confused. Their brutality “spills over†from its officially designated targets – other men in ground combat and specifically other men who are soldiers – onto women and takes a sexualized form.
Susan Brownmiller’s biases blind her to what is extraordinary about the attitude of men to rape in war, at least when we limit it to those men of the modern West who possess official power within its military.
It is truly something to make one pause to realize that the modern American military punished men who raped women with the death sentence. This is especially remarkable when one recalls that at the time Patton wrote — and at the present time — we American women enjoy an exemption from the military draft.
Does this mean that, as far as the male leadership in the modern West are concerned, we women are so very privileged as to enjoy an across-the-board exemption from all horrors of war? Not quite. Women have been injured and killed in every war in which bombs are dropped as nothing is more eminently non-discriminatory than a bomb.
However, rape, unlike bombing, is not something that military leaders in the modern West regard as a horror that is necessary to advance the war effort. Thus, in this one-on-one intimate level, women’s privilege is supposed to hold and the violation of that privilege punished in the most extreme manner.
The true question that Brownmiller completely misses in her fervor to indict all men for the actions of a minority of men, is why would male officials punish men so severely for committing this intimate atrocity against women while at the same time DEMANDING that men participate in the horrors of combat?
Interestingly, and significantly, the very same General Patton who asked to be sent details of rape cases so that he could “have the offenders properly hanged,†possessed not the slightest degree of patience with those men who could not face combat. Patton famously became furious at a male soldier who said he had been sent to the hospital because of his “nerves.†Patton swore at the man, screamed “coward†at him and obscenities, slapped him, and demanded that he be sent to the front lines. (Later, doctors discovered that one reason the man’s “nerves†were so bad was that he had malaria.)
The Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, General Dwight D. (“Ikeâ€) Eisenhower, demanded that Patton apologize for this outburst of rage and Patton did so.
Nevertheless, General Eisenhower also demanded that men, regardless of their individual temperaments or psychological make-up, must be subjected to the horrors of combat. Eisenhower confirmed the order of execution for desertion of the skinny and timid Pvt. Eddie Slovik.
The modern West has demanded that men expose themselves to the horrors of battle. It has punished with the most extreme severity men who commit rape.
“It’s funny about MAN’s attitude toward rape in war.â€
It really is.
| More from Denise Noe
Stumble It!
November 15th, 2008 at 12:21 am
It is unquestionable that crime exists and will continue to exist. It is unquestionable that a very small proportion of society, women as well as men, will commit crimes in the future in wartime and peacetime, as in the past. Patton knew this. Any General knows this and every Private with a Baton on his pack knows it too.
It is unquestionable that the armed forces of Westernised (dare I say Anglophile) nations have a first class reputation in terms of forbidding rape and punishing rapists.
The reasons why that tiny percentage of men in war conditions rape (probably a lot less than one fiftieth of one percent is not because of the squalor, the horror of blood and guts and brain flying around, the sheer chaos, the ’sexualisation’ of the enemies womenfolk, the breakdown of civil behaviour etc but because they are criminals.
On what does she base her suppositions and condenmnation of ‘Men’ !!! ™? Brownmillar would be as hard pressed to provide statistics as I am, but how many rapes have occured in say Iraq in the last three years with 140,000 troops there? 10? 20? If it were one tenth of one percent of our men there raping, we would be seeing 420.
Indeed, the group cohesion, the mutual expectations, the training and the ‘esprit’ in wartime enhance the moral man and ‘contains’ the immoral one probably better than the civil society around him in peacetime. In peacetime he is surrounded by women who disport and tempt and display and vie to attract him.
In ‘peacetime’ too, rape as a crime has become such an abused term that even ‘looking’ at a woman or buying her a drink in a bar before consensual sexual congress is called rape. I suppose Brownmillar would consider that during a war, carrying a rifle in his hand when a chap walks through the door is rape even before he says “Hello, I am from the Good Guys and am here to help you”.
Brownmillar is a BIGOT. To her, all men are rapists.
I am not about to read her essay in full, but I might just lay a bet that she does not write a paragraph about the selflessness, the heroism, the altruism, the self-sacrifice – even of his own life – that the men who go to war on their countrywomen’s behalf, display. While the rape ‘rate’ goes down in those horibble, terrible conditions of war, the better actions of men increase. War brings out the best in Good men and suppresses the worst in the bad – at least in the Armed Forces I have been Honoured to serve with.
November 15th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
War involves large populations. You expect in these large populations whatever you see in other large populations, including crime.
November 16th, 2008 at 7:26 am
amfortas said,
It is unquestionable that crime exists and will continue to exist. It is unquestionable that a very small proportion of society, women as well as men, will commit crimes in the future in wartime and peacetime, as in the past. Patton knew this. Any General knows this and every Private with a Baton on his pack knows it too.
(Denise) Hi, friendly amfortas! I sure hope you are doing well. Yes, people of both sexes commit atrocities in both peacetime and wartime. Patton was a realist.
amfortas: <>
(Denise) I applaud the practice of modern Western militaries of punishing their soldiers for rape (and other criminal offenses). I don’t support the death penalty for any crime and certainly not for rape. But I certainly support punishment for this offense even if committed by men who have been brutalized by the special horrors of combat.
amfortas: The reasons why that tiny percentage of men in war conditions rape (probably a lot less than one fiftieth of one percent is not because of the squalor, the horror of blood and guts and brain flying around, the sheer chaos, the ’sexualisation’ of the enemies womenfolk, the breakdown of civil behaviour etc but because they are criminals.
(Denise) They ARE criminals and many would say they have disgraced the uniform they wore. However, I do believe it likely that some of them would not have perpetrated such horrors in civilian life.
I shouldn’t have to remind you that soldiers in combat endure a great deal. I recall hearing of a man who said the buttocks of a mutilated buddy threw into his face. Men see their comrades with their intestines exposed, arms and legs sliced off, and their heads coming off. They hear the anguished cries of men dying. They must constantly fear for their own lives.
amfortas: On what does she base her suppositions and condenmnation of ‘Men’ !!! ™? Brownmillar would be as hard pressed to provide statistics as I am, but how many rapes have occured in say Iraq in the last three years with 140,000 troops there? 10? 20? If it were one tenth of one percent of our men there raping, we would be seeing 420.
Indeed, the group cohesion, the mutual expectations, the training and the ‘esprit’ in wartime enhance the moral man and ‘contains’ the immoral one probably better than the civil society around him in peacetime. In peacetime he is surrounded by women who disport and tempt and display and vie to attract him.
In ‘peacetime’ too, rape as a crime has become such an abused term that even ‘looking’ at a woman or buying her a drink in a bar before consensual sexual congress is called rape. I suppose Brownmillar would consider that during a war, carrying a rifle in his hand when a chap walks through the door is rape even before he says “Hello, I am from the Good Guys and am here to help youâ€.
Brownmillar is a BIGOT. To her, all men are rapists.>>
(Denise) She doesn’t believe all men are rapists. Her theory is that all men benefit from the actions of rapists. However, much of her own evidence disproves that theory. Her book gives the case of a man recovering from brain surgery who couldn’t get out of his wheelchair. He had to watch with tears in his eyes as his wife was raped by thugs. It’s hard to see how he benefited. She gives cases in wartime of men forced at gunpoint to simulate having sex with their daughters. I think it’s a fair bet these men were traumatized.
Her evidence about rape in civilian life clearly shows that rapists are not doing the bidding of other men but are the sort of men society CANNOT control. They often have a penchant to assault and murder other men.
Oddly, she even shows evidence that rape can occur in the ABSENCE of men. Her book cites evidence of female-on-female sexual assaults in prisons and mental hospitals.
amfortas: I am not about to read her essay in full, but I might just lay a bet that she does not write a paragraph about the selflessness, the heroism, the altruism, the self-sacrifice – even of his own life – that the men who go to war on their countrywomen’s behalf, display. While the rape ‘rate’ goes down in those horibble, terrible conditions of war, the better actions of men increase. War brings out the best in Good men and suppresses the worst in the bad – at least in the Armed Forces I have been Honoured to serve with.
(Denise) No, she doesn’t write sympathetically about the self-sacrifice men endure in war. I have written sympathetically about it. My father served in combat in World War II. He and the other men of the Allied forces helped save civilization from one of its worst threats at an extraordinary cost to themselves.
November 16th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
“All men benefit from rape.” The theory is that women, repulsed by male bestiality and sexuality find it better to take up with one man as her protector than to endure the thrusting and bruises of random men. We men then become the lesser of two evils.
I wrote about this topic suggesting that when we males sit around in a fraternity discussing which “boy” must go out and rape … we tell him, ya, sure, some will want to cut your dick off, others to put you in jail or prison, but think about your buddies who will benefit, WHY ELSE would women want to be with us if not for the fear of being without a man and you get a “free” piece of ass and then women will rush to us to protect them from boys and men like you.
I also wrote that almost every guy I have ever known has said that rapist should be killed, castrated, or raped (in jai) Rape varies from the guy who found himself, after his long time sex partner climaxed telling him it was time to quite … compare that “rape” to the man that grabs a little girl… To make all “unwanted sexual acts” equal to rape … especially when you have a “He said she said” by a tramp fond of playing sex games for profit and power… to make both equal to harming a child, a stranger, is bizarre.
As I have written, if most men would kill or castrate men who rape women what more would feminist suggest was needed to prove that “men don’t benefit” or “condone” rape.
I believe feminist love to shame men and target all of us for the perversity of a few while they ignore the sexual crimes of women. Yes, sex crimes by women (when you don’t look for them or care about them you find far fewer) are rare compared to men but so are the sex crimes of men comparted to “MOST” men. If no women raped boys, or lied about rape, or used sex to “set up” a man, or profited wrongly from sexual harassment or false rape claims – then I would hang my head in shame that only my gender does such things. Having experienced sexual abuse first hand as a boy, by an adult women, having known other men who were sexually abused as boys…having seen the film Antoine Fisher, having read “Until I Find You” by Irving, having read “Guilty by Reason of Insanity, I know that many men were harmed as boys by women. It’s extremely embarassing for a man to discuss being sexually abused as a boy while his “rape” is written off as “he got lucky” or – well that was a vagina and vaginas are good… W
hen I read feminist suggesting all men benefit from rape or condone it even if they don’t do it themselves I hear, I heards as a boy, that all men are trash, all women are potential victims – well, I can only think “f*&$^ you” and your sisters who ignorantly repeat such things like brain dead parrots. Such views of men, such males bashing heard by a million boys might even cause some men to “go off” when combined with personal weaknesses, stress, losses… You don’t stop rape by bashing all boys and men.
Thanks Denise for bringing your wit and eye to this topic.
SD
SD
November 16th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
(Denise) – “She (Brownmillar)doesn’t believe all men are rapists. Her theory is that all men benefit from the actions of rapists.”
(Am) Thanks for that clarification, Denise. I am getting a little insensitive to the nuances, it seems. On some days the misandric ‘beliefs’ of this feminist or that all seem much of a muchness. One hateful phrase seems barely less evil than another. But we are told we mustn’t discriminate !
You do well, Denise, and I thank you.
November 16th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Men have done bad things. Even the best of men. Even the so called kind men “expected and do expect”. It is written all over men’s sites. Feminism is not so bad.
It is not so bad for women to say, “Hey, that has screwed with my life till I die and I will inflict that pain onto my children and my partner”.
“Let’s talk about it”, is the best thing I have heard from a male politician.
“Yes, lets”.
But if it is to be swept under the carpet as a few do it and what the hell,…. we can’t change that”, then we are already screwed.
November 16th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Julie wrote:
“Men have done bad things. Even the best of men.” Is that someting the rest of us didn’t know? Does she believe that this is news. What isn’t news is that she, and womeen like her, can read a post about women sexually abusing boys [Or check crime statistics to learn that most child abuse, including injuries and deaths are from mom’s to sons and not dads to daughters and then write about how only one gender, MEN, have done bad things, even the best.” Why not write “Humans have done bad things, some horrible and some of little consequence. Why imply only my gender does bad things or is she using men as a generic for humans? I don’t think so. She is trying to get us back on track citing only one gender, my gender, which makes her a a simple minded bigot – doesn’t it? Or is that name calling and not allowed on MND (IS calling someone a simple minded bigot a bad thing while someone that tagets only one gender – never their own – for abusing imagery not a bad thing? Is there much difference between gender profiling and being a sexist pig?
November 16th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Do you want to shame me Steven Deluca? Good try. But I don’t buy it.
How come men have shut up for so long? How come it takes the young to say, “Hey, this is not right!!”
What shut you up? Common sense and being real is all I have?
What shut you up?
November 16th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
Being serious now…. steven deluca … I have heard you have a site. Do you want to share it? I will listen. But I don’t like too much being the referee in this gender war.
November 16th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Well you SHOULD be ashamed, Julie. ““Men have done bad things. Even the best of men.†What the dickens has that got to do with anything? What an offensive offering to a discussion of this subject. What you say is not only offensive but bordering in earning you a label of ’stupid’. We are discussing rape, not ‘bad things’. I have already pointed out that rape is rare. 99.99% of men do not rape.
And don’t give us this ‘Being serious now’ shit, as though anyone else but you seem to be taking it lightly.
This lacsidaisical and mendacious lumping of ‘the best’ in with the worst and therfore rendering distinction void is logically offensive too. It is meaningless cant and typically a feminist ideleness. I have never raped, Julie. Does that make me better than the best? 99.99% of men must be up there with me.
What does ‘the best’ mean to you? The best men do not commit crime at all. Most men do not. The best men do great good. Is Fred Hollows, a Dr who cured tens of thousands of their blindness, a man who is indistinguishable from ‘men who do bad things’?
So, some men have done bad things. I have, sure. I scrumped apples when I was ten. Is that bad enough for you? That is about as bad as I got. And I am therfore in with rapists and murderers, burglars and concentration camp guards (the worst of which was a woman, by the way – the ‘Angel of Death’ a woman who was the wife of a commandant, and who used to frequent the torture chambers as recreation in her own time. Not even paid for it or in uniform). But you don’t want a distinction. It is a feminist sin to discriminate. Just distinguish men from women – the latter being friggin’ perfect and men all ‘doing bad things’ Friggin’ halfwit.
In wartime I killed men. You may think me ‘bad’ for that. But it was in defence, Julie, of a country and families and women and children a hell of a lot closer to YOU and yours than mine. In YOUR back yard almost. YOU (or your parents) were going to be next, sitting comfortably in Oz. I didn’t see you there doing the difficult and dangerous work. In fact I didn’t see ANY women at all there defending the weak and offering their own lives. Too friggin’ busy being ‘not men’ and avoiding doing ‘bad things’. What responsibility do you take for that?
November 16th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
“Do you want to shame me Steven Deluca?”
Damn, feminist, you got the projection thing DOWN!
who are you to accuse anyone of silence? silence about what? say something intelligible and we can have a discussion: random accusations of “silence” are just silliness.
“But I don’t like too much being the referee in this gender war”
Oh good, because your kind of “refereeing” we can surely do without.
November 16th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
DrDamage, Wow! You boxed me so quickly.
I would like to have an intelligent conversation to you from the feminist side. But I think you have heard everything already.
November 16th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I spent twenty minutes composing a sound box around the ears for Julie and it has not been printed. Two following-in-time comments have though.
Where did it go?
November 17th, 2008 at 2:05 am
I’ve heard everything you’ve said so far before. The instinctive stab at instilling shame, the vague accusations which because of their vagueness, are impossible to respond to. All this is old hat. For pitys sake, let’s see something new.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:02 am
“Men have done bad things. Even the best of men”. – Have women been perfect? The only women who have not done anything bad(even the best) are those who have done nothing except live on the money of some man who has done something to get it. But then extending the logic to the best of women, if the man got the money in a bad way, the woman is equally bad because she wanted to live on it anyway regardless of how it was got.
If the woman was so good, she should not have lived on the money which was got in a bad way in the first place and she should have gone out and got it on her own in a good way.
Of course, feminist women are unmatched in their selfishness(in spending anything they get on themselves and only on themselves) and hypociritcal attitude towards taking up any responsibility while at the same time expecting to get everything on a platter even though they have never spend a minute of effort working to get it.
“Men expected and do expect”. Those men expect after giving something like their effort or intellect unlike feminist women who expect everything even without giving anything.
November 17th, 2008 at 4:43 am
Men overwhelmingly are the casualties of war. Men are imprisoned in far greater numbers than women during wartime and are tortured and raped. Even men who survive war pay a price all of their lives. Men are overwhelmingly filling our prisons. Men are raped there everyday. Women lie about rape approximately half the time. Innocent men are imprisoned for crimes they did not commit by women who lie, and by a legal system entirely on their side and that regularly refuses to see women as liars and men as innocent until proven guilty. A woman’s word is all that is needed. Remember the Duke Three.
Only when these topics garner as much public discussion as the rape of women will I consider the rape of women a matter worthy of serious discussion.
Men are the overwhelming victims in our society-whether as expendible soldiers, prison victims, and victims of our courts who put them in these prisons.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:07 am
As bad as rape is under any circumstances, men have never allowed anyone to reach inside their body, allowing a defenseless child to be mutilated and sucked out, then unceremoniously disposed of in a trash dumpster.
At least old “blood and guts†wanted to hang anyone guilty of rape.
Why aren’t we hanging women who murder children?
Why aren’t we hanging women who shoot their defenseless husbands in the back while they sleep in order to abscond with the children?
Women have no right to complain about rape, especially when they seem to think that a man being raped is funny.
Every woman in America should be deeply ashamed of the way they treat men and children in our society.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:53 am
#Amfortas, you don’t need to slap me around the ears. I do understand what men are saying from their perspective. I had one of those days where a tragic story presented itself and affected me inside. I don’t see either side lying just not working together.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Here you go! This video is worth watching. It is a doco on women crying wolf over rape. Aired last night in NZ.
http://tinyurl.com/5wgvxn
Women who do this make it very hard for those who have been through a tragic situation.
November 17th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Julie said (#18):” I do understand what men are saying from their perspective. I had one of those days where a tragic story presented itself and affected me inside.”
OK. I take that as a ’sorry’, even though you can’t find the word. I have bad days too. We all do. But it is best to think before you whine-whack. Even friends can lose the urge to be understanding.
November 17th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
@Amfortas, I must be honest and say that the majority of MRM men are not the type of men I would want as a friend let alone a partner. I am so sorry for this. I really am. I come from a different lifestyle.
But hey, they wouldn’t like me either. I just want to make this clear.
I have spoken up very clearly that I do this for men 30 and under.
Something is missing from the picture. So, I just want to deal with today and not yesterday.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Wow your panties are all in a twist because a leader of men KNEW that crimes would be committed….and he set up plans to EXECUTE men for committing crimes and your all f**king p*ssed that he couldn’t be god and prevent the crimes from happening with the wave of his hand.
Women in the west are the most sheltered protected class of people anywhere in the world.
You really need to stop complaining.
November 20th, 2008 at 6:50 am
“Wow your panties are all in a twist because a leader of men KNEW that crimes would be committed….and he set up plans to EXECUTE men for committing crimes and your all f**king p*ssed that he couldn’t be god and prevent the crimes from happening with the wave of his hand.”
Exactly.
And to think there are still men in this country who want to marry an American women.
Amazing.
Friggin’ amazing.
November 20th, 2008 at 11:42 am
Virtue and Denis, lol about my panties. That is more than fair to say to me.
I have a stubborn streak so it takes a bit longer for me to give up on a movement. But none the less, I now when something is just not going to work. Banging my head against this brick wall is something I had to do for myself even though many had tried it before and given up telling me it was an impossible task.
But I have seen the MRM has claimed the high ground on family and children with regards to socialism and I can see they fight with the religious backing. Their cause is still good in some respects.
Somehow these problems need to go mainstream so I just need to find a way for the opposite side to pick them up and help them understand that the majority of men are not going to pick up on the MRM nor are the most of journalists, lawyers, judges or politicians. Nothing seems knew today with men but who knows … in 5 years it might be.
We MUST move forward and do better regardless of whose camp it comes from. A name means very little to me. Name calling was something I got used to in primary school. (yes, that last part is a dig)
I SURRENDER! I have no problem to do that.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
“Here you go! This video is worth watching. It is a doco on women crying wolf over rape. Aired last night in NZ.
http://tinyurl.com/5wgvxn
Women who do this make it very hard for those who have been through a tragic situation. – Julie”
That pretty much sums up what’s completely wrong about your perspective Julie. The only downside that you see is that bogus claims of rape make it harder for women who have been raped to get justice. You are completely oblivious to the injustice the bogus claim perpetrates on men! In your world, justice for men simply doesn’t matter.
I’m with Patton, only I’d add a caveat. Any woman who falsely accuses a man of rape should be subject to the exact same punishment he faces.
November 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
BikerDad, You say,
“That pretty much sums up what’s completely wrong about your perspective Julie. The only downside that you see is that bogus claims of rape make it harder for women who have been raped to get justice. You are completely oblivious to the injustice the bogus claim perpetrates on men! In your world, justice for men simply doesn’t matter.”
So what you are saying to me is that I am not bad for what I say but I forget to tell you that I recognise your side? That I need to speak from both sides from now on?
That’s not a hard thing to fix. I do see your side. I work in the co-ed part of the community. There are many things that don’t discriminate between genders or color. For one thing men also get raped.
Did you yourself forget that maybe I care for them too as victims? And that maybe I know the prisons are filling up with men on false rape charges but because I didn’t say this upfront which would have only classed me as a possible spy, I am classed as a traitor?
The majority of co-ed groups want nothing to do with the war between the 2 gender groups. Yet, why am I expected to write from your perspective anyhow? Are you an equal bully as are the feminists?
November 20th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
BikerDad said,
“Here you go! This video is worth watching. It is a doco on women crying wolf over rape. Aired last night in NZ.
http://tinyurl.com/5wgvxn
Women who do this make it very hard for those who have been through a tragic situation. – Julieâ€
That pretty much sums up what’s completely wrong about your perspective Julie. The only downside that you see is that bogus claims of rape make it harder for women who have been raped to get justice. You are completely oblivious to the injustice the bogus claim perpetrates on men! In your world, justice for men simply doesn’t matter.>>
(Denise) If you want to read about the horror suffered by men unjustly convicted of sex crimes, go to Crimemagazine.com and read my story on Leo Frank or Crimelibrary.com and read my story on Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle.
<>
(Denise) Patton was right to realize that rapes would occur. He was right to punish them. He was wrong to punish them with the death penalty. Although I oppose the death penalty on principle, even if I supported it I would definitely not support it for this heinous crime in which a life is not taken.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I wonder sometimes if people on either side know how they make progress so impossible.
I am not saying the MRM should surrender to the feminists or that the feminists should surrender to the masculinists.
But neither side is allowing religious people who just what to move forward nor intellects that just want to move forward get a say.
You know, just maybe the 80% swinging either way have something worthwhile to stop all the harm but they can’t because they have to take a side and they have to be mocked with either being a religious not or an intelligent nut.
I don’t believe half the crap feminists say and I don’t believe half the crap masculinists say and to be honest I doubt most in either camp truly follow their ideology.
I watched over the last few years Canadian women take some of the highest spots in New Zealand around social issues and I did for a moment wonder if this was the feminismt movement progressing here. But then I spoke with them and had BBQs with them and listened to them. They are running away. Men are here also from Sweden working in mental health because they are running away.
There are so many who want to work with the MRM and the feminists but they don’t want the sick to try and help the sick. They want the well to help the well.
We all in the middle are copping the fight. We too are hurting.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
BTW, good on you Denise for what you do. Sorry for changing the subject on your post. I hope you are OK with this. (smile)
November 20th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Oops, I wrote in comment 28, that they want the well to help the well. What I meant was that they want the well to help the sick.
I don’t mean harm to either side. But in the co-ed world you learn very fast that there are 2 sides and that both sides are true. Sometimes we have to be both victim and perpetrator. Sometimes we have to speak and have to listen. And sometimes we have to work hard to forgive and be forgiven.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
My impression was that many men ‘rape’ enemy women in war situations because they see them as the enemy – an enemy that has often been demonised over and over again; with many soldiers therefore seeing such women as murderous, evil, wicked etc etc – i.e. much as they are indoctrinated to see the enemy men.
And, of course, such women are very often part of the enemy’s war machine – even if indirectly so. As such, these women are responsible for killing your friends, bombing your country, destroying your families etc etc
As such, the idea that soldiers who rape enemy women should be hanged, whereas those who kill enemy men should be given medals, strikes me as being decidely sick.
Furthermore, let us not forget that many enemy women actually offer themselves voluntarily to incoming soldiers in the hope of saving their own necks – with many of them actually going off into the sunset with the very soldiers who have been killing their compatriots once the war is over.
Indeed, in my view, it is for reasons such as this that women tend less often to “vote” for war than do men.
The men know that they will likely be killed if the enemy gets the upper hand – hence they are prepared to fight – for their lives! – whereas women are more likely to escape death even if the enemy does win. As such, women are not as concerned about protecting themselves from an aggressing enemy as are men. Quite simply, they have less aggression to protect themselves from!
In other words, my guess would be that if women were just as likely as men to be slaughtered by an enemy, then they would be equally likely to vote for “war”.
Finally, my guess would be that in situations where broken and dead bodies litter the place, and bloody carnage lies all around for weeks on end, being raped would be considered by most people to be something of a lucky escape.
And this idea that being raped is akin to having your legs blown off, your family being slaughtered, or your life being extinguished, actually makes me feel quite ill.
Rape does not even come close to any of these things.
Perhaps one should ask real women – rather than the dysfuntional feminists who hog the media – the following question.
Which would be worse for you; being raped by an enemy soldier, or having your husband, your father, your son, or brother killed?
Which would be worse for you; being raped by an enemy soldier, or having your legs blown off?
Which would be worse for you; being raped by an enemy soldier, or having a bullet shot through your head?
Well, in my view, only the most disgusting of women – of which there seem to be so many these days – would see a rape as being worse.
November 20th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Julie, I dimmly percieve your intent and your wish to ’see both sides’. But you come here to MND with some very odd ideas and a ’suss’ pedigree worn on your forehead. It is akin to turbaned Red Crescent ‘worker’ walking into a Concentration Camp for Jews and Gypsies and homosexuals and telling them that the nice people in Berlin and Dresden are having a rough time.
November 21st, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Amfortas, I am not saying your enemy is good. I am not wanting to tell your enemy that you are good.
I am just not taking sides. I would rather be both your enemies and if that could bring you both closer together to attack people like me … then I would be wrapped.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:19 pm
“I would rather be both your enemies”. Julie, you are going about that aim in the right way. Indifference to the merits is what allows evil to flourish. But then, as a modern woman I can count on you to treat discrimination as a dirty word, unless you can gain some ’shame’ mileage out of it.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Julie said
“So what you are saying to me is that I am not bad for what I say but I forget to tell you that I recognise your side? That I need to speak from both sides from now on?”
No
That’s not a hard thing to fix. I do see your side. I work in the co-ed part of the community. There are many things that don’t discriminate between genders or color. For one thing men also get raped.
Did you yourself forget that maybe I care for them too as victims? And that maybe I know the prisons are filling up with men on false rape charges but because I didn’t say this upfront which would have only classed me as a possible spy, I am classed as a traitor?
The majority of co-ed groups want nothing to do with the war between the 2 gender groups. Yet, why am I expected to write from your perspective anyhow? Are you an equal bully as are the feminists?”
In response to a post raising the deletrious effects of false rape charges on men (with the Duke case as an example), your response was the common response of radical feminists. “false rape charges are a bad thing because it makes it worse for women who are actually raped.” Are you a radical feminist? I’ve no clue, but when you come into a men’s site, where the topic is the unpleasant subject of rape from the man’s side (as perpetrator), and appropriate punishment for the rapist, its difficult to believe that you consider both genders to be of equal value given your response.
You aren’t classed as a spy, or a traitor, at least not in my book. “Spy” for who? What would be the point of spying on a public website? Traitor? I’d have to know what group you belong to before I could make such an assessment.
What I can say is that your comment, given the context, indicates a twisted sense of justice, one where the potential indirect harm to nebulous third parties is more significant to you than the clear and present harm to the falsely accused, and the distinction seems (again, given the context) to be based on sex. Am I reading too much into it? Perhaps, but you’re the one who chose where to put your exclusive focus…
November 21st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Amfortas, lookie here! (I like saying that)
You have taught me heaps and I appreciate that. And I know I have been a pain in the process. (2.5 years of it)Poor men. (smile)
I have an idea of my own that I want to put in action 2009. Plus I have heard from many sides on this. It doesn’t seem like a big deal any more. The only catch is that this is men’s side and men have to do it. And by the looks of all the groups, they are already doing. Plus help is coming through research and finance. You will see a lot of changes in the next decade. I am sure you already have in the last few years.
This is getting embarrassing. But I take full responsibility for that. You have new ones to teach now and I am sure I can find support amongst community groups.
November 21st, 2008 at 5:51 pm
BikerDad, I apologise for my comment. I do not consider myself one who should be in charge of justice or have any input in discussions over it.
I was wrong. I am glad you put me right.
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 am
Julie, you have the same right as any here to say your piece about justice and anything else. It is free speech here. And you have the same right to add, as you do, to MRA discussions.
I have often said that all voices need to be heard. I have pointed out that many will be from people with vastly different skills and personalities.
Even the most unlikely people can be part of the MRM. This very thread was started by the delightful, insightful and quirky Denise, a woman who is often taken to task for having her say and often being misunderstood.
I do not understand half of what you say, Jools, which adds to misunderstandings, but I recognise a good heart even coupled with a confused head. I recognise a hard worker for a cause when I see one and a good contributor. I have known you around the traps for several years and I am often taken aback by the things you say and do, and I admire the good parts. But I do wish you would work out what to say before typing some confused and irritationly dense ‘thing’ and hitting the send button though and bear in mind that my brain doesn’t work like yours does. I get the impression that others get confused too.
As a woman you are supposed to be a friggin’ communications expert.
To some others here who might have spoken to Denise in poor terms, her stance is quite clear enough to me.
November 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
@Denise…
“I shouldn’t have to remind you that soldiers in combat endure a great deal. I recall hearing of a man who said the buttocks of a mutilated buddy threw into his face. Men see their comrades with their intestines exposed, arms and legs sliced off, and their heads coming off. They hear the anguished cries of men dying. They must constantly fear for their own lives.”
I’ve spoken to so many women who simply can’t grasp this.
There was a time when I was privileged to be in the company of some WWI veterens. One of them described the Somme in terms that made Dante’s Inferno seem like a tea party.
@steven deluca…
I recognise that frequent misquoting of Brownmiller. However at the time I first heard “all men are rapists” my only experience of sex was with a woman at age eight. One of the great ironies of my life.
In an act of sexual impropriety any woman involved is a default victim. Even if she’s the perpetrator. Even if she’s the only adult in the exchange.
Or when Oprah, an advocate for rape victims(?!) is presenting a rapist as a celebrity to fawning female audiences.
Or when a high circulation womens magazine(New Idea) pays the travel and living costs over a couple of years for a woman who chatted up a fourteen year old over the internet(our major broadsheets treated this as a soft focus love story).
Or when her copycat isn’t quite as smart and gets caught so we are subjected to the embarassment of all and sundry treating her as a victim.
Or the only time your country has really punished any woman for sexual assault it was a couple who’d abused girls while the dozens who fiddled with boys walked free.
Or that when it did happen, well, it wasn’t illegal anyway.
Yes, Steven, it could be difficult for male victims to think they would ever be taken seriously.
Given the significant proportion of male rapists who were previously victimised by women feminists may learn something from male victims. But they have to be able to acknowledge they exist first.
“Oi, you, back under the carpet”
November 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Warning, MINI-RANT ahead.
Even those who believe that a male touch defiles and a female touch turns a boy “into a man” (as if all those walking wounded males who never became men are men because they had sex with some random female? A little sexual friction by a female who “let them” get into her pants as a pathway to being a MAN) To teach boys and girls that men defile females with their male bodies while female bodies turn boys into men is to set up a belief that men will always owe women a great debt for the pleasure and purity of women’s bodies.
Even as we let women off the hook for sex crimes men would be charged with, we should learn to see that a result of that careless attitude is that, for “sensitive” boys as I was… the message that male bodies are dirty and defiling compared to female bodies isn’t a lesson any boy or girls should learn and it’s not a lesson I wanted to learn as a boy and it took me a long time, a bit of healing, to feel my body was as valuable and “giving” as that of a woman. [I think sex crimes come from boys who feel dirty, bad, and rejected] I did learn from good women later in life that they valued male bodies and male sexualtiy but I didn’t think they were teaching me to be a man, that was something I wanted to learn from men. But women who helped me see that male sexuality, for them, was a pleasure, not a chore, helped me move beyond the public perception that somehow male bodies had less value than female bodies. (I know that jogging and weight training and good clothes and good genes helped women see me in a way that some of them would not see men whose bodies looked unhealthy (the norm today) Teaching our sons and daughters to take care of their health, to dress well, to work out a bit, teaches them that their bodies have value and that their bodies are worth caring for. Most teen boys today seem to think a boys body isn’t as good as a woman’s body unless they are sports figures. Too many settle for a bag of chips and a six pack of beer and practicing a deep voice, using vulgar language, as if that gives them a certain macho sex appeal. As adult men they end up unhealthy looking, staring at/wanting beautiful women who diet, exercise, had their lips done or their boobs, 100$ hair cuts, bras that enhance, silk underwear … women’s bodies adorned with nice clothes and jewelry as if boxed up Christmas presents where, if you know the right combination (Praise and cash) those boy/men might, if they play their cards right, “get lucky” … those boy/men easily buy into putting women’s bodies on a pedestal and they see men having sex with girls a crime while women having sex with boys a gift. Few see it as the same.
Think of all the ads you see making male bodies look dorky, add all the groin kicks and stupid boy movies where a boy fucks a pie (Oh, is fucking too harsh, was I supposed to say “make love”) or where girls laugh at boys sexual organs or where boys are like a deer in the head lights because some girl complements them or slaps their butt.
Most men and women don’t know where their sexual attitudes or gender attitudes come from. They don’t see why they arrived at the point of view that men having sex with girls should be castrated or end up with a life time in jail but when women USE boys for sex they say “He got lucky” which is like most gender issues: “Women good, men bad” a common message in our culture. Few know how many mothers injure or kill how many sons compared to fathers killing sons or daughters. The assumption is that all most all violence in the home is from the man. Judging men more harshly for sex crimes or for DV, or for a divorce… it’s all parrt of a puzzle that we don’t have a full picture of yet.
A bit off topic, a mix, but sometimes it’s hard to separate gender issues and make a point.
So many lesson about gender are superficial and few think past “oh, boys must like it (sex with adult women) so, whatever” but those boys grow up to be men and they look back and realize that sex with an adult women made it seem OK for them so why not do what they learned and have sex with young females and then – opps, the jury didn’t see things the same way, so, off to jail.
I tire of the superficial views of gender that are taught in women’s studies and repeated by men and women. The old story about how men are happier in marriage is typical. Women assume women are less happy because men are jerks that just want to get laid, don’t do their fair share of house work, … they don’t consider that most men work fulltime… wives work fewer hours or fewer months or years STUCK in the work place… [Few know that the double shift is a myth and that men work at least EQUAL hours as women when work away from home and work at home is added together] He is glad to be home, she might be bored being home too much… for the guy a homelife that is a bit rocky might still be better than work. Or, consider that men who are unhappy and have low earning capacities don’t attract women, or, when they do, they often can’t keep one happy because they can’t buy enough STUFF.. women gravitate to the happy men with earning potential and stay with them… [Most men simply complain less and if asked if the are happy don't want to hurt their wives feelings or seem that they are losers so they say they are happy when maybe they have had a mild depression for years] Those single guys who couldn’t attract a woman or who ended up seen as failures because they didn’t earn enough or were not sexy enough, or were too boring… ended up single, and STILL unhappy. And women, taught to believe WOMEN GIVE MORE assume marriage must benefit men more… just like they assume a man having sex with a girl defiles her, while sex from a woman inhances a guy who “gets lucky” … I see that men have a sense of protectiveness where they won’t criticize a wife as quickly to others as she might criticize him. Critizing men is part of our culture from criticizing men as a group to husbands as individuals. From what I have seen some men are happy, or not happy by nature or because of circumstances – not enough edcuation, a crappy job… when a family isn’t doing well the man feels it’s his fault and so does his wife… if he were more of a man he would earn more, be more “manly” while a woman can be average and think she is a great mother.
Of the married men I know few seem to have wives who make them happy compared to wives who nag, or spend too much, or complain too much. Some men are happier because they have a home, a partner and friends but not because she was doing anything to make him happier that was superior to anything he did to make her happy.
From money, to sex, to rape, to crime, most Americans simply repeat feminist claims and very few of us have takent the time to read a few books by feminist and then a few books by those who disagree. Most of the women I know took a class or two from a feminist while in high school and college, they learned that some things easily proven to be false as true… and then had those male bashing ideas reinforced by a bimonthly screed from some woman who took those same classes and who ended up as a journalism major. Women’s TV and women’s advertising has the same kind of women teaching other women how to see men. Very few women ever do more research to find out if what they learned from a bigot was true in the real world… And why would they? If men were taught that they were superior, taught by other men – well who would feel a need to challenge such things. “I’m O.K. your not O.K. so go make some money and give it to me to make up for you being a jerk and me having to put up with it.” Nice place to be if you want someone to take care of you and pay the bills, to die young from working stressful jobs for decades while you are protected… but how to get rid of the guilt. Sometimes I think it’s women’s guilt when they see all the men dead from war, or work, when they see how hard men work so that they can buy shoes, – it’s tht guilt that makes them want to believe men OWE women because to accept a man’s labor you must convince yorself you have “earned it” somehow. If you are taught your gender is superior then how is it in your interest to simply prove that you are not superior, but in fact, equal? If that? Why challenge yourself when you feel you are the gender that gives and other the gender takes so you get to go to heaven? Men go along with women’s views of men as the labor tirelessly … or otherwise they would see how easily duped they were and that all that labor supporting women, women’s health, ending up in women’s banks, ending up with women getting the kids and home, damn, you better feel you don’t deserve all those things that some women took from you because if men realized how much they have given to women, and how much women are willing to take… men would rebel, riot… Whenever feminist get on MND there is always that tone that we do owe women something for out past behaviors if not the present behaviors of MOST men when MOST men work their butts off for family, for country, while taking abuse from many women believing that their gender is the dirty gender, the lazy gender, the unappealing gender… why else would we have so many women’s health centers with many more men in poor health and dying younger? Why else would we fund special programs to help women in college when there are so many women there already. Why else would we think women deserve high level military jobs while we protect women as much as possible? Why else would we watch a man work 50 hours a week until the children were a step or two past total dependency going off to school while he supporter his wife and kids and now she wants to have a separate life and she KNOWS she can get the kids, home, and his cash, simply by asking for it,and most men just take it in silence. Why else? Teach boys that men are dirty, selfish, and that they should not comlain about their lot in life and you have a serf class without chains. Like Elephants in India tied with a string, by skinny weak men … prisoners of their own fear never knowing their own strength and power, that’s how I see most men in American the last 50 years. End of rant and I guess it wasn’t a mini one at that.
The easiest prisoner to control is the one who believes he is free and acting in his own self interest.
SD
Some feminist reading this will – no doubt – assume I got ripped by a wife or two. Not true. My wife is better educated, has more money and we are happy with each other although she thinks I spend too much time fighing feminist propaganda rather than just being happy. I spent too much time working as a social worker or in police work seeing children and men get screwed by a court system that seems to work in the best interests of NOW or the AAUW rather than the best interest of the family or children. So, can’t quit until fairness is achieved.
November 25th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
A RANT worthy of passing around.
November 25th, 2008 at 7:49 pm
Thanks Amfortas. I really appreciate your contributions and support. I “went off” and I usually get embarassed by typos, spelling errors. You know what some readers don’t … worked the bean fields, skipped school when young, some brain damage in the army. I always feel that some head up their butt college PhD femnist will get on board and take their red pen through what I write… smile
Have a nice Thanksgiving to you and the rest of the MND crew.
I feel somewhat safe after thirty comments have been made on a thread like this while assuming that only one or two more people will still be checking in at that point. I rant, therefore I am.
PS Cancer isn’t an issue this year, ran three miles today at decent pace. Hope things stay that way.
SD
November 25th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Steven, I passed it to my friend Percy who has taken the liberty of parsing your long paras and highlighting the splendid, heart-felt points. Attributed of course and to be seen at
http://antimisandry.com/chit-chat-main/womans-touch-friggin-holy-16705.html#post116920
I am glad to hear you are still going strong. Your brain is in insightful working order.
November 26th, 2008 at 7:09 am
While parsing perhaps someone could edit the spelling, typos too? smile. I went to that site and recognized it as one I visited once, old password, was there two years ago, password worked but I couldn’t add this note although I tried.
“- See, jazz always had this thing, having your own sound so all sorts of peoplewfho maybe couldn’t have made it in other arts – they’d've had their idiosyncracises ironed out like if they were writers they’d not’ve made it ’cause they couldn’t spell or puntuate or painting ’cause they couldn’t draw a straight line. Spelling and straight line stuff don’t matter necessarily in jazz, so there’s a whole bunch of guys whose stories and thoughts are not like anyone else’s who wouldn’t've had a chance to express all the ideas and shit they had inside them without jazz. Cats who in any other walk of life wouldn’t've made it as bankners and plumbers even: in jazz they could be geniuses, wihout it they’d've been nothing. Jazz can see things, draw things out of people that painting and writing don’t see. From: but beautiful, a book about Jazz by Geoff Dyer North Point Press (Might have been quoting F Monk)
Last note. Go to the Carey Roberts article on MND and see comment 5 I think… 1 in 4 women victims of DV. Women’s touch inhances, men – must be one in four, when they touch… women are harmed.
November 28th, 2008 at 7:24 am
@ steven deluca
Wow, Steven! That was a masterpiece.
Harry