Use the Scissors to Cut Out Risky Behavior
In a recent email, a reader told me that it is offensive when women joke about castration. His comment was in reference to a quote I gave from one of Maureen Dowd’s columns. Dowd’s remark was that a woman taking on the powerful was seen by men as "castrating". I replied that Dowd seemed to be whining, not joking. At the University of New Hampshire, there is a group of women singing about castration and they aren’t joking either. They are the Feminist Action League, (FAL). On March 10, they staged an event called "The Patriarchy Slam". The event included poetry readings, monologues skits and open microphone time. The women on stage talked about rape, abuse, connections between rape and porn, oppression, and women’s magazines that encourage women to give in to their mates’ sexual fantasies. If that wasn’t misandrist enough, the performance included a bit in which the women on stage wore scissors around their necks and led the audience in a song about castration.
According to Mike S. Adams column "Castration and tolerance at UNH", one FAL member said men are "the root cause of rape and oppression". All of them? Rapists and abusers comprise a small percentage of the male population. They do not represent all men.
The castration message is hypocritical. Advocating genital mutilation is just as bad, if not worse, than advocating rape. Rape and abuse are heinous crimes, but hating men, wearing scissors and griping won’t stop those crimes. If the FAL really cared about rape and abuse, they would work on prevention. One way to prevent abuse is to teach women to recognize signs of an abuser. Abusers often fit a profile: Extreme insecurity and suspiciousness, trying to control what their girlfriends wear, dictating who they can be friends with, etc. If women learn to recognize this profile, they can get out of relationships before violence starts.
It is true that women are sometimes raped no matter how careful they are. In other cases, there are risks women can avoid. Some prevention is environmental such as better street lighting, more security for campus housing, "escort" services to walk women safely to their cars, etc. Another type of prevention is personal. It is the avoidance of risky behavior and situations. Feminists often see this as excusing or condoning rape and abuse and/or as "blaming the victim" for it. Advising people to try to prevent burglary by keeping their doors locked isn’t seen as "blaming the victim" or condoning burglary. Why should advising women to avoid risky situations be viewed as such?
FAL members don’t seem to understand that. According to Shannon O’Neil’s article in the campus newspaper, "Man Hatred OK At University of New Hampshire", one speaker at the "Patriarchy Slam" said that men had told her that dancing provocatively at clubs is "just asking" for rape. The speaker continued by asking, "Why does my dancing have to be about pleasing them? Why can’t it just be about me?" In a society, nothing public can "just be about me". No woman ever asks to be raped. Dressing or dancing provocatively does not excuse rape. However, some crime prevention tips state that it might be a factor in victim selection.
If the FAL really cared about preventing rape, they would educate students about avoiding alcohol abuse and "hook-ups". Binge drinking has been on the rise among female college students. According to a Harvard study, nearly three fourths of campus rapes occurred when the victim was so intoxicated that she couldn’t consent or refuse. Women should try to drink little or no alcohol on dates with men they don’t know well. Inebriation can cause women to loose touch with their internal warning systems that send up red flags when something isn’t right. All of the rape prevention tips I’ve read tell women to pay attention to those gut feelings. Intoxication also impairs one’s judgement of risk. The influence of alcohol can also lead to mixed signals and miscommunication that can culminate in a date rape situation. In some situations, the men, (usually also inebriated), thought the women did consent.
Feminist groups send mixed messages about sex. Some of them consider all sex to be rape. Others, like the one who wanted her provocative dancing to "just be about me", see unrestrained sexuality as liberation. The liberation and pleasure seeking that encourages casual sex and "hook-ups" can lead to dangerous situations. When a woman meets a man at a party or a bar, she knows nothing about him – not even if he’s using his real name. He could be the nicest guy in town or a serial killer. There is no way to tell without getting to know him better. A safer way to get to know a man is to meet him for dates in public places like restaurants or coffee shops. When a woman goes alone to the home of a man she doesn’t know, she places herself at risk for date rape, abuse or worse.
Rape and abuse won’t be stopped with monologues, poetry, skits or wearing scissors while singing about castration. It may become rarer if women take steps to protect themselves. Isn’t that an element of empowerment?
Ó Eva Ellsworth, 04/10/05, all rights reserved
According to Mike S. Adams column "Castration and tolerance at UNH", one FAL member said men are "the root cause of rape and oppression". All of them? Rapists and abusers comprise a small percentage of the male population. They do not represent all men.
The castration message is hypocritical. Advocating genital mutilation is just as bad, if not worse, than advocating rape. Rape and abuse are heinous crimes, but hating men, wearing scissors and griping won’t stop those crimes. If the FAL really cared about rape and abuse, they would work on prevention. One way to prevent abuse is to teach women to recognize signs of an abuser. Abusers often fit a profile: Extreme insecurity and suspiciousness, trying to control what their girlfriends wear, dictating who they can be friends with, etc. If women learn to recognize this profile, they can get out of relationships before violence starts.
It is true that women are sometimes raped no matter how careful they are. In other cases, there are risks women can avoid. Some prevention is environmental such as better street lighting, more security for campus housing, "escort" services to walk women safely to their cars, etc. Another type of prevention is personal. It is the avoidance of risky behavior and situations. Feminists often see this as excusing or condoning rape and abuse and/or as "blaming the victim" for it. Advising people to try to prevent burglary by keeping their doors locked isn’t seen as "blaming the victim" or condoning burglary. Why should advising women to avoid risky situations be viewed as such?
FAL members don’t seem to understand that. According to Shannon O’Neil’s article in the campus newspaper, "Man Hatred OK At University of New Hampshire", one speaker at the "Patriarchy Slam" said that men had told her that dancing provocatively at clubs is "just asking" for rape. The speaker continued by asking, "Why does my dancing have to be about pleasing them? Why can’t it just be about me?" In a society, nothing public can "just be about me". No woman ever asks to be raped. Dressing or dancing provocatively does not excuse rape. However, some crime prevention tips state that it might be a factor in victim selection.
If the FAL really cared about preventing rape, they would educate students about avoiding alcohol abuse and "hook-ups". Binge drinking has been on the rise among female college students. According to a Harvard study, nearly three fourths of campus rapes occurred when the victim was so intoxicated that she couldn’t consent or refuse. Women should try to drink little or no alcohol on dates with men they don’t know well. Inebriation can cause women to loose touch with their internal warning systems that send up red flags when something isn’t right. All of the rape prevention tips I’ve read tell women to pay attention to those gut feelings. Intoxication also impairs one’s judgement of risk. The influence of alcohol can also lead to mixed signals and miscommunication that can culminate in a date rape situation. In some situations, the men, (usually also inebriated), thought the women did consent.
Feminist groups send mixed messages about sex. Some of them consider all sex to be rape. Others, like the one who wanted her provocative dancing to "just be about me", see unrestrained sexuality as liberation. The liberation and pleasure seeking that encourages casual sex and "hook-ups" can lead to dangerous situations. When a woman meets a man at a party or a bar, she knows nothing about him – not even if he’s using his real name. He could be the nicest guy in town or a serial killer. There is no way to tell without getting to know him better. A safer way to get to know a man is to meet him for dates in public places like restaurants or coffee shops. When a woman goes alone to the home of a man she doesn’t know, she places herself at risk for date rape, abuse or worse.
Rape and abuse won’t be stopped with monologues, poetry, skits or wearing scissors while singing about castration. It may become rarer if women take steps to protect themselves. Isn’t that an element of empowerment?
Ó Eva Ellsworth, 04/10/05, all rights reserved
6 Comments:
Recently, a male friend, not the first, told me about being sexually abused by an older female when he was twelve. She gave him marijuana, booze, and then ... it was disgusting for him.
I told him that I had been a board member of a national men's group and that his story was not the first I had heard. I then told him about my grandmother when I was three, and the years of therapy, because of nightly visits, held down, (If this were the Vagina Monologues I could be more graffic) rubbing her vagina on my face, smothering me, saying the devil would take me if I told.
Maybe future Vagina Monologues can include at least one such story???
I told him that as a boy I had learned that we don't cry to our mothers or women teachers, and male coaches because we would be (not all boys but enough of us) humiliated for our tears, for noticing our pain.
I then asked if he had seen the movie "Antoine Fisher" or read a book by a female author, and MD named Lewis, both showing small boys harmed sexually by adult women - Lewis told the story of one seriel killer (Lewis pairs child abuse with brain damage as part of the male seriel killer package) who denied having been abused as a child. When she talked to his siblings they told her that he had been forced, at age six, to have oral sex with his mom and sex with his siblings, and maybe his car wreck, brain damage, made him forget some of that.
I have gone to sexual assault awareness programs, been handed a lapel pin (to show solidarity with female victims we were told, after an hour or two of male bashing) and put it on. Women their smiled thinking, well, maybe this man "gets it".
I am physically unable to put words to my abuse in public, especially around women. I have done it in therapy, I can't in public. Females (my twin sister isn't one of them) generally were taught to express such sad feelings, to get support for horrible experiences, and most feel comfortable telling others about abuse by males.
What I say to men and women is, while bitches are out wanting to castrate men, a sick form of revenge, I wonder two things: Who will, when they find the man innocent later, attach his cock for him. And how will we do physical harm to women who attacked boys - damage equal to genital mutilation that serves as a warning to all those other owners who might misuse their vaginas? (Most child abuse comes from mothers, and most injuries and deaths are to boys but you won't learn that from feminists who have programs where they were scissors around necks) What is the proper torture, maiming, to use agains a woman that causes a boy not to be able to breath, to suffocate a child with a cunt, to terrorize, shall we rip out the uterus, burn the labia, so that ... what?
Our culture attacks the male organ, you can see bumper stickers with "Don't be a dick" ... to castrate for revenge is evil, to think of is is sick.
What the men I mentioned above have in common besides sexual abuse is that we don't tell out story, we hide our hurt, and there are not feminist studies that include our names as part of a T shirt project. We are not part of a safe house statistic, or police report ... and it's our silence, that makes our abuse the secret and allows women to treat men as pigs and women as angels or victims.
So, castrating bitches, do you want your sisters reamed with a large drill, as punishment for sexually abusing boys, or shall we evolve to a higher level and notice that most men and women are equal, most are good, and some, including rapists and sick bitches are not. A gender war and attacking male sexual organs will not stop sexual abuse. To continue to attack males as the source of all evil will cause some boys to grow up wanting revenge: not a good plan.
SD
Thanks Steve.
I was similarly abused by an aunt when I was eight.
On the rare occasions I've told others about this the response has generally been along the lines of "what a lucky little boy you were". Every woman I've spoken to responded along these lines.
Thanks Steve.
I was similarly abused by an aunt when I was eight.
On the rare occasions I've told others about this the response has generally been along the lines of "what a lucky little boy you were". Every woman I've spoken to responded along those lines. A few men have been sympathetic. On one occasion - a political party meeting during which discussion of sexual abuse and paedophilia took place - I was asked angrily by one woman how many children I'd raped. I'd made the mistake of suggesting that maybe women did it too. Even admitting my own abuse didn't elicit an apology.
I'm finally in counselling - which I should add I only qualify for because my mother was sexually abused.
The double standard is breathtaking.
Sorry about the double post!
Actually triple post. I dont mind my real name being here.
I think we are going to see more "cause and effect" every time the radicals push these views. If you have an event that basically attacks men as rapists and abusers, men are not going to be happy with the accusation and resent women for slandering them.
Likewise, naming whites as oppressive racists and blacks as innocent victims creates animosity on campuses where those old roles are revisited.
Even in the public schools the "white male" is so demonized and ridiculed that it's no wonder those schools are creating enraged white nihilists like Harris and Klebold.
It is the political left that is doing this. They relentlessly attack straw men until the slandered party has no choice but to join the battle or drop out of the conversation. Men aren't generally rapists or mysogynists, but they are increasingly frustrated being branded as such.
The activists can march around with scissors and encourage hatred of men all they want. They won't accomplish anything except generating more animosity - and isn't that what leftist activism is all about?
Today I read a NH newspaper article about the [Feminist Action League Political group] at UNH and I was dismayed. I am a former graduate of the University of New Hampshire, and I feel hurt and ashamed that many students of my school, including the FAL, are choosing to hate and are supporting discrimination and/or the hate of people. It looks like the FAL at UNH is building the hate of men. I am dismayed by this action as well.
Before I was 10 years old, I was attacked and knocked unconscious by a 25 year old man who I believed was my friend. I cannot say I know what rape, or recovery from rape is like, so I will not claim that I do know what rape is like, or that I know in any way what it is like to be a rape survivor.
But I know what it is like to be viciously attacked by a violent, dangerous man [who was 250 pounds, and three times my size], and was able to do and did anything that he wanted to my body. The fear and anger I have towards this man is a huge fear and anger that I feel for no other person.
This man was an ex-soldier. 98 out of 100 or more soldiers and ex-soldiers are not like this bad man. He was part of a small minority of people in the 1970s who believed that violence to children and women or other innocent people was an ok thing to do. He was wrong. But I do not say or hint that a single person, or a group of people should attack this man with knives or scissors. The UNH FAL says, or hints, or jokes, that attacks with knives and scissors is an ok thing to do to some criminals or other people.
The FAL group at UNH has said many things that I think are wrong. The [UNH] FAL has hinted that mutilating the organs of a Rapist is ok. Dissmembering anyone is wrong. Damaging the organs of any man is wrong. Damaging the organs of any woman is wrong. Damaging the organs of any child is wrong. And the UNH FAL's saying or hinting that a rapist should be castrated, or have any part of his body damaged is also wrong. If you want to give every rapist 99 years in prison, I probably would be fine with that. The FAL at UNH has said that a penis is a sign of power in the USA, and attacking a symbolic penis is a sign of destroying power. This is wrong. We dont use symbolism that creates a hatred of men's or women's private parts or use symbolism that creates the [hatred of men or women].
When I was 9 years old, I was in a grade school class. There were people I wanted to see in the hall. I got up without permission, and ran out with some friends. I got halfway to the door, the woman teacher grabbed my arm, and threw me into stack of metal chairs. This was an abuse of her power. You dont get violent with any child who is doing no harm.
Since this teacher was taller and stronger than me, she had power over me. Should I stage a meeting protesting her, and in that meeting-tell stories about getting a group to attack her? That is a tactic the UNH FAL used. Should I have a meeting singing songs about cutting away her private part? That is a tactic that the UNH FAL used. At a meeting, should I sing a song about cutting away her private part or use pictures and scissors to symbolically cut away her private part? This is a tactic the UNH FAL has used. And from what I hear, the UNH FAL used other forms of newspapers, literature or other media or forms of expression to hint at mutilating someone's private parts. I am really mad and upset that people of my college would express hatred or express a call to violence against people in this way, and that they did this bad thing in public as well..
There are better ways to protect women, other than to call for violence or [hint at doing violence]to people that you don't like. What grandmother wants her 5 year old daughter to find a photo of the grandmother holding a sign that says "cut the testicles off a rapist?" Could you proudly say to a 5 year old child that you did such a thing? The emotional damage that this can do to a 5 year old child woul be gigantic.
I ask that the UNH FAL, or any other similar feminist group use methods to protect women in positive ways. Instead of: writing a "attack a rapist story," or writing a " kill men, or hate men story , or writing a: attack somone's body with scissors or knives song, or attack somone with knives skit, a woman in college could do something that WILL help reduce sexual attacks against women. A woman in college could have spent that time asking a police station how to get educated on how not to get sexually assaulted and took classes that teach her self defense, and how to defend herself against being raped. A college woman could take a woman or women that she knows to classes at police stations that educate rape prevention, or a self defense class that teaches rape prevention.
We do not blame or hate a single group, like men, or women, or republicans, or logorithim teachers, or whoever for a type of crime. I could stand on my from yard, burn manequins that look like convicted murderers, and wave a rifle at the people walking by and say: "kill all the murderers! Hey you! sir or ma'am! are you a murderer? If I find out you are, someone will kill you!"
This will get people to notice that I am against murder, which like rape, is a crime. But most of the people who would see me use such extreme behavior to help my political goal, will think that I am: extreme, hateful, careless, and that my extreme speeches actions might make things dangerous for me and other people in my town.
I hear from news and printed newspapers that many UNH people hate rape. I hate rape too. But using politics, speech and actions that hint or promote the Hate of rapists and men, or the Hate of rapists OR men, creates MORE hate. If I say that I hate someone people, that makes people hate me.
I ask you, please be careful that what you say does not encourage violence to people. Please be careful that what you say does not hint that it is ok to be violent to people.
Please be careful that the political things you say do not encourage people to [hate people or be violent to other people].
Please take steps against rape that make people think that you are helping someone, and not steps that express hatred to men or other people. If I attack a man who hates with hate, I am not being any better than he is. If I attack a rapist [a rapist is a violent man or woman,] with violence, I am being just as criminal and violent as that rapist.
Making men look like the worst people on earth, or showing a drawing that makes people hate men, or making a speech that makes people hate men, or making a speech that hints that we should [attack men or somone] with a knife or other object, creates the sort of culture that none of us wants. A culture that is violent.
Please, people of UNH, please friends of the people at UNH, please, all people, do not use violence or hate against people, or suggest doing violence or hate to other people. Saying that [violence and hate are ok against men or anyone]is what gave us rapists to begin with.
Instead, please teach men, women and children how to find classes that stop rape. Please teach men, women and children how to defend their bodies against rape. Please teach people how to defend their bodies from attack and to keep their bodies free from attack wherever they go. Dont teach violence against men or hate against men. Dont teach violence against people or teach hate against people.
Instead, please teach people how not to hate, teach how not to hate other genders, teach how not to hate other people,teach people how to defend themselves, teach people how to respect women and all people, teach how not to treat rape or violence as a joke, teach people how to be safe anywhere they go. I believe that this is the best Rape prevention and rape prevention politics imaginable.
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