Feminism

[harmless]

I think I know what's happening here. Men are passive-aggressive enough to make women think they're victimised.

[BurtReynolds]

I'm glad someone here knows what is happening. I've been lost for about 15 pages.

[harmless]

Well, I'm no guide, but I'm by your side.

[mookie]

there's a reason for that - men are more aggressive towards women and more capable of acting on that aggression in such a way that cuts to the heart of the origins of that aggression - sexual assault.

Society already knows this though, because, ....stats.

"What could be the gender symmetrical type of 'assault' that an aggressive women might use within an inter-personal relationship, if not sexual assault?"

Some studies are suggesting that women just aren't the subject of scrutiny as much as men are. Data taken from asymmetrical arrests due to domestic violence are not telling the whole story.

This is for harmless -> The fact that we don't even ask the equivalent questions isn't going to help women in the long run. Suggesting that I have a man bias is not really a great argument.

Only domestic violence analysts are asking the questions that hope for honest female answers. Feminism isn't allowing those kinds of questions, because ohh I dont know....women are sacred vessels above reproach even though we have absolutely no credible stats or studies to back up that claim.

[harmless]

Women are the biggest offenders when it comes to delivering passive aggressive abuse.

You have nothing to back this up. You've heard of 'gas lighting' in cases of sexual assault and domestic abuse / violence, right? Literally baffled at your opinions here.

Literally baffled that you obviously didn't read the study I posted on the prior page.

I did. And these conclusions do nothing to contradict anything I've said, namely that the odds are stacked heavily on the side of men being perpetrators of violence against women on a significant systemic level, which DOES NOT mean that violence is never carried out by women, but that as these conclusions show, it is largely in response to factors that men use to control. These men (and here's the passive-aggressive part) know that culture will almost always end up defending them and their rights, particularly if they have power / economic and social standing:

"Although these results are preliminary, this report indicates that the overwhelming majority of these women were victims of violence themselves. Participants were more likely to experience coercive control, sexual coercion, injury, and stalking than they were to commit these behaviors against their partners. Many participants appear to be battered women who have used violence, as indicated by scores on the Women’s Experiences of Battering and Fear of Partner scales. Women’s motivations for their behaviors were complex and indicated that violence was often multiply determined by different motivations. Many women used violence in self defense, but many also used violence to control their partners. Jealousy was a frequent motivator of women’s violence. Most women were dealing with many challenges in addition to relationship violence, including extreme poverty and a range of mental health difficulties. In addition, the majority of women had endured traumatic childhood abuse. These data suggest that the context of women’s use of violence differs in many ways from that of male violence with intimate partners. A greater understanding of the variety of reactions women have to abuse, including mental health difficulties, substance use, and fighting back, is needed to improve the criminal justice system’s responses to women involved in domestic violence."

Again, you seem to think I'm saying that women can never be violent. I'm not.

[harmless]

This is for harmless -> The fact that we don't even ask the equivalent questions isn't going to help women in the long run. Suggesting that I have a man bias is not really a great argument.

Only domestic violence analysts are asking the questions that hope for honest female answers. Feminism isn't allowing those kinds of questions, because ohh I dont know....women are sacred vessels above reproach even though we have absolutely no credible stats or studies to back up that claim.

You started by saying "We know this because stats", and now you're saying "We have absolutely no credible stats"? What the actual fuck? No, sorry, but I'm convinced you're trolling or someone's had you fooled.

[harmless]

By the way, a writer friend of mine has just completed a poetry project called 'Against Rape', where she collected a bunch of poets speaking out against rape, and many of them having been victims themselves. A minority were men. So honestly, this isn't about me erasing anything that actually, like, happens in life.

[mookie]

Women are the biggest offenders when it comes to delivering passive aggressive abuse.

You have nothing to back this up. You've heard of 'gas lighting' in cases of sexual assault and domestic abuse / violence, right? Literally baffled at your opinions here.

Literally baffled that you obviously didn't read the study I posted on the prior page.

I did. And these conclusions do nothing to contradict anything I've said, namely that the odds are stacked heavily on the side of men being perpetrators of violence against women on a significant systemic level, which DOES NOT mean that violence is never carried out by women, but that as these conclusions show, it is largely in response to factors that men use to control. These men (and here's the passive-aggressive part) know that culture will almost always end up defending them and their rights, particularly if they have power / economic and social standing:

"Although these results are preliminary, this report indicates that the overwhelming majority of these women were victims of violence themselves. Participants were more likely to experience coercive control, sexual coercion, injury, and stalking than they were to commit these behaviors against their partners. Many participants appear to be battered women who have used violence, as indicated by scores on the Women’s Experiences of Battering and Fear of Partner scales. Women’s motivations for their behaviors were complex and indicated that violence was often multiply determined by different motivations. Many women used violence in self defense, but many also used violence to control their partners. Jealousy was a frequent motivator of women’s violence. Most women were dealing with many challenges in addition to relationship violence, including extreme poverty and a range of mental health difficulties. In addition, the majority of women had endured traumatic childhood abuse. These data suggest that the context of women’s use of violence differs in many ways from that of male violence with intimate partners. A greater understanding of the variety of reactions women have to abuse, including mental health difficulties, substance use, and fighting back, is needed to improve the criminal justice system’s responses to women involved in domestic violence."

Again, you seem to think I'm saying that women can never be violent. I'm not.

Never once did I say that you were saying that women can never be violent. I was simply saying ok, men are aggrressive. That's settled, now let's work on the women's side of things. Women can be violent. They aren't as physically violent as men. Their violence is more or less namecalling, stalking, covert obstruction, etc.

Those are all acts that are illegal under domestic violence laws.

[harmless]

Women are the biggest offenders when it comes to delivering passive aggressive abuse.

You have nothing to back this up. You've heard of 'gas lighting' in cases of sexual assault and domestic abuse / violence, right? Literally baffled at your opinions here.

Literally baffled that you obviously didn't read the study I posted on the prior page.

I did. And these conclusions do nothing to contradict anything I've said, namely that the odds are stacked heavily on the side of men being perpetrators of violence against women on a significant systemic level, which DOES NOT mean that violence is never carried out by women, but that as these conclusions show, it is largely in response to factors that men use to control. These men (and here's the passive-aggressive part) know that culture will almost always end up defending them and their rights, particularly if they have power / economic and social standing:

"Although these results are preliminary, this report indicates that the overwhelming majority of these women were victims of violence themselves. Participants were more likely to experience coercive control, sexual coercion, injury, and stalking than they were to commit these behaviors against their partners. Many participants appear to be battered women who have used violence, as indicated by scores on the Women’s Experiences of Battering and Fear of Partner scales. Women’s motivations for their behaviors were complex and indicated that violence was often multiply determined by different motivations. Many women used violence in self defense, but many also used violence to control their partners. Jealousy was a frequent motivator of women’s violence. Most women were dealing with many challenges in addition to relationship violence, including extreme poverty and a range of mental health difficulties. In addition, the majority of women had endured traumatic childhood abuse. These data suggest that the context of women’s use of violence differs in many ways from that of male violence with intimate partners. A greater understanding of the variety of reactions women have to abuse, including mental health difficulties, substance use, and fighting back, is needed to improve the criminal justice system’s responses to women involved in domestic violence."

Again, you seem to think I'm saying that women can never be violent. I'm not.

Never once did I say that you were saying that women can never be violent. I was simply saying ok, men are aggrressive. That's settled, now let's work on the women's side of things. Women can be violent. They aren't as physically violent as men. Their violence is more or less namecalling, stalking, covert obstruction, etc.

Those are all acts that are illegal under domestic violence laws.

Men do all of the above too; there is no binary that says men use 'brute strength' and women are 'passive-aggressive'. The only people I've ever seen argue that cliche were men. Whereas I have spoken to women who were verbally and psychologically and subtly abused by their husbands who, again, knew that at the end of the day, they would come out smiling but the woman wouldn't. Because society is fucking awful.

[harmless]

Every societal protection under the sun is in place for men who have been violent and / or abusive. Let's see what happens to Woody Allen.

[mookie]

Every societal protection under the sun is in place for men who have been violent and / or abusive.

One way to correct this problem would be mandatory symmetrical arrests if the police are called out. Only we should call them something other than "arrests."

"Time outs" in a facility built for the immediate sorting out of who was the aggressor and who was the victim.

[harmless]

To speak of "symmetrical" treatment implies that you think the problem isn't weighted heavily on one side. There is no symmetry; we're not talking just about arrests, we're talking about a patriarchal judicial system and a media-influenced public opinion, a network of safety for men to escape (or just avoid) public suspicion completely. There is no blank slate from which to start from. Neither can you argue that the problems of systemic racism will be fixed by saying "Can't we all just get along?" (always a privileged opinion). Nor the problems of disability hate crime. That also assumes we can just start from a blank slate. But no, we need anti-racism movements and we need movements by people of colour to address the imbalances.

[harmless]

And, I would argue, we need feminism.

Maybe you're just saying "Let's not have a feminism that only cares about women", in which case I would agree, and I'm wasting my breath. But I have to say, I've never read or listened to any of that kind of feminism anyway. What I read is generally intelligent and well-articulated. If feminist writing and thinking is bad, it's not the fault of feminism, it's the fault of bad writers and thinkers.

[mookie]

And, I would argue, we need feminism.

Maybe you're just saying "Let's not have a feminism that only cares about women", in which case I would agree, and I'm wasting my breath. But I have to say, I've never read or listened to any of that kind of feminism anyway. What I read is generally intelligent and well-articulated. If feminist writing and thinking is bad, it's not the fault of feminism, it's the fault of bad writers and thinkers.

It's also the namesake for the obstruction of gathering good data, regrettably.

And this

"Let's not have a feminism that only cares about women"


I can agree with that.


Logging out now on that good note.

[harmless]

And, I would argue, we need feminism.

Maybe you're just saying "Let's not have a feminism that only cares about women", in which case I would agree, and I'm wasting my breath. But I have to say, I've never read or listened to any of that kind of feminism anyway. What I read is generally intelligent and well-articulated. If feminist writing and thinking is bad, it's not the fault of feminism, it's the fault of bad writers and thinkers.

It's also the namesake for the obstruction of gathering good data, regrettably.

And this

"Let's not have a feminism that only cares about women"


I can agree with that.


Logging out now on that good note.

That's why I like Intersectionality, whose thinkers are primarily women of colour. It thinks about different oppressions on every level: how they intersect, and how people in different groups have different privileges and disadvantages in relation to others. It thinks more about systemic oppression than individual cat-fights. In fact, individual cat-fights are fine because they're the only way things get done sometimes. But it generally works to redress these social imbalances that I'm arguing exist. Feminism needs to be a thing because the scales need rebalancing. Same goes for any human rights movement.

[mookie]

Men do all of the above too; there is no binary that says men use 'brute strength' and women are 'passive-aggressive'. The only people I've ever seen argue that cliche were men. Whereas I have spoken to women who were verbally and psychologically and subtly abused by their husbands who, again, knew that at the end of the day, they would come out smiling but the woman wouldn't. Because society is fucking awful.

You're right, there is no binary of the sort. Would it be wrong if we tried to establish one? Only men are speaking of that cliche? hmm, I figured it was just benevolent sexism on both sides. Because that's how society rolls.

You've talked to female abuse victims, but have you ever talked to a battered man?

[mookie]

That's why I like Intersectionality, ...

It thinks more about systemic oppression than individual cat-fights. In fact, individual cat-fights are fine because they're the only way things get done sometimes. But it generally works to redress these social imbalances that I'm arguing exist. Feminism needs to be a thing because the scales need rebalancing. Same goes for any human rights movement.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. It's ok to initiate a cat fight in order to get shit done?

[harmless]

That's why I like Intersectionality, ...

It thinks more about systemic oppression than individual cat-fights. In fact, individual cat-fights are fine because they're the only way things get done sometimes. But it generally works to redress these social imbalances that I'm arguing exist. Feminism needs to be a thing because the scales need rebalancing. Same goes for any human rights movement.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. It's ok to initiate a cat fight in order to get shit done?

Yes. One person's 'cat-fight' is another person's 'uncomfortable debate'; disagreement, compromise and argument are all necessary to move forward. There is no homogeneous movement.

[harmless]

Which is a fairly uncontroversial statement in my opinion, but no doubt you'll pick holes in it.

[mookie]

Which is a fairly uncontroversial statement in my opinion, but no doubt you'll pick holes in it.

Nah, I'm going to think about that for awhile. The statement has merit.