About 40 years ago we started "speaking out against violence," rather than dangling the perpetrators from trees. How's that working out so far?
Posted on 10/28/2009 6:51:38 PM PDT by libh8er
All men are potential rapists. Agree or disagree?
That's a claim by Aurea Flynn, speaking for Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter, in the wake of a brutal sex attack this weekend on a 24-year-old woman in Vancouver's upscale West Point Grey.
I spent about 20 minutes Monday talking to Flynn about rape, and agreed with nearly everything she said.
Rape is about power and control, domination by a man over a woman — check.
Sexual assault is so widespread that one in four Canadian women will experience it — check.
Men need to speak out against violence against women, because our gender is to blame — check.
But I am not a potential rapist, and I don't think Flynn's claim is in any way helpful.
Painting all men with the same brush greatly hampers the co-operation between genders that's needed to properly address our epidemic of sexual violence.
I get where Flynn is coming from. The fact that the threat of male violence restricts the freedom of women, and keeps them living with a constant undercurrent of fear, is profoundly unjust. Sexual attacks cause life-long damage. And far too many of my gender believe that women are lesser beings than men, that their rights in every area are somehow subservient to ours.
We should all be as angry as Flynn.
But the approach of Stephanie Reifferscheid, of Vancouver's Women Against Violence Against Women's rape crisis centre, makes a great deal more sense.
"All men have the capacity to be loving, caring, respectful human beings," Reifferscheid says.
Sadly, many men fail to exercise that capacity.
Rapes by acquaintances and sexual violence within relationships occur much more frequently than stranger attacks, such as the one Sunday in which a man repeatedly punched and then sexually assaulted a woman out walking. But all varieties of sexual violence reflect "a sense of entitlement towards women and women's bodies," Reifferscheid says.
It was only in the 1980s that it became illegal for Canadian men to rape their wives, she notes.
Sexualization of women in the media leads them to be valued as objects of male gratification, rather than for the intellectual and professional abilities they share equally with men.
Not only does this devaluation hinder social and economic equality, it helps turn women into potential victims of the ultimate male power trip: rape.
Reifferscheid points out that, while men commonly commit random physical, non-sexual attacks against other men, when a man is randomly attacking a woman, the violence is often sexual. The man is hitting her where, in his mind, her value rests: in her sexuality.
Men need to start paying more attention to the value we and our friends and associates put on women, and ensure that our words and actions do not reinforce the inequality between the sexes.
At a broader level, says Reifferscheid, politicians and policymakers must make women's equality a central focus of governance, to set societal standards that put women on the same level as men.
We men are not all potential rapists. But we owe it to women to give them the value that is their due, as equals to men in every way — except perhaps when it comes to arm-wrestling and peeing your name in the snow.
>Rape is about power and control, domination by a man over a woman — check.
Then explain the several woman-teacher rapes male-student stories we’ve heard just this year.
>Sexual assault is so widespread that one in four Canadian women will experience it — check.
And Women’s Suffrage is so widespread that MORE than 9 in 10 women will experience it in either the US or Canada!
>Men need to speak out against violence against women, because our gender is to blame — check.
Ah, so the blame rests squarely on men... kinda like how the blame for World War One was laid on Germany? My question is where the Male version of Versailles was held (and when)...
I guess some of us will just never reach our potential.
Monkeys do. And we’re just big smart monkeys, right? That’s what the darwinists tell us.
Not Lindsey Graham. He’s missing two essential ingredients
I have never been capable of rape, but should anyone rape one of my loved ones, I am extremely capable of murder.
bttt
That's one hundred percent horse manure. I am sure their definition of rape includes looking at a woman with "bad" intentions.
Oh, my. Andrea Dworkin has risen from the grave.
Right on Gator!
Ping.
Waiting for local news to come on.
What ever happened to assault with a friendly weapon
I will never rape a women. I am way more likely to kill someone than sexually abuse another human.
This guy has issues.
About 40 years ago we started "speaking out against violence," rather than dangling the perpetrators from trees. How's that working out so far?
“Speaking out” - is that a euphemism for beating the crap out of the pervert and then beating him some more? If it’s not I don’t see the value in it.
Or am I not allowed to say the word “pervert” anymore? It’s not like we can make any judgements about someone’s sexual behavior until after the rape occurs - since that might actually prevent the crime in the first place - instead we “speak out” after the fact and then pat ourselves on the back about how “loving, caring and respectful” we are.
Silly assertions are always the product of tiny minds. The word "potential" simply means having the ability. That's a fact.
Just as it is a fact that all women are potential rapists, too.
So I'm certainly not taking this idiot's statement seriously enough to write an entire column in rebuttal. None is necessary.
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