12-13-2017, 11:30 AM
I am married to someone who was accused of rape, and it effectively ruined his life from age 17-20. Guess what? He still thinks that this "boogeyman" of false rape allegations is just another way to oppress women. The fact is, she falsely accused him of rape because she was afraid of her father punishing her for having consensual sex. It was still out of fear of what an abusive man in her life might do to her, so this was a means of protecting herself. He holds no anger towards her whatsoever.
As far as the rest of the thread goes, I see in myself where I may have some failings in my attempts at communication. My first big failing, is that often when I reply to posts, I am not replying to the person who I am seeming to reply to, I am addressing the forum at large, the countless lurkers who will read my posts in perpetuity. That causes me to look at explaining the bigger picture, which causes me to ignore the nuances of the interaction with the person's words I am directly addressing. This comes to a head when someone like Joseph posts very strong opinions that are based on events that have happened to him and those close to him, when I'm trying to look at trends for the greater picture. So, I accidentally invalidate one person's experiences while trying to validate the experiences of a larger group.
The other thing I fail to take into consideration thoroughly when making a post, is that my in-person human is very small, gentle, and soft-spoken. I think the people who have met me can vouch that there is nothing intimidating or aggressive about my demeanor in person. So, I think it's possible that I take that gentleness in my physical demeanor for granted, and I don't account for how people *read my words* independent of knowing from physical proximity that I don't have a mean bone or ulterior motive residing within me. So, integrating that gentleness into an online demeanor is something I need to work on. HOWEVER, on the flip side, I want to point out how lopsided it is, not just here but everywhere, that when a woman has an opinion and speaks her mind, she is often considered "shrill" and "forceful", or other connotations of these types. I feel a part of that is being projected onto my words, because sometimes I really fail to see where I failed so poorly in my delivery that someone could misconstrue me as being judgemental, manipulative, attacking, etc.
I think talking about the issues that men face is a legitimate conversation that should be had often. HOWEVER, I don't think it should be *in lieu of* talking about the issues that women face. I wish we could start the conversation from a place of legitimacy, but maybe that's asking too much. It's just when we get all these strawmen about things that "women in power" have done, it seems like we're on a different planet. For instance, Dante's initial OP has many, many strawmen - specifically that the media doesn't talk about sexual abuse of women to men/boys. Dante specifically mentions teachers who have sex with their students, but still giving the straw man that "nobody talks about it". Women who have sex with their male students are definitely paraded through the media.
Another example of a strawman that I would like to address was one small one that Joseph made. Joseph, you said something along the lines (I can't find the specific line) about how he hates that when women say that all men are part of the patriarchy, that it hurts you. But I haven't seen anyone here make any claims of the such, so defending yourself from that opinion is a waste of energy. You've also claimed that "it's okay to beat men but you can't hit a woman" - when has that been okay??? Another one was that you said that "We can't replace the patriarchy with a matriarchy" and that is so far from what is happening right now that it's hardly worth addressing.
I also am quite shocked to hear complaints about pop culture's portrayal of men in general through media. You complained about Star Trek TNG, where many of the themes are inherently sexist. I could probably recount each episode I watch anew in this thread. Last night, Deanna was forced into an arranged marriage, but her suitor had been dreaming of another women his whole life, and later on she appeared, so he abandoned Deanna and his family without saying anything to them to run away with her. 99.9999% of modern stories involve having a "damsel in distress" and a man who rescues her, and it's not in a balanced way. Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? The Bechdel test is a simple test for movie scripts: Are there two women in the story, who have a conversation about something other than one of the male characters? Most major films FAIL this test, and most film courses in college teach students that their scripts HAVE to fail this test to be accepted by a major production!! So when I hear that Fez had to dress like a lady, I'm not exactly feeling like he's being systemically oppressed by society. The fact that you find insult when you see a man in a dress is further engaging with the stereotype of women being weak and lesser than men - and the fact is, it's MEN who perpetuate these negative thoughts, men who continue to make you feel bad for identifying with a woman - not other women.
It seems to me that men find comfort in the current paradigm, and this is causing them subconsciously to continue to reinforce the current paradigm, because they are scared of the shift. Possibly legitimate fears, fearing a "matriarchy" is isn't *that* out of bounds, considering our current state of imbalance (though not likely to happen), fearing that you might lose your job for something you did that you felt was "consensual" in the moment but a decade later someone gets the courage to admit that you abused your power over them, that's a legitimate fear. Fearing that what was once okay behavior is no longer okay, and being in the dark about where the current line is. Fearing that women will become "too independent" and no longer see men as a necessary part of their lives, where before a woman was definitely ostracized for not being betrothed. I mean, science has literally made the reproductive function of men obsolete, so as we continue to remove men's "roles" there are vacuums left. There are a lot of shifts happening, and men are losing a lot of advantages over women and in society in general, and I can understand how that's scary and undesirable, and how it feels like your rank in society is being lowered. But you must instead see it as women being *elevated* from their position of repression, and not in a dangerous way to the point where we are going to have some complete shift of power where we will go anywhere near the extreme to which we still currently exist.
Let me give you my most recent example, from media:
There is a new show on Netflix called Godless. Kile's mom was super excited and loved the show, and Kile is a huge fan of westerns, so we decided to give it a chance. The premise is that there is a "town full of women", who were left behind after a mining accident killed all but one of the men. Sounded like an interesting premise, but after two episodes, it was very clear that all of the main characters were men (there are about a dozen of them) and by the end of the second episode, we actually only knew the names of *maybe* four of the women. Episode two was actually titled "The Ladies of La Belle" and there was ONE SCENE that had about 10 women, and they were having a discussion with a mining company about working their claim. Ideally what they wanted was 50/50 ownership of the mine, and there was one woman - the one who dresses like a man and later beds the sexy ex-whore school marm - who stood her ground and had any strength of character. All of the other women outvoted her with a bribe of $20,000 and the promise of 150 men to come to their town, and gave 90% of the claim away to the mining company.
A scene later shows one of the main characters being held in the jail, and him and the deputy are surrounded by baked goods, because the women are so desperate for a man that they are seducing an outlaw. In the scene with the mining company, one of the women explicitly says that everyone who has come through since the men have died has tried to take advantage of them, but even with that foresight, apparently the women are just completely helpless to any man's charms. These are the Ladies of La Belle.
This show was made in 2017. The period it is set in is not excuse. Their premise was intriguing and could have been excellent, instead showing a bunch of women who have gained independence from men, but it's actually too hard to write different characters for dozens of women in that scenario - just because it hasn't been done before. Damsels are easy and exciting. We know how to write all sorts of nuance in the relationships between men. Oh yes, also, both episodes we watched had scenes where women were being raped - and actually showing the rape. Gratuitous.
So, it's really important for women to feel like there have been any attempts made at understanding, truly, the experience of women every day in our society, and the few acceptable ways we have to express ourselves. I'm sorry for feeling this imbalance or feeding into it, but I really believe that there must be some sincere apologies and obvious contrition made to women before women can be expected to feel pity for men's position in society. I'm not saying that women shouldn't even make the effort, as many, many do, but that it shouldn't be expected of them for quite some time. There is still a lot of healing for ALL incarnate women to process, scars from society that go back generations. Addressing that, WITHOUT saying "so now you understand how I as a man feel!" is an important part of this process of "remedial work of fairly significant nature" that Q'uo speaks of in relation to balancing the gender dichotomy on our planet. http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0204.aspx
As far as the rest of the thread goes, I see in myself where I may have some failings in my attempts at communication. My first big failing, is that often when I reply to posts, I am not replying to the person who I am seeming to reply to, I am addressing the forum at large, the countless lurkers who will read my posts in perpetuity. That causes me to look at explaining the bigger picture, which causes me to ignore the nuances of the interaction with the person's words I am directly addressing. This comes to a head when someone like Joseph posts very strong opinions that are based on events that have happened to him and those close to him, when I'm trying to look at trends for the greater picture. So, I accidentally invalidate one person's experiences while trying to validate the experiences of a larger group.
The other thing I fail to take into consideration thoroughly when making a post, is that my in-person human is very small, gentle, and soft-spoken. I think the people who have met me can vouch that there is nothing intimidating or aggressive about my demeanor in person. So, I think it's possible that I take that gentleness in my physical demeanor for granted, and I don't account for how people *read my words* independent of knowing from physical proximity that I don't have a mean bone or ulterior motive residing within me. So, integrating that gentleness into an online demeanor is something I need to work on. HOWEVER, on the flip side, I want to point out how lopsided it is, not just here but everywhere, that when a woman has an opinion and speaks her mind, she is often considered "shrill" and "forceful", or other connotations of these types. I feel a part of that is being projected onto my words, because sometimes I really fail to see where I failed so poorly in my delivery that someone could misconstrue me as being judgemental, manipulative, attacking, etc.
I think talking about the issues that men face is a legitimate conversation that should be had often. HOWEVER, I don't think it should be *in lieu of* talking about the issues that women face. I wish we could start the conversation from a place of legitimacy, but maybe that's asking too much. It's just when we get all these strawmen about things that "women in power" have done, it seems like we're on a different planet. For instance, Dante's initial OP has many, many strawmen - specifically that the media doesn't talk about sexual abuse of women to men/boys. Dante specifically mentions teachers who have sex with their students, but still giving the straw man that "nobody talks about it". Women who have sex with their male students are definitely paraded through the media.
Another example of a strawman that I would like to address was one small one that Joseph made. Joseph, you said something along the lines (I can't find the specific line) about how he hates that when women say that all men are part of the patriarchy, that it hurts you. But I haven't seen anyone here make any claims of the such, so defending yourself from that opinion is a waste of energy. You've also claimed that "it's okay to beat men but you can't hit a woman" - when has that been okay??? Another one was that you said that "We can't replace the patriarchy with a matriarchy" and that is so far from what is happening right now that it's hardly worth addressing.
I also am quite shocked to hear complaints about pop culture's portrayal of men in general through media. You complained about Star Trek TNG, where many of the themes are inherently sexist. I could probably recount each episode I watch anew in this thread. Last night, Deanna was forced into an arranged marriage, but her suitor had been dreaming of another women his whole life, and later on she appeared, so he abandoned Deanna and his family without saying anything to them to run away with her. 99.9999% of modern stories involve having a "damsel in distress" and a man who rescues her, and it's not in a balanced way. Have you ever heard of the Bechdel test? The Bechdel test is a simple test for movie scripts: Are there two women in the story, who have a conversation about something other than one of the male characters? Most major films FAIL this test, and most film courses in college teach students that their scripts HAVE to fail this test to be accepted by a major production!! So when I hear that Fez had to dress like a lady, I'm not exactly feeling like he's being systemically oppressed by society. The fact that you find insult when you see a man in a dress is further engaging with the stereotype of women being weak and lesser than men - and the fact is, it's MEN who perpetuate these negative thoughts, men who continue to make you feel bad for identifying with a woman - not other women.
It seems to me that men find comfort in the current paradigm, and this is causing them subconsciously to continue to reinforce the current paradigm, because they are scared of the shift. Possibly legitimate fears, fearing a "matriarchy" is isn't *that* out of bounds, considering our current state of imbalance (though not likely to happen), fearing that you might lose your job for something you did that you felt was "consensual" in the moment but a decade later someone gets the courage to admit that you abused your power over them, that's a legitimate fear. Fearing that what was once okay behavior is no longer okay, and being in the dark about where the current line is. Fearing that women will become "too independent" and no longer see men as a necessary part of their lives, where before a woman was definitely ostracized for not being betrothed. I mean, science has literally made the reproductive function of men obsolete, so as we continue to remove men's "roles" there are vacuums left. There are a lot of shifts happening, and men are losing a lot of advantages over women and in society in general, and I can understand how that's scary and undesirable, and how it feels like your rank in society is being lowered. But you must instead see it as women being *elevated* from their position of repression, and not in a dangerous way to the point where we are going to have some complete shift of power where we will go anywhere near the extreme to which we still currently exist.
Let me give you my most recent example, from media:
There is a new show on Netflix called Godless. Kile's mom was super excited and loved the show, and Kile is a huge fan of westerns, so we decided to give it a chance. The premise is that there is a "town full of women", who were left behind after a mining accident killed all but one of the men. Sounded like an interesting premise, but after two episodes, it was very clear that all of the main characters were men (there are about a dozen of them) and by the end of the second episode, we actually only knew the names of *maybe* four of the women. Episode two was actually titled "The Ladies of La Belle" and there was ONE SCENE that had about 10 women, and they were having a discussion with a mining company about working their claim. Ideally what they wanted was 50/50 ownership of the mine, and there was one woman - the one who dresses like a man and later beds the sexy ex-whore school marm - who stood her ground and had any strength of character. All of the other women outvoted her with a bribe of $20,000 and the promise of 150 men to come to their town, and gave 90% of the claim away to the mining company.
A scene later shows one of the main characters being held in the jail, and him and the deputy are surrounded by baked goods, because the women are so desperate for a man that they are seducing an outlaw. In the scene with the mining company, one of the women explicitly says that everyone who has come through since the men have died has tried to take advantage of them, but even with that foresight, apparently the women are just completely helpless to any man's charms. These are the Ladies of La Belle.
This show was made in 2017. The period it is set in is not excuse. Their premise was intriguing and could have been excellent, instead showing a bunch of women who have gained independence from men, but it's actually too hard to write different characters for dozens of women in that scenario - just because it hasn't been done before. Damsels are easy and exciting. We know how to write all sorts of nuance in the relationships between men. Oh yes, also, both episodes we watched had scenes where women were being raped - and actually showing the rape. Gratuitous.
So, it's really important for women to feel like there have been any attempts made at understanding, truly, the experience of women every day in our society, and the few acceptable ways we have to express ourselves. I'm sorry for feeling this imbalance or feeding into it, but I really believe that there must be some sincere apologies and obvious contrition made to women before women can be expected to feel pity for men's position in society. I'm not saying that women shouldn't even make the effort, as many, many do, but that it shouldn't be expected of them for quite some time. There is still a lot of healing for ALL incarnate women to process, scars from society that go back generations. Addressing that, WITHOUT saying "so now you understand how I as a man feel!" is an important part of this process of "remedial work of fairly significant nature" that Q'uo speaks of in relation to balancing the gender dichotomy on our planet. http://www.llresearch.org/transcripts/is..._0204.aspx
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