As a woman I can never know if a man will hurt me or not. It's really that simple. With a bear I am on a far safer (more predictable) ground.
A guy who had gotten this worded it this way for other guys: If, as a man, you leave a house late at night to walk somewhere, you do not have to prepare for assault mentally every time. You are relatively safe in the world by default. You don't carry keys in your hand etc. or exist with constant awareness of the steps behind you or with the need to scout if the men that walk past you are hostile or friendly. You don't have to adjust your behaviour to minimize the chances of getting jumped. It's a wholly different existance in the world that a man can't apparently comprehend. Men also tend to physically have the upper hand, there is no balance here.
Real life example, I stood outside a library, on the phone and minding my own business at about age 20 when an average looking guy walked into the same yard and started staring at me weird. Middle of the day, public spot. There were no other people around. He was just a guy.
I stayed on the phone, but became aware of the threat. Because that is what you do to stay safe. A moment later he tried to assault me. I was able to run inside to safety behind a locked door and this man did stuff behind the glass door while I was trapped inside that I don't want to repeat. This is what just happens, everyone I know has similar stories. This would not happen if I saw a bear in the woods.
And this kind of stuff becomes your life experienxe, that we can't talk about because mens feelings get hurt. I can't believe this has to be repeated in 2024...
I drove a taxi as a woman for some years, I was inappropiately approached and touched almost every night. By men. Every single male customer I had to scout and tiptoe around because you never know. Drunk men were especially unpredictable.
If you are a man and I am alone with you, I will consider you a bigger threat than I would a wild animal. Regardless of what you really are like. I can't know that. Best friends and close people rape women, beat women. Good guys go dark. We can't afford to not be aware of this in everyday life. It isn't about you persoally, but it is about men and the way men behave.
I grew up in some "sketchy" places and I have always had an instinct to keep my head up even as a guy and I know that must be ten times worse as a woman.
Yeah. It's a sort of trap in the world when for example going out for a nice walk late on a weekend has this extra layer of "but is it safe for me to do that". We can't just do and be in the world.
Or just an average customer facing job where you are alone with people, if the customer is a man I would argue that there is a vigilance there that otherwise would not be.
Or just being left alone with any man in any situation, even if you are mostly safe I am pretty sure most women are aware of where the exit is. Personally have had things happen, with people I think I know. Anecdotally most women I know have these stories too. Also rape and SA is far more common than any statistic will tell us, I know several victims and am one myself. Especially in the 90s it was still mostly "dealt with" by victim blaming.
As an impulsive & generally people trusting adhd I did sometimes get myself into very dangerous positions when young and sadly this lesson got learnt real quick.
Calling me, a man, dangerous simply because of my sex is sexism. Is this one of the types of bigotry that's OK because the person it's directed to happens to belong to the "not-weak" group?
And would would the second infantile disorder be? I'm aware that leftists consider leftcommunism to be an infantile disorder, but I don't quite get what is infantile about objecting to getting stereotyped?
Calling me, a man, dangerous simply because of my sex is sexism. Is this one of the types of bigotry that’s OK because the person it’s directed to happens to belong to the “not-weak” group?
It's not even a debate lmao, I'm expressing my feelings and asking a direct question. I don't need to convince anyone here, I'm just putting out my thoughts.
But also, I don't think people are saying men are inherently or biologically dangerous because of their literal man-ness. Rather, men are socialized by the ideology of patriarchal-masculinity in a way that makes them dangerous. Every man was once a sweet little boy, part of the process of "growing up" is to mutilate boys' psyches until they become men. Men are made to be violent, aggressive, controlling, domineering, and dangerous. Masculinity is its own kind of trauma, every man carries that baggage with him and has to cope with it.
"Not all men" actually misses the point, in that every single man is socialized this way and have been since we invented the social technologies of family, private property, and the state. We have to assume any given man is dangerous because it's too fucking dangerous to give them the benefit of the doubt, so if a man approaches me at night I'm going for a weapon. That's not his fault, it's not my fault, it's just the way it is.
Um no, that's false. I don't disagree with really anything else that's being said in this thread on this side of the issue (I mean yeah it sucks that many women are more afraid of men than bears, but like, there's altogether too many valid reasons for it), but the idea that you can't be sexist against men is not true. This isn't like racism, where the definition of the word has to do with relative demographic power. It's simply about bigotry based on sex.
You may not be willing to accept this argument as yet, but let me give you some examples:
Calling a man a "pussy" or a "wimp" for refusing to engage in toxically-masculine behavior
"Real men don't cry"
And above all else, given the discussion that we're having: the idea that men cannot be raped
(This last one is rather close to my heart, as a man who has been raped by a woman.)
Edit: Just to be clear, I'm not taking the side of the guy you're replying to, who is being ridiculous about this whole thing. Women have plenty of reasons to be afraid of men, and I'm not arguing about that at all. Just saying it's possible to be sexist against a man, which it definitely is.
Look, I don't really want to respond to you here. This thread isn't about this issue, and I didn't want to make it one. I sought merely to offer a minor guardrail against a claim that I found incorrect.
I will only respond to one point: Nobody in this thread said men cannot be raped, that's true. I wouldn't say anyone in this thread has been sexist against men; I don't agree with the other dude who was in here complaining about it.
But the idea that "literally nobody ever said" that men cannot be raped is false. It is, unfortunately, a commonly-held belief. Here's a study which mentions it as a "male rape myth" (section 1.2): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8258646/
I will not be responding to any further comments on this issue. I hope you have a good day, and I'm sorry that you found my point disappointing, but I don't think I was wrong.
I really do not comprehend why you went off on this tangent about sexism. You just described that its misandrist to ascribe 'feminine' traits to men, but in reality it is misogynist (re: women are described or implied as inferior in the examples given). I'm not understanding how your description of male SV ties into the discussion here. As an aside a similar phrase is often something misogynists say on reddit, 'feminists don't care about male SV', so thats why you're receiving a hostile response. The concept you're referring to is a legal definition, and that definition defines SV acts as requiring penetration of the victim. Of course this is an awful way to define SV, but is it sexist towards men specifically? No, ultimately this is bad for all victims of SV, as acts of SV can often be multifaceted and perpetrators often know the rules and laws surrounding them and try to skirt the definitions. Women that are attacked sexually are often maligned in much the same way as men are with similar excuses and reasoning.
For the cases of woman to male SV, often society says things like 'wow that teenage boy sure was lucky getting with that female teacher!' It is of course an awful thing to say about an SV victim, but this statement also relies on the objectification of women. Re: women are objects to be desired, how can an object cause you mental harm?
Since we are both victims of sexual violence, and as a trans woman I have had the situation of dealing with SV pre and post transition (so being seen as a boy or a woman in many instances) I hope you can take my analysis of this issue seriously. This is very mentally taxing for me and I'm sure it may well be for you, so I understand if some things are said improperly. This is not said to minimize your suffering, but rather to show the intersectionality of SV victims and how misogyny shapes social opinions of SV victims.
edit: talked with sphere, this is really just a case of bad context i think