Why ordinary men find Feminism infuriating

[Before starting I'm going to have to ask you to read this post all the way to the end and watch the video before you reply. It's long but worth it]

It was simply but one example in the wider point I was illustrating and was not meant to hold as an absolute or say what you think it was meant to say. You took the example as an absolute (that I feel x = y), but the point made was to reject absolutes because of the way absolutes derail constructive dialogue (I am all to aware of the irony...).

....Yeah I know that sounds like it made zero sense but read on and I think you will get what I mean by that.

In other words it wasn’t meant to mean that I deny the relationship between objectification and how it could be related to rape.

So what was my point?

Well…

This is one example amongst many other things that feminists will place under a logical microscope so that all roads lead to rape….except the real world doesn’t follow that map; you can make anything look like it is both necessarily and intimately connected to rape if you use the kind of methodology without stopping to think about how the two factors are really related (I’ll get to the studies you mentioned in a bit as they are valid in their own way).

As long as they ‘can’ or ‘might be’ connected that is good enough to throw reason out of the window and launch a blind blanket attack on a huge number of people who are doing things that are entirely benign. THAT is also my point. And that kind of behaviour (which honestly just makes the internet an unpleasant place) was what spurned me on to write this blog.

It’s a shame you focused on just one example I was using in making a wider point rather than looking at the wider point I was making about how intense over-analysis leads to false attribution which tends to just piss people off and make them miserable for no good reason AND without even actually tackling a real problem (in fact if anything it is regressive and damaging to the feminist movement).

c said: He does not understand that 1 in 6 women are victims of sexual assault and/or rape.

This is besides the point I am making and my blog didn’t deny this either. TBH In fact I’m pretty sure the number might be higher than 1/6 when you account for unreported incidents.

My point is that feminism has a habit of over-examining every behaviour and every non-behaviour that can be rationalised as misogynistic as necessarily so even when this might not be the case or even when logical analysis should tell the feminist to err on the side of non-misogyny.

@srrsly said: He doesn't understand the connection between male sexual entitlement, objectification, and the commodification of women's bodies and rape. There are literally thousands of studies on this if you did even the most superficial Google search. Learn to research, bud.

I’m not denying that there is a relationship between male sexual entitlement, objectification and the commodification of women’s bodies and rape. So the reference studies aren’t going to be useful in overcoming the point I'm making. My issue isn't with the content or conclusions of those studies after all; it's with the way those conclusions are being used to attempt to prove causalities which even the original studies were not designed to support.

You do make a good point in pointing out that the two (the factors you listed and rape) can be related. This is totally true. BUT! the relationship is not causal or sequential. Are they related in some way though? Sure. Loosely and through the medium of many other intertwined factors. But my point is they aren’t related in a way that makes some of the jumps of logic and attacks I’m seeing on the internet make sense. And my point is about those logical leaps and the way they make bad guys out of almost anyone without good reason.

Keep in mind the issue I have here is with treating two factors as if they are NECESSARILY related in absolute terms.

See, at best you could only establish a correlational relationship between something like looking and rape, and one that only holds one way and obfuscates the complicated reality. That's not to say their isn't some kind of relationship between the two, just that treating looking as tantamount to evidence of premediation of rape is bat shit insane. I've gone into more on that in the spoiler block below. Take a look over it if you feel so inclined.

I’ll tackle the ‘holds one way’ bit first. Whereas it is safe to assume a rapist has male sexual entitlement, objectifies women and so on. You cannot inversely confer that if someone exhibits behaviours that feminism deems as objectifying women are necessarily on a slippery path to becoming a rapist. It just doesn’t work that way but feminism often operates like causation works in both directions. That is one of my points.

Next I’ll use an example to demonstrate why only working with correlations is problematic. Let me put it this way. IIRC there were figures that show up a correlation between incidence of crime and black people. Now if we go by the a really crude reading of something like that we could assume that black people simply have something about them that makes them inherently more likely to turn to crime and violence.

But in this example the target of the assumption is a minority so many people would stop and think ‘hold up, there is more to this story. There are factors we haven’t considered’. Factors such as socio-economic status playing a big role in crime (amongst many others).

Treating correlations as necessary causal relations is DANGEROUS. And I reiterate, I’m not talking about the correlation between the wider issue of misogyny leading to rape, I’m talking about the way a micro-issue like looking is tied NECESSARILY to misogyny and by extension to rape. In my above example that would be like assuming blackness is tied to crime because it held true in one direction in many cases. Sure, it kind of is related...but necessarily related?

Basically sometimes looking (or any other behaviour) is just looking and should treating simply as looking rather than a piece in a much bigger puzzle. And sometimes it IS a piece in a bigger puzzle and a constituent part of a larger problem (this is also true). But neither one is absolutely true.

The way the current feminist debate works it doesn’t look for the other factors that explain the correlation because they are convinced that everything is NECESSARILY related in the way I warned about above.

(I understand I am speaking for a particular group of feminists that might not represent everyone or even yourself but this was the kind of person I had in mind when I wrote the blog)

If you want correlations I am sure you can find any number of correlations and set them up as false necessary factors in rape. Eating breakfast? Wearing shirts? Carrying a mobile phone? I’ll bet a lot of rapists can be correlated with these things as well but you’d be looney to assume that the relationship is NECESSARILY causal and malignant without doing some digging. The same is true of many male behaviours which go far behind ‘looking’.

I would really like to get away from the hang-ups on that example as it was designed to help illustrate a point rather than make one in and of itself. If you have trouble with the looking example try using the the one for walking on one-side of the street and linking it to a bigger picture of rape. I mean...you can do it. But should they necessarily be tied and treated as such? My point is that doing so is an absurd reduction of reality.

@srrsly said: Learn to have a little respect for women and one might actually let you touch her one day. Keep treating women like objects or trophies and you'll die alone.

Actually this is perfect fuel for the point I wanted to make.

Okay. So let’s assume that I’m a scared, frustrated feminist who is looking to make connections of inevitable causality (i.e necessary) where there simply might not be any. How could I read this comment if I was particularly upset? How about this:

“Could this mean that you feel respect is somehow a key to what lies between a woman’s legs? As if treating a person like a human somehow entitles you to some?! You pig!” etc

Remember that in this example the point I am making is not looking at context but simply looking to find necessary causal relationships and lash out at them (and you by extension).

Now relax. I’m not actually going to go down that path and I don’t seriously mean it either. I know you don't mean what the crazy example inference is saying you are. I’m just pointing out what happens when you over analyse every situation and comment with a negative bias, how that can make the people on the receiving end feel. You can end up taking comments like yours and turning the commenter into a monster. It sucks. It hurts people’s feelings, misrepresents tbem and it actually even sets feminism back (if I were a feminist making that remark).

I wasn’t going to reply to this blog again. I simply popped in to drop this video off. It does a good job of delivering many of the same points I was making but with different delivery.

My point was

i. Some of those 'pervy' behaviours are not pervy at all and simply misunderstood because they are uniquely male.

In the example of looking I hoped I demonstrated how men have to look in a way that is really blatant to get as good a look as a woman can manage without anyone even realising she is looking.

Remember, women look more (and for longer) at men then the reverse...the big difference is that women are blessed with a range of vision which makes it near impossible to catch them red-handed. Now factor in men's mental itch to create a 3D scan of a women (because modern day womans' figure is covered up by clothes) and you have one misunderstood caveman.

Seriously, if men had women's range of vision and we all lived in nudist colonies you probably not see much staring at all.

ii. And in other cases yet, some of those pervy behaviours actually ARE pervy (or can be considered as such) but what they mean depends on context and intent. So treating all 'pervy' behaviour as if they are markers pointing towards the same destination (rape) does not make sense and doing so creates a kind of counter-victimisation

And most importantly that:

iii. That i. and .ii are rarely considered before finally making the conclusion that something is misogynistic.

The result of iii is an internet of angry misguided feminist sentiment that not only leaves ordinary men infuriated...but also leaves feminists lashing out at the people who they never had a beef with to begin with.

Not only do men lose in this situation. But feminists lose as well because they erode the already weak relationship between many ordinary men who are disillusioned with feminism.

It's pretty silly to think that there is a massive body of men almost on the brink of being active feminists but feminists have actually managed to turn them away by over analysing everything through a lens of counter-feminism.