A Crash Course in Feminism Mk. II (or, why everyone should be a feminist)

[Wolfshade]

From the responses there are obviously two different issues.
i) The inaccuracy of the statistic
ii) The narrative being put forward

All the responses jut talk about the narrative, while I cannot speak about anyone else, the narrative is one that I don't have a problem with, that's probably not the best phrasing. What I mean is that broadly the narrative that is being put forward is one that I accept, indeed one only has to look to the sub-contient to see almost dail attrocities.

The issue that I have is using wrong statistics, especially when it was shown as being wrong previously. In more hostile environments people will look at the stats see that they are wrong then dissmiss anything that is said. This is not uncommon, once Kepler released his 4th law of planetary motion people ignored him and he never made contributions after that. Ask yourself a question, would you invest your pension in a scheme ran by someone who was suspected of fraud? No.

The rise of infographics I think is by and large a good thing, but we are now living in a society whereby the accuracy and verasity of claims are baseless, yet because the chime with people's views they accept that they are real, we all have a perception bias and are more ready to accept things that we "believe" are right.

It happens all over the shop, a handgun stat invovling deaths in america floated through my newsfeed, and while I am pro-gun control, I looked at that and one of the countries referenced was "West-Germany", this stat is out of date, yet is ebing pushed as if it were 'now'. Then the photographs of the attacks on Gaza, with photographs from Syria, Lebannon, from historic Israeli-Palistien clashes all reported as "Today in Gaza" or what have you.

Yes the fact that women only hold 1% of argicultural land based on estimates and extrapolations in the 70s, (probably before many of the board users were born...) shows inequality and that is fine. But 40 years have passed and we are still using this fact, despite a number of the land owners having died/been killed/have their land repossesd by the government (c.f. Zimbabwe) and the word agriculture has been lost. I feel that this stat will still be low (as I have said previously, because of sexism in farming and how men inherit over women) but it also lacks context of how much agricultural land is owned by men (which I feel would be larger than women, I do not think it would be 100%-women's share) and how much is owned by governements or companies. And while I accept the stat does not mention male land ownership in context it is very heavily implied. Then over the last 40 years, global warming, changes and improvements to agriculture have shifted the volume of agriland anyway. So even if it were historically accurate almost half a century has passed, in the 70s they wouldn't have used stats from the 20s to talk about the day.

They only earn 10% income again I can accept that, given that they are less likely to be employed, less likely to have eduction (which feeds into the employed) and even if they do have a job the chances are that they are going to earning less than male counterparts. and 10% sounds a good number to get this across. There are problems that there are very few very rich people that earn stupid amounts, consider Bill Gates, it is estimate that is yearly income is somewhere in reportedly in the region of 11 Bn once investments are considered, so he alone is earning more than 1/3rd of the countries by UN calcuations and since he is male there is a massive scewing. Indeed, if Bill Gates moved to 2/3rds the countries in the world he would be earning at least 10% of GDP, so Bill Gates in Hungary, if the rest of the country were female and working they would still only make 10% of the income.

Possibly one of the biggest problems is that we view things from where we are and who we are. I would like to hope most of us on this board are educated, we are all probably from developed nations that believe in equality in law, even if it is not rolled out, we believe that when a woman says "no" (or other appropriate safe word ) They mean no. We forget that in the 3rd world they are treated with the same regard as cattle. So when we look at this things we put on our 1st world glasses and forget about the majority of the world.

[Psychosplodge]

I think there's enough news reports, and datum from various websites, to suggest that even in the 1st world there are enough people that don't take No for an answer.

[Wolfshade]

Oh yes I am inclined to agree, but you as an individual would accept no as the answer.

[Psychosplodge]

I do regularly XD

[CoffeeGrunt]

Too many don't accept it, but like LGBT issues, I don't think re-education is the full answer personally.

Yes, countries like India and other, third-world countries need re-education, but the guy at college forcing himself on a girl does not. They know rape is wrong, they know it's a crime that carries a jail sentence. The problem you have is a cookie jar scenario where these people know something is wrong, but want it so badly they'll do it anyway and ride out the consequences on their coat tails. Scientists have noted that once men are aroused, the sexual areas of the brain completely overtake any logic or consequence-considering sectors, and therein lies the real problem. (My favourite quote from Robin Williams: "God gave you a penis and a brain; he didn't give you enough blood to run both of them.)

[Gotthammer]

but the guy at college forcing himself on a girl does not. They know rape is wrong, they know it's a crime that carries a jail sentence.

Actually they don't. Or rather they don't realise that what they're doing is rape, and that they also know that in cases like a bunch of guys raping a drunk girl society is on their side. So yes, they do need education, and they (not their victims) need to be punished.

[Psychosplodge]

Two brains enough blood for one...

[CoffeeGrunt]

Actually they don't. Or rather they don't realise that what they're doing is rape, and that they also know that in cases like a bunch of guys raping a drunk girl society is on their side. So yes, they do need education, and they (not their victims) need to be punished.

It's a given that the victims shouldn't be punished, but I'm not sure how many places in the world there are where guys don't know that a drunk girl can't give proper consent - speaking from a 1st World perspective.

I don't think the easy access to porn these days helps people see how sex and dating are supposed to work, either. That Straight White Boys Texting blog seems to have been caused by a lot of guys thinking real life works in the same way the terrible setups for porn do.

[Wolfshade]

Actually they don't. Or rather they don't realise that what they're doing is rape, and that they also know that in cases like a bunch of guys raping a drunk girl society is on their side. So yes, they do need education, and they (not their victims) need to be punished.

Yes. This is applicable in nearly every aspect of privilidge.

Two brains enough blood for one...

Two brains, like a diplodocus

[eldargal]

Actually they don't. Or rather they don't realise that what they're doing is rape, and that they also know that in cases like a bunch of guys raping a drunk girl society is on their side. So yes, they do need education, and they (not their victims) need to be punished.

Yup. [URL="http://jezebel.com/5404064/rapists-admit-repeated-crimes--as-long-as-you-dont-call-it-rape"]In a study a few years back 6% of men admitted to rape when you didn't call it that[/URL]:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

6% of men answered yes to these.
People, men and women, don't know what rape is because we never actually tell people. We have a culture fll of stuff like 'Well she was asking for it with what she was wearing' and 'she was drunk' and all that stuff. That is rape culture. It intersects with male entitlement too of course, the idea that its ok to have sex with some girl when she is drunk or asleep without asking permission is inherently bound up in the notion that you have some kind of right to her body.

This is why it is important to understand and listen when people talk about things like male entitlement and rape culture because these issues are NOT about recognisably evil or bad people doing things they know are wrong. It is just normal people acting in a ****ed up way because society fails to tell them it is wrong to do so. We tell people rape is bad but then we don't tell people that coercing someone into sex or taking advantage of someone who is incapable of giving consent is rape. Then we have more complicating factors like victim blaming where we then tell boys 'hey it isn't your fault you lost control and raped her, she was dressed slutty! and she was drunk! and she was a Party Girl so she was obviously just asking for it' and so on.

It's a given that the victims shouldn't be punished, but I'm not sure how many places in the world there are where guys don't know that a drunk girl can't give proper consent - speaking from a 1st World perspective.

I'm not sure there are any places in the world where everyone knows drunk or sleeping girls can't give consent because people take advantage of that all the time and as the above link indicates, those men do not think of themselves as having raped.

This is the problem with these cultural issues. Just because you know it doesn't mean everyone does, because if they did sexual assault statistics wouldn't be as astronomical as they are.