I hate this argument every time I see it. It could be used to justify so many terrible prejudices that we’ve been trying to get rid of for decades. I got robbed by a black man once so should I now treat all black men as potential criminals?
You put into words thoughts that I’ve been unable to for a while.
Like, I read this and I see how someone makes this argument, but I feel fucking terrible afterwards. Sure you haven’t said I’m a rapist, but you’ve said you’ll treat me as though I am. You can’t expect men as a demographic to agree to this argument if it requires society to assume they’re shitty people, at which point, why is it even being made?
The worst part I feel is that there’s a lot of incel types that conflate feminism with sexism, which we’d like to school them by pointing them at a dictionary. While incels are generally shitty, we can’t ignore the fact that this argument is telling them their behavior doesn’t actually matter because we’re going to act like they’re rapists based solely on their malehood anyways. (to be clear, this is an explanation, not a justification)
Yeah fuck it. I swear these fucking movements are almost intentionally avoiding any caveat that might make it 400% more paletable.
Imagine how many fucking arguments people could have avoided if they called the movement “black lives matter too” instead of “black lives matter”. It’s three fucking letters, but it adds an incredible amount of context and emphasis on the inequality. Same with going from LGBT to LGBTQIA2S+ or other longform acronym that is not as straightforward as LGBT+ (same as the historically well known “name” , paying homage to the idea that there are other forms of this experience(?) that are not covered by the 4 letters) or GSM (Gender & Sexual Minorities , which unambigiously covers everything).
If you want to reply anything among the lines of “The riot is the speech of the unheard”, I said it for you, just move along.
Imagine how many fucking arguments people could have avoided if they called the movement “black lives matter too” instead of “black lives matter”.
It’s so simple, so obvious…and such a missed opportunity. And while I personally saw the “too” as implied, it led to bad-faith actors really twisting it as well as inevitably some people actually not understanding it.
Same with going from LGBT to LGBTQIA2S+ or other longform acronym that is not as straightforward as LGBT+
The fear of leaving anyone out led to tacking on more and more letters, and then disagreements about which letters to include.
GSM (Gender & Sexual Minorities , which unambigiously covers everything).
I haven’t heard this one before, but I like it for its simplicity.
“Defund the police” was another fail in that the phrase didn’t accurately portray the actual intention and was off-putting to people who might have otherwise supported it.
And while I personally saw the “too” as implied, it led to bad-faith actors really twisting it as well as inevitably some people actually not understanding it.
Don’t you think bad faith actors will do that regardless? The problem isn’t that the names were bad, the problem is a large amount of people had no interest in learning anything beyond the name and/or actively fought against learning what those groups were actually for.
There is a distinction between a prejudice born of bigotry, and a prejudice born of a real fear and trauma. And while I understand your point, the difference between these two directly affects how we can effectively address them societally.
To start addressing it, we can’t just keep admonishing traumatized women. We have to understand where the prejudice comes from. The reality is that women need to be on guard constantly, not because of all men, but still specifically because of men.
They are continuously exposed to stories like the Rape Academy website, see sexual violence normalized in media, encounter rape threats online, and virtually all of them have either experienced sexual assault themselves or know someone who has.
And while this is not all men, or even most, the statistics are clear: perpetrators of violence and sexual assault against women (and against men) are overwhelmingly male. Since there is no reliable way to identify which men pose a threat until it is too late, it’s unsurprising that many women develop a prejudice as a safety mechanism.
It’s unfortunate that this can harden into bigotry, but it’s even more unfortunate that the threat giving rise to it exists at all.
Your analogy of being robbed by a black man “once” actually highlights how widely the pervasiveness of this threat is misunderstood. For women, this isn’t a single incident. It’s a lifelong threat most acute during their formative years.
So by way of a counter analogy: would you admonish a black person who grew up in the American South during the Civil Rights era with “not all white people” or “not all cops”? Or would you recognize that their wariness was, prejudiced or not, a rational response to a very real danger?
I agree that we should strive toward a society where no one is judged on anything but the content of their character. But it’s worth noting that countless men rush to admonish frustrated and traumatized women with “not all men,” while far fewer show up when stories like the Rape Academy actually break. This imbalance is itself part of the problem.
And if we as men, and as human beings, want to see less of this prejudice in the world, perhaps the more productive question isn’t whether the prejudice is fair, but why so few of us are doing anything to make it less necessary, and why so many of us are more interested in pushing back against women’s reactions than addressing the cause of them. And this, for me, calls to mind MLK’s observations about the white moderate…
I have a friend who is a woman who insisted that it’s a majority of men who do things like grope women on dance floors or exhibit other such sex pest behaviors.
I pushed back on this because I quite strongly believe that not to be the case, and pointed out that encountering such men a majority of the time when going out doesn’t require a majority of men to behave that way. An incidence rate of, say, one in twenty still virtually guarantees you’ll run into multiple if you’re in a crowd of sufficient size.
I’m also not trying to downplay the seriousness of it being a very real problem. Nor do I deny her lived experience of encountering that behavior often when going to concerts or whatever. Literally just pointing out that such an experience doesn’t require a majority.
She got offended, calling me out for not believing her and accused me of making a “not all men” argument to try to invalidate what she was saying, despite explicitly agreeing that it’s a problem that needs addressing.
The racial metaphor is misplaced and disingenuous to the conversation. Let’s say as a woman, just about all of your women friends have been at some point attacked by a dog. Some have been completely mauled, some have managed to fight the dog off after a couple of bites, some managed to run away from the dog and jump into a car before it could bite them, and most have a combination of stories from their lives. Some are traumatised and scarred for life, others have been able to move on largely as normal, but they haven’t forgotten that scary moment.
Now our woman may or may not have been attacked by a dog before, but because of all these experiences she’s seen her friends go through, the fear, the lifelong injuries they carry - the pain, the embarrassment, the shame, the blame - she’s pretty anxious about getting a dog. Especially one where she doesn’t know its history. It’s a big dog, strong, gorgeous and seems so sweet wagging his tail. But most dogs are like that when you first meet them. It’s the rarest of dog that shows you complete aggression from the beginning and you know full well to stay away from them. She doesn’t know if she brings this dog into her home, if something seemingly benign might set it off. It’s even riskier if she lives alone.
(As an aside, isn’t it ridiculous that a woman should feel embarrassed or ashamed for having been attacked by a dog… or good god - blamed for inciting it - was she carrying beef jerky visibly as she walked down the street, she should have known a wild dog couldn’t control itself at the sight of jerky??)
If the frequency of dog attacks were as prevalent as violence and assault against women is - no one would be allowed to keep a dog for a pet. Sure, it’s NOT ALL DOGS, but the likelihood and the severity of the consequences is such that you’d be crazy to go into the situation of dog ownership without taking precautions, and in the back of your mind you’ll keep remembering all those friends who’s dogs were sweet right up until they weren’t.
People who have beautiful dogs at home, who see their dog snuggle their baby and is sweet to their cat, and have only ever had warm interactions with dogs won’t understand the fear. Not all dogs they’ll say.
Someone else will come along and say it’s only brown dogs you have to worry about. (Sounds ludicrous in this phrasing doesn’t it).
But you know what the difference is between dogs and humans. In a pack of dogs, the good dogs will call out the bad ones. They’ll pin them down, bark at them, gnash their teeth - make it clear that’s not acceptable if you want to be a part of this pack. Even when play fighting gets a little rough - they say when it’s enough. The dogs keep each other in line.
What we’re seeing in life is that the dogs are saying to women, not all dogs are going to maul you and leave you with scars for life. Most of us are good dogs, and it’s not fair you’re scared of us when we’re not doing the attacking. We’re not seeing enough good dogs giving strong reinforcement. Making sure they’re being well socialised when they’re growing up. They’re not going out and engaging with younger pups and teaching them how to behave properly, they’re not even pulling their friends into line and baring their teeth saying that behaviour is not ok. Even as a joke.
The point is - every woman has multiple stories of people she knows being victimised, and sadly the odds are, she will have some kind of personal experience with it in her lifetime. The impact of being assaulted is every bit as lifelong and traumatic for the victim as a frenzied dog attack.
If we treated it with the severity it really carries, and according to the overwhelming frequency with which it occurs. We’d realise a response of “not all men” is not enough.
But you know what the difference is between dogs and humans. In a pack of dogs, the good dogs will call out the bad ones. They’ll pin them down, bark at them, gnash their teeth - make it clear that’s not acceptable if you want to be a part of this pack.
If a human man tries doing that, people will tell him to “stop white knighting” and they’ll shun him worse than the guy whose behavior he was trying to put a stop to.
The fact is that predatory behavior is often indistinguishable from typical human mating rituals when viewed from the sidelines. The difference ultimately boils down to whether the recipient of the advances is accepting of them, which is often an internal thing that no one but a mind reader could tell from an outsider’s perspective.
People tend to be aloof and circumspect about these types of things. Women don’t always openly reject unwanted advances. Sometimes they expect the guy to “just figure it out.” And women don’t always openly encourage wanted advances either. Sometimes they expect the guy to “just figure it out.”
So, if a woman is being quiet, is she just playing it cool, or is she silently resenting the guy talking to her? At what point is a nearby observer supposed to step in and say “Is this guy bothering you?” And if she says “it’s fine,” to what extent are you supposed to take her word for it?
Or are we all just supposed to magically know the secret code to perfectly interpret every situation every time? Because at that point, what’s the point of having a secret code in the first place?
I stopped talking to women because almost always they expected me to “just figure it out” without them ever having to state how they feel, good or bad. Maybe they tried dropping hints but they went over my head. Sometimes I had the feeling they were dropping a hint but I didn’t know what it meant one way or the other. And then they would get upset when I didn’t read their minds. And I’m supposed to believe that that’s a moral failing on my part? When my whole life I’ve struggled with a lack of social skills in general to begin with?
So I stopped talking to women, to avoid the situation altogether. And now I’m expected to somehow intervene in other people’s interactions?!? Which still requires a modicum of mind reading ability, by the way.
It’s ridiculous. Men don’t have this magical ability to control what other men do.
Is there like a robbery culture analogous to rape culture that I’m not aware of? Is there a ruling class of black people who feel entitled to other people’s stuff? Do black people frequently avoid robbery charges on the grounds that one mistake shouldn’t ruin a whole life with jail time and a bad record? Are you sure you didn’t want that black man to rob you? What were you wearing at the time?
This argument is so stupid I don’t know why you got so many upvotes. It’s nothing like the same situation. Men in general are physically stronger than women, men ARE generally more dangerous to women than women. Racism is the baseless belief that race determines the danger someone poses, but men are actually more dangerous to women in a very real way.
Nobody is denying that some men are dangerous. Nobody is denying that you can’t tell if someone is dangerous or not.
Nobody is denying that men are physically more dangerous to women than other women.
What you, and everyone else, are saying is that “all men are potentially dangerous”.
What you, and everyone else, are saying is that “all men are potentially dangerous”.
“All men are dangerous” is the exact same sentence as “all men are potentially dangerous.” These are the exact same sentence.
Someone is not “dangerous” if they’re actively in the act of raping someone. They’re well past the point of being dangerous to being an active violent threat. “Dangerous” in this context simply means “risky.” And yes, all men are dangerous if you don’t know about them. They present a potential danger. Ie, they’re dangerous. A woman meeting stumbling across a random man on a street at night is in a dangerous situation. There’s real risk there. Even if the guy turns out to be a saint, that danger still exists until proven otherwise.
Ah, ok thanks. I’ve seen this crop up a few times and wondered how the arguments spin wildly out of control. I get it now.
You (and I assume the OP) are using the word “dangerous” differently than most people here.
When you say “dangerous”, you mean “might be a threat”, right? Most people here understand it as “is a threat”.
To use an abstract example, to me “this sandwich is dangerous” and “this sandwich is potentially dangerous” are wildly different. One says this sandwich is definitely poisoned or something, the other is simply telling me to keep my guard up.
No physical or moral judgement is required for the argument. Op not passing moral or physical judgement upon the sharks but simply making a statistical analysis of the outcomes of swimming with sharks. That very same statistical argument can equally be applied to racial groups.
Statistically a black man in the unites states is twice as dangerous as a white man in the unites states both of whome are statistically more dangerous than a woman. (According to FBI statistics)
Your cannot separate these arguments you may have ur cake or u my eat it but you cannot do both.
Yeah, like I’m sure they can pull up some data on a specific country such as the US, showing a disparity between the population which was enslaved and discriminated against for hundreds of years, and still is (both discrimination and slavery, as the injustice in the justice system puts more black people into prison for longer and the constitution literally allows slavery as a punishment for a crime) and the majority ethnicity, but even those disparities are honestly tiny, minuscule in comparison to the difference between violent crime rates between the sexes.
Like those are just bullshit you can’t apply universally to an ethnicity and definitely not just like a skin tone.
But men being more violent?
According to the 2015 International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, sex differences in aggression is one of the most robust and oldest findings in psychology
Racism is the baseless belief that race determines the danger someone poses, but men are actually more dangerous to women in a very real way.
Guess my whole comment is just to reiterate this point, which you already made. Anyway there’s some more and an updoot
Edit hey guys uhmm I still understand the validity of why the OP of this thread made his comment. I feel the same way. And it’s not fucking fun having someone being prejudiced against you. I’d often get the “not all men” reaction as well. But unfortunately it’s just a fucking fact we men are well more violent, and strong. We’re also more likely to get murdered though, and we’re still not prejudiced against other men. Or lots aren’t I guess. But we also have better defenses, being men and stronger. The situation is not fair but I’d rather take a little bit of discomfort myself to make women feel more comfortable in the current climate, because of rhe numbers. But exactly because of the numbers it’s also a bad argument to claim blacks steal more. Perhaps true in some cases, definitely bullshit in a lot. But definitely not as robust of an observation, not even on the same scale. And having your wallet nicked isn’t exactly the same as being graped but again, men do get hurt more by violence but eh. It’s a shitty disparity, what can you do.
Caution is not the same as prejudice. Women should not need to put themselves in potentially unsafe situations for the sake of men’s feelings. I have to live with the fear that I might be assaulted again, every day. Every woman knows someone that has been assaulted. I will never give a man that opportunity again, and that means that I’m going to have to live in such a way that I will mistrust a lot of good men too, because we don’t know which ones are dangerous to us. My assaulter was a close friend, was active in the community, and had my trust. For many women, it is family and close friends.
I am being cautious in a non-prejudiced way. Being afraid of black people because of something unrelated to their race is very different than being cautious of men for something directly related to their sex. I was assaulted by a man, like most sexual assault victims were, especially women. Being cautious to not be alone with men I don’t absolutely trust again is not prejudice. There is no way to visually distinguish a rapist. I was assaulted by a close friend that I trusted and would have never thought to be cautious of. A large proportion of victims are assaulted by someone they trust, like family and partners. I am orders of magnitude more likely to be assaulted again by a man. You would have me put myself at risk or be a complete social hermit just for the sake of “fairness.” My actions just aren’t about men, they’re about keeping myself safe and being happy.
Being afraid of black people because of something unrelated to their race is very different than being cautious of men for something directly related to their sex
Not really, you are assuming the behavior of someone based on their immutable characteristics, they are both prejudice.
There is no way to visually distinguish a rapist.
Except if they look like a man, right?
You would have me put myself at risk or be a complete social hermit just for the sake of “fairness.”
No, I would have you be cautious of every human because every human is a possible abuser. Your trauma is not an excuse for prejudice, neither is statistics. Judging any individual because of the group they were born as is prejudice, you are a prejudiced and intolerant person.
I am not assuming anyone’s behavior. I am acting with the caution that my experiences dictate, because I don’t want to be raped again. Men and women can be rapists. I am orders of magnitude more likely to be raped again by a man. My trauma isn’t excusing prejudice because I am not prejudiced against men. I am not judging any individuals, I am just choosing to not be alone with any men that don’t hold my absolute trust. It simply isn’t about them. No man is owed my time, or the time of anyone else, and it’s well within my rights to choose to my company.
Again, it’s not about you. I am not judging any individuals, I hold no opinion on them personally, whatsoever. Is choosing to wait for my friend to be ready to leave so I don’t walk home alone prejudice? Is carrying pepper spray in an accessible location prejudice? Is declining invitations from acquaintances because I don’t want to be alone with them before I know them better prejudiced? All of these choices are informed by my experiences. I have much more to fear from a random man than a random woman, statistically. It isn’t even close. I have watched men try to single out friends of mine, friends of mine have been roofied, or worse, even ignoring my own experiences.
The only way I treat men differently is the same way most women are taught to growing up, by bitter experience or through lessons from our peers and parents: I exercise caution in who has my company, when, and in what environment, because no one is owed my presence or my trust. The people that are safe will show me that and the people that are not will get defensive and make it about them.
You’re right, but I’ve found that men absolutely hate this argument. They hate hearing “I don’t trust you”. They think good people deserve trust and they completely refuse to see from your perspective that you don’t know if they’re good people yet, and think having to earn your trust is unfair.
Here’s the truth, guys. Women generally lack the desire or capability to sexually assault other women. When we get assaulted it’s by men, almost always. We don’t have to distrust women for our own protection. If men would stop assaulting us, we would find it easier to trust random guys… but they just won’t fucking stop. You cannot explain your point of view or how unfair it is to you in a way that will change our minds. The only way to get women to stop being afraid of you is to get men to stop assaulting us.
Is carrying pepper spray in an accessible location prejudice? Is declining invitations from acquaintances because I don’t want to be alone with them before I know them better prejudiced?
I already answered this, caution is not prejudice, but being cautious towards a specific demographic is prejudice. I’m not interested in hearing your prejudiced rationales, I’ve heard many over the years and they’re largely the same.
I have much more to fear from a random man than a random woman, statistically
Yes, as said, statistics are not an excuse to be prejudiced. You cannot treat someone differently because of the group they were born as, that is prejudice. Go ahead and carry pepper spray, because anyone can attack you, but your trauma is leading you to rationalize prejudice and that is absolutely not acceptable in a tolerant society.
You keep making strawmen arguments because you cannot accept that someone is simply anti-prejudice.
You know what? Shame for the imaginary, ideal, equitable world you have in your head, but as long as you aren’t exterminating people, some prejudice is good.
Lmao, what a terrible opinion. “Prejudice is okay because the world isn’t perfect.” At least you aren’t in denial like half the other people in this thread. The world will never be ideal or equitable as long as people like you are justifying, and advocating, the non-ideal and inequitable. Please spend less time in it.
The end goal is no one trusts anyone, and mutual safety is ENSURED. Because I have seen for myself that humans are incapable of anything else.
We have a somewhat viable society, because if you commit a crime, men with guns will come to stop you with force.
It’s not because of trust or anything like that.
But who will put down those men with guns? I have no idea.
Now, about the prejuduce part, it is fairly safe to assume that anyone who is a billionaire is a total psychopath.
Now, not all men are dangerous, but if you let your guard down near everyone, you will end up raped and dumped into the nearest lake, and won’t be equalizing anything.
I feel bad for you. Sucks to have to live in fear. Do you have any feasible solutions? I have not seen many actual proposals on what should be done, except maybe improving equality and fighting discrimination. But those are not solutions for your fear.
I just don’t put myself in situations where that could be a problem anymore. Trusted individuals share my location. In the long run, the only thing that fixes this is education and cultural shift. For individual women’s fear in the short term though, all we can do is live cautiously, carry pepper spray and/or some form of weapon, and always be around people you absolutely trust.
I do not blame men in general; there are men in my life that are excellent examples and the most safe people to be around. I blame the men that are entitled to women’s bodies. Unfortunately there is no way to look at someone and know the difference. No one knows what a rapist looks like. I very much appreciate the men that choose to be understanding and respectful instead of bitter or defensive.
A real solution: make men afraid to assault women. Make it so taboo they would never consider it. Express horror and disgust at the merest suggestion of it. Punish it decisively. Don’t give the benefit of the doubt.
It would have to be unfair as hell and would ruin a lot of men’s lives but I think it would eventually fix our fucked up culture. Once men stop sexually assaulting people so much they’ll be less scary.
A real solution: make men afraid to assault women. Make it so taboo they would never consider it. Express horror and disgust at the merest suggestion of it. Punish it decisively. Don’t give the benefit of the doubt.
You described exactly how pedophilia is treated. Was it solved?
It would have to be unfair as hell and would ruin a lot of men’s lives but I think it would eventually fix our fucked up culture.
Isn’t unfair treatment and ruining of people’s lives what were trying to solve? How more ruined lives are solving this?
Let’s take all your feeling towards men relative to how you feel towards women and apply some statistics to it to determine what percentage if those feeling you should have towards black people relative to white people.
Men are 5.1-5.5 times more likely to assault someone compared to a woman. Black people are 2.7-2.9 times more likely to assault someone than a white person (according to FBI statistics) Combining these relative ratios tells us that you should be bias against men 1.44-1.48 times more than you should against black people. All these values are for a 95% confidence interval.
So whatever your feelings towards men are (as a result of assaults) take that amount divide that by 1.44 to 1.48 and that’s the percentage of ur feelings towards men you should apply to black people. So however u feel about men due to their chances of assault you statistically must be feel between 68% and 69% of that feeling towards black people. Anything else would be logically inconsistent and purely bias either against men or in favour of black people.
So what is it are you biassed against men or biased against white people or willing to abandon ur argument. The mathematics objectively say that you have to be one of those options.
You are misappropriating statistics to present a story they don’t tell. When you normalize for economic and social factors, including victim race, there is no statistically significant difference due to race alone. No race is inherently criminal, it’s entirely based on socioeconomic factors and systemic prejudice. There is no systemic prejudice against men, precisely the opposite, for a long time. Sexually motivated crimes have sexual factors to consider. It would be just as justified to fear race motivated crime perpetuated by certain groups of people, as it has been by many groups targeted by racial violence in history, around the world. Your analogy is not a direct one. A more analogous one would be people fearing race motivated crime, or fearing homophobia motivated crime. Both of those happen often. Fearing sex motivated crime and acting in accordance with your safety is totally valid.
The post literally says not “all men”. I don’t know why yourself and so many other commenters are inserting a straw man to argue with. If it’s intentional, it’s a bad-faith practise. If it’s unintentional it’s a literacy issue (common problem is USA).
I read the heading “all men are dangerous” as a misrepresentation of the screenshot - which is what I’m pushing back on. I definitely don’t think that all men are dangerous. I would be relieved to think that the comments here take issue with the heading and not the body text/screenshot, but the comments I’ve responded to haven’t made that distinction.
Really? Because there’s literally a line where the OP from the image references their statement of “all men are dangerous” that her husband then defends.
It’s literally part of the screenshot. Even if they then go on to defend it with “I know it’s not all men, but I’m saying it because of sharks or something”.
a misrepresentation of the screenshot - which is what I’m pushing back on
Okay, well let’s do some analysis then. If they say they know it’s not all men, but then immediately follow it up with saying they can’t tell which men it is, what message are we supposed to get? In the context of a comeback to someone disagreeing with “all men are dangerous”
To me, it’s pretty clearly justifying the position of “all men are dangerous,” just with the caveat that they know it’s not actually all men, but that they have to act is if it is because there is no way to tell the difference.
Do you not see that as a rationalization of treating all men like they are dangerous?
FBI stats put black people 13% of the population at 51% of violent crime offenders. That’s evidence based are you saying that treating black people differently because of these statistics is therefore not prejudice?
That’s data, not evidence. To treat it as evidence you’d have to understand the causes (poverty, segregation, policing patterns, etc.).
And you’re mixing two things: using group averages to judge individuals vs managing risk under uncertainty. The first is prejudice, the second is safety behaviour.
Men on average are simply a higher physical risk to women than women are and so cost of being wrong is higher.
You may want to read it again. That statement is not meant to promote racism. It’s using racism to point out that attempting an entire group of people over the actions of a few is a bad thing. It’s the example of the bad thing to try to get you to understand.
I hate this argument every time I see it. It could be used to justify so many terrible prejudices that we’ve been trying to get rid of for decades. I got robbed by a black man once so should I now treat all black men as potential criminals?
You put into words thoughts that I’ve been unable to for a while.
Like, I read this and I see how someone makes this argument, but I feel fucking terrible afterwards. Sure you haven’t said I’m a rapist, but you’ve said you’ll treat me as though I am. You can’t expect men as a demographic to agree to this argument if it requires society to assume they’re shitty people, at which point, why is it even being made?
The worst part I feel is that there’s a lot of incel types that conflate feminism with sexism, which we’d like to school them by pointing them at a dictionary. While incels are generally shitty, we can’t ignore the fact that this argument is telling them their behavior doesn’t actually matter because we’re going to act like they’re rapists based solely on their malehood anyways. (to be clear, this is an explanation, not a justification)
Yeah fuck it. I swear these fucking movements are almost intentionally avoiding any caveat that might make it 400% more paletable.
Imagine how many fucking arguments people could have avoided if they called the movement “black lives matter too” instead of “black lives matter”. It’s three fucking letters, but it adds an incredible amount of context and emphasis on the inequality. Same with going from LGBT to LGBTQIA2S+ or other longform acronym that is not as straightforward as LGBT+ (same as the historically well known “name” , paying homage to the idea that there are other forms of this experience(?) that are not covered by the 4 letters) or GSM (Gender & Sexual Minorities , which unambigiously covers everything).
If you want to reply anything among the lines of “The riot is the speech of the unheard”, I said it for you, just move along.
It’s so simple, so obvious…and such a missed opportunity. And while I personally saw the “too” as implied, it led to bad-faith actors really twisting it as well as inevitably some people actually not understanding it.
The fear of leaving anyone out led to tacking on more and more letters, and then disagreements about which letters to include.
I haven’t heard this one before, but I like it for its simplicity.
“Defund the police” was another fail in that the phrase didn’t accurately portray the actual intention and was off-putting to people who might have otherwise supported it.
Don’t you think bad faith actors will do that regardless? The problem isn’t that the names were bad, the problem is a large amount of people had no interest in learning anything beyond the name and/or actively fought against learning what those groups were actually for.
There is a distinction between a prejudice born of bigotry, and a prejudice born of a real fear and trauma. And while I understand your point, the difference between these two directly affects how we can effectively address them societally.
To start addressing it, we can’t just keep admonishing traumatized women. We have to understand where the prejudice comes from. The reality is that women need to be on guard constantly, not because of all men, but still specifically because of men.
They are continuously exposed to stories like the Rape Academy website, see sexual violence normalized in media, encounter rape threats online, and virtually all of them have either experienced sexual assault themselves or know someone who has.
And while this is not all men, or even most, the statistics are clear: perpetrators of violence and sexual assault against women (and against men) are overwhelmingly male. Since there is no reliable way to identify which men pose a threat until it is too late, it’s unsurprising that many women develop a prejudice as a safety mechanism.
It’s unfortunate that this can harden into bigotry, but it’s even more unfortunate that the threat giving rise to it exists at all.
Your analogy of being robbed by a black man “once” actually highlights how widely the pervasiveness of this threat is misunderstood. For women, this isn’t a single incident. It’s a lifelong threat most acute during their formative years.
So by way of a counter analogy: would you admonish a black person who grew up in the American South during the Civil Rights era with “not all white people” or “not all cops”? Or would you recognize that their wariness was, prejudiced or not, a rational response to a very real danger?
I agree that we should strive toward a society where no one is judged on anything but the content of their character. But it’s worth noting that countless men rush to admonish frustrated and traumatized women with “not all men,” while far fewer show up when stories like the Rape Academy actually break. This imbalance is itself part of the problem.
And if we as men, and as human beings, want to see less of this prejudice in the world, perhaps the more productive question isn’t whether the prejudice is fair, but why so few of us are doing anything to make it less necessary, and why so many of us are more interested in pushing back against women’s reactions than addressing the cause of them. And this, for me, calls to mind MLK’s observations about the white moderate…
I have a friend who is a woman who insisted that it’s a majority of men who do things like grope women on dance floors or exhibit other such sex pest behaviors.
I pushed back on this because I quite strongly believe that not to be the case, and pointed out that encountering such men a majority of the time when going out doesn’t require a majority of men to behave that way. An incidence rate of, say, one in twenty still virtually guarantees you’ll run into multiple if you’re in a crowd of sufficient size.
I’m also not trying to downplay the seriousness of it being a very real problem. Nor do I deny her lived experience of encountering that behavior often when going to concerts or whatever. Literally just pointing out that such an experience doesn’t require a majority.
She got offended, calling me out for not believing her and accused me of making a “not all men” argument to try to invalidate what she was saying, despite explicitly agreeing that it’s a problem that needs addressing.
She is not wrong. Pretty much every man in my firm will bully you if you don’t behave like that.
And in a bit of irony, the woman co-worker that drives me told another co-worker “oh, he doesn’t like women”.
Like, cmon, just because I don’t behave like that!?!
The racial metaphor is misplaced and disingenuous to the conversation. Let’s say as a woman, just about all of your women friends have been at some point attacked by a dog. Some have been completely mauled, some have managed to fight the dog off after a couple of bites, some managed to run away from the dog and jump into a car before it could bite them, and most have a combination of stories from their lives. Some are traumatised and scarred for life, others have been able to move on largely as normal, but they haven’t forgotten that scary moment.
Now our woman may or may not have been attacked by a dog before, but because of all these experiences she’s seen her friends go through, the fear, the lifelong injuries they carry - the pain, the embarrassment, the shame, the blame - she’s pretty anxious about getting a dog. Especially one where she doesn’t know its history. It’s a big dog, strong, gorgeous and seems so sweet wagging his tail. But most dogs are like that when you first meet them. It’s the rarest of dog that shows you complete aggression from the beginning and you know full well to stay away from them. She doesn’t know if she brings this dog into her home, if something seemingly benign might set it off. It’s even riskier if she lives alone.
(As an aside, isn’t it ridiculous that a woman should feel embarrassed or ashamed for having been attacked by a dog… or good god - blamed for inciting it - was she carrying beef jerky visibly as she walked down the street, she should have known a wild dog couldn’t control itself at the sight of jerky??)
If the frequency of dog attacks were as prevalent as violence and assault against women is - no one would be allowed to keep a dog for a pet. Sure, it’s NOT ALL DOGS, but the likelihood and the severity of the consequences is such that you’d be crazy to go into the situation of dog ownership without taking precautions, and in the back of your mind you’ll keep remembering all those friends who’s dogs were sweet right up until they weren’t.
People who have beautiful dogs at home, who see their dog snuggle their baby and is sweet to their cat, and have only ever had warm interactions with dogs won’t understand the fear. Not all dogs they’ll say.
Someone else will come along and say it’s only brown dogs you have to worry about. (Sounds ludicrous in this phrasing doesn’t it).
But you know what the difference is between dogs and humans. In a pack of dogs, the good dogs will call out the bad ones. They’ll pin them down, bark at them, gnash their teeth - make it clear that’s not acceptable if you want to be a part of this pack. Even when play fighting gets a little rough - they say when it’s enough. The dogs keep each other in line.
What we’re seeing in life is that the dogs are saying to women, not all dogs are going to maul you and leave you with scars for life. Most of us are good dogs, and it’s not fair you’re scared of us when we’re not doing the attacking. We’re not seeing enough good dogs giving strong reinforcement. Making sure they’re being well socialised when they’re growing up. They’re not going out and engaging with younger pups and teaching them how to behave properly, they’re not even pulling their friends into line and baring their teeth saying that behaviour is not ok. Even as a joke.
The point is - every woman has multiple stories of people she knows being victimised, and sadly the odds are, she will have some kind of personal experience with it in her lifetime. The impact of being assaulted is every bit as lifelong and traumatic for the victim as a frenzied dog attack.
If we treated it with the severity it really carries, and according to the overwhelming frequency with which it occurs. We’d realise a response of “not all men” is not enough.
If a human man tries doing that, people will tell him to “stop white knighting” and they’ll shun him worse than the guy whose behavior he was trying to put a stop to.
The fact is that predatory behavior is often indistinguishable from typical human mating rituals when viewed from the sidelines. The difference ultimately boils down to whether the recipient of the advances is accepting of them, which is often an internal thing that no one but a mind reader could tell from an outsider’s perspective.
People tend to be aloof and circumspect about these types of things. Women don’t always openly reject unwanted advances. Sometimes they expect the guy to “just figure it out.” And women don’t always openly encourage wanted advances either. Sometimes they expect the guy to “just figure it out.”
So, if a woman is being quiet, is she just playing it cool, or is she silently resenting the guy talking to her? At what point is a nearby observer supposed to step in and say “Is this guy bothering you?” And if she says “it’s fine,” to what extent are you supposed to take her word for it?
Or are we all just supposed to magically know the secret code to perfectly interpret every situation every time? Because at that point, what’s the point of having a secret code in the first place?
I stopped talking to women because almost always they expected me to “just figure it out” without them ever having to state how they feel, good or bad. Maybe they tried dropping hints but they went over my head. Sometimes I had the feeling they were dropping a hint but I didn’t know what it meant one way or the other. And then they would get upset when I didn’t read their minds. And I’m supposed to believe that that’s a moral failing on my part? When my whole life I’ve struggled with a lack of social skills in general to begin with?
So I stopped talking to women, to avoid the situation altogether. And now I’m expected to somehow intervene in other people’s interactions?!? Which still requires a modicum of mind reading ability, by the way.
It’s ridiculous. Men don’t have this magical ability to control what other men do.
It’s not all men, but we need all men to fix it. Everyone is responsible for the state of their community, and the man community has been failing.
Well written wall of text seems AI written
This is an exceptionally well written rebuttal to a stupid comment.
The original comment falls into the false equivalency
Is there like a robbery culture analogous to rape culture that I’m not aware of? Is there a ruling class of black people who feel entitled to other people’s stuff? Do black people frequently avoid robbery charges on the grounds that one mistake shouldn’t ruin a whole life with jail time and a bad record? Are you sure you didn’t want that black man to rob you? What were you wearing at the time?
How many women were in the rape academy chat groups? From what I’ve read it was all men.
Women are punching up. Racists are punching down.
Feels different cus of the power dynamic.
Welcome to the police. Here is your badge and gun. You appear to have been trained already.
Nice ratio. I think people missed your joke. ACAB
This argument is so stupid I don’t know why you got so many upvotes. It’s nothing like the same situation. Men in general are physically stronger than women, men ARE generally more dangerous to women than women. Racism is the baseless belief that race determines the danger someone poses, but men are actually more dangerous to women in a very real way.
The post is titled “all men are dangerous”.
Nobody is denying that some men are dangerous. Nobody is denying that you can’t tell if someone is dangerous or not. Nobody is denying that men are physically more dangerous to women than other women.
What you, and everyone else, are saying is that “all men are potentially dangerous”.
“All men are dangerous” is the exact same sentence as “all men are potentially dangerous.” These are the exact same sentence.
Someone is not “dangerous” if they’re actively in the act of raping someone. They’re well past the point of being dangerous to being an active violent threat. “Dangerous” in this context simply means “risky.” And yes, all men are dangerous if you don’t know about them. They present a potential danger. Ie, they’re dangerous. A woman meeting stumbling across a random man on a street at night is in a dangerous situation. There’s real risk there. Even if the guy turns out to be a saint, that danger still exists until proven otherwise.
Dangerous and potentially dangerous are not the same sentence. Every person, male or female is potentially dangerous.
Ah, ok thanks. I’ve seen this crop up a few times and wondered how the arguments spin wildly out of control. I get it now.
You (and I assume the OP) are using the word “dangerous” differently than most people here.
When you say “dangerous”, you mean “might be a threat”, right? Most people here understand it as “is a threat”.
To use an abstract example, to me “this sandwich is dangerous” and “this sandwich is potentially dangerous” are wildly different. One says this sandwich is definitely poisoned or something, the other is simply telling me to keep my guard up.
By “most people” you mean “men.” You’re doing the male as default.
The way women, who are most people, use dangerous, is that the person might be a threat.
Women are half the population. Neither men as a group nor women as a group are ‘most people’
I’m literally going off the upvotes / downvotes, nothing more.
It can’t be proven otherwise, because mr.saint can just be acting to get you alone.
Always carry a pepper spray, ignore the offended incels.
And interestingly, lesbian relationships are theoat violent, while gay male relationships are the least.
Even assuming that by theoat you actually meant to write “the most,” the assertion seems unlikely at best. By what metric are you measuring violence?
EDITED to add I found this in Wikipedia, which I think accounts for the bizarre twist:
Misandry.
No physical or moral judgement is required for the argument. Op not passing moral or physical judgement upon the sharks but simply making a statistical analysis of the outcomes of swimming with sharks. That very same statistical argument can equally be applied to racial groups.
Statistically a black man in the unites states is twice as dangerous as a white man in the unites states both of whome are statistically more dangerous than a woman. (According to FBI statistics)
Your cannot separate these arguments you may have ur cake or u my eat it but you cannot do both.
Stop spreading the missinfo on sharks! Sharks are fairly unlikely to eat you.
On the other hand, to be fair, we would not have a society if every man committed rape, but they can hurt you in other ways too.
It’s important to be cautious and distrust everyone.
Yeah, like I’m sure they can pull up some data on a specific country such as the US, showing a disparity between the population which was enslaved and discriminated against for hundreds of years, and still is (both discrimination and slavery, as the injustice in the justice system puts more black people into prison for longer and the constitution literally allows slavery as a punishment for a crime) and the majority ethnicity, but even those disparities are honestly tiny, minuscule in comparison to the difference between violent crime rates between the sexes.
Like those are just bullshit you can’t apply universally to an ethnicity and definitely not just like a skin tone.
But men being more violent?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_crime#Aggression_and_violence_among_peers_and_in_relationships
Guess my whole comment is just to reiterate this point, which you already made. Anyway there’s some more and an updoot
Edit hey guys uhmm I still understand the validity of why the OP of this thread made his comment. I feel the same way. And it’s not fucking fun having someone being prejudiced against you. I’d often get the “not all men” reaction as well. But unfortunately it’s just a fucking fact we men are well more violent, and strong. We’re also more likely to get murdered though, and we’re still not prejudiced against other men. Or lots aren’t I guess. But we also have better defenses, being men and stronger. The situation is not fair but I’d rather take a little bit of discomfort myself to make women feel more comfortable in the current climate, because of rhe numbers. But exactly because of the numbers it’s also a bad argument to claim blacks steal more. Perhaps true in some cases, definitely bullshit in a lot. But definitely not as robust of an observation, not even on the same scale. And having your wallet nicked isn’t exactly the same as being graped but again, men do get hurt more by violence but eh. It’s a shitty disparity, what can you do.
Bad analogy. Skin colour was not a factor in the criminality here. Being a man absolutely is when it comes to violence against women.
Prejudice is unacceptable for any immutable characteristic, such as sex, gender, race, or sexuality.
Caution is not the same as prejudice. Women should not need to put themselves in potentially unsafe situations for the sake of men’s feelings. I have to live with the fear that I might be assaulted again, every day. Every woman knows someone that has been assaulted. I will never give a man that opportunity again, and that means that I’m going to have to live in such a way that I will mistrust a lot of good men too, because we don’t know which ones are dangerous to us. My assaulter was a close friend, was active in the community, and had my trust. For many women, it is family and close friends.
If you “caution” against all men, then yes that is prejudice, just as it would be if someone was “cautious” against black people.
That is prejudice. Be cautious in a non-prejudiced way, nobody will care.
I am being cautious in a non-prejudiced way. Being afraid of black people because of something unrelated to their race is very different than being cautious of men for something directly related to their sex. I was assaulted by a man, like most sexual assault victims were, especially women. Being cautious to not be alone with men I don’t absolutely trust again is not prejudice. There is no way to visually distinguish a rapist. I was assaulted by a close friend that I trusted and would have never thought to be cautious of. A large proportion of victims are assaulted by someone they trust, like family and partners. I am orders of magnitude more likely to be assaulted again by a man. You would have me put myself at risk or be a complete social hermit just for the sake of “fairness.” My actions just aren’t about men, they’re about keeping myself safe and being happy.
Not really, you are assuming the behavior of someone based on their immutable characteristics, they are both prejudice.
Except if they look like a man, right?
No, I would have you be cautious of every human because every human is a possible abuser. Your trauma is not an excuse for prejudice, neither is statistics. Judging any individual because of the group they were born as is prejudice, you are a prejudiced and intolerant person.
I am not assuming anyone’s behavior. I am acting with the caution that my experiences dictate, because I don’t want to be raped again. Men and women can be rapists. I am orders of magnitude more likely to be raped again by a man. My trauma isn’t excusing prejudice because I am not prejudiced against men. I am not judging any individuals, I am just choosing to not be alone with any men that don’t hold my absolute trust. It simply isn’t about them. No man is owed my time, or the time of anyone else, and it’s well within my rights to choose to my company.
Again, it’s not about you. I am not judging any individuals, I hold no opinion on them personally, whatsoever. Is choosing to wait for my friend to be ready to leave so I don’t walk home alone prejudice? Is carrying pepper spray in an accessible location prejudice? Is declining invitations from acquaintances because I don’t want to be alone with them before I know them better prejudiced? All of these choices are informed by my experiences. I have much more to fear from a random man than a random woman, statistically. It isn’t even close. I have watched men try to single out friends of mine, friends of mine have been roofied, or worse, even ignoring my own experiences.
The only way I treat men differently is the same way most women are taught to growing up, by bitter experience or through lessons from our peers and parents: I exercise caution in who has my company, when, and in what environment, because no one is owed my presence or my trust. The people that are safe will show me that and the people that are not will get defensive and make it about them.
You’re right, but I’ve found that men absolutely hate this argument. They hate hearing “I don’t trust you”. They think good people deserve trust and they completely refuse to see from your perspective that you don’t know if they’re good people yet, and think having to earn your trust is unfair.
Here’s the truth, guys. Women generally lack the desire or capability to sexually assault other women. When we get assaulted it’s by men, almost always. We don’t have to distrust women for our own protection. If men would stop assaulting us, we would find it easier to trust random guys… but they just won’t fucking stop. You cannot explain your point of view or how unfair it is to you in a way that will change our minds. The only way to get women to stop being afraid of you is to get men to stop assaulting us.
I already answered this, caution is not prejudice, but being cautious towards a specific demographic is prejudice. I’m not interested in hearing your prejudiced rationales, I’ve heard many over the years and they’re largely the same.
Yes, as said, statistics are not an excuse to be prejudiced. You cannot treat someone differently because of the group they were born as, that is prejudice. Go ahead and carry pepper spray, because anyone can attack you, but your trauma is leading you to rationalize prejudice and that is absolutely not acceptable in a tolerant society.
You keep making strawmen arguments because you cannot accept that someone is simply anti-prejudice.
You arm yourself, and go in knowing you can overpower anyone you are with. Hide weapons everywhere.
You know what? Shame for the imaginary, ideal, equitable world you have in your head, but as long as you aren’t exterminating people, some prejudice is good.
Lmao, what a terrible opinion. “Prejudice is okay because the world isn’t perfect.” At least you aren’t in denial like half the other people in this thread. The world will never be ideal or equitable as long as people like you are justifying, and advocating, the non-ideal and inequitable. Please spend less time in it.
The end goal is no one trusts anyone, and mutual safety is ENSURED. Because I have seen for myself that humans are incapable of anything else.
We have a somewhat viable society, because if you commit a crime, men with guns will come to stop you with force.
It’s not because of trust or anything like that.
But who will put down those men with guns? I have no idea.
Now, about the prejuduce part, it is fairly safe to assume that anyone who is a billionaire is a total psychopath.
Now, not all men are dangerous, but if you let your guard down near everyone, you will end up raped and dumped into the nearest lake, and won’t be equalizing anything.
Removed by mod
I feel bad for you. Sucks to have to live in fear. Do you have any feasible solutions? I have not seen many actual proposals on what should be done, except maybe improving equality and fighting discrimination. But those are not solutions for your fear.
I mean, have we tried just killing all men? /s
I just don’t put myself in situations where that could be a problem anymore. Trusted individuals share my location. In the long run, the only thing that fixes this is education and cultural shift. For individual women’s fear in the short term though, all we can do is live cautiously, carry pepper spray and/or some form of weapon, and always be around people you absolutely trust.
I do not blame men in general; there are men in my life that are excellent examples and the most safe people to be around. I blame the men that are entitled to women’s bodies. Unfortunately there is no way to look at someone and know the difference. No one knows what a rapist looks like. I very much appreciate the men that choose to be understanding and respectful instead of bitter or defensive.
A real solution: make men afraid to assault women. Make it so taboo they would never consider it. Express horror and disgust at the merest suggestion of it. Punish it decisively. Don’t give the benefit of the doubt.
It would have to be unfair as hell and would ruin a lot of men’s lives but I think it would eventually fix our fucked up culture. Once men stop sexually assaulting people so much they’ll be less scary.
You described exactly how pedophilia is treated. Was it solved?
Isn’t unfair treatment and ruining of people’s lives what were trying to solve? How more ruined lives are solving this?
I’m not saying “do it”, I’m just saying run it through it the computer and see if it would work.
Edit who downvotes Mitchell and Webb?
Let’s take all your feeling towards men relative to how you feel towards women and apply some statistics to it to determine what percentage if those feeling you should have towards black people relative to white people.
Men are 5.1-5.5 times more likely to assault someone compared to a woman. Black people are 2.7-2.9 times more likely to assault someone than a white person (according to FBI statistics) Combining these relative ratios tells us that you should be bias against men 1.44-1.48 times more than you should against black people. All these values are for a 95% confidence interval.
So whatever your feelings towards men are (as a result of assaults) take that amount divide that by 1.44 to 1.48 and that’s the percentage of ur feelings towards men you should apply to black people. So however u feel about men due to their chances of assault you statistically must be feel between 68% and 69% of that feeling towards black people. Anything else would be logically inconsistent and purely bias either against men or in favour of black people.
So what is it are you biassed against men or biased against white people or willing to abandon ur argument. The mathematics objectively say that you have to be one of those options.
You are misappropriating statistics to present a story they don’t tell. When you normalize for economic and social factors, including victim race, there is no statistically significant difference due to race alone. No race is inherently criminal, it’s entirely based on socioeconomic factors and systemic prejudice. There is no systemic prejudice against men, precisely the opposite, for a long time. Sexually motivated crimes have sexual factors to consider. It would be just as justified to fear race motivated crime perpetuated by certain groups of people, as it has been by many groups targeted by racial violence in history, around the world. Your analogy is not a direct one. A more analogous one would be people fearing race motivated crime, or fearing homophobia motivated crime. Both of those happen often. Fearing sex motivated crime and acting in accordance with your safety is totally valid.
The epidemic of male violence on women is evidence based, therefore not prejudice.
Judging all men based on the actions of others (pre-judging them, if you will) just because of what group they are in, is prejudiced.
The post literally says not “all men”. I don’t know why yourself and so many other commenters are inserting a straw man to argue with. If it’s intentional, it’s a bad-faith practise. If it’s unintentional it’s a literacy issue (common problem is USA).
Really? Because the title of the post is “All men are dangerous”
Even if the post didn’t say that, that’s what others in the comments are defending and/or advocating for.
I read the heading “all men are dangerous” as a misrepresentation of the screenshot - which is what I’m pushing back on. I definitely don’t think that all men are dangerous. I would be relieved to think that the comments here take issue with the heading and not the body text/screenshot, but the comments I’ve responded to haven’t made that distinction.
Really? Because there’s literally a line where the OP from the image references their statement of “all men are dangerous” that her husband then defends.
It’s literally part of the screenshot. Even if they then go on to defend it with “I know it’s not all men, but I’m saying it because of sharks or something”.
Okay, well let’s do some analysis then. If they say they know it’s not all men, but then immediately follow it up with saying they can’t tell which men it is, what message are we supposed to get? In the context of a comeback to someone disagreeing with “all men are dangerous”
To me, it’s pretty clearly justifying the position of “all men are dangerous,” just with the caveat that they know it’s not actually all men, but that they have to act is if it is because there is no way to tell the difference.
Do you not see that as a rationalization of treating all men like they are dangerous?
You don’t want to open that Pandora’s box.
Just get ready to say that causation and correlation are not the same… except when it confirms my priors.
FBI stats put black people 13% of the population at 51% of violent crime offenders. That’s evidence based are you saying that treating black people differently because of these statistics is therefore not prejudice?
That’s data, not evidence. To treat it as evidence you’d have to understand the causes (poverty, segregation, policing patterns, etc.).
And you’re mixing two things: using group averages to judge individuals vs managing risk under uncertainty. The first is prejudice, the second is safety behaviour.
Men on average are simply a higher physical risk to women than women are and so cost of being wrong is higher.
Is skin color a factor in poverty?
Is poverty a factor in criminality?
Because all the CRT and BLM arguments I’ve read have said unequivocally yes to both of those things…
If you already see the world through a racial lens, then sure. But I think you missed the point.
Really seems you were the one who missed the point.
No, I understand perfectly well that y’all want to mischaracterize a generalization to justify your racism.
You may want to read it again. That statement is not meant to promote racism. It’s using racism to point out that attempting an entire group of people over the actions of a few is a bad thing. It’s the example of the bad thing to try to get you to understand.
Unfortunately it didn’t work for you