Sexism, god help us (2 Viewers)

sometimes I see women doing things I long ago thought were odd and paranoid.
e.g. if a stranger crosses the road seemingly to get further away from me, I don't take
offence because she has reason to feel unsafe or threatened regularly and I don't.
 
@egg_ if you can read this and still dismiss the thought that life as a woman is a much more dangerous and scary one than life as a man I give up on you.
I know that sometimes I seem to be dismissing how tough women have it. It's mostly a failure to communicate on my part, and a reflection of the fact that I've been educated and worked all my life in a male-dominated environment. I know very few women very well, and they haven't had the experiences you describe, so it's not always easy for me to relate to, but really I am listening and doing my best to take in what you (and the other women-of-thumped) say

I think where you and me tend to clash is that I don't think you appreciate how dangerous and scary it can be to be a man. I'm a pretty chilled-out guy, but I have a lump in my lip and purple flashes in front of my left eye from being punched in the face. I've been started on in the street many times, usually I've been able talk my way out of it, but not always. I've been in hospital with a friend bleeding from the eye having been set upon by randomers. The flatmate of a friend used to regularly get beaten up in Dublin because he had the misfortune to be small, have an English accent and stay out late a lot. I've seen terrifying punch ups, unconscious guys being brought off in ambulances. If you're knocked unconscious, the chances of you having a long term brain injury are high, and sometimes people die.

I absolutely acknowledge that - even though I have a friend who's been stabbed by his wife, and went to a school where boys were routinely abused by a priest - women have a much higher risk of experiencing sexual and domestic violence. Men have a much higher risk of experiencing plain old regular violence. We generally don't talk about it, and if we do our social conditioning means we dismiss it ("well, I can look after myself"). I don't think it's worse than what women experience, but it is scary (terrifying when you're in the thick of it), it is actually genuinely dangerous, and as a man you do always need to have your eye out for it, especially if you're inclined to stand out.
 
To stick up for egg a little, I know how frustrating it is to be lectured about how women walk home with keys between their knuckles in case they have to defend themselves, as if that idea should be new to me or I wasn't literally doing it for years myself.

but at the same time, i've never had to worry about some woman turning up at my house, wandering in and leering at me, or being assaulted when out for a run in broad daylight, or being too afraid to go on, e.g. a holiday unaccompanied. My male friends don't expect me to text them to let them know I got home safely, most women I know do that. The stats speak for themselves.

I suppose no one likes being scolded and we all bristle at it.
 
I think where you and me tend to clash is that I don't think you appreciate how dangerous and scary it can be to be a man.
See, that's where you are wrong. Most of my life most of my best friends have been male. I fully appreciate how dangerous it can be for them too. I've patched up male friends who were attacked, and gone with them to the gardai to report the attack. The difference is that they were believed. They were not told they must have done something to provoke the attack, or that they shoiuldn't have been out at night, or alone in that area. What they said was just recorded as fact.
 
Contrast that with the time I went with a girl I knew in College to report a violent sexual assault. She was interrogated, her rapist, who also beat her black and blue, was never even questioned. He was a giant of a guy, even compared to me and she was tiny. But from the first instant the Gardai had made up her mind that she DESERVED to be a victim.
 
Where we disagree @egg_ is that you think women are over-reacting, I think more reaction is needed from everyone. People need to stop "whataboutery" and they need to stop justifying violence (of all kinds and against anyone) and protecting perpetrators.
 
you think women are over-reacting
That's where you are wrong. I have absolutely no problem with your reaction to violence against women. I just feel (rightly or wrongly) that you (as in you personally, not women in general) tend to dismiss violence against men. Perhaps you don't mean to, but to me that's how it comes across - this conversation literally started with you challenging me to deny that life as a woman is more scary and dangerous than life as a man.
 
And I didn't even deny it, I just pointed out that life as a man is dangerous and scary, and here you are giving me shit anyway :'(
you’re not being given shit

(or I suppose I could state that slightly more prickishly and say, hey, you’re being given a small amount of shit — so take it like a man. lol.)

of course it’s dangerous to be a man

over time, though, all else being equal, it’s way more dangerous to be a woman.

and it’s also far more likely that a harmed woman will have their perspective diminished, disbelieved, disregarded. which simply compounds the initial danger.

in straight personal intimate relationships, when one partner harms or kills the other partner, it is overwhelmingly the case that the man harms or kills the woman, far more so than that the woman harms or kills the man

I always try to keep Margaret Atwood’s summary in mind:

Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

still true.
 
Last edited:
That's where you are wrong. I have absolutely no problem with your reaction to violence against women. I just feel (rightly or wrongly) that you (as in you personally, not women in general) tend to dismiss violence against men. Perhaps you don't mean to, but to me that's how it comes across - this conversation literally started with you challenging me to deny that life as a woman is more scary and dangerous than life as a man.
Give me one example where I dismissed violence against men. This conversation, refer to post one, started with you heavyily implying that women are over-reacting by suggesting that society in any way favours men and that suggestions that the patriarchy even exists are beyond your comprehension. That women are just lesser and should get over it.

I am against violence against anyone.

When my flatmate came home with a broken nose when he was walking around town with a guy who had enemies I didn't dismiss his pain and tell him to make better life choices. choose better friends and keep out of dark laneways - and neither did the Gardai.

When the girl I knew was raped and beaten by a guy who followed her home and broke into her house she was basically told it was her fault because she smiled at him and said Hi to him at some point, and maybe she shouldn't wear short skirts, and she should have fitted better locks on her door.
 
Give me one example where I dismissed violence against men.
Maybe this isn't how you meant it, but the following reads like a dismissal to me
Squiggle said:
life as a woman is a much more dangerous and scary one than life as a man

Squiggle said:
This conversation, refer to post one, started with you heavyily implying that women are over-reacting by suggesting that society in any way favours men and that suggestions that the patriarchy even exists are beyond your comprehension. That women are just lesser and should get over it.
I really didn't mean to imply that. I honestly didn't understand why people were enraged by the article I posted. I understand a little better now (thanks in part to your contributions)
 
(or I suppose I could state that slightly more prickishly and say, hey, you’re being given a small amount of shit — so take it like a man. lol.)
Haha ok touché

taubstumm said:
and it’s also far more likely that a harmed woman will have their perspective diminished, disbelieved, disregarded. which simply compounds the initial danger.

in straight personal intimate relationships, when one partner harms or kills the other partner, it is overwhelmingly the case that the man harms or kills the woman, far more so than that the woman harms or kills the man
Yes yes I get that, I acknowledge that, I accept the truth of that, and I'm horrified at @Squiggle 's story

but ...

taubstumm said:
over time, though, all else being equal, it’s way more dangerous to be a woman.
Dude, as far as I can tell, this is just plain wrong. When @Lili Marlene said "the stats speak for themselves" I went and looked up the stats from the US Bureau of Justice and the Irish CSO. Yes women are the primary victims of sexual and domestic violence, but even including that men are significantly more likely to be the victims of violent crime as a whole.

So (shrugs) I dunno.

Look, I can totally get behind the outrage at the way victims of sexual crimes are disbelieved, and I really don't want to be saying that men have it harder than women, because we don't. But 10 seconds casual googling (or duckduckgo-ing, to make sure I'm not stuck in filter a bubble) contradicts what you said above
 
Dude, as far as I can tell, this is just plain wrong. When @Lili Marlene said "the stats speak for themselves" I went and looked up the stats from the US Bureau of Justice and the Irish CSO. Yes women are the primary victims of sexual and domestic violence, but even including that men are significantly more likely to be the victims of violent crime as a whole.

So (shrugs) I dunno.

Look, I can totally get behind the outrage at the way victims of sexual crimes are disbelieved, and I really don't want to be saying that men have it harder than women, because we don't. But 10 seconds casual googling (or duckduckgo-ing, to make sure I'm not stuck in filter a bubble) contradicts what you said above
I really hope this won’t just turn into a thread where everyone chips in with their favourite way of slicing the data and then we all just bicker about statistics. ain’t no fun. it also just immediately gets bogged down in the minutiae of how things are counted. The most obvious of those is that we can’t count what is not reported.

All that being said, let’s immediately do exactly that, and start with the stat from the UN, that worldwide, less than 40 per cent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort, even from their own family and friends. and of those, less than 10% go to the cops. so it seems safe to presume, statistically, that any numbers about violence against women will also need to include or acknowledge this submerged-iceberg reality.

the obvious riposte here is to say that there are plenty of dude bar fights that never get reported either. do we have to go looking up stats on that too?
 
Look, I can totally get behind the outrage at the way victims of sexual crimes are disbelieved, and I really don't want to be saying that men have it harder than women, because we don't. But 10 seconds casual googling (or duckduckgo-ing, to make sure I'm not stuck in filter a bubble) contradicts what you said above
I just want it on the record that I do indeed go to the trouble of making duckduckgo my default search because apparently i’m an idiot who loves to make my own life difficult, so I chuckled at reading this
 
Yeah. I phrased that badly. It was intended to be more positive than it reads. It was more along the lines that the debate seems to be about different sides of the same coin. Wasn't meant to be a dig at anyone.
 

The comments too. Memories of walking home with my keys in my hand between my fingers, always being ready to run if needed (and a few times it was). Being followed and having to assess the best method of escape (pretend call, challenge, run, dodge, pretend a stranger was a buddy...) I actually feel a bit sick because it brings back memories of so many situations all in a pile on. @egg_ if you can read this and still dismiss the thought that life as a woman is a much more dangerous and scary one than life as a man I give up on you.
I wholeheartedly relate, and agree, and am sorry you have experienced all of those things-it is a navigating, always. The idea that anyone might "dismiss the thought that life as a woman is a much more dangerous and scary one than life as a man" boggles my mind.

I guess it must be all those women out there raping and murdering men in droves to the point where it has practically become part of the culture. Oh, wait.

Edit: Just read the subsequent posts-as initially just saw this one and was responding to @Squiggle. Of course men can be victims too.No-one would dispute that. However, sadly, every female friend I know has had similar experiences to @Squiggle and I.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Activity
So far there's no one here

21 Day Calendar

Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Mohammad Syfkhan 'I Am Kurdish' Dublin Album Launch
Bello Bar
1 Portobello Harbour, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland
Gig For Gaza w/ ØXN, Junior Brother, Pretty Happy & Mohammad Syfkhan
Vicar Street
58-59 Thomas St, The Liberties, Dublin 8, Ireland
Bloody Head, Hubert Selby Jr Infants, Creepy Future - Dublin
Anseo
18 Camden Street Lower, Saint Kevin's, Dublin, Ireland

Support thumped.com

Support thumped.com and upgrade your account

Upgrade your account now to disable all ads... If we had any... Which we don't right now.

Upgrade now

Latest threads

Latest Activity

Loading…
Back
Top