Monday, July 16, 2007

Why I'm a Feminist, Reason #564

A poem. With links in it. And it may be triggering,

It seems I exaggerate
Irrationally I harp on the negatives
There are many good men
It's not all a vast conspiracy
So why keep exaggerating the problem?

Then I read:
The judge said the victim
was provocatively dressed
so the sentence should be lenient
Ten years old, she was.


Then I read:
a woman with opinions
only needs to be raped
with a big black dildo
then she'll stop talking


Then I read:
The man, previously sentenced
for sexual abuse of his oldest daughter's friends
had sole custody of his son and younger daughter
He started abusing her when she was three.


Then I read:
The doctor raped the woman
while she was under anesthetic

Then I read:
The sentence for the three boys
fifteen years old, who had gang-raped
a thirteen year-old, was lowered
because they hadn't damaged her


I do not say all men are like this
I do not say the world is all bad
I acknowledge that these are individuals
making their own choices to hurt others

All I'm saying is,
I wish it it were exaggeration

5 comments:

Insolent Prick said...

With all due respect, Jenny, your point of view would have more credibility if you didn't link to hyperbole and hogwash.

Your claim that a guy threatened to rape a blogger with a dildo just isn't true. Interesting story if it were true, but simply typical of the radical feminist agenda distorting truth and reality given that it's a lie.

In the case in question, yes, the target of the remark was probably objectified. The remark itself was probably pretty crass, and not very dignified. But it wasn't a threat of rape, and as long as you and others continue to claim that it was, you are diminishing your own credibility.

For the record, a commenter on another blog suggested that Maia needed a big, black dildo.

99.9% of the population would regard that remark as insensitive, and would interpret the suggestion as Maia needing a distraction of a self-satisfying sexual kind.

Only a tiny fraction of the population would choose to interpret that statement as a threat of physical force. Maia chose the latter interpretation. Probably as a distraction from the original assertion in the initial post about her: that she takes extremist, inflammatory positions on her blog. All to type, really.

What is not forgivable is people like you jumping on the bandwagon when you clearly haven't gone back and read the initial post. There was no threat of physical force. There was no intimation of rape.

To claim otherwise really only diminishes rape, and causes people to take you even less seriously.

Jenny said...

Actually, I did go back and read the original comment before I posted.

Firstly, I didn't say that the comment was a threat of rape. I do see the comment as saying that she ought to be made to be penetrated with a dildo. That's not the same thing as threatening to actually perform the act, just as saying "all illegal immigrants should be shot" doesn't mean that the speaker is about to pick up a gun and go on a spree.

In other words, there's a difference between "she should be raped" and "I'm going to rape her". The latter is a personal threat, the former needn't be.

Secondly, your estimation of the percentage of the population who wouldn't get any rape association from that post is presumably pulled straight out of your ass, as it's unlikely you've done a statistically relevant poll on the question. I can easily believe that 99.9 % of the men who generally agree with Clint Heine would agree with your view that it was merely "crass" and "not very dignified". For women who've been on the receiving end of comments like that since they started growing breasts, I would hazard that the percentage is quite different.

I don't claim to know what the commenter was thinking (and I use the term very loosely) when posting that, but I do know what I was thinking and feeling when reading it. What you're saying here sounds a lot like what my immigrant friends hear when they try to talk about the crap they get to deal with in their daily life - it's not really so bad, you know, it's just a slang term, it doesn't have anything to do with you, you shouldn't take it so personally. Thing is, you don't get to decide how someone else reacts to your comments on their person. You don't get to tell them their reaction is wrong.

Also, the idea that once a person has sex regularly they won't have any public opinions any more is confusing. It certainly doesn't work like that for any of the women (or men) I know. I can only suppose that the man who'd utter something like that is judging from himself.

Anonymous said...

Jenny, I completely agree with you. Great answer to insolent prick (insolent prick indeed). It's that kind of thing I face everyday, sexist comments linked to, 'oh, it's just a joke. it's not about you PERSONALLY.'.
Anyways, keep it up!

Anonymous said...

jenny, the implication was that Maia needed to calm down, get laid. 99.999% of people who read it GOT that. You didn't. Maia didn't - but it was very mischievious to suggest that Clint even said it - he didn't.

Jenny said...

Anonymous, the "whoosh" you just heard was the sound of the point going past your head without landing. Everything you said has already been answered in another comment.