What is this cultural consciousness that permits and pushes men towards sexual violence?

On a general level, it is one that is characterized by the sanctioning of all kinds of violence. As the psychologist Hans Eysenck observed long ago, what sex was for the Victorians, violence is for us. We officially condemn it, but actually reward and revel in it. An American child is rewarded for fighting back, not for turning the other cheek. (“Jesus was no sissy,” per the late televangelist Jerry Falwell.)

An undercurrent of violence worship is apparent in American culture, where some parents express their love by spanking their children, where the symbol of patriotism is the soldier, the symbol of personal freedom is the gun, the largest mental health system is the prison system, the most popular sport is football, the most popular entertainment are shoot ‘em up video games and vengeful movie superheroes blowing up things, and the most cherished demographic is youth. As a rule, where you see a lot of violence, you will see a lot of sexual violence.

my coworkers and I were just talking about this today oh man

julia oldham, why are there no great female werewolves?

It is bizarre to realise that this video is actually pretty spot-on:

@diseonfire

autistic traits that were ignored simply because I’m a girl:

not to mention all of the symptoms that WEREN’T obvious because I worked so hard to hide them.

pls educate girls on autism so they don’t spend their formative years wondering why they feel so different.

I put on my Tinder profile that I hate sports, I don’t drink beer and I’m 150% feminine all day all the time and so many guys are like…offended? One guy was like “what if the guy you like loves sports, you won’t even watch with him?” And I asked “will you wake up at 8am during fashion week to watch live streams of shows with me because that’s what I’m really interested in. And he said “I don’t really find that interesting.” And I’m like THEN WHY THE FUCK WOULD I CARE ABOUT SPORTS FOR YOU OMG. 

this isn’t an isolated thing. women are expected to change for men. if you don’t want to have children (ever) then someone is bound to say to you: well, what if your husband wants to have children? i was thinking about dyeing my hair & my dad says, what if the guy you’re dating doesn’t like it? we’re expected to lose weight & to dress in a certain way to appeal to men. we’re expected to be less opinionated, less assertive, less talented when competing against a man… it never fucking ends.

DO YOU AND WEED OUT THE WEAK MEN 🌺

I needed this, was literally thinking about getting into sports for a guy recently, don’t know what I was thinking lol

Now if you think, “hm, the person I’m interested in is really interested in (this thing). I will try it to see if I like it, too” that’s different. Especially if you try it, don’t like it, and don’t try to make yourself like it. If you do like it, great, then you have something else in common. 

telling ppl attracted to men that there are no good men out there or that men can’t love only normalizes poor treatment from men & doesn’t do anything helpful

Also also it perpetuates internalized hatred and low self-esteem in men who are genuinely good and it leads to poor mental health and the sense that as a result of being the gender they are they are automatically to be reviled.

It can also make trans men feel bad or guilty about being men.

every fall teenage girls are like.. “oh , im gonna enter a place of business and order a product which is offered by that place of business because i like the flavor of it” and honestly? how dare they. that’s so annoying. why can’t they buy the beverage that i, a smart man, would prefer to drink

Probably because they’re generally indifferent to the flavor of it and rather use it for in group/out group signalling like the giant basic bitch wall-decorations-from-target early childhood education/nutrition hive mind they are.

dude shut the fuck up lol

ok i spend all day with teenagers and am paid to educate them and let me tell you most of my girls may love leggings (comfy) and iced coffees (yummy) but i have never, NEVER, seen thirty of them spend a solid month all playing the same boring goddamn video game or had to pry them off their tablets and phones the day some ugly-ass overpriced sneaker drops try and get a group of teenage boys to all stop making the same fucking meme reference all. goddamn. day. then, and ONLY then, can you talk to me about hive mind

Can you imagine being a middle or high school teacher when Pickle Rick dropped.

You can’t act like women are inherently suited for child care and should focus on being a stay-at-home-mom and then turn around and get mad about women being prioritized in custody. This is a system of misogyny upheld by men. You guys decided women exist to birth children and care for children. You don’t get to then blame these women for the laws based on a culture of misogyny that you men create and perpetuate.

Straight Parents: We just want to decide when our kids are introduced to the idea of relationships!

Also Straight Parents: (watch a one year old baby boy playing with blocks with a one year old baby girl) HAHAHA he is already such a ladykiller

I am used to people assuming my long haired dmab child is a girl, that is what 99% of people think, no matter what Baby is wearing. Despite the fact that I use gender neutral terms for Baby on tumblr, in real life I do not even attempt to raise them gender neutrally because I don’t trust society. However, I also do not rigidly enforce their gender. most people refer to them as a girl when they meet them, and typically I do not bother to “correct” them because I don’t care. The only time I “correct” them is when it gets weird or the interaction is prolonged.

One time I was at the store when another dmab child started following mine around. The family of that kid thought it was the cutest thing they had ever seen. They laughed, “look, he’s following that little girl around!” I smiled politely and kept shopping

They didn’t go away, however. They kept following us. My child didn’t really understand what was going on, and they kept saying things like, “look, he has a crush on the little girl!” I don’t know how long this went on, but it got really weird. Finally, I turned and said, “actually, he’s a boy.”

They disappeared. Not another word was spoken. I don’t think they even acknowledged what I said beyond a shocked “oh”. Suddenly, it wasn’t cute. Suddenly, it wasn’t Innocent. Suddenly, their boy didn’t have a crush on my boy, like they had insisted before.

It’s fucking toxic and weird

Men are not inherently violent, predatory, or dangerous. Any feminist project worthy of the name needs to acknowledge that this behavior is taught. The idea of men being biologically predisposed to being abusers or rapists is actively used against abuse and rape survivors / victims (does the phrase “boys will be boys” ring a bell at all to you?) and will never, ever work in our favor.

Saying men are inherently shit is literally anti-feminism

Men are not born as garbage, they are TAUGHT to be garbage

That’s one of the whole points of feminism

You’re angry about men dying in wars? Then protest against wars.

You’re angry about men dying on the job? Then demand safer working conditions.

You’re angry about most homeless people being men? Then demand that society help the poor so no one is homeless.

You’re angry about the number of men who commit suicide? Then protest against the belief that bullying is a natural fact of life. Demand that healthcare for disabled people be more accessible.

You’re angry about “ladies’ nights” at bars? Then demand that men stop lusting after drunk women. That’s literally the only reason why ladies’ nights exist.

You’re angry about circumcision? Then protest against the belief that children are the property of their parents instead of autonomous human beings.

You’re angry about men being the most common victims of violence? Then demand that people stop making fun of men for refusing to fight or for showing emotions other than anger.

You’re angry about men being labeled as dangerous? Then protest against racism, ableism, and homophobia. Men of color, disabled men, and gay men are labeled as dangerous on a regular basis and are frequently threatened because of it.

You’re angry about society not caring when a man is assaulted by a woman? Then demand that people stop making fun of boys for “fighting like a girl”, “losing to a girl”, or “getting beat up by a girl”.

You’re angry when women don’t trust men? Then tell society to stop blaming rape victims for trusting men too much.

You’re angry about society not caring when teenage boys are raped by grown women? Then tell other men to stop high-fiving each other and calling him “lucky”.

You’re angry about no one caring when men are raped in prison? Then protest against the belief that prisoners forfeit their basic human rights. Also demand an end to laws against victimless actions that put them in prison in the first place.

And guess what. You wouldn’t be alone, because those “evil social justice warriors” who you hate so much would 100% agree with you.

Even little kids have a wage gap

Just had to bold that bottom point there because of the amount of misogynists who claim that because they have women in their family, they can’t POSSIBLY be sexist ever. 

oh my fucking god

Does this sound familiar to anyone else?

Your mom is always doing all the chores and housework. Your father is there, but he won’t help without an ordeal. You have a brother, but he ignores your mom’s requests and locks himself in his room immediately after school and after dinner. Exhausted, your mom turns to you and asks for help.

When you were a child and were asked to help, you always used to point to your brother and whine, “but why doesn’t HE have to?” What you couldn’t see was that he would inevitably refuse, throw tantrums, and do a purposefully bad job, which your mother would wind up having to do over again anyway. In this way, asking your brother (or father, even) to do a task doubles the time it takes to complete it. And your mother has come to understand this. So although she will call both of you and give you both chores, she only enforces it with you. Because despite the fact that you hate it, as every child does, you do not act like your brother. Your chores get done, not without whining, but they get thoroughly done.

When you got older, you’d do what she requested without whining.

Now, years after that, you don’t even have to be asked.

You are keenly aware that only half of the people in the house do the chores. That half is all female. You and your mom. You resent this, but you love your mother, and will always help her. When there is a family gathering, there is still that gendered split. Again, you resent this, but you care about your mother, and her mother, and your aunts, so you will always help them.

And that’s how it was for your mother when she was a girl. And hers. And you realize that this is probably how it has always gone, that this is how things came to be how they are. And what can you do about it? Nothing, except for picking up the next dirty dish and taking solace in the knowledge that you are not alone in your anger.

This is something I noticed when I was nannying. The female child was always “so helpful!” Because it never even occurred to her that she could say no. She did what grownups asked her to do. The male child would mouth off, throw tantrums, get violent, and even threaten self-injury because you asked him to put his laundry in the drawers. (Except, of course, when his father asked.) It never even occurred to the girl to act that way. It certainly never occurred to her that she’d get what she wanted if she did.

Except it did occur to her to protest or tantrum, years ago, and she was punished for disobeying, while her brother’s resistance was not. We learn early on that the rules are different for us than they are for boys. We learn at such a young age that we forget how we were punished and praised and molded to this path, and thus our obedience seems natural to everyone around us, including ourselves.

And in addition to being punished more for disobeying, female children have empathy for the older women who slave over the housework all alone, and feel compelled to help them out of kindness. Male children don’t feel this because they’ve internalized ideas about the inferiority and subservience of women, and are already learning to see this as morally ok.

this happens at work! i replaced a male coworker when he got promoted. and found out he never did the admin work the job required. much to the frustration of the quality manager and admin who were both women. they ask me, i do it. it needs to be done but he would literally tell them he wasn’t doing it. it was part of the job he didnt like and he said no? and no repercussions. he got promoted! and i am like still reeling over it because if i just said no to a part of my job i would get fired. 

This is how it is at my job, too. We have five female staff members, three full time and two part time. Four of the women are hard working, conscientious, and perceptive - they see something that needs to be done, and even if they haven’t been explicitly told to do it, they somehow manage to make the leap from ‘needs to be done’ to ‘i will do the thing’. (The fifth female staff member is fully competent but less proactive; she’s also a lot older and close to retirement, so I give her a pass.) The three male staff members (all full time), on the other hand, are almost completely useless. Two of them flat-out refuse to do large sections of their jobs. The third tries, in that ‘see! I’m making an effort! Is there a cookie for me?’ kind of way, but has no emotional intelligence. Somehow it falls to me, as the second-in-command of the operation, to nag the men until they do at least the bare minimum of their jobs, to act as intermediary between the women and the supervisor whenever a problem comes up that the men refuse to deal with, and to make sure all the important details about the day’s tasks are actually communicated to everyone. Does this sound like a supervisor’s job? Yes, it sure does! Is it the supervisor doing it? Nope! He’s the one with no emotional intelligence. I once spent forty-five minutes flat-out nagging him until he would talk to one of the other male staff members about all the tasks he was leaving undone. FORTY-FIVE MINUTES. Somehow the women all seem to be able to get their tasks done in a day. Somehow the men are always ‘too busy’ or ‘too overwhelmed’. Guess who gets the extra work done. Guess.

For all of the many times I’ve experienced this disparity, one that stands out to me even now was from when I was a kid. I was staying with a friend, and we had gone to the grocery store with her mother and brother. When we returned, her older brother ducked into the house without saying anything, and her mother asked us to carry in all the groceries. When we got inside, I told him he should have helped, which he blew off- so I threw a football at him and hit him dead center in the back of the head. I got in trouble obviously, but was worth it without a doubt. There’s rarely any catharsis in the face of gendered injustice now as an adult