Words are not fists: some thoughts on how men work to defuse feminist anger

This is, I think, an important post.

I've been thinking about men in women's studies classes, and jokes about "male-bashing."

This semester's women's studies class is like most: overwhelmingly female.  I've got 32 women and 6 men in the class.  I met individually last Thursday with the women for "all-female day"; I met with my guys on Tuesday for "all-male day."  This morning, we all got back together in the classroom for the first time as a full group in nine days.

Most of the guys hadn't spoken in class all semester; today, all did.  A number of the women in class were eager to ask questions and create dialogue; up until this week, mine has been the only consistent male voice in the classroom.  The guys did a great job of sharing about many topics (we spent a lot of time on the "myth of male weakness")  But two of the guys did something that I see over and over again from men in women's studies classes.  They prefaced their remarks by joking "I know I'm going to get killed for saying this, but..."  One of them, even pretended to rise from his desk to position himself by the door, saying that "Once I say this, I know I'm going to have to make a run for it."   Most of the women laughed indulgently, and I even found myself grinning along.

When men find themselves in feminist settings (like a women's studies class) they are almost always in the minority.  When I was taking women's studies classes at Berkeley in the 1980s, I was usually one of only two or three men in the room.  In my women's history classes over the past decade, men average 10-20% of the students, never more.  Even when they make up as much as a fifth of the class, they generally do less than a tenth of the talking. That isn't surprising, given the subject matter -- I was often fairly quiet in my own undergraduate days.

But one thing I remember from my own college days that I see played out over and over again is this male habit of making nervous jokes about being attacked by feminists.  In my undergrad days, I often prefaced a comment by saying "I know I'll catch hell for this".  I've seen male students do as they did today and pretend to run; I've seen them deliberately sit near the door, and I once had one young man make an elaborate show (I kid you not) of putting on a football helmet before speaking up!

All of this behavior reflects two things: men's genuine fear of being challenged and confronted, and the persistence of the stereotype of feminists as being aggressive "man-bashers."  The painful thing about all this, of course, is that no man is in any real physical danger in the classroom -- or even outside of it -- from feminists.  Name one incident where an irate women's studies major physically assaulted a male classmate for something he said?  Women are regularly beaten and raped -- even on college campuses -- but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting!  "Male-bashing" doesn't literally happen, in other words, at least not on campus.   But that doesn't stop men from using (usually half in jest) their own exaggerated fear of physical violence to make a subtle point about feminists.

There's a conscious purpose to this sort of behavior.  Joking about getting beaten up (or putting on the football helmet) sends a message to young women in the classroom: "Tone it down.  Take care of the men and their feelings.  Don't scare them off, because too much impassioned feminism is scary for guys."  And you know, as silly as it is, the joking about man-bashing almost always works! Time and again, I've seen it work to silence women in the classroom, or at least cause them to worry about how to phrase things "just right" so as to protect the guys and their feelings.  It's a key anti-feminist strategy, even if that isn't the actual intent of the young man doing it -- it forces women students to become conscious caretakers of their male peers by subduing their own frustration and anger.   It reminds young women that they should strive to avoid being one of those "angry feminists" who (literally) scares men off and drives them away.

Here's where I need to issue a big ol' mea culpa.  Until today, I don't think I fully realized how common this strategy of joking about male-bashing really is.  I didn't realize how I, as a teacher, permit and thus encourage it.  Too often, I've been so eager to make sure that my small minority of men feels "safe" in the classroom that I've allowed their insecurities to function to silence the female majority -- in what is supposed to be a feminist setting!  Though I haven't made such remarks myself, I've laughed indulgently at them without stopping to consider their function.

Part of being a pro-feminist man, I've come to realize in recent years, is being willing to face the real anger of real women.  Far too many men spend a great deal of time trying to talk women out of their anger, or by creating social pressures that remind women of the consequences of expressing that anger.  Many men, frankly, are profoundly frightened by women who will directly challenge them.  In a classroom, they don't really fear being struck or hit.  But by comparing a verbal attack on their own sexist attitudes towards physical violence, they hope to defuse the verbal expression of very real female pain and frustration.   I know that it's hard to be a young man in a feminist setting for the first time, and I know, (oh, how I know) how difficult it is to sit and listen to someone challenge you on your most basic beliefs about your identity, your sexuality, your behavior, and your beliefs about gender.  It's difficult to take the risk to speak up and push back a bit, and it's scary to realize just how infuriating your views really are to other people, especially women.

The first task of the pro-feminist male in this situation is to accept the reality and the legitimacy of the frustration and disappointment and anger that so many women have with men, and to accept it without making light of it or trying to defuse it or trying to soothe it.  Pro-feminist men must work to confront their own fears about being the target of those feelings.  Above all, we cannot ever compare -- even in jest -- verbal expressions of strong emotion to actual physical violence or man-bashing.

After all, one of the pernicious aspects of the "myth of male weakness" is that men can't handle being confronted with women's anger.  We either run away literally or figuratively, disconnecting with the television, the bottle, the computer screen.  But we're not little boys who will physically lash out in rage when challenged, nor can we be so fearful that we dodge and defuse and check out.  That's not what an adult does in the face of the very real emotion of another human being.

I've allowed this kind of joking and defusing to go on too long in my classes. It's going to stop now.

UPDATE:

Please don't get into thread drift here.  This is not a forum to question the basic tenets of feminism, or issues of domestic violence and abuse, or why I've banned anyone in the past.  I'm going to be much more careful about monitoring what is posted here.  This is not a free speech zone, nor need it be.  It's my blog, and y'all have other forums for discussing gender issues.

Comments

[moderate_man]

Basically, he's trying to deflect attention from whatever horribly rude and offensive thing he is about to say unto whether the women are nice enough to him after he has said something offensive and stupid. If his views are logical and rational, he should be able to defend them without resorting to this sort of trick.

Shannon, the problem is that people tend to hold their beliefs very dear to them. A man may say in a discussion about domestic violence in a Women's Studies class -

"yeah, but what about male victims? They make up a third to a half of all DV victims, depending on what independent source you get your stats from. How do they fit into this patriarchal system we're discussing here?"

I am quietly confident he would get a very very negative response from students/lecturer in a Women's Studies class. In fact, many would consider his question to be rude and offensive, even though he made a genuine enquiry, that is provable. The reaction from the class will tell other members : Sure, you can question what we say if you want, leper-boy, up to you. But if you want to get ahead, don't speak out. Take in what we say. Do NOT question it.

In my opinion, this is very very unhealthy.

You need to leave university as a critical thinker, not somebody indoctrinated by whatever ideology. If it's the latter, you stop thinking once you leave campus. Indoctrination is like unthinking. It tells you not to question, not to query. It limits your understandings.

[mythago]

Obviously, someone who makes such a preface believes (s)he won't be treated civilly and courteously.

That's one possibility, bmmg. The other possibility is that the person is trying to defuse criticism, however civil. Remember, Hugo isn't talking about men who are saying "Don't get mad at me, but...." They're joking that their classmates are going to actually physically assault them. Now, I don't believe (and I'm sure you don't either) that these men really are afraid that they will be physically attacked.

Hugo can certainly emphasize that everyone should behave civily. He should also point out that disclaimers a) weaken one's point and b) put the onus on the listener to preface any response with assurances that they wouldn't of course do such a thing.

It's pretty irrelevant whether it's deliberate or not, anyway. Calling it out (and reminding everyone of the ground rules of the classroom) shuts it down.

[Wren]

What a great post!! I came here from Pandagon and I'm so impressed - you're so right of course, and you've laid it out so clearly it all makes so much sense. Thanks!

[Raincitygirl]

Yes, deliberately getting another human being drunk so that sex can occur is rape (assuming the other person is NOT drunk, right?). As per your other point, yes, some women DO lie about having been raped, and false accusations ARE a problem, though not "loads more important" than stopping actual rapes (but perhaps JUST as important -- would you, Shannon, like to be accused of a serious crime you did not commit?).

According to that hotbed of radical feminist black lesbians, the FBI, the incidence of false accusations of rape is similar to the incidence of false accusations of other crimes: round about 4% of accusations. And given that a fairly large proportion of the FBI's personnel are white males, I'm thinking that this may not be all part of a vast feminist conspiracy.

So let's see, if false accusations occur in 4% of cases, and 96% of accusations are true, then might it not be a good idea for people who are concerned about rape to focus 96% of their attention on the incidence of rape and 4% of their attention on the incidence of false reporting? Giving 50/50 weight to "Some women tell the truth" and "Some women lie" seems counter-productive when the proportion of liars is statistically insignificant. I mean, the incidence of false reporting of burglary is also round about 4%. Should we spend 50% of our time and energy on talking about people who falsely claim to have been burgled? Or should we put the main focus on the vast majority of true burglary victims, without forgetting that about one in twenty reports is false? If we assume from the get-go that people who report burglaries are probably lying, regardless of statistics which suggest they're 96% likely to be telling the truth, is that going to be helpful to the 19 out of 20 people who've been genuinely victimized? Nobody is saying that false reporting NEVER occurs. But it is not particularly significant from a statistical point of view compared to the number of true reports.

[Sociopathic Revelation]

Raincitygirl;

Are you sure about that?

" . . . false allegations of rape are frighteningly common.

According to a nine-year study conducted by former Purdue sociologist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 percent of the cases reviewed, the complainants eventually admitted that no rape had occurred (“Archives of Sexual Behavior,” Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994). Kanin also studied rape allegations in two large Midwestern universities and found that 50 percent of the allegations were recanted by the accuser.

Kanin found that most of the false accusers were motivated by a need for an alibi or a desire for revenge. Kanin was once well known and lauded by the feminist movement for his groundbreaking research on male sexual aggression. His studies on false rape accusations, however, received very little attention."

Hmmmm . . .

"Kanin's findings are hardly unique. In 1985 the Air Force conducted a study of 556 rape accusations. Over one quarter of the accusers admitted, either just before they took a lie detector test of after they had failed it, that no rape occurred. A further investigation by independent reviewers found that 60 percent of the original rape allegations were false."

If you want me to source the article, let me know.

SR

[The Gonzman]

I don't know where you took YOUR statistics, but where I came from even if it were merely as low as 4%, that would be considered statistically significant. That's one in twenty five.

Acquittals have been won on a lot less.

[unPCdad]

Some one needs to ask Hugo how many posts he has deleted from this thread.

None of mine get through, because I am asking questions he does not wish to answer.

They get posted and disappear in minutes.

Is this a fine example of feminist "tolerance?"

[Hugo]

Folks, stop the thread drift onto rape statistics -- NOW.

unPCDad, you've had your posts deleted for thread drift. I've answered the questions you ask many times.

If you post on anything other than the topic of this thread, it WILL be deleted.

[shannon]

This is how I 'hear'. You see, certain tactics are consistantly used, and one of these is what I call the switcheroo. You try to change the conversation so that instead of a conversation that might lead to questioning of privilege, and possible solutions to social problems(like if a woman said "hey, that wasn't my fault back there!") you get a conversation about how bad other people are ("those lying tramps!") and of course nothing is learned. The biggest sign is when you focus on some small problem so you can ignore a larger one. Of course, there's also willful miscasting of the subject matter- it's not men's studies. And if you don't like the subject matter, don't take the class. If you choose to take the class, try to learn something.

If you don't like having to deal with people disagreeing with you in a classroom, hey, you could always be employed at a right wing think tank if you suck up to the right people.

[Alecto Erinyes]

Dr Hugo wrote:

"When men find themselves in feminist settings (like a women's studies class) they are almost always in the minority. When I was taking women's studies classes at Berkeley in the 1980s, I was usually one of only two or three men in the room. In my women's history classes over the past decade, men average 10-20% of the students, never more. Even when they make up as much as a fifth of the class, they generally do less than a tenth of the talking. That isn't surprising, given the subject matter -- I was often fairly quiet in my own undergraduate days."

I find that fascinating, and completely unlike my own experience. When I took women's studies here in Oz, there were 3 men to ten women in the class. About half-way through the semester, the Prof asked us who dominated the discussion, and by how much. The male students said: the women, they talk all the time, we can't get a word in edgewise, the blokes only get about 5% of the air-time. The female students said: it's us, we talk too much, the blokes only get about 10% of the airtime, we're too domineering and they don't get a fair go.

Then the Prof played a tape recording of the previous week's class discussion and got us to time the amount of time a male voice was speaking, and the amount of time a female voice was speaking.

70% of the time it was a male voice. And that's in a class with a female Prof. 3 out of fourteen, and they took up 70% of the time, and we all felt they were hard done by!

Are you sure your male students are only doing a tenth of the talking?

As for "I know I'm going to be killed for saying this" sort of prefaces, I get that all the time in my workplace, and it's *not* one where women dominate. In that context, it means: "I know that what I'm going to say is sexist and offensive, but because I have the power in this situation, I'm going to say it anyway, and I'm letting you know that I'm saying it even though I'm aware it's offensive and demeaning because it's time for me to remind you that your desire to be treated as a fellow human being is unrealistic. But by all means shake your tiny girlish fists in anger. I don't give a shit."

[mythago]

I've created an avatar just to see if this post gets through.

Good grief. What you've created is a pseud or a sock puppet. An "avatar" is a visual representation of yourself--like the orc shaman you just created in World of Warcraft. If you're going to whine for attention, at least get your net lingo in order.

[Feminist Males Exist]

Moderate Man,
I think you like many posters here have a lot of assumptions about feminist ideology.

Do you know what "feminism" means? Any claim of "female superiority" from women is not a "feminist" claim. It is a sexist one.

Yes, male victims are also part of the patriarchal picture. I don't think as a feminist, I will deny this.

Also realize that women's this topic is not "taboo" in a women's studies course. In a women's studies course, one would most likely question what about a patriarchal society results in male victims reluctant about reporting abuse from a female perpetrator.

It is a system that raises men with the assumption that they are"wusses" or "wimps" for having a female perpetrator in the first place.

That system my friend, is patriarchy. Yes, men also suffer.

I mean critical thinking is a great thing, but do you even realize what are you are critical of in your posts? Certainly not feminism.

True feminists realize that men are also oppressed by a patriarchal society.

[Feminist Males Exist]

"I know that what I'm going to say is sexist and offensive, but because I have the power in this situation, I'm going to say it anyway, and I'm letting you know that I'm saying it even though I'm aware it's offensive and demeaning because it's time for me to remind you that your desire to be treated as a fellow human being is unrealistic. But by all means shake your tiny girlish fists in anger. I don't give a shit"

Alecto! Exactly. It takes a certain sense of entitlement to have sentiments like the ones you describe.

[Little Lion]

The irony is dripping: in a post entitled, "Words are not fists," we are told that certain hyperbolic prefatory comments (which are not fists) perpetrated by certain male students "force" women students into subservient behavior. Apparently this kind of force cannot be resisted, even by education. Moreover, we are to understand that the deployment of this kind of force through non-fists is a key "anti-feminist strategy" (the word "tactic" would be the more appropriate choice). So much for the caution against hyperbole.

[Antigone]

I vote that "fuckHugo" and PCDad be banned.

They've been nothing but hostile and annoying.

[bmmg39]

"This is how I 'hear'. You see, certain tactics are consistantly used, and one of these is what I call the switcheroo."

Something that YOU'RE doing. See:

"If you don't like having to deal with people disagreeing with you in a classroom, hey, you could always be employed at a right wing think tank if you suck up to the right people."

What we say: "Rape and false accusations should both be dealt with."
What you hear: "We don't like having to deal with people disagreeing with us. We will only be happy in a right-wing think tank."

"True feminists realize that men are also oppressed by a patriarchal society."

-- which, as I've said before -- is a reason not to call it a "patriarchal" society.

[moderate_man]

Hugo, I've asked you a couple of times now to give sources to the quote you made on your post:-

Women are regularly beaten and raped -- even on college campuses -- but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting!

Regularly beaten and raped?

Please provide independent sources to substantiate that claim (and yes, I am ON thread because you mentioned it in your post and it is germane to the discussion - the 'fear' factor when opposing a mainstream view).

Do you know what "feminism" means? Any claim of "female superiority" from women is not a "feminist" claim. It is a sexist one.

The problem with feminism is that feminists themselves apply different meanings to the word. I apply 'feminism' to describe a system used to help women, whether it secures parity with males, or an advantage over males. It is not concerned about men's experiences of sexual discrimination. It frames everything around "patriarchy" (as you have done) to blame and shame men in an indirect way. It is condascending to men, and assumes guilt to males and innocence to females as the starting point to all discussions. Feminists are loathe to admit that men make up at least a third of domestic violence victims (being victims of female perpetrators) - and when they do, they indirectly blame men for it (as you have done).

True feminists realize that men are also oppressed by a patriarchal society.

What exactly does that mean? Can you be clear here? How does the patriarchy manifest itself? Can you give very specific instances of where men are clearly oppressed by a patriarchy? I mean, specific, tangible, provable instances - I'm not interested in any tenuous linking that 'fit your theory' or any other thinking out-loud theorizing. Give me something compelling here.

I think this is also germane to the discussion Hugo, unless you just want to ban everything.

[Anniee]

"I know that what I'm going to say is sexist and offensive, but because I have the power in this situation, I'm going to say it anyway, and I'm letting you know that I'm saying it even though I'm aware it's offensive and demeaning because it's time for me to remind you that your desire to be treated as a fellow human being is unrealistic. But by all means shake your tiny girlish fists in anger. I don't give a shit"

Alecto! Exactly. It takes a certain sense of entitlement to have sentiments like the ones you describe."

My goodness, assume much?? So now because he knows his view is going to be unpopular, it must be because he was going to say something offensive and *demeaning*??? What kind of freaking assumption is that? I can't say what happens in a feminist college course, but in online conversation with feminists I can tell you that man or woman doesn't matter - if you say something that goes against feminist dogma (NOT something demeaning) you are very likely to get your ass handed to you as you are roundly torn a new one and cursed at prolifically. I've had it happen to me time and again. It stands perfectly to reason that anyone who has spent time with feminists knows they have to be very very careful what they do and don't say - and even then it isn't necessarily safe. Like Gonzo said, Occam's Razor for crying out loud. #1 Stop assuming he MUST be about to say something putting women down and #2 Recognize that fear of being reamed out by angry feminists (is there any other kind?) is a real one.

Of course I can't for the life of me understand why anyone takes those courses, much less men...unless they're the self-loathing type.

[moderate_man]

if you say something that goes against feminist dogma (NOT something demeaning) you are very likely to get your ass handed to you as you are roundly torn a new one and cursed at prolifically. I've had it happen to me time and again.

Anniee, your experience is my experience here. I agree - going against feminist thinking is in itself offensive to feminists. So you can't win in that situation. If I was in a Women's Studies class and I started going on about male DV victims, I've no doubt I would be called "offensive" and even a "misogynist". I go by my own online experience - you just can't properly debate with feminists because they are frustrated by a lack of truth on their side so they do a hissy fit everytime.

I want to debate with a feminist, where we use only facts, not 'ideas' or 'theories' or anything fluffy. Just facts. I don't want to be called a 'sexist' just because we might disagree. I want to be called 'factually wrong' if my facts are wrong. That's fair enough, and I will admit if I am wrong in those situations. Feminists rely on subjectivity because they lack objective facts. Notice how Hugo still hasn't given any sources to his claim :-

Women are regularly beaten and raped -- even on college campuses -- but I know of no instance where a man found himself a victim of violence for making a sexist remark in a college feminist setting!

[shannon]

bmmG, not only do these problems not deserve to get equal time at all, they are opposed to each other. Talking about how women are all liars- yea, that's going to get women to come forward, and men to say "hey, I don't have to rape anybody. I have control over my body". Seriously, I don't think these guys have no agenda. And of course I think your whining about why people can't derail actual teachable time to bring up the same old crap that everyone has already heard before is wimpy. I mean, we've got guys here on this thread complaining about how being sexist may be punished by being called sexist or that they may not get ahead if they disrespect other people, and heck, this whole thread is about guys who are so afraid of an honest argument that they must try to preempt any criticsm of their talking points. If men who want to disrupt talk of rape by focusing on the poor poor men(not even the minority of rape victims who are men, who you could at least feel bad for, but men who most of the time have done something wrong*) they can go out and say it like normal human beings.

*I believe many of the guys who have raped but believe they are innocent have fallen victim to rape myths- like it's ok to have sex with a passed out woman or that she was asking for it. Educating men about these points would eliminate much confusion, and would do way more for men than harping on the few women who more likely have become confused about who raped them rather than an plot to hurt a particular man.

[moderate_man]

...this whole thread is about guys who are so afraid of an honest argument that they must try to preempt any criticsm of their talking points.

You're only reaching that point by ignoring what many people have stated here in plain English, many many times. Sure, believe what you want to believe Shannon, because I know you're not interested in facts. You assume pre-empting a statement with "I know this might sound bad, but..." is akin to sugar-coating a lie? How very narrow minded of you. It has been said here a dozen times or more that people do this when they have something controversial to say. Controversial as in, perhaps disagreeing with the mainstream view. Not to mean it's wrong, or sexist, or mean - just different. Got that? In a Women's Studies class, it would be controversial to raise the issue of male victims of domestic violence (I repeat this example because it is a good one - there are many others though). It wouldn't be sexist to raise this issue. It wouldn't be rude. It most certainly wouldn't be dishonest. But what it would be is controversial - causing friction, and bad consequences to the person bringing such an opinion to the class.

[ginmar]

Yes, and it's interesting to note how taboo a subject male victims of female violence is in feminist circles.

If you leave out how male victims of violence are used to interupt and derail discussion of the overwhelming amounts of male on female violence, that is. Which of course, you do.

It's almost like feminists believe that females are somehow morally superior to males - that's just supremicist rubbish.

Funny, this is a claim one never hears from feminists---only MRAs and SYGs.

It's as bad as saying whites are superior to blacks, or using other arbitrary attributes (race, colour) as a measure of character.

A strawman on top of a straw man! Bravo.

Truth is - women are as violent as men, certainly in intimate circumstances like relationships. Statistics bear this out. If you look at DV stats, incidences of violence are perpetrated equally from both genders. If anyone wants sources, I can provide - from UK Home Office stats and other neutral sources.

Except this is not borne out at all. In the US, we have something called the Conflict Tactics Violence Scale, which, like your comment above, removed violence from context and just counted up numbers like it was a sporting event, except it's an odd sporting event that would pit a gymnast against, say, a prize fighter. First off, studies before 1992 omitted the counting of sexual violence in the relationship, becuase this was overwhelmingly male-on-female and it 'skewed' the results. How so? Well, it's just unfair to all those men, evidently, that their acts be counted when women weren't committing the same acts. Second, the CTVS did not assess for context. A man could attack his wife and she could defend herself, he could use a weapon to do so w hile she used a pillow, and according to the CTVS, they'd both committed equal acts of violence.

Except not, unless you're an MRA who uses the screen name equivalent of, "Well, this is not PC, dammit, but I'm going to say it anyway."

Guys who pull the "Well, I'm going to get nailed for it" are just as manipulative as the guys who stomp onto feminist discussions of rape and try to whine about male victims instead of actually helping those male victims themselves. They expect women to do it. Then they trot out the 50/50 DV figure as if that hasn't been debunked over and over again. Those are diversionary tactics.

Claiming that DV is 50/50, that rape is routinely falsely charged, and so forth and so on are all things that serve the same purpose as the, "I know you're gong to get upset." They're all tired and used up. We all know that rape is drastically under reported, that in the real world men are bigger than women and make up the majority of LE and justice figures, and that if you're going to piss someone off, maybe hte problem isn't them, it's YOU. The big question is, why do so many men feel the need to try the same tactics over and over again? Why doesn't it get slapped down once and dealt with? Female feminists tend to do it becuase we have to live it and it's not just an intellectual exercise for us. Male feminists seem to think that they can reform the trolls from SYG. Why? Is their time more valueable than ours? Or are they just more valueable than we are? If not, then why are they essentially allowed to get away with this crap over and over again?

[DMar]

The discussion on this thread has been interesting to follow.

I don't think all men in a women studies class who preface thier comments are doing so in bad faith. I'd like to think that it's because they're in the minority, and probably don't have the same understanding of how sexism can be oppressive because they (again, probably) haven't experienced it firsthand. I'm also going to trust that most men who sign up for a women studies class do so out of an interest to learn and understand, not just to derail all of the discussions by making the class all about them. That said, I'm sure there are some a-holes out there as well. I guess I'd like to think they're the exception. The compromise pointed out by mythago (?) above sounded reasonable.

I'm sorry for going off topic here, but to Moderate Man: Your question was how men can be oppressed by a patriarchal society. I have an example, which is only an anecdote but I believe it's probably indicative of other situations. It also includes your favorite topic- DV against men.

I worked as a waitress at a restaurant, and one evening the wife of one of the cooks came to pick him up. He went outside to get into the car and I don't know what his wife was pissed about but she started yelling at him, and slapped him on the arm about four or five times. Regardless of whether this guy is an ass or not, you don't hit another person. All of us who worked in the restaurant saw it, but no one did anything. The next day when he came into work all of the other guys in the kitchen started giving him h*ll for it- calling him whipped, a p*ssy, a sissy, 'why can't you control your wife,' etc. If that situation were reversed no one would dare tell a woman she was a pansy- they would (hopefully) point her to a DV crisis line.

The fact that men who are beaten are seen as less than is oppressive.

I have had a very different experience with feminism than you- I've never met anyone who identified as a feminist who put men down, on the contrary most sites I frequent like to point out how a strict gender role society is bad for both men and women. Of course, there are always exceptions, and some people identify with more radical shades of feminism than I'm used to. If you (or anyone) go into a debate with such a narrow view of feminism, I'm not surprised your debate partner would get angry. I would get angry if someone assumed I put men down, or didn't appreciate their experiences, just because I want to be seen as a human being with valid experiences, dreams, and desires of my own that may be different than society's norm. After all, I have a father, brother, and nephews who I support whole heartedly, as they do me.

That said, I'm not sure I understand why you're so upset that a women studies class would focus on women victims of DV? I took a course on sexual assault and DV counseling, and we most certainly covered male victims of both. But in a class dedicated to the study of womens' experiences, can you understand how repeatedly bringing up male victims might not be well received? Not that they should be ignored, but male victims of DV might be better discussed in a men studies class (which I most certainly think they should offer, so men who want to step out of strict gender roles can do so).

I'm sorry this is a little off topic (and so long!), but hopefully it will contribute to the discussion.

[bmmg39]

shannon: "Talking about how women are all liars..."

--except that's not what's being said. Pay attention.

"*I believe many of the guys who have raped but believe they are innocent have fallen victim to rape myths- like it's ok to have sex with a passed out woman or that she was asking for it."

Having sex with someone who has passed out IS rape. As for your other example, if both parties indeed consent before the act begins (and are of AGE to consent), then it is not rape. I'm not sure why you're taking this down a road the host doesn't want it to go.

[bmmg39]

"A man could attack his wife and she could defend herself, he could use a weapon to do so w hile she used a pillow, and according to the CTVS, they'd both committed equal acts of violence."

-- except that, when acts of defense are removed from the studies, numbers are STILL fairly equal.

(Hugo, feel free to delete this post -- but only if you delete Ginmar's, as well. I'm fine staying on topic but I will not tolerate further prevarication by certain parties.)

And, one more time, Ginmar, a troll is one who deliberately comes into a forum to disrupt and antagonize. Those of us making legitimate points and asking legitimate questions don't qualify.