You just clapped for my piece that said it’s not an either/or proposition. Lots of people (most people) have pain. Why do you need to denigrate female experience with sexual assault and rape, which is pervasive? 1 in 5 is probably low. I’ve never, ever met a woman of any age or demographic that hasn’t had some experience with this. That doesn’t mean that homelessness or any other issue that men face isn’t real or significant. It’s not an either/or. Both can be true at the same time. Last time I checked, the CDC and the Department of Justice were not feminist organizations and that’s where the bulk of these statistics come from.
Defending male predation of women is really inexcusable. If men didn’t act like predatory creeps, they wouldn’t have any issues finding women who want to have sex with them. Women are just as sexual as men, and actually, get bored with monogamy before men do. For women, trying to find partners who listen to them, are decent lovers who aren’t entirely self-absorbed assholes is a challenge. That doesn’t mean there aren’t shitty women out there too, but …. from another comment:
There’s a lot of predatory behavior in dating because men have been socialized to believe that’s who they should be by patriarchal norms. It’s one of the ways they prove their masculinity — by being in control, dominant, assertive, etc. My point is, that doesn’t serve men and it sure doesn’t serve women!
If men would de-program from what they’ve been taught by a patriarchal society, and interact more with women as people rather than prey, it would be better for everyone. I never said that men do that because they are evil or have bad intentions. This bad behavior is mostly subconscious because it’s what they’ve always been surreptitiously told by society is how they should act in order to perform masculinity.
And yes, women do have some power of their own, and they don’t always use it benevolently, but for the most part, men are not being groped by women in public, are not being raped by women, or being murdered by their domestic partners. Patriarchy teaches men that they own women (monogamous marriage, but also in dating) but also that every women they see is there for their pleasure and enjoyment (catcalling, street harassment). Again, that doesn’t mean men are inherently brutes and monsters, but it does mean that this society that is based in constant jousting for power and position at the expense of whomever is weaker (whether female or male) is destructive and anti-social.
When men are in groups, levels of street harassment go up, because all the males in the group are trying to prove who is the most masculine — the hierarchy is performative. You have to demonstrate through your actions your maleness. All I’m trying to do is to shed a light on these things because we can’t improve what we won’t even acknowledge is an issue.
