(no subject)

[serene]

Comment I made in someone else's locked journal:

It gets tiresome to me when people's first reaction to something that represents a clear threat to women in vastly greater numbers (and with vastly greater social support) than to men is to remind me that some men experience that, too. Yes, of course they do. Some men are raped. People who are taking action to stop the systemic mistreatment of women are not claiming men are never mistreated. It's a red herring to act as though we are, and mostly, I just roll my eyes at such distractions and move on.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I can totally understand your position here, but I need to make this clear: While "People who are taking action to stop the systemic mistreatment of women are not claiming men are never mistreated," is certainly true, "Some people who are taking action to stop the systemic mistreatment of women are claiming that men are never mistreated," is also true. I have had numerous conversations with people on rape awareness forums and other places who have claimed both that men do not get raped -- that any claim that they do is a ploy by men who want to steal the thunder from women on this issues -- and by people who claim that although men do get raped, that it happens in such small numbers that people should not mention it or do anything about it and that pretending or outright stating it doesn't happen is good and right, because that keep the focus on women.

I don't think that it should necessarily be brought up every time assault and rape of women is mentioned, by any means, but I have seen cases where I did think it needed to be brought up. For example, if somebody states categorically that rape is a crime committed by men against women (which is something I have seen in many places) then I do point out that that's not true.

I do agree with the idea that bringing it up in cases where the opposite was never intimated can really detract from the situation, so I'm not trying to say that what you're saying here is something I completely disagree with. I just think that there are situations where it feels important to me to point it out.

(I also feel like I should mention that pointing out as a form of argument on this issue how much more often it happens to women than men can be a bit of a hot button for me, as it's happened to me so many times that that has been followed up with the argument that therefore the issue of it happening to men is unimportant and should be dismissed entirely (from all contexts, not just whatever discussion is happening at the time), and after a while that really gets under your skin.)