Good post but Africa isn't a country.

Thank you!

No it's not. There is no part of the video where the protesters are actively trying to cover her sign. The protesters stood beside and in front of her with their own signs, presumably to ensure that there wasn't a possible camera angle which made it look like her sign outweighed the others who were there in support of the event. Her sign was never covered as she claims in the video as she was on the steps above them at all times.

Equal opportunity harassers.

They don't care about gender, they care if you disagree with anything they do or say.

Hahaha rape threats and death threats? Wut? Where.

Course you gonna downvote. Just wanna actually see wtf you're talking about.

Lol I mean she's a hero. I mean I heard they were sending her Barbies with their hair torn out and eyes X'd out with a note saying your next. Then, get this, OK, she goes into the bathroom and the femnazis fucking rearranged the bathroom somehow -- they put goddamn bathtub on the other side of the room, the whole layout mirrored, and she's balling at this point. They want to make her feel like she's fucking nuts for making them feel so fucking nuts. Just wants to cry in the tub, but when she turns on the faucet, the blood of pigs comes out. And if you listen to the blood real close, you hear, and this is the real fucked up part, somehow by fucking sorcery, the gurlging and bubbling makes up this spoken word poem if you listen real close, alluding to all sorts of imminent sexual violence. Can't believe they're fucking doing that to her. It's real!

There's no way you guys are moderate.

Well as a white man who used to identify as a feminist until my opinions and views were invalidated for my gender and my skin color I have to say this is already happening in droves. New age millennial feminism has undermined and destroyed any credibility the feminist movement has. This ultimately will destroy the push forward because the only major feminists who are getting attention are the social justice warriors who are pure 100% misandrists, these people are no better than extreme Christians screaming religious equality as they strike down homosexual, excuse me, civil rights. Even if these women are a vocal minority, they are still the most represented opinion who act as if rape is exclusively a male action. I was raped by two different female babysitters as a child, but because I'm a white man I can't voice an opinion on that? Because I'm a white man I'm automatically a part of some broken Christian patriarchy? Even if I want to stand against it my support is unwelcome? What the fuck!? Why is the pain I feel as a man invalid because of my gender? Why is it OK for women to tell me it's creepy for me to ask to kiss them for the first time but it's rape if I don't ask!?... Sorry... I got on a tangent there... Feminism is broken, and it needs to change, white men like me, want to be part of the solution, but it's not fair that we can't be because of our skin colors and it undermines the entire concept of equality and social justice by creating a new form of justified animosity, the sort of animosity that started the feminism movement in the first place.

This is already happening. If Feminism was actually about equality I'd be one of the most ardent feminists on the planet.

This is how men are often treated by these parts of the feminist movement.

Why they find this harassment outrageous sometimes, then do it themselves, eludes me.

Yeah, because women could not possibly have their reputation and career prospects destroyed by an overly sensitive group such as this.

Look mate, I'm all for looking at the terrible things that happen to both genders, but it's just fucking stupid to say women are immune.

That was written five hours before your observation.

You're posting 5 hours after they did. You suppose its possible people responded afterwards? Maybe it was quiet and now it isn't.

oh ffs

Mine was the only comment when I made it.

To try to be /r/neutralpolitics about it... "We dont live in a rape culture in the west" is a difficult statement to parse, given that different people have different perspectives on what "rape culture" is.

She's correct that we live in a society where rape is a crime, where people are sent to prison for it and shamed for being rapists. But there are elements of our culture that are troubling in terms of consent, slut shaming, masculinity, etc. etc. - and rape happens. But by contrast, in other countries, rape is rarely if ever prosecuted (even if it is illegal) and is far more accepted by society, and happens a lot more.

Are those both "rape cultures"? Are they comparable? Are there degrees of rape culture? If her point is "rape is far worse in other places", she's right. If her point is that no-one lives in fear of rape in the West, she's wrong. The likelihood is that it belongs in a grey area somewhere in the middle, which means it angers basically everyone.

From what I understand, 'rape culture' is the idea that a society, by default, blames female victims of sexual assault for what happened to them because of what they were wearing, etc, offers them no support, and is essentially run by men to protect men. The Slut Walk is specifically built around this ideal, and Lauren was saying that such a thing does not in exist western nations like Canada and the US, etc.

She explained in earlier videos, including:

What she is saying is that there is no rape culture in the west because rapists go to jail, they are looked down upon, lose their jobs, etc. However, in various African countries women don't have the ability to do anything about their rapes like women in the west. Men can much more easily get away with it in Africa. She is saying we need to focus our efforts on the women in need there instead of here because we've progressed much farther than sometimes it might seem or feel.

She voiced the opinions that because we don't literally stone to death women who are raped, or imprison them while congratulating the perpetrators, as does unfortunately happen in other parts of the world, this means there is no rape culture here.

I disagree mostly with this interpretation of the phrase "rape culture." I think it's pretty widely understand to mean any degree of victim-blaming, or societal pressures which instill any degree of a sense of entitlement towards women's bodies. It can grow from there, for example on reddit itself, where actual rape stories are suppressed while cherry-picked cases of women faking rape claims etc are up-voted and extraordinarily popular because they appear to confirm whatever pre-existing notions of women that people have. That's rape culture and she's certainly wrong that it doesn't exist.

Here's the kicker. The SlutWalk movement itself (the event she was at) was started in response to a statement made by a Toronto police officer that was undeniably an example of rape culture: "I've been told I'm not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized." (Constable Michael Sanguinetti).

It's pretty obvious this sort of attitude still surfaces too often and the entire purpose of the event she was counter-protesting was to quash this erroneous attitude. She was there arguing a straw-man.

There's medication for that.

You're a radfem then?

There are shitty feminists who do shitty things under their interpretation of what feminism as an ideology is. You can't pretend they don't exist and don't represent the same movement as you just because you don't like them or agree with them. That's what happens when large groups of people interpret some ideologies.

I also think it's amusing that your automatic reaction to hearing anyone say anything bad about radical feminists is essentially "shut up you MRA!!" which does nothing but strengthen their point about how shitty feminists do in fact exist

They said nothing of the sort.

To add to this, just remember that rape culture isn't just strangers on the street picking out women for the types of clothes they're wearing its college party culture and the way some rapists who already know their victims expect sex no matter her opinion and roofies and taking advantage of someone when they're high or intoxicated and victim blaming.

Why? What harm is it going to do if people believe there is a rape culture?