Ben Hughes wonders if there ought to be an App for “Misogynists Around Me.”
I have a knee-jerk defensive response to the term rape culture. It feels accusatory. It feels like the intent is to say that “all men are rapists”. I think I’ve had it all wrong.
Even living under my news rock it was hard to miss the controversy about Girls Around Me:
“It’s not, really, that we’re all horrified by what this app does, is it? […] It’s that we’re all horrified by how exposed these girls are, and how exposed services like Facebook and Foursquare let them be without their knowledge.” – Cult of Mac
Actually, that’s not what horrifies me. Some people are misogynistic creeps, and some of those creeps are app developers who will use data in unintended ways. That doesn’t make me happy, but it doesn’t particularly worry me. What horrifies me is that the focus on “women being exposed” perpetuates the predator/victim dynamic between men and women. It is victim blaming (don’t want to be hunted by sexual predators? Better not share your location!) and it takes as given that men are inherently dangerous.
Instead of the privacy of women’s location data, we should be talking about why that data being shared is “dangerous”. In our attempt to “protect” women I think we are unintentionally normalising and spreading the myth (please God, let it be a myth) that men are sex-obsessed beasts ruled by their cocks, who don’t much care who they fuck. That we are obsessed with impressing and obtaining women while simultaneously hating them. And of course that women and helpless victims who need saving (except when they’re treacherously plotting to steal our manhood).
I’m a guy trying to raise 3 boys into decent, humane men. I want them to grow up being conscious of how they treat other people, especially sexually, but without carrying the baggage of being “potential rapists”. I don’t want them to think of women as “potential victims” in any sense.
We teach boys that they are dangerous. We joke about men being ruled by their dicks. We normalise and excuse attitudes that are eerily similar to those held by rapists. We unquestionably accept that Girls Around Me will be used by leacherous men to hunt women.
This is rape culture. While I still despise the term, I don’t think I can dismiss the concept any more. And honestly, that makes me pretty sad.
Of course, all of this is from the perspective of a 30-something white guy. For a different (but I think complementary) perspective, check out Rosie Ryan’s post.
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Originally posted on Ben Hughe’s blog with the title ‘Misogynists Around Me‘
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photo: Cult of Mac via The Blaze
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71 Comments on "How I Started to See the Light on Rape Culture"
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Pretty sure this app searched for men as well, the women part was just a “catching title”. Wouldn’t be hard to search by gender from the data I’m sure. But I can see your point on the other stuff, probably why the app makes me wonder wtf they were thinking, something seems iffy about it.
So another social networking site, Badoo, launched in America last month (its been a big hit in Europe for a while now).
I don’t know the specifics on it yet (I went to the Badoo’s site and you pretty much can’t do or see anything without signing up or at least letting them look through your contact lists to see who among your contacts is already on it) but I just wonder if this will cause a similar stir.
What I’m disturbed by is this quotes thing. No. I cannot tell the difference between the mag’s and rapist’s quotes. I know not all lad mags are like this (I wouldn’t say Playboy is), but to think there is a lad mag out there like this selling well enough to still remain on the shelves is harrowing.
I thought that the purpose of providing your location was for your friends to find you in case they were in the area you’d have a chance to meet up.
Friends already now where I live. I have no interest in having surprise visits with people I haven’t spoken to in years and who barely know me…
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[…] This comment is by Eric M., in reply to Quantuminc, on the post How I Started to See the Light on Rape Culture. […]
Here is a paper on the legal objectives behind rape culture activism. http://www.ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/rape/greer.pdf
I’m hoping that someone can look at how male victims of female sexual abuse aren’t believed or ostracized by society (that includes by men AND women by the way) and how this is also “Rape Culture” at work as well.
“we aren’t like that.”
Zip up, your sexism is showing. You’ve just grouped all men into the “sexual predator” box and all women into the “pure as driven snow” box.
People who try to establish the moral superiority of womanhood are directly attacking a core assumption of feminism: that gender doesn’t determine a persons character and biology isn’t destiny. Your comment belongs right beside all those people you’ve ever heard claim that men are naturally more suited to the workplace.
Not to mention that you’re wrong, some of you are like that, just as some men are.
Jackiesmith
This
“(in which the VAST MAJORITY of victims are female) and the only response you can think of is to cry about male victims of female abusers (who are the extreme minority).”
is total nonsense and a great example of how radical feminism is the real rape culture.
https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/gender-and-sexual-violence-manufacturing-victimhood-marginalizing-victims/
Any man that wants to live in a society where he has the basic presumption of innocence should not be talking up the radical feminist rape culture ideology.
The legal end of it, involves changing the legal system and removing protections against false accusations
When a man is accused of rape, there is the presumption of guilt by the media. There should be a rape accused shield law for men, so they are not named unless convicted, as well as prosecution of false accusers with their names published.
Good gravy.
I rest my case.
This is how feminists see men, rape culture and stuff like this :
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2010/11/29/why-men-rape/
See the title ? Read the comments, they are delicious.
Actually the comments are horrifying, but I assume you are employing sarcasm. Rape is a horrible thing no matter who it happens to, and it happens to every gender by every gender it appears. We shouldn’t support violence back against violence and I feel much more accurate in saying, those comments are horrifying.
Glad to see the art of recognizing sarcasm isn’t dead and yes, I agree. Crime is crime, rape is rape and punishment is punishment.
Why anyone would post their photo and location on the Internet ? I don’t understand purpose of applications like this or Facebook… really, people who are posting on FB are giving out more info than UB or SB (our former “security”, like KGB) was interested in.
You don’t post your info for the same reason you ain’t posting a photo of yourself and two kids in front of an expensive car in front of your nice, big house. You don’t want to make a thief’s job any easier, do you ?
Take note Ben, the radical feminist version of rape culture, which is what we are talking about here, excludes and does not want to talk about female sex criminals so, by its on definitions of what a rape culture is, its a rape culture.
You are correct, people of all ages and genders are careless with their online privacy. I’m willing to cut teens/young adults some slack if they don’t fully understand the consequences. That is, I won’t call them dumb, I’ll just say naive. But once you have some life experience, you SHOULD know better. Many, many people don’t know better, of course.
Exactly.
This, a thousand times. The internet is the street, even when you are sitting in your own bedroom. When you throw your privacy away, you have only yourself to blame.
I have a preference for the the term rape tolerance it’s individualistic. Collectivized guilt is a trap.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t get past the fifth paragraph. However, in my original post (http://blog.benrhughes.com/misogynists-around-me) I did include a link to the definition I was using (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_culture). As I mentioned earlier, somehow all of the links were stripped when the post was republished here.
The links are there now, Ben. Sorry for the technology glitch. Feel free to email me any time if something like that happens again — it’s the best way to get stuff done quickly. lisa at goodmenproject dot com
@Carl Mode, I have wondered many times why sexual assault is treated so differently to assault. I don’t deny sexual assault / rape is a crime but why is it worse than being crippled from a beating?
Whilst the app has some scary implications for stalking I have to wonder why it’s automatically assumed someone would use this to rape someone? Why is it straight to the negative?
WRT rape culture, isn’t it really a violence culture, theft culture, cheating culture and a whole list of other bad experiences that go on and get victim blaming, etc?