I have been so blown away by the response to the piece that I wrote on the Gisele Pelicot case, many people have messaged me to say it’s gone viral, though I’m not sure exactly what counts as ‘viral’.
I think the redness spotting your face in this powerful video was from trying to diffuse anger into sadness; the alchemy women have been taught for eons to perform as they “suffer and be still.” Your body was telling its own echoing story as you spoke. Thank you for your insights… so powerful my own face turned red!
Anna: I think it starts with thinking of women as sexual objects, seeing their value to us (men) solely in being our desire to f them. That biological tug is one thing, but that doesn't explain what a short step it is to rape/violence and causing pain--even death. I'm sure women think at times of men as sexual objects--but it doesn't start there and women don't seem to think that violating an unconscious man would be very satisfying. Or maybe some do (and who could blame them). How do we get women and men to see each other first as human beings? I'm just so horrified by the Pelicot case, knowing that this is behavior so many men would do, seeing how common and pervasive misogyny both unconscious and conscious really is. What the fuck is wrong with us?
These are really interesting thoughts, thank you for sharing. I think the answer in this case lies in the fact that this woman was an inanimate object, yet she would still give a man pleasure (see also the David Fuller case i mention in the video and have put links to here). It is not uncommon for women to wake up and find a man having sex with us, yet as you say, it doesn’t give us pleasure the other way round, in fact I tried to imagine that and it doesn’t work. I think we are also talking about a man’s right to sex, and to take sex. And obviously porn has hardwired this further into impressionable minds of young men which is deeply concerning. We have and experience sex differently as men and women. How do we see each other first as human beings? If only we had the answers.
I found this thought provoking— from philosopher Marilyn Frye, who wrote in her book, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, “To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.”
I hadn’t listened to your audio before responding to what you wrote the other day, but have now. Your comment regarding women wanting men to do the work is precisely right. Men are the only ones who can do this work—women can’t do the work, it’s not yours to do. I think talking and sharing is important, but I don’t think it’s enough. Maybe it’s just that human beings are capable of such incredible cruelty, and yes, I wouldn’t trust many men. We are so trained to compete that we really don’t understand that living requires cooperation, symbiotic relationships with the non-human world as well as the human world. No wonder we have so much trouble with self-governance—we’re no better at it than ever, we make strides in every other area of life, but we’re no good at creating systems that allow us to work together.
This year, I read Cat Bohannon's "Eve" and followed it by "Mother Nature" by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Books covering the evolution of human and especially female "nature" through the lense of anthropology, primatology and evolutionary theory. It's grim reading and for a while I was haunted by the images of marauding and raping gangs of male primates in various evolutionary stages since forever. Memory sent me back to secondary school, when we had to translate a Latin text on the rape of the Sabine women (early Roman history of kidnapping, enslaving and sexual abuse of women as part of warfare) and how we had a laugh because of my name but no other discussion ensued because: ancient history. But thene there's the Bosnian women, the Ukrainian women, and so on.
Do men feel any shame when they read history and if at all, why do they stay silent?
Hi Sabine, I’ve been meaning to read Eve this year and haven’t managed to yet but this all sounds fascinating and sadly, horrifying. I don’t know whether men feel shame about history, or whether they just other those men as ‘the bad men’ as if there are three sexes: the women, the good men and the bad men.
I've ALWAYS wondered that... if men feel any sort of shame when reading about all the rape and violence... I don't think they do at all. I think that's why they just repeat (the thought terminating cliche) Not All Men.
In my opinion, men think they're effing awesome and that they are better than women, and they have to because history and reality tells us they're not. They simply are not strong enough to bear the burden of knowing that.
Good morning, Anna. I appreciate the tremendous work and energy required to write with conviction, truth, and clarity. Thank you.
Wow, I have thoughts, so many thoughts, about Gisele Pelicot and this disturbing yet empowering story. Mostly, it's been me and a few close friends stunned by the sheer madness of her story, not knowing how to express ourselves. But I do know this: We would never resort to harming another man or human, for that matter.
My 20-something-year-old self did not just let a sleeping boy/man lie, put a cover over him, and give him a glass of water. My friends and I were more apt to do something more mischievous, such as paint his fingernails or use a Sharpie to paint a devil's face. Would I do that now at 63? No, I would walk away and do nothing for a man (unless it was my husband). That sounds harsh, and admittedly, it is. Hah! But after learning about Gisele and knowing the thousands and thousands of stories of women subjected to the whims of men who can't keep their zippers zipped to be polite, coupled with my traumatic history, it feels honest.
I realized that maybe you didn’t even mean that literally—the blanket and glass of water—it is the compassionate thing to do because that is who we are at heart. I would not advocate for anybody to be mean for revenge or justification. Vigilante-type retribution is undoubtedly not the solution either. Am I in favor of capital punishment for this type of crime? Hell yes.
Anyway, yours was a good conclusion to an absolutely brilliant article. If I could afford it, I would absolutely support your work. It’s been empowering to read your pieces and thoughts on this topic(s), and the comments section is gold. Thanks.
You are so welcome, Maureen. I’m glad that you have got so much from the piece, that is why it is free for everyone to read. I appreciate you sharing your views too. Thank you 🙏🏼
I used to run GenderTalks groups on our island between teen boys and teen girls. Back in the 1990s. The boys said they were taught to want trophy girls on their arms. That was the most important way to be successful in the world. The girls wanted real relationships where they could be themselves. The boys talked about not being able to be real with other boys. They actually thought the only way they could be real was when they were with girls. The girls thought the only way they could be real was with each other. You can read about all this in the book we wrote, called daughters of the Moon sisters of the Sun, young women and mentors on the transition to womanhood. You can get it for about three dollars on Amazon and it’s sold about 60,000 copies when it came out.
This piece is so important, to stop judging men by the standards that they set for themselves, the very low standards expected by society of them , but rather asking what if we expected more of them, what if we compared them to what women would do or what would be expected of women.
Thank you for all of your work and bringing much needed attention to these issues.
Two thoughts I had while watching this piece:
1. Men don't understand most women / feminists don't hate them, we hate misogyny. We hate all of the individual and collective harm men have regularly inflicted upon us for centuries, and we hate that it is largely treated as unimportant. Its understandably infuriating that men who are supposed to love us, and whom we love, either abuse us or pretend our abuse doesn't exist. Not to mention heartbreaking. And men positioning themselves as victims when confronted with misogyny is honestly just perpetuating it, not to mention cruelly narcissistic.
2. Could I request we stop saying "women are not safe" and start saying what is true, which is "men are not safe"? It puts the onus on them, much like Gisele Pelicot put the onus of shame onto men for assaulting her. Calling out men for being unsafe puts the responsibility for sorting it out onto them, rather than women, which only leaves us more terrified and hopeless. Just a thought.
Seriously, the men saying ‘you’re a man hater’ is the most pathetic attempt to hide their own guilt and shame. Where is the disgust from men, and we need to talk about WHY men are scared to speak up
I was blown away by your piece. I work with college students, including adjudication of sexual assault cases. I've been doing this for 40 years, and I find that I literally lack the ability to imagine a woman raping an unconscious man. In contrast, well, I have too many examples of exactly the opposite in my head. And they will stay with me forever.
It may be so painful to you and other heterosexual women because, as you mentioned, your fantasy about good men protecting you leaves open the question of men’s violence requiring that fantasy and that there are some ‘good’ men. Problem is to work out which ones are ‘good’ And you’ve blown the secret that women think a man’s penis is not a turn on to look at. Men won’t like you for that. Thanks for your courage . No wonder you were blushing, stepping up above the parapet like this.
Haha! not blushing because of what I was saying Viviane, just aware as I went on how utterly unprepared I was, and I am not really a front of camera person. I prefer written words.
Thanks for responding, Anna. I’m happy to be wrong, I used to flush like that under the strain of public speaking and feeling unprepared. That takes courage to do it anyway and letting go of the control we get from writing and rewriting, which can thrive on perfectionism.
I'm so tired of men and even some women accusing those of us who speak out of being man-haters. I should not be made to feel badly for speaking the truth about what happened to me more than once, or speaking out to support other women who are continually made victims by men who rape. It doesn't make me a man-hater, but I do hate men who rape, and I always will. They certainly don't deserve my love, attention, or admiration. And I'm tired of people encouraging me to "access my compassion." Why, exactly, would I do that? I'm not apologizing for my anger. Thank you for this piece and for the follow up video.
It is simply a distraction, it is typical DARVO — deny, attack and reverse victim offender. The mistake we make it giving accusations like this airtime, of defending them, when actually accusations such as are a huge giveaway. Decent men don’t mind us talking about that which has harmed us. Women talking does not make decent men feel insecure. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Nan.
Exactly! I am also coming to hate men who hate me first, because honestly? I’ve done a TON of work on myself, and yet those who haven’t given this a second’s thought beyond “This all makes me feel like a terrible person,” seems to think they need to shut me down again and again. When my concern is for creating a world my daughter can navigate with less fear than I do/did. So, okay, yeah. I hate those guys. And I’m not sorry about it. I’m sick of having to stop advocating for myself to placate them, especially when they’re not going to stop behaving poorly for all my energies wasted.
Can you imagine what would happen if we all spoke directly to them and stopped placating and sugar-coating our criticisms of their sex?! But many women would never do this because it would make them feel unsafe.
Indeed! Also, let me say that a male friend of mine read your piece on Pelicot and it was the first he’d heard of the case. He has been doing the work, but was sickened, not only by this story, but that it wasn’t especially circulated in the US.
Interesting! A male friend of mine didn’t know of it either, and I said to him that was an indication of his privilege, mind you maybe it hasn’t been widely circulated, but I find that hard to believe. Maybe. I think certainly after the sentencing because of the festive time of year, newspapers decided not to let it linger, but the number of shares/comments on this piece suggest that for women this is not just one story but the story of our lives.
I can't imagine anyone missing this story. It's been in the news for months. I've been aware of it since the first time it broke. How can that be? I don't watch television, get my news online from quality sources, that are broadly available. I don't get that at all. I'm glad your friend was sickened, that gives me hope.
Your piece is brilliant. I am 70 and live alone. My relationship with men has been a roller coaster. I was the daughter of a violent , abusive, alcoholic father who beat my mother senseless for many years. The Pelicot case is the last straw for me. I will never, ever be involved again. There is not enough time left in my precious life to risk being with a man for one second.
Anna, I left a comment (amongst 100's) under your article....... about the wiki page I found on Endurance Art (Marina Abramovic-ish) where the artist (Abel Azcona) knocked himself unconscious with narcotics so that members of the public could do anything they wanted with his body. 😶
I've been consumed by Gisèle Pelicot for months, and your article and comment all day.
How many times have you heard a man say "if that happened to my wife/daughter" I'd kill the guy with my bare hands" etc.
I say.... well, the damage will have already been done.... what are you doing to protect her now?
Men's solution to problems like this is violence, while women talk.
That's why men aren't commenting so much or sharing the article. If they have read it (which I doubt) they'd just ruminate on how they'd be the knight in shining armour....after the fact.
I have also read people saying “Okay, you’d die/kill for your partner, but would you do the dishes without being asked?” It’s mostly a joke, but it begs the question: men are almost never asked to die or kill for their partners, but if they are serious about their willingness to do some huge performative act, why are they also not serious about taking on the smaller everyday job of taking on rape culture? Why will they not interrogate their own issues with sex or call their buddies out when they see what inappropriate stuff they’re doing?
I see a lot of men taking offence when their privilege is pointed out to them. I don’t think they take criticism well as a sex at the best of times, and so asking them to take on this work would mean first acknowledging this privilege and then caring enough to do something about it. These are apparently big asks.
You not only wrote a spot on piece, in 40 mins(!), but are nailing it with all your responses to comments. I just hope there are Men who are reading it and actually thinking about it.
I am aware of my absolute privilege, it's not that hard to hear, and be empathetic to the experiences of others. Why so much pushback? It just occurred to me that it would erode their self 'identity', in a similar way that women support 'born in the wrong body' to be seen to be nice and kind, and get nasty if you challenge their opinions. Crazy inverse virtue signalling.
I think the redness spotting your face in this powerful video was from trying to diffuse anger into sadness; the alchemy women have been taught for eons to perform as they “suffer and be still.” Your body was telling its own echoing story as you spoke. Thank you for your insights… so powerful my own face turned red!
You know what, Sara, you are the second person who has said that to me and i think you might be right.
Anna: I think it starts with thinking of women as sexual objects, seeing their value to us (men) solely in being our desire to f them. That biological tug is one thing, but that doesn't explain what a short step it is to rape/violence and causing pain--even death. I'm sure women think at times of men as sexual objects--but it doesn't start there and women don't seem to think that violating an unconscious man would be very satisfying. Or maybe some do (and who could blame them). How do we get women and men to see each other first as human beings? I'm just so horrified by the Pelicot case, knowing that this is behavior so many men would do, seeing how common and pervasive misogyny both unconscious and conscious really is. What the fuck is wrong with us?
These are really interesting thoughts, thank you for sharing. I think the answer in this case lies in the fact that this woman was an inanimate object, yet she would still give a man pleasure (see also the David Fuller case i mention in the video and have put links to here). It is not uncommon for women to wake up and find a man having sex with us, yet as you say, it doesn’t give us pleasure the other way round, in fact I tried to imagine that and it doesn’t work. I think we are also talking about a man’s right to sex, and to take sex. And obviously porn has hardwired this further into impressionable minds of young men which is deeply concerning. We have and experience sex differently as men and women. How do we see each other first as human beings? If only we had the answers.
I found this thought provoking— from philosopher Marilyn Frye, who wrote in her book, The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory, “To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving.”
interesting quote!
That made me do a very deep exhale...
I hadn’t listened to your audio before responding to what you wrote the other day, but have now. Your comment regarding women wanting men to do the work is precisely right. Men are the only ones who can do this work—women can’t do the work, it’s not yours to do. I think talking and sharing is important, but I don’t think it’s enough. Maybe it’s just that human beings are capable of such incredible cruelty, and yes, I wouldn’t trust many men. We are so trained to compete that we really don’t understand that living requires cooperation, symbiotic relationships with the non-human world as well as the human world. No wonder we have so much trouble with self-governance—we’re no better at it than ever, we make strides in every other area of life, but we’re no good at creating systems that allow us to work together.
This year, I read Cat Bohannon's "Eve" and followed it by "Mother Nature" by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy. Books covering the evolution of human and especially female "nature" through the lense of anthropology, primatology and evolutionary theory. It's grim reading and for a while I was haunted by the images of marauding and raping gangs of male primates in various evolutionary stages since forever. Memory sent me back to secondary school, when we had to translate a Latin text on the rape of the Sabine women (early Roman history of kidnapping, enslaving and sexual abuse of women as part of warfare) and how we had a laugh because of my name but no other discussion ensued because: ancient history. But thene there's the Bosnian women, the Ukrainian women, and so on.
Do men feel any shame when they read history and if at all, why do they stay silent?
Hi Sabine, I’ve been meaning to read Eve this year and haven’t managed to yet but this all sounds fascinating and sadly, horrifying. I don’t know whether men feel shame about history, or whether they just other those men as ‘the bad men’ as if there are three sexes: the women, the good men and the bad men.
I've ALWAYS wondered that... if men feel any sort of shame when reading about all the rape and violence... I don't think they do at all. I think that's why they just repeat (the thought terminating cliche) Not All Men.
In my opinion, men think they're effing awesome and that they are better than women, and they have to because history and reality tells us they're not. They simply are not strong enough to bear the burden of knowing that.
Good morning, Anna. I appreciate the tremendous work and energy required to write with conviction, truth, and clarity. Thank you.
Wow, I have thoughts, so many thoughts, about Gisele Pelicot and this disturbing yet empowering story. Mostly, it's been me and a few close friends stunned by the sheer madness of her story, not knowing how to express ourselves. But I do know this: We would never resort to harming another man or human, for that matter.
My 20-something-year-old self did not just let a sleeping boy/man lie, put a cover over him, and give him a glass of water. My friends and I were more apt to do something more mischievous, such as paint his fingernails or use a Sharpie to paint a devil's face. Would I do that now at 63? No, I would walk away and do nothing for a man (unless it was my husband). That sounds harsh, and admittedly, it is. Hah! But after learning about Gisele and knowing the thousands and thousands of stories of women subjected to the whims of men who can't keep their zippers zipped to be polite, coupled with my traumatic history, it feels honest.
I realized that maybe you didn’t even mean that literally—the blanket and glass of water—it is the compassionate thing to do because that is who we are at heart. I would not advocate for anybody to be mean for revenge or justification. Vigilante-type retribution is undoubtedly not the solution either. Am I in favor of capital punishment for this type of crime? Hell yes.
Anyway, yours was a good conclusion to an absolutely brilliant article. If I could afford it, I would absolutely support your work. It’s been empowering to read your pieces and thoughts on this topic(s), and the comments section is gold. Thanks.
You are so welcome, Maureen. I’m glad that you have got so much from the piece, that is why it is free for everyone to read. I appreciate you sharing your views too. Thank you 🙏🏼
I don’t hate men. I hate the way men are conditioned.
I used to run GenderTalks groups on our island between teen boys and teen girls. Back in the 1990s. The boys said they were taught to want trophy girls on their arms. That was the most important way to be successful in the world. The girls wanted real relationships where they could be themselves. The boys talked about not being able to be real with other boys. They actually thought the only way they could be real was when they were with girls. The girls thought the only way they could be real was with each other. You can read about all this in the book we wrote, called daughters of the Moon sisters of the Sun, young women and mentors on the transition to womanhood. You can get it for about three dollars on Amazon and it’s sold about 60,000 copies when it came out.
Interesting
This piece is so important, to stop judging men by the standards that they set for themselves, the very low standards expected by society of them , but rather asking what if we expected more of them, what if we compared them to what women would do or what would be expected of women.
So true… what if we expected more from them… 🧐
We'd all be single and celibate
Thank you for all of your work and bringing much needed attention to these issues.
Two thoughts I had while watching this piece:
1. Men don't understand most women / feminists don't hate them, we hate misogyny. We hate all of the individual and collective harm men have regularly inflicted upon us for centuries, and we hate that it is largely treated as unimportant. Its understandably infuriating that men who are supposed to love us, and whom we love, either abuse us or pretend our abuse doesn't exist. Not to mention heartbreaking. And men positioning themselves as victims when confronted with misogyny is honestly just perpetuating it, not to mention cruelly narcissistic.
2. Could I request we stop saying "women are not safe" and start saying what is true, which is "men are not safe"? It puts the onus on them, much like Gisele Pelicot put the onus of shame onto men for assaulting her. Calling out men for being unsafe puts the responsibility for sorting it out onto them, rather than women, which only leaves us more terrified and hopeless. Just a thought.
Thanks Lee, that is an interesting reframing, though I think one that men would find even more uncomfortable.
That's a great thought.... men are not safe 👍
Seriously, the men saying ‘you’re a man hater’ is the most pathetic attempt to hide their own guilt and shame. Where is the disgust from men, and we need to talk about WHY men are scared to speak up
The man hater thing is a useful silencer, nothing more...
Yes, and it’s no longer gonna work, because if Gisele’s example is anything to go by, we will not be silenced and we will not be shamed
Thanks again Anna, keep us informed if you do come across men writing about this.
I will!
I was blown away by your piece. I work with college students, including adjudication of sexual assault cases. I've been doing this for 40 years, and I find that I literally lack the ability to imagine a woman raping an unconscious man. In contrast, well, I have too many examples of exactly the opposite in my head. And they will stay with me forever.
The sad reality… 😔
It may be so painful to you and other heterosexual women because, as you mentioned, your fantasy about good men protecting you leaves open the question of men’s violence requiring that fantasy and that there are some ‘good’ men. Problem is to work out which ones are ‘good’ And you’ve blown the secret that women think a man’s penis is not a turn on to look at. Men won’t like you for that. Thanks for your courage . No wonder you were blushing, stepping up above the parapet like this.
Haha! not blushing because of what I was saying Viviane, just aware as I went on how utterly unprepared I was, and I am not really a front of camera person. I prefer written words.
Thanks for responding, Anna. I’m happy to be wrong, I used to flush like that under the strain of public speaking and feeling unprepared. That takes courage to do it anyway and letting go of the control we get from writing and rewriting, which can thrive on perfectionism.
Apologies - perfectionism is too negative a word for the desire to communicate in a way trie to one ‘s being, so to speak.
I think it’s lack of ego, and so much of writing can be ego.
I'm so tired of men and even some women accusing those of us who speak out of being man-haters. I should not be made to feel badly for speaking the truth about what happened to me more than once, or speaking out to support other women who are continually made victims by men who rape. It doesn't make me a man-hater, but I do hate men who rape, and I always will. They certainly don't deserve my love, attention, or admiration. And I'm tired of people encouraging me to "access my compassion." Why, exactly, would I do that? I'm not apologizing for my anger. Thank you for this piece and for the follow up video.
It is simply a distraction, it is typical DARVO — deny, attack and reverse victim offender. The mistake we make it giving accusations like this airtime, of defending them, when actually accusations such as are a huge giveaway. Decent men don’t mind us talking about that which has harmed us. Women talking does not make decent men feel insecure. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Nan.
It's more disturbing to me when women do it. That's a little "the lady doth protest to much" in my opinion. Nothing worse than defending our abusers.
Well, women just do it because if they don’t stand with us they think they stand more chance of patriarchy not coming for them.
Yes.
Exactly! I am also coming to hate men who hate me first, because honestly? I’ve done a TON of work on myself, and yet those who haven’t given this a second’s thought beyond “This all makes me feel like a terrible person,” seems to think they need to shut me down again and again. When my concern is for creating a world my daughter can navigate with less fear than I do/did. So, okay, yeah. I hate those guys. And I’m not sorry about it. I’m sick of having to stop advocating for myself to placate them, especially when they’re not going to stop behaving poorly for all my energies wasted.
Can you imagine what would happen if we all spoke directly to them and stopped placating and sugar-coating our criticisms of their sex?! But many women would never do this because it would make them feel unsafe.
Indeed! Also, let me say that a male friend of mine read your piece on Pelicot and it was the first he’d heard of the case. He has been doing the work, but was sickened, not only by this story, but that it wasn’t especially circulated in the US.
Interesting! A male friend of mine didn’t know of it either, and I said to him that was an indication of his privilege, mind you maybe it hasn’t been widely circulated, but I find that hard to believe. Maybe. I think certainly after the sentencing because of the festive time of year, newspapers decided not to let it linger, but the number of shares/comments on this piece suggest that for women this is not just one story but the story of our lives.
I can't imagine anyone missing this story. It's been in the news for months. I've been aware of it since the first time it broke. How can that be? I don't watch television, get my news online from quality sources, that are broadly available. I don't get that at all. I'm glad your friend was sickened, that gives me hope.
Your piece is brilliant. I am 70 and live alone. My relationship with men has been a roller coaster. I was the daughter of a violent , abusive, alcoholic father who beat my mother senseless for many years. The Pelicot case is the last straw for me. I will never, ever be involved again. There is not enough time left in my precious life to risk being with a man for one second.
I think many women, of all ages, feel similarly.
Saying "not all guys" is the same as saying "all lives matter."
Very true, Elaine. A guy commented yesterday that saying ‘not all men’ was the equivalent of saying ‘not that bad’ which I think is very true also.
Anna, I left a comment (amongst 100's) under your article....... about the wiki page I found on Endurance Art (Marina Abramovic-ish) where the artist (Abel Azcona) knocked himself unconscious with narcotics so that members of the public could do anything they wanted with his body. 😶
I've been consumed by Gisèle Pelicot for months, and your article and comment all day.
How many times have you heard a man say "if that happened to my wife/daughter" I'd kill the guy with my bare hands" etc.
I say.... well, the damage will have already been done.... what are you doing to protect her now?
Men's solution to problems like this is violence, while women talk.
That's why men aren't commenting so much or sharing the article. If they have read it (which I doubt) they'd just ruminate on how they'd be the knight in shining armour....after the fact.
Very true. I have heard that many, many times.
I have also read people saying “Okay, you’d die/kill for your partner, but would you do the dishes without being asked?” It’s mostly a joke, but it begs the question: men are almost never asked to die or kill for their partners, but if they are serious about their willingness to do some huge performative act, why are they also not serious about taking on the smaller everyday job of taking on rape culture? Why will they not interrogate their own issues with sex or call their buddies out when they see what inappropriate stuff they’re doing?
I see a lot of men taking offence when their privilege is pointed out to them. I don’t think they take criticism well as a sex at the best of times, and so asking them to take on this work would mean first acknowledging this privilege and then caring enough to do something about it. These are apparently big asks.
That's so true.
You not only wrote a spot on piece, in 40 mins(!), but are nailing it with all your responses to comments. I just hope there are Men who are reading it and actually thinking about it.
I am aware of my absolute privilege, it's not that hard to hear, and be empathetic to the experiences of others. Why so much pushback? It just occurred to me that it would erode their self 'identity', in a similar way that women support 'born in the wrong body' to be seen to be nice and kind, and get nasty if you challenge their opinions. Crazy inverse virtue signalling.
Thankyou for expending so much energy. ❤️
Yes, huge performative acts.