Saturday, July 19, 2008
Yesterday I read the account of a rape victim. He wrote very eloquently about being raped by a woman.I have not been able to stop thinking about him since I read his story. You see as a woman when I think about rape I think about it as something that men do to women. I have written post after post detailing the horrible violence that men commit against women. It is something that pains me more than I can possible express in words.
When I read what happened to James Landrith one of the things that really made me pause is the realization of the way that I have gendered the victim in my mind. Before reading his account yesterday, I never once thought to write about male victims of sexual violence. In my mind they (read: males) were the evil enemy, and not the ally for which I should weep tears of compassion, and solidarity with. I have experienced true shame since realizing this truth about myself. I am 100% against rape, and yet I created a group of victims as invisible, and thus marginalized, and ignored their experiences. Thank you for sharing James, you have opened my eyes in many ways.
One of the greatest fallacies with my reasoning was the thought that because a man had to get an erection to penetrate a woman, he must of have enjoyed it on some level. I am so ashamed to admit to this as I have often fought against this same sort of stereotype when it comes to womens physiological reactions towards rape. Getting an erection, or ejaculating during a rape is not an indication of pleasure, it is an involuntary physiological reaction. To those that think as I once did the following statistics will be eye opening.
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- About 3% of American men – a total of 2.78 million men – have experienced a rape at some point in their lifetime (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006).
- In 2003, one in every ten rape victims was male. While there are no reliable annual surveys of sexual assaults on children, the Justice Department has estimated that one of six victims are under age 12 (National Crime Victimization Study, 2003).
- 71% of male victims were first raped before their 18th birthday; 16.6% were 18-24 years old, and 12.3% were 25 or older (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006).
- Males are the least likely to report a sexual assault, though it is estimated that they make up 10% of all victims (RAINN, 2006).
- 22% of male inmates have been raped at least once during their incarceration; roughly 420,000 prisoners each year (Human Rights Watch, 2001).
In feminist circles much time is dedicated to issues that stop women from reporting rapes. The Curvature is an excellent example of a blog that daily posts about rape, and its effects. When I think of the hardships that women face getting rape to be treated seriously by the authorities, I cannot help but wonder how much harder is it for men, who have very few support networks in place? How much harder is it for men, if they can be publicly ridiculed when they share their accounts?
Men who are raped by other men fear being labelled homosexual even though rape is a crime about power and not about sex. “People will tend to fault the male victim instead of the rapist. Stephen Donaldson, president of Stop Prisoner Rape (a national education and advocacy group), says that the suppression of knowledge of male rape is so powerful and pervasive that criminals such as burglars and robbers sometimes rape their male victims as a sideline solely to prevent them from going to the police.” It makes one wonder how many are suffering in shame and silence, afraid to talk about their experiences? This is something we need to start addressing and creating support networks for. No matter the gender, rape is a violation of the worst kind. Rape crisis counsellors estimate that while only one in 50 raped women report the crime to the police, the rates of under-reporting among men are even higher (Brochman, 1991).
We think of men as always strong and therefore there is this understanding that they should be able to protect themselves in all situations. Women hold take back the night rallies, but do we stop to think that darkness may be just as dangerous to men? A predator, is a predator and if they seek to assault an individual, gender may not play a role on who is victimized. Men are taught to hold in their emotions and not express their pain. How many suffer because they feel it is the “manly” thing to do. How many ignore their pain because we have taught them as children that males don’t cry when they are hurt, they simply move on to the next task?
The research that I have done is very preliminary but it has been enough to open my eyes. As an advocate to stop sexual violence I will no longer perceive victims the same way. I will have to begin to think of the gendered language I use to talk about rape because making an entire group of victims invisible by privileging the female experience is wrong. If we can accept that rape has little to do with sex, then we should also accept the idea that it may have little to do with gender as well.
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cooper said…
Interesting. I have a reader who at one point in time was a victim of domestic violence himself. On several occasions when I had written a post regarding domestic violence and rape, he wold chime in or send me emails telling me these things were not just women problems. I understood he had experienced something bad but I have to admit I always thought of it as an anomaly.
This summer I changed jobs and am currently working for the women’s commission in my county. I do more statistical analysis at this point, but I do work with the womens shelter and it was only a few weeks ago, when I first started working there, that an issue came up where a gentleman in a situation which included domestic violence and forced sexual performance was presented to those who administer the womens shelter. There is a homeless shelter, a home for veterans, a public and and couple of private women’s shelters we work with, but there is no place for
a man who is technically not homeless but who has been driven from his home for reasons stated above. I was told this is not the first time this situation had been presented to them.
It certainly bears more thought.
July 19, 2008 2:22 PM
Kat said…
This pretty much proves the “Patriarchy hurts men too” point. Rape is so strongly associated with women that very few men would ever admit to being a victim for fear of ridicule. And in this misogynistic society, I can see why. If men and women were considered equals, I predict that not only would more male victims be willing to come forward, but there would be fewer instances of rape altogether.
July 19, 2008 2:55 PM
alterwords said…
It is certainly important to understand that men can be victims and that women can be perpetrators. But, while that does not mean losing sympathy and supporting efforts to build men’s services, I respectfully submit that it’s not the same thing. Same idea as “reverse racism” here. Women are raped in a context where male violence is just one party of a social system that oppresses them in many, many ways – economically, socially, culturally, politically, morally, within religions etc. Call it “the patriarchy” or call it “systemic sexism”, it makes a difference. All the difference I would say. Male violence and the threat of male violence is but one of the methods used to keep women in their place. Once raped, assaulted by a partner or otherwise abused, women really can’t expect to be believed, to receive adequate support services, to have her persecutor charged and appropriately sentenced, to return to her social functions and, sometimes, her family, without stigma, and so on.
Beyond the strictly personal and individual effects of rape on a man, the worst thing about it is that it seems, psychologically, to “reduce” him to the status of “woman” – the very worst thing that can happen in this misogynist culture.
The differences are very important to any movement that is focussing on ending gender discrimination. While it’s true that men are raped, they are raped more often by men than by women and they are raped less often than women by men. Though that doesn’t mean that there are no exceptions nor that we ought not to attend to the exceptions, it is significant that the numbers are as they are. The difference between men’s and women’s experience tells us something about what’s wrong.
But I do think this issue serves to bring out the problem with using the idea of “patriarchy” as our defining tool. We’ve already seen that it doesn’t work when we include racism. It very often doesn’t work when we get into issues of class as well. And it doesn’t serve as an explanatory device when men are the victims.
July 19, 2008 3:28 PM
alterwords,
Your comments, while feigning sympathy for those of us who’ve been raped, are clearly oriented toward making a social point and less about prevention of sexual violence.
Please, separate the two.
As a rape survivor and the husband of a rape survivor, I beg to differ with your condescending dismissal of my own pain by relegating male rape victims to a lesser status in the hierarchy of sexual violence survivors on the basis of political expediency.
It is not a competition. It is not about comparing statistics.
It’s a painful crime that scars the survivor for life – even after healing has taken place.
July 19, 2008 4:11 PM
alterwords said…
Well, I don’t feel condescending toward men who’ve been raped and if I sounded that way I’m truly sorry. I wish for all people who have been harmed in whatever way to have the sympathy and support that they need. And I think that men who’ve been raped need that.
But I don’t think that men who’ve been raped need to be liberated from a sexist system of oppression. Do I think that this system harms men? Yes, I do. The same way that being slavery harmed slavemasters. Not ALL white men were slavemasters. No all men are sexists. Not everyone who was harmed during the period of slavery (and after) was either a white man OR a slave master. They were, nevertheless, benefactors of the privilege enjoyed by white people in a slave-society. And in a post-slavery/racist society. Not saying they enjoyed it. Not saying they weren’t harmed by it.
But from a political and analytic point of view, there is a difference in the relative positions of men and women in society. I can’t think what could be condescending about saying that. I am a feminist and a womanist and I simply won’t stop saying it. Not for any man. Not for any woman. Not for anyone. And certainly not due to your attempt at emotional blackmail.
If you’re angry, Mr. Landrith, I can only say, you’re not alone.
July 19, 2008 10:16 PM
alterwords:
It is not that you sounded condescending, you are being condescending.
Emotional blackmail? Not going to be silent?
In other words, by speaking up about my rape and not agreeing to the second class status you foisted upon me and all other male survivors in your prior comments you are now claiming that I attempted to victimize you – completely based on gender roles.
Wow.
Sorry, but I am the one who is not going to be silent. I’m not going to go away and I reject your second class status.
I am working on an online project with a handful of survivors of female rapists – both men and women who’ve been attacked and then shamed into silence by misogynistic men and women like you who believe we should just shut up/become an inconvenient footnote because we don’t fit into the mold of woman = victim and man = predator.
Sorry, but I’m the one who is not going to shut up. I’m the one not going to go along with your emotional blackmail.
And you can be angry all you want. I am too – and I believe I’ve earned that right the same as you, even if you can only see me as a predator in order to make political points at the expense of the suffering of hundreds of thousands of male survivors of male rapists and an unknown number (due to disgusting shaming tactics) of male and female survivors of female rapists…
July 20, 2008 1:11 AM
alterwords said…
Second class status? No. NOT second class status. The rape of men does not have the same POLITICAL meaning that the rape of women has. How on earth is that condescending?
NEVER said you tried to victimize me. Don’t put words in my mouth. You say I see you as a predator? When did I say that? It wouldn’t even occur to me to think of you that way. I don’t know why you are projecting this onto me, but that’s what you’re doing. Your feelings, not mine.
Making political points? Damn right. I’m a feminist. That’s what I do. It’s not at your expense. And I would NEVER attempt to shame a survivor of rape. Never. I applaud your work in supporting “thousands of male survivors of male rapists and an unknown number … of male and female survivors of female rapists” but I do not support any claims that would dispute the significance of this society’s hatred of women and its consequences.
We clearly disagree. I’m rather bemused by the vehemence of your response and by your (intentional?) misconstructions of my thoughts and words. I don’t know why a man can’t be an advocate for men who have been victimized (by anyone)and still see the difference between his victimization and the situation of a woman. A black man who is incarcerated on a drug conviction suffers a WHOLE WORLD more shit than most white men convicted of the same offense. That doesn’t make me any less sympathetic to the white man.
July 20, 2008 1:57 AM
James Landrith said…
You are bemused? More condescension…
Political meanings of rape? Yes, all rapists get together to determine why they will rape and the message that their separate, uncoordinated rapes will attempt to promote. That is the only way that crimes committed by individuals against other individuals could occur to fit within that strawman argument attempt to continue the class structure you promoted previously.
I called it correctly. For the purposes of sexual violence discussion, you can only tolerate woman = potential victim and man = potential predator and anything that doesn’t fit within that description is a distraction that must be ignored or relegated to a lesser status. You as much admitted to such in your most recent comment.
The fact that you are feminist is just fine and dandy. Good for you.
I fight for human rights – for everyone – and have for years. Been on the receiving end of death threats, intimidation attempts, defamation, denial of service attacks, etc. for it.
That’s what I do.
You can be bemused all you wish. I, for one, am disgusted.
As far as victimization goes, you made the point that you weren’t going to shut up for me – clearly implying that I was attempting to silence you. That is blatantly obvious and completely untrue.
I see the situation of individuals and like you – I’ve been an activist for years. Clearly, you only deal with people as they relate within monolithic collectives. Those who don’t fit within the collectives – like survivors of female rapists or the hundreds of thousands of men raped annually in and outside of prison must be marginalized and then ignored within the larger discussion of rape.
I choose to deal with people as thinking, feeling, individuals – rather than relegating them to a simple number for the purpose of making a collectivist point.
Yes, we clearly do disagree. And like you, I’m not going to shut up for anyone.
July 20, 2008 2:32 AM
alterwords said…
Sorry, I made some spelling mistakes in that post that may make it hard to read.
That’s because I was upset.
I need to add, don’t make assumptions about whether or not I’ve had the experience of rape. I feel that you do that. I actually know a great deal about the subject. Unfortunately.
July 19, 2008 10:19 PM
Renee said…
@alterwords said: “Beyond the strictly personal and individual effects of rape on a man, the worst thing about it is that it seems, psychologically, to “reduce” him to the status of “woman” – the very worst thing that can happen in this misogynist culture.”
I certainly would not describe it as the worst thing because that diminishes the physical violation of rape, however I agree that the idea that a rape male victim is reduced to a female status is probably a valid position to take. We already know that straight men that have a problem with homosexuality specifically base there objection to anal sex. Penetration is something that they view as occurring only to women. So if part of the male psyche is that certain acts happen to women yes it would play a factor in how they understand sexual assault. This means that people need a greater understanding that rape does not connect to sex, it is about power. We further need to deconstruct the idea that sexually the woman is assigned a passive role. There are no gender specific sex acts and this is true globally. From culture to culture taboos change.
July 19, 2008 10:52 PM
alterwords said…
Hey Renee – thanks for your response and I totally agree. I did say “BEYOND the strictly individual and personal effects of rape on a man” which I thought covered the issue of “violation” in all its forms.
I didn’t think that my original comment would be the least controversial and I also didn’t intend that it should hurt anyone or minimize the trauma of rape on any person, male or female. However, the political context and meaning is critical and I feel it getting lost. That is always a concern to any woman for whom the liberation of women from oppression is important. Or any man I would guess, given that many men are “feminists” or “pro-feminist” or feminist allies.
Just curious – I’ve read what you have to say about being a “womanist” and it’s exactly the way I would describe my feminism. I’ve just been around a lot longer and haven’t re-thought the use of the word. Is there a huge difference between us on the way we respond to this issue, overall? If so, do you think it has to do with “womanism” and “feminism”?
July 20, 2008 2:10 AM
Renee said…
@alterwords. disclaimer it is 2:37 AM so I don’t know how much sense I am going to make.
First, all rape is about power. Power is everywhere and every action is within systems of power. That said, when a woman is raped by a man it occurs within our patriarchal system wherein women are exploited. Rape functions as a mechanism of control. While not all men are rapists all men benefit from rape.
When a man is raped he feels the same sort of personal violation as a woman but experiences this violation differently in part because the male body is constructed as the active body and the female body the passive body. His sense of self is threatened in terms of gender. All young girls are taught to fear rape whereas this is not a lesson we actively teach young boys. When a man rapes a woman it is part of larger discourse about who has the right to female bodies. When a man is raped regardless of the gender of the rapist there is not a larger political agenda at play. It is more about the desire of one individual claiming the right to another. So, rape against a woman is an institutional, systemic act of patriarchy.
July 20, 2008 2:51 AM
James Landrith said…
Renee:
You said, “all men benefit from rape”.
Not all individuals benefit in the same manner – if at all – from a particular system. So a particular practice benefiting a system is not the same as claiming all individuals affected by the system are benefited.
When I wake up in the middle of the night out of breath and can’t get back to sleep due to flashbacks and body memories, where is my benefit?
When I wake up with my wife’s hands wrapped around my throat choking off my air supply because she is trying to fight them off in her nightmares, where is my benefit?
When I start into panic attacks when alone with a woman I don’t know, where is my benefit?
When I break down into tears in the middle of the day for no reason at all, where is my benefit?
When I freeze up and beginning experiencing body memories when my wife touches me initiating sex, where is my benefit?
When I’m told to shut up and go away because I don’t fit the mold of a typical rape survivor, where is my benefit?
When I was raped, where was my benefit?
Sorry if I sound a bit angry about being told I’m a beneficiary of rape, given my own experience as both a survivor and secondary survivor.
I do appreciate your coverage of this issue in this blog entry and I’ll end my comments here.
Thank you and I’m sorry if I’ve offended you by emoting all over this comment thread.
July 20, 2008 3:11 AM
Renee said…
James I am going to respond in case you are still lurking…
As I said early in the morning, and so my meaning was obviously not clear. I am not saying that you benefited from being raped. I am saying that patriarchy benefits from rape. As a man though you are a rape victim you still benefit from male privilege in every other aspect of your life. Therefore in your relations with women (outside of the rape obviously) how they respond to you is based in how women understand rape. Since rape is a mechanism of control, women are necessarily docile and passive at times instead of aggressive or even assertive.
I understand that what happened to you was very personal and terrible. It is not my intent to demean you in any way. As I said in my post you caused me to think about sexual assault in a completely different light and for that I am grateful. I will no longer automatically gender rape victims. That said we still cannot ignore power relations, as power is everywhere.
Bare with me for one more moment please. I am still working on using the right language to get across my point.It is difficult when you switch gears so quickly. The point I am trying to make is how rape figures into the wider social discourse. When it happens to a man it is very individual as there is no great social force actively seeking from birth to other you. whereas the same cannot be said of women. This is not about comparing oppression as I have said that all oppression is bad. It is about how we come to understand the oppression differently. It is clear that males will have an issue with rape beyond the violation of the body in terms of a perceived threat to their masculinity. Women do not suffer that because we are taught and it is accepted that our bodies are meant for violation. This is part of why I feel that though the act can happen to either gender we experience it in very gendered ways.
I hope that I have been more clear in my explanation in terms of benefit. I am sorry if I upset you or triggered any negative emotions in you. I will cross post this at your blog in case you are not lurking. I really did not mean any offense and in future will try and be more careful with my words.
July 20, 2008 3:37 AM
James Landrith said…
Renee and alterwords:
Thank you both for your compassion on this issue even if we don’t agree on every single point in the larger perspective.
If I seemed a bit emotional this weekend it is because I am.
Dealing with 17 years of repressed emotions and then being mocked, taunted, threatened, emasculated and otherwise humiliated (not on this blog) for speaking truth about a horrible event will do that to a person…
July 20, 2008 9:55 PM
Renee said…
Well I will say thank you once again for sharing your story. I am glad that found this to be a safe space. It is my hope that womanist musings will always be a safe space for those that society has chosen to other and treat as less than. It took great courage to do what you did and it is my hope that it will have a healing and cathartic effect. You are welcome here.
July 20, 2008 10:13 PM
alterwords said…
Well, the thing I was trying to say initially, was that I do think we have a problem with this term “patriarchy”. It does imply that men are the patriarchs and that they are sort of equally patriarchs, that they all benefit from women’s inequality when clearly there are men who, for all sorts of reasons, benefit “less” or even not at all. For reasons of class or race, for instance. We can hardly say that Queen Elizabeth II is an oppressed woman or certainly, that a male African American can be her oppressor and one who benefits from that oppression.
That is what I meant originally. And, despite what has happened in this conversation, I am sorry that it got off track. I certainly understand about triggering and flashbacks and no, James, I most certainly don’t think you are benefitting from anything when you are going through that.
I can only hope that we are having trouble with words here and that we are miscommunicating rather than that we are lacking in regard for the suffering of the other.
There IS a political issue here, though, and it’s an important one. Sometimes, when men tell their personal stories of rape, there is a tendency to equate them exactly to the experiences of women. They’re not the same. That’s all. It doesn’t mean that men don’t suffer when it happens to them. Neither does it mean that individual women necessarily suffer more. But it actually IS a gendered crime, usually man on woman or woman on man. I’ve never seen anything that would even tend to assert otherwise. I’m sure there are numbers of men who haven’t reported their rapes. Just as only about 8% of women who are raped report the crime. And very, very few men are convicted of it. And I’m sure even fewer women.
As well, I think feminists have re-thought this notion that sexual assault/rape is NOT about sex, it’s about power. Clearly it is about power. But if there wasn’t a sexual element to it, there would be no “need” to make it rape or “sexual” assault. A physical assault would be enough to get the point across.
Oh well. It’s clearly upset everyone since we’re still up at this time talking about it. I think it’s extremely complicated and I assume that we are each very sensitive about the issue but are also people of good will. I hope you continue to find the support you need James, as we all need that.
July 20, 2008 4:08 AM
Renee said…
@alterwords said “It does imply that men are the patriarchs and that they are sort of equally patriarchs, that they all benefit from women’s inequality when clearly there are men who, for all sorts of reasons, benefit “less” or even not at all. For reasons of class or race, for instance. We can hardly say that Queen Elizabeth II is an oppressed woman or certainly, that a male African American can be her oppressor and one who benefits from that oppression.”
Not all men benefit equally because of things like race, class, ability and sexuality but all men benefit from male privilege. I am sure if I were more up on the monarchy I could point to some way that RRII had been unnecessarily gendered. An individual man like her butler for instance would not hold that kind of power but the media a male run institution certainly would have that power. So even when we think of something as horrible as rape we still need to understand that men still hold the privilege in this society even if it is at times mitigated by certain instances or stigmatization.
July 20, 2008 9:34 AM
alterwords said…
lol
I made a large mistake in that post.
I think you’ll like it James
July 20, 2008 4:11 AM
Danny said…
Rape is so strongly associated with women that very few men would ever admit to being a victim for fear of ridicule. And in this misogynistic society, I can see why.
Unfortunately there is more than misogyny at work to shame men into not speaking up. Another thing that I have notice is that some feminists circles specifically stress that rape is a women’s issue and they will not let men even come into the equation/discussion until it is time assign responsibility. Misogynistic pigs are not the only ones that ridicule male victims of rape and other forms of violence.
July 19, 2008 8:58 PM
Queers United said…
thank you for posting about this sensitive and important subject matter. males who are raped by men or women often go unreported because of shame, embarassment, and guilt. thanks for exposing something rape services need to do which is to reach out to male victims.
July 19, 2008 9:40 PM
Daran said…
Hi Renee,
I came here via Toy Soldiers (http://toysoldier.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/a-little-more-on-being-a-man/), but we’ve crossed swords before on Alas a Blog. I hope we can make a fresh start with each other.
This was a remarkably sensitive and thoughtful post which is greatly appreciated by myself and I don’t doubt by many others male victims and their advocates. It is, however, nothing more than what many of us have been saying for years, and which gets us labeled ‘MRA infestations’ and the like.
I do have a few factual observations:
Tjaden & Thoennes have published a number of papers over the years relating to the 1998 National Violence Against Women Survey (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/pubs-sum/172837.htm), from which the 3% figure almost certainly comes. (It’s actually the figure for attempted + completed rape. Completed rape alone is 2.1%.) That survey functionally defined rape in such a way that James Landrith’s experience would not qualify. In fact, there are several types of assualt victimising both women and men that both you and I would probably class as rape, which the survey did not. The effect of these is that there was likely undercounting of both male and female rape, but more so when the victim was male and/or the perpetrator was female. There are a number of other methodological issues likely to lead to greater undercounting of male victimisation. It was, after all, a violence against women survey, and the methodology was designed with that goal in mind.
Despite this, one quarter of those surveyed who reported being raped in the previous year were men. Men were one ninth of those who reported being raped at any time in their lives, which matches fairly closely the NCVS figure you cited. The difference between the incidence and prevalence figures is probably a result of the explosion in the mostly-male prison population during a period in which reported rape of females has declined by a third.
The bottom line is, the true incidence figure now in America is probably a lot closer to equality than the figures you quote would suggest. In particular the estimate of 460,000 male victims annually by HRW (which doesn’t include rapes outside prison. I’m also assuming it applies to the United States) should be compared with the figure of 302,000 female victims annually from the NVAW survey (which undercounts prison rape, and excludes those raped before their 17th birthday). Note that neither figure is the last word on the subject, and I certainly would not claim that the true figure is higher from men than women, though that is a possibility.
July 24, 2008 5:38 AM
Renee said…
@Daran welcome to womanist musings…
Daran said: “I certainly would not claim that the true figure is higher from men than women, though that is a possibility.”
I won’t recognize that as a possibility but I do believe that the all victims of rape need access to treatment and our support.
July 24, 2008 2:40 PM
Daran said…
Thanks for the welcome.
Renee said: “I won’t recognize that as a possibility”
May I ask, why not?
Let me ask another question. Do you think it possible that male victims might have been, say, 5% of all those raped in 1980? Does one in twenty sound reasonable?
The rate of rape according to the NCVS has fallen by a factor of five since 1980, (not a third, as I said), while the prison population has increased by a factor of 4 in the same interval. Assuming that neither the proportion of male rape in community settings, nor the victimisation rate in prison has changed, then 1 in 20 in 1980 would correspond to approximate parity now.
I’m not trying so much trying to persuade you to change your belief here, but to get you to think about why you believe the things you believe.
but I do believe that the all victims of rape need access to treatment and our support.
We agree of course, but I think recognition is necessary, not only because recognition, acknowlegement, and belief are surportive responses per se, but also because they are prerequisites for the provision of services. While you framed your post as a self-criticism, your remarks apply pretty much to the feminist and mainstream survivor movements generally. this site, for example is typical. It purports to oppose “All Forms of Sexual Violence”, my emphasis, yet it defines rape and sexual assault as “forms of violence against women”, implicitly denying male rape and erasing male victims.
I would be the first to acknowledge that not all feminists are like this, but it is the dominant approach, and even those who do not not deny and erase male rape are slow to call out those who do.
July 24, 2008 7:04 PM
Renee said…
@Daran said: “”I would be the first to acknowledge that not all feminists are like this, but it is the dominant approach, and even those who do not not deny and erase male rape are slow to call out those who do.”
I cannot speak on behalf of all feminists but I will say in one of the statics that I found most the attacks against males happened under the age of 18, which to me falls under the category of child sexual abuse. I do believe that feminism has been very vocal about stopping abuse against children.
You make an interesting point about the rising prison population and its correlation to a rise in rapes happening to men.
I know that I am still working with a lot of biases that are difficult to unpack, call it a work in progress…Perhaps part of the problem is that even while I feel great sympathy for male rape victims I must still acknowledge the fact that most rapes are sill committed by men. While you are complaining that feminists are not doing enough I must ask where is your outreach to other men to get them to stop raping?
July 24, 2008 7:20 PM
Arum said…
Renee said: “While you are complaining that feminists are not doing enough I must ask where is your outreach to other men to get them to stop raping?”
Thank you, Renee. I am a regular reader of Daran’s blog (as I am of yours). As MRAs go, he appears to be both thoughtful and willing to engage with feminists. However, I am frustrated by his desire to prove that “men are more oppressed than women”.
MRAs insist that women commit just as much domestic violence as men do, we have different brains which is why we don’t do engineering, and we rape men as often as they do us.
These are all misrepresentations of the truth. Men are not raped as often as women, and when they are the perpetrators are overwhelmingly male. Feminists act to oppose violence against women, the perpetrators of which are overwhelmingly male. If MRAs are to oppose violence against men, why do they insist on concentrating on the small percentage of perpetrators who are female? Why don’t they tackle male violence too? They are silent on the subject, which makes me distrust them.
July 26, 2008 4:53 PM
Sara said…
I’d respond that Daran is not a MRA (or an anti-feminist), even if some of his views might coincide with them. Just like feminism being against slavery does not mean that anyone against slavery is feminist.
I don’t know who claimed rape happened at the same rates. They are lower for male victims, but not as insignificant as studies tend to claim. I’d say it’s more a middle-of-the-road like it’s not an anomaly, and it’s not as common as for female victims.
As for Domestic Violence, well male violence is tackled virtually everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Just like Daran can’t fault some feminists for taking more time on women’s issues, you can’t really fault him for taking the neglected side. He does not say it does not happen either (for female victims of DV), nor does he belittle it. There was a post on the blog about female victims of DV in lesbian relationships.
For rape I have no numbers about the perpetrator ratio, and prefer to avoid the subject rather than make a fool of myself by tyring to go with whatever I think. For DV though, there are numbers, and while the female perpetrators don’t outnumber the male ones, male on male is vanishingly small compared to female on male DV.
The myth that 95% of DV victims are female, and that the 5% of male victims are almost all gay, is a myth.
July 26, 2008 11:31 PM
cddaran said…
Hello again Renee, and hello to Arum and Sara. It’s good to finally meet long term lurkers, especially those who appear to be at least feminist-leaning. It helps me to feel that I’m not just bleating to the same old herd. In particular, thank you Sara for you kind defence of me. I’m a bit purturbed, however, about the way this discussion is switching from being about the male rape victimisation to being about me.
Sara said: “I don’t know who claimed rape happened at the same rates. They are lower for male victims, but not as insignificant as studies tend to claim. I’d say it’s more a middle-of-the-road like it’s not an anomaly, and it’s not as common as for female victims.”
I honestly don’t know which sex is more often raped now in the United States. I think that the US as a society is currently an anomalous condition, (compared with what it normal for the US, and for liberal democracies in general) in ways which tend to increase the proportion of male rape victims. I.e., the incarceration rate is anomalously high, and the current female societal rape rate may be anomalously low. If that is the case, then the latter is a welcome anomaly. However I would expect a regression toward the mean over the next few decades.
Sara said: “male on male is vanishingly small compared to female on male DV.”
I doubt that. In absolute terms the proportion of violent incidents between male intimates will be lower than between heterosexuals because there are fewer such couples. I don’t have any statistics to hand, but I would be surprised if the per couple rate was vanishingly small.
DV also includes violence between family members who are not intimates. Violence against boys by other male family members is not vanishingly small.
July 27, 2008 8:11 AM
Sara said…
Daran said: “In absolute terms the proportion of violent incidents between male intimates will be lower than between heterosexuals because there are fewer such couples.”
This is what I meant, too.
What the myth of 95% female 5% male and mostly gay says is that straight guys who are victims of DVs are an absolute minority, not just a proportional minority.
As such, some might characterize it as 95% female victim, 5% male victim, amongst which 4% are gay, so you have 1% straight male victims – and that portrayal is untrue.
July 27, 2008 10:12 AM
cddaran said…
Renee said: “I do believe that feminism has been very vocal about stopping abuse against children.”
It has, but being vocal about child abuse does nothing to combat the erasure of male victims or their exclusion from services. When people think about the victims of child abuse, they naturally picture a child. They do not necessarily picture an adult who was abused as a child, twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago, and who is still injured from the abuse.
Another problem with the “male violence” framing, is that it tends to collectivise responsiblity for the actions of some men. All men are implicated by the framing, including those whose only experience of violence is to be victims of it. In respect of this last group, it is a victim-blaming discourse. In respect of the broader group of non-perpetrating men, it is just blaming the innocent.
In some cases, but not all, the “male violence” framing is a gross distortion, to the point of being a reversal of the truth. Child abuse is one such case. mothers are implicated in large majority of incidents of child abuse (http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm04/figure3_6.htm). In more than half of those case, the mother is the sole perpetrator, which belies any suggestion that women’s involvement in abuse is always incidental or subordinate to men’s. If child abuse generally were to be routinely framed as “maternal abuse” to the point that other perpetrators were erased. I suspect that you would consider that to be prejudicial in itself. Now imagine a world in which mothers who had been abused as children were denied services because they were mothers, and DV shelter space were denied to mothers seeking to protect their children from abuse by others.
Yet that is the pretext upon which services are denied to men.
In summary, the “male violence” framing 1. erases female perpetrators, 2. distorts reality in some cases (but not all) to the point of reversal, and 3. collectively blames all men for violence, including its victims. Similarly the “violence against women” framing erases male victims, in some cases distorts reality, and collectivises the victimisation of women, thus allowing women who are not victims (or who are no more victims than comparable men) to claim undeserved oppression points. Being “vocal about stopping abuse against children”, while laudable per se does not counter these effects.
Renee said: “I know that I am still working with a lot of biases that are difficult to unpack, call it a work in progress…”
I appreciate that. It’s because of the thoughtulness of your post – and not out of any desire to experiment on you – that I have ventured here.
Renee said: “Perhaps part of the problem is that even while I feel great sympathy for male rape victims I must still acknowledge the fact that most rapes are sill committed by men. While you are complaining that feminists are not doing enough I must ask where is your outreach to other men to get them to stop raping?”
This comment is already too long. I will respond to this in a post on FCB.
July 27, 2008 10:18 AM
Renee said…
@cddaran said: “It has, but being vocal about child abuse does nothing to combat the erasure of male victims or their exclusion from services. When people think about the victims of child abuse, they naturally picture a child. They do not necessarily picture an adult who was abused as a child, twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago, and who is still injured from the abuse.”
Now you are reaching…when the issue is child abuse there is no limit in the access to treatment the way there would be for adult male victims of child abuse and since the majority of male rapes occurs to children I do believe there is a lot of mitigation.
@cddaran said: “In more than half of those case, the mother is the sole perpetrator”
Erroneous statement, according to your source the figure is 38.8….I am not certain of the reliability of said source.
I am waiting to see your commentary on why it is that the MRA movement never seems to fit to be internally critically. Whatever issues feminism does have one thing is very clear, it is an extremely fluid movement with much internal critique.
@cddaran said: “claim undeserved oppression points”
That commentary is offensive, especially from some who is a supposed anti-violence ally.
July 27, 2008 12:23 PM
cddaran said…
Renee said: “Now you are reaching…when the issue is child abuse there is no limit in the access to treatment the way there would be for adult male victims of child abuse and since the majority of male rapes occurs to children I do believe there is a lot of mitigation.”
(I’m not convinced that the majority of male rapes happen to children, but that’s another side issue, best removed to my own blog.)
You are talking about adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse as though they were a different group of people from abused children. My point is that they are not. They are the same people at different stages of their lives. Moreover, for many of them, of both sexes, the abuse will not be recognised during their childhood. For these, services as adults will be the only services they get, or don’t get, as the case may be.
Renee said: “Erroneous statement, according to your source the figure is 38.8….I am not certain of the reliability of said source.”
By “those case[s]”, I meant those cases in which mothers are implicated. 38.8 percent is more than half of 38.8 + 18.3 + 6.8 percent.
I agree that reliability and provenance of cited statistics is always a matter of concern. In particular I am suspicious of all figures from advocacy literature, including feminist, MRA, and unaligned sources. Where did those RAINN and HRW figure come from anyway?
I do a great deal of fact-checking, but obviously I can’t check everything. Undoubtedly there is a lot of complexity hidden behind that child-abuser cake, but if you wish to argue that it’s not valid, or otherwise doesn’t support my argument, then I think you should explain why that should be the case.
I am waiting to see your commentary on why it is that the MRA movement never seems to fit to be internally critically. Whatever issues feminism does have one thing is very clear, it is an extremely fluid movement with much internal critique.
Actually the feminist and MRA movements are quite similar in this respect. I have criticised MRAs and antifeminists. More so in the past than now, but I still do it. See this post for example in which I take antifeminists/MRAs to task for their lack of internal criticism, among other things.
Renee said: “That commentary is offensive, especially from some who is a supposed anti-violence ally.”
I’m sorry you found it offensive. You’ve said some offensive things yourself in this thread, in particular, that all men, which including male victims of rape, benefit from rape.
July 27, 2008 4:41 PM
Renee said…
@Daran said: “I have criticised MRAs and antifeminists. More so in the past than now, but I still do it. See this post for example in which I take antifeminists/MRAs to task for their lack of internal criticism, among other things.”
My point exactly your individual critique does not amount to questioning within the movement as well. Feminists regularly challenge each other to grow and change.
Daran said: “You’ve said some offensive things yourself in this thread, in particular, that all men, which including male victims of rape, benefit from rape.”
And I stand by it. Please explain to me why it is that rape is used as a tactic of war if it is not for male benefit?
July 27, 2008 11:31 PM
cddaran said…
Renee said: “My point exactly your individual critique does not amount to questioning within the movement as well.”
Indeed it does not. I am not internal to their movement, labels pinned on me notwithstanding.
Why are we even discussing this? It came out of nowhere and looks like a third person tu quoque. (I suppose that would be ei quoque http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque).
Renee said: “Feminists regularly challenge each other to grow and change.”
I beg to differ. Feminist discussion tends to focus on peripheral areas. There are vast swathes of doctrine that are rarely criticised internally, and when they are, the critic’s feminist credentials invariably suffer a challenge. If the internal critic continues the line of criticsm they are eventually excommunicated: Hoff Summers, Cathy Young, McElroy, Paglia, etc.
Your own post at top evinces considerable growth and change on your part, for which I’ve already expressed my appreciation. But it wasn’t a feminist challenge that lead to it.
Renee said: “And I stand by it. Please explain to me why it is that rape is used as a tactic of war if it is not for male benefit?”
Hold on a moment; this is your claim. Please explain to me how I or James Landrith benefit from war rape?
July 28, 2008 8:45 AM
Danny said…
I didn’t realize this topic was still going.
Arum said: “If MRAs are to oppose violence against men, why do they insist on concentrating on the small percentage of perpetrators who are female? Why don’t they tackle male violence too? They are silent on the subject, which makes me distrust them.”
MRAs focus on that small percentage of female perpetrators because most courts will bend over backwards and alter reality to find out “what made her do it” when a woman commits violence against a man.
And speaking of silence why is it that feminsits go on and on about not getting the support they need for children from noncustodial father but have nothing to say about the fact that the large chunks of the money they pay are being kept by the state?
Renee said: “And I stand by it. Please explain to me why it is that rape is used as a tactic of war if it is not for male benefit?”
Because rape is being utilized as a way to destroy the community (and ultimately culture) of the enemy while adding to the population of their own. Along with killing the men raping the women is used as a way to erase the ways and culture of said culture while adding more people to their own. This would also be why they are not killed on sight like men. Raping women is a benefits the culture of the raiders.
And I would very much like to know how all men benefit from rape.
August 1, 2008 1:06 PM
Gordon said…
Renee said: “Before reading his account yesterday, I never once thought to write about male victims of sexual violence. In my mind they were the evil enemy…”
We (male readers of this blog) noticed. Ahem. But I was really pleased to see this post, I think it represents a lot of progress for you. And please don’t take that as a condescending comment, because it’s not meant to be. I only mean that I like to see when *anyone* is able to see past their (often limited) perception of the world and express real sympathy for others–particularly for those that they see as “enemies.” So with feminists in particular, this means realizing that (believe it or not!) men are people, too, and can be victimized. Again, I hope my phrasing doesn’t imply that I’m talking down to you; I only wanted to express a little gratitude that you wrote this post.
August 13, 2008 11:31 AM
This was………really touching. At last women understand that we males are too, not invincible. Thank you. Thank you for understanding. Thank you for not discriminating us only. Another thing to add though, is that male rapists get heavy charges, while women only get light punishments. This is so unfair!!!! As a male, I think that we both genders should face the same punishment. Although people will never understand truly what we have to go through.