this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Deep down inside I know it is a cry for help, not a sexist statement. And if you thought about it, you would too.
It's very telling that you tried to undermine "Choosing the Bear" by replacing the man with a "black man" or a "trans person". You wanted to co-opt the bigotry thrown at an oppressed group to add a charge of oppression to the "choosing the bear". But women aren't the oppressors, they are being oppressed, not just legally with abortion rights, but specifically physically with sexual assault.
What if we swapped your embarrassing attempt at rewriting the scenario and made it fit the reality more, where the man and woman were replaced with another group of oppressors and oppressed?
Say 1939, Nazi Germany. You are talking to a Jewish person that has recently escaped Germany, and in an attempt to explain how terrified they were of the Nazi's they tell you "I would have rather encountered a Bear than a Nazi alone in the woods". Well, given all your knowledge of bears, you immediately rebuttal with "that's so ridiculous and naive of you! Not all Nazis attack Jews, and a bear is a bear! Why you are being bigoted against Nazi's just by implying!"
Sure, Nazi's are the go to extreme example, but it's far more apropos to keep they dynamics of the scenario intact.
So do you maybe now see how much you would have missed the point, and how much attacking their method of communicating their fears is a sick and twisted thing to do?
No, I doubt you do, you seem so stuck on the idea that women communicating their fear of sexual assault actually makes men the real victims.
Good luck with life man, I know you are not a bad person, your arguments have consistently shown your heart is in the right place. But the men who assault women really appreciate you standing up for them, and with that you are enabling harm.
What you are continuing to fail at is that I get the point.
I'm saying that the point is being conveyed atop a sexist mechanism
You might find this wild, but a cry fir help can simultaneously be sexist. The two aren't mutually exclusive.
You are arguing about what is being conveyed on the mechanism.
I am arguing the mechanism being used itself is a shitty one
Things can be more than one thing at the same time, which is tough for some people to understand I guess.
If you continue to keep trying to argue that a sexist post being a "cry for help" somehow nullifies it's sexism, then you will continue to make zero progress here and, more importantly, you'll continue to keep being part of the problem
Guess we just won't find common ground in this one, I believe it would need to actually be bigoted to be... you know, sexist. It would need to stereotype all (or at least most) men as rapists, or it would need to push for collective blame or punishment towards men, it would need to actually be prejudiced.
But it just isn't. It's literally just trying to communicate to men that this problem is so widespread that it is hindering women's ability to live without fear. All of the sexism you see in it, is imaginary. And it's kind of telling on yourself that you think it's talking about "all men".
Women know that most men are not rapist, and they aren't asking for any rights to be taken away from men to make them feel safer. But they also know that 99% of rapists are men, and 91% of victims are women, that added to the aforementioned 1 in 6~ women that will have been raped in their lifetime means they are gambling just being alone with a man. And remaining one of the 5 out of 6 requires never ending vigilance.
It's not sexist to acknowledge those facts, and it's not sexist for women to not want to put themselves in situations where they can't get help. Since Choosing the Bear is literally just trying to spread awareness of this dilemma women live with everyday, and is in no way saying that all men are the problem, its disingenuous to call it sexist.
And if your grand argument is that bringing attention to sexual assault in ways that men may take offense to is the real problem, well all I can say is you are repeating the bullshit arguments thrown at the oppressed during the civil rights movement, during women's suffrage, and countless other fights for rights and safety. You are siding with rapists feelings. You, not women, are saying it attacks all men. And you are part of the problem. You are killing the conversation around sexual assault to inject how it affects your feelings. So please understand me when I say you need to get over yourself.
Honestly, I don't think I'll return to this conversation, you disappoint me, and frankly I've lost respect for you as a person. Blaming women trying to convey their fears as responsible for Trump, and claiming it is sexist to acknowledge their fears is just pathetic. If people really voted for Trump to get back at women for not talking about sexual assault in their preferred manner, fuck those people.
edit: lol, I also just realized you basically implied you would tell a Jewish person "not all Nazi's". Fuck you man
1 in 6 sexually assaulted, not raped, to start. Which is still way too high but don't get it twisted.
Second, these 2 numbers actually have no functional relation to the odds of a random man being a rapist.
If you have 1000 people (500/500 men/women) and 1 of them is a rapist, and a man, you could say "100% of the rapists in this group are men"
Which is true, but what you actually care about is, in that case, only 1/500 of men in that crowd are a rapist.
As for the 1/6 women are assaulted, it's a similiar issue.
If that 1 man proceeds to rape 50 women, you now could say (and be totally correct) that:
But all of that actually is missing the fact that in reality, if one of those women picked a man at random to be alone with, it'd only be a 1 in 500 chance she got the rapist.
Now. These are obviously hyperbole facts to demonstrate the mathematical hole.
Let's find out the actual number then...
David Lisak's research probably gives us the best estimate at around 1 in 16. Which is still quite high, but it is also very far away from numbers like "91%" or "1 in 6"
So now you're looking at a 1 in 16 chance of a randomly selected man being sexually violent.
This suddenly starts to demonstrate how the "I'd choose the bear" statement comes across as sexist.
Because choosing a bear signals a vastly hyperinflated representation of the risk of a man.
This is, indeed, sexist. You're taking the actions of a small minority of men and casting their actions over the average.
That, my friend, is textbook bigotry.
The reality is the vast vast majority of men (~94%) aren't sexually violent and perfectly normal people who would be helpful and good to have around for survival.
If you seriously don't see casting the 6%'s actions as a negative generalization on the other 94% as sexist, then I think you gotta go reflect on that for a bit.