Dear Tyler Oakley, Daniel Tosh, and like-minded dudes,
You don’t get it.
You just don’t get it.
In theory, you’re not incapable of getting it - after all, not making light of violent crime is a fairly low rung on the decent human being ladder - but you have made it clear that you not only don’t understand, but that you don’t want to understand.
Tyler, you characterized the following comment as “verbal ignorance.”
Fucking cunt, I’d take her into the back alley and show her what I’m made of. She won’t even see it coming.
Daniel, your response to a woman who heckled you at your gig with a remark about how rape jokes aren’t funny was the following.
Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her?
I have to question if you have even a basic grasp of the definition of the word “rape.” You seem to understand it nebulously as a Very Bad Thing, a Mean Thing to Do, but also as Not the Worst Thing That Can Happen.
Rape is violence. Rape is the weapon with which men wield absolute superiority over women. As women, we walk through life with the understanding that we are never quite safe from it. Wear the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, walk the wrong way home, and we could find ourselves trapped and brutalized for male pleasure. We live in a society where a woman can stagger to a police station bleeding underneath her miniskirt and be told that by wearing that miniskirt, she was asking for it.
Even if women take every necessary precaution - even if we train ourselves in self-defense, travel in groups, walk on well-lit streets - we are never safe. We take a crowded bus home from school and our bodies are groped and manhandled. If we confront our attackers, they tell us that it was an accident, that they didn’t mean to, and that we need to calm down. We walk home from school in broad daylight, wearing jeans and sweaters and sneakers, and we’re regaled with whistling and cat calling.
To be a woman is to live with the constant threat of violence. And to be a man is to have the privilege of laughing at that threat.
Tyler, you accused a woman who acted out in violence to protect another woman from the threat of rape of “not thinking things through.” Forgive her for not thinking things through on a dark, empty street, late at night, when the men behind her were threatening to drag her sister into an alley and fuck her against her will. A broken nose is such a high price to pay for threatening to violently rob a woman of her autonomy and then laughing about it.
Daniel, you told a paying customer that if five men held her down and tortured her, it would be funny. In your apology, you said that there are awful things in the world, but you can still make jokes about them. You would stand over a woman being tortured, acknowledge the inherent awfulness of the act taking place, and then laugh about it. As if that would make it better. As if telling a woman to lighten up and take a joke isn’t adding to the violence and disrespect she lives with every single day.
You don’t get it.
There are those who would say that, since you are men, you will never get it. I think that, to an extent, that’s bullshit.
You may not know what it is like to be a woman. But surely, as a human being, you can see that your mothers and your sisters are fighting a constant battle against violence perpetuated by men. Surely you can see that by undermining the seriousness of their struggle, you are actually contributing to that cycle of violence.
You would never rape a woman. You would never hit a woman. You would never cat-call a woman or grope her on the subway.
But somehow, in your minds, it’s okay to joke about doing those things.
Joking won’t make the threat go away. Joking will make the woman who gets her ass pinched on a crowded subway smooth her skirt and leave, shaking in her boots, without reporting the assault, because it’s “no big deal.” Because it’s “just what men do.”
Understand the gravity of rape. Understand the gravity of sexual assault. Understand that, as a man, it is your birthright to not experience rape culture. Understand that every woman in your life bears the cross of being subject at any time and in any place to brutal sexual violence.
Stand with your mothers and your sisters.
And stop laughing.
(Heterosexual) male privilege is talking about how bad it is to have a gay man incessantly hit on you when you aren’t interested, having it accepted as a common opinion, and still not understand how a woman can feel the same way when you do the same thing.
Male privilege is telling women on the street - who you’ve never met before - to smile, and then acting offended when they don’t.
Male privilege is describing women being cautious about sexual assault as “misandry”, then, in another situation, blaming a victim for (apparently) not being cautious enough.
Male privilege is making jokes about women and using women’s offended responses as proof that they’re “overly sensitive” or “melodramatic”, then using women making jokes about men as proof that women are “callous” and “bitchy”.
Male privilege is being offended at being called sexist, but making fun of women who are offended at actual sexism.
Male privilege is complaining when women don’t reward treating them with basic dignity with sex. Male privilege is thinking you “deserve” or are “owed” a woman. Male privilege is treating friendships with women as failed conquests. Male privilege is putting the blame on women for not wanting to date you, instead of accepting that dating is not a one-sided thing. (In regards to “the friend zone”).
Male privilege is thinking that when you’re hired instead of a woman, it’s because you’re more qualified, but when a woman is hired instead of you, it’s affirmative action or she slept with them.
Male privilege is thinking you’re entitled to make comments about women’s bodies and clothes whenever you please, and then telling women they should feel flattered by this.
Male privilege is thinking consciption is a valid proof of “misandry” when the last conscripted soldier left the US army in 1973 and the UK army in 1963, and when more women are killed in their homes by their male partners every year than male soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq put together.
Male privilege is calling all nerdy women “fakers” and making them “prove” they’re nerds with questions, while doing no such thing for male nerds.
Male privilege is assuming everyone is male until proven otherwise, and also recieving little to no criticism for doing so.
Male privilege is expecting the lead in any film or TV series to be the same gender as you, and being correct almost every single time. (Seriously - how many movies not SPECIFICALLY aimed at women have female leads? How many movies not SPECIFICALLY amed at men have male leads?)
Male privilege is having your country leader and the majority of the legislative body be the same gender as you, and have your gender’s interests in mind.
Male privilege is having bodily autonomy.
(Cis) male privilege is not having to worry about visiting foreign countries because you know how poorly they treat your gender there.
Male privilege is having no risk presented to your career if you choose to start a family.
Male privilege is acting like women having maternity leaves is biological fact without realising that (aside from the birth) men can stay home and look after the newborn baby just fine - you just assume that the woman has to do it.
Male privilege is walking around in summer with just shorts on, but criticising any woman who’d do the same (… even if she’s still wearing more than you!).
Male privilege is sleeping with whomever you like, but calling any woman who does the same (even if she does so less than you) a “whore” who “has no self-respect”.
Male privilege is expecting to be just as, or even more, desirable because you’re sexually active/experienced, yet considering any woman who’s done the same “worthless”, “disgusting” or “cheap”.
Male privilege is ogling, touching or making unsolicited sexual advances at women and saying you “can’t help it” and “men are naturally like that”, then saying that it’s misandry when women agree that all men just “can’t help themselves” and “are naturally like that”.
Male privilege is thinking “being respectful and decent to a woman” is synonymous with “chivalry”… male privilege is not doing the former in order to “get back at feminists” who say the latter is misogynistic.
“As soon as teenage girls start to profess love for something, everyone else becomes totally dismissive of it. Teenage girls are open season for the cruelest bullying that our society can dream up. Everyone’s vicious to them. They’re vicious to each other. Hell, they’re even vicious to themselves. It’s terrible.
“So if teenage girls have something that they love, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it better for them to find some words they believe in, words like the ‘fire-proof and fearless’ lyrics that Jacqui wrote? Isn’t it better for them to put those words on their arm in a tattoo than for them to cut gashes in that same skin? Shouldn’t we be grateful when teenage girls love our work? Shouldn’t that be a fucking honor?
“It’s used as the cheapest, easiest test of crap, isn’t it? If teenage girls love a movie, a book, a band, then it’s immediately classified as mediocre shit. Well, I’m not going to stand for that. Someone needs to treat them like they’re precious, and if nobody else is ready to step up, I guess it’s up to us to put them on the path to recognizing that about themselves.”
" - a character from The Devil’s Mixtape. This book, you guys. (via waschbar)“I’m not like the other girls”, Claudia Gray
Excellent article. I always end up thinking this when I see reblogs like that. Female competition is a horrible, poisonous thing (that I’ve only recently gotten over engaging in, and I am much happier for it).
(via birdwithapeopleface)
i’ve noticed that a lot of people confuse “respects women” with “respects women they consider respectable”.
i don’t understand why i wasn’t following this guy a thousand years ago
A great video which also shows from a guy’s perspective on the issue
Androcentrism: It’s Okay to Be a Boy, but Being a Girl… » Sociological Images
I think the ‘women are required to do femininity and simultaneously punished for it’ bit sums up 90% of sexism in one sentence.
(via shashirosa)
There is no right or good way to be a woman. We are always doing something wrong. so we should just stop trying and do whatever the fuck we want.
(via allthishappened)
Please, MRAs, tell me more about how hard it is to be a dude.
(via stfuconservatives)
The Obama campaign has released a video on how horrible Romney would be for American women. I certainly don’t need convincing - but if I did, this would likely do it.
“A queen loses her crown when she loses her virginity. And a queen becomes the bitch when she likes it.”
FUCKING WORK
HALLELUH
Everything I see by this person gives me chills. Seriously, I want to hug them and listen to them all day.
