I have never met a single woman who didn’t have their own story of aggressive stalking, sexual assault, or violence. Myself and all my friends and family included.
Yeah it’s a mess, there are some proper pigs out there. The comic still feels a bit like somebody hears about child abduction on the media and the punch line is that it’s somehow insensitive to suggest to let the kids go to school on their own.
I wouldn’t be surprised if more men are victims of this too than one would think, or i got incredibly “lucky”. I remember when i was a kid, skateboarding in the city, i would go to the toilet of the main train station if i needed to. There were almost always men masturbating and looking over to me, but i didn’t understand back then, although i found it very uncomfortable, the smell of that toilet may have done its part though, haha.
When i was older, going home from the club i used to pass the are of the same train station and it must have been a place for male prostitution at night, i had almost every weekend cars stalking me, randos asking if i wanted to jerk them off or some shit. I didn’t feel scared though, which seems a bit weird in hindsight, but i never change my route home.
Later i also got randomly jumped and beat up, out of the blue, in the middle of the night by two guys. That one was actually traumatic and it took me half a year to not think about it anymore.
edit: Reading this again, it kinda has some vibes of downplaying women*s experiences. Just wanted to make clear that was not my intention, i know there’s levels to this stuff.
(Walking home at 3am. Crowd of kids under a streetlight, a dozen. Figured there was a party nearby. I’m walking by, say hi, one kid approaches me, says “hey you got a light”. I aay “nope”. He walks closer and says it again. Then bam, somebody hits me on the head from behind with a bat. I’m out for a couple seconds. Come to with blood everywhere. 2 guys standing over me. One says, “give me your wallet, we know where you live, don’t call the cops, we’ve done this before”. So I give them my wallet and they run away down the street. Then I’m sitting there bleeding for a minute. The crowd is watching all this. Then one says, “I guess we should run”. Then they all leave. Then I get up and walk a block to a friend’s house and call an ambulance.)
Still got the scar.
After that, everybody was a suspect. Everybody I saw got my burning looks.
I’m look both ways before I cross the road and I’ve never been hit.
I have been subject to male shittiness (catcallling, groping, abuse and physical abuse when rejecting advances) and I still go about in the world but I will mitigate my risk by keeping myself as safe as possible (let friends know where I am, be on the phone, don’t wander around in the dark dressing how I would choose) pulling out the fawn flight or fight when required.
Well, yes but no. This isn’t just about incels and really predates their visible presence online. The for-profit media companies do absolutely profit from “engagement” which they achieve by pushing stories that make people fearful.
However, there is much more to the picture. I didn’t understand, myself, when I was younger and it took maturing, listening to women around me, and experience as a supervisor for customer support to get through my skull how fucked up and different the experience is that women have in life. Talk to the women in your life and it is likely that they have experiences feeling threatened by men, being treated as incompetent and belittled by men (especially in technical fields), not having their health and medical symptoms taken seriously, or outright sexually assaulted. They’re often taught that they just have to go in with life because this is “normal”. The statistics show that over 15% of women and 3% of men in the US gave experienced sexual assault and that’s with an estimate of 75% being unreported, so likely a larger number.
TL;DR Yes, corporate media is fucked up but, just because slapping the asses of female coworkers is no longer acceptable does not mean that sexism is gone and women don’t have legitimate reasons to fear for their safety around men. As unfortunate as it is for the majority of us men who don’t engage in awful behavior, it’s a lot worse for women who have to think “is this a guy who is going to murder me if I say ‘no’?”.
I think I understand what you’re saying, but don’t discount the point here. I think the author is speaking to the experience of being a woman in a first world society. It’s not necessarily always incels that react to women with violence, or the threat.
The media cherrypicks for max drama. Your fear is their feast. So you might want to take what they say with a grain of salt.
You are 10000x more likely to get hit by a car than bludgeoned by an incel.
I have never met a single woman who didn’t have their own story of aggressive stalking, sexual assault, or violence. Myself and all my friends and family included.
Yeah it’s a mess, there are some proper pigs out there. The comic still feels a bit like somebody hears about child abduction on the media and the punch line is that it’s somehow insensitive to suggest to let the kids go to school on their own.
I wouldn’t be surprised if more men are victims of this too than one would think, or i got incredibly “lucky”. I remember when i was a kid, skateboarding in the city, i would go to the toilet of the main train station if i needed to. There were almost always men masturbating and looking over to me, but i didn’t understand back then, although i found it very uncomfortable, the smell of that toilet may have done its part though, haha.
When i was older, going home from the club i used to pass the are of the same train station and it must have been a place for male prostitution at night, i had almost every weekend cars stalking me, randos asking if i wanted to jerk them off or some shit. I didn’t feel scared though, which seems a bit weird in hindsight, but i never change my route home.
Later i also got randomly jumped and beat up, out of the blue, in the middle of the night by two guys. That one was actually traumatic and it took me half a year to not think about it anymore.
edit: Reading this again, it kinda has some vibes of downplaying women*s experiences. Just wanted to make clear that was not my intention, i know there’s levels to this stuff.
I got jumped once.
(Walking home at 3am. Crowd of kids under a streetlight, a dozen. Figured there was a party nearby. I’m walking by, say hi, one kid approaches me, says “hey you got a light”. I aay “nope”. He walks closer and says it again. Then bam, somebody hits me on the head from behind with a bat. I’m out for a couple seconds. Come to with blood everywhere. 2 guys standing over me. One says, “give me your wallet, we know where you live, don’t call the cops, we’ve done this before”. So I give them my wallet and they run away down the street. Then I’m sitting there bleeding for a minute. The crowd is watching all this. Then one says, “I guess we should run”. Then they all leave. Then I get up and walk a block to a friend’s house and call an ambulance.)
Still got the scar.
After that, everybody was a suspect. Everybody I saw got my burning looks.
For about 6 months I was like that.
I’m look both ways before I cross the road and I’ve never been hit.
I have been subject to male shittiness (catcallling, groping, abuse and physical abuse when rejecting advances) and I still go about in the world but I will mitigate my risk by keeping myself as safe as possible (let friends know where I am, be on the phone, don’t wander around in the dark dressing how I would choose) pulling out the fawn flight or fight when required.
Do you see the imbalance here? The media do not make more of male violence on women than there is. It’s not sensationalised, if anything it is downplayed. We barely hear about any of it. https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/UN_BriefFem_251121.pdf
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Well, yes but no. This isn’t just about incels and really predates their visible presence online. The for-profit media companies do absolutely profit from “engagement” which they achieve by pushing stories that make people fearful.
However, there is much more to the picture. I didn’t understand, myself, when I was younger and it took maturing, listening to women around me, and experience as a supervisor for customer support to get through my skull how fucked up and different the experience is that women have in life. Talk to the women in your life and it is likely that they have experiences feeling threatened by men, being treated as incompetent and belittled by men (especially in technical fields), not having their health and medical symptoms taken seriously, or outright sexually assaulted. They’re often taught that they just have to go in with life because this is “normal”. The statistics show that over 15% of women and 3% of men in the US gave experienced sexual assault and that’s with an estimate of 75% being unreported, so likely a larger number.
TL;DR Yes, corporate media is fucked up but, just because slapping the asses of female coworkers is no longer acceptable does not mean that sexism is gone and women don’t have legitimate reasons to fear for their safety around men. As unfortunate as it is for the majority of us men who don’t engage in awful behavior, it’s a lot worse for women who have to think “is this a guy who is going to murder me if I say ‘no’?”.
Yep. I don’t dare share my opinions at work any more because of my experiences with “nice” men who wouldn’t lay a hand on women.
And I’m paid for my opinion. It’s not just sexual assault. It’s the fabric of our lives.
I think I understand what you’re saying, but don’t discount the point here. I think the author is speaking to the experience of being a woman in a first world society. It’s not necessarily always incels that react to women with violence, or the threat.
1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Nearly all women have at least a scary or negative experience. This is not a rare thing.
i can’t say trans women shouldn’t be allowed in women’s safe spaces but yet you can regurgitate this BS and get upvotes. feminism is dead.
I’ll have you know that my gurgitation is entirely fresh and original.