police violence and rape culture: 2 sides of the same coin?

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Barchan
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04 Aug 2016, 8:47 am

adifferentname wrote:
There are also obvious inconsistencies in the way that Sulkowicz chose to repeatedly contact Nungesser in the time after the alleged crime. It simply doesn't ring true.

Or, to put it another way: You're inclined to believe her story is made up or exaggerated, because she doesn't fit the classic image of how a victim of rape is "supposed to" act. Because she chose to be a survivor, rather than a victim. Because she wanted to be heard, not be silent.

I'm not always proud to be American. But if there's one thing I am proud of, it's America's empowering women to speak of their experiences, and speak for themselves, regardless of what anyone might think. All too often though, women who wield this righteous power are accused of "attention-seeking."



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04 Aug 2016, 9:27 am

Barchan wrote:
Or, to put it another way: You're inclined to believe her story is made up or exaggerated, because she doesn't fit the classic image of how a victim of rape is "supposed to" act.


Abysmal attempt at strawman. Take another crack at it.

Quote:
Because she chose to be a survivor, rather than a victim. Because she wanted to be heard, not be silent.


And the story she wanted to have heard was inconsistent, frequently demonstrably untrue and nonsensical. You can listen and believe as much as you like, I'll stick to sifting through the facts of the matter and draw my own conclusions.

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I'm not always proud to be American. But if there's one thing I am proud of, it's America's empowering women to speak of their experiences, and speak for themselves, regardless of what anyone might think. All too often though, women who wield this righteous power are accused of "attention-seeking."


From the woman trying to put words in my mouth. :roll:



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04 Aug 2016, 9:35 am

forget straw man, tin man, tin can, none of that matters

just two words: wishful thinking


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SpiderFan14
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04 Aug 2016, 9:39 am

Barchan wrote:
Ever notice how the standard defenses used for police violence, are disturbingly similar to ones used for rapists?

Lawyers defending police violence: "He had been drinking, and his body language was aggressive. He had a gun in his pocket, so he was basically asking for it."

Lawyers defending rapists: "She had been drinking, and her body language was suggestive. She had a condom in her purse, so she was basically asking for it."

Obviously these are terrible, horrible, disgusting and dehumanizing defenses. But they're used all the time in courts of law, and they usually work; this is a problem in itself.

Both crimes are based on structures of masculine power and white privilege in our society, so the parallels are only natural. It's worth mentioning, of course; that the majority of fatal police shootings, just like the majority of rapes; are committed by men.


Wow, I never thought of it like that, they are very, very similar. Thanks for starting this topic.



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05 Aug 2016, 5:53 pm

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
LKL wrote:
The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
[off topic]
I have to spit it out:

Sharia culture and rape culture are two si.... no, are on the same side of the coin.

ie. 70% of rape cases in Sweden are committed by Muslims who are barely 5% of population.

That's because Islamic teachings encourage huge direspect toward non-muslim women, and view them as potential sex slaves.
[/off topic]

So OP, if you want to fight rape culture, start the fight in your own culture.

Uh, you know not all Muslims are the same culture, right...? Right?


You know that I am a Middle eastern, living in the middle east and a former muslim (I am now atheist tho), right? So with all due respect, but I strongly think that I am more familiar with muslim cultures at least 100 times than you can ever be. I don't care if you have plenty of muslim neighbors and friends, you will never know more what I know about muslim cultures.

I will totally agree that you know more about middle-eastern culture than me, and more about Islam as practiced in the middle east, sure.

edit: and, btw, I actually agree with you that Islam as it is currently practiced in probably the majority of areas is regressive, especially towards women. I spoke out in defense of some moderate (feminist) Western Muslim friends.



Last edited by LKL on 05 Aug 2016, 5:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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05 Aug 2016, 5:55 pm

anagram wrote:
Barchan wrote:
anagram wrote:
yep, i did notice the glaring contradiction as well. i just didn't see the point in bringing it up because the op is clearly looking at things from an emotional point of view

Ah ahah ahahahah! Us women and our cuh-raaaazy emotions, am I right?

your response (note: your response, specifically you, in this instance) is a case in point about my argument

it's not a crime to be emotional. i'm often emotional myself. it just has to be acknowledged for what it is. human it is, but rational it is not

i got nothing else to add

The trope that women are more emotional than men, and thus less rational, has been used to discredit and belittle women's views for centuries.

edit:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-young/men-just-dont-trust-women_b_6714280.html
please note that this is a personal essay, and refrain from ad-homing it.



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05 Aug 2016, 6:31 pm

LKL wrote:
The trope that women are more emotional than men, and thus less rational, has been used to discredit and belittle women's views for centuries.

yes. and when someone responds to the trope as if they were responding to me, it shows that contexts are misaligned. i think anyone who believes that they're immune or unaffected by emotions is downright delusional. the expression and awareness of emotion may be different between the sexes due to culture (or between autistics and nt's due to neurology, for that matter), but the impact of emotions is not

for every participant in every debate, there's a point when they'll be speaking and reacting based on cognitive dissonance and other similarly irrational effects that the human brain tends to prioritize. and whenever it goes unchecked, it snowballs into more cognitive dissonance to be resolved, and strays farther and farther away from reason. this is true for all human beings, and it's exponentially more relevant in a world where millions are debating with millions in real time, 24/7/365

i'm fairly convinced that the ubiquity of smartphones and facebook and such has a very significant role in the increasing tension in the political atmosphere worldwide. because people don't get the chance to breathe and think and reflect and take a step back before an opinion is practically demanded from them, and it's a constant thing. emotion is quick, reason takes time


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05 Aug 2016, 6:58 pm

LKL wrote:
edit:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-young/men-just-dont-trust-women_b_6714280.html
please note that this is a personal essay, and refrain from ad-homing it.

about that in particular, it's kinda funny in my case. as a rule, i don't trust men instead (and i actually don't trust my mother or authority figures either). for a long time, the only close friends i've had have been women (women who have internalized the notion that they shouldn't be bothered by things that actually bother them). it feels wrong to trust another male with anything about me that i judge to be personal. and the very idea of "brohood" is alien to me. i'm not feminine, but i associate my gender with the imposition of being things that i'm not and that i never wanted to be. throughout my school years i was often labeled as gay because of that. because "i'm not supposed to be sensitive" (or emotionally unstable, for that matter, which i am)

i'm not denying what the article is saying though, on the contrary. over the years, i developed a strong sense of "impostor syndrome", because people take me seriously simply because i say things with an air of confidence. and then later i think to myself "what was i thinking? that was a stupid thing to say", but then i'm tied to whatever they're already praising me for. i appear competent when, upon further reflection, i don't really think i am. and people encourage it. if i try to explain it, people assume it's just momentary self-doubt, when in reality it's not. i take all praise with suspicion. it makes me doubt myself, even when it turns out that i'm actually competent at something. and it represents expectations that i'm unable to meet

thanks for bringing this up. this was very enlightening to me. these are dots that i've been trying to connect for years

despite all the cultural things about it though, i do wonder if there's a biological element to it (i realize that this is a slippery slope, but still, i can't pretend that it doesn't seem like too much of a coincidence to me). i would barely even consider it otherwise, but i do have a serious hormonal disease that is fairly common among women (middle-aged women in particular), but rare among men (young men in particular). it could be coincidence, but... i do wonder. maybe i actually have some kind of unusual "female element", who knows. equality is a worthy ideal and all, but men and women are different, and that's something that has to be taken into account if equality is to be actually promoted in the real world


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06 Aug 2016, 2:52 am

Edenthiel wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
I just don't believe that rape is normalized in this culture.

There's lots of insensitivity towards rape victims...true. Absolutely.

But we're still not a "rape culture." The vast vast majority of guys don't go around raping people. They believe it's an abomination, like I believe it's an abomination.


Do you think our society has subcultures that are "rape" cultures? I can see how we may be looking at the same aggregate culture but seeing two different parts, like the proverbial elephant being described by blind people.


Cutures prevail in groups. Groups that adhere to rape culture are small and not always connected. There was cases in like in Rotherham UK within the Asian community that could be called a rape culture. The police were very reluctant to intervene becuase of political correctness.

Pedophile networks are a rape culture. The psychology of these are very bizarre. I can't even begin to understand how they form. This highly abnormal and alien for most people. How would you broach this with another if you were so inclined?

I think the use of the term rape culture just isn't that helpful, in fact i think it trivialises the seriousness of sexual assault and rape by making a large proportion of the of the population as monsters and policing behaviour which doesn't even come close to be to do rape, which is under the auspices of normal consenting relationships, or normal interaction. It is the same politics that treat masculinity as if it some sort of disease.

I can give you concrete examples, I follow this kind of politics with a keen eye.

Also rape is more likely to occur outside of universities than in. Marginally so, but still there is a lot of myth and hysteria due the politics surrounding this rape culture buzzword. IMO it is an example of political movements hijacking issues for political advantage. Partly because they can use other concept like "trigger warning" and "safe space" to try an censor views they don't like. Using and creating taboos, is very effective way of silencing people. This despite the fact these concept don't have clinical advantage or efficacy in the treatment of PTSD, and that they are applied much more broadly.



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06 Aug 2016, 3:42 am

To the OP you are saying the defense of these is two side of the same coin? Rather than the two things themselves? Obviously a defense lawyer is goign to to try and find mitigating circumstances, if they cannot make an innocent plea. However in the vast majority of cases, people plead innocent whether they have done it or not. SO int hat case they will defend that instead.

The link between police violence and rape cultures is a bit tenuous IMO. Especially in the west. People do get raped by police officers in police custody, but it is less likely int the west than other forms of rape. More likely the person will get raped by other criminals. In fact prison rape is higher than domestic rape or rape by a stranger.

The places were rape is more likely committed by police, are places where rule of law doesn't really exist. Since people like to rail against western value , which aren't perfect by any stretch, it is worth putting that into perspective. Awful lot of men get raped in these scenarios as well as women. it is a form of torture.

Police violence and rape are both serious issue that need to be address. That mean being honest about them, and not using them as political jibe.

Police brutality is down to not having principled policing (e.g. Peelian principles), creating a culture of fear in communities and within the force, poor training (e.g. de-escalation), recruiting unsuitable people. The list goes on.

Sexual assault and rape, is still an individual's crime a lot of the time. Rape culture if anything absolves these people of individual responsibility, becuase they can claim to be brought up in culture an they don't know any different.

Rape can be down to power. However I think it can also be solely a crime of desire, it depend on the circumstances. Sexual sadist like that they are causing suffering. Many serial offender tend to offend when thing are goign bad for them, which implies that it is a power thing. However, in the date rape it more ambiguous, it can be either.

Rape and sexual assault are very serious, so shouldn't be used a political weapon. The vast majority of people find rape and sexual assault unacceptable behaviour. Culture of rape is not a norm and those claiming so need to back that up.



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06 Aug 2016, 7:52 am

^^^^^

Your first couple of paragraphs seemed to be off topic.

The OP isnt even talking about "the police raping people".

She is saying that the justification for the police to shoot people ( with guns) is similar to the excuse/justification for nonpolice to rape people. Basically saying "the victim was asking for it".

Then she hypothesizes that somehow the two notions are connected.



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06 Aug 2016, 8:14 am

But Kinda agree that cant test the idea.

There are no places that differ with us much about police violence.
And there are no places that differ with us much about notions about rape.

So if you want to see if a "culture" is free of one thing because it also free of the other you're not gonna find a test case.



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07 Aug 2016, 8:12 pm

anagram wrote:
LKL wrote:
The trope that women are more emotional than men, and thus less rational, has been used to discredit and belittle women's views for centuries.

yes. and when someone responds to the trope as if they were responding to me, it shows that contexts are misaligned. i think anyone who believes that they're immune or unaffected by emotions is downright delusional. the expression and awareness of emotion may be different between the sexes due to culture (or between autistics and nt's due to neurology, for that matter), but the impact of emotions is not

for every participant in every debate, there's a point when they'll be speaking and reacting based on cognitive dissonance and other similarly irrational effects that the human brain tends to prioritize. and whenever it goes unchecked, it snowballs into more cognitive dissonance to be resolved, and strays farther and farther away from reason. this is true for all human beings, and it's exponentially more relevant in a world where millions are debating with millions in real time, 24/7/365

i'm fairly convinced that the ubiquity of smartphones and facebook and such has a very significant role in the increasing tension in the political atmosphere worldwide. because people don't get the chance to breathe and think and reflect and take a step back before an opinion is practically demanded from them, and it's a constant thing. emotion is quick, reason takes time

They were responding to you writing in a way that was indistinguishable from the trope, at least to me.

Of course humans in general are sometimes irrational, sometimes emotional, etc; it does not follow that all, or even most, women are more irrational or emotional than men, much less that the OP or any specific female poster is irrational or emotional.



Last edited by LKL on 07 Aug 2016, 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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07 Aug 2016, 8:29 pm

anagram wrote:
LKL wrote:
edit:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/damon-young/men-just-dont-trust-women_b_6714280.html
please note that this is a personal essay, and refrain from ad-homing it.

about that in particular, it's kinda funny in my case. as a rule, i don't trust men instead (and i actually don't trust my mother or authority figures either). for a long time, the only close friends i've had have been women (women who have internalized the notion that they shouldn't be bothered by things that actually bother them). it feels wrong to trust another male with anything about me that i judge to be personal. and the very idea of "brohood" is alien to me. i'm not feminine, but i associate my gender with the imposition of being things that i'm not and that i never wanted to be. throughout my school years i was often labeled as gay because of that. because "i'm not supposed to be sensitive" (or emotionally unstable, for that matter, which i am)

:/
I'm aspie enough that I don't really have close friends of either gender. People take me as arrogant and/or mean until they've known me for long enough to realize that I'm just... unfiltered? And I don't edit out everything except the parts of behavior that are designed to make others think that you are harmless, friendly, etc.
I make a bad first impression but an excellent long-term one.

Wrt. BS, sometimes what we think of as 'BS' is sort of ad-libbing based on background information and present logic; once I wrote a final that I thought was complete BS at the time, but which received (to my astonishment) an A+; I happened to find it years later, and on re-reading it (without the memory of the specific content) realized that I had actually touched a few really profound points.

I think that a lot of aspies of both genders (including me) throw off people's gaydar because we don't unconsciously internalize a lot of the social rules that people use to act out their genders as social display, the way 'normal' people do. I know a lot of my former co-workers (and a few of the gay women at the dojo I used to train at!) thought that I was a closeted lesbian... which is odd, because I neither think that there's anything wrong with being gay, nor spend much time with people who do, so I'd have no reason to be in the closet if I were actually lesbian.

The article is about a phenomenon that one sees a lot, in which women (especially women who 'act' feminine) are seen as 'too inexpert to take seriously,' even on matters of their own experiences; one sees this a lot in medicine, where women are often seen as being histrionic, drama queens, or over-sensitive if they express a lot of pain or emotional trauma *until* a man validates their experience (such as a husband telling the doctor, 'she doesn't usually complain,' or 'she's usually really tough, this is different for her,' like an owner describing a pet's behavior changes to the vet).

Quote:
i'm not denying what the article is saying though, on the contrary. over the years, i developed a strong sense of "impostor syndrome", because people take me seriously simply because i say things with an air of confidence. and then later i think to myself "what was i thinking? that was a stupid thing to say", but then i'm tied to whatever they're already praising me for. i appear competent when, upon further reflection, i don't really think i am. and people encourage it. if i try to explain it, people assume it's just momentary self-doubt, when in reality it's not. i take all praise with suspicion. it makes me doubt myself, even when it turns out that i'm actually competent at something. and it represents expectations that i'm unable to meet

I think men experience that every day of their lives ;p
I've seen lots of men make very authoritative-sounding statements on subjects that they are completely uninformed on, sometimes even 'explaining' things to women who are much better informed than they are (male patients explaining nutrition or cardiac function to female doctors, for example, and getting significant amounts of it wrong).

Quote:
despite all the cultural things about it though, i do wonder if there's a biological element to it...

There almost has to be, but it's exquisitely difficult to tease out biologically-driven behavior from culture in a species like humans; it's especially annoying that the majority of the experiments conducted are entirely limited in their study samples to Western undergrads at large universities.

Quote:
equality is a worthy ideal and all, but men and women are different, and that's something that has to be taken into account if equality is to be actually promoted in the real world

Depends on how you define 'equality.' I'd like to see equality of respect and equality of opportunity, to start, and I'd like to see both men and women freed from judgments of worth based on how well they fit, or do not fit, the stereotypes of their gender.



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07 Aug 2016, 8:40 pm

0_equals_true wrote:
Edenthiel wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
I just don't believe that rape is normalized in this culture.

There's lots of insensitivity towards rape victims...true. Absolutely.

But we're still not a "rape culture." The vast vast majority of guys don't go around raping people. They believe it's an abomination, like I believe it's an abomination.


Do you think our society has subcultures that are "rape" cultures? I can see how we may be looking at the same aggregate culture but seeing two different parts, like the proverbial elephant being described by blind people.


Cutures prevail in groups. Groups that adhere to rape culture are small and not always connected. There was cases in like in Rotherham UK within the Asian community that could be called a rape culture. The police were very reluctant to intervene becuase of political correctness.

Pedophile networks are a rape culture. The psychology of these are very bizarre. I can't even begin to understand how they form. This highly abnormal and alien for most people. How would you broach this with another if you were so inclined?

I think the use of the term rape culture just isn't that helpful, in fact i think it trivialises the seriousness of sexual assault and rape by making a large proportion of the of the population as monsters and policing behaviour which doesn't even come close to be to do rape, which is under the auspices of normal consenting relationships, or normal interaction. It is the same politics that treat masculinity as if it some sort of disease.

I can give you concrete examples, I follow this kind of politics with a keen eye.

Also rape is more likely to occur outside of universities than in. Marginally so, but still there is a lot of myth and hysteria due the politics surrounding this rape culture buzzword. IMO it is an example of political movements hijacking issues for political advantage. Partly because they can use other concept like "trigger warning" and "safe space" to try an censor views they don't like. Using and creating taboos, is very effective way of silencing people. This despite the fact these concept don't have clinical advantage or efficacy in the treatment of PTSD, and that they are applied much more broadly.

Rape culture is what explains entire communities circling the wagons around young male athletes who *tape themselves* assaulting female classmates, and the young women themselves driven to suicide and suicide attempts by the harassment while their assailants are held up as fine, upstanding young men just 'behaving as boys will behave.'



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07 Aug 2016, 9:07 pm

LKL wrote:
Of course humans in general are sometimes irrational, sometimes emotional, etc; it does not follow that all, or even most, women are more irrational or emotional than men, much less that the OP or any specific female poster is irrational or emotional.

to be honest i can't tell if you're saying that i was implying that she's speaking based on emotion because she's female, or if you're saying that i wasn't implying it. either way, i wasn't. she was defending highly contradicting views at the same time, and she's clearly not stupid, therefore it follows that she was talking based on emotion. gender is only relevant in the sense of how she relates to the contradicting views she's defending. it's irrelevant otherwise. most of these "controversies" between two opposing sides that we keep seeing around here are simply nonexistent in my mind. it's always confusing to me when someone attributes something i say to one "side" of something. i don't take sides other than my own, and i don't see myself being represented by any group that i would ever want to defend as a whole against some other group. gender groups probably the least of all

as for the authoritative tone, i can only speak for myself, but i learned to speak like this because i was raised in a highly invalidating environment. i have to keep constantly reminding myself that anything i say isn't automatically stupid just because it's me saying it. which of course is a double-edged sword, because then people also take me seriously when they shouldn't, as if they're not responsible for their own judgement, and it comes back to bite me. i make it a point to insert words like "i think", "i guess", "i suppose", "i imagine", but it starts to sound artificial, and some people find it suspicious or annoying. also i generally try to respond based on the original tone, and the op speaks in an authoritative tone herself (about things that make sense, as well as things that do not make sense). i'm always aware that i may be wrong, but there doesn't seem to be any effective way of conveying this awareness without effectively becoming a chronic doormat

in short, jumping to "men have it easier / men are mean" types of conclusions before looking at the situation itself is just as bad as the "women have it easier / women are mean" counterpart. or any other "<whatever> have it easier / <whatever> are mean", for that matter. groups are made of people. people aren't made of groups. and that fact is often ignored in order to sidestep the actual point of an issue, which is always a big warning sign on my radar. if there's one cause in the universe that i care about, it's probably this one. people aren't made of groups


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