They have the right to choose parenthood. They have the assumed right to be the primary childcare giver. They have the right to define sex as rape. Men’s health issues are generally funded less than women’s health issues (breast cancer vs. prostate cancer for instance). In some states it is illegal for a man to strike back a women even if she struck first. Let me me clear! I am forever grateful for women even older than my 60 years who fought the hard battle for equal rights and I have fully embraced my equality whenever necessary even though I’m probably paid less still, but there comes a point in time where we are are losing focus on what equality really means between men and women and losing the ability to have meaningful dialogue.
LOL dstark…there are days when I’m afraid of angry feminists 
He was more interested in the approbation of his bros than the welfare of an unconscious woman he was knowingly and intentionally brutalizing.
@momofthreeboys
It isn’t true that they spend more on women’s health issues, one of the reasons that the whole Pink Ribbon campaign happened in the first place was that spending on breast cancer was nowhere near where it should be. As far ad the ‘angry feminists’, I would be careful about that, as critical as I am of some of them, most of them are from an older generation and to claim they are a threat is overstating it…what feminists and people of conscious are talking about these days is boys will be boys attitude that has been around sexual assault of women, that date rape and other things are in fact rape. 40 years ago, a rape victim would face questions about their sex life, how they were dressed, where they were,today in many places a defense lawyer, and the judge who will allow those questions, would be in trouble for misconduct today and rightfully so. Still, there are too many people like this judge, and the kids father, who don’t have a clue and live in this world where if a boy has sex with a drunk girl, or is a star athlete, well, that is just the way it is (think of Florida State and the way the school and law enforcement officials covered up rape). It is also some of the attitudes still out there that young men are taught/catch, that they have some right to have sex and that unless the kid literally forces the girl to have sex or is some thug who grabs them at knifepoint it isn’t rape, or it is a misunderstanding… basically, the way to look at rape culture in my eyes is in the many ways some try to justify acts that shouldn’t be allowed.
I am not speaking theoretically, I have a son who is in college, and also have been around men my whole life and have seen the attitudes they are talking about. Put it this way, it doesn’t matter what the victim did or didn’t do, if someone takes advantage of them it should be rape, period, but many seem to think that if the victim somehow ‘helped’ what happened, it is less than rape, and that is horrible. In an auto accident, they assign levels of guilt, but that is a civil matter, not a criminal one, and in an accident if you kill someone and they determine it was your fault, even if the civil investigation assigned X% to the victim, you would be charged and tried for vehicular manslaughter, there isn’t any 'the victim was partially culpable, so the penalty against the other driver shouldn’t be as big", that unfortunately is how some view this issue, they think because the victim was drunk, she was culpable as well so therefore it doesn’t add up to be rape, and that is the rape culture as well.
MO3B - what I’m getting at is the physical hurt, and I think you understand that.
Yes, they absolutely do, when it was rape. Men have this same right when they are raped. No one has the right to wrongfully accuse someone of a violent crime.
Rapey McRaperson’s rape-excusing mother wrote that her rapist son raped an unconscious woman because he was trying to emulate his older teammates. Boy would I be furious if he were my teammate, or my son’s teammate. Apparently according to her it wasn’t a big deal that her son raped someone because they all do it? Or is it that the older swimmers drink a lot, and drinking a lot is the same as rape? Or maybe drunken consensual sex is the same as raping an unconscious woman? I don’t get the logic but it’s a vile accusation against the teammates.
musicprnt, I respect your posts. I still think that when everything is rape, nothing is. When the word rape gets thrown the first assumption is that accusations of rape are exaggerations. This has no bearing on this thread’s case. He’s guilty. Period. No question.
I typically wouldn’t read a NY Post article, but it came up in a feed this morning and I really get what she’s trying to say. I’ve said it before, I think the advocates have muddied the water and I fear the impact on our young women (who may get the mistaken impression that they do not need to take any self precautions for their safety) or our young men --who are so bombarded with anti-male rhetoric that they have tuned out, The same young men who do know what is rape and what is not rape, the same young men that can become bystander advocates and friendly bros who remove their friends from bad situations but don’t want to get within 1,000 yards of a drunk woman anymore without other people to back them up - or so my boys tell me. If a campus is 50/50, then 50% of the women “could” experience a rape, but I guarantee you 50% of the males are not raping. This is a very serious issue that requires an ability to have very serious discussions not fueled by an angry mob mentality. I have serious misgivings about the continued use of the “rape culture” message. Anyway for any interested few here’s this woman’s editorial.
http://nypost.com/2016/06/11/the-frenzy-over-campus-rape-culture-is-hurting-real-victims/
Oh for heaven’s sake. No one is saying it’s OK for women to drink to excess but it’s not OK for men to drink to excess. Both men and women are allowed to drink to excess to their heart’s content – it’s stupid, in my opinion, but people do stupid things.
What we’re saying is that WHEN you drink to excess, you shouldn’t rape someone.
If a woman drinks to excess and rapes someone, that’s wrong. It’s criminal. It’s HER fault; she’s the criminal.
If a man drinks to excess and rapes someone, that’s wrong. It’s criminal. It’s HIS fault; he’s the criminal.
No double standard there.
If every drunk person knew not to commit rape, then there would be no problem – everyone could get drunk and be safe.
Why do women need pepper spray?
Wow! What an enormous amount of information to process, after having read every post. From the crime itself to the discussion about the culture in our society that condones it. As a father of a 20 year old daughter I have a very visceral reaction to this. I can’t say what I would really wish to for fear of my post being edited by a Moderator.
As a society we haven’t evolved very much. Victim blaming and slut shaming are disgusting. When a guy is sexually active it is a badge of honor but when a woman is sexually active she is a tramp or a whore. This outlook contributes to a rape culture because of the lack of respect it affords women and the perpetuation of a double standard that so many find acceptable. I had been an athlete in High School and witnessed the privilege that the many gifted athletes were granted, the things they got a pass on that anyone else would have been much more severely punished for. I saw the same thing in college, this atmosphere of entitlement and privilege that was perpetuated because of them being the schools most popular athletes.
Some where along the line the system, (parents, coaches, administrators, the fawning public) failed them. They are of the belief that the rules don’t apply to them, some of them lost what ever decency they had along with their humility.
These things/issues run deep and are multi faceted, but until we truly focus on what is necessary to create cultural shifts in these areas our daughters will continue to be objectified and disrespected.
I hope this young woman heals and is able to live a productive and happy life!
Dstark: CONGRATULATIONS!!!
You are going to be an awesome angry feminist grandfather.
The only thing that distinguishes the Stanford survivor from dozens of other survivors every week is witnesses. If the two hero bicyclists hadn’t come along and stopped Rapey McRaperson in the very act of raping the woman at Stanford, the rape apologists would be assuring us that there was no rape, just drunken consensual sex. Regret sex. Nothing to see here, move along. If she didn’t want to “have sex” behind a dumpster while unconscious, they would be telling us, she shouldn’t have gotten drunk.
Why on earth would we believe that raping an unconscious woman was a rare thing? Rapey McRaperson just happened to get caught, just by (for him) bad luck. He almost certainly was going to get away with his crime. If by random chance, a man raping an unconscious woman is detected, we should assume lots of other rapists are raping undetected.
And why would we possibly believe this was his first time raping? He didn’t go about this crime as if it was his first rape. He confidently took the clothes off his victim. He tried to run away when he was caught. He knew what he was about.
“Sceaming at men”?
Oh, dear.
Musicprnt, “rape culture,” as others have explained, has nothing whatsoever to do with the fringe beliefs of a small number of second wave/radical feminists – beliefs that weren’t as common as you may think, even 30 or 40 years ago – of the “all heterosexual intercourse is rape” variety. Which, by the way, Andrea Dworkin never even said! You’re confusing two completely different concepts; I have never heard anyone define the idea of there being “rape culture” as having anything to do with the latter concept.
In terms of women fearing men and the reverse, I think Margaret Atwood’s famous quotation is rather apt, as a fair generalization: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” With the addition, perhaps, of – or assault them in other ways.
In light of college alcohol abuse discussion: I don’t see it mentioned much here, but this generation of college students has grown up in an environment awash in online-porn, which employs rape (and rape-ishness) as a main theme.
I think today’s young men are probably more afraid of women accusing them of sexual assault more than women laughing at them sad to say.
Among my sons and their friends, male and female, I never saw this us vs. them mentality. They always seemed a cooperative team, if I were to make a comparison. They played well together, and all looked out for each other.
They ALL believe in rape culture.