kellie wrote:Honestly, "grow the hell up" is borderline, but given the strong discussion in this thread, I decided to let it go. Now, if it had continued into something like "because you act like a child" or "because you don't know what you're talking about" or something similar, I wouldn't have let that go.

Generally I try to be as non-interfering as possible. Although there are trolls who just want attention and to make trouble, most of the time people are just swept up in an emotional moment and don't really mean to post personally attacking, obscene, profane things. I'll step in when it's necessary, but we're a group of adults and I'd like to think we can have discussions without a mommy figure harping over your every word. (I am occasionally proven wrong, though that's more the exception than the rule).-----------------Kellie, I am sorry to have caused such a ruckus with my G T H UP statment.as I said in my earlier post I stopped at that so as not to cross over into that area! I get carried away on these topic's with my being the father of 4 girls. I get over protective & run my mouth before I engage my brain at times. and to all those that I offended----- I am SORRY ! I was just defending my girls as well as all women & kids alike. was never meant to be a personal attack of any sort. we all have are own opinions and that is why this is the land of the free (at least for now) please any one whom I offended accept my apologies. G4acre

Oh, please. You're not the only person on this thread with daughters.

But your constant harping on the fact indicates that you feel (not think, but *feel*) that Jimmler and I are raising our daughters to be nothing more than ignorant wombs-serving-men. I have to admit, though, that we save a pretty penny on tuition if we sent her to public school and left him in parochial schoo'. She wouldn't need need TKD lessons either. I could buy a real nice bass boat and a life-time of Budweiser...

Woo hoo!!!!

no RonJohn , I don't think nor never said you or jimmer were not god parents.didn't know you had any children. was just defending my girls. and no I am not insinuating either of you are bad dads. so lets bury the Hachette and drop this.you can both accept my apologies if I insulted you or not. the choice is yours. G4acre

Which begs the question: if women are the equal of men, why do they need protecting by men?

Either g4acre is a rank hypocrite, or g4acre thinks that women aren't capable of defending themselves. Either way, he's being a Very Bad Women's Libber.

When you repeat "I have 4 girls" and "must defend them" 85 jillion times while attacking someone over women's rights, it gets people thinking. And what they think is, "thou doest protest too much".

Besides, if Jimmer or I had said that women need protecting, we'd hav been savagely attacked for being cavemen.

Oh, wait. You already accused us of living in caveman days...

Regardless of how old they are, sometimes much to their grown children's dismay.

Your question "if women don't need protecting, why are there still over 90,000 rapes in this country every year?" seems inherently flawed, for a few reasons. First, to speak in the same generalities you have, if "men" were so interested in/good at protecting "women", why are there 90,000 rapes every year? The answer is that all people are different and have different motivations. Some men want to protect women, and some men want to rape them. And some people just want to protect people, regardless of gender.

Second, you're assuming that a woman is raped because she cannot protect herself. This is often not the case (due to drugging, date rape, etc) and puts the blame on the victim (if you could protect yourself, this wouldn't have happened to you). You're also assuming that a man could protect a woman from being raped, and assuming you mean a third party (because the man raping her is inherently not interested in protecting her), this is often impractical due to high instances of date rape and rape that happens in other private situations.

Third, rape statistics are really shaky. Most rapes are not reported. This can be due to a variety of factors, but leading causes are that the woman knows her rapist (date rape, rape by someone in authority, etc) and/or is afraid of her rapist. Lots of women blame themselves, and don't report the crime because they feel it is their own fault. I saw and dealt with all of these things in my time working as a victim's advocate. This is why I fight so hard against people wanting to blame the victim for the crime that was committed. The blame should be on the person who committed the crime.

Fourth, your assertion that the number of reports of men raped by women is low is correct, but has a lot of other cultural and psychological implications. You are also ignoring same sex rape, which is even less commonly reported. As underreported as men raping women is, women raping men and same sex rape (of both genders) is even more underreported.

Rape is about power, and rarely about sex. Men are more likely to be rapists than women, but that doesn't exclude women from the rape pool. Although it was fiction, the book and movie Disclosure are just one example of this. Our societal and cultural norms tell us that men are supposed to be powerful, in control, and, well, "manly". Men are supposed to be protectors and defenders. There is also a large (and, imo, totally wrong) attitude in our culture that a man cannot be raped. So when a man is raped, he is less likely to report it, usually because he feels he will not be believed and/or people would call into question his masculinity. Gay men also worry about many of the same things that women worry about when reporting -- that people will think it was just rough sex, that he was just playing hard to get, or that he somehow brought it on himself. Again, the victims blame themselves and do not seek help or report the crime. (Although I imagine that it happens, lesbian rape does not appear to be a large sub-set here.)

To bring us back to the article, let me just first say that I didn't write it, so I can't speak to the author's intentions in phrasing the headline as she did. However, if I were lewdly approached by a stranger on the street, I would be likely to snap a photo and send it, along with the story of my experience, to a blog like this. Yes, what the men do is not illegal, and is rude. And taking their photo and posting it with the story of my experience is also not illegal, and some may see it as rude. To me, it seems that men lewdly approach/comment on women because they think they can, and can do it with no consequences. In my experience, some men feel entitled to this, and have the attitude that a woman's body is public property, there for their enjoyment and pleasure. By putting specific faces to stories, it gives consequences to this behavior where there (potentially) previously were none. A woman may feel powerless when a man makes a lewd comment about her body, and may feel powerful again when she posts his photo on a blog for the entire internet (and potentially people in that man's life, such as girlfriends, co-workers, neighbors, etc) to see.

---

Kellie Parker | Online Community Manager | PC World

Kellie, I'm very impressed that you can come up with all this data as quickly as you do - and to be honest, I don't have a problem with a large portion of it. I DO think there are some assumptions you've either placed or uncovered, and I'll get to them.

But I'm going to try an end-around to get to the point, and I'm just as guilty for following a path (that really isn't relevant to the topic) by bringing up rape. FIrst, the rape stats:

The only reason I brought up rape was to show that, 'underreported stats' to the contrary (since you really can't do analysis on the absence of data), there is a very distinct demonstrable difference between crime committed by the 'stronger' sex vs. the 'weaker'. Now before you bristle at the labels, understand that I am using the labels clinically. Statistically speaking, men are physically stronger than women - I hope you won't argue that point with me. All OTHER things being equal (intelligence, motivations, etc) there is far MORE that a man can do to a woman than a woman can do to a man - JUST because you can add the 'physical' on top of every other (equivalent) form of conflict. Are you with me so far?

Rape is probably the most heinous - it is such a violation that it isn't a wonder to me WHY (contrary to your assertion) Women's Groups have tried VERY HARD to get rape classified as a 'power' thing vs. a sex thing. You can object all you want to - but unless you KNOW the motivations of the men involved (and I would suggest that someone with thirty times LESS testosterone in their systems aren't the best ones to make the assertion), then you will have to admit the POSSIBILITY that this characterization MAY be wrong. Another motivation for classifying rape as a violent offence rather than sexual, is because it is VERY hard to prove - and violent crimes carry stiffer penalties than ones where (sexual) motivations have to be considered and may be mitigatible based on what a jury's perception of the victim's motives are. If 'power' were the underlying motive of most men, it's a LOT quicker (and easier) to beat the hell out of a woman than to rape her. It's the SEXUAL component that makes rape prevalent (and 'fun' to men who do this) - otherwise, most men wouldn't take the chance. See my point?

But I really, really want to put this aside for a moment because I think that the HUGE LEAP between getting whistled at on the street and bringing up rape is disingenuous to the topic. At most, it's ancillary to the concept that men are physically stronger and can manifest that through the crime of rape. And that's the difference here - rape is a CRIME - punishable by some very, very serious penalties brought about because it has been characterized as a crime of violence. From a punishment standpoint, I have less of a problem with that than I do the possiblility that it may be factually wrong.

But here, we are talking about 'empowering women' by the shattering practice of posting the men's pictures and description of their behavior to a BLOG.

WHAT consequences? It's MY experience with people who practice this sort of behavior is that they are not particularly shy about it. Telling their bosses, mothers, or wives/girlfriends about it is likely to be met with "Yeah, we know...".

You might stop a few, but it might also backfire on you. I've also seen instances where getting ones name/picture posted for asinine behavior becomes a badge of HONOR for some guys - you know what they say... to some people, ANY attention is GOOD attention. Seen any of the 'jackass' movies lately? Check out Youtube?

About consequences: my feeling is that you are whistling in the wind if you think this blog is going to make any difference whatsoever - because (via a point I made a long time ago), I believe the REASON for the behavior is not cultural - it's physiological - and we do not (yet) have the power to change the genome. So as long as the tendency exists, there will be rude people who will manifest it.

Come back in 1000 years - maybe the testosterone ratio will be closer to where we're on the same playing field.

Jimmer