Huh?
So she gets a pass because she has more tree rings than most of the rest of us? Just why does she get this pass? The only reason she would get a pass is if age had incurred some damage on her faculties. Sure, if she’s senile, let her be.
But I don’t think that’s what’s at work here. And if she is fully functioning, but is nevertheless an idiot, espousing idiotic and bankrupt ideologies-- we’re going into this flame war weapons-hot. She knows (or should have known) the risks.
And I see you joined just to tell us of your displeasure at this. Welcome to BoingBoing.
Her work the guest star calvacade mystery show not included has has some respect.
The victim blaming however will not fucking stand at all and we are right to call her dinosaur ass out on it. While it may have been the environment she was raised in that don’t give it a pass as it was fucking wrong then and it is still fucking wrong now and she should know better.
Hell I am old enough to be alive when it was still part of the environment but you know what I listened and actually came to understand that kind of thinking is bullshit and it isn’t going to change till we start calling it out as wrong when it rears it’s ugly head.
This is all we need need to remember.
I think you are being unfair to earlier generations. My perspective as a 52 year old is that our species is not getting any better.
the plain truth is she was attractive for her generation
Right now I respect her father and grandfather more than her. I would have expected her to move forward on their views, not backwards.
As for “respect your elders”, Donald Trump is also my elder and I don’t respect him one little bit for good reasons.
Misogyny She Wrote?
Bad Takes and Broomsticks?
People’ve been trying to eliminate all the “bad people” for at least five thousand years, and yet we still have these problems. So while I certainly hope you succeed in your goals, I think an interim plan is still a good idea, y’know?
Do you have any objective data to back up this assertion? Not trying to be rude, but it seems suspiciously pat, like the “rape isn’t about sex it’s about power” meme. Serial rapists sometimes seem to want to be caught.
This, I think, is the best response to claims like Lansbury’s. If you say that dressing a certain way is “asking for” rape you are giving rapists a pass, literally offering them encouragement. It’s a very different thing than telling your daughter “no you can’t go out dressed like that” in the privacy of your home, or recommending to your friends that they think seriously and unemotionally about dressing for self defense.
There are exceptions, but yeah, you have the basic idea. Also, it seems that people like to “dress up” - even in private, when nobody is going to see them, so sometimes women dress to impress themselves (my boss being a perfect example of this).
Well, sure, they can’t be sexually assaulted if they are invulnerable, clearly. It’s a tautology. Reducing risk and vulnerability seems wise, though (and I’m sure we’ll agree that can be done without victim blaming) when it’s possible.
I believe you, I’m the same way. Perhaps because I grew up around very capable, admirable women who did not wear any makeup? People whose ideas of attractiveness were shaped by media or by growing up around women who wore makeup are probably the majority at this point, though.
Human justice tends to swing like a pendulum, unfortunately; we go back and forth between extremes. Proposing a death penalty for rapists or saying “boys will be boys wink wink nudge nudge” draws more attention than a sane and measured proposal like yours.
Filled with slippery slopes, eh?
The internet pedant in me suggests the word: vicious. I apologize for nitpicking.
In what way? By telling your daughter and friends that their clothes could protect them or make them more vulnerable, you’re engaging in the same fallacy that gives rapists a pass.
By suggesting that rapes can be avoided through the actions of the victim, you’re setting the victim up to be questioned, and worse for them to question and blame themselves.
We have the word of men who have been convicted of rape and interviewed, and of men who have participated in rehabilitation programs. We also have competing theories and how they line up with reality. People who say that women get raped because of how they dress have trouble explaining why women with dementia in care facilities get raped. They have trouble explaining why employers tend to prey on their employees rather than on attractive women they meet in other settings.
As for criminals “wanting to get caught” I think it’s fair to say they largely don’t. We’re not talking about the sort of larger-than-life criminals people write books about, we’re talking about 5-10% of the male population. The vast majority of people who have committed sexual assault have never been held to account for doing so and they aren’t doing anything to change that (aside from continuing to sexually assault people).
I wouldn’t call “rape is about power” a “meme”. More like a good understanding of what is going on. I think if you are the sort of person who finds the idea of raping someone abhorrent, you are going to understand the motivations of a rapist much better by thinking about how they are exerting power over other people rather than by thinking about how their sex drive functions. From their own perspective it might be “about sex” but “sex” and what is appealing about sex to them is not “sex” and what is appealing about sex to you, so that’s sort of a fruitless avenue to gain understanding of the phenomenon (even if it might be a useful one for a psychologist to understand an individual).
If you say to yourself, “Why do people do that?” and you answer “Because male sexual impulses are out of control” you’ll get way more wrong than if you answer, “Because some people feel the need to assert dominance over other people and this is one way they do that.”
And throw some chaperones in there for them too, for when they attend an event where custom allows that they be in the presence of a lady.
This post is fulll of nope and victim blaming.
If only women would try harder, they wouldn’t be raped, amirite guys?
Ugh, if they kill you for fighting back, oh well?
Yeah, not with that attitude.
I certainly am not. Physics is not a misogynist plot, I assure you. The jacket I routinely wear can turn a knife blade and offers some protection against low-caliber bullets.
Understanding physical realities is not a fallacy.
For ordinary women, that’s not a practical or realistic suggestion. A jacket is still just a jacket. Even the limited protections you’re touting are gone when I take it off at a party or a friends’ house,
No, but believing that clothes matter in sexual assault is.
It certainly is for some of the species.
Are you proposing this for my wife and daughter to foil errant penises they may happen upon?
Except in its misapplication to morality. If you are wearing your bullet proof jacket out of necessity, your problems are not sartorial nor physical. They are social and moral.
@Medievalist, I know you from here to be a good and reasonable person. And I believe your arguments for a pragmatic approach are in good faith. But let me just sum up why I am an “extremist” for lack of a better word: for the first time in my life, the bastards (or a subset thereof) are on the run. No ground can be yielded to them, they can be given no quarter. I truly believe this is a revolution. And if I fight and do my part, my wife will get to live in a better world before she dies. My daughter and her entire distaff line will realize true equality.
Back to your knife-turning, low caliber bullet proof jacket. Imagine a world where you did have to wear it by necessity, but your wife did not because we lived in a society where snipers armed with 22 caliber rifles only shot men, but they shot at them frequently. And then imagine that you didn’t wear your jacket one day because it was uncomfortable for you to do so, or maybe you just didn’t feel like it. On that day you got shot. And after you got shot, the loudest comment you heard wasn’t, “what kind of fucked up place is this”, it was “well, he wasn’t wearing his jacket.”.
I have not promoted the idea that clothes matter in sexual assault and I don’t like being accused of doing so.
To quote myself:
When you care more about someone’s personal safety than about making a political point you don’t tell them that dressing for self defense is “not a practical or realistic suggestion”. When I tell my children - both male and female - that they shouldn’t walk through an American city without footwear well suited to both running and smashing kneecaps, I am not condoning rape or excusing the behavior of rapists. I’m being a good parent. If I give a friend the same advice I’m being a caring friend.
Obviously, everyone has to take their personal physical constraints into account, and any inescapable social context and milieu. My brown leather jacket weighs nearly 20 pounds, and you can’t enter some areas with lethal weapons.
Partly because I dress pragmatically, and don’t carry a gun, I can do things that others can’t. Like kill vicious dogs, for example, or disarm unruly teenagers without harming them. I like being able to do these things, because it means I don’t have to call for uniformed trigger-happy bullies and wait for them to arrive and overreact.
I don’t believe in living in a fantasy world where individual human safety is assured, nor do I believe it is possible to achieve a moral society within my lifetime. But I thoroughly agree it’s a goal we should pursue, so I’m definitely on your side!
For me, I am having both my daughter and son learn Judo, then as they get a little older to learn boxing, as a means of self-defense(plus the added bonuses of fitness, confidence, …etc.). I also teach them it’s important to make and maintain friendships, because it’s more safe to go out and socialize with a group of other people. Assaults are not based on what someone physically looks like or what they are wearing, but are based on if some predator(s) thinks they have spotted some prey.
I’m not blind to the dangers that exist in the world. However, I want to make sure my children can enjoy persuing their own interests without being afraid they can’t be themselves whenever they go out in public. Shaming them for how they look or what they wear is a weird approach to keeping them safe.
That’s my quick two cents on the matter though.
