Has the #MeToo movement become a witch-hunt to a significant degree?

[ChunkMonk]

Too many men see a chaste woman as an insult, or a challenge to their masculinity, or something.

Blame your feminist sisters who decided to use sexual shaming (virgin neckbeard, penis size jokes, etc.) to create a world in which a man is only worth how many women he can convince to let him ‘conquer’ them.

What it is is a protection that I won’t be expected to trade putting up with repeated sexual advances and a dismissal of my own moral standards for a chance to work at a job around men.

Honestly? I think you (and all women) overstate your case here. However, even giving you the prevalence, this is still laughably naive.

“I expect to work with lions and not have to fear being eaten!”

Predictable response: “Men aren’t animals! They can choose better!”

We arrested God himself, beat him with whips, crowned him with thorns, and then nailed him to a cross. Get it through your skulls that the world is a bad place and bad men exist and those bad men don’t care about hashtags. And no, this #movement will have no more lasting effect at changing the world than #BringBackOurGirls actually ended up getting us our girls back.

Within the Church, it is also telling men that waiting for marriage is no excuse for objectification or entitlement - a single Christian woman doesn’t owe anything to a single Christian man in regards to her availability.

Again, overblown. However, I will say this. Rejection hurts. Most women don’t experience a lot of rejection so they never get the chance to react in a bad way to being rejected. Is it right to write off a girl who just rejected you as a rhymes-with-witch or call her uptight or whatever? No. Will men sometimes do it? Sure will. Grow a thicker skin.

 

[DarkLight]

Blame your feminist sisters who decided to use sexual shaming (virgin neckbeard, penis size jokes, etc.) to create a world in which a man is only worth how many women he can convince to let him ‘conquer’ them.

I have literally never seen this from anyone identifying as a feminist - I have only ever seen it said (and said repeatedly) by MRA types.

Sometimes I think people want to lay every single possible problem with sexuality at the feet of feminism. As @Xantippe pointed out, the playboy revolution predates the feminist one.

“I expect to work with lions and not have to fear being eaten!”

If this is true, do you think Catholic morality will fare better? Remember it was not the atheists or pagans crying “Crucify Him!”

Do we give up every possible change because it won’t be perfectly applied?

 

[ChunkMonk]

I have literally never seen this from anyone identifying as a feminist

Either that is a bald-faced lie, or you haven’t read any articles by feminists written about the alt-right, gamergate, or “MRA types”.

Sometimes I think people want to lay every single possible problem with sexuality at the feet of feminism. As @Xantippe pointed out, the playboy revolution predates the feminist one.

Actually, the feminist movement traces back to the 1800s.

If this is true, do you think Catholic morality will fare better? Remember it was not the atheists or pagans crying “Crucify Him!”

Catholic morality as packaged by women? No, that won’t work either. What we need is a revolution exclusively for men, lead exclusively by men, and sadly, requiring a decent bit of sacrifice on the part of women concerning career choices, education, voting rights, divorce rights, parental rights, etc.

And even that wouldn’t “fix” the problem, it would just mitigate it. Problem won’t be fixed till Kingdom come.

Do we give up every possible

Only those that won’t work, and as a man who acts in his personal and professional life in the way that would make a #metoo girl proud, #metoo won’t work.

 

[TheAmazingGrace]

No, that won’t work either. What we need is a revolution exclusively for men, lead exclusively by men, and sadly, requiring a decent bit of sacrifice on the part of women concerning career choices, education, voting rights, divorce rights, parental rights, etc.

Thanks for the laugh. “We’ll refrain from raping/molesting/harassing you, but you have to be completely subservient to us.”

 

[Xantippe]

There’s reasons for these. Life goes on. Either report the crime or get on with life. Those are your choices.

Who says?

The statute of limits prosecution, but there’s no law against speaking truthfully about something that somebody did to you, even if it has passed the statute of limitations.

I also think that this is extremely dangerous advice with regard to the general public’s safety. There was a case in my extended family where the same guy molested his daughters around the 1950s and then molested some of his granddaughters around the 1980s and was never publicly exposed (although at some point family members started talking to each other). I personally had what, in hindsight, was a very close call with the guy (he once turned up to watch me in the bath for no good reason when I was about 5)–there were at least 5 other girls involved at different times. It was never reported, ever, by anybody.

In real cases of rape and molestation, who does your approach help, aside from molesters and rapists?

Risky business relying on help from strangers on the internet—especially from those with nothing to do all day, are mentally ill or have a political agenda as many metoo supporters do.

Would you like to apply the same approach to politics and religion?

Or it really wasn’t rape which is why HE or she didn’t get a rape kit.

It’s like you haven’t read half the thread. There was a lot of material on this.

To recap very briefly, after being raped, a victim may be young and inexperienced, shocked, in trauma, embarrassed, alone, and just trying to get through their day. They also may instantly realize that it was a he said/she said situation and that medical examination will not yield any definitive results and that pursuing prosecution won’t make their lives better and will probably make it a lot worse.

Also, you realize that police don’t actually pursue a lot of cases, and those rape kits are often just gathering dust?

 

[Xantippe]

I don’t consider what goes on here outside of my posting to be community support. The complaints about this site its members, administration and operation make a very long list.

I’ve personally gotten a lot of benefit from online discussions about consent and sexual assault. I had a rape-y college boyfriend years ago, and it takes a long time to sort that kind of thing out. No one automatically hands you a book with the title So You’ve Been Sexually Assaulted! or What to Think About Your Sexual Assault! The whole consent discussion is relatively new–when I was a young adult, there was no idea of consent as something positive.

It’s very helpful to have the benefit of multiple people’s thoughts and experiences, in a way that isn’t possible in real life. (And for all the benefit that a counselor might provide, that’s just one person, with one person’s insights.)

Also, as I’ve previously explained at some length, a lot of girls and women are or were carrying around some terrible ideas about sex and consent. I’ve already explained how in the 90s, the conflict was between “no means no” and the men-have-no-self-control view, which said that once things got to a certain point, men have the stopping power of a dump truck going downhill with no brakes, so it’s incumbent on the woman to keep him from getting to that point. (Now that I think of it–isn’t that a bit weird to expect the woman to have that level of insight into another human being’s mental and physiological processes or to take that level of responsibility for another person’s moral choices, especially assuming that men are supposed to be the leaders?) The assumption underlying the 90s “conservative” position, is that all men are rape-y. It can take a while to get rid of bad views, and that is going to require replacing bad ideas with good ideas.

Thanks to being a married lady who has been doing NFP off and on for many years, I do have a lot of data on the subject of male self-control, and I’m delighted to say that the dump truck view of male sexuality is false. I also find that the secular discussions of consent mesh with my experiences as a married Catholic lady.

 

[Lea101]

Catholic morality as packaged by women? No, that won’t work either. What we need is a revolution exclusively for men, lead exclusively by men, and sadly, requiring a decent bit of sacrifice on the part of women concerning career choices, education, voting rights, divorce rights, parental rights, etc.

This part is way too ridiculous that I actually laughed out loud. This is the kind of things some boys will say, be accused of misogyny, and then cry about how offended women are becoming.

 

[Xantippe]

Blame your feminist sisters who decided to use sexual shaming (virgin neckbeard, penis size jokes, etc.) to create a world in which a man is only worth how many women he can convince to let him ‘conquer’ them.

Are you making the argument that this stuff is 100% from feminists?

Don’t boys and men do a lot of shaming of less experienced brethren?

“I expect to work with lions and not have to fear being eaten!”

Predictable response: “Men aren’t animals! They can choose better!”

So, you’re saying that all men are rapists.

That’s exactly what I was talking about before–that feminists are the ones expressing confidence in the average guy’s self-control.

Most women don’t experience a lot of rejection so they never get the chance to react in a bad way to being rejected.

For a woman, not being asked out is rejection–by everybody.

Catholic morality as packaged by women? No, that won’t work either. What we need is a revolution exclusively for men, lead exclusively by men, and sadly, requiring a decent bit of sacrifice on the part of women concerning career choices, education, voting rights, divorce rights, parental rights, etc.

And even that wouldn’t “fix” the problem, it would just mitigate it. Problem won’t be fixed till Kingdom come.

I think I’ll pass on that one.

I can’t help but notice that your plan has no safeguards for women–if they find themselves in an abusive marriage (like for example with my relative the pedophile), they’re stuck.

 

[Lea101]

I don’t consider what goes on here outside of my posting to be community support. The complaints about this site its members, administration and operation make a very long list.

It’s very subjective, definitely. I have had some people here PM me and talked to me about certain struggles I have had. It didn’t cure anything but it’s better than nothing.

As for anything sexual in nature, women sometimes don’t feel comfortable with talking to someone in real life. It’s not an ideal situation but the anonymity can actually help people to actually acknowledge what is ‘wrong’. Think of all the people here that made posts that are…very TMI. We are also more receptive of weird stuff here.

But yeah, a lot of people prefer online interaction than face-to-face. There’s a lot of things yall know about me than anyone in real life. I hope this movement encourages proper interaction though. Would be more impactful.

 

[Xantippe]

But yeah, a lot of people prefer online interaction than face-to-face. There’s a lot of things yall know about me than anyone in real life.

Right.

In real life, my husband and my sister are the only person I’ve ever talked to in detail about the pedophile older relative. I’ve only talked to my sister, my best friend and my husband about my mom’s abusiveness and hoarding, and there was a substantial time lag for talking to the last two people about the physical abuse (I had probably been married to my husband 15 years before I talked to my husband about it) and it’s only been the last several years that I’ve talked to my best friend about my mom’s hoarding.

The problem is, once you put something out there in real life, you can’t take it back. The internet is the same, but less so. Plus, a lot of times you’re brought up to keep problems “in the family,” so you don’t even consider hanging out the dirty laundry in real life. There were a lot of things about my family life that I suspect that not even my dad’s extended family in my hometown knew about because my mom (who grew up in the creepy pedophile situation I mentioned earlier) put a lot of emphasis on keeping up appearances. (And thank God I grew up around my dad’s family, not my mom’s family.)

 

[Xantippe]

“I expect to work with lions and not have to fear being eaten!”

Predictable response: “Men aren’t animals! They can choose better!”

I’d like to unpack this some more. This analogy suggests:

–men are terrifying, irrational and completely untrustworthy
–they have no control over their appetites
–there is no good reason to spend time around them and they should be avoided at all costs

I have to say that the lion view is very similar to the views I had as an inexperienced single young Evangelical woman back in the 90s, but it’s interesting to see a Catholic guy say it up front 25 years later.

Note that this view is a very strong argument against dating men, marrying a man, or having children with a man. Now that I’m older, it astonishes me that I believed the man-the-beast view and still wanted to have a husband and a family, especially combined with (at the time) strong views on wifely submission.

As I’ve said before, one of the problems with the man-the-beast view is that it leads young women to expect beastly behavior, and to not realize that while some men genuinely are beastly, most aren’t, so that if one starts discovering beastly features in the man one is dating, it’s not something that one needs to put up with–there are better options. On the other hand, the man-the-beast view implies that there is no point in looking any further, because they’re all like that.

Narrator voice: They’re not all like that.

Edited to add: As other people have noted, there’s a huge logical problem with simultaneously asserting:

1. Men are completely at the mercy of their sexual appetites.
2. Men need to be in charge of everything, including women’s safety.

 

[Xantippe]

Another thing–it doesn’t make sense to have both of the following views:

1. Men are TERRIFYING! Women need to be VERY careful around men! Don’t be alone with one for a minute! Don’t drop your guard for a second! RAWWWWRRR!

and

1. Why won’t women want to date meeeee!!!

or

Why don’t women trust meee!!!

If dating men is genuinely such a terrifying and risky process, it stands to reason that saying no to a date with any particular guy is the safest thing to do.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Thanks for the laugh. “We’ll refrain from raping/molesting/harassing you, but you have to be completely subservient to us.”

What’s with the “we” BS? I don’t rape/molest/harass anyone.

This part is way too ridiculous that I actually laughed out loud. This is the kind of things some boys will say, be accused of misogyny, and then cry about how offended women are becoming.

I’m not a boy. Anf if you want men to solve a problem with other men, you’d better be willing to listen to those men. Even on this liberal super feminist forum you couldn’t get a majority to sign on to your inane hashtag.

Are you making the argument that this stuff is 100% from feminists?

Don’t boys and men do a lot of shaming of less experienced brethren?

Sure they do. And I fight against men my way. Not with hashtags and double standards though.

So, you’re saying that all men are rapists.

That’s exactly what I was talking about before–that feminists are the ones expressing confidence in the average guy’s self-control.

The predictable response…

The average man doesn’t rape/molest/harass so why do you feminists keep bringing the average man up as if he can be lumped in with the creeps?

I can’t help but notice that your plan has no safeguards for women–if they find themselves in an abusive marriage (like for example with my relative the pedophile), they’re stuck.

My plan? When did I elaborate my plan? Or is this more assumptions? You know what they say about assuming, right?

 

[ChunkMonk]

–men are terrifying, irrational and completely untrustworthy

–they have no control over their appetites

–there is no good reason to spend time around them and they should be avoided at all costs

Wrong. Never suggested any of that.

Note that this view is a very strong argument against dating men, marrying a man, or having children with a man. Now that I’m older, it astonishes me that I believed the man-the-beast view

I’m not astonished you believed that at all. You’ve shown a distinct lack of nuance here already, I can only imagine younger you was even worse.

Men are completely at the mercy of their sexual appetites.
Men need to be in charge of everything, including women’s safety.

Good thing no one has ever suggested the first point then.

Edit:

I will elaborate (I should just require you to exercise your reasoning skills, but sometimes I guess I gotta Barney-style it)

The majority of men are perfectly ‘respectful’ according to secular standards (you already rejected Christian ethics). In fact, I’d say the majority of men are too respectful, but I digress. Your silly little “we need to educate men” line is dumb for precisely that reason: the men who are receptive to ‘education’ in this area are already educated. The men who engage in rape/molest/harass behavior are men who heard your education and rejected it. If Weinstein and Co. Didn’t know their behavior was wrong and unacceptable then why did they hide it? They already knew it was wrong, they didn’t care.

So really what you want is for other men (like me) to come stop those bad men from doing those bad things. My answer? Why should I? What is in it for me? Why should I create a safe hookup for you? From a Christian perspective, the opportunity cost of the free love culture is a good thing, bad cultures need bad outcomes. From a secular perspective, there isn’t any utilitarian benefit to me for protecting poor little Susie from big-bad Unequal Power-Dynamics Rape man. Little miss Susie wants to be a man’s equal until it comes time to fend for herself (like men do) and then suddenly she wants chivalry. Except Little miss Susie ain’t no maiden and anyway she already drove the knights out of the castle.

 

[Fauken]

What we need is a revolution exclusively for men, lead exclusively by men, and sadly, requiring a decent bit of sacrifice on the part of women concerning career choices, education, voting rights, divorce rights, parental rights, etc.

Can you expound on exactly what kind of sacrifices women would have to make? Would women be able to go to college? Would women still be able to vote?

 

[Xantippe]

Can you expound on exactly what kind of sacrifices women would have to make? Would women be able to go to college? Would women still be able to vote?

Yeah.

If I wanted to live in Saudi Arabia, I’d live in Saudi Arabia.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Would women be able to go to college?

Of course.

Would women still be able to vote?

Of course not.

 

[Fauken]

Of course not.

Okay, why not?

What about jobs? Could women become secretaries? Nurses? Engineers? Lawyers? What kind of jobs could women do?

 

[Xantippe]

Even on this liberal super feminist forum you couldn’t get a majority to sign on to your inane hashtag.

CAF has a lot of MRA/Red Pill types.

The average man doesn’t rape/molest/harass so why do you feminists keep bringing the average man up as if he can be lumped in with the creeps?

What was the point of your working-with-lions analogy if you didn’t mean to say that the average man is dangerous, predatory and unpredictable?

I’m not astonished you believed that at all. You’ve shown a distinct lack of nuance here already, I can only imagine younger you was even worse.

As at least one other person (Lea?) has mentioned, teaching girls to fear men is normal old school conservative parenting–if you didn’t grow up as a girl, you might not realize what kind of parenting girls often get from conservative parents. I’ve previously mentioned how my dad had me read this Camille Paglia piece when I was a teenager when it came out (probably 1991–I would have been 15 or 16 at the time):

https://dayonecomptwo.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/paglia_vs_jacoby.pdf

That’s a very typical approach–be afraid, very afraid of men!

I also remember talking to an older neighbor around the same time, who was mentioning the old chestnut about how if you have a son, you worry about your boy, but if you have a daughter, you have to worry about all the boys. (He had two daughters, poor guy.)

Your silly little “we need to educate men” line is dumb for precisely that reason: the men who are receptive to ‘education’ in this area are already educated.

Yes, I am starting to get the picture that it’s very hard to educate people who don’t wish to be educated.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Okay, why not?

Why don’t you tell me what tangible benefit comes from universal suffrage?

Edit: tangible benefit to society.

Could women become secretaries? Nurses? Engineers? Lawyers?

Sure. If they get hired. I would allow discrimination in hiring. I wouldn’t let them serve on juries though.