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That room full of women is in our society though. The previous commenter was pointing out that there are other societies that contain a lot less violence, there

That room full of women is in our society though. The previous commenter was pointing out that there are other societies that contain a lot less violence, therefore it doesn't have to be considered a given that rape and murder will always be present in society. It's easy to believe that it's "in our nature" because of the dynamics which you describe being so common in the most dominant society, which is the only society most people have experience of. But, as another idiot with ideals, I believe we should not view this trend as a fatalistic inevitability, that it will always exist no matter how hard we work to change things. Most people are in a state of near constant existential threat, due to their impoverishment in artificial scarcity (so much wealth in the world but must of us have access to nearly none of it). So most people don't have the luxury of being nice, even if it's the right thing to do. That and the fact that most of us are victims of many-generation-long cycles of inherited abuse that can be so hard to get out of. We have in many ways only ever been taught to be cruel to each other. If we all play along with the idea of this inevitability, as in the top level commenter's claims of human nature, we only make it more true and harder to escape.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
There are cultures where if a woman is raped, the solution is to marry her off to her rapist because she doesn't really have rights of her own. He has violated the property rights of some other man and damaged his goods and taking responsibility for said damaged goods is the remedy -- not for the victim of the rape but for the man who owns her. There are cultures where a woman cannot accuse her husband of rape. If she is married, he has unilateral right to have sex with her as he sees fit, no permission required. Rape is a really complicated topic and the detail of consent has only grown thornier in my mind over time. While I was homeless, men were happy to offer me money for sex because it was obvious to them that I was very poor. Meanwhile, I was routinely told on HN "Get a real job" and basically quit my bitching that I can't manage to make adequate income from my writing. I have six years of college and cannot manage to come up with an adequate income from "honest labor" but men are happy to offer me money for sex under circumstances that can be interpreted as taking advantage of my vulnerability. There are women who argue that all heterosexual acts of intercourse are essentially rape because of the generally poor status of women's rights. If putting up with intercourse with some man is the only means a woman has of establishing an adequate income and the world will literally let you starve and say "Not my problem" if you aren't married well, dating him in specific, etc, is it really genuinely consenting to agree to sex to stave off starvation? This is not a theoretical question for me. This is lived experience as an educated American woman still reeling with shock at how amazingly hard it is to get taken seriously as a person in need of an earned income and willing to work for pay while no one wants to pay me. They will take freebies from me, so they think what I do has merit, but when push comes to shove it doesn't lead to an adequate income for me. It's not a thing I expect anyone here to understand or care about. I've been here long enough to know that commenting on it doesn't get me sympathy. It just pisses people off who would like to think of themselves as nicer than that, so pointing this out isn't going to be met with people going "Oh. I didn't realize that. Let's fix that. That's wrong." It will be met with a chorus of "You are just doing it wrong." and no rebuttal on my part will ever be sufficient to have the issue taken seriously. I know because I've tried for years to put this issue into words and that's how it goes every time, without fail. So if I were to cave and finally sleep with a man for his money after a decade or more of dire financial problems and failing to find any other remedy, is that really, truly consenting sex? I don't think it is. It's not the kind of sex I'm interested in ever having. I've had better. I know what better looks and feels like. But my words fall on deaf ears and make no difference. So I have grown more sympathetic to strident feminist views, though I don't fundamentally agree with them and don't even self-identify as a feminist.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

There are cultures where if a woman is raped, the solution is to marry her off to her rapist because she doesn't really have rights of her own. He has violated the property rights of some other man and damaged his goods and taking responsibility for said damaged goods is the remedy -- not for the victim of the rape but for the man who owns her. There are cultures where a woman cannot accuse her husband of rape. If she is married, he has unilateral right to have sex with her as he sees fit, no permission required. Rape is a really complicated topic and the detail of consent has only grown thornier in my mind over time. While I was homeless, men were happy to offer me money for sex because it was obvious to them that I was very poor. Meanwhile, I was routinely told on HN "Get a real job" and basically quit my bitching that I can't manage to make adequate income from my writing. I have six years of college and cannot manage to come up with an adequate income from "honest labor" but men are happy to offer me money for sex under circumstances that can be interpreted as taking advantage of my vulnerability. There are women who argue that all heterosexual acts of intercourse are essentially rape because of the generally poor status of women's rights. If putting up with intercourse with some man is the only means a woman has of establishing an adequate income and the world will literally let you starve and say "Not my problem" if you aren't married well, dating him in specific, etc, is it really genuinely consenting to agree to sex to stave off starvation? This is not a theoretical question for me. This is lived experience as an educated American woman still reeling with shock at how amazingly hard it is to get taken seriously as a person in need of an earned income and willing to work for pay while no one wants to pay me. They will take freebies from me, so they think what I do has merit, but when push comes to shove it doesn't lead to an adequate income for me. It's not a thing I expect anyone here to understand or care about. I've been here long enough to know that commenting on it doesn't get me sympathy. It just pisses people off who would like to think of themselves as nicer than that, so pointing this out isn't going to be met with people going "Oh. I didn't realize that. Let's fix that. That's wrong." It will be met with a chorus of "You are just doing it wrong." and no rebuttal on my part will ever be sufficient to have the issue taken seriously. I know because I've tried for years to put this issue into words and that's how it goes every time, without fail. So if I were to cave and finally sleep with a man for his money after a decade or more of dire financial problems and failing to find any other remedy, is that really, truly consenting sex? I don't think it is. It's not the kind of sex I'm interested in ever having. I've had better. I know what better looks and feels like. But my words fall on deaf ears and make no difference. So I have grown more sympathetic to strident feminist views, though I don't fundamentally agree with them and don't even self-identify as a feminist.