It's a good rant, much as I hate what GD has become of late, it's a righteous rant.

and if not at least it's funny?

but it's also kinda stupid

I was just remembering my youth when I got cat-called by girls all the time.

Here's how it went.

Dude is on his bike going to the library or something. Goes by a couple of girls. One girl either yells something derogatory at said guy, or they play this game. One girl yells "Hey, Susan likes you!" and Susan quickly yells (just in case said "victim" was not sure of his own unattractiveness) "No I don't".

So, okay, can we quit pretending that girls will NEVER harrass a guy? Please?

And this fool who thinks he can go jogging without fear. Is perhaps unaware of the things like this that can happen to male joggers

http://www.koco.com/news/oklahomanews/okc/jogger-killed-by-truck-in-oklahoma-city/-/11777584/21413980/-/bynu2pz/-/index.html

and this

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/crime-law/cops-3-bored-teens-shoot-jogger-to-death-in-oklaho/nZTBg/

It's kind of a dangerous world out there for men too.

very specific comments about your body and what they'd like to do to it.

As far as your examples, women are still subject to other violence and to vehicle accidents. That those things exist does not in any way negate the real risk of rape and sexual assault faced by women.

That's what a stranger told me at 12, in front of the local library, at daytime. I couldn't even process what he said the first time, so I asked him to repeat himself. "Show me your wet p¤ssy." Can't tell you how shaken I was after that, and it took me years to use that library entrance again.

"Nice tits, let me touch them." That was at 18. Stranger during daytime - I was walking home from school.

"Wanna go f&ck?" That was at 20. Stranger while waiting for a friend outside the cinema.

"X likes you" just doesn't seem as bad, somehow.

to ignore, dismiss, minimize.

attempts at discussion and which do now, but after 12 years and less than 2000 posts, I haven't waded into a lot of bad faith discussions, and when you're just reading, remembering who said what is difficult.

which did the "dismiss" and "minimize" and the OP as well.

There was the OP saying "this stuff does NOT happen to men"

and I mention some things that DID happen to this MALE and to some other males.

And the response was "that stuff that happened to you was minimal by comparison" - dismiss and minimize.

never ONCE did I dismiss or minimize anything that happens to some women. But at the same time, my story of "man goes out jogging, gets shot and killed" WAS minimized.

Hey, it's only a man getting killed, it's no big deal.

Any jogger can be hit by a car, regardless of gender.

My examples happened because I was perceived as less powerful, just as you were when you were a boy. Women and children are victimized because they are considered less powerful, less threatening. Your example of the man shot is the only one that comes near, if you posit that they shot him because they wanted to feel more powerful. I don't think they would have refrained from shooting if the jogger had been a woman, either.

"I can jog" - WITHOUT FEAR

"I can walk to my car" - WITHOUT FEAR

As if men, you know, thousands of them, are not mugged, knifed, shot, beaten, or otherwise threatened every day.

And the motive for the crime.

Well, it is great consolation I am sure, after you have had the crap beaten out of you, that at least you didn't have the crap beaten out of you because of your gender.

I should probably go visit assault victims in the hopsital and tell them that to comfort them. I'll walk up to their hospital bed, pull up a chair and say "Let me tell you about male privilege ..."

And sure people attack those they perceive as vulnerable. There was a girl who used to harrass me in the dorm. (Although I was 20 or 21 and she was likely at least 18, so not technically a girl). Once we happened to pass each other on the same path, going around some construction. And we were the only two on that path. Oh she did not have anything to say then.

One little guy in the 8th grade sorta did the same thing. He would publicly give me crap, and I would take it. Then we were scheduled to wrestle in PE, and he talks to me beforehand sorta pleading with me to take it easy on him. I was like 15 pounds heavier than him, but we both fell into the same weight class of "the smallest kids in the class".

I can certainly see extra vulnerability coming from smaller size and assumed weakness, but at the same time don't think THAT translates into some sort of 'privilege'.

Not all men are equal. Some are in a position, just by virtue of their income level, race or orientation to be victims of violent crime more than others. Yes, thousands of men are victims of violent crime.

But the point of the damn video was that men, by virtue of being men, don't largely have to deal with being raped or sexually assaulted in those situations. (And yes, I know very well that many men are, but the statistics overwhelmingly show that victims of these crimes are women). Of course men are shot, mugged, stabbed, or beaten. The video doesn't deny that at all, and I know for a fact Jamie doesn't deny it.

As an adolescent I, too, rode my bike past a group of boys. One said another liked me. The one in question said, "No I don't."

In my wildest dreams, I wouldn't consider that harassment. So yes, that incident of the children taunting each other was minimized because it seems to not understand what we are talking about here. So I'll tell you: later that same day, I rode past a tree in a wooded area. A naked man jumped out from behind the tree with his underwear over his head and tried to grab me as I rode my bike past him.

THAT I would consider harassment.

So, there's a difference.

Joggers of both sexes can get hit by cars. People of both sexes get shot by bored teens. Those are not examples of the dangers you face for simply being male.

the video, from the OP, which I was responding to, very specifically said "I can walk down the street without HEARING ..."

So, no, having somebody SAY something is NOT the same thing as having somebody try to grab you (although some kid tried to grab/tackle me too (it was a kid four years younger than me who wanted to fight me, he ran out from some trees and slammed into me. I, thinking it was an accident, just brushed him off and kept walking, and then he started yelling at me, challenging me to a fight).

But the OP was fairly specific, about being able to walk down the street and not have people SAY things.

I simply pointed out that the OP was wrong.

Further, whether a man gets mugged, beaten or killed because he is a man is NOT relevant to what the video said. The video said that "it is safe for a man to go jogging at night" or "walk to his car at night".

Again, I am simply pointing out that the video is quite simply wrong. A male is NOT ten feet tall and bullet proof. Men can and DO get attacked while jogging or while walking to their car, and can also, just like a woman, get seriously hurt or killed or threatened.

Is there EXTRA risk, extra vulnerability for women.

Yes.

But the video made it sound like we men get to skip through life, untouched and alive at defcon zero, perfectly safe and perfectly happy (okay, maybe I added that last part about happy) while women are miserable and nervous always at defcon 4.

I am just reminded of the interaction between Bender and "Queenie" in "The Breakfast Club". Because I had this argument with the ex-prom queen at my twenty year reunion. As former valedictorian I was not doing that well. After I closed my store in 1998, here it was the summer of 2000 and I was still working as a factory temp, unable to find or get a job with benefits. And she was telling me some Horatio Alger bullsh*t about how "anything is possible" and I needed to pull myself up by my own bootstraps.

And I could not help remembering the time when I was doing my paper route and she and a bunch of her friends came by and started making fun of me. And I am thinking that she thinks "anything is possible" because all her life people have opened doors for her (literally and figuratively). People want her to be their friend. She can go into a job interview and smile and be charming and confident and likely win any job she applies for, just like she won the homecoming queen vote.

Me, I go into a job interview and probably make the interviewer think "this odd, funny looking guy thinks he is smarter than me" and end up only getting the jobs that nobody else wants.

So this whole frame of "men are privileged" and "women are victims" doesn't fit with the life I have lived. It's not a privilege to have the prom queen and her huge band of friends make fun of you while you are walking five miles through the snow delivering papers or riding your bike in the hot sun. It's not a privilege to clean toilets for a living. And, on the other hand, it sure does look like a privilege to have lots of friends, to have a spouse (and probably your pick of spouses) to be elected prom queen. Of course, most women are not elected prom queen. Even my three beautiful sisters, none of them even made the top five, much less got elected queen. But they also, unlike my brother and I, had no problem getting dates. That's not a privilege?

"hey, little girl, when are you going to fuck me?" said to a 13 year old, or "show me your tits!" said as you walk with your boss on a city street on the way to lunch?

That's what I mean when I say the situations are not equivalent.

but at the same time when a woman asked me if I wanted to have sex, when we crossed paths while I was biking home - I was not terribly offended, even though she expected me to pay.

I guess I would rather be told, at age 20, that I was desirable instead of constantly being told and told and told that I am not.

I have this memory that I swear happened more than once. Where I saw this old guy sitting on a bench and tried to talk to him, thinking, I dunno, that he would have interesting stories about the old days. And instead he says, to this young boy - "my pecker sure is hard". I cannot remember how old I was, and I swear that it happened more than once. And I was like "note to self - do NOT talk to old guys.

They were trying to make me uncomfortable - they had absolutely no expectation that I would say "yes!" - that wasn't their purpose. They wanted to make me feel dirty, and scared, and have power over me. That is what it is all about, even rape - it is the means by which they have power over someone.

So yes, it isn't about attraction at all.

Edited to add: being solicited by prostitutes? Try being solicited by johns when you are as young as 11, as DUers told about in a thread last week. With the power differential it's a scarring experience.

you are looking at it wrapped pretty. there is nothing pretty. control. like the old man. did that feel complimentary to you?

but there was nothing about control there either, unless his point was "let me say something strange, so this young punk will leave me alone" but why not try "leave me alone, kid" first?

Maybe he just did have a stiffie and it was occupying his mind. Kinda like when I visited my dad's uncle and he kept saying over and over "I can't hardly see. I can't hardly see." Some things have a way of capturing your attention.

Like, you know, even a semi-attractive female.

Now telling somebody they are NOT attractive. What do you think is the point of THAT? That is certainly, unquestionably designed to "embarrass" "harrass" and "humiliate".

But since it only happened to me, it doesn't matter. It's just a small little thing. I should be humiliated for even daring to mention it here.

Like Ziggy said "Learn to laugh at your problems, everybody else does."

Boys also tell girls they're not attractive (if you are still referring to the derogatory remarks in your first example.) But do girls continue with it when they grow up? Do women tell you you're ugly, fat, frigid, gay? Because that happens all the time to women who are street harassed, when they refuse to smile, heed their harassers, talk to men on the bus. "Frigid b!tch. Ugly b!tch. You must be a lesbian."

We're not laughing at your problems, we're just trying to put them into perspective here.

a universal perspective, that, you know, men can face some of the same crap too.

Unlike, you know, the guy in the video "this stuff doesn't happen to men" "that stuff doesn't happen to men".

The OP basically said "men don't have these problems"

and it was wrong.

I am personally thankful that I don't ride a bus or subway daily, otherwise I would probably have half a dozen male horror stories to tell from that experience.

One blogger told of a story of a group of youths pestering her and another male passenger who said something about it - after they were off the train. The fact of the matter is that the MALE was also scared of those thugs. Which is why he did NOT say anything while the harrassment was going on.

Here I binged a story about violence on the subway http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cbs-news-producer-victim-of-nyc-subway-assault/

And as for whether girls continue when they grow up. Well I happened to be bending over a railing, trying to sand and paint it when an elderly woman happened by and made some comment about my butt.

I took THAT as a compliment though.

If only she was 25 years younger...

As a man, you take comments about your body as a compliment. You're not in fear that that woman was going to get sexually aggressive towards you.

Which is EXACTLY what Jamie was talking about.

Are you really saying you think that's anything at all like street harassment? Really?

Gee, how could one even imagine a fight would start over a post concerning the most pyrotechnic topic on DU in ages?

Over 200 posts again, most by people who have said the same thing for the last 100 or so threads on this same stuff. And argued with the same people.

Lets see...

Violence is bad.

Sexual violence is bad.

If we all agree on those two points, and I think we do, how do we descend into acrimony all the time?

And what it tells me is that we need more of these threads. A lot more.

Seriously, though, we men don't have to put up with a tenth of the shit a woman does.

Seriously....

Admitting that men don't have to put up with the crap that women do?

I'm sixty four years old and have been a feminist for forty four of those.

In that length of time, I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard this freely admitted.

that I am receiving hate for siding with women.

In

I hope you are.

+1000

but Kilstein is right on so many points.

because I disagree with you on a subject. Being male doesn't mean you get to decide who is and isn't a feminist.

Love the "nice guy" air quotes.

If you're white, straight, without physical disabilities, and fairly middle class income you're also very privileged as a woman in the U.S.

And having to use the buddy system? Is that funny to you or just a drag that you have to hear about it?

It was a diversion.

I expanded it.

than others? you betcha. being a white upper income middle aged woman i well recognize my privilege.

again

it does nto keep me in a bubble protecting me from sexism or misogyny

Due to his career, Michelle's career, and his best selling book. But I bet you if he walked into high end department stores or drove in the wrong neighborhood, he was profiled and possibly harrassed.

Is he male? Check
Part of 1%?Check
Highly educated? Check

why would you say that?

privilege. that is what the conversation is and you are well aware. take a poor black man. take a poor white man. and even in poor, the white man will have privilege the black man does not.

right?

i have to think that your sole purpose was to make that comment to me. and there was no reason.

That's why I called it a diversion. The issue in the OP is male privilege, specifically male, white, without disabilities or poverty privilege.

Your post is a clear attempt to mock what it means to be a woman in this country. Does that mean race isn't also a axis of privilege and discrimination? Of course not. But that doesn't justify belittling women's issues. 1 in 3 women in this nation are raped or beaten. You may think that absolutely inconsequential, as you suggested this morning by insisting that rape isn't "germane" (even going so far as to compare threads on rape to pitbulls), but those of us subject to that violence do not. You are the target audience for this video, yet you remain determined not to listen.

Having never known me and based on only limited number of posts on the subject, you think I am the target audience. This is why these threads devolve. As soon as someone doesn't 100% relent and brings up other points, you label them.

Don't worry. I won't alert on your personal attack where you presume to know everything about me because of a discussion board.

That was entirely offensive. Additionally, you never showed the slightest bit of regret that you so casually dismissed life experiences of a good percentage of members of this board because they have the nerve to post about something that isn't about you. Why would you imagine you should were exempt from the target audience of the video? Are you not male? You certainly have made a point of denying the message of the video here.

By someone you know than a complete stranger.

The rhetoric surrounding fear of public spaces involves the deception that women are truly unsafe in public spaces when in reality that really isn't the case. Now we could get into what it means to be unsafe but what I'm actually talking about is violent assault.

In other words, feel free to walk through the park at night. It is statistically perfectly safe (excepting of course areas of high crime rates).

I didn't when I was young. Statistically, I was far more likely to be assaulted then.

I have... At Meadowbrook (a "nice" area). But of course, that's nothing I imagine in the minds of some.

Over the last several weeks I have been groped once by a woman (who groped me in the front), and at least twice by a guy. Does dry humping count as groping? If so, then make that three times at least. Then as I was wrapping cables I got beat on by another guy for a few moments. It left a couple bruises but I'm pretty sure I will survive, they were fists of drunken love and adoration. I no longer really give it much notice. I imagine I will be in for more groping tonight and tomorrow. I can't imagine what it would be like if I were good looking. So if that's male privilege, I can't even fathom what it is like on the other side of the coin.

Of course I do have a choice for Saturday. Do I go to the place where I will probably be groped or go to the place where making eye contact with the wrong person is liable to get me stabbed?

I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. This is my job.

And while my self defense skills are not what they were 10 or 20 years ago, I'm still in a position where most people will think twice before assaulting me.

But I have always done the clenched key thing. "What is near me that I can use as a weapon if needed, and how would I use it?" When I am outside of the house, I try to be aware of who is around me and what their intentions are. And while I am not in as much jeopardy as women, I've been taught all my life to avoid being alone late at night.

I'm not diminishing anything about the tragic pile of shit women go through. I just want to point out that life is frightening for anyone who pays attention. And particularly for anyone from "the wrong side of the tracks", or who has been robbed several times.

I did not discover my professional calling until I was in my late 40s. The story is too long to tell, but the reason for the delay was that it was not a profession that women entered when I was choosing my career path. Do I feel cheated? Yes. I made sure my daughters knew that they could be anything they wanted and that they knew what the possibilities were. Men of my generation (born in WWII) had definite, pronounced, exceedingly rich possibilities for fulfillment that we women did not have.

On the other hand, there are a few advantages that women have and that men at least now can never experience: pregnancy, childbirth, nursing a baby and just being a mother. I feel blessed to have had those experiences that no men can have (at least not now). Count your blessings!

It sounds interesting and something others would appreciate as well.

every pro-Feminist thread on DU --
poor, pitiful Pretzel. To quote someone who should have gotten an Oscar: "Aren't you tired, Miss Hilly Pretzel? Aren't you tired?"

(Perhaps your energy would be better spent figuring out why you're so defensive about women's issues...)

I'm playing devil's advocate on the issue. Why? Partly because I think there are a few here engaging in bullying behavior.

Anyway, I grew up with sisters and saw them suffer as females compared to my brother and me in countless ways. Both were even abused/exploited and got out of those situations. I have a daughter who graduated from high school who I am trying with great effort to build esteem so she sees she's powerful and can take control of her destiny.

But thanks for prejudging and pigeon holing me.

This is our lives we're talking about, sometimes literally our lives. It shows an unwillingness to actually listen to what we are saying about how we live our daily lives, and that is very disheartening, especially on a Democratic forum. That you can play devil's advocate withi this shows how far removed from your personal experience it is, and perhaps it would behoove you better to listen rather than taunt, which is what playing devil's advocate really is.

If you still insist on your right to play devil's advocate, I dare you to do something. As Blanche did further down in the thread, I dare you to go to the LGBT forum and play devil's advocate with their experiences of homophobia, or the African American forum and play devil's advocate with their experiences of racism. Just because misogyny affects so many more people doesn't mean it is less real than racism and homophobia.

Something about fabulous pink ponies.

He is an equal opportunity offender.

As anyone can see from my profile page, I'm a low post long-time member, but since I live most of the year in Europe, the time zones make me miss a lot of what happens on DU. However, in the last couple of months, I have become more engaged in combating misogyny here on DU, because it was such a shock to me to see so many defend porn they had no idea whether was rape or not. Living in a social democratic country for parts of the year really opens your eyes to what can be achieved if everyone sacrifices a little, and how harping on your rights to enjoy something at the expense of others just doesn't jive anymore, because you see a society where consensus is that you shouldn't, even if it is your right, and you see how much better that society is than the US.

You're correct. They say a 'few women are stirring up shit', but many of the replies and OP's by several of the men here are mean, vindictive, offensive disruptions.

some privilege

I am white, straight, without (many) physical disabilities, and fairly middle class income. I am also shorter than average, obese, mostly grey haired and can still walk a mile faster than most local kids a third my age.

Cops here in this corner of Kentucky back in the 60's didn't bother to stop my grandfather from raping his granddaughters. Authorities weren't overly concerned with stopping my first husband from beating me nearly to death even after I divorced him and had a restraining order (which was hell to get from the judicial system in 1980's Cincinnati).

In 2013 I started my own business. Am employing 13 people with above average wages for the area. During the remodel of our building I had a man I trust to meet the building inspectors because they've been known to actively submarine woman owned businesses by dragging out the approval process.

Does the fact it could be worse make me privileged? I guess so if your definition of privileged means not to be crapped on quite as much as some other people get crapped on by rich, white men.

All that said, I'm more the sort to count my blessings.