Reply #267: You are still missing a huge important point. [View All]

Men don't live their entire lives in fear every day worrying that violence is as ever- present a threat as it is for women.

Yes, there is the threat of random violence, but men don't have to worry that every person they meet might betray their trust and sexually assault them. Men don't have to prepare to be defend themselves from every encounter, letting people knew everyplace they are going and everyone they are meeting, and never going anyplace alone in case that guy turns out to be abusive or a rapist.

Men don't have to worry that the police aren't going to believe them, and are going to blame them for the attack. Police are usually going to believe that it was random violence. Hospitals are going to treat a gunshot wound or a beating and everything will get turned over to the DA. Cops routinely accuse women of causing their own rapes, and Rape kits routinely sit for years un-reviewed.

Men go about their lives normally, and if random violence happens, then it happens. They may take some precautions, but otherwise they don't don't live their lives as if random violence is an ever-present factor in their lives everywhere they go. Every time they go to work, every time they visit someone, in every friend's home, or business, or restaurant, or club, or every other place they go. Every time they meet with someone new, or every time the meet with someone they have known for years if he is alone and nobody else knows he is here, there is a chance of the situation escalating into rape.

Little girl gets taught, warned to be careful and protect themselves, never put themselves in situations, always think as if rape is a possibility.

Unless you live in a war-zone, boys don't live with that kind of fear, and in a war-zone, girls live with that same fear and live with a heightened fear of rape too.

Because research has already shown that as societal stress levels go up, levels of rape and sexual assault go up too. That would be times of economic stress and also times of violence or times of war.

Nobody can doubt that in Iraq right now, and in Afghanistan, and in war-torn areas in Africa, women get targeted for rape in devastating numbers. Often as a deliberate tactic.

So dismissing rape because men suffer from random violence too totally misses the point. Men aren't stalked and targeted for violence their entire lives because they are men. Random violence is random. Men are on the receiving end of it because they are out in the street more in violent areas where random violence happens. But they living in fear of being targeted.