madphysicist
先輩
- 20 Aug 2015
- 341
- 131
- 58
@WonkoTheSane
I am sorry to hear you had that experience. It feels awful no matter the gender of the victim or the perpetrator and I really do not like people making light of it.
I did not say men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment or abuse, in fact I said the opposite. However for the huge majority of men this is not a daily struggle nor something that they think about very often, unlike women. Hence the insensitive comments which Roland has been so kind as to give us a prime example of - "I'd like to be harassed" or "Why can't you take it as a compliment?" or "At least you got laid".
Even if you don't like my fear, how am I supposed to change an emotion? "Stop feeling uneasy around men!" "Okay, I'll stop right this moment" ?? Again, on some occasions I have felt anxiety even around men I know well and like and know would not hurt me - this is not a controlled response! I would not be able to work in a heavily male-dominated environment if I were "hateful" towards my colleagues or allowed fear to dictate my interactions with them. But women are in a constant catch-22.
Person A: "Why do women object to being told where to go, how to dress, how much to drink, when to flirt, who to talk to, what comments to ignore when these are simply common sense measures for not being sexually assaulted?"
Person B (or actually sometimes Person A again): "Why are women wary of me just because I'm a man? It's sexist to assume I'm a threat when she doesn't even know me. Not all men are like that!"
Do we take every possible precaution, refuse to even talk to strange men and end up being called a frigid b----, followed, attacked because certain men think they're entitled to our attention? In this case we also get scolded for assuming men could be a threat (By the way, I don't assume all men will harass me; I know for a fact that a certain percentage will because it happens on average a few times a month here and on average several times a week in other cities. And since I don't have the power to read minds, I can't tell who will and who won't.) Or do we blithely believe that every man has good intentions, and wait until he's in the process of actually assaulting us to be wary of him? Of course any attack will be blamed on our lack of caution - "if you hadn't done XYZ you wouldn't have given him the opportunity". How can we possibly avoid criticism?
I have been sexually harassed by literally hundreds of men. If women harassed me all the time too, I would probably be afraid of everyone at those times right after being severely harassed or assaulted, not just men. But so far this has never happened to me.
If you want a world where women are not wary of men and trans people not wary of cis, instead of chiding the harassed about how they feel about it, how about we listen to their stories and try to focus on changing the behaviour of the harassers? I find it a bit odd that you accuse me of minimising others' experiences when you seem to be looking for any reason to dismiss trans people's stories of abuse.
I have empathy for women who do not want men in the same bathroom despite disagreeing with them about it, because avoiding harassment is constantly on our minds. I give trans people enough credit that they generally do whatever they can to avoid abuse but it is not possible to avoid all of it in a world that is so hostile to trans people. There is no need to tell either women or trans people that their fears of harassment and abuse are invalid or "hateful" or brought upon themselves.
I am sorry to hear you had that experience. It feels awful no matter the gender of the victim or the perpetrator and I really do not like people making light of it.
I did not say men cannot be the victims of sexual harassment or abuse, in fact I said the opposite. However for the huge majority of men this is not a daily struggle nor something that they think about very often, unlike women. Hence the insensitive comments which Roland has been so kind as to give us a prime example of - "I'd like to be harassed" or "Why can't you take it as a compliment?" or "At least you got laid".
Even if you don't like my fear, how am I supposed to change an emotion? "Stop feeling uneasy around men!" "Okay, I'll stop right this moment" ?? Again, on some occasions I have felt anxiety even around men I know well and like and know would not hurt me - this is not a controlled response! I would not be able to work in a heavily male-dominated environment if I were "hateful" towards my colleagues or allowed fear to dictate my interactions with them. But women are in a constant catch-22.
Person A: "Why do women object to being told where to go, how to dress, how much to drink, when to flirt, who to talk to, what comments to ignore when these are simply common sense measures for not being sexually assaulted?"
Person B (or actually sometimes Person A again): "Why are women wary of me just because I'm a man? It's sexist to assume I'm a threat when she doesn't even know me. Not all men are like that!"
Do we take every possible precaution, refuse to even talk to strange men and end up being called a frigid b----, followed, attacked because certain men think they're entitled to our attention? In this case we also get scolded for assuming men could be a threat (By the way, I don't assume all men will harass me; I know for a fact that a certain percentage will because it happens on average a few times a month here and on average several times a week in other cities. And since I don't have the power to read minds, I can't tell who will and who won't.) Or do we blithely believe that every man has good intentions, and wait until he's in the process of actually assaulting us to be wary of him? Of course any attack will be blamed on our lack of caution - "if you hadn't done XYZ you wouldn't have given him the opportunity". How can we possibly avoid criticism?
I have been sexually harassed by literally hundreds of men. If women harassed me all the time too, I would probably be afraid of everyone at those times right after being severely harassed or assaulted, not just men. But so far this has never happened to me.
If you want a world where women are not wary of men and trans people not wary of cis, instead of chiding the harassed about how they feel about it, how about we listen to their stories and try to focus on changing the behaviour of the harassers? I find it a bit odd that you accuse me of minimising others' experiences when you seem to be looking for any reason to dismiss trans people's stories of abuse.
I have empathy for women who do not want men in the same bathroom despite disagreeing with them about it, because avoiding harassment is constantly on our minds. I give trans people enough credit that they generally do whatever they can to avoid abuse but it is not possible to avoid all of it in a world that is so hostile to trans people. There is no need to tell either women or trans people that their fears of harassment and abuse are invalid or "hateful" or brought upon themselves.
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