So, there's been a lot of things that I've been reading and watching that really make me wonder WTF is wrong with our Western Society right now. It involves sexism, perceived sexism, and, honestly, how sexism seem to only be a one way street. That way being that sexism can only be practiced by men towards women, and not the other way around.
There's a few issues, and, honestly, they're quite startling when you look at how the media views them, as well as the general public.
The first is the issue of rape. We've all been taught that rape is when the woman doesn't consent to sexual intercourse and has the sex forcibly performed upon her; she's not in complete control of her mental faculties to consent (drunk, on drugs, passed out, etc.); or is physically assaulted or restrained against her will during intercourse. But, yet, we almost constantly hear that women are incapable of raping a man. However, by these same standards, is it really impossible for a man to be raped?
Now, while the forced sex part may be harder for a woman to perform on a man, as in he says no but she does it anyway (normal size and strength differences between men and women make it hard), it's not impossible. But, what if a man is not in complete control of his mental faculties (drunk, drugged, etc.) and a woman he doesn't want to have sex with has sex with him? Is that not rape? Here's a hint: to most people, it isn't... he probably wanted it anyway, or at least enjoyed it is the common thought. What if the man is physically restrained or assaulted? There's at least one case on the books about this, from the UK in 1978:
However, it should be noted that cases of male on male rape or female on male rape go very much unreported, mostly due to the stigma of appearing weak in the eyes of society for the males involved.
Then there's the other ways rape can be attributed, but only in the case of women accusing. According to some, if she 'gives in' to badgering and just decides to have sex with a man to shut him up, that's rape (we're talking about a couple here, not some random strangers). Some like to say it's OK to claim rape if the woman regrets consensual sex the night before. There have even been cases, recently, where a woman claimed rape simply because after having sex, the man didn't contact her in a time frame she deemed appropriate, and people defend her for it. As some like to call it, retracting consent after the fact still makes it rape.
Then there's the growing occurrence of false accusations of rape. This is something we're told is very, very rare, but the occurrence of false accusations is growing (over 4000 per year proven false in the US). Or, I should say, the fact that the accusation was false becoming known is growing. A few examples:
The well known Duke sports team false rape accusation. As well as English soccer players falsely accused of rape.
A PA man, aged 20, was charged with rape and served 5 months under house arrest awaiting trial because a former 18 year old girlfriend claimed he raped her in a parking lot, and only stopped when two girls came upon them. She had bruises on her neck, and told police he had his hand around her throat. However, she couldn't remember the names of the girls or their phone numbers when police asked... so the boy was arrested at his home. 5 months and $20k later in lawyers fees, the young man's family attorney found the two girls that supposedly stopped the rape, and they told him that she had been at her new boyfriend's house, and she was terrified to go home and face her parents' wrath because her new bf had given her 'sucker marks' (hickeys) on her neck. She got charged with making a false police report.
The last woman I was sexually active with works for a lawyer's office here in NJ. And one of the clients is a 16 year old black boy. He and a 16 year old white girl got caught in the stairwell of their school while she was giving him a blow job. She claimed he forced her to do it. He's been labeled a sex offender, cannot go to school (because it is close to children) and is fighting to stay out of jail. And the woman I was with told me flat out she knows the girl is lying, just to not get in trouble by her parents.
I forget the man and woman's names, and the exact state, but the man spent 5 years in jail after the girl accused him of rape after her parents caught her looking at porn online (you know, as to the reason a good girl would be watching such filth). She figured, at the time, nothing would happen, because he had moved away, but the police got him arrested in the other state, and he spent 5 years in jail until she finally said she made it up to not get in trouble.
Biurny Peguero accused a man of rape in NYC and he spent 4 years in jail until she recanted. This was AFTER new DNA testing done showed that the bite marks and bruises on her were from female DNA, and not male, obviously acquitting the man she accused and got convicted of raping her. Her reason? She wanted her friends to feel sorry for her. She got convicted of purgery and making a false police report and got 1-3 years... less than the amount of time the man she accused had already served.
WTF is wrong with our society where we are telling young women that it is OK to claim rape to get out of trouble? Or to get attention? Or because they regretted having sex with a guy? Or just to be vindictive for any slight, real or perceived? And then, we, as a society and as a matter of law, basically convict the accused before any evidence is brought forth. Guilty until proven innocent is how the law works in cases of rape accusations. And even if the accusation is proven false, or it is shown the woman was not actually raped, the man's life is ruined. Almost universally, however, the false accuser gets a slap on the wrist and a pat on the head saying 'it's OK, but don't do it in the future.'
The woman's identity is concealed by police and the media, but they plaster the accused all over the news. And if the accusation is proven false... it almost always ends up being buried in newspapers that the accusation was false, and the media in general seems to almost always conveniently forget to menton it. But, in the end, the man's life is ruined just for having the stigma of being accused of the crime.
And, to top it off, this actually makes it WORSE for the true sufferers of rape. The more and more false accusations come to light, men and women who have been truly raped will become more fearful of coming forward because of the more intense scrutiny placed on them and the fear of not being believed (though, as it has been shown, in most cases, men who come forward are generally not believed in the first place). This helps no one.
Though, this quote is a real gem...
So, it's not the fault of the people falsely accusing... it's patriarchy's fault. I guess we can't disagree with such logic.
Issues such as statutory rape are also clouded. If a man has sex with an underage girl, it is called rape in the media. If a woman has sex with an underage boy (a growing phenomena being reported, IE high school teachers and students), it is called an 'affair' by the media-- implying that the underage boy was able to consent. Statutory rape is statutory rape. Call it rape.
Then there's the issues of parenting rights and child support.
There are cases coming to light of men being forced to pay child support for children not biologically theirs.
A man in Houston, TX, is paying child support for 4 children to his ex-wife. Only 1 of which is biologically his. She cheated, multiple times, admitted the other 3 children are by 3 different men, but the state is making him pay the child support.
A man in GA spent a year in jail for not paying child support for a child the courts KNEW wasn't his.
A man and his ex-wife told the judge that the child up for child support wasn't his-- she got pregnant while they were separated and they did a DNA test. The ex-wife didn't want child suport from him for the child not his. The courts basically said 'fuck you both, he's paying.'
A man in TN payed child support for 16 years for a child not biologically his. In fact, the ex-wife moved in with the actual father of the child, so he was paying child support to a biologically complete family. This eventually prompted TN lawmakers to propose a bill making paternity tests mandatory before the father's name could be put on the birth certificate. This got a nice response from certain feminists out there, one of which wrote this:
In her mind... what? Women can't cheat? Or can't lie about who the father of a child is? Men cheat. Women cheat. Men lie. Women lie. Deal with it, I say.
My own uncle can't step foot in the state of Illinois anymore, because of what his ex-wife did. They never went to court for child support for their son. My uncle moved to Singapore to work as a groundskeeper for a golf course there, and made good money. He sent $2000 a month to her for child support. When she knew he would be out of Singapore, she sent legal documents claiming he wasn't paying child support to his Singapore address. Then when he showed up to visit my cousin, she called the cops and claimed he was a deadbeat dad. She didn't know, though, that my grandparents had power of attorney, and had every single cancelled check. However, he still has a warrant out for him in Illinois for that charge and the failure to appear at court for the documents he didn't get until he returned to Singapore 2 months later. (Yes, he looks bad in this case because he fled the state, but his 2nd wife's visa wouldn't last throughout the trial and he probably would have lost his job.) Oh, and she had remarried a doctor, had a big house and drove around in a BMW for years before this happened. After getting the cancelled checks, though, they did drop the deadbeat dad charge and reduced his child support to $200 a month.
The child support issue is a case where the court system is at fault, though. The state makes money from court mandated child support, so it finds every way it can to keep that revenue coming in. This is a huge problem in and of itself.
However, it should be noted that in the rare cases where the fathers have custody and the mothers have to pay child support, the amount is lower, on average, even if the woman makes more than the man; and since there are very few deadbeat mom laws, they are not as vigorously gone after by police. Then again, in most cases, it would seem that the mother practically needs to be on death row for her not to get custody.
It's also known that if a mother with custody decides not to allow the father his visitations, as granted by the courts, there is practically no penalty handed out. They could fine her or even send her to jail for contempt of court; but the courts find both not good for the children, because she needs the money to provide for the kids and sending her to jail removes her from being able to provide for the children.
Oh, and here's a hoot: 15 year old boy sued for child support by 34 year old woman who statutorily raped him. http://law.justia.com/cases/california/ ... 0/842.html Another 15 year old boy was forced by the courts to pay his statuary rapist child support in Ohio, as well.
Then there's alimony. I saw a show about women paying alimony to their ex husbands, and how this was somehow an issue that needed to be looked at. One of the women said her husband used the 'I'm used to a certain lifestyle' argument to get alimony... The exact same argument we hear all the time from wives when divorcing husbands. Somehow, it's wrong to use the line if you're the soon to be ex husband.
Personally, I think alimony is outdated. Period. Unless one member of the marriage was a stay at home parent for 18+ years (depending on how many children they had), there's nothing stopping them from making their own living. This isn't the 1950s. Women aren't expected to be June Cleaver and be housewives while the man goes out and earns the money for the household. Now, if both agree that one parent will be a stay at home parent, fine, I can see alimony for a time... but not the lifelong alimony that often gets awarded. If neither parent is a stay at home parent, then the whole idea of alimony is archaic.
Domestic violence laws are also mind boggling. Violence against women gets the man thrown in jail. Violence against men... gets the man thrown in jail, or at least 'removed from the premises for X amount of time.' . Um. WTF? In many areas, any domestic violence claims automatically have the man thrown in jail or removed from the household, even if it was he who was the victim of it. Some laws state 'the larger party' is the one to be removed. In 99 out of 100 cases, this will be the man.
Also, it doesn't matter what the evidence shows. If a man has a knife sticking out of his back in an area he can't get to it, and throws or hits the woman away from him to stop the attack, he's at fault for touching her. If she's thrown everything at the house at him that isn't attached to the house, and he grabs her wrists and bruises her wrists, he goes to jail. How does this work?
Studies are now showing 40% of domestic violence is perpetrated by women against men. It still shows that men tend to do it more, yes, but it also shows women are not the innocent victims all the time.
Now, I was brought up to not hit women. Fine and dandy. It's not gentleman like. However, if a women decides to deck me, she better be damn well ready for me to punch her right back. It's not lady like to punch a man, so I don't have to be gentleman like back to her. If she wants to start punching, she better be able to step up to the plate and take it right back.
Is it chivalrous? No. Is it being a gentleman? No. But I'm not going to sit there and take a beating just because I'm not supposed to hit a woman.
OK, it's after 8 AM, and I think I am rambling, now...
There's a few issues, and, honestly, they're quite startling when you look at how the media views them, as well as the general public.
The first is the issue of rape. We've all been taught that rape is when the woman doesn't consent to sexual intercourse and has the sex forcibly performed upon her; she's not in complete control of her mental faculties to consent (drunk, on drugs, passed out, etc.); or is physically assaulted or restrained against her will during intercourse. But, yet, we almost constantly hear that women are incapable of raping a man. However, by these same standards, is it really impossible for a man to be raped?
Now, while the forced sex part may be harder for a woman to perform on a man, as in he says no but she does it anyway (normal size and strength differences between men and women make it hard), it's not impossible. But, what if a man is not in complete control of his mental faculties (drunk, drugged, etc.) and a woman he doesn't want to have sex with has sex with him? Is that not rape? Here's a hint: to most people, it isn't... he probably wanted it anyway, or at least enjoyed it is the common thought. What if the man is physically restrained or assaulted? There's at least one case on the books about this, from the UK in 1978:
However, it should be noted that cases of male on male rape or female on male rape go very much unreported, mostly due to the stigma of appearing weak in the eyes of society for the males involved.
Then there's the other ways rape can be attributed, but only in the case of women accusing. According to some, if she 'gives in' to badgering and just decides to have sex with a man to shut him up, that's rape (we're talking about a couple here, not some random strangers). Some like to say it's OK to claim rape if the woman regrets consensual sex the night before. There have even been cases, recently, where a woman claimed rape simply because after having sex, the man didn't contact her in a time frame she deemed appropriate, and people defend her for it. As some like to call it, retracting consent after the fact still makes it rape.
Then there's the growing occurrence of false accusations of rape. This is something we're told is very, very rare, but the occurrence of false accusations is growing (over 4000 per year proven false in the US). Or, I should say, the fact that the accusation was false becoming known is growing. A few examples:
The well known Duke sports team false rape accusation. As well as English soccer players falsely accused of rape.
A PA man, aged 20, was charged with rape and served 5 months under house arrest awaiting trial because a former 18 year old girlfriend claimed he raped her in a parking lot, and only stopped when two girls came upon them. She had bruises on her neck, and told police he had his hand around her throat. However, she couldn't remember the names of the girls or their phone numbers when police asked... so the boy was arrested at his home. 5 months and $20k later in lawyers fees, the young man's family attorney found the two girls that supposedly stopped the rape, and they told him that she had been at her new boyfriend's house, and she was terrified to go home and face her parents' wrath because her new bf had given her 'sucker marks' (hickeys) on her neck. She got charged with making a false police report.
The last woman I was sexually active with works for a lawyer's office here in NJ. And one of the clients is a 16 year old black boy. He and a 16 year old white girl got caught in the stairwell of their school while she was giving him a blow job. She claimed he forced her to do it. He's been labeled a sex offender, cannot go to school (because it is close to children) and is fighting to stay out of jail. And the woman I was with told me flat out she knows the girl is lying, just to not get in trouble by her parents.
I forget the man and woman's names, and the exact state, but the man spent 5 years in jail after the girl accused him of rape after her parents caught her looking at porn online (you know, as to the reason a good girl would be watching such filth). She figured, at the time, nothing would happen, because he had moved away, but the police got him arrested in the other state, and he spent 5 years in jail until she finally said she made it up to not get in trouble.
Biurny Peguero accused a man of rape in NYC and he spent 4 years in jail until she recanted. This was AFTER new DNA testing done showed that the bite marks and bruises on her were from female DNA, and not male, obviously acquitting the man she accused and got convicted of raping her. Her reason? She wanted her friends to feel sorry for her. She got convicted of purgery and making a false police report and got 1-3 years... less than the amount of time the man she accused had already served.
WTF is wrong with our society where we are telling young women that it is OK to claim rape to get out of trouble? Or to get attention? Or because they regretted having sex with a guy? Or just to be vindictive for any slight, real or perceived? And then, we, as a society and as a matter of law, basically convict the accused before any evidence is brought forth. Guilty until proven innocent is how the law works in cases of rape accusations. And even if the accusation is proven false, or it is shown the woman was not actually raped, the man's life is ruined. Almost universally, however, the false accuser gets a slap on the wrist and a pat on the head saying 'it's OK, but don't do it in the future.'
The woman's identity is concealed by police and the media, but they plaster the accused all over the news. And if the accusation is proven false... it almost always ends up being buried in newspapers that the accusation was false, and the media in general seems to almost always conveniently forget to menton it. But, in the end, the man's life is ruined just for having the stigma of being accused of the crime.
And, to top it off, this actually makes it WORSE for the true sufferers of rape. The more and more false accusations come to light, men and women who have been truly raped will become more fearful of coming forward because of the more intense scrutiny placed on them and the fear of not being believed (though, as it has been shown, in most cases, men who come forward are generally not believed in the first place). This helps no one.
Though, this quote is a real gem...
So, it's not the fault of the people falsely accusing... it's patriarchy's fault. I guess we can't disagree with such logic.
Issues such as statutory rape are also clouded. If a man has sex with an underage girl, it is called rape in the media. If a woman has sex with an underage boy (a growing phenomena being reported, IE high school teachers and students), it is called an 'affair' by the media-- implying that the underage boy was able to consent. Statutory rape is statutory rape. Call it rape.
Then there's the issues of parenting rights and child support.
There are cases coming to light of men being forced to pay child support for children not biologically theirs.
A man in Houston, TX, is paying child support for 4 children to his ex-wife. Only 1 of which is biologically his. She cheated, multiple times, admitted the other 3 children are by 3 different men, but the state is making him pay the child support.
A man in GA spent a year in jail for not paying child support for a child the courts KNEW wasn't his.
A man and his ex-wife told the judge that the child up for child support wasn't his-- she got pregnant while they were separated and they did a DNA test. The ex-wife didn't want child suport from him for the child not his. The courts basically said 'fuck you both, he's paying.'
A man in TN payed child support for 16 years for a child not biologically his. In fact, the ex-wife moved in with the actual father of the child, so he was paying child support to a biologically complete family. This eventually prompted TN lawmakers to propose a bill making paternity tests mandatory before the father's name could be put on the birth certificate. This got a nice response from certain feminists out there, one of which wrote this:
In her mind... what? Women can't cheat? Or can't lie about who the father of a child is? Men cheat. Women cheat. Men lie. Women lie. Deal with it, I say.
My own uncle can't step foot in the state of Illinois anymore, because of what his ex-wife did. They never went to court for child support for their son. My uncle moved to Singapore to work as a groundskeeper for a golf course there, and made good money. He sent $2000 a month to her for child support. When she knew he would be out of Singapore, she sent legal documents claiming he wasn't paying child support to his Singapore address. Then when he showed up to visit my cousin, she called the cops and claimed he was a deadbeat dad. She didn't know, though, that my grandparents had power of attorney, and had every single cancelled check. However, he still has a warrant out for him in Illinois for that charge and the failure to appear at court for the documents he didn't get until he returned to Singapore 2 months later. (Yes, he looks bad in this case because he fled the state, but his 2nd wife's visa wouldn't last throughout the trial and he probably would have lost his job.) Oh, and she had remarried a doctor, had a big house and drove around in a BMW for years before this happened. After getting the cancelled checks, though, they did drop the deadbeat dad charge and reduced his child support to $200 a month.
The child support issue is a case where the court system is at fault, though. The state makes money from court mandated child support, so it finds every way it can to keep that revenue coming in. This is a huge problem in and of itself.
However, it should be noted that in the rare cases where the fathers have custody and the mothers have to pay child support, the amount is lower, on average, even if the woman makes more than the man; and since there are very few deadbeat mom laws, they are not as vigorously gone after by police. Then again, in most cases, it would seem that the mother practically needs to be on death row for her not to get custody.
It's also known that if a mother with custody decides not to allow the father his visitations, as granted by the courts, there is practically no penalty handed out. They could fine her or even send her to jail for contempt of court; but the courts find both not good for the children, because she needs the money to provide for the kids and sending her to jail removes her from being able to provide for the children.
Oh, and here's a hoot: 15 year old boy sued for child support by 34 year old woman who statutorily raped him. http://law.justia.com/cases/california/ ... 0/842.html Another 15 year old boy was forced by the courts to pay his statuary rapist child support in Ohio, as well.
Then there's alimony. I saw a show about women paying alimony to their ex husbands, and how this was somehow an issue that needed to be looked at. One of the women said her husband used the 'I'm used to a certain lifestyle' argument to get alimony... The exact same argument we hear all the time from wives when divorcing husbands. Somehow, it's wrong to use the line if you're the soon to be ex husband.
Personally, I think alimony is outdated. Period. Unless one member of the marriage was a stay at home parent for 18+ years (depending on how many children they had), there's nothing stopping them from making their own living. This isn't the 1950s. Women aren't expected to be June Cleaver and be housewives while the man goes out and earns the money for the household. Now, if both agree that one parent will be a stay at home parent, fine, I can see alimony for a time... but not the lifelong alimony that often gets awarded. If neither parent is a stay at home parent, then the whole idea of alimony is archaic.
Domestic violence laws are also mind boggling. Violence against women gets the man thrown in jail. Violence against men... gets the man thrown in jail, or at least 'removed from the premises for X amount of time.' . Um. WTF? In many areas, any domestic violence claims automatically have the man thrown in jail or removed from the household, even if it was he who was the victim of it. Some laws state 'the larger party' is the one to be removed. In 99 out of 100 cases, this will be the man.
Also, it doesn't matter what the evidence shows. If a man has a knife sticking out of his back in an area he can't get to it, and throws or hits the woman away from him to stop the attack, he's at fault for touching her. If she's thrown everything at the house at him that isn't attached to the house, and he grabs her wrists and bruises her wrists, he goes to jail. How does this work?
Studies are now showing 40% of domestic violence is perpetrated by women against men. It still shows that men tend to do it more, yes, but it also shows women are not the innocent victims all the time.
Now, I was brought up to not hit women. Fine and dandy. It's not gentleman like. However, if a women decides to deck me, she better be damn well ready for me to punch her right back. It's not lady like to punch a man, so I don't have to be gentleman like back to her. If she wants to start punching, she better be able to step up to the plate and take it right back.
Is it chivalrous? No. Is it being a gentleman? No. But I'm not going to sit there and take a beating just because I'm not supposed to hit a woman.
OK, it's after 8 AM, and I think I am rambling, now...
