Bravo Janice - Another hard hitting dose of the truth! Well done.
You said:
"This is about the corrosive victim-power that we have granted to women to destroy men’s lives, a power that deeply harms women psychologically in its encouragement to vindictive hysteria and narcissistic posturing."
This is so true and so rarely spoken. Thank you for saying it.
It does make me wonder, if we gave men the same power to destroy women, would men use it? My guess is no.
You also said near the beginning of the piece that:
"sexual assault survivors was the fear of not being believed, the feeling that one was alone with an experience no one else understood or even acknowledged"
I found myself thinking that is EXACTLY what males who have been falsely accused experience. Exactly.
The feminists want a situation where the word of a woman regarding an "abuse" incident (even if it's words alone, or even sex that a woman didn't issue verbal objections to, as in the case of Aziz Ansari), while men would not be permitted to present evidence of their innocence (as Jian Ghomeshi did with emails in which his accusers begged for more interactions with him). To feminists, not only men's feelings, but their very lives, are irrevelant.
The claim that "real victims won't be believed" is another favorite feminist lie. While it's usually used when alleging sexual accusation against a man (often years ago), it employed last summer regarding the fake kidnapping of Carlee Russell. Even before she turned up, and the kidnapping story fell apart, there were already people (mostly black women) claiming online that this would make it more difficult to get police to investigate kidnappings of black women in the future. But the police were immediately suspicious that they were dealing with a fake kidnapping - and yet they deployed all the resources one would expect in the instance of a kidnapping, including investigators, searchers, & media alerts. Even if some person had not kidnapped Carlee, there was still a criminal to be found - the kidnap-faker Carlee herself.
Women agitate to gain power using arguments about equality. Women gain power in society.
Women begin to lose their previously special place in society. Women agitate for more equality. They get it. They lose more of their place as men adjust and see them more as equals.
Women eventually lose almost all of their special place in society to such an extent old movies look like fantasy. Women then use other methods to generate attention and a sense of specialness they used to enjoy all the time just for being women.
Women still agitate for even more power while they completely lose their place in society and men walk away...
I hadn't thought of it in quite this way, that being a sexual assault survivor is one of the few remaining sources of special glorification for women, now that being a good wife, mother, and caregiver have all been decertified.
I think it is probably rare given the nature of what you outlined. More common will be the women joining in on the rape culture marches on campuses and elsewhere. I always felt that was a distorted form of humble bragging. I am so attractive some men will break the law to get to me.
Another is - don't you just hate it when you can't go anywhere without being wolf whistled by exceptionally fit masculine men on building sites etc?
All that is a repressed desire to be desired, which most women possess. Even the insanity of passing laws to ban this all as "harassment" I think is a kind of bragging. We are so hot they are passing laws to keep men away from us.
Oh, I would. I've seen some footage of those male stripper shows. Some of those men need bodyguards. Most of the ladies are nice too. But they all lose the plot when an attractive man is around. They have a cheek trashing men.
I think an important point. As humans we tend to flatter ourselves about our "complexity" . But decades in social care gives me the view that though large aggregates of people can be complex, the individuals are quite simple and often apparently act on quite "trivial" notions. The fight (sometimes literally) to be special in males motivates males to take action, for they are valued for their contributions, and in a sense this hasn't changed. Increasingly for women their specialness has shrunk to being "beautiful" (spawning a massive fashion and beauty industry "you're worth it") appearing to be a "man" in being an employee or being sensitive and fragile, a princess able to feel the tiniest pea. In a way "Barbie" the movie exemplified this. All the Barbies were beautiful (even the token diversity ones) and constantly were told this, had jobs that only required the right outfit and no actual work (the slender construction workers had no dirt to dig nor the Bin women any actual trash in their super clean bins) and lived to show off their many outfits at parties and apparently had no resilience at all when Ken came along with revolutionary new ideas. A fragile plastic world. Rather a good analogy to the value empty consumer world, in which appearances are all and it is remarkably difficult to be special in any way. Regressing to the childlike claims for attention is perhaps no surprise, just transformed from the phantom headaches, tummy bugs, dramas and tantrums of childhood to the much more dangerous (to others) victimhoods.
I think the focus on beauty exclusively is because femininity has been downgraded. Most men are drawn to feminine women, not necessarily very beautiful women. Being feminine makes women attractive.
But the emphasis from the feminists that they can do all a man can do pits them against us. Plus women are encouraged to be more masculine and assertive.
When you succeed in equalizing men and women to some extent all that is left are biological differences, the most visible of which is the externalities. Beauty is then elevated as it is exclusively female. Prettiness might be the better word.
Equality, then, bulldozes natural differences leaving only very visible biological differences.
One of the things I think men may find difficult is that in the "west" at least "beauty" and pretty power is not particularly directed at or for men. Particularly after their 30s is is almost wholly about other women. Of course the few genuinely attractive women still deploy these in their finding a "catch" or as leverage. But in general the whole massive and trillion dollar edifice has little to do with men and everything to do with the complex and shifting quicksands of the competitive psycho dramas in which each women is a "star". I really do think that one of the reasons male get so much "stick" is because they appear so un-encumbered by so much of the complexities women's own feverish narcissism and competition. After all it must be annoying when your partner or colleauge doesn't notice the few pounds lost, new colour lipstick, the "on trend" jeans, cutting remark or "being ignored" and trundles on: untroubled. I is after all a norm in our society to assume males will simply carry on regardless of anything thrown at them. It is in a way a sort of backhanded compliment that women can be "traumatized" by things as trivial as embarrassment while men can be totally and publicly trashed in every way, and be expected to have "learned something" from the experience. As you say we live in a time where the differences between the sexes have become grotesquely polarized .
Women definitely compete with other women. And other women notice.
Women typically rank themselves instinctively when at a social gathering. Men don't. We compete in other ways.
All the nonsense spouted by feminists about the male gaze and men driving female beauty standards is absolute nonsense. Most men think in terms of sexual silhouettes; tits and ass, small waist etc. It is women who demolish other women in detail. Men only notice the basics.
Yes it is remarkable that a set of industries driven by women and gay men is somehow a "plot" by heterosexual men in the "patriarchy". In almost my entire life (ie. from teenager) there has been a concerted effort to get men to be more than incidental consumers of fashion and beauty. In the 70s as now there is limited success with young men up to their late 20s, thereafter they tend to stick to their favourites and are frequently dressed by their female partner on the grounds they aren't keeping up with trends/fashion. Beauty and fashion may seem trivial but the psychology on display in marketing etc. is revealing. For instance the ads. for "high end" after shaves are almost uniformly obscure and camp if not overtly gay; because the main market is women buying for boyfriends/partners/husbands. Yet the "Lynx" brand, like others aimed at young men buying their own, has jokey versions of "wear this smell and girls will want you". These companies have to get their psychology right, otherwise they go out of business. These businesses tell us an awful lot about ourselves. After all all women have to do to avoid this terrible plot.. is stop buying. Simples.
Nigel, while the idea of "pretty power" being something women deploy among women, is relatively more visible in the west than it used to be, it's always been here to some extent. I attended 6 years of all-girls convent school, and if a girl over age 12 showed up for school without makeup she would have been bullied for years. We (unlike the boys at our brother all-boys school) were issued uniforms, supposedly to dampen competition over clothing. This lead to insane competition over socks, in terms of color, style and coolness.
One of the first places I noticed this emphasis on being beautiful for other women in adults was on the TV show "Botched" where plastic surgeons repair bad plastic surgery. The end of the episode is always a reveal party, where the contestant (usually a woman) shows off the results to her nearest & dearest. More often than not, it was all women. It a man was present, it was at least as likely he was the contestant's father as husband.
In Islamic cultures, women displaying beauty for women is much more common, for obvious reasons.
I must also note that a man not noticing every tiny detail can be comforting. If my husband doesn't notice I lost 5 lbs, he probably won't notice (or complain) if I gain 5 lbs.
Thank you Trish. I do tend to be a bit "sweeping" in the general and there are variations. Many women I have known recognize these behaviors and we can joke about them as indeed the common behaviors of men! It is only my perception; but in my working life generally the "professional" female staff (university educated) who are most fragile in that feminist sense of seeing "isms" everywhere. Where the bulk of the, 90% female, workers generally are much more "down to earth". I get the impression from my elders and my youth in the 70s and 80s, that generally both sexes tended to think more about "people", expecting similar from men and women. Whereas we seem t be at a polarized point where women are beyond any form of inquiry or reproach and men are considered incapable of any virtue. Though the former is very dangerous in the hands of the manipulative, selfish or ambitious individuals; the latter bodes ill. For where is the incentive to do "the right thing" if nothing you do is right? In the end alienating more and more "human doings" bodes ill for everyone. Society invests heavily in managing and getting males to self manage their powerful emotions. The ones that carry them through the hellish trench warfare in Ukraine, or up the ladders at a fire, or through a storm in a small rotund trawler or surgery on a child ... and so on. Do we really want to find out how emotional males can be and what they can do?
I fear you credit them with too much machiavellianism. Women are known more for their emotional reactions to things. Although there are exceptions.
I have a different theory. Women + Power = Sadism. Women lack the emotional regulation of men. This is biological in basis. The amygdala that regulates emotions is 80 percent bigger in men.
Much of what we see simply needs reigned in by men. A hard NO. So to some extent men are to blame. Women have a natural desire to shit test men, and all we are seeing is a societal shit test where, deep down, the women expect us to stand firm and say no.
I cringe every time I hear the word 'survivor' in reference to the uncomfortable or regrettable social interactions that pass for sexual assault these days. 'Survivor' should be reserved for experiences that present a reasonable risk of death, at least.
As a birth survivor, someone who lived for 9 months submerged in a urine filled uterus before being squeezed through an opening so small my skull had to be soft to get through it, I don't see why I can't have equal victim status to someone who's been stared at or touched inappropriately. It seems only equitable, after all.
Sexual assault has been elevated to its current place primarily because feminists have largely succeeded in their ambitions for women being in the work place and out of the home. Like all movements they are unable to admit this and must find new mountains to climb.
If we are to believe what they say sexual violence and domestic abuse are a greater threat now than a century ago. This is an era when women have no fault divorce, are in fact getting divorced and can earn their own money.
It is impressive how well they have embedded the domestic and sexual violence stuff into the narrative. Almost all young women seem to believe they are in constant threat of being punched, raped or abused by men. This at the same time complaining men are wimps and won't approach them.
Janice, first class piece of journalism. I was not expecting you to say you were his patient.
People learn these scripts in the media ; they insert the keywords and key phrases. People "come forward" out of a sense of civic duty, and then they have to play their little part because after all they are on TV or the internet. In my view and my experience, people who have suffered actual trauma want no part of this. It's not for public consumption.
<< but in a case like this, with damsel-in-distress melodrama having already been stoked by multiple media reports at every stage of the investigation, the victim statements took on a particularly staged, formulaic quality. >>
I watched a work colleague be destroyed by accusations of touching, raised only after the alleged victim had shown resentment about a legitimate work direction. She had a psychiatric history, and a poor work record. The lawyers involved all seemed resigned to a guilty verdict. No skin off anyone's nose, there. The judge obliged, despite the only evidence being her word, though countered by the contrary evidence of several others. It was at the height of MeToo#. My respect for the law and all its practitioners dived, and will never recover.
Horrible. My own father experienced this though the allegation was not of a sexual nature. My dad was 83 or 84 at the time and had been the president of the board of directors of a British Columbia credit union for many years (and before that the vice president and before that a board member). A secretary accused him of 'bullying' because he had, allegedly, raised his voice in speaking to her. My father went along with the investigation in good faith, thinking he would surely be cleared. He had worked harmoniously with secretaries and everyone else for decades.
What my father did not understand was that his fate was determined the moment the accusation was made simply because it is easier that way on everyone but the accused. The credit union did not want some sort of lawsuit from the woman. An adjudicator was brought in who found that, after interviewing my father and the woman and some others, it was more likely than not that her complaint was justified. No one else had heard the alleged bullying. My father's own lawyer was resigned to the outcome and did not mount a spirited defence. My father was worn down by the whole process--shocked and betrayed--and volunteered to resign rather than be forced out. He was sent off with muted good will after many decades of selfless involvement in the credit union.
This incident did not turn me into an anti-feminist. I was already that. It just filled me with rage and quiet wonder at how so many women managed their ridiculous, heartless, victoryless coup.
I had about one small victory. A young man in his mid 20's had taken a shine to a young woman in his workplace, and was edging towards asking her for a date. They texted, and so he found out she was just 18, and that she was disinclined to date an older man. But he had kept her on a group messaging, and sent her an image of himself at he gym, bare chested. She made a formal complaint. We resolved that, but she said she now felt "uncomfortable" whenever he walked past her work station, and could management do something about that?
I was able to explain to her that life was full of uncomfortable moments, and in many cases, (and this was one of those) it was up to us to deal with it. She accepted that.
It would have been so easy to go with the flow and end the young man's employment.
What I often wonder about is why so many women will throw a man under a bus without a second thought about the consequences for him. Men rarely reciprocate with this type of behaviour.
How fascinating that Janice was a patient of a doctor who ended up being accused of sexual misconduct. It's so good to see her arguing that all alleged "victims" have a right to define their own experiences and not all are going to see themselves as traumatized by some sexual interaction with a stranger, even a doctor. I once wrote about a similar experience where I shrugged off my experience with a doctor, even though others were keen to see him hung at dawn. Naturally my article about the doctor ended up being used in the cancellation campaign against me, with the feminists arguing I denigrated the trauma victims experience by daring to say I wasn't particularly perturbed by what happened to me. Here's the video about all this - https://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/video/bettinas-abuse-by-a-doctor-entitles-her-to-challenge-feminist-myths-about-victims/
Good work, and very thought-provoking. Like many women, I've been through several instances of sexual molestation. but I agree wholeheartedly with the author that unless you're talking about a situation where physical violence and/or extreme verbal cruelty occurs, it's better to just move on and refuse to become traumatized. Example: when I was about 22, I took a walk around my apartment complex for some fresh air. Suddenly a young man dashed up behind me, and grabbed my left breast.. Then off he ran, and I never saw him again. Should I suffer endlessly over this assault? I think not. but today's political climate would have us all be victims and suffer endlessly over any improper advance that a man might make. I don't mean to make light of these things, as they should not happen. But we should not become consumed with guilt and angst over them, either.
I am a bad man. When I was sixteen, I was riding my dirt bike down a country road near where I lived. I spied Sherry, a local girl about three years younger, about fifty yards ahead, walking in the same direction with a transistor radio plastered to one ear. (remember those?) She was dressed in her typical summer fashion: bare midriff, with her shirt tied in a knot in the front, and the customary skin-tight white shorts.
Sherry and I had an on-and-off relationship; I was too dumb to recognize hard-to-get flirting, and we often parted with biting insults of one sort of another.
The current scenario was Just Too Good To Pass By. Realizing that she was concentrating on the radio, I cut the engine on my dirt bike, and as I coasted past, reached out and smacked her on the rump.
I gave her a good one but hadn't taken into account that I was already going fifteen, twenty miles an hour. It popped like a firecracker; she jumped at least a foot, followed by a stream of swear words that would make a coal miner blush.
Interestingly, the next time we met and I of course refused to apologize, our relationship warmed - quite a bit. I'll leave it there. Ah, youth. Yes, fifty years ago, but I'm still a bad man.
No, I was just a typical teenaged boy; I liked girl-butts, I liked smacking them, and I liked the idea of getting one over on Sherry. Two of the three still apply. I found out later that she really didn't mind it all that much, either.
I really feel sorry for boys these days. God help you if you touch someone; it's a hangin' offense - one that will follow you life-long. Wouldn't want to melt any snowflakes now, would we?
Dec 2, 2023·edited Dec 2, 2023Liked by Janice Fiamengo
Female fragility...Other than that displayed while being filmed at domitory orgies, bachelorette parties, and male strip clubs grappling a man's (and boy's if a predator) genitals with glee. Violated, my ass. Apparently, anything regarding sex goes as long a females call all the shots.
I couldn't agree more with Dr. Fiamengo's assessment of "the corrosive victim-power that we have granted to women to destroy men’s lives." It does indeed harm women psychologically. In fact, it calls to mind the Stanford prison experiment of 1971, where participants were randomly assigned the role of guard or prisoner in a simulated prison environment. The "guards," knowing full well that the "prisoners" were study participants just like them, nonetheless began to treat them with such brutality, to degrade them, and to torture them mentally and emotionally to a point where the experiment had to be shut down. Feminism has attempted to transfer this experiment to the real world, ascribing to women--like the randomly selected guards--a moral superiority that authorizes and justifies the vilification and degradation of the "other"--men, in this case--for no reason beyond feminism having proclaimed it so. I don't believe that women are less moral than men, but I do believe that feminism's toxic messaging has the power to corrupt women's moral core and to induce behavior that they would find repugnant if they were outside the noxious "logic" of the twisted environment feminism seeks to erect around them. The participants in the prison experiment suffered long-term psychological damage, and our culture has exhibited similar signs of damage. Like the experiment, it should be shut down as quickly as possible.
"I don't believe that women are less moral than men" I do. Men would be much less likely to make and allegation against woman which would destroy her life.
I think the question is how those women who made allegations would have behaved if their world view hadn't been corrupted by feminism. You can argue that they should have behaved responsibly anyway--and perhaps they should have--but that doesn't excuse feminism from inflicting psychological damage through its agenda of using policy making, the academy, the news media, and other public institutions to promote distorted views and casuistic theories of gender that it knows to be noxious and that it specifically weaponizes to induce attacks on men. Men certainly are far less likely to make allegations--even legitimate allegations (given that they are unlikely to be taken seriously)--against women, but does this mean they are inherently more moral than women? I don't think so. I don't think either men or women naturally make heinous, false allegations against others unless some toxic force such as feminism has motivated them to do so.
In one case in a Country town in the 1980's a General Practitioner with qualifications in obstetrics and gynaecology and surgery had an accusation made against him by one woman and was put on notice and came under investigation.
There seems to me to be a concerted effort to find more men guilty of "inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature." With the belief 'Justice is not done, unless there is a guilty verdict'.
Sadly it appears that these nefarious claims will only become worse.
Take for example the process that some counsellors can use to indoctrinate their clients. When the researcher asked if the woman had taken alcohol or drugs before a sexual encounter she reinterpreted this as sexual assault, even though the respondent did not feel that way.
Even now in the literature, academics will say a criminal offence has occurred, but the woman is unaware.
The gambit of asking about alcohol and drugs goes back to one of the first radical feminist rape surveys by Mary Koss, who counted as raped any woman who said she regretted sexual involvement after drinking alcohol. It's a convenient way of forgetting that many women use alcohol/drugs to lower sexual inhibitions and to give themselves permission to be sexual, often aggressively so.
This is, as usual, thoughtful and incisive. I am fascinated to see how many women want to present themselves as brave survivors of being looked at by someone whose job was to look at them. This is a degree of courage and fortitude comparable to going out on a sunny day and complaining that your eyes hurt.
The only thing missing was some entrepreneurial spirit selling “I survived Dr Nadon doing his job” tee-shirts so the trembling victims of standard medical procedures can assert their heroic survival of having their floppy tits examined and being told how they could monitor their boobs for potential problems.
Feminism is doing a great job of telling women that they are simultaneously heroic victors and sniveling victims. You’ve provided one more reason that women need to learn how to think for themselves/
"#BelieveWomen," with its obvious and necessary but unstated correlate, "#DisbelieveMen," is simply another manifestation of the argument that women are morally superior to men, an argument that represents the very antithesis of what feminism claims to stand for, i.e., the equality of women and men. Is it necessary to point out that studies of the rate and degree of truth-telling find no discernible difference between men and women?
Traditonally homemaking required a lot of hard work. As modern machinery replaced much of that drudgery women who do not work have had the opportunity to become increasingly idle and lazy. With increassingly idleness come decreasing goals and therefore I would posit less self satisfaction for a "job well done". And yes, I remember as a young boy helping my mother bring in the laundry off the clothes line that I helped her hang and we always felt like it was a job well done.
As women more generally lacked the sense of well being from a job well done, it seems they need to find approbation elsewhere.
To add fule to the fire, preach and emotionally live by the mantra of "I don't need no man" and therefore either don't have a man or are distainful of the one they do have.
I'm sure a small casting about would bring to mind other compounding issues.
This seems a rather powerful coctail for self pity and bandwagon blaming to enhance self worth. Therefore claiming to be horrifically damaged by a minor offense builds a woman's esteme among her collegues. She is now one of the in crowd. She too was molested.
An analogy might be how young teen gang members get thier "stripes" (like a army seargent's stripes) by doing a crime. The more henious the crime, the higher the esteme in the gang.
Here in the UK there is a government body, the criminal injuries compensation board. Originally set up to pay compensation to the victims of violent crime, from general taxation of course. Of course the main beneficiaries were men as they are by far the bulk of those suffering injuries as the result of violent crime. The case had to go court for the payment to be paid. Of course it has been overtaken by feminist mission creep, initially by making it that any form of sexual assault qualified, even if there are no injuries at all. And then making sexual assault unique in that the payments are made as soon as the Police note the incident as worth initial investigation, rather than requiring it to be investigated and get to court. Of course once payments are made they aren't reclaimed should the investigation go nowhere. So there is every incentive for women to make such a claim simply for the circa £8000 they will receive, even if nothing results. As I say this is unlike all other offences which require pretty clear evidence that an injury was sustained in an incident taken to a court to be tried. And of course there is no limit on the number of payouts if many women "come forward" claiming an assault.
That's interesting because a similar 'mission' creep has happened in New Zealand. We have a government run (taxpayer funded, of course) agency called the Accident Compensation Corporation. Medical costs, loss of income and other expenses can be paid for from this fund which includes accidents in transport, sports, work and at in the home as well as injuries sustained as a victim of a crime. (It's setting up also removed the right for anyone to sue). Originally many of the claimants were men having accidents at work and those in car accidents. At some stage, it was decided that victims of sexual assault could claim and as you state, I'm pretty such they just have to lodge a claim that it happened. Many women receive thousands of hours of counselling for what I believe amounts to regret over one night stands etc. but can claim they can't work and get 80% of their wages paid.
Interesting. It seems a much wider scheme. But the same very different rules when domestic abuse is invoked. Here it is a "flat rate" payment unrelated to any costs or losses.
Bravo Janice - Another hard hitting dose of the truth! Well done.
You said:
"This is about the corrosive victim-power that we have granted to women to destroy men’s lives, a power that deeply harms women psychologically in its encouragement to vindictive hysteria and narcissistic posturing."
This is so true and so rarely spoken. Thank you for saying it.
It does make me wonder, if we gave men the same power to destroy women, would men use it? My guess is no.
You also said near the beginning of the piece that:
"sexual assault survivors was the fear of not being believed, the feeling that one was alone with an experience no one else understood or even acknowledged"
I found myself thinking that is EXACTLY what males who have been falsely accused experience. Exactly.
The feminists want a situation where the word of a woman regarding an "abuse" incident (even if it's words alone, or even sex that a woman didn't issue verbal objections to, as in the case of Aziz Ansari), while men would not be permitted to present evidence of their innocence (as Jian Ghomeshi did with emails in which his accusers begged for more interactions with him). To feminists, not only men's feelings, but their very lives, are irrevelant.
The claim that "real victims won't be believed" is another favorite feminist lie. While it's usually used when alleging sexual accusation against a man (often years ago), it employed last summer regarding the fake kidnapping of Carlee Russell. Even before she turned up, and the kidnapping story fell apart, there were already people (mostly black women) claiming online that this would make it more difficult to get police to investigate kidnappings of black women in the future. But the police were immediately suspicious that they were dealing with a fake kidnapping - and yet they deployed all the resources one would expect in the instance of a kidnapping, including investigators, searchers, & media alerts. Even if some person had not kidnapped Carlee, there was still a criminal to be found - the kidnap-faker Carlee herself.
Women agitate to gain power using arguments about equality. Women gain power in society.
Women begin to lose their previously special place in society. Women agitate for more equality. They get it. They lose more of their place as men adjust and see them more as equals.
Women eventually lose almost all of their special place in society to such an extent old movies look like fantasy. Women then use other methods to generate attention and a sense of specialness they used to enjoy all the time just for being women.
Women still agitate for even more power while they completely lose their place in society and men walk away...
I hadn't thought of it in quite this way, that being a sexual assault survivor is one of the few remaining sources of special glorification for women, now that being a good wife, mother, and caregiver have all been decertified.
I think it is probably rare given the nature of what you outlined. More common will be the women joining in on the rape culture marches on campuses and elsewhere. I always felt that was a distorted form of humble bragging. I am so attractive some men will break the law to get to me.
Another is - don't you just hate it when you can't go anywhere without being wolf whistled by exceptionally fit masculine men on building sites etc?
All that is a repressed desire to be desired, which most women possess. Even the insanity of passing laws to ban this all as "harassment" I think is a kind of bragging. We are so hot they are passing laws to keep men away from us.
I'm a reasonably fit man and you wouldn't believe the aggressive shouting and cat-calling women perform when I run in the summer with my shirt off.
Oh, I would. I've seen some footage of those male stripper shows. Some of those men need bodyguards. Most of the ladies are nice too. But they all lose the plot when an attractive man is around. They have a cheek trashing men.
I think an important point. As humans we tend to flatter ourselves about our "complexity" . But decades in social care gives me the view that though large aggregates of people can be complex, the individuals are quite simple and often apparently act on quite "trivial" notions. The fight (sometimes literally) to be special in males motivates males to take action, for they are valued for their contributions, and in a sense this hasn't changed. Increasingly for women their specialness has shrunk to being "beautiful" (spawning a massive fashion and beauty industry "you're worth it") appearing to be a "man" in being an employee or being sensitive and fragile, a princess able to feel the tiniest pea. In a way "Barbie" the movie exemplified this. All the Barbies were beautiful (even the token diversity ones) and constantly were told this, had jobs that only required the right outfit and no actual work (the slender construction workers had no dirt to dig nor the Bin women any actual trash in their super clean bins) and lived to show off their many outfits at parties and apparently had no resilience at all when Ken came along with revolutionary new ideas. A fragile plastic world. Rather a good analogy to the value empty consumer world, in which appearances are all and it is remarkably difficult to be special in any way. Regressing to the childlike claims for attention is perhaps no surprise, just transformed from the phantom headaches, tummy bugs, dramas and tantrums of childhood to the much more dangerous (to others) victimhoods.
I think the focus on beauty exclusively is because femininity has been downgraded. Most men are drawn to feminine women, not necessarily very beautiful women. Being feminine makes women attractive.
But the emphasis from the feminists that they can do all a man can do pits them against us. Plus women are encouraged to be more masculine and assertive.
When you succeed in equalizing men and women to some extent all that is left are biological differences, the most visible of which is the externalities. Beauty is then elevated as it is exclusively female. Prettiness might be the better word.
Equality, then, bulldozes natural differences leaving only very visible biological differences.
One of the things I think men may find difficult is that in the "west" at least "beauty" and pretty power is not particularly directed at or for men. Particularly after their 30s is is almost wholly about other women. Of course the few genuinely attractive women still deploy these in their finding a "catch" or as leverage. But in general the whole massive and trillion dollar edifice has little to do with men and everything to do with the complex and shifting quicksands of the competitive psycho dramas in which each women is a "star". I really do think that one of the reasons male get so much "stick" is because they appear so un-encumbered by so much of the complexities women's own feverish narcissism and competition. After all it must be annoying when your partner or colleauge doesn't notice the few pounds lost, new colour lipstick, the "on trend" jeans, cutting remark or "being ignored" and trundles on: untroubled. I is after all a norm in our society to assume males will simply carry on regardless of anything thrown at them. It is in a way a sort of backhanded compliment that women can be "traumatized" by things as trivial as embarrassment while men can be totally and publicly trashed in every way, and be expected to have "learned something" from the experience. As you say we live in a time where the differences between the sexes have become grotesquely polarized .
Women definitely compete with other women. And other women notice.
Women typically rank themselves instinctively when at a social gathering. Men don't. We compete in other ways.
All the nonsense spouted by feminists about the male gaze and men driving female beauty standards is absolute nonsense. Most men think in terms of sexual silhouettes; tits and ass, small waist etc. It is women who demolish other women in detail. Men only notice the basics.
Yes it is remarkable that a set of industries driven by women and gay men is somehow a "plot" by heterosexual men in the "patriarchy". In almost my entire life (ie. from teenager) there has been a concerted effort to get men to be more than incidental consumers of fashion and beauty. In the 70s as now there is limited success with young men up to their late 20s, thereafter they tend to stick to their favourites and are frequently dressed by their female partner on the grounds they aren't keeping up with trends/fashion. Beauty and fashion may seem trivial but the psychology on display in marketing etc. is revealing. For instance the ads. for "high end" after shaves are almost uniformly obscure and camp if not overtly gay; because the main market is women buying for boyfriends/partners/husbands. Yet the "Lynx" brand, like others aimed at young men buying their own, has jokey versions of "wear this smell and girls will want you". These companies have to get their psychology right, otherwise they go out of business. These businesses tell us an awful lot about ourselves. After all all women have to do to avoid this terrible plot.. is stop buying. Simples.
Nigel, while the idea of "pretty power" being something women deploy among women, is relatively more visible in the west than it used to be, it's always been here to some extent. I attended 6 years of all-girls convent school, and if a girl over age 12 showed up for school without makeup she would have been bullied for years. We (unlike the boys at our brother all-boys school) were issued uniforms, supposedly to dampen competition over clothing. This lead to insane competition over socks, in terms of color, style and coolness.
One of the first places I noticed this emphasis on being beautiful for other women in adults was on the TV show "Botched" where plastic surgeons repair bad plastic surgery. The end of the episode is always a reveal party, where the contestant (usually a woman) shows off the results to her nearest & dearest. More often than not, it was all women. It a man was present, it was at least as likely he was the contestant's father as husband.
In Islamic cultures, women displaying beauty for women is much more common, for obvious reasons.
I must also note that a man not noticing every tiny detail can be comforting. If my husband doesn't notice I lost 5 lbs, he probably won't notice (or complain) if I gain 5 lbs.
Thank you Trish. I do tend to be a bit "sweeping" in the general and there are variations. Many women I have known recognize these behaviors and we can joke about them as indeed the common behaviors of men! It is only my perception; but in my working life generally the "professional" female staff (university educated) who are most fragile in that feminist sense of seeing "isms" everywhere. Where the bulk of the, 90% female, workers generally are much more "down to earth". I get the impression from my elders and my youth in the 70s and 80s, that generally both sexes tended to think more about "people", expecting similar from men and women. Whereas we seem t be at a polarized point where women are beyond any form of inquiry or reproach and men are considered incapable of any virtue. Though the former is very dangerous in the hands of the manipulative, selfish or ambitious individuals; the latter bodes ill. For where is the incentive to do "the right thing" if nothing you do is right? In the end alienating more and more "human doings" bodes ill for everyone. Society invests heavily in managing and getting males to self manage their powerful emotions. The ones that carry them through the hellish trench warfare in Ukraine, or up the ladders at a fire, or through a storm in a small rotund trawler or surgery on a child ... and so on. Do we really want to find out how emotional males can be and what they can do?
I fear you credit them with too much machiavellianism. Women are known more for their emotional reactions to things. Although there are exceptions.
I have a different theory. Women + Power = Sadism. Women lack the emotional regulation of men. This is biological in basis. The amygdala that regulates emotions is 80 percent bigger in men.
Much of what we see simply needs reigned in by men. A hard NO. So to some extent men are to blame. Women have a natural desire to shit test men, and all we are seeing is a societal shit test where, deep down, the women expect us to stand firm and say no.
I cringe every time I hear the word 'survivor' in reference to the uncomfortable or regrettable social interactions that pass for sexual assault these days. 'Survivor' should be reserved for experiences that present a reasonable risk of death, at least.
As a birth survivor, someone who lived for 9 months submerged in a urine filled uterus before being squeezed through an opening so small my skull had to be soft to get through it, I don't see why I can't have equal victim status to someone who's been stared at or touched inappropriately. It seems only equitable, after all.
Sexual assault has been elevated to its current place primarily because feminists have largely succeeded in their ambitions for women being in the work place and out of the home. Like all movements they are unable to admit this and must find new mountains to climb.
If we are to believe what they say sexual violence and domestic abuse are a greater threat now than a century ago. This is an era when women have no fault divorce, are in fact getting divorced and can earn their own money.
It is impressive how well they have embedded the domestic and sexual violence stuff into the narrative. Almost all young women seem to believe they are in constant threat of being punched, raped or abused by men. This at the same time complaining men are wimps and won't approach them.
Janice, first class piece of journalism. I was not expecting you to say you were his patient.
People learn these scripts in the media ; they insert the keywords and key phrases. People "come forward" out of a sense of civic duty, and then they have to play their little part because after all they are on TV or the internet. In my view and my experience, people who have suffered actual trauma want no part of this. It's not for public consumption.
<< but in a case like this, with damsel-in-distress melodrama having already been stoked by multiple media reports at every stage of the investigation, the victim statements took on a particularly staged, formulaic quality. >>
Thank you very much!
I watched a work colleague be destroyed by accusations of touching, raised only after the alleged victim had shown resentment about a legitimate work direction. She had a psychiatric history, and a poor work record. The lawyers involved all seemed resigned to a guilty verdict. No skin off anyone's nose, there. The judge obliged, despite the only evidence being her word, though countered by the contrary evidence of several others. It was at the height of MeToo#. My respect for the law and all its practitioners dived, and will never recover.
Horrible. My own father experienced this though the allegation was not of a sexual nature. My dad was 83 or 84 at the time and had been the president of the board of directors of a British Columbia credit union for many years (and before that the vice president and before that a board member). A secretary accused him of 'bullying' because he had, allegedly, raised his voice in speaking to her. My father went along with the investigation in good faith, thinking he would surely be cleared. He had worked harmoniously with secretaries and everyone else for decades.
What my father did not understand was that his fate was determined the moment the accusation was made simply because it is easier that way on everyone but the accused. The credit union did not want some sort of lawsuit from the woman. An adjudicator was brought in who found that, after interviewing my father and the woman and some others, it was more likely than not that her complaint was justified. No one else had heard the alleged bullying. My father's own lawyer was resigned to the outcome and did not mount a spirited defence. My father was worn down by the whole process--shocked and betrayed--and volunteered to resign rather than be forced out. He was sent off with muted good will after many decades of selfless involvement in the credit union.
This incident did not turn me into an anti-feminist. I was already that. It just filled me with rage and quiet wonder at how so many women managed their ridiculous, heartless, victoryless coup.
I had about one small victory. A young man in his mid 20's had taken a shine to a young woman in his workplace, and was edging towards asking her for a date. They texted, and so he found out she was just 18, and that she was disinclined to date an older man. But he had kept her on a group messaging, and sent her an image of himself at he gym, bare chested. She made a formal complaint. We resolved that, but she said she now felt "uncomfortable" whenever he walked past her work station, and could management do something about that?
I was able to explain to her that life was full of uncomfortable moments, and in many cases, (and this was one of those) it was up to us to deal with it. She accepted that.
It would have been so easy to go with the flow and end the young man's employment.
Good for you, and legitimately courageous.
What I often wonder about is why so many women will throw a man under a bus without a second thought about the consequences for him. Men rarely reciprocate with this type of behaviour.
Gynocentric society.
How fascinating that Janice was a patient of a doctor who ended up being accused of sexual misconduct. It's so good to see her arguing that all alleged "victims" have a right to define their own experiences and not all are going to see themselves as traumatized by some sexual interaction with a stranger, even a doctor. I once wrote about a similar experience where I shrugged off my experience with a doctor, even though others were keen to see him hung at dawn. Naturally my article about the doctor ended up being used in the cancellation campaign against me, with the feminists arguing I denigrated the trauma victims experience by daring to say I wasn't particularly perturbed by what happened to me. Here's the video about all this - https://www.bettinaarndt.com.au/video/bettinas-abuse-by-a-doctor-entitles-her-to-challenge-feminist-myths-about-victims/
I watched this at the time, Bettina, but I am now going to watch it again. Thank you!
Believe all women, except those pesky anti-feminists.
Imaginary trauma has to be identified for what it is: Hysteria. You’ve done a marvelous job of pointing that out.
Good work, and very thought-provoking. Like many women, I've been through several instances of sexual molestation. but I agree wholeheartedly with the author that unless you're talking about a situation where physical violence and/or extreme verbal cruelty occurs, it's better to just move on and refuse to become traumatized. Example: when I was about 22, I took a walk around my apartment complex for some fresh air. Suddenly a young man dashed up behind me, and grabbed my left breast.. Then off he ran, and I never saw him again. Should I suffer endlessly over this assault? I think not. but today's political climate would have us all be victims and suffer endlessly over any improper advance that a man might make. I don't mean to make light of these things, as they should not happen. But we should not become consumed with guilt and angst over them, either.
I am a bad man. When I was sixteen, I was riding my dirt bike down a country road near where I lived. I spied Sherry, a local girl about three years younger, about fifty yards ahead, walking in the same direction with a transistor radio plastered to one ear. (remember those?) She was dressed in her typical summer fashion: bare midriff, with her shirt tied in a knot in the front, and the customary skin-tight white shorts.
Sherry and I had an on-and-off relationship; I was too dumb to recognize hard-to-get flirting, and we often parted with biting insults of one sort of another.
The current scenario was Just Too Good To Pass By. Realizing that she was concentrating on the radio, I cut the engine on my dirt bike, and as I coasted past, reached out and smacked her on the rump.
I gave her a good one but hadn't taken into account that I was already going fifteen, twenty miles an hour. It popped like a firecracker; she jumped at least a foot, followed by a stream of swear words that would make a coal miner blush.
Interestingly, the next time we met and I of course refused to apologize, our relationship warmed - quite a bit. I'll leave it there. Ah, youth. Yes, fifty years ago, but I'm still a bad man.
A time long gone. Life is far too complicated now. Too much sensitivity programmed into people's minds.
A playful testing of boundaries, perhaps.
No, I was just a typical teenaged boy; I liked girl-butts, I liked smacking them, and I liked the idea of getting one over on Sherry. Two of the three still apply. I found out later that she really didn't mind it all that much, either.
I really feel sorry for boys these days. God help you if you touch someone; it's a hangin' offense - one that will follow you life-long. Wouldn't want to melt any snowflakes now, would we?
You can't even assume they consider themselves girls these days.
'"I really feel sorry for boys these days"
Such a shame we can't go around smacking people, isn't it?
Outstanding writing.
Female fragility...Other than that displayed while being filmed at domitory orgies, bachelorette parties, and male strip clubs grappling a man's (and boy's if a predator) genitals with glee. Violated, my ass. Apparently, anything regarding sex goes as long a females call all the shots.
I couldn't agree more with Dr. Fiamengo's assessment of "the corrosive victim-power that we have granted to women to destroy men’s lives." It does indeed harm women psychologically. In fact, it calls to mind the Stanford prison experiment of 1971, where participants were randomly assigned the role of guard or prisoner in a simulated prison environment. The "guards," knowing full well that the "prisoners" were study participants just like them, nonetheless began to treat them with such brutality, to degrade them, and to torture them mentally and emotionally to a point where the experiment had to be shut down. Feminism has attempted to transfer this experiment to the real world, ascribing to women--like the randomly selected guards--a moral superiority that authorizes and justifies the vilification and degradation of the "other"--men, in this case--for no reason beyond feminism having proclaimed it so. I don't believe that women are less moral than men, but I do believe that feminism's toxic messaging has the power to corrupt women's moral core and to induce behavior that they would find repugnant if they were outside the noxious "logic" of the twisted environment feminism seeks to erect around them. The participants in the prison experiment suffered long-term psychological damage, and our culture has exhibited similar signs of damage. Like the experiment, it should be shut down as quickly as possible.
Wow, thanks for this.
"I don't believe that women are less moral than men" I do. Men would be much less likely to make and allegation against woman which would destroy her life.
I think the question is how those women who made allegations would have behaved if their world view hadn't been corrupted by feminism. You can argue that they should have behaved responsibly anyway--and perhaps they should have--but that doesn't excuse feminism from inflicting psychological damage through its agenda of using policy making, the academy, the news media, and other public institutions to promote distorted views and casuistic theories of gender that it knows to be noxious and that it specifically weaponizes to induce attacks on men. Men certainly are far less likely to make allegations--even legitimate allegations (given that they are unlikely to be taken seriously)--against women, but does this mean they are inherently more moral than women? I don't think so. I don't think either men or women naturally make heinous, false allegations against others unless some toxic force such as feminism has motivated them to do so.
This story about Doctors is very familiar.
In one case in a Country town in the 1980's a General Practitioner with qualifications in obstetrics and gynaecology and surgery had an accusation made against him by one woman and was put on notice and came under investigation.
There seems to me to be a concerted effort to find more men guilty of "inappropriate behaviour of a sexual nature." With the belief 'Justice is not done, unless there is a guilty verdict'.
Sadly it appears that these nefarious claims will only become worse.
Take for example the process that some counsellors can use to indoctrinate their clients. When the researcher asked if the woman had taken alcohol or drugs before a sexual encounter she reinterpreted this as sexual assault, even though the respondent did not feel that way.
Even now in the literature, academics will say a criminal offence has occurred, but the woman is unaware.
The gambit of asking about alcohol and drugs goes back to one of the first radical feminist rape surveys by Mary Koss, who counted as raped any woman who said she regretted sexual involvement after drinking alcohol. It's a convenient way of forgetting that many women use alcohol/drugs to lower sexual inhibitions and to give themselves permission to be sexual, often aggressively so.
This is, as usual, thoughtful and incisive. I am fascinated to see how many women want to present themselves as brave survivors of being looked at by someone whose job was to look at them. This is a degree of courage and fortitude comparable to going out on a sunny day and complaining that your eyes hurt.
The only thing missing was some entrepreneurial spirit selling “I survived Dr Nadon doing his job” tee-shirts so the trembling victims of standard medical procedures can assert their heroic survival of having their floppy tits examined and being told how they could monitor their boobs for potential problems.
Feminism is doing a great job of telling women that they are simultaneously heroic victors and sniveling victims. You’ve provided one more reason that women need to learn how to think for themselves/
There is no male equivalent to damseling.
Yeah. It would look pretty disgusting in a man, and men know it.
What is it?
"#BelieveWomen," with its obvious and necessary but unstated correlate, "#DisbelieveMen," is simply another manifestation of the argument that women are morally superior to men, an argument that represents the very antithesis of what feminism claims to stand for, i.e., the equality of women and men. Is it necessary to point out that studies of the rate and degree of truth-telling find no discernible difference between men and women?
Traditonally homemaking required a lot of hard work. As modern machinery replaced much of that drudgery women who do not work have had the opportunity to become increasingly idle and lazy. With increassingly idleness come decreasing goals and therefore I would posit less self satisfaction for a "job well done". And yes, I remember as a young boy helping my mother bring in the laundry off the clothes line that I helped her hang and we always felt like it was a job well done.
As women more generally lacked the sense of well being from a job well done, it seems they need to find approbation elsewhere.
To add fule to the fire, preach and emotionally live by the mantra of "I don't need no man" and therefore either don't have a man or are distainful of the one they do have.
I'm sure a small casting about would bring to mind other compounding issues.
This seems a rather powerful coctail for self pity and bandwagon blaming to enhance self worth. Therefore claiming to be horrifically damaged by a minor offense builds a woman's esteme among her collegues. She is now one of the in crowd. She too was molested.
An analogy might be how young teen gang members get thier "stripes" (like a army seargent's stripes) by doing a crime. The more henious the crime, the higher the esteme in the gang.
"Traditonally homemaking required a lot of hard work. " It still does unless you live in a small, minimalist space with no kids.
Here in the UK there is a government body, the criminal injuries compensation board. Originally set up to pay compensation to the victims of violent crime, from general taxation of course. Of course the main beneficiaries were men as they are by far the bulk of those suffering injuries as the result of violent crime. The case had to go court for the payment to be paid. Of course it has been overtaken by feminist mission creep, initially by making it that any form of sexual assault qualified, even if there are no injuries at all. And then making sexual assault unique in that the payments are made as soon as the Police note the incident as worth initial investigation, rather than requiring it to be investigated and get to court. Of course once payments are made they aren't reclaimed should the investigation go nowhere. So there is every incentive for women to make such a claim simply for the circa £8000 they will receive, even if nothing results. As I say this is unlike all other offences which require pretty clear evidence that an injury was sustained in an incident taken to a court to be tried. And of course there is no limit on the number of payouts if many women "come forward" claiming an assault.
That's interesting because a similar 'mission' creep has happened in New Zealand. We have a government run (taxpayer funded, of course) agency called the Accident Compensation Corporation. Medical costs, loss of income and other expenses can be paid for from this fund which includes accidents in transport, sports, work and at in the home as well as injuries sustained as a victim of a crime. (It's setting up also removed the right for anyone to sue). Originally many of the claimants were men having accidents at work and those in car accidents. At some stage, it was decided that victims of sexual assault could claim and as you state, I'm pretty such they just have to lodge a claim that it happened. Many women receive thousands of hours of counselling for what I believe amounts to regret over one night stands etc. but can claim they can't work and get 80% of their wages paid.
Interesting. It seems a much wider scheme. But the same very different rules when domestic abuse is invoked. Here it is a "flat rate" payment unrelated to any costs or losses.