• @LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    False dichotomies and flat truisms don’t start conversations tho, they end them. Yes, men have been treating women like sex objects since forever, but men have also NOT been treating women like sex objects - it depends on which men you’re talking about. And that sentiment does NOT equal simply ignoring that marital rape exists. The world doesn’t consist solely of extremes.

    Think if you said getting AIDS was something gay men did. Statistically pretty true - the vast majority of AIDS cases among men are gay man - but do you think that would be a productive way to approach the subject?

    • @webadict@lemmy.world
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      12 months ago

      But it was an issue before. And it’s an issue now. So the phrase isn’t really the issue. It’s an excuse to do nothing because you aren’t the problem, whereas before the excuse to do nothing was that you didn’t know about the problem. And if they say “Some men are rapists” to make you feel better, fuck if it isn’t an excuse to do nothing because you’re not one of them.

      It is the responsibility of all people (and thus all men) to stop sexual assaults, and to blame people that are far more likely to be the victims of those assaults for making rhetoric that is extreme in response is to expect a perfect victim that did, does, and will do nothing wrong.

      If you would like to use the AIDS epidemic as an example, it would be to treat the gay men as wrong when they said they should seize control of the FDA. It’s, technically speaking, not helpful, and there were many working in the public health sector trying their hardest to help those affected by AIDS… But, like, you understand why they said that, right? There were definitely protests before that where nothing happened, where their issues were ignored, and their were people in the government who were to blame.

      • @LovableSidekick@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Yes I understand why people say antagonistic things when they’re angry or passionate about something. What I’m saying is that it does no good to turn potential allies into adversaries by hitting their hot buttons. Unless you want your content to only be read by people who are already on your side. Not that echo chambers are all bad - tbh sometimes we need them. The issue before was that there have always been men who treated women like objects. It’s also always been true that there have been other men who didn’t. The phrasing isn’t THE issue but it is AN issue, and it’s avoidable by not hanging onto the idea that there’s only one conceivable way to say something.