To disprove the premise that women are uniquely in danger from violence and therefore women should move through the world in a state of paranoia and terror, looking over their shoulder constantly for the dangers that lurk everywhere, while men, who are always big and strong, are always safe in the world and can swagger confidently through the world secure in their personal safety.

The argument that men are safe when they go out in the world, and therefore it’s women who should curtail their behavior, is simply wrong. It’s not just morally wrong, or logically wrong (ie, the logical disconnect between punishing the *victims* of crime rather than the perps), it is in fact factually wrong. Women are not in *nearly* as much danger in the public world as men are. Where women are in horrific danger is the private world.

This affects our jurisprudence — our entire legal system is set up to handle the issue of violence between strangers, which is the violence that disproportionately affects men, not the violence of intimates, which disproportionately affects women. But it’s not that violence against women isn’t taken seriously — in fact when pretty white women *might* be the victim of violence it makes the national news, whereas violence against men only gets to be national if the men are famous to begin with. It’s that intimate violence isn’t taken seriously, and that’s the form of violence that is most common against women.

“If men treated men as shittily as they treat women, there’d be laws against it, huge news stories”

Its called war, and it makes the news when it starts, when its over, but rarely about all the men dying.

There’s no laws protecting straight men from rape, or DV, in many patriarchal societies. Yet those same societies enacted laws, and charges in favor of (straight) women. If they ignore straight men they usually ignore lesbian women apparently (as is the case in Scotland).

Scotland defines rape as PIV or sodomy (male on female, male on male), other kinds of what-would-be-defined-as-rape-normally are lesser stuff like battery/assault. Female on male, female on female, both don’t exist according to law (as rape anyway).

If society/patriarchy was so enclined to favor men in the domain of violence, they’d have laws favoring them MORE wouldn’t they?

Where the hell do you live? I’ve heard this bullshit before, and it’s so far from reality it’s not even funny. Hell, it’s kind of the point of this post that women are being targeted for violence. Obviously a lot of guys aren’t getting the message.

In fact, a lot of guys seem to subscribe to the message, “Well, you wanted equality, you got it,” as a way to be spiteful to women. If men treated men as shittily as they treat women, there’d be laws against it, huge news stories, and shock and awe. Violence against women isn’t rare. It certainly isn’t something that people go, “Oh, you can’t hit a woman.” Plenty of men do.

You’re leaving out the unspoken half of that sentence. “You can’t hit a woman unless she’s uppity, rebellious, disrespectful of my manhood, resisting, feminist, or anything else I resent.”

And why are we talking about men, anyway?

Men are considered fair game for being beaten up, defending their honor (and apparently, be willing to do so at all costs, wether they actually care or not). Conscientious objectors of wars were mistreated to absurd extents because they didn’t agree with murdering other people (and possibly getting killed themselves).

We live in a culture that promotes violence coming from men, because if men aren’t violent, or able and willing to defend themselves against someone who is, they lose a huge amount of status. In the same way, we consider men appropriate targets for violence “Hey, he can fight, target him, not her.” and women not appropriate, in both paternalistic and protective ways (both the notion that women can’t fight and that women ought not to HAVE to fight or be targeted for violence). Hence why we make a big deal of violence against women, while violence against men is shrugged off as normal. For our society it IS normal (not equating that with ideal).

If you’re squimish, you may want to skip this. It’s a horrible picture of a Chinese woman being assaulted by fascist totalitarians.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this photo is the whole Library of Congress:

http://thelibertyzone.com/2008/12/02/how-true.aspx?results=1#SurveyResultsChart

and Schala said: Even then it wasn’t enough. I was still targeted: for being short, for being smart, for being skinny, for being feminine (yes, tried my best to hide it but to no avail), for disliking violence, for uncommon thoughts and views about the world, for being alone, for wearing the wrong kind of pants, for having longish hair (chin length maybe).

Mm, yes, I forgot to point this out.

The same forces that want women to conform or else get raped are *very* comfortable with the notion of attacking men for simply not fitting into the cultural script for men. And often, in fact, men are attacked in order to make them prove that they *do* fit the cultural script (ie, he’s short and skinny, but he fights like a mofo so I’ll respect him! …but if he doesn’t fight, he’s fair game.) These people aren’t attacked for being *men*, they’re attacked for being *nonconforming* men, whereas women can be attacked either for being conforming women or nonconforming women (if you’re a conforming, attractive, submissive woman we’ll rape you because you’re sexy and you owe your body to us! if you’re a nonconforming, gender-bending, strong and/or violent woman we’ll rape you to teach you your place! … either way women can’t win.) But they absolutely are attacked in circumstances and ways that women would not be.

I wanted to make the point with my anecdotes that men can be attacked for *nothing* that any rational person would call provocation. My husband was attacked for *not having marijuana to sell.* He was attacked, along with his ex-wife and a blind male friend, for being in a park. (It wasn’t even a deserted park. It was a tourist trap.) He was attacked because a *friend* of his mouthed off at drunken assholes who thought the friend and he had broken their taillight, and then the friend ran and left my husband to get beaten up. The only of these circumstances where a lone woman would have been attacked is the one where a woman *was* attacked, the situation with the three guys who jumped my husband, his ex and the blind guy in the park. My husband is also skinny, has long hair, and wears glasses; he’s not *feminine* by any rational standard, but he doesn’t fit the stereotype of Mr. Macho either.

Men are also more likely to be attacked for racial reasons — that is, they are targeted for being a member of a different racial group than the attacker. Women do suffer racial violence, but intra-racial rape and violence against women are much, much more common than inter-racial rape and violence agaisnt women, again because women are more likely to be attacked by friends and family. This isn’t precisely because they’re men — it’s because they’re a different race — but since it doesn’t happen to women nearly as often, it kind of *is* because they’re men. Or, because they’re “humans who are not women”, which, in fact, is men.

No one targets a man because he’s a man *exactly*, but often, men are targeted in situations where women wouldn’t be, because men are the violence class and therefore fair game.

Well, for over 20 years of my life, I was targeted for various acts of bullying. Being pretty low-profile, this mostly happened in school, where I couldn’t avoid it (much of the time, in the class itself, or on the way to it in the building).

The only common aspect was: perceived as male, if only because its the default (I was VERY androgynous, body-wise) and because of legalities (in school, they all call your name in class, and well, names are gendered, and they see it written, throwing away any misconceptions).

Now, since I’ve transitioned and been perceived as female: no incident, none, nada. Heck I’ve had some people (mostly my brother of two years younger) protect me in case some would happen in the future, but none did.

I’m white worker-class and generally-speaking religion is no issue here (being atheist is common and no biggie). The only factor that changed is people’s perception of me. I’m still the same person.

I restricted my personality back then to limit problems (and at some point even forgot I was doing it, it had been that long). I avoided anything *others* might perceive as feminine, offensive or otherwise meriting bullying, it had been drilled into me, it was my fault that I was bullied and assaulted violently and I made everything I could for it not to be my fault…

Even then it wasn’t enough. I was still targeted: for being short, for being smart, for being skinny, for being feminine (yes, tried my best to hide it but to no avail), for disliking violence, for uncommon thoughts and views about the world, for being alone, for wearing the wrong kind of pants, for having longish hair (chin length maybe). I was considered gay by others, but I was asexual really.

I became a social recluse, and even now, I still sort of am, remembering that any social event can be a cue for people to want to beat me up either metaphorically or physically. I don’t go to parties. I have all of one real life friend. I have 200 co-workers but the phone number of none (95% male but still).

Sorry if I sound ranty. Just saying, I’m not a risk-taking person who goes out all the time, and I wasn’t back then either. And all the bullying, assaulting and such – happened in plain day, inside school buildings, during school hours.