Violence against women, children, gays & other vulnerable people

[Jackpine Radical]

is one of the most intolerable aspects of the insane worldwide culture of Patriarchy.

And I think patriarchy dehumanizes dominant males just as much as it does everyone else. "Real men" don't cry. "Real men"are tightly restricted in the range of behaviors acceptable for them (just imagine what would happen to a boy who chooses to play with dolls). Rage and resentment are the only emotions they are permitted to show. "Real men" are so trapped in the system that they can't even perceive the chains that bind them.

Our species can't survive patriarchy. Either patriarchy comes to an end in the next decade or 2, or we all do.

Patriarchy is all about dominion--male dominion over women, human dominion over Gaia. Dominator ideology has brought us fracking, climate change, and Dick Cheney. Well, Mother Nature has about had it with this lunacy. We either get our shit together and grow up out of our dysfunctional adolescence or She's going to take us off the board and start over with the cockroaches.

The Atlantic article linked below points out the mixed blessing and curse of the Internet and social media as they interact with all this. The ugliness is being exposed; it's up to us to decide how to use that information. For some, it's a negative feedback loop--exposure to the information leads to compassion for the victims, disgust with the violence, and the impulse to end the ugliness. Unfortunately, for too many others, it's a positive feedback loop--exposure results in desensitization and in the impulse to glorify and emulate the violence.

Who will prevail, the humanists or the monsters?

That, my dears, is the question of the age.

The answer will determine not only whether the species will survive, but whether it deserves to survive.

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/10/the-unsafety-net-how-social-media-turned-against-women/381261/4/

[seabeyond]

1. people say i am a man hater. i have recognized the harm to our men. and i have addressed

it with my boys repeatedly. all thru their years growing up. now the are 17 and 19, and in the grips of the man card. it is challenging for them, to honor their male, while recognizing the damage our society, yes in the name of patriarchy, does as they walk into their manhood.

i think in this area, it is so much more challenging for our men. my oldest and i were having a conversation just last week about this. i tell him, that though young women have these challenging issues on what it is to be women, just as men do, it is different.

the women, are challenged in their woman hood, not from their sisters (though some will argue, i disagree) but, through mens eyes. the men on the other hand are challenged in their masculinity by peers, men. i think that alone makes it more challenging for our guys. and in awareness, maybe not so painful for them, too.

[daredtowork]

17. Found your post in the Feminism section

Thank you for also finding and posting this great overview of the issues.

My hope is that the future of manhood will be about laying tribute to those who respect women as autonomous human beings, who exhibit responsibility for their families and for the community around them, who have a social consciousness, who are men of action for the good of their families, the community, and society in general.

I'm not against manhood at all. I want us, as a society, to start celebrating a better vision of manhood.

[brer cat]

2. Thanks for bringing this to GD, Jackpine Radical.

Sea's post will have fewer eyes. You did a great job with this post!

K&R

[daredtowork]

14. Sea also posted this?

*goes to find to K&R*

[Jackpine Radical]

16. I posted it first on a thread she started.

[daredtowork]

19. I thank you both

for promoting this article as widely as possible!

[Luminous Animal]

3. Kick for a very important read.

[LostInAnomie]

6. Wow!

[arcane1]

9. Dammit, don't you ever get tired of posting this dumb-ass crap?

[LostInAnomie]

10. Please go on.

I'm definitely learning new... stuff... from each one of your posts.

Bump for visibility.

[hifiguy]

18. MIRT tombstones the trolls so rapidly nowdays

that we don't even get a chance to play with them any more.

[Chimeradog]

8. excellent thread thank u

For some reason, in the past 13 years, I have seen a culture of hate and intolerance increasing at an alarming rate.

It is a disgrace what is happening to our environment, fracking and corporatism etc.

As a female I don't blame it all on a patriarchy, BUT the rage and vitriol, for some odd reason always seems to come from the "religious" right. PNAC neo-con pigs.

Cheney for example. What a disgusting human being. People like that will surely have karma coming to them someday. I could never live with myself knowing I sent millions to death and u$ele$$ wars all for lining my wallet.

I have a conscience though, sociopaths don't.

[hifiguy]

11. It has at least as much to do with rabid capitalism

and unrestrained, monomaniacal greed as with anything else. Probably more, in fact.

[nomorenomore08]

15. I see the two as largely inseperable. It's all about dominance. n/t

[hifiguy]

21. Change the economics and you change everything else,

including a lot of power relations. Humans are not perfectable and will always be human - we ARE just highly evolved apes when you cut to the crux of the biscuit - but a democratic socialist society would be a far more humane and egalitarian place for everyone.

Capitalism is “the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds.” - attributed to John Maynard Keynes

[nomorenomore08]

22. "but a democratic socialist society would be a far more humane and egalitarian place for everyone."

I agree with this completely. And I love me some John Maynard Keynes.

[Chimeradog]

25. I agree- and Richard Wolff is correct

on why "capitalism" is a broken concept. Especially in todays corporatist/lobbyist greed culture.

I have 2 post graduate degrees, am underemployed , bcs I REFUSE to work in Dante's 9th circle of hell, aka Wall St.

btdt.

I hope I live long enough to see Jaime Dimon (and or Cheney pass away) will be throwing a red dress party with premium wine and beer to celebrate the death of KKK Kapitalism and Wall St thugs.

[LostInAnomie]

12. That's a pretty naive statement about emotional displays by men.

Stoicism is not a burden or entrapping. It is about mastering you emotions and not letting them control you or your actions. This is respectable, and frankly, the world would be a lot better off if everyone was more stoic.

Men are allowed to express far more emotions than rage and resentment. You've never seen a man be happy? What about pleased? Enjoyment? Depressed? Bored? Sad? Scared? If you haven't you haven't been paying much attention, because men feel those emotions and express them everyday. They may express them differently than women, but they are expressed. Men aren't some kind of paint by numbers caricature of sitcom dads and John Wayne characters.

[daredtowork]

13. This is a terrific article

Thank you for posting it.

The effort to speak truth against the vast Lulz Armies continues.

[AverageJoe90]

20. We're not doomed. Progress WILL prevail eventually.

If there's one thing I like to keep in mind, it's the "arc of justice" adage, so beautifully expressed by MLK, Jr.

[truedelphi]

23. a great sentiment, but today,with some one of my FB friends sending

Last edited Sat Oct 11, 2014, 08:30 PM - Edit history (1)

Me a photo of a child, age nine, enswaddled in some weird bright yellow punishment outift, and then roped to a backboard, as though they had broken their neck, so appalling there are no words. So I don't feel encouraged.

Apparently in the Southeast, any lil minority kid that acts out can be embalmed inside this plastic mask roped over their face and head, and this weird strait jacket of an outift holding them down. No eye holes, and no mouth holes either. Imagine being a lil kid and this is how "The authorities" in your area can punish you.

[AverageJoe90]

24. I realize things may seem bleak to some.

And I don't have rose-colored glasses on either. But things do get better eventually.....we just need to keep fighting, that's all.

(P.S., btw, that photo was indeed horrifying. Sorry you were subjected to that. Have you considered defriending them?)

[KoKo]

26. We Live in the CRAZY TIMES! To keep ones Grounding & Sanity

to get through this will be a Herculean Effort.

Keep our wits about us...go back into our core of beliefs and not allow ourselves to "go off the rails" when all around us swirls with "mans inhumanity to man"...."women's inhumanity to other women."

The Death & Destruction around us and paid for with our taxpayer money rocks many of us to our moral foundations. It causes confusion and hardship and some strike out and others strike themselves from within.

WHOSE FAULT? Where lies the BLAME? Is it WITHIN US ....or WITHOUT?

Taste of that in the 50's through the 60's....those who have been through the First Battle.

We SHALL SURVIVE. But, maybe a different solution than went before will be what sets us back to our "Grounding" to make sense of all of it?

Just me trying to figure it all out and cope.. 's Been there...got through it...things got better for awhile...and now the EVIL IS BACK....but, up to those of us still here to deal with it once again. Eventually we will make reforms/progress. Somebody's got to do it while the memories are still alive. Otherwise...WHO WILL? Who will have the knowledge?

Just me...being reflective.....