Re: the 'stop portraying women as victims/making women feel bad' method of silencing feminists

[redqueen]

When we point out that there is a rape every three minutes, that a woman is beaten every eighteen seconds in this country, that’s very bad for women because it makes them feel victimized. And we’re not supposed to be bad and make women feel bad. This is the ultimate mind fuck. It takes away all the ground that we can stand on to say: “We have a political problem. We are going to find a political solution. And we are going to have to change the society that we live in to find it.”

If you take a bunch of people and suddenly you find out that one is being beaten every eighteen seconds, that one is being raped every three minutes, that ten billion dollars a year now is being spent on watching them being raped for fun, watching them being exploited and objectified and violated for fun, and you don’t feel a little bit put upon, I mean a little bit frazzled around the edges by that, it seems to me that one would be not only a victim but half dead, totally numb, and a true fool.

Andrea Dworkin - Woman-Hating, Right and Left.

[ismnotwasm]

1. That is one of the most elitist arguments that has ever been made

"Stop being a victim" just stop it!---It's akin to victim blaming.

Jesus I even have patients who think I'm fair game. Many nurses cover their last names to reduce stalking risk. In fact our new name tags make this easier to do.

[redqueen]

2. I agree. It's victim-shaming.

Someone is victimized by another person, so... the thing to do is of course focus on ensuring that the person who was victimized shuts up about it ASAP, and also make the very idea of having been victimized a shameful thing.

There. Now all the onus is on the wronged party, and the victimizer is all but completely erased. Forgotten. An afterthought.

Neat trick, huh?

[ismnotwasm]

4. Yup

I think it's stupid, yet so many fall for it. You see it in "self help" books. One woman I know was always reading those things-- empowerment, take control etc. Turns out her husband is an abusive shit and now she's trying to get a divorce. She tried so hard not to be a victim while she was being abused.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. "ten billion dollars a year now is being spent on watching them being raped for fun..."

Pardon my ignorance on that line.


Please explain.

[ismnotwasm]

5. Porn

Google rape porn--although I don't think Dworkn knew how literal her words would become. She was a passionate anti-pornography activist.

[NuclearDem]

6. Rape porn, likely.

[redqueen]

7. Many of the women in porn are being raped.

Documentaries have exposed this practice.

Exited porn actresses have exposed it.

It is tragic that this horrifying fact is so easily ignored by so many.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

8. Sorry that I didn't understand the reference.

I wonder how many conservatives have their hand in that since they like to write porn novellas and the like?

I'm sure that their establishment won't ever admit it, but since the conservatives love warporn they can't be that far out of the loop.