BainsBane pointed out how many women said "Sorry" when rejecting the dude in that video (HOF THREAD)

[redqueen]

I was reminded of this quote and thought I'd share it here again.

“If I’d had children and had a girl, the first words I would have taught her would have been ‘fuck off’ because we weren’t brought up ever to say that to anyone, were we?" - Helen Mirren

[seaglass]

1. You and Bains are right. It is so ingrained in me that I don't even hear it. n/t

[redqueen]

4. Exactly, it is very deeply ingrained.

Here's the rest of the quote.

"And it’s quite valuable to have the courage and the confidence to say, ‘No, fuck off, leave me alone, thank you very much. You see, I couldn’t help saying ‘Thank you very much’, I just couldn’t help myself.”

And a link to a summary of interview if you're interested.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2371979/Helen-Mirren-words-shed-taught-daughter-f--off.html

[ismnotwasm]

2. I didn't see the video

But that's isn't surprising is it?

[redqueen]

3. Not even a tiny bit. nt

[KitSileya]

5. It's the soft no.

It's the way we've been raised to never reject outright. I read a great blog post on that once, about how society continually teaches us to never say a clear no - and then demand that we say a clear no in one, very specific situation - as we're about to be raped. I wish I could find that blog post again...

[redqueen]

6. I'd love to read it.

If by chance you remember where you saw it, please post it.

[bettyellen]

7. there's quite a bit about that in Captain Awkward's advice column/ blog

their motto is "Use your words!"

[KitSileya]

8. It is found, with a lot of help from a Shaker.

I ended up asking for help on Shakesville to find it, and it has been found. Considering I linked to another post on that blog just a few days ago, I should have gotten it, but sometimes the brain just works that way.

Mythcommunication: It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer

http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/mythcommunication-its-not-that-they-dont-understand-they-just-dont-like-the-answer/

I just read a paper from the discipline of conversation analysis. It dovetails nicely with what I wrote in Talking Past Each Other, and I’m going to go through some of the findings (I can’t redistribute the paper itself), and talk about some conclusions. Long story short: in conversation, “no” is disfavored, and people try to say no in ways that soften the rejection, often avoiding the word at all. People issue rejections in softened language, and people hear rejections in softened language, and the notion that anything but a clear “no” can’t be understood is just nonsense. First, the notion that rape results from miscommunication is just wrong. Rape results from a refusal to heed, rather than an inability to understand, a rejection. Second, while the authors of the paper say that this makes all rape prevention advice about communicating a clear “no” pointless, I have a different take. Clear communication of “no” isn’t primarily going to avoid miscommunication — rather, it’s a meta-message. Clear communication against the undercurrent that “no” is rude and should be softened is a sign of the willingness to fight, to yell, to report.

........

If you read this blog, I’m going to tell you something you already know: rapes don’t happen by accident. We know that the vast majority of rapes are committed by the same relatively narrow sliver of the population, that they have multiple victims, that they avoid overt force, which is more likely to get them prosecuted, that they choose victims who can be bullied and isolated and that alcohol is their tool of choice.

One might read this and conclude that it doesn’t matter how women communicate boundaries, because rapists don’t misunderstand, they choose to ignore. That is pretty much Kitzinger’s takeaway, and I think from the perspective of moving the focus from what women do to what the rapists do that’s a useful thing to say. However, I think there’s more to it.

I’m no communications theorist, but communications are layered things. As we’ve seen, the literal meaning of a message is only one aspect of the message, and the way it’s delivered can signal something entirely different. Rapists are not missing the literal meaning, I think it’s clear. What they’re doing is ignoring the literal message (refusal) and paying very close attention to the meta-message. I tell my niece, “if a guy offers to buy you a drink and you say no, and he pesters you until you say okay, what he wants for his money is to find out if you can be talked out of no.” The rapist doesn’t listen to refusals, he probes for signs of resistance in the meta-message, the difference between a target who doesn’t want to but can be pushed, and a target who doesn’t want to and will stand by that even if she has to be blunt. It follows that the purpose of setting clear boundaries is not to be understood — that’s not a problem — but to be understood to be too hard a target.

(My bolding)

[ismnotwasm]

10. "The answer is to change the culture"

Exactly

I remember those kinds of days-- a bit different for me. I hung out with hard partiers, tough women and men in their own way. What we would do was avoidance--- give out the wrong number, ditch them, find someone else. They want to by drinks fine, they want to do their drugs fine. It didn't get them laid. Sometimes maybe

Often we'd just stick with a group of friends male and female, same crowd, same party.

If we wanted to get casually laid we'd do that to, but that didn't give anyone license over our bodies.

A repeat performance wasn't guaranteed.

That's just one of the many reasons that the claim that women have drunk sex, then get ashamed, or upset and cry rape is so irritating. We were exchanging notes by the next morning and laughing our asses off.

No, I wasn't a nice person in my youth.

I was almost seriously raped twice, long, ugly stories, and there are people here and now who would say because I partied, was a bit of a hedonist that I "deserved it". The reason I wasn't raped, (broken nose and bruises only) is I just have a bit of fight in me before flight and had some damn good luck. And neither time was I "partying"

On some very good advice By the time I was in my late twenties, I spent a year saying "no". With an honest valid reason if I cared to give one. I stuck with it. I stuck with honesty. I stuck with it strong.

It was freedom.

I began to be able to differentiate between men, and men's behavior, understand women and women's behavior; (I never did respect predators or so called 'bad boys'; the ones I knew were in and out of jail or prison-- Fuck That) which is probably how I ended up with my husband, a kind, decent honest man who genuinely respects women. I gained sympathy for women stuck in vicious cycles of poor choices in partners. ( I used to think, why doesn't she just dump him-- yes, I was one of THOSE--Ick)

Funny thing about him, my husband he'd get girlfriends just by being a "nice guy" because he was and is a genuinely "nice guy"

[BainsBane]

11. The ones who claim to strike out because they are "nice guys"

Of course aren't really nice. They are simply unsuccessful bad guys, trying to play the bad guy game but sucking at it.

[cinnabonbon]

9. The soft no is used against women.

I remember how guys said that if women weren't "clear" about their 'no's, then how could they know they were rejected? It was really frustrating, because you KNOW they understand it's a socially acceptable refusal, they just refuse to accept it. They're exploiting the fact that society has taught us to coddle their egos instead of protecting our boundaries.

We should totally have a HOF post about it. I'm going to see if I can find the article you're talking about, too, because I think I remember it.