Collective male guilt and DU

[unreadierLizard]

So, in my 2+ years on DU(mostly as a lurker, only a few months as a registered user), I've happened to notice a pattern:

It seems acceptable for certain elements of the board to call out all male users - no, in fact the entire male population of the world - if bad events happen. I didn't understand it at first, but now I think I can see what's going on. I call it "collective male guilt". It goes something like this:

"You are a man. Therefore, you must:"

-Be a rapist
-Know a rapist
-Be aggressive
-Be sexually exploitative all the time
-Be a member of the Patriarchy
-be privileged to be a man and enjoy said privilege
-oppose women on principle
-be a "nice guy" only to score with women

And any time a man says or does something, no matter how man of us think it stupid("legitimate rape&quot or sickening(murder, rape, etc), we are men, and the perpetrator is a man, so we must share in the guilt of that man based on our gender association.

I dunno, but trying to guilt the entire next generation of boys and men into feeling "bad" because our grandfathers/great-grandfathers may have been sexist due to society's attitudes at the times is kind of a bad idea.

[Warren DeMontague]

1. You're doing it wrong.

No matter what it is, and how you do it. If you admit you're doing it wrong, you'll do THAT wrong. And for god's sake, don't try to mansplain explain what you're doing, why you're doing it, or how you're doing it, because THAT will be the peak- the Mt. Everest- of doing it wrong.

[Upton]

2. Yeah well..I'm not accepting any guilt..

some guy wants to go out and commit rape or whatever, I'll condemn it like any other violent crime, but it sure as heck isn't my fault. I guess I must be out of touch, because it appears in some quarters around here, you're supposed to feel guilty and ashamed for being born a white male....

You know, a lot people wonder why so many white males have deserted the Democratic party. Despite what you might read, they are not all ignorant rednecks. Perhaps being told over and over again by a certain percentage of the party, that they're collectively at fault for all the world's ills might have something to do with it..

[Major Nikon]

3. I've never felt that the majority of DUers feel that way

There's just a small minority of extremely vocal DUers who apparently have a desperate need to convince people of a patriarchal conspiracy theory.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. In my experience they buy into the idea without really examining it.

They recommend threads that say things like "men are responsible for ending the culture of rape".

Setting aside the premise that a culture of rape exists, I think I'm responsible for ending it in the same way I'm responsible for ending the culture of bank robbery, by supporting elected officials who make it illegal and prosecutors who punish those who violate those laws.

[Major Nikon]

8. From what I can gather from their incoherent postings, your responsibility doesn't end there

Evidently if you don't believe in the "patriarchy" as they define it, then you are part of the problem. So it seems the blame extends not just to the vast majority of men, but most women as well, or in other words anyone who doesn't buy into the patriarchy conspiracy theory. If you aren't part of the solution, then you must be part of the problem by default. You see the same type of mentality in all sorts of conspiracy theories. The New World Order is another example.

[LARED]

5. It's not just DU.

About 15 years ago I transferred colleges midway through a night program. Because of slightly different curriculum I had to take another freshmen English lit course even though I was almost ready to graduate. I was by far the oldest male in the class.

It was not long before I realized every piece of literature we deconstructed was a piece about white male oppression, white male racism, male sexual deviancy, rape, just in general male are evil. It was amazing that even the most innocuous poem or story was REALLY about white evil oppressive men. Sometime evil black men as well. Bottom line is according to the professor (a women) and most of the class (women) just about anything written by western culture in the last 400 years was expressing in some way that men were just louts of the worst sort or far worse.

I once suggested that a poem actually was about what the poet wrote and not about a sexual assault and was roundly vilified.

[Major Nikon]

7. Here's the really fun part

The great thing about believing in the patriarchal conspiracy theory is you can continue to blame men until the dream of a new world social order where all people are the same except for their plumbing is fully realized. In other words, forever.

[4th law of robotics]

12. It also means that even in situations where women are clearly in charge

or a woman is in charge (say a female owned company) the entire blame for any misdoings still fall entirely on men because the patriarchy is forcing those empowered women to act in a certain way.

Everything men do wrong is the fault of men. Everything women do wrong is the fault of . . . men for programming those women to misbehave.

I hate to godwin threads but it really is no different than the ways the nazis viewed the jews. When the jews did something wrong: burn all the jews! When someone else did something wrong: the jew put him up to it, burn all the jews!

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. Kudos to you for running the education gauntlet and getting out the other end.

Last edited Tue Sep 4, 2012, 04:35 PM - Edit history (1)

Most men don't succeed, but that's kind of the point of US education.

[4th law of robotics]

13. "Most men don't succeed, but that's kind of the point of US education."

Duh, that's one of our many privileges.

A lot of men also get an entirely free ride by the state. They don't have to work at all! Sure it's a bit confining and often involuntary but come on, free room and board for decades? Who wouldn't want that. Very few women get that privilege.

And men get to sleep for free in much greater numbers under publicly financed bridges. By comparison very few women get to enjoy that privilege. We are literally giving men free bridges to sleep under.

Men have had it so great for so long maybe it's time were share some of those privileges with women.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

9. Things that...

...tick me the hell off:

members of a race that make the rest of the race look bad,
members of a religion that make the rest of the religion look bad,
members of a political party that make the rest of the political party look bad,

...but most of all, what REALLY ticks me off is those folks who just can't let go. They can't see that not all Muslims are responsible for 9/11; They can't see that not all fundamental Christians are responsible for gay bashing. They can't see that not all men are responsible for rape.

This is not just unique to women or feminist advocates, it's widespread. There's always someone looking to enlarge the circle of responsibility from the perp to his family, ethnicity, religion, friends, fellow Mini Cooper drivers or whatever.

My conclusion is that many people are so devoid of logic that their only use to the world is to provide a bad example.



Everyone should should be forced to take pills that make stupid, painful.
Sorry all.

[4th law of robotics]

11. You forgot pedophile and spousal abuser on your list

Two things come to mind from your article.

1) after high profile false-rape case (duke comes to mind) there are never articles to the effect of "ladies, here's what you can do to end false and malicious rape charges". Indeed, such a thread would immediately be shut down as an attack on women.

2) Any other group targeted like this would be deemed bigotry. Muslims here's what you can do to end terrorism. Blacks/hispanics, here's what you can do end gang activity. And so on.

If it's bigotry then it's bigotry. There shouldn't be an exception for men.

[DPC.Comment]

14. a thread of truth to what you say...

I'm a gay man and even I can see that there is a threat of truth to what you say, Lizard. I guess it is the new version of "original sin." PS: Once I tell the offended (by me being a man) womyn that I'm gay, that tend to say "oh...ok" as if to expiate me of my sins. haha...

[unreadierLizard]

15. I just get tired of it

I don't do anything. I'm a normal college-age guy trying to get an education. I don't have time to think about sex 24/7, follow girls around, etc, etc.

But I'm apparently some bad person because I can pee while standing up.

Every time someone points out how "it's always men who rape etc etc etc", I want to say back:

"And who are the ones catching them, putting them in prison, and stopping them from committing any more crimes? Other men, as well."