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Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
Fri Nov 1, 2013, 12:13 AM Nov 2013

Here's a rather typical example of how there is a bias that dismisses violence against men.

http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-prison-inmate-pepper-spray-20131031,0,5296924.story

Tapes show inmates forced from cells by guards using pepper spray

-Now without any further information, what gender do you suppose the victims are? If you guess men, you would be correct.

-Now what would the headline read if it were women being pepper sprayed in this way?

It would say something like "Women inmates pepper sprayed".

Now, it is true that "male" being the default is a problem, and it is a problem that affects both women and men. In this case, however, it desensitizes people to institutional violence that is aimed at men by and large and has the net effect of making it seem par for the course and sort of inevitable, whereas it would illicit rage if it were against women.

This cannot be explained away by the relative strength differential between women and men, because in the case of such treatment at the hands of prison or mental institutions, the imbalance of power renders such a gender difference insignificant.

So what is to account for the ho-hum treatment that such stories get relative to how such an incident would be treated in the case of women?

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