Rape culture, airplanes, and unaccompanied minors [View all]

[gollygee]

I am concerned that, when considering why women might be uncomfortable with lone children sitting next to men, people immediately think "sexism" instead of "rape culture." One of the posters in the thread said something about this being part of rape culture, and no one seems to be getting that. Or maybe people are just dismissing it.

(I think the situation was handled very poorly by the airline. I question how much safer kids are with this rule, and I think if they do feel they need to make this rule, they need to handle it in a way where they aren't publicly calling out men.)

BUT the underlying issue is that women are taught to distrust men because we are potential rape victims. Women are taught this because a lot of women get raped, and we all know people who were raped. Men are also raped, but men are usually raped by other men, so we still end up being taught that men are potential rapists. We are further taught that if we don't demonstratively distrust men and don't treat them as potential rapists, and we DO get raped, we will be blamed for the rape. Given that, you can't be too surprised if women distrust men they don't know. Obviously, not all men are rapists, however we can't tell by looking at them who are and who aren't. If we assume we can trust a man and then get raped, we'll be told it isn't really rape, is just "gray rape" and not that big of a deal or we are partly to blame, we were asking for it, we were teasing, we consented at some earlier point, or something along those lines.

It can't be too surprising, given what we've been taught, that women would also distrust men they don't know around children.

I agree that it's a sad statement about society when women distrust men to this level, but I don't agree it's a case of women being sexist. Instead I see it as a case of women being raised in a rape culture.

I know not everyone will agree that a rape culture exists, but please read this before arguing that: http://www.shakesville.com/2009/10/rape-culture-101.html