Meet the Predators (men need to learn how to recognize and fight rape culture)

[TeamsterDem]

86. You're seeing something that isn't there, I'm afraid

The comparison you offer differs in this respect: When you told your boyfriend that you were harassed, I'm assuming you didn't tell him "men need lessons" with respect to how to behave. But in this case the OP says "men need lessons" as though we don't understand rape, that we're too dim to know it's bad, something like that. Insofar as it stereotypes me as someone who doesn't understand it sufficiently to know that I shouldn't support a cohort who does it, it's offensive. It became "about me" to the extent that I'm a man and the OP says that "men need lessons."

What you're saying is that if women are discussing something that they deserve free reign to discuss it in whatever way they want, using whatever terminology and stereotypes they wish, and that - simply by dint of it being (more of) a woman's issue - that I have no right to say anything. That's a load of malarkey, though, and I suspect you know it.

I'm not quite like your ex inasmuch as I most certainly can believe that not all men are perfect gentlemen. Heck, the incarceration numbers for rape obviously tell a different story. I also know that the stories here on DU about mistreatment and rape are real. All I said is that it's not all men, and when someone uses a term which denotes ALL, one needs only prove that it's not all to prove the exaggeration. So my telling of my own account simply shows that at least one guy doesn't need "lessons" on rape, and if there's just that one guy, there's probably more like him. By probably I of course mean many, and that invalidates the "men need lessons" statement.

Sometimes in life an offense can be real or perceived. Sometimes it's both. In this case I'd like to believe that I read too much into the post and the language used, but given that I've read and reread the article and the op's "men need lessons" statement - and given that the OP hasn't clarified that it wasn't ALL men who need lessons - I'm much more inclined to believe that the offense was real, that in the OP's mind men aren't smart enough to get it and thus need lessons on it. It's sad but unfortunately true: sometimes even progressives have their biases and some are even bigoted in certain ways. That's too bad, really.