Rape Culture: 3 Reasons Most Men Are to Blame For Misogyny

[seabeyond]

68. kick ass excellent article. "Few men actively fight against the system of rape."

Men have, throughout known history, constructed systems of slavery, organized wars, designed life-threatening technology. Men have also struggled to end slavery, to stop imperialism, to dismantle nuclear weapons. Large numbers of men carry on the fight against racism. They fight against global warming. They fight for the rights of oppressed peoples even when they are not among the oppressed. They commit vandalism for animal rights, and civil disobedience to save the redwoods. They fight for the homeless. They expose corporate greed. They organize against the misuse of genetic engineering. They put themselves on the line to shut down the WTO.

But then there's rape. Few men actively fight against the system of rape. As much as men love women, care about women, interact with women, depend on women, rape is the one institution of oppression that has escaped any sizable opposition on the part of men. Instead, some men offer enthusiastic ears to the promotion of pro-rape books. Many defend the "free speech" of pornographers and woman-bashers. Many sabotage the efforts of women in their lives to succeed and gain positions of power. Many men pressure their wives and girlfriends not to demand gender equality. Some men argue in one breath, "Not all men rape -- what are you, a man-hater?" and in the next, "Rape is natural to all men."

Of course, nature makes many things possible. But rape -- like war, like slavery -- is a man-made system of terror and oppression. Men have carefully constructed it, and they are able to dismantle it. The question that won't be heard on the media circuit anytime soon is: When will men stop perpetuating and defending their rape-system? When will they start organizing in significant numbers -- and significant numbers are all we need -- to bring their rape-system to an end?