tweet by Zara Larsson @zaralarsson:
Isn’t it strange how every woman knows someone who’s been sexually harassed but no man seem to know any harasser?
I’m gonna save myself some time and just dump these all here in advance and just point you predictable creatures here before I ban you:
https://kbin.social/m/leftymemes@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/227438/If-you-take-it-personally-you-re-probably-part-of-the
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321856/What-saying-not-all-men-actually-does-and-doesn-t-do
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321861/If-your-actions-don-t-match-your-words-your-words-are
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321823
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321839/It-s-almost-like-a-reflex-like-a-gag-reflex
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321849/tsu
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321984/Not-everything-is-always-about-you
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321983
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321980/Not-all-men-literally-adds-nothing-to-the-conversation
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321978/Maybe
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321977
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/321975/So-you-ll-admit-there-is-a-problem-but-you-won-tThe point of the tweet is you absolutely ALL fucking know rapists and harrassers.
Abusers are manipuators, and you are not immune.
But even that excuses too many of you who absolutely witness sexual harassment and other aspects of rape culture regularly and say fuck all.You know, when MeToo came out, I thought I’d been lucky because I’d never been harassed.
And then I thought about it, and I remembered:
Walking through the mall and a guy making the “big jugs” gesture at the male friend I was walking with, congratulating my friend on his date (it wasn’t a date).
The older guy who tried to pick up noticably-underage me at the town fair, then followed me around, and how I literally had to run into the woods to get away from him.
The kid I went to school with who tried to finger me in the football stands.
The senior manager at a large programming firm who thought it was appropriate (very visibly in his company office) to hang a shadow box with a bunch of little medallions in it. Except when you looked closely at the medallions, you found out that they were actually hooker tags from quite a number of brothels.
The greying mechanic my mom had come over to work on her car while she was at work, who wanted 15-year-old me to kiss him.
The multiple coworkers who deliberately kept making crude sexual jokes, and if you ignore them or join in, they take it as permission to keep going, and if you’re uncomfortable or say something they take it as a challenge and escalate, and if you report it you end up getting fired for something else in the next month or so.
Slapping hands away, so many times.
And even in the context of MeToo, I thought I hadn’t been harrassed, when in reality I’d just normalized the harassment and ignored it. Because it wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t ‘abuse’, it wasn’t constant.
But while it may not have been constant, it was persistent. There wasn’t a single place that I was ever safe. The carefree town fair, the local shops, school, work, my own home when the mechanic came in to use the bathroom. There’s literally no place in my life where intrusive men haven’t tried to insert themselves, without invitation, without even asking.
And I look at this meme and it’s “every woman knows someone who’s been harassed”, and I think over my own experience, and that of all my female relatives, and friends, and schoolmates, and coworkers, and I think that meme is wrong.
I think pretty much every woman has been harassed. It’s just that, like me, they learned to ignore and then forget these things, because they weren’t as bad as the really bad things that have happened to some of the women we know. But - and not discounting the really bad experiences some people I know have had - these experiences were all bad enough.
MeToo.
Well said, I think OP of the tweet probably wanted to avoid replies from women claiming they hadn’t had these experiences (most likely because like you, like me, like so many of us, they internalised it), but I’m with you - I don’t know a single woman who has managed to escape harassment (at the very least). From before we even hit puberty, for our entire lives, it’s like this background noise, and half the population pretending they don’t even hear it feels like a slap in the face.
Fuck, I’m cis-het guy and I hadn’t really thought about it until #MeToo, but MeToo.
Hanging out with my girlfriend, her friends & my wife and one of the guy friends grabbed my junk and said that “you have a nice package”. I moved away from him, but otherwise, the night just continued as it had been and I went on with my life.
There have been a few other instances, sometimes with men, sometimes with women, but, fuck if that isn’t a shitty realization to have come to.
Once, to show her daily experience, my gf at the time (now wife) had me walk far enough in front of her that we didn’t appear together, but not so far I wouldn’t be able to hear. The amount of catcalls when walking down a city street while dressed non-provactively was fucking ridiculous (it would still be ridiculous if she were ‘dressed to impress’ to be fair, but I’m trying to illustrate that she wasn’t dressed in any way that could ‘generously’ be interpreted as ‘asking for the attention’). I hadn’t not believed her before, but seeing it myself was eye opening and made me realize I need to not be in a bubble when I’m out and about.
Anyone who identifies as a guy and says “I’ve never seen someone getting harassed” … open your eyes and ears as you walk through the world and see if that’s actually true or if you just didn’t pay enough attention to notice it.
Ask basically any woman you know if they’ve ever gotten catcalled or had their ass grabbed in public or at what age men in their 40s started sexualizing them; if you have a close enough relationship, I can almost guarantee that they’ll say ‘yes’ to the first couple and 12-14ish for the last one – and those are direct questions rather than “have you been harassed” which might be more open to self-deception.Everyone knows it’s not ALL men, but I have to imagine that it feels close-a-fucking-nough when you’re getting harassed on what feels like a constant basis.
ETA: And with your eyes/ears opened if you notice something, say something! Do something.
This is well put, shame those who need to hear it most will refuse to listen (to advice like yours, but definitely not to any women they might have in their lives)
Statistically, I probably know multiple harassers, but none of them have admitted it to me.
The idea that men go through life without ever witnessing rape culture really is fantastical, I wish I could subscribe to this self imposed illusion!
That’s one of the things that bothers me. It’s so normalized, I probably have witnessed some form of abuse, but didn’t even recognize it as such.
There is no question that you have, and probably will again, but making yourself aware of what it looks like and being willing to speak up or step in is the only way to counter that (and is intimately more effective than trying to cling to “not all men” like so many others).
Yeah. It took me a while (too long, tbh) to realize that not being an active part of the problem wasn’t enough. I need to watch for it, and call people out.
Hell, everyone does. We know better. There’s just no excuse for letting it continue.
It’s not an illusion. The men that perform this harassment generally know they’re wrong and therefore keep it secret.
I don’t know anyone who’s sexually assaulted/harassed a woman because I’m very open about how that’s not fucking okay. If I find out someone has it’ll either lead to violence or cutting them out of my life completely
And another one misses the point .
And another one gone, and another one gone, another one misses the point…You’re doing this a lot in this thread what is your actual point.
Try figuring it out on your own time
deleted by creator
and in my experience tend to speak up.
Your experience is a statistical anomaly at best
deleted by creator
It’s much more likely you simply don’t notice.
deleted by creator
The idea that you somehow exist in a bubble where no sexual harassment happens is beyond ridiculous.
deleted by creator
I’m not mixing any words, it just sounds like you’re making a lot of excuses for yourself as to why you’ve never encountered any harassment, because I guarantee you have.
Looks like the bros did indeed harmonise as predicted!
https://kbin.social/m/my_mouldy_memes/t/383791/When-the-MRAs-turn-up-to-a-post-about-feminismWell it’s not like they go around advertising that they are harassers and rapists.
The statement also assumes the numbers are equal, but predominant amount of assaults are perpetrated by a minority of people. So you have a small number of abusers who victimize a large amount of people.
Them not advertising it doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and that if only you cared enough to know the signs or even just listen to and believe women when we literally point them out, you would see them too.
That second part is also factually and statistically simply not true but I honestly don’t care enough about educating you to do your research for you.
I think you are missing my point here. “No man seems to know” is precisely because because it’s hidden. It’s not that they don’t know, it’s that they don’t know that they know, because people don’t advertise their acts.
As for statistics, general crime statistics in everyday category point to a minority of people perpetrating them, unless you are saying that this is somehow different from all other behavior.
Thanks for the patronizing instead of “educating”. I’m sure your that will help to actually address the problem.
Right, I’m missing the point of my own post, it couldn’t possibly be you missing the point, which has already been explained plenty, you just don’t like what you hear, but that’s a you problem.
Also I don’t owe you shit, go educate yourself you self centered ass
I know a lot of men who are constantly sexually harassed by women.
When a woman does it, she’s a cougar and gets her own PornHub channel.
nOt alL mEn!!1 he cried as I blocked him…
As a cis male, I learned a lot from the book “Everyday Sexism” by Laura Bates. It really opened my eyes to the reality that women deal with on a regular basis, and I hope it’s ok to recommend it here.
Yeah, any educational resource helps!
I knew a harasser that admitted to harassing the girls in our friend group for fun. Fortunately he was afraid of harassing my gf at the time because I called him out on his bullshit. That entire friend group chose him over me.
Men are trash (myself included, im no saint) and I hope my daughter is a lesbian.Congratulations, you did the bare minimum and then made sure to make the conversation about you and your “effort” for some cookies.
Well I’m all out of cookies to give.
The lesson here is sometimes it’s ok, if not mandatory, to just shut up and listen.
It’s a particular kind of weird as a trans person. You go from being largely ignored while out and about to getting looks of disgust to getting catcalled all within the span of a year in my case.
There’s a sort of, yay I pass from a distance kind of thing but then it settles in and it becomes yet another thing to try and tune out and hope words are the worst of it. Heaven forbid some guy hollers at you and then stops his truck up ahead cause you said nothing and didn’t look his way.
That must be such a strange and overwhelming mix of emotions. I can only imagine it’s like when we afab folks hit puberty and suddenly were seen as an object of desire and there’s all this unwanted attention that we’ve also been taught to take as a compliment, it’s so confusing.
It is. As someone who got a lot of those messages that were directed at AFAB folks and internalized them it was like putting a critical piece into a puzzle. It’s one thing to hear about it and have some insights. It’s another to be immersed in it so late in life comparably.
