[ixtli]

I agree with everything you said but it still leaves me with nowhere to go in terms of combating the pervasive culture that results in sexist violence. Sure, everyone has struggles in their lives but certain groups have added difficulties that cant be fought without solidarity.

[meric]

How does putting the lede at the top leave you nowhere to go...?

[ixtli]

Oh i meant everything but that, heh. Not sure I have an opinion on the lede; i think i see what the author was trying to do.

[mpweiher]

> combating the pervasive culture

How about: it's not the pervasive culture!?

[ixtli]

Not sure we can have this conversation productively on HN but I will say that I'd encourage you not to read what I'm saying as "all men are rapists," but more that we live in a culture that does many subtle things that encourage behaviors and thinkings that leads to violence against women.

[mpweiher]

And I am quite certain that is wrong.

First, if you peruse the crime statistics, you will find that the vast majority of victims of violent crime are male.

Second, if you actually look a bit more closely, you will find that our culture is vastly predisposed towards protecting women. So much so, in fact, that our perception is warped sufficiently that we think there is more violence towards women when in fact it is the other way around, by a large margin.

And of course the public narrative is almost exclusively "violence against women", and again, this is taken as gospel so much that even mentioning that there might be men who are victims is viewed as offensive.

Just as small illustrations (not "proof"), think back if you will of the story of Boko Haram kidnapping 200 girls.

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/15/world/africa/nigeria-girl...

It caused a huge outcry and activism from all quarters. Since there was no reporting, you might think that the boys were unharmed. Not so. The boys were actually either burned alive or forced into military service. This happened repeatedly, whereas the incident with the girls was a one-off. Media? Silence. Nobody cares. It's not a story.

There have also been numerous experiments comparing public reaction to violence man vs. woman. If a woman is being abusive towards a man, there will usually be bemusement or laughter, and comments along the lines of "I wonder what he did to deserve it". If it's the other way around, people will intervene. Quickly and fairly decisively. For example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlHVANXh-yg

This is actually even more skewed as she abuses him (no reaction) and when he starts to defend himself, people immediately intervene.

So in our culture that is supposedly so supportive of violence towards women, a man isn't even allowed to defend himself against an abusive woman.

Closer to home, the whole idea of "what happens to us does not happen to you" is actually wrong. Sure, it's not the same things, we don't get asked about our pregnancies, but horrible bosses and working environment affect men just as much as women, and quite probably more, but when it's men that are affected nobody gives a crap.

Case in point, if I told you the things that happened to me over my career and told you that they happened to a woman, you'd be appalled at the horrible treatment women receive and see it as definitive proof of the misogyny of the industry.