I’m 47, recently married. Last week, our second child was born, our first boy.
I suddenly realized what my son is up against, insofar as mainstream American society.
Everywhere you turn, boys are actively encouraged to be girls. Boys who are too rambunctious are deemed “non-compliant” and “difficult”. Boys who like playing cowboys and indians are termed “disruptive”. Boys who can’t sit still in a classroom, and want to go out exploring the world are deemed “ADHD”—and thus drugged to the gills.
All these qualities—calm docility, playing together without competition, sitting still for hours in a classroom—are all qualities of girls.
To top it off, if you let your six or seven year old son walk a few blocks to a friend’s house—learning an important lesson in self-reliance, as I was regularly allowed to do as a child—you are deemed an unfit parent, and can have your child taken away.
American society does not want boys. Much less men. American society wants girls and docile gays. In America, boys exist to be incarcerated.
Every day I thank god I no longer live in the U.S. There really is no point—especially when boys, rather than being celebrated (as they are in every other country) are hated in America.
So basically he’s arguing that boys are hated in America by describing how awful it is to be a girl. I’m always completely blown away by the total inability of these guys to see how little sense their world-view makes.
An excellent summary of the “New Misogyny” can be found at We Hunted the Mammoth. These misogynists have sprung up relatively recently, and have made woman-hating in and of itself their raison d’être. Fueled by a reactionary, antifeminist ideology and espousing angry, often violent rhetoric, these “New Misogynists” are working tirelessly to chip away at rights and protections for women everywhere. The ranks of the New Misogynists are mainly comprised of embittered Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs), sex-crazed pickup artists (PUAs), and other violent malcontents. Occasionally, in the cases of Thomas Ball, George Sodini and Elliot Rodger, these “New Misogynists” — blinded by privilege and male entitlement — take deadly action against innocent women and men, making it imperative that people see the toxicity of such individuals.
The New Misogynists in their own words:
Paul Elam (A Voice for Men)
“And the answer is, of course, no, I am not going to stop. You see, I find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your shit up gives me an erection.” –“The fembots are already bent out of shape”, A Voice for Men (06/28/11)
“Should I be called to sit on a jury for a rape trial, I vow publicly to vote not guilty, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that the charges are true.” – “Jury duty at a rape trial? Acquit!”, A Voice for Men (07/20/10)
“Have I every [sic] used the word nigger in my life? Please. I was born in 1957 and mostly raised in rural Texas. I did not know anyone who did not use it at some point.” –Comment on A Voice for Men article (02/10/15)
“In the name of equality and fairness, I am proclaiming October to be Bash a Violent Bitch Month. I’d like to make it the objective for the remainder of this month, and all the Octobers that follow, for men who are being attacked and physically abused by women – to beat the living shit out of them. I don’t mean subdue them, or deliver an open handed pop on the face to get them to settle down. I mean literally grab them by the hair and smack their face against the wall till the smugness of beating someone because you know they won’t fight back drains from their nose with a few million red corpuscles. And then make them clean up the mess.” –“If You See Jezebel in the Road, Run the Bitch Down”, A Voice for Men (10/22/10)
Warren Farrell (A Voice for Men)
“It is important that a woman’s ‘noes’ be respected and her ‘yeses’ be respected. And it is also important when her nonverbal ‘yeses’ (tongues still touching) conflict with those verbal ‘noes’ that the man not be put in jail for choosing the ‘yes’ over the ‘no.’ He might just be trying to become her fantasy.” – The Myth of Male Power, p. 315 (1993)
“Unemployment deprives men of that which has given many men the respect and love of women; rape violates the body that has given many women the appreciation and love of men. Few men feel they chose unemployment, just as few women feel they chose to be raped.” –The Myth of Male Power, p. 173 (1993)
“[M]illions of people … are now refraining from touching, holding, and genitally caressing their children, when that is really a part of a caring, loving expression, are repressing the sexuality of a lot of children and themselves. Maybe this needs repressing, and maybe it doesn’t. My book should at least begin the exploration.” – Interview with Penthousemagazine, Dec. 1977
Karen Straughan, a.k.a. GirlWritesWhat (A Voice for Men; Men’s Rights Edmonton)
“Traditional ways of providing for and protecting women that were absolutely necessary in the preindustrial past were reinterpreted by feminism as male oppressors keeping women down all through history for men’s benefit. Domestic violence, a social problem that has always been gender symmetrical, became synonymous with violence against women. A husband’s historical right to conjugal relations with his wife was redefined as marital rape, while a wife’s historical, identical right – one that for centuries, if denied, was legal grounds for divorce and could even get a man excommunicated from his church – that part of history was quietly erased from modern scholarship.” – Speech to the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, Feb. 2014
Stefan Molyneux (Freedomain Radio)
“Women who choose the assholes will fucking end this race. They will fucking end this human race if we don’t start holding them a-fucking-countable. Look, women who choose assholes guarantee child abuse. Women who choose assholes guarantee criminality. Sociopathy. Politicians. All the cold-hearted jerks who run the world came out of the vaginas of women who married assholes. And I don’t know how to make the world a better place without holding women accountable for choosing assholes. Your dad was an asshole because your mother chose him. Because it works on so many women. If ‘asshole’ wasn’t a great reproductive strategy it would have been gone long ago. Women keep that black bastard flame alive. They cup their hands around it, they protect it with their bodies. They keep the evil of the species going by continuously choosing these guys. … Women determine the personalities of the men because women choose who to have sex with, and who to have children with, and who to expose those children to. … Women worship at the feet of the devil and wonder why the world is evil.” –Freedomain Radio Show (01/24/14)
Eivind Berge (Eivind Berge’s Blog)
“My rape advocacy is twofold. Two aspects of feminism currently independently justify rape, in my view: 1. equality and 2. feminist corruption of justice. Feminist rape law reform has more than blurred the distinction between rape and consensual sex. In many circumstances it no longer matters in the eyes of the law whether we actually rape a woman or not — she can regret sex in any case and have us convicted of ‘rape.’ The law quite explicitly states that mere negligence is enough to be a rapist even if you had no evil intentions. So why should men care if we rape or not? Women don’t respect us anymore, so why should we respect women? Hate breeds hate. I have followed the deterioration of justice closely throughout my life, and my heart has been filled with deeper hatred at every step of feminist legal reform. False rape is now institutionalized. At this point, I don’t believe Norwegian women are morally entitled to protection from rape.” – Blog post, Eivind Berge’s Blog (07/25/10)
“At the time of my last blog post, I believed I would probably become Norway’s first modern violent activist in peacetime. Celibacy enforced by a feminist regime had driven me to the point where I saw no other option. I would target the pigs who enforce feminist law, knowing I could realistically at least kill one of them before I would be captured or killed myself. Thus revenge would be assured and if I lived, my reputation as a violent criminal would make me attractive to some women. … I knew things are seriously amiss around here and that neither feminism nor multiculturalism is sustainable in the long run, but I had no idea a formidable activist named Anders Behring Breivik was already years into meticulously planning an attack that would show the entire world what Vikings are made of.” – Blog post, Eivind Berge’s Blog (07/27/11)
Matt Forney (In Mala Fide; mattforney.com)
“Women should be terrorized by their men; it’s the only thing that makes them behave better than chimps.” – “The Necessity of Domestic Violence”, In Mala Fide
“This is why I have no sympathy for battered women. Far too many of them are . . . conniving, manipulative cunts who wear their men down for the gina tingles, then trick bystanders into squirting tears to their sob stories. They are slapped, punched, and kicked because they inflict emotional violence on their husbands and boyfriends, fueling a never-ending cycle of drama and pain. They are just as abusive and twisted as the thugs and jerks they get wet for. They deserve each other.” – “The Necessity of Domestic Violence”, In Mala Fide
“Most girls want you to dominate them anyway, but the rationalization hamster and their conscious minds prevent them from articulating this desire. This is the broken windows theory at play: if she lets you get away with minor violations of her boundaries, she’ll accede to your bigger demands later on, letting you mold her into the perfect plaything. If she doesn’t violently resist getting her anus fingered, a little more pressure and you’ll be full-on sodomizing her, grinning as she whimpers between each thrust. Never ask her for anything, because asking is begging, and begging is contemptible.” –“How to Crush a Girl’s Self-Esteem”, mattforney.com (02/03/14)
“At the same time, I’d say that blacks don’t really hate whites. On a certain level, even the biggest deadbeat, ‘muh dicked’ welfare queen knows that it’s the generosity and tolerance of whites that keeps her alive. Much in the same way that a parasite knows that sucking too much blood will kill the host, blacks know that alienating whites too much will end badly for them[.]” – Review of Jared Taylor’s Face to Face with Race, Alternative Right (01/03/15)
Tom Martin (Sexism Busters)
“A men’s rights activist is a person who believes in gender equality but is frustrated by societies’ refusals to address certain men’s equality issues, so takes action to rectify those inequalities. Once you realize that women aren’t really the victims, you’ll also realize that the controversial thing about men’s rights activism, is that it is portrayed as controversial at all – and that most women are, by and large, massive whores.” – Interview with Planet Ivy(09/12/13)
“But pedophiles who pay for sex with children are not really rapists, because the child consents, then performs the act, indicating they understand the nature of the contract. If the child is enslaved – it’s rape, or too young or stupid to know what he or she’s doing – rape. But poor, and in need of food? Not rape. A choice. Unwilling to do other hard paying labour paying 9 times less than the prostitution route? Not rape. A choice . . . I know a whore when I see one.” – Comment left on We Hunted the Mammoth (07/12/13)
Daryush Valizadeh (Roosh V; Return of Kings)
“When it comes to how you view the girls you’re approaching, I’d be careful about having too much respect for them. While I’m not saying you should hate women, my initial impression of them is that they’re lubricated holes that exist mostly for a man’s sexual pleasure.” – Day Bang (2011)
“For every rape accusation I’d want to know at what stage of undress the girl was at before the supposed rape happened. If she was completely naked until saying no, and got there voluntarily, then I’d be reluctant to charge the man with rape unless there were signs of violence. Women need to understand that men aren’t robots who can suddenly stop at the drop of a dime with all that testosterone pumping through their system. Therefore it would be prudent for them not to enter situations where the average man can’t stop due to his innate weaknesses as an animal whose entire existence depends on him successfully mating.” –“When No Means Yes”, Roosh V (06/18/10)
“While walking to my place, I realized how drunk she was. In America, having sex with her would have been rape, since she couldn’t legally give her consent. It didn’t help matters that I was relatively sober, but I can’t say that I cared or even hesitated.
I won’t rationalize my actions, but having sex is what I do. If a girl is willing to walk home with me, she’s going to get the dick no matter how much she has drunk. I’ll protect myself by using a condom (most of the time), but I know that when it comes to sex, one ounce of hesitation or a feeling of morality will get me nothing.” – Bang Iceland: How to Sleep with Icelandic Women in Iceland (2011)
W. F. Price (The Spearhead)
“I’ll come right out and say what nobody in the mainstream media wants to admit: feminists have to be purged from positions where they can harm men and boys. Feminism is female supremacism, nothing else. A woman (or man) spouting feminist rhetoric in a university should receive exactly the same treatment one would expect a professor calling for the return of black slavery might receive. Companies should fire troublemaking feminists. Politicians who support feminist laws should be exposed and thrown out of office as soon as feasible. Feminist judges should be removed from the bench. After WWII, the allies carried out a program of ‘de-Nazification’ in Germany. I think that is an appropriate model to follow in dealing with feminists. There can be no common ground with supremacists, and there is no sense in dealing with them until they have been properly rehabilitated.” – “NY Times Finally Admitting There’s a Problem”, The Spearhead (02/16/10)
“I’m always a bit bemused by how young feminists will claim that feminism has nothing to do with Communism. In fact, it is a direct outgrowth.” –“Seattle Slutwalk”, The Spearhead (06/20/11)
“And, of course, women’s ‘equality’ cannot meaningfully exist in an egalitarian society, because the real differences between men and women are too stark. In fact, it takes a great deal of authoritarian coercion to bring women up to the level we find them occupying in the US. From federal agencies to local police forces and courts, hundreds of thousands of people are employed in the business of ‘equalizing’ men and women. One could fairly call it a domestic army.” – “‘Flowers’ of Arab Spring Wilting”, The Spearhead (10/03/12)
Luigi Logan, a.k.a. Fidelbogen (The Counter-Feminist)
“Nobody — especially not men — will publicly stand up to these [feminists] and administer the verbal bitch-slapping they so desperately need. … As feminism goes, Gail Dines is standard fare — although I grant you she is worse than many. In the olden days of rough village justice her kind would have gotten the scold’s bridle, or the ducking stool, or the stocks. And quite right. Half the women in the village would have been throwing rotten garbage at her too, back in those days. But nowadays . . . women in critical numbers are eerily silent. And I won’t try to explain that, especially considering that men are equally silent.” –Blog post on The Counter-Feminist, Dec. 2011
James C. Weidmann, a.k.a. Heartiste (Chateau Heartiste)
“Every monster and manboob, every fat feminist and single mom, every quadgender and third world wretched refuse had to be appeased and their crocodile tears dried, and the cause of all their histrionically dramatized hurty — white civilization itself — razed to make room for the glorious vomit of vibrancy that is currently prolapsing the rectum of the historical West.” – “Comment Of The Week: 60 Years Of Shivving”, Chateau Heartiste (08/08/13)
“As you can see, even maniacal dictators with dreams of world conquest can fall into the same horrible beta traps as your typical weepy 21st century brooding teen boy with xVideos tabbed for convenience. If only Hitler had the compiled wisdom of [Chateau Heartiste], he would remember the maxim that you do not reward a woman with your love until after she has rewarded you with her sex. …. Chateau Heartiste has written that game can save the West. Disbelievers scoff. But if this outpost of sanity had been around during Hitler’s flowering youth to enlighten him about the nature of the fairer sex, the West might very well have been saved. Saved not just from war and genocide but, but from every evil — cultural Marxism, feminism, equalism, and now radical self-annihilationism — that has come after.” – “Hitler Was Beta”, Chateau Heartiste (08/26/13)
“Women secretly desire their oblivion at the insistence of an imperious man. As the vessel sex, they must be filled with the life force of another — a powerful man, or a child — to fully experience the sublimation of their souls. Thus it is that surrender is encoded in the gristle of woman.” – “Comment Of The Week: Ground To Lust”, Chateau Heartiste (05/11/14)
T. J. Kincaid, a.k.a. The Amazing Atheist
“Rape isn’t fatal. So imagine my indignation when I saw a chatroom called ‘Rape Survivors.’ Is this supposed to impress me? Someone fucked you when you didn’t want to be fucked and you’re amazed that you survived? Unless he used a chainsaw instead of his dick, what’s the big deal? … The word survivor applies to people who are alive after being stabbed 73 times with an ice pick or mauled by rabid wolverines, not to a woman who gets dick when she doesn’t want it. Just because you got raped, you have to rape the English language? You vindictive bitch! Also, don’t you ever get tired of being the victim? How many failed relationships are you going to blame on a single violation of your personal space?” – Comment on Reddit: MensRights (02/07/12)
“I’m tired of being treated like shit by you mean little cunts and then you using your rape as an excuse. Fuck you. I think we should give the guy who raped you a medal. I hope you fucking drown in rape semen, you ugly, mean-spirited cow. Actually, I don’t believe you were ever raped! What man would be tasteless enough to stick his dick into a human cesspool like you? Nice gif of a turd going into my mouth. Is that kind of like the way that rapists [sic] dick went in your pussy? Or did he use your asshole? Or was it both? Maybe you should think about it really hard for the next few hours. Relive it as much as possible. You know? Try to recall: was it my pussy or my ass?” – Comment on Reddit: MensRights (02/07/12)
Franklin R. Schmidt, a.k.a. “fschmidt” (CoAlpha Reactionary Forum)
“Single men in this society have no outlet for their evolutionary need for sex, so just as the married woman above was justified in adultery, men here are justified in rape. Banning prostitution harms men the way banning divorce harms women. If women don’t want to be raped, they should push for legal prostitution and they should dress more modestly.” – From a post titled ‘Rape and Adultery,’ CoAlpha Reactionary Forum (02/15/14)
“I am currently reading Mein Kampf. I wondered why Hitler is held up as the ultimate evil. I personally have good reason to hate him since he exterminated most of my family. But this doesn’t explain why people who have no such connection hate him. … Mein Kampf makes it clear why Hitler was so hated, it is because he told the truth about Liberalism (which he called Marxism) and he told the truth about international bankers. Hitler was the last significant force in the West to oppose Liberalism, and this is why he is so hated.” – Comment on Love-Shy.com
“Feminist cannot except [sic] the truth that rape is quite simply about filling a biological need. Feminists much prefer this myth [that rape is about power and control] which is designed to demonize rapists.” – Comment on Love-Shy.com
Why are so many MRAs and PUAs so invested in the notion that women who reject them will end up miserable?
A Voice for Men’s ongoing campaign to convince the world that “Men’s Human Rights Activists” are a bunch of petty, malicious, sexually insecure douchenozzles continues apace.
I mean, that must be what they’re really up to, right? Because no one who actually had any real interest in human rights of any kind would produce “memes” like the one above and all the rest below, delivered to your eyes straight from AVFM’s Fcebook page.
Regarding its critics, let me start by saying that, at the level of determining solid community building options, critics of looting are right: it’s not productive. What is built from looting? Not much. Certainly nothing in the concrete world. On top of that, looting is illegal. It is against the law to break into a building and take what’s inside of it out. I don’t think anybody is confused about that, or believes that taking things out of a liquor store or burning down a Little Caesars should be confused with an urban renewal initiative. None of this, however, means that looting has no merit as an act.
Looting is a response, not an opportunity. Looting doesn’t randomly happen. Looting is what happens after something else has happened to a group of people that feel disenfranchised. There are not bands of random black people running…
If you grit your teeth and do a search for #GamerGate and #Ferguson together on Twitter, you will find Tweet after Tweet from worried #GamerGaters earnestly imploring their comrades not to make any connections between the two hashtags. Why? Because they know that those who cross the streams are likely to Tweet things like the following.
This what happens when #GamerGaters try to make sense of what is happening in Ferguson.
On Tuesday November 18th, the National Post published a story on their website about Andrew Bettencourt, an Ottawa man who abducted his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend at knife point, raped her twice, and was finally arrested 6 hours later. You can read the story here.
One of the things that jumped out at me about how the National Post decided to represent this story was that they do not, at any time, refer to her being sexually assaulted. Instead, they chose to report that the two “had sex”.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what rape culture looks like. Last I checked, a person cannot give consent at knife-point. So then why is the National Post printing that the two “had sex”?
Today I was reading an article posted on the CBC about a vulgar joke hurled at a Montreal reporter. Of course, the usual sorts of comments followed, like, “printing this only takes away from real victims”, “can’t you take a joke”, and “stop giving them attention, and they’ll go away”.
If you can listen to the stories, and see the stats on street harassment, then how could you possibly say that there are no “real victims”? Our culture needs to collectively get our heads out of our asses.
So, I ran into this image on facebook yesterday, and really all I have to say about it is:
Basically the image boils down to, “I like Feminists, but only if they know their place as dictated by the current problematic standards, are viewed by men as “fuckable”, and are quiet and apologetic. No, just no.
The implication that a “real” Feminist only tackles issues of “women living in disadvantaged areas of the globe” works to derail any critique of sexism here at home by essentially denying that it exists at all. It’s the same bullshit Feminists have been dealing with forever. This “Feminism light” that has been bandied around in pop culture recently doesn’t actually do anything to help Feminism as a legitimate socio-political, grassroots movement, because it’s only aim is to make women conform and fit into convenient little boxes where they can’t cause trouble.
Remember guys, you’re only a real Feminist if you’re pretty, white, allow other people to dictate what you should do with your own body, and let others dictate what rape is.
The thing with any movement committed to fostering change is that it isn’t convenient, or pretty, and it doesn’t smile when you tell it to. My Feminism will not be dictated to me, and I don’t care if that upsets anybody.
Trigger Warning: Discussion of sexualized violence, catcalling, and rape.
I’m not going to split hairs, here. We live in a culture that not only condones sexual aggression in men, it encourages, and excuses it. This past week, we have seen the release of a video produced by Hollaback!, a non-profit dedicated to ending street harrassment , as well as the termination of CBC’s Jian Ghomeshi, following allegations of sexual abuse. Today I’d like to discuss both the reactions to the video, and to Ghomeshi’s termination, and how they’re related.
We’ll start with the video. Less than 24 hours after it was posted, actor Shoshana B Roberts (featured in the video) received online rape threats.
The subject of our PSA is starting to get rape threats on the comments. Can you help by reporting them? http://t.co/NMYCFd9YOm
This is a perfect example of how our culture does it’s best to try and silence women who speak up about gendered violence, or attempts to minimize, and dismiss the issue being discussed. The comments on the video ranged from the usual victim blaming/shaming:
To outright threats and violence:
And finally, to the overwhelming majority of posters with claims like:
Well the “big deal” is that “Nearly 1 in 2 women (44.6%) and 1 in 5 men (22.2%) experienced sexual violence victimization other than rape at some point in their lives“, and the vast majority of this sexual violence is perpetrated at the hands of men. Street harassment is not about innocent compliments, it’s about entitlement, and intimidation. It’s about power. It’s about making sure that women know their place in society. If you doubt these claims, go ahead and ask yourself if the men who harassed Roberts in this video would have said anything to her had she been a man, or even just accompanied by one. If you’re being honest with yourself at all, you know that the silence would have been deafening.
Both women and men alike were more than willing to excuse these men, because gender roles are still strictly enforced, and we’re taught from birth to believe that “boys will be boys” and that male sexual aggression is to be expected. We’re also conditioned to see women as the gatekeepers of sex, and this is what people use as a justification, at least in part, for victim shaming and blaming. We exonerate the shitty behaviour of men by placing all of the culpability on women, and when this power structure is criticized by women, or when women choose to speak about their assault or harassment, the backlash is overwhelming.
Roberts and Hollaback! were accused of editing the video in such a way as to present the harassment as worse than it was, and in some cases, of hiring actors in order to stage the video outright in a bid for donations. Of course, we know that most women have experienced Street Harassment, and that it significantly impacted their perceived safety in public, so why is it the case that there is still such a massive denial that this is a problem? To put it simply, by challenging the current, and incorrect, narrative on sexual violence and street harassment, what you’re actually doing is challenging power structures that have been in place for literally thousands of years. You’re asking men to examine their male privilege, and then give it up in order for women to achieve equality. Is it any wonder why somebody might be resistant to such a thing?
This is not to say that many women aren’t resistant to it as well, there were plenty of women who were very vocal about their belief that what was recorded on the video was not harassment. This is because women are taught that it is more beneficial for them to stay in line with the current power structure than it is for them to question it. Case in point: the rape threats received by Roberts almost immediately after the video was posted.
We live in a culture where most women will experience street harassment, and 1 in 5 women will be the victims of sexual assault, so it’s hardly difficult to grasp why women might want to avoid drawing further attention to themselves from an online community that has no qualms about releasing personal information, or threatening mass shootings. It’s also pertinent to point out that these power structures are so normalized, that they seem invisible to anyone that benefits from them in any way (women can also have the privilege of being Cis-Gender, Heterosexual, White, Middle or Upper Class, Able-bodied, Thin, etc.), and those that benefit from intersecting oppression don’t exactly have a great personal motive to dismantle that oppression. Women are also devalued, sexualized, abused, and objectified every single day, and that can make it really hard to see the forest for the trees.
Which brings me to how this ties in to Gian Ghomeshi’s termination from the CBC radio program, “Q”. After his termination, Ghomeshi published a Facebook Status stating that his termination had been the result of a “jilted ex” spearheading a smear campaign against him after he ended their relationship. Over the next few days, reports by women of sexual abuse at the hands of Ghomeshi surfaced, and social media exploded.
As with the video, there were the usual droves of people more than willing to call the women liars, and accuse them of being in it for the potential financial gain, which is interesting since Ghomeshi was literally the only person actually demanding money. There was a massive resistance to admit that maybe society has a problem with women when there are plenty of people who are more open to the idea that 9 women are lying, than that 1 man is.
As with street harassment, sexual abuse is not actually about sex. It’s about power, control, entitlement, and intimidation. It’s about wanting to hurt someone because you know you have the power to get away with it. It wasn’t healthy sexuality, or a normal, healthy BDSM relationship, because there was no consent given by any of these women.
The same kind of gendered power structures are at play when it comes to the reactions to both the video and Ghomeshi’s termination. For the exact same reasons, people were able to feel confident in calling women liars, or otherwise characterizing them as untrustworthy in comparison to their male harassers, and abusers. For the exact same reasons, Ghomeshi felt as though he could avoid any controversy by sweeping the allegations under the rug, because he believed that all he had to do was put the weight of his fame and power behind an already existing prejudice towards women. For the exact same reasons, people shrugged at the sexual harassment displayed by the men in the video, and the sexual abuse admitted by Ghomeshi. The willingness to do all of this is rooted firmly in our culture’s normalization of male sexual aggression, and in our belief in women’s culpability for that aggression.
We need to acknowledge how gender roles and expectations harm both men and women. We need to act in solidarity with one another, and dismantle these power structures. We need to believe victims when they tell us about their assault, and harassment, and we need to stop making excuses for perpetrators. If we fail to do these things, the cycle of violence will continue, and then, nobody wins.
Not a video game 
SHES TOO LOUD 
