Recently I watched a short documentary on damn.com called, “Oppressed Majority,” which revolved around sexism against women from a man’s point of view, if “typical” roles were reversed. My first thought: ‘oh boy, here we go.’
Now, I’m not a feminist in the typical, actively-protesting fashion, but at the same time I like to be informed. I decided to spare ten minutes of my time to watch this video and see what I could learn. Of course, the movie was all in French (which I don’t speak), so I had to trust that the English subtitles were correct, or at least not significantly different from the original script.
Rape is a touchy subject, but I have to put my foot down when I see three skinny or averagely-built girls overpower a grown man. Yes, there was a knife involved. Yes, he was outnumbered. No, I have never experienced rape firsthand or through a close friend or family member. But if you expect me to believe that this guy could not have escaped the sexual abuse, we have a problem. Maybe he would have been cut, but take a look at men’s sports versus women’s sports.
The fact of the matter is, men run faster, jump higher, are naturally stronger which is why many people, in general, prefer to watch men’s sports. Unless, of course, you know someone on a women’s sports team. It also points out that men are just born to have the upper hand physically.
Sure, not everyone is an athlete, and a female body-builder could perhaps do some damage to an 18-year-old man. But the difference is the age difference. After visiting RAINN.org (Rape Abuse and Incest National Network), the National Institute of Justice website, and sarsonline.org (sexual assault reports) for statistics on male rape, I found it surprisingly impossible to find any numbers describing men over age 18 as victims—meaning I didn’t see any record that physically mature men had been raped.
In spite of the fact that rape often goes unreported, reading statements like, “In 2002, one in every eight rape victims were male,” and “2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault or rape,” makes me feel like someone is trying to hide something; neither of those comments imply that those men were truly fully-formed or physically mature men. Yet so many people seem to think such statistics necessarily mean that rape among men is as common as among women.
It can’t be ignored that the way women dress is more revealing and “seductive” than men’s clothing. Yes, we can blame the media for that, and no I don’t think people always get raped because of how they are dressed at the time, but people do have active imaginations and have seen enough on TV and the internet to know what’s underneath, and unfortunately, lust for it.
But I’m not going to get into issues of lust and beauty and attraction. What I’m trying to get at is that men and women are not equal, but that’s okay. I don’t know about other female readers, but I want a guy to be able to protect me. I think that’s necessary in a relationship, to have a protector ready when my strength fails. I don’t think he should be “smarter” than me or be offered jobs that I am rejected for on the basis of being a woman, but that sort of inequality is over and done with, at least in America. I can vote, I can get be employed, I don’t feel oppressed, as a woman.
I have no interest in feminizing or immasculating men. It’s not that I think they shouldn’t show emotion and ask for help when they go through hard times.
But I think we should recognize that they can stand up for themselves, as men. I think that the respect for difference sometimes gets muddled in conversations or documentaries like the one I mentioned. With regard to woman running topless in the video, that’s an issue for respect too—a man’s “breasts” are not reproductive organs and a woman’s are. Hers should be recognized as something private and worth saving. If you want to talk about the appropriateness of men running with their shirts off and women wearing only a sports bra and shorts, that’s another issue.
I believe that I’m a feminist in saying I like to see women embracing their femininity. Can I be a “masculinist” because I like to see men embracing their masculinity? Because I don’t think you have to sacrifice whatever makes you who you are to do that. Maybe this is actually what being a “humanist” is.
“…something private and worth sharing” is a typo on my part; sharing should be “saving” or “protecting” or maybe even “concealing” instead. Sorry about that.
Your analysis doesn’t seem to match up with the purpose of the video. You seem to think this video discusses the situation of men worldwide. The sexual assault scene was supposed to portray a crime that many women have committed against them. The video was supposed to make viewers think “This sort of gender based violence against men would never happen.” The ending, when the female character is walking down the road, is supposed to show that this is a reality for women. The title of the film is “Oppressed Majority” and the majority of humans on the planet are biological females.
Once we have that established, we look to your statements about oppression. Perhaps you have not felt personally oppressed based on your gender, that is amazing. The World Health Organization states that over a third of women worldwide experience some sort of violence, domestic or sexually based.http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/
That’s a billion people. A billion women.
Along with the serious issues of violence, we also have the economic opportunities and wage gaps (which worsen for women of color). The video also shows street harassment, which I can personally testify, is a horrible experience that dehumanizes women into sexual objects.
Being a feminist is not about biological sameness, it is about economic, political, and environmental equality of the sexes. Its not having to act or dress or be the same, it is about being treated equally.
A feminist defends the political rights of the female CEO as well as the stay-at-home-mom. A feminist questions the hyper-sexualization of women in the media. A feminist understands that some women want a rewarding marriage and children, while others are called to the single life. A feminist is a person that calls for justice for the woman who is a rape survivor gets asked, “What were you wearing?”
A feminist supports human beings to express their gender in whatever way suits them.
The purpose of this video was to put women’s issues into a different perspective, a humanist perspective. After all, women’s rights are human rights.
I hope you can see that this video was not meant to to critique how you define femininity or masculinity, but to bring to light injustice and violence against women.
Thank you for your response. I will warrant that my assessment of the video was a bit hasty, and had a lot to do with the context in which I viewed it (i.e. the attached Facebook status and the comments below it). Therefore, I am willing to accept that your perception of the purpose of the video—”to make viewers think ‘This sort of gender based violence against men would never happen'”—may be the “correct” one. However, while the definition of a feminist that you provide is all right by me—and is, in fact, 99% in line with what I believe—I have personally witnessed a discussion or two of feminism in which the party proclaiming to be feminist seemed to be demonizing the stay-at-home mom and women who desire to embrace their femininity in ways which put them at the “far right” of the spectrum (this person would, shall we say, “fit the stereotype” of woman/the female gender).
I would also like to mention/clarify that I am familiar with the statistics, I personally know female rape victims, and I do not think that the event was “their fault,” nor do I claim that rape of women (or men, for that matter) is not a real a problem, because it is.
In any case, once again, thank you for reading.