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This lady gets her own post, all by herself.  

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One in Four - Conversation & Criticisms

So, in posting my last article on facebook, a conversation sprung up about gender dichotomy and blaming... I really value a lot of the insights in this conversation, and I want to respond very directly in my next blog post. So, for the sake of fidelity, I am posting the entire conversation here.

Andrew Robins: I've read the "Schrodinger’s rapist" blog post a few times now. The more I read it, the more annoyed I got. Since this woman is using Schrodingers name (incorrectly) for her own cause, I'm now calling it "Schrodingers blog post" in that it's a blog post that's simultaneously anti-men AND anti-woman.

Ginger MacDonald: Andrew, first of all, it makes me super happy that you read my blog posts in the first place. Whatever disagreements we have about stuff, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy that you're interested in the conversation at all.

So: how do you see that post as being anti-human? She is pretty much just talking about her experience of culture and human interaction. And I think her experience is pretty common to a lot of women in North America.

Andrew Robins: With the idea of Schrodinger's cat being that eventually someone will actually observe the cat and the experiment will be over. With this woman's blog post and pretty much every conversation about rape culture with feminists is that there's a set belief that on a long enough timeline, every man will eventually become a rapist. Boyfriend, husband, male friend, guy on the street, all of them. This is bullshit. At no point in my life have I ever wanted to rape anyone, nor do I intend to, but every time this ladies blog gets touted as gospel, it's telling me that I have no control over my actions and I have to be treated like the boogyman by every girl I might interact with for any reason until the end of time because I *might* rape someone. But that's only the second highest reason on the list this blog gets elevated to hypershitty status. Enough blog posts and news stories have been written about how we as a society should teach men from day one that they're stupid beasts who have no control over their sexual appetites, that I can toss this one on the "Offensive to men in general" pile and not feel bad about it.

The number one is that this blog is also pretty anti-woman. You are a WEAK woman who can't help but get raped eventually. You have to treat every guy like he's a rapist, because you have no other choice. Live in fear, because this woman and the propaganda machine of rape culture is telling you that you will probably get raped by a man. So at every point throughout the course of a day, this woman (and every woman who reads her blog and blindly nods along) with it gets to treat every man they interact with for any reason ever like an eventual rapist. So conveniently, every mans role in society gets to be reduced and defined by women. That is not equality, that's pushing for female superiority and weakens the argument as a whole. I get to decide what my role in society will be, not you. I like the idea behind feminism generally, but when I have feminists as a group telling me I have zero control over myself, I find it hard to support their cause.

Additionally with this post (and yours), the entire focus is on men. We rape, we beat, we commit domestic violence, and we just rape all willy nilly whenever we have a drink. Where's the blog posts about women beating or raping men, and how wrong that is? The implication is that it has never happened, ever. Since we know that's not true, there's a ratio of women who HAVE beaten and/or raped men to women who have NOT beaten and/or raped men. However small of a number that might be, it's still there. I won't treat the majority of women like they're going to punch me in the mouth at every moment because it *might* happen. And no, just because the ratio of men wronging women is higher then the ratio of women wronging men does NOT make discrimination towards men more acceptable, because that lets *only* women define where this magical line that gets crossed where we treat a group as a whole like rapists during every waking moment. That's a hell of a tricky ledge to walk right there

Additionally, Domestic violence is committed by women too. I'd be willing to bet more then a small amount of money that female to male violence is a lot higher then reported. However, men don't get to call the police when they get slapped or punched or attacked by women, because they'll get perceived as weaklings by pretty much everyone who gets involved, from the reporting officer(s), the court system, the woman herself, and his friends and society as a whole. If the woman doing the beating IS actually arrested, she will invariably be released with no charges (She's just a girl you see. She's too small to do anything like that) OR even worse, gets a sentence that doesn't compare to what a man would receive in the same situation (Because she didn't REALLY hurt him.)

The same thing goes when it comes to reporting female on male sexual assault. Recently, a 29 year old famous singer (Carrie Underwood) brought a 12 year old boy on stage to give him his first kiss because of a sign he was holding. Everyone cheered and applauded and went on their way. Now, imagine the UPROAR, the ABSOLUTE indignation of women and pretty much everyone on the planet would have been if their genders were reversed. Carrie Underwood would have been crucified before he got off the stage. When a female teacher gets caught banging a male student, the reaction is 95% "Lucky kid!." and the woman gets a much smaller sentence then When the reverse is true. Recently, I went to see a movie with a female who I've had several conversations like this about rape and rape culture. During the previews of another movie, a scene was shown where a man says something along the lines of "I got fucked in prison ted. I was fucked." and it was in a comical notation. And the girl I was with laughed. So in societies eyes, rape is funny when it happens to men, and horrifying when it happens to women.

Maybe when this woman's blog post and posts like yours stop saying stuff like "men will rape and beat you no matter what eventually" and start saying things like "Violence and rape under any circumstance is wrong, regardless of the sex" then I'll start taking them more seriously.

Aimee Eddins: Hello Andrew, It's been a while; I hope you're doing well.

I appreciate your call for a gender-free definition of and social movement against any kind of violence and rape. I agree both are wrong in any circumstance regardless of the gender of the perpetrator or victim. I don't think rape is funny in any context.

It sounds like you don't appreciate the gendered focus on women's experience of possible threat. It sounds like you feel that this marginalizes the experience of those men who have been the recipient of these sorts of violence.

I appreciate you finding a current events example of the bias that exists in our society (with Carrie Underwood).

My understanding of Schrodenger's cat experiment is that before observation, we cannot know if the cat is alive or dead and so we must assume it is both at the same time until such time as we can observe it's actual state. After observing its actual state, we then know with certainty in which place it exists. I find this to be a pretty good analogy for my own experience of men in the world at large when I come into contact with them in potentially compromised situations. I have experienced very scary aggression from some men I know- even know well- and I have been trained by a lot of sources since early childhood to be wary of people I don't know. These things seem to correlate in my mind. It makes sense to me to be wary of people I don't (and do) know when they aren't paying attention to my own sense of safety and bodily integrity. Having this/these experiences, I find much in common with the article. I also have friends who have - by the literal definition of rape and sexual assault- raped and sexually assaulted people I know. These friends do not see themselves as having done so. Calling out men as being in the wrong is not helpful, as you suggest, however it does start to bring up the conversation. I think we need to re-frame it by focusing on creating a culture of consent and teaching men and women how to respect boundaries. How would you feel about having a conversation about that instead?

Andrew Robins: I agree entirely. There should be a culture of teaching everyone not to hit or rape. There isn't one though. It's entirely focused on men on women. I'm not trivializing the violence that women receive, but in focusing on the issue solely in the way that I've perceived feministic culture wanting to, we are not only teaching boys that their body is violent, dangerous, and they have no control, but that they are incapable of being the victim. We are also telling girls that they will be a victim at some point, and they are incapable of being the perpetrator of such acts.

Teaching girls that they WILL be attacked and should always be prepared for such an attack (By learning Ju jitsu or carrying pepper spray) is totally acceptable when it's coming from women blogs, and other feminists, but if a guy gives practical advice like "Don't go to a shitty area wearing a tube top and a miniskirt" all of the sudden he's misogynistic piece of garbage who is perpetuating rape culture.

Finally, you're right about the cat. Except in the case, the door never gets opened, and every guy is treated like a dead cat, for all time and ever. With this treatment, all men are being asked to bend over backwards to accommodate a females potential feelings, and never once has anyone called for the reverse. That's how discrimination begins, not ends.