Of bears and men

 So obviously men are problem. So much so, that 99.9% women who responded to the question rather have a chance encounter with a bear in a forest than with an unknown man. (Maybe they misunderstood and like hairy, thick, homosexual men?)

Which goes to show two things, really. People, who responded, are stupid. I mean really, fucking stupid. The education system completely failed. Second: it is incredible how polarized our world has become, where facts matter not, feelings trump everything. And if you are a man, and have an opinion, obviously you are dismissing women and their experiences, and should just shut up. Obviously. (Even though it kinda is about you, too. And really, real world evidence and "muh experience" are kind of different things.)

So the first thing.

Bear attacks are rare. True. But why are they rare you may ask. Well, let's see. Bears are rare, so encounters are rare, despite of people hiking and generally living where bears live. About 1% of chance encounters end up in an attack; which is not a lot, admittedly. (There is no actual statistics; I found a couple of estimates and used the lowest one.) But then again: how many men does a woman encounter on a regular basis and how many bears? If you really think you are safer with a bear than with a random man, even just looking at the numbers, you are -as we established already- fucking stupid. Not many people meet a 100 bears in their lifetime, so the chances of getting attacked by one is astronomically low. But if you regularly met hundreds of bears... well, the situation would change. Drastically. Women meet hundreds and thousands of men regularly, and if 1% of those meetings end up in an attack, well, we have an ongoing bloodbath; Khrone would be proud. Let me put this this way: cows kill hundreds of people every year, whereas lions hardly any. Does it mean cows are more dangerous than lions? Seriously? Well, do try to keep the same number of lions as we have cows, and we would see. Statistics without understanding the context means exactly jackshit.

So that's one issue out of the way.

The other thing is we ignored the fact that most violent acts are committed by a fraction of the population. Mostly men, yes, but women are violent, too, which is left out of the discussion interestingly. Also: men are significantly more likely to be victims of random violence than women. The level of fear and the actual threat may not be in balance here, but then again, it never usually is, considering how much people fear serial killers vs how much they fear cigarettes or ultraprocessed food. We are morons when it comes to things we fear. (Further example: fear of commercial flights vs fear of automobiles.) The issue here is more complex than these idiots would like to believe.

Another also important forgotten issue: if we focus on sexual attacks only, well, those are mostly committed by people close to the victim, so again, no cigar there. A random man will be a safer choice than your uncle, for example, just going by the statistics alone. I am sure your uncle is a nice person who would not rape anyone, but statistically he is more likely to rape you than that dude on the tram. Another interesting sidenote: many women would prefer to be dismembered by a bear than to be raped? Really? That is just... wow. I mean you can't be more stupid that this; which just shows how sheltered and privileged these people are. I guess there is nothing for me but to wish them their bear encounter they crave so much. After all, it is all fun and games until the grizzly starts eating you while you are still alive.

And then the second point I want to make.

The amount of glee, bitterness, outright hatred that stems from this victim menality s incredible. Women do seem to have adopted this hostile attitude against one half of humanity as not just something valid, but something to be embraced. Meanwhile, supposedly, they not all are angry lesbians (who, by the way, have the highest incidence of domestic violence) and have day-to-day encounters with their fathers, husbands, sons. I guess they do not count?  And let's not forget. These women are living the cosy, safe, sheltered life of the Western world, not the oppressive Patriarcy of Saudi Arabia, for example. Anyone spouting this idiocy, and stirring up hatred deserves her 1% chance meeting a bear. Young men already face challenges they get absolutely no support for, so this is not helping. The largest cause of death in men under 40 is suicide. They are more dangerous to themselves than to anyone, especially to those angry and misshapen women who dwell in their imaginary victimhood.

This idiocy perfectly shows the problem with victim mentality. Since you are the victim, you are justified to have absolutely no empathy -and outright hostility- towards the evil oppressors, and you are justified in your hatred. It also helps to foster an incredible level of narcisism. You can see this in all the comment sections whenever men's issues come up - women are so incredibly hostile, ready to belittle, to dismiss, it is incredible. You'd wonder how people who are claiming that empathy is important in uderstanding the struggle of others can so easily dismiss others' struggles.  That is until you realize that strong in-group empathy leads to the lack of it against anyone who is in the out-group. This is exactly how racists operate by the way.

And as a closing, I will present you an alternative version of this tik-tok question, which is much more supported by statistics than the fucking bear is. (Mind you this is for demonstrating the idiocy; I do not actually pushing for this.)

Would you be more willing to be alone in a forest with a white man or a black man? As we know, in the US, blacks are overwhelmingly responsible for violent crime, so this is a valid question, no? And if you do not think it is -based on some weird moral qualms about racism being bad and all-, why the fuck do you think the original question is acceptable, which is not even supported by statistics? Sexism is fine when it comes to men?

#metoo has gone #too far

When you read about the #metoo movement in The Guardian and other papers, or hear people talking about it, you find that the speaker/author regularly confuses and conflates several different things.

1.       Sexual coercion in several areas of professional life (It started from the movie industry, but now it is concerned about all areas, rightly so.)

2.       Sexual assault and the nature of consent (and that we’re living in a rape culture)

3.       Domestic violence

4.       Patriarchy

Interestingly in any of these situations the narrative is always the “men are perpetrators, women are victims”. Neither of the loud proponents seems to be concerning themselves with victims other than women and perpetrators other than men, and they are more than happy to ignore the grey areas so that they can present a beautiful black-and-white picture that supports their crusade against the Patriarchy. A lot of people –women included- are saying that the #metoo movement transformed into a sort of “warlock-hunt”; these articles are worth reading.

Sexual coercion

Powerful individuals pushing themselves onto vulnerable people, taking advantage of them is wrong. Forcing others to perform sexual  acts to get advantages is wrong. Weinstein is a scumbag. (So are Spacey and Takei, by the way.) However. The idea that in a relationship the one holding the power is automatically the guilty party (especially if he is a man) is just plain stupid. The first lab I attempted my PhD was in a lab where the PI had a wife who acted as a lab manager. I learned later that she used to be his MSc student, and my PI divorced his fat and ugly wife to marry his blonde and thin student. In this case you may argue that my PI took advantage of his situation, but it’s not what happened. What really happened was that the lab manager took advantage of her situation, and simply seduced her supervisor. There are cases when you clearly have a scumbag abusing his power (see Weinstein), but a lot of these cases we like to forget that we all are humans with our insecurities, worries and, yes, libidos. Just because in a professional setting the guy was a superstar of peptide chemistry, does not mean he was not an insecure chubby man who could be easily manipulated by a self-assured, striking young woman. And I have not even mentioned people who abuse their sexuality to get ahead in line. Sexuality is power too, you know. In fact it is the ultimate power in this world. What I’m saying here is yes, scumbags, like Weinstein should not be allowed to do what they do best; however every case should be treated with care. (The problem here is what the problem is in most of these cases involving genders: the people setting the tone are not concerned about collateral damage, since it does not happen to the members of the group they belong to. Even if the perpetrator does happen to be a member of their group they normally get off easy in both legal proceedings and in the social media outrage-machine.)

Rape culture and sexual consent

This has some tangential connections to the issues triggering the #metoo movement, but only in a very specific way: can someone give consent if the other party is much more powerful than they are. This has, since then, spun out to be a general outcry about consent, and the whole, very unrealistic “yes means yes” attitude. Apparently women are not capable vocalizing their wishes if they don’t want something, so to protect these fragile creatures a constant verbal confirmation is needed during sexual acts. Interesting concept, but it does beg the question if these people have ever had sex before. It also means, of course, that if two drunk people bang each other, the man essentially raped the woman since she has taken something that made her incapable of consent. (This is true even if she only had a glass of wine, by the way.) The fact that the guy was drunk too, does not come into play. It’s not two adults doing things that they may regret later –it’s one adult doing things to another for which he will be criminally liable for the rest of his life. Responsibility is something only one party has to think about. (I wonder why infantilization of women is OK with these people, but whatever.)

Weinstein did give a very good opportunity for these people to push their agenda; after all we all know men are always more powerful than women, right? After all, Patriarchy.

To be honest it is not necessarily wrong to re-evaluate social norms, and create new ones; the problem is when it’s a retroactive, one-sided process. The retroactivity is pretty easy to see: people get burned for relatively minor things (like touching of knees or pretending to grab boobs for stupid photos) they did in the ‘80s. Well, guess what. Those were different times, and it’s not necessarily conductive to judge those times based on your present social norms. The one-sidedness is also quite evident; it’s enough just to talk to a bouncer or a bartender if you want to hear about inappropriate behaviour by women – behaviour they do not get pilloried for; but behaviour a man could easily find himself arrested for.

But this is not where one-sidedness ends. OK, let’s pretend women do not behave obnoxiously, or there are no double standards on behaviour. The present discussion places every single iota of responsibility on the man. There are no clear “new norms”. We still live in the past (apparently) where it was a man’s duty and job to court women; they are (and were) the proactive party most of the cases. Like it or not, this is something that has been going on for as long as sexuality existed in the animal kingdom (OK, not as long, but nearly). The males court the female, the female chooses her mate. Just because it has always been like that does mean it’s set in stone: after all, social norms can and do change. In fact, many men would prefer if women were more proactive. However. This places men into a very precarious situation presently, since there are no accepted new norms yet. Most women expect men to pursue them; most women expect men to be proactive and “manly”. It’s not the “toxic masculinity” certain feminists like to talk about; it’s simply the fact that genders do have different roles. You don’t have to abide them, but the differences are there. You smile at someone, you bring them flowers, ask them out, kiss them; we all know the drill. Right now what is being argued for is that anything that a woman does not welcome is sexual harassment or abuse. There are no clear lines, no clear definitions. She can change her mind later, too –like in the case of Aziz (and countless others). So what these people are arguing for is that women have no responsibility in changing their behaviour, only men do. But we are not giving them new rules; the rules are that if we don’t like you, we don’t like what you do, or we regret something we did later, we can absolutely and totally fuck you up. (Like Mattress Girl, and the others who destroyed the lives of men they accused of rape.) Funnily enough this can happen to a woman, too, if she poses as a man. But, as we know, women do not lie about rape or sexual harassment. Ever.

And this is not on. This is not “sexual liberation” of women; this is an absolute empowerment of women at the expense of men.

Since we discuss rape. Does rape happen? Absolutely. It’s not Mattress Girl’s figment of imagination at all. A friend of mine was raped when she was a child by their neighbour and her parents dismissed her claims. It’s absolutely outrageous and something that needs to be punished severely. But the discussion is incredibly one-sided.

It is incredibly disingenuous that rape –in the eye of the law in most countries- can only be done by men to women. It is also incredibly disingenuous that people disregard every single piece of evidence and statistics that do not confirm with the “men are rapists women are victims” narrative; and that narrative drives policies. The simplest examples are the female teachers sleeping with their students; most people just shrug, or even feel a bit of “that’s the way to do it, my son” attitude. (Myself included if I want to be honest.) However, these cases should not be treated differently from male teachers sleeping with their underage students –yet they are. Both in the public eye, and in the eye of the law.

But it does not stop here. Female on male rape does happen. In fact, a study looking at sexual violence found that females and males had carried out sexual violence at nearly equal levels by the age of 18. You can read other studies and statistics, too.  Most US studies conclude that federal surveys detect a high prevalence of sexual victimization among men—in many circumstances similar to the prevalence found among women. The factors perpetuating misperceptions about men’s sexual victimization are reliance on traditional gender stereotypes, outdated and inconsistent definitions, and methodological sampling biases that exclude inmates. And yet nothing happens; these people are not included in the list of people deserving help; they do not conform the “men are the perpetrators, women are the victim” narrative. The typical response from a feminist (and I use this word with reluctance because I guess “third wave feminist” would be more fitting), is that “Patriarchy hurts everyone”. This is bullshit, of course. “Patriarchy” used as a convenient trump card in these discussions even though it makes absolutely no sense. Patriarchy is supposed to disadvantage women so that men can exert their power over them –after all, it is in the name. If this system disadvantages both genders in different way, it is not a patriarchy. As we discussed, names are important. The real issue is here –as with all the other “Red Pill” issues- is that certain feminists think it’s a zero sum game: if we talk about men’s problems we will ignore women (or, if I’m less charitable, they hate men). So it’s a struggle from here on between sexes for them; a struggle they are actually winning.

It does not have to be like that. As a feminist scholar said about male victims: “Compassion is not a finite resource.”

Domestic violence also comes up a lot when it comesto #metoo. This, just like rape and sexual assault, is a very grey area- not as black-and-white as they would like it to be seen. In fact, people who dare to claim it is a reciprocal thing, tend to get death threats. And lose the right to enter the shelter they themselves founded. Figure that.

Let’s see the statistics again. There are also studies on the matter; freely available for everyone. Yet nobody bothers; or even worse, they ridicule the victim.  It seems like men are also quite often victims of domestic violence; yet they are never on the agenda when it comes to help. The fact is, a man who is a victim of domestic violence, has nowhere to go. (Or rather, he can go to prison if he calls the cops.) This is not to say that all things are equal; it is very true that a lot more women die or get seriously injured as a result of domestic violence. What I am doing here is pointing at the discrepancies of narratives and realities. The usual “men –bad, women- good” narratives are just not true; and a lot of victims go without support because of that. What is worse, even the victims these movements love to pretend they want to protect go unprotected, since all policies aimed at protecting women in domestic violence are built on a false narrative, and not on the actual evidence. They will make you feel great about yourself, but they do jackall to actually protecting women.

The whole issue has been hijacked by a very radical form of feminism worldwide; even mentioning the discrepancies in sentencing, the homelessness rates, the suicide rates, education, and so on evokes a mixture of hatred and ridicule. There are no sane voices in this debate; and this is what the #metoo movement morphed into –another weaponized outrage-factory in this gender war where everything is about the evils of Patriarchy, and not correcting the problems in our society we both built. (Or if I want to be cheeky, men built.)