Ugh, Jezefail again!

[gryphonsegg]

Who made the decision to turn Jezebel into a platform for sexually predatory men?



Hugo Schwyzer posts there. Back before he jumped on board, there was that guest blogger who wrote about how the French are too sophisticated for consent and not liking public groping is a sign of no-fun American prudishness. There was that post about how mainstream society is so mean to heterosexual men who just want to talk about their "sexual needs" to their coworkers and random women in bus stations and all us meanies should stop shaming them and calling them creepy. Now the self-appointed Bosses of Women over at the big J advise women to read a conversation among admitted rapists on Reddit because "we should listen" to the rapists as they "explain themselves" and tell "the other side."

Choice Jezefail quotes:

“Nothing will change if we discuss rape culture in a vacuum. Taking the discussion beyond that vacuum, however, means opening it up to a wider audience that isn’t necessarily sympathetic."

"their brutal honesty effectively illustrates how a lack of communication and education perpetuates rape culture"


"We should not be so desperate to establish the seriousness of rape that we stigmatize intelligent discussion of it."

Comments

[holyschist]

I have kind of grown to hate Jezebel.

[gryphonsegg]

It's truly hateworthy. And I'm completely serious about wanting to know why a site where the articles are addressed to women is so heavily invested in talking women into listening to the valuable insights of male rapists, domestic abusers, sexual harassers, and other sexual predators. Jezebel's repeated fails go beyond the usual "It's your responsibility to watch your drink and never go out alone!" victim-blaming of most purveyors of "women's interest" claptrap are guilty. I know the conventional wisdom is that all Gawker sites intentionally things that are guaranteed to stir up controversy because that leads to more people visiting Gawker and seeing the ads, but I'm beginning to wonder. I could almost believe that somebody at Jezebel consciously has an agenda in favor of guilt-tripping women into sympathizing with abusive men.

[holyschist]

You know, I do think a lot of rape happens out of ignorance and men not being taught to, you know, ask for consent and look their partners in the face and see women as actual people, rather than out of malice and a desire to harm. Those are the men that feel bad when they realize what they did. That's something that probably can be addressed by education, hopefully preventing future rapes. But...the solution to this is not to let a lot of men angst about their past "mistakes" and get patted on the back for their bravery in sharing their guilt anonymously on the internet.

And some of the people over there are fucking sociopaths, and they're getting patted on the back, too. Some of them are probably wanking to the survivor stories.

Pretty much my takeaway from Jezebel was "Don't be a woman, especially in public, and don't trust anyone ever." Which isn't fucking useful in any way, and it's also gross.

[tigerlily]

I don't think those reasons are exclusive. Rapists feel their victims aren't human, ergo they don't think harming them can be wrong or is even real harm.

[holyschist]

This is true. Hmm, I'm not sure how to express this: I think there's a category of rapists who could be reached by education before they commit rape and thus prevented from it, and that these are different from, say, the sociopath the Jezebel article pointed out who actively got off on the women he coerced not being into it (what the hell are we supposed to learn from that? That Schrodinger's Rapist could be anyone? Knew that already!). There is a difference to my mind between "doesn't recognize lack of consent" and "recognizes lack of consent and likes it" -- not from the point of view of the rape, which is still a horrible crime regardless, but from the point of view of educating people to not commit rape. I have much more hope about reaching the first group.

But I don't think that improving education about things like respect and consent and what constitutes rape is going to be accomplished by giving men cookies for feeling bad that they raped someone before they figured out that drunkenness != consent, or whatever.

Does that make sense?

[surrealistdreamer]

8D

-backs slowly and plans to evict women from this world to fly them to Venus- We shall build our all female utopia here.