Woody Allen is right, there’s a witch-hunt going on. A witch-hunt against rapists. We can call it a rapist-hunt for short.
With Harvey Weinstein being outed as a serial harasser of women and an alleged rapist, rape-y men everywhere are in a crisis. This is especially unfair, since when you really think about it, rape-y men are the real victims in this scandal. How do I know that? Well, just look at the evidence:
1. Rapists are being denied their instincts
The majority of rapists and sexual harassers are men, and men are masculine creatures. Masculine creatures are simply following their instincts when they try to lick women’s faces outside the bar bathroom at 1 a.m. — I mean, how do you think our caveman ancestors did it? Do you think they spread their seed by sitting around wearing man rompers and quoting the collected letters of Sylvia Plath to each other? Fuck no.
It’s true that not all instincts are created equal. For example, if one is overcome with the natural instinct to pop a squat and take a dump on Park Avenue in broad daylight — just as an ancestor of ours might have done once upon a time — we would refer to this as anti-social behavior and possibly charge that person with a crime.
The rules are different when it comes to dealing with women, though. For one thing, nobody’s raping anyone in broad daylight on Park Avenue — so it’s not strictly anti-social. For another thing, we’re talking about women here. Women are mysterious moon creatures, governed by tides and hormones. They wear things called diva cups and say things like, “I got my eyebrows done,” though they never say why or in what way. Women are unnatural and laws are meant to be natural — hence laws can’t apply to women.
This is why following your instincts and clubbing another dude on the head if he stands too close to you on the bus stop with his dumbass Nintendocore music blaring through headphones is legally not OK — but following your instincts and grabbing a random woman’s ass at the very same bus stop should definitely not be as big of a deal as everyone is making it out to be.
2. “Wonder Woman” is oppressive
If you thought the Weinstein scandal was bad enough, consider the fact that earlier this year, Wonder Woman came out. In case you haven’t seen it, it’s a movie where a woman is the hero — the superhero, even. She grapples with things like war and the imperfections of human nature and doesn’t let a man dictate shit to her, not even when that man is Chris Pine. If you think that’s fucked up, consider the fact that Wonder Woman goes shopping and doesn’t worry what her thighs look like. Then she eats ice cream without obsessing about sugar and carbs. She doesn’t Bridget Jones her way through a single bottle of vodka either — which is what movies starring women are supposed to show.
3. No, seriously, “Wonder Woman” is OPPRESSIVE
It was directed by a woman with other women in mind. What kind of misandrist, ass-kicking knitting circle bullshit is this.
4. Also, not attacking women is hard
Honestly, few people realize that some rapists would really like to avoid raping, just as some harassers would really like to avoid harassing — but can one really avoid a high-speed car crash? Especially when instead of a truck barreling towards you it’s a woman? Like, maybe she happens to be alone in an elevator with you, or maybe she’s wearing clothes that suggest she has a body underneath them and BAM.
If women really wanted men to respect them, they wouldn’t get into elevators with them or have bodies, but women don’t even care enough to address these issues, which brings me to my next point:
5. Ultimately, an undue burden is being placed on men here
It used to be that a man only had his manly, God-given responsibilities — such as making money and lording it over women, or else looking good in a wifebeater.
Now all of a sudden, men are expected to not rape or harass women too. Not only is this patently unfair, it will tilt the balance of power in favor of women, who already enjoy far too many privileges — such as never fearing rejection from men (well, unless they’re not perfect 10s, but chicks who aren’t 10s don’t count anyway) and being allowed to wear nothing but an oversized t-shirt around the house and having that be considered cute.
Do you see what I mean? Women already have most of the power, and giving them more would frankly be unconscionable. It’s like appeasing Hitler. It never works, and in the end, he’s still going to invade shit.
And as for women, they might get so out of hand that they’ll eventually demand to take their rightful place as full-fledged members of humanity.
Seriously, just wait and see. You’re laughing now — but it could very well happen, I warn you.
Photo: Garry Knight/Creative Commons
Even though I do think men have legitimate grievances in the latest incarnation of the “battle of the sexes” (e.g., custody rights), I do also think that some of them exaggerate things way out of proportion, and create a situation in which they are hardly distinguishable from the “radical feminists” they are supposedly crtiticizing.
I’d say to the moderates: if you want to criticize feminists because, for instance, they don’t pay enough attention to false rape accusations, that’s fine. But please, PLEASE understand that women ALSO have legitimate grievances, that all is not a beautiful dream in their lives, that they are made to suffer in many ways for no reason other than they are women.
You think there are unfair things being thrown at you because you’re a man? Fine, let’s talk about them. But remember the women who also get things (many quite unpleasant) thrown at them for the similar reason that they are women.
Men win nothing by denying other people (in this case, women’s) suffering — especially when it is still, in many ways, systemic. Neither do women, for that matter.
Ms Antonova makes some quite striking points here. Rather than knee-jerk reactions, I’m hoping some people — especially some men — will take the time to consider the possibility that she may be, well, right.
I wish Cathy Young’s plea for a “ceasefire” had worked. When, oh when will we learn that asserting the legitimacy of one’s claim need not involve delegitimizing other people’s? When will we learn that women’s (and men’s) problems are all human problems?
For good and for bad, women are people. Deal with that.