Seven dead in drive by California shootings

[TeapotCavalry]

The high percentage of women being harassed by men doesn't mean a high percentage of men are harassing women.

I wanted to point out the same. Wasn't there a study showing most crimes are done by repeat offenders or something to that effect?

 

[marplots]

The high percentage of women being harassed by men doesn't mean a high percentage of men are harassing women.

I wanted to point out the same. Wasn't there a study showing most crimes are done by repeat offenders or something to that effect?

I don't know. My objection was strictly on a logic basis. I'd also add another nuance: If I am a victim of harassment, even if that occurred a decade ago and the harasser is long dead, I still get to count it. So there's an effect of preservation here.

If, by some miracle, all harassment stopped instantly, the numbers of women who have been harassed wouldn't change. It also doesn't change if those same women are harassed more often.

I do remember discussing this with my daughter. I suspect it was when she first started working at McDonald's and mentioned it. She would have been in high school - young and beautiful (she's still beautiful, just not as young). I tried to explain that the comments said almost nothing about her, but said a great deal about the speaker. I believe I pointed out the greater danger from men who could conceal their desire and stupidity rather than those who wore it so obviously.

Her "nuclear weapon" response, which I can't swear she ever used, was "You disgust me." Mostly, she developed a facial expression which said much the same thing - the face you make when you discover half a worm in the apple you are eating.

 

[Morrigan]

Do you need a reach to grasp at those straws?

What?

Reading Phil Plait is like reading an A+ douchebag post.

Why?

That piece was the most PC thing I've ever read. I got the feeling he was grovelling for some reason.

Grovelling? What?

Phil Plait writes:"Why is it not helpful to say 'not all men are like that'? For lots of reasons. For one, women know this."

Jessica Valenti, writing in the Guardian, states: “Rodger, like most young American men, was taught that he was entitled to sex and female attention.”

Apparently not every woman knows this as Phil thinks.

I don't think Valenti is necessarily correct with that statement (it certainly needs qualifiers, but I haven't read the Guardian article), but regardless, "most men being taught X" is a different statement than "most men behave like X". As a young girl I have been taught many things that I never integrated even when I was younger (and even less as a grownup). So Plait's statement isn't contradictory with Valenti's.

Also, why isn't this the fault of video games like other shootings by young men? Or, why weren't their shootings the result of cultural misogyny?

Although there are many different reasons for these mass killings they all have several things in common which puts those things as the likely cause. Individual misogyny in the case of this shooter is no more the cause than video games, or Ozzy Osborne and Judas Priest records.

You've lost me.

#YesAllWomen


I SOLVED SEXISM!!!!

Obvious strawman is obvious. Has anyone ever stated a twitter campaign categorically "solved" a problem? No, but we've seen many people, men included, react to this twitter campaign positively and soberingly. So it's already helping. It certainly helps more than contemptuous and dismissive snark. But, I'm sure you knew that eh?

Exactly! And another point that seems to have been missed is that this moron didn't shoot these people because of cultural misogyny. He shot them because of a lack of cultural misogyny.

Think about it. He wanted to have sex with women, they didn't want to have sex with him. He felt they should be obligated to have sex with him but society doesn't allow that. He went on a killing spree not because he hated women but because society wouldn't allow him to do anything about that hatred.

I.... what....?

 

[Giz]

There is also another important factor which often goes overlooked in gun debates: suicide. If you have a gun in the house, the odds that you will kill yourself go up. In fact, this study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology found:

Yeah, I just looked at that study and the claims it makes. Note that regarding homicide the study says:

“it is possible that the association between a gun in the home and risk of a violent death may be related to other factors that we were unable to control for in our analysis. For instance, with homicide, the association may be related to certain neighborhood characteristics or the decedent’s previous involvement in other violent or illegal behaviors.”

So they excluded the main predictor of being the victim of gun violence, a history of criminality:
---
People with a criminal record were also more likely to die as homicide victims.[16] Between 1990 and 1994, 75% of all homicide victims age 21 and younger in the city of Boston had a prior criminal record.[45] In Philadelphia, the percentage of those killed in gun homicides that had prior criminal records increased from 73% in 1985 to 93% in 1996.[16][46] In Richmond, Virginia, the risk of gunshot injury is 22 times higher for those males involved with crime.[47]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_in_the_United_States
---

Makes their whole study look biased and worthless really.

 

[NoahFence]

Stupid and douchey - absolutely. I guess I'm lost what sexual harassment really means, it seems to mean any- and everything someone could take offense of. A dictionary tells me harassment is something persistent, but perhaps it's a legal definition that is used here. I could find sexual harassment explained only in employment and work environment situations.. Can someone point me to the more general law of sexual harassment and how it's defined? Could we prosecute catcallers?



Ps. sorry for the thread hijack.

If given enough time I imagine I could find a laundry list of things that aren't illegal, but are still bad.

Is catcalling a crime? No - is it wrong? Yes. And if the definition of harassment is something persistent as you suggest, then catcalling absolutely fits that definition.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

The studies are all referenced at the bottom of the page and not all are inaccessible.

I'm sure not all are, I just pointed out that your link was unhelpful (to me) in determining what you were talking about.

I was talking about them collectively. But if you like, I'll pick out one study that is free to read online:

Yes, please. There were a bunch of studies mentioned and since it was your claim, I assume you know which study backs that claim. I'd like to be convinced.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Oxyge...sment+of+Women+on+the+Street+Is...-a062870396
From this we learn that 87% of American women,18-64 have experienced harassment by a male stranger and for over half of these involved physical contact or following.

I'm sorry, but where's the actual study? This seems to be a recap of some sort.

If you have statistics about women being sexually assaulted and harassed by female strangers, I'd be very interested.

I don't have that statistic and I'm guessing men make the majority of street harassers.

By all means belittle women's experiences of unwanted verbal harassment by dismissing it as catcalling.

Dismissing it as catcalling? I'm sorry, I'm not a native English speaker, I just used the term that's known to me. How do you call it then?

But if you take the UN's definition of it (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/pdf/whatissh.pdf), harassment definitely doesn't have to be physical.

Of course. Nobody claimed that.

Being male is certainly relevant because with the vast majority of perpetrators are male.

Umm, so it's relevant only in a statistical sense?

Because society legitimises this sort of behaviour by males, like by dismissing verbal harassment as catcalling for example.

Huh?

If you think that being male is irrelevant, then you have to ignore the influences of gender,sexual attraction and culture, you also have to ignore what the statistics and research show. In short you have to be wilfully blind.

I'm not sure what you're getting at anymore. Why is being a man integral to the crimes of sexual harassment and sexual violence? Did you really just mean the relevance is statistical?

I'll just quote you again for reference: " the fact that a man is the perpetrator is integral to the crime"

 

[Stout]

I imagine that if I were gay and it came to things like laws that I felt repressed my rights as a person simply because I was gay, I'd speak up against such laws for example. But just some fool spouting off about how evil or immoral or condemned-by-God gay people in general are, for example? No, I wouldn't "defend gays" from such statements.

But this isn't really an analogous situation, because "attacks on gays" tend to be religio-political arguments. A woman complaining about how often she's had to deal with harassment or outright physical intimidation or abuse from men on a day-to-day basis isn't some kind of abstract argument or political musing; it's reporting observations. "This happens to me, a lot. It bothers/scares me. All the people who've done it so far are men." I can't imagine how I'm supposed to take another person's observations, of what happened to them, personally. It makes no sense to me whatsoever.

So then, if I were to launch a legitimate attack on gays.....

Do you know what I hate. Gays in the parks, especially the one down the street. Every day I pass through that park on my way to and home from work and there's these guys, lurking in leather jackets and acting all furtive when I pull out my camera to take a picture of a tree. There's condoms and kleenex absolutely everywhere, littering the place like there's some sort of gay orgy going on all day and a few times I've found these guys with their pants down and their dicks out, having a wank in full public view. Freaking gays...can't they keep to their bars and craigslist ads ? Why do these people have to despoil my park and make it difficult, nay impossible, to walk through there with my kid on the way to the playground ?

#notallgays ?

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Obvious strawman is obvious. Has anyone ever stated a twitter campaign categorically "solved" a problem? No, but we've seen many people, men included, react to this twitter campaign positively and soberingly. So it's already helping. It certainly helps more than contemptuous and dismissive snark. But, I'm sure you knew that eh?

I know people who watched the Kony video who actually thought they were helping to solve the problem.

But then, hashtag slacktivism isn't about solving problems, it's about making slacktivists feel better about themselves. But, I'm sure you knew that eh?

 

[TeapotCavalry]

If given enough time I imagine I could find a laundry list of things that aren't illegal, but are still bad.

Not my point at all, though I knew I'd get this response. The point is to determine the boundaries of what we call sexual harassment. It's a phrase tossed around so easily it has, in my eyes, lost most of its seriousness and impact. Sometimes unwanted attention is not necessarily harassment. But given the examples mediocrity511 linked to, my every trip to a populated area is guaranteed to result in some sort of harassment. It's a meaningless phrase like that.

Is catcalling a crime? No

That means catcalling is not sexual harassment? Because sexual harassment is a crime last I checked.

And if the definition of harassment is something persistent as you suggest, then catcalling absolutely fits that definition.

How do you figure? Is the cat caller stalking the victim?

 

[Old man]

...But if you like, I'll pick out one study that is free to read online:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Oxyge...sment+of+Women+on+the+Street+Is...-a062870396
From this we learn that 87% of American women,18-64 have experienced harassment by a male stranger and for over half of these involved physical contact or following. If you have statistics about women being sexually assaulted and harassed by female strangers, I'd be very interested...

Where in that link is the full study? Maybe i'm just blind but I can't find the pdf (or whatever format it's in).

That's because it's not a study.

Oxygen/Markle Pulse Poll Finds...

...Penn, Schoen and Berland Associates conducted a nationally representative telephone survey of 612 adult women between June 17 and June 19, 2000...

 

[Dissolution]

I wonder what a similar phone poll of men would reveal about street harassment?
I'm surprised that it's only 87% of women, given the vague nature of the question.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Her "nuclear weapon" response, which I can't swear she ever used, was "You disgust me." Mostly, she developed a facial expression which said much the same thing - the face you make when you discover half a worm in the apple you are eating.

Is it this one?

NSFW - Some strong language

 

[qayak]

You there...are you a member of society?

No. I was but I had to hang around with undesirables so I quit.

 

[marplots]

Is it this one?

NSFW - Some strong language

Close enough.

 

[NoahFence]

Not my point at all, though I knew I'd get this response. The point is to determine the boundaries of what we call sexual harassment. It's a phrase tossed around so easily it has, in my eyes, lost most of its seriousness and impact. Sometimes unwanted attention is not necessarily harassment. But given the examples mediocrity511 linked to, my every trip to a populated area is guaranteed to result in some sort of harassment. It's a meaningless phrase like that.

If a female feels harassed by the behavior, it should stop. Its up to them to define the harassement. My experience states that quite a few women who are the targets of catcalling feel they are harassed.

That means catcalling is not sexual harassment? Because sexual harassment is a crime last I checked.

Depends on who is getting the calls. Some thrive on it, most (again, in my experience) feel harassed. It doesn't have to be illegal to be wrong.

How do you figure? Is the cat caller stalking the victim?

No, the victim is repeatedly being harassed. Doesn't have to be the same person doing it. Unless you're implying that when a woman walks out of range from the person doing it, some system gets reset, so when she walks by the next person we don't get to call it 'persistent'?

 

[Checkmite]

Indeed; I don't imagine if a woman is bothered by being catcalled five times in the space of two blocks while walking down the street that it would be especially comforting to her that it was five different men instead of one man persistently doing it.

 

[Checkmite]

So then, if I were to launch a legitimate attack on gays.....

Do you know what I hate. Gays in the parks, especially the one down the street. Every day I pass through that park on my way to and home from work and there's these guys, lurking in leather jackets and acting all furtive when I pull out my camera to take a picture of a tree. There's condoms and kleenex absolutely everywhere, littering the place like there's some sort of gay orgy going on all day and a few times I've found these guys with their pants down and their dicks out, having a wank in full public view. Freaking gays...can't they keep to their bars and craigslist ads ? Why do these people have to despoil my park and make it difficult, nay impossible, to walk through there with my kid on the way to the playground ?

#notallgays ?

It is interesting that you apparently think complaining about seeing allegedly gay people over there doing something that offends but otherwise doesn't involve you directly is just like a woman complaining about being personally harassed, catcalled, discriminated against and etc., or at least analogous enough to think the one situation has a relevant point to make about the other.

 

[Stout]

Is it this one?

NSFW - Some strong language

Ha! Jenna Marbles. She's great.

I wonder how many death and rape threats she gets and how often she gets harassed. It has to be lots, right. After all Phil Plait talks about the crime of being a woman on the internet and Laurie Penny just had to return from taking a couple of day off, due to rape threats, to write her rant in New Statesman.

 

[TeapotCavalry]

If a female feels harassed by the behavior, it should stop.

Depends on the behavior and again, irrelevant to my point.

Its up to them to define the harassement.

No. It's up to all of us through a rational discourse to decide what we mean by the words we use. No group has monopoly on language.

My experience states that quite a few women who are the targets of catcalling feel they are harassed.

I have no experience of it, even through proxy - it's not pertinent in our culture.

Depends on who is getting the calls. Some thrive on it, most (again, in my experience) feel harassed. It doesn't have to be illegal to be wrong.

Sure. It's contextual and situational like most of everything.

No, the victim is repeatedly being harassed. Doesn't have to be the same person doing it. Unless you're implying that when a woman walks out of range from the person doing it, some system gets reset, so when she walks by the next person we don't get to call it 'persistent'?

Catcalling is persistent if it's done or experienced persistently - can't disagree with that. Persistent catcalling is harassment - sure, I guess.

 

[Stout]

It is interesting that you apparently think complaining about seeing allegedly gay people over there doing something that offends but otherwise doesn't involve you directly is just like a woman complaining about being personally harassed, catcalled, discriminated against and etc., or at least analogous enough to think the one situation has a relevant point to make about the other.

That's because I'm not making that comparison. I'm illustrating offensive behaviour by gays and wondering whether, or not you're going to defend that behaviour by saying not all gays do that.

You can't tell me that they're not doing it, because this is my lived experience, you can't tell me it's not offensive because I find it so and I've made my story so it applies to all gays.