Sir, You Cannot Sit Next to These Children

@bluteau Hey listen, I think we’re just agreeing with each other! I don’t think the pervasive fear or rape culture is funny either, and like I said above, it’s totally understandable. I’m just saying that I think that it’s funny that anyone would ever think that me, as an individual, would be considered a rapist, because I really am tiny and scrawny, and also any discussion of sex makes me feel uncomfortable. Please continue to cross the street to avoid me! I’m still going to feel surprised by it.

@Mike Dang I understand you don’t perceive yourself as threatening, but the threat of rape is general and not specifically tied to any man, big and menacing or small and gentle. It’s a generalized fear that exists all the time, and that women have to live with.

It isn’t about you as an individual, and it’s ok if you feel surprised, but if women’s fear causes you to “laugh really hard” I suspect you don’t understand the full breadth of the violence women are subjected to as a matter of course.

@bluteau I agree with you and am not looking to argue. Instead, I’m just going to apologize for joking about myself in a really sensitive issue, and will avoid doing this in the future. I do not mean to be insensitive. Promise!

@Mike Dang I’m just picturing you reciting John Mulaney’s exact same bit. “Look, I’m still afraid of being kidnapped.”

@Mike Dang Andrea Dworkin wants a 24 hour truce, and so do I. I don’t care about your insensitivity, I just wish people would stop raping women so that we wouldn’t have to cross the street at night: http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/WarZoneChaptIIIE.html

@bluteau I think there’s a big difference between a woman walking alone in a vulnerable situation, and children on a PACKED PLANE FULL OF LOTS OF PEOPLE having to sit near a man.

@cmcm Clearly.

@bluteau Hey, question: isn’t the assumption that all men are barely-repressed sex monsters just waiting to spot vulnerable prey in a dark alley to shed their thin veneer of humanity ALSO a part of rape culture? Like, if we treat all men as potential rapists, then it’s no surprise at all when they go and rape somebody.

@stuffisthings The patriarchy sucks for men, too, but ending rape is more important than your feelings. Read the Dworkin article and get to work, if you care about ending rape culture. If not, at least be upfront about it instead of engaging in philosophical masturbation.

I’m not fighting about this junk on the internet and I’m also not reading this website anymore.

@stuffisthings Just this weekend I was walking down a dark and deserted warehouse street with two other female friends, and a guy tried to hit on us. He got offended when one of us gave him a withering glance, and then got even more offended when I suggested that talking to women on a dark and deserted street is not a good pickup strategy. He informed me that if I had a problem, then it was my problem and not his. But, see, I can’t be worried that he’s offended. That’s just how it is!

@stuffisthings “Like, if we treat all men as potential rapists, then it’s no surprise at all when they go and rape somebody.”

I don’t think this is an accurate representation of cause and effect when it comes to rape culture and violence against women.

As @bluteau says, the patriarchy sucks for men too. But a woman crossing the street on a dark night is by no means “making the assumption that all men are barely-repressed sex monsters.” She’s trying to protect herself against potential danger. It’s not personal.

I’m not really talking about my feelings, and I’m not sure where anyone got that impression, but surely every “Oh she was asking for it with that skirt” argument is predicated on the assumption that all men are naturally sexual predators, and any little thing can set them off. In other words, the exact mindset that people who talk about “rape culture” are usually trying to fight against.

When someone crosses the street to get away from me at night, it is funny, to me, because irony is funny, and it is the very definition of “ironic” to think that something is wildly different from what it actually is. It’s also totally understandable, because the person crossing the street has no way to know what I’m like. I’ve crossed the street to avoid groups of young men before, and then realized that they were just high school kids goofing off, and laughed at myself a little bit. I don’t feel this in any way diminishes the reality of living in a city where people are murdered every day.

ETA: Just to be totally clear, I’m not saying this argument justifies sexual violence, or an environment of pervasive sexual violence, but rather that it is used to justify those things, by some people (e.g. police telling women not to dress “like sluts”).

@bluteau oh shit, you brought Dworkin into it. If somebody told me it was going to be that kind of party, I would have…left.

“In Dworkin’s book, she argues that all heterosexual sex in our patriarchal society is coercive and degrading to women, and sexual penetration may by its very nature doom women to inferiority and submission, and “may be immune to reform.”"

Don’t let her get you down, Mike Dang-your humor was understood and you only offended someone who is looking to be offended.

“and I am NOT reading this website anymore because it is offering a different opinion to mine and that is a TRIGGER” Way to perpetuate a stereotype. DWORKIN WOULD BE PROUD.

@cmcm I’m pretty sure that this policy was put in place after a kid actually was molested by a stranger seated next to them. I remember reading the story about the incident at the time.

I, personally, have had issues more than once with strange men putting their hand on my leg or on my seat just as I sat down on a plane.

@Jake Reinhardt “You only offended someone who was looking to be offended” – bullshit. Mike said he laughed at women who were afraid of being raped, afraid enough that they took action to protect themselves. For anyone who’s been that afraid, done those things – Mike finding humor in our fear is really offensive. He was seeing things from a different perspective, sure, but at the end of the day he was laughing at a woman who is trying to protect herself from rape – as all women are conditioned to do, because heaven help us if society spent so much as a second telling men they should stop raping women. Women have to act like potential victims in order to survive, but we dare not suggest that men are potential rapists. (And yes, some women rape and some men get raped and people all over the gender spectrum rape and get raped too, I’m just writing in terms of the general male-female power imbalance.)

Dworkin’s best known for that one opinion, sure, (and possibly also the anti-porn thing) but she also has some incredibly accurate statements when it comes to the patriarchy and rape culture, and her extreme views on one matter don’t invalidate everything she’s ever said, ever.

@Mike Dang I get why you’d be surprised but I also don’t think that anyone is really assessing whether someone looks like a rapist or whether they guess they’d be able to defend themselves from that person when making the decision to cross the street away from someone (especially when tiny, scrawny people are still perfectly capable of sexual assault). I know that the vast majority of men, regardless of their size and stature, aren’t likely to sexually assault me but I also know that 1/4 women will be sexually assaulted at some point in their lives and so if it’s dark and the street is empty and there is no one else around to see what happens to me, I’m going to cross the street away from the person walking behind me, regardless of whether they are male, female, tall, short, skinny, muscular, etc. just to be sure.

I’m curious if the people who find Mike’s original statement offensive also find the John Mulaney bit that @melis posted above to be offensive? I’m really not trying to go on some weird men’s movement thing here, just genuinely curious. It can be difficult to be an ally when you’re expected to toe to the most extreme 1980s High Second-Wave feminist text that anybody throws out there.

I mean, I generally don’t find it at all difficult or stressful to be a culturally sensitive person and respect what other people may find offensive. There’s a lot of diversity in my city, my work, and my family/personal life, but it’s only around the issue of sexual violence where I always feel like I’m walking along an invisible electric fence. Which is shame because I do think men need to be involved in eradicating rape culture.

@cherrispryte bullshit. I think the poster was looking through dworkin-colored glasses, and I also think that her opinion on hetero sex DOES invalidate most, if not all, of everything she says. In fact, I went back and read the warzone speech, which I hadn’t done since I was 23 and heavily involved in women’s studies, and I still think it is TERRIBLE. But what really weirds me out is the ability to take anything, in any context, from any man (seriously, Mike Dang?!), and turn it into a *statement about the patriarchy* Mike Dang is not threatening just because he is a man! Seriously, WTF. This argument is the root cause of why so many women refuse to identify as feminists, sheesh.

However, I think it is way more terrible to start an argument, and then flounce away when anyone has a dissenting opinion, as if your opinion is so much more valid that the internet just cannot handle your enlightened-ness. What a bummer of a person.

@stuffisthings Offensive is maybe not the exact right word to use, but anytime I’m reminded how totally clueless men are about the way women have been trained to see the world, it’s fucking sad and it hurts. (Not that this training is necessarily accurate. The vast majority of rapists know their victim, and the “stranger in an alleyway grabs you and rapes you” type of rape is way less common than other types.) But still, having male privilege thrown in your face like that kinda sucks. Look at the John Mulaney bit from the woman’s perspective. Yeah, he tells the story in an amusing manner, but can you imagine how scared she must have been? And does her fear outweigh how funny his retelling is?

It IS difficult to be an ally, no matter which works are getting cited. Imagine how much more difficult it must be to live the experiences you are trying to understand.

@stuffisthings Well, at least for me, what makes John Mulaney’s bit funny rather than insensitive or depressing is that he seems pretty aware in it that rape happens a lot and is terrible. It’s more like – “look at the ways living in a culture like ours keeps us afraid of one another” – than “this woman was stupid for being afraid of me.” This article does a pretty thorough sussing out of what differentiates jokes like his from the Tosh.0 brouhaha earlier this summer, if you’re interested.

@cherrispryte Hey, thanks for that. I’ve been down this rabbit hole too many times, so I decided to step back and not drive myself crazy. I really appreciate you sticking around and breaking it down. It makes a big difference!

@seaermine Yeah, and, you know, the first thing said to a woman who does get attacked on the street is going to be something like “why did you let that guy walk behind you for so long on that deserted street?” Or “why didn’t you cross to a better-lighted area?” followed by some lecturing about how women need to take sensible precautions in situations like that. But if we actually implement those things, it’s hilarious because obviously so and so isn’t a threat, blah blah blah. So what are we supposed to do, exactly?

@cherrispryte Just read this comment. I thought I made it clear that I agree that the vigilance is necessary, and the fear is totally valid? I only think it’s funny that anyone would ever be afraid of me, as a specific individual, not afraid of men in general. I was trying to make a self-deprecating joke about myself (tiny, scrawny!), and it didn’t go well, and I apologized for it immediately when someone brought it up. I’m not sure what else you want me to do? Being around the site as long as you have, do you really believe me to be such a terrible person?

And just for the record, universe, I was 100% anti-rape for a good 25 years before I read any Dworkin, in case that helps anyone totally re-evaluate their understanding of gender based violence and also blog commenting etiquette.

I just give that article out because it has helped a few well-meaning people who don’t understand why Rape is Such a Big Deal understand the issue, but it only works if you have an open mind.

@cherrispryte I guess that’s the crux of my unease here — I don’t find it all that difficult to be an ally on issues or racism or homophobia, or even most other feminist issues, even though I can never truly understand what being on the wrong end of those prejudices is like. I’ve certainly said wrong things and had to adjust my perspectives, who hasn’t? But only when the issue of rape/sexual violence comes up do I suddenly feel like I’m Larry David talking to a gay Asian paraplegic.

I’m not saying you personally, or feminists as a group, have a responsibility to do anything differently than you are, or to in any way take into account my Feelings or the Feelings of other men. Far be it from me! But if you feel that an open debate that includes the perspective of men is at all useful to the Cause, then you are definitely doing something wrong.

@Mike Dang I’ve been reading this blog since the beginning, enjoying it and passing along articles, just not commenting. No one thinks you are a terrible person, but your comment was upsetting in a way that is so unnecessary on a blog about personal finances.

I did not expect to see that this morning when I came, and had to say something because welcoming spaces for women is important to me. Up to today, this space felt welcoming.

I am glad you will be more careful about what you say in the future. Your particular beliefs, feelings and experiences around this issue are your business. You may not know it, but in the spirit of making this site a welcoming space, I was actually doing you a favour. Think of it as a free, introductory-offer Gender Based Analysis.

@stuffisthings: @stuffisthings: “But if you feel that an open debate that includes the perspective of men is at all useful to the Cause, then you are definitely doing something wrong.”

I’m going to disagree with you on this one. A dialogue regarding the behavior of Group A by Group B will be useless unless Group A becomes involved at some point. How does it serve anyone to passive-aggressively make comments about another person/group behind their back then say nothing to their face? How can you hope to solve this problem without the “offending” group’s involvement?

I may be reading you wrong here. I know you’re an intelligent guy based off of your previous comments on a great many articles here, but this comment seems very close-minded. Could you elaborate?

@Mike Dang I do not think you are a terrible person at all, I think quite highly of you! But I also think that you make mistakes, as all humans do, and, I’m sorry to say, especially men do when dealing with issues like this. I think you’ve handled this the right way, and really appreciate your clarification and apology, but the way it was first presented, yeah, that hurt. I was writing mainly in defense of bluteau’s right to be offended by your statements as initially presented.
And, frankly, as I pointed out in a later comment once I figured out what was really irking me, seeing this post as a whole here was surprising. It would be far from the first time that someone I respected suddenly turned out to be a MRA, and from the post, I was more than a little concerned that that’s where we were headed. But we are not!

@Jake Reinhardt There are so many fundamental misunderstandings in your last response to me that it’s almost impressive.

First of all, I’m fairly sure that feminism’s biggest problem is its tendency to exclude any woman who isn’t middle class, white, cis. But sure, blame it on the fact that feminists believe that men are threatening.

Mike Dang, to someone who doesn’t know him, can be threatening simply because he is a man, no matter how decent of a person he actually is. Until we can get y’all to wear color-coded wristbands signifying your decency, better safe than sorry. Because if anything horrible happens, one thing everyone agrees on is that it is definitely the woman’s fault.

And as for flouncing away, there are lots of reasons to stop commenting, and one is that it can simply become too much to take, and is done in the name of self-preservation.

@thecoffeestain If I understand your comment correctly, then I agree — I don’t think that rape/rape culture can be eradicated without the involvement of men. The problem I’m pointing out is that I feel the discourse around this particular issue creates a chilling effect even for men who are highly sympathetic to the feminist viewpoint and want to be helpful.

I strongly and vocally fight against racism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice wherever I encounter them, without worry that my underlying intentions will be questioned. I also work on behalf of women in a number of spheres in both my professional and my private life. As part of this work I often have open and frank discussions about sensitive topics, with both men and women, that sometimes result in me changing my viewpoint or how I express it. I don’t feel at all affronted when this happens, even when it involves disagreement. But when it comes to THIS ONE issue, of rape/sexual violence, I feel I’m walking through a minefield every time it’s brought up, even though I also feel it’s incredibly important and something I’d like to do my part to combat.

Now, obviously, Mike wasn’t making some grand feminist statement here. He was making an observation about a phenomenon — an observation that, in my opinion, requires a great deal of bad faith to interpret as something offensive. (Again: my opinion.) As I stated above, the humor here is in the irony. The (hypothetical!) woman is afraid of Mike Dang even though he is harmless. A number of black comedians have made similar, equally innocuous jokes about similar situations where the roles are reversed. “Look, a white lady avoided me, even though I’m harmless. Ha ha.” It can be funny even though the situation itself can only arise as the result of a great social inequity. (Also, the white lady could genuinely be terrified, even though her fear is irrational!)

Some people, like @cherrispryte, believe that these kinds of discussions are educational. They are. I’m sure the lesson that Mike will learn from this is: “If I address, or even tangentially mention, issues of sexual violence in a post, I should be prepared for a hugely lengthy and tedious comment thread that has little relation to the actual subject matter of my blog.”

@stuffisthings Obviously I do not speak for cherrispryte or feminists in general, or indeed any other person other than myself, but I will say that as feminist, I am interested in an open debate that includes the perspective of men, and I have had several very good ones. I am even interested in discussions of how the patriarchy hurts men. I am not interested, however, in the perspective of men who want to use a debate about the Cause to lecture women on how they should change their behaviour to avoid hurting men. This isn’t you, and it isn’t Mike Dang, but it happens. A lot. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had about women crossing the street and men’s Feelings, some of which have ended with me actually having to say “You know, my safety is always more important than your feelings. Period.” It really, really gets tiring after a while, and it has made me wary of any man who starts on that subject. It also kind of makes me sad, to be honest, because it’s like, “god, I live my life in constant fear. It’s a terrible way to live, and your first instinct is ‘how does this affect me?”"

And I mean, realistically, if a man doesn’t place the blame of a woman crossing the street when she sees him 100% on the shoulders of rapists (who are overwhelmingly male), then he probably does not have anything interesting to say about feminism.

@maddog Thanks for that — you are absolutely right that the whole “what about MY feeeelings” thing exists and is bad for everyone. Now that I think about it more, maybe a big part of the problem here, on both sides, is that people are reacting to what they think the other person is going to say rather than what they ARE saying.

@maddog YES to all of this.

@melis I agree with that – Mulaney’s joke is funny because he never denigrates the woman or her fear. He doesn’t understand it at first, but he’s respectful of her experience. His default setting is clearly respectful of women and the assumption that this respect is/should be the norm to everyone in the room.

I think it’s a great piece, because not only are we laughing at his doofus realization that women could find him threatening, but he’s also educating every other guy in the audience that this is an issue.

I think it’s really a positive bit.

Another funny rape joke from Wanda Sykes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8FfFwtL91Q

@bluteau “pervasive fear of rape culture”! god, how are any of you still living in the united states? it sounds unbelievably stressful.

@stuffisthings
You know, I have always been a reader of this site (although not a commenter until today), and I know you to be a thoughtful, sensitive person, so I am trying not to be disrespectful or glib here.

But the thing is, if you discuss the subject of sexual violence with women in different conversations, and if you discuss it with different women, and the end result of the conversation is the same (you feeling like you are walking a tightrope/in a minefield), I can’t help but ask the obvious question: what is the common factor here? I mean, do you think it’s more likely that different women from different backgrounds with different experiences are ALL overreacting or being sensitive (or whatever your choice of word might be, I really do not want to put words in your mouth)?

@Robin and I’m CANADIAN! ridiculous, right? I only really get stressed out on the internet. and by the barren wasteland that is our most famous season. I’ll just put on the CBC now and forget all about this.

@maddog The thing is, I DON’T discuss this issue with women, especially self-identified feminists, because I’ve observed the discourse around it so many times. I’ve actually never been on the wrong end of what I’m decrying here that I can recall. Because when I do say something on the topic I think it through very, very carefully so it is abundantly clear what I do and don’t mean (as you can see from the length and torturous phrasing of all my comments here). It is — as many women have also observed about having these conversations with men — utterly exhausting, even when everyone involved is well-meaning.

@forget it i quit I would have smothered them with a tiny airline pillow.

@MuffyStJohn I would’ve but they took it!

@forget it i quit I just came down here to post that I’ve never wanted to be a man so much in my life. Jesus god, why do I have to be the one to sit next to the children??

@WaityKatie
Also, under the Patriot Act, any white male can arrest any other person. There are lots of perks!

@stuffisthings Someone else please find statistics on the number of female child molesters as compared to male child molesters?

@cherrispryte I’d rather see the stats on eunuch child molesters.

@cherrispryte I’m about to move so I’ve been looking at a variety of crime stats in different neighborhoods (which I’m not even sure if I recommend because then you just want to live in a hole under a rock…with security guards) and I will say that it was less than 1 per 100.
Yeah, please refer to your exchange with melis above for the root of all this BS.

@Megano!@twitter That is indeed almost always how stupid policies get made. I was going to say “…but how could you molest a child on a crowded airplane?” But then I realized this had almost assuredly happened, and got sad.

@stuffisthings, @Megano!@twitter It happens a lot – http://www.sfweekly.com/2009-07-15/news/predators-are-free-to-move-about-the-cabin/

@sony_b People are awful.

@sony_b I think the only solution is kid only airlines? With major background checks on all crew.

@Megano!@twitter Even then…

@stuffisthings FINE ALSO ALL KID CREW. And tiny planes.

@cherrispryte: I’m going to chime in and agree with this actually. Looking back at the blurb and the two hyperlinked articles, I’m also hard-pressed to find the connective tissue between the post and the Billfold. This is a marvelous topic that is generating some good discussion, but I feel it might be a better focal point on the Hairpin or the Awl. Either way, thanks for bringing it to our attention Mike!

@cherrispryte I think consumer-related issues are also broadly within their remit. It’s nice to know which businesses operate on the presumption that half of their customers are child molesters.

@cherrispryte @thecoffeestain I honestly didn’t mean for this post to become as controversial as it has appeared to become, and I’m glad one of you view it as generating an interesting discussion. We also post about how companies treat consumers, and this is a thing that happened to someone who paid for a service, got treated in a way that was unexpected, and what happened when he called that company to complain, so I felt it was worth a post. But this feedback is great. I’m always open to suggestions/criticism.

@cherrispryte haters gonna hate, eh?

@Jake Reinhardt I … what?

@cherrispryte I think you’re a hater. I’m not sure how much more explicit I could be.

@cherrispryte This is a very good point and I am glad someone so thoughtful, articulate and steadfast brought it up. In explicit terms, you are super smart, super tough and also super awesome.

@Mike Dang: It is ABSOLUTELY an interesting discussion (so far you have 53 comments and counting, which is definitely up there) and not only that but one that, like conversations about money, impacts us all but we so rarely discuss it. Albeit accidental, your laughter stirred up a debate and is educating the rest of us readers, and hopefully yourself, as to what (at least to Billfold readers) rape means.

@Jake Reinhardt Of what? This site? I read and comment on it frequently, and have done so literally since day 1. Of Mike Dang? I think the world of the man, have said as much before in other comments. I would hope that my respectful tone when asking why this was run in the first place conveys the fact that I like this site, care about it, and want it to be the best it can be.

If you’re implying that I hate men, well then buddy, ya got me. Guilty as charged. I am a misandrist!
Oh wait, no, that’s not even remotely a thing.

@selyse Yeah! Ladies, please keep your comments about lady-related issues confined to designated lady-blogs where they belong. Stop that shit before it makes someone more sensitive or thoughtful.