this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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Men's Liberation: Resisting Patriarchy

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Something that bothers me is that males are overwhelmingly perpetrators of rape but there is little discussion (at least from my perspective) as the root cause as to why men do such horrible acts.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I suspect it could be a combination of entitlement to women's bodies, the objectification of women in general. Alot of patriarchal cultures indicate that you aren't truly a man until you have sex with a woman. This can lead to some people to take terrible methods like rohypnol. Other people might just have spite towards women in general and take it out on them violently. In wars, the demonization of those being occupied gives credence to the acceptability of raping civilian populations.

If it was more commonplace to have less violence and better mental health, maybe that would reduce how common it is among men. Encouraging communication between equals might also prevent accidental rapes by misunderstandings. I don't know to what extent making people miserable is dopamine producing is entirely environmental, but people with those kind of chemical pathways can go down that path just because it hurts people.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago

As others have said, it's socialization. Most men have a fantasy that they can't be overpowered the way a woman can, but just simple introspection disproves this. Most men could be overpowered by a woman if the circumstances were the same as rape cases - caught by surprise, isolated, observed for patterns, attacker is prepared. It has nothing to do with physical strength and everything to do with willingness. Men are willing to rape, and so, they do. Why are men willing to rape?

The only explanation is that they are socialized that way (raised by their parents, by media, by teachers, by friends, etc)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

Probably socialization. I remember that in high school I slightly touched a girl's butt in a club just because it was so normalized among my male peers. They said something to the effect of "girls go to clubs so that they can be groped" which I think that I recognized even then as false. So I can see how "just make her drunk bro, it just works" or worse would be normalised advice among some circles.

In general I fucking hate the patriarchical brainrot and want to expunge it badly from my brain. Things like expecting women to be pretty trophies all the time, getting thoughts that they are less intelligent than me just because they are women etc are somewhat ingrained to me in the same manner some residual racism or religiosity is. Fuck society for doing this to us

[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I think what you're trying to ask is "why are the majority of convicted rapists male." There's a lot of reasons. You could write an essay on the subject.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I dunno if this is the right lane-- this line of questioning assumes from genesis that there's just as many AFAB rapists that just don't see justice in general; which... That seems like a super long-shot. There's nowhere near as many material/structural reasons that men could have; w/rt being raised under patriarchal mores, objectification of the feminine ideal, and extreme atomization.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah. This post is mostly for a desperately needed convo

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

Power, there really isn't an answer past this.