I agree that it is important to listen to people and try to empathize with others. I can't imagine the horror of being sexually assaulted. It's a crime that should rightly be punished by law. I have been the victim of violent crimes and I know how terrifying they can be, I can't imagine adding a sexual element to that experience.
I think that I see more clearly your objective for this post. Listening to others and gaining empathy for their situation and making sure that you're not making their situation worse (please correct me if I'm still not getting it). I agree with that objective wholeheartedly.
My problem with the statistics that you used is that they appear to highlight how victimized females are and how bad males are for victimizing females. The nature of our reproductive organs guarantees that more males will commit rape than females, obviously. The nature of our society's sexual selection process guarantees that more males will commit rape than females.
The reality is that both genders are victims of horrific crimes and circumstance. Males in America make up 77.8% of homicide victims. 93% of people who suffer workplace fatalities are male. 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 4 men are victims of domestic abuse. We all face potential victimization.
Maybe I'm just being defensive, or maybe I only care about issues that affect me, but it seems like posts like this are used to highlight how easy men have it, and how unfair life is for women. A big section of your post is dedicated to male privilege, after all. I believe that both genders face near-insurmountable obstacles and hardships. Both genders face dangers and challenges that are unique to their gender. Highlighting one group's adversity while diminishing another group's adversity seems like the opposite of equality to me. Not that I'm accusing you of diminishing a group's adversity, but "male privilege" robs male victims of their ability to be heard when speaking out.
I appreciate the response, Carl. I no longer see your post as only helping to reinforce the "male vs female" lens. We should all be aware of how our actions and attitudes affect others around us. My fear is that these kinds of posts lead people to the false conclusion that men have "privilege" and therefore are solely responsible for the problem and the solution. If humanity is going to solve any of these problems, we'll have to do it together. I don't believe that sentiments like "girl power" bring us together.
Thanks for the response. You are pretty much right on the money as far as what I am trying to do. I have been considering writing a post specifically about the defensive reaction. And I knew I ran a very real risk of triggering a defensive reaction when I chose to talk about male privilege. I believe I even correctly predicted that many of my male readers would point to reasons that they are not privileged. Why does supporting women have to come at the cost of tearing down men? I don't think it does. But then again, I also don't think that acknowledging male privilege tears down men. I could have written a post that just said I support women and I support #womenspeakout and it would probably not have triggered this reaction in you.
But ultimately I think I also wanted to trigger a reaction. I want to spark a discussion. I am ashamed that at one instance in my responses above (not to you) I failed to maintain the level of decorum that I expect of myself and descended into a snarky personal attack. That was not my intention. My intention was to provoke men that think this is a non-issue and get them to engage in a conversation. You can be both privileged by gender, and unprivileged for many other reasons (sexuality, race, socio-economic status, geography, etc.). There is a lot to untangle here. That being said I absolutely think that there are gendered differences that cut across all these other lines, in western society and most if not all other societies that I am aware of. To say that the reason more women are sexually assaulted than men is a factor of biology is exactly what I am talking about here - THAT is male privilege. The privilege of being born with a penis, sir. You have hit the nail on the head. You came around to the idea from the other direction even if you are saying this statement as an argument against male privilege.
More makes do the raping due to physiology, I’ll acceot that as truth. But doesn’t negate the 1 in 5 women stat. That is an alarming number. And does include the women that are too afraid to speak up and report it.