#BlameOneNotAll
Copying this from Twitter…
Sigh. It looks like #BlameOneNotAll is the new #NotAllMen.
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
Looking around, I don’t actually see people trying to accuse all men of being rapists and abusers and such. #BlameOneNotAll
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
I *do* see a lot of justified fear and anger over the amount of violence committed against women, by men. #BlameOneNotAll
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
I *do* see a lot of justified fear and anger over the amount of violence committed against women, by men. #BlameOneNotAll
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
You want women to trust you? To think you’re a nice guy? How about you start by recognizing some of the facts. #BlameOneNotAll
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
“The most common perpetrators of sexual violence against girls are current/former husbands, partners or boyfriends.” http://t.co/bu7LM949Dv
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
“Almost half of all female victims of homicide in 2012 were killed by intimate partners or family members.” Source: http://t.co/rSrszOeh41
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
In the US, “83% of girls in grades 8 – 11 in public schools experienced some form of sexual harassment.” Source: http://t.co/KLPYTcJaeY
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
“The overwhelming burden of intimate partner violence and sexual violence is borne by women at the hands of men.” http://t.co/u4UATyRZBk
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
Mistrust of men isn’t an attack on us and our feelings. It’s a fucking survival strategy. #BlameOneNotAll
— Jim C. Hines (@jimchines) May 27, 2015
Elf
May 27, 2015 @ 11:31 am
But you haven’t posted any stats they want to believe! How can you expect to make a compelling argument if you’re not willing to be convincing? Now, if you posted the results of a study that said “75% of women are prone to imaginary fears, and therefore men must cater to their delusions lest they lose all chance of getting laid,” they might accept that it’s okay for women to mistrust men by default. Just use a broken link to some fake science site that got shut down in 2003; they won’t call you out on it.
(Hi; long-time reader; not sure if I’ve commented before. I’m a mom with teenage daughters, and teaching them how to navigate sexism discussions on the internet has been enlightening, in many frustrating ways.)
celestineangel
May 27, 2015 @ 11:35 am
*slow clap*
Rec
May 27, 2015 @ 12:31 pm
I guess mocking at “sexists” is the way you’re teaching them instead of searching for actual facts.
But feminism is not a fanatic religion, nah
Jim C. Hines
May 27, 2015 @ 12:38 pm
Oh look, our first troll of the day. Yay…
Jim C. Hines
May 27, 2015 @ 12:54 pm
Hi, and welcome!
In all seriousness, I think a lot of it is about choosing who you’re trying to talk to. There are some people who are willing to look at the research and think about this stuff. Then there are those who think it’s all part of the Evil Cult of Feminism (TM).
I’ve never had much luck trying to have a productive conversation with that second group. I’ll still try on occasion, but mostly, I don’t waste my time.
Lkeke35
May 27, 2015 @ 12:57 pm
We keep trying to explain to men that we can’t tell if someone is a “nice guy” just by looking at him or even going on initial behavior. See, here’s the thing: predators act exactly like every other guy, until it’s time to victimize, and then it’s too late for a woman to be cautious.
Men cannot have this both ways. If a woman doesn’t behave cautiously she gets blamed after she’s become a victim/survivor. If she behaves cautiously towards all men she gets vilified as a man-hater. We’re supposed to be mind readers who can discern a man’s intentions towards us just by proximity and appearance?
You know what? I’m going to take safety/man-hater for 300, Alex.
Jim C. Hines
May 27, 2015 @ 1:00 pm
Heck, guys keep *encouraging* women to distrust men. Look at all the Dad-with-shotgun jokes about dating my daughter. Look at all the rape prevention tips we push about avoiding strange men, not letting guys near your drink, never being alone with a guy, etc…
Elf
May 27, 2015 @ 1:08 pm
I’ve spent a lot of time telling them, “this is how you spot trolls. I won’t tell you ‘don’t feed the trolls,’ because sometimes that’s fun, and sometimes you just have to say something… but don’t expect the trolls to get anything useful from it. Your target audience is never the trolls; it’s whoever else is reading the conversation.”
I’ve gotten some useful insights out of conversations with trolls… but they were mostly about how to entice sexist jerks into wasting their energy on someone who really doesn’t care what they think of her. If they’re throwing vitriol at me, they won’t have as much time for teenage gamer girls.
Patrick Taylor
May 27, 2015 @ 1:55 pm
It seems to me the best way to prove that it’s not all men is to be a vocal, active ally against rape by supporting survivors, saying something when we see something, not being part of the problem, and not turning a conversation about rape into a conversation about semantics, and not catching feelings because most rapists look like us.
celestineangel
May 27, 2015 @ 2:03 pm
“Your target audience is never the trolls; it’s whoever else is reading the conversation.”
Yes, this. I feel the same way. Sometimes I’m just not emotionally up to a conversation with people I know will never learn, but when I AM, it’s not actually for their benefit. I never know who might be on the fence on the issue, who might be persuaded by my arguments even if they never comment or participate.
Morgan
May 27, 2015 @ 2:18 pm
Agreed. Initial appearance and behavior mean little, if anything. It’s late, she’s tired, she’s done with the party and she’s parked in a dark garage. Her boyfriend’s sullen unshaven friend in the torn jeans who follows her to her car without a word or that sweet sharp-dressed friend of a good friend who offers to walk her to her car because it’s late and dark and dangerous. Which one will wait until she’s safe in her locked car with the engine running before leaving and which one is the predator? How in the world would she know before it’s too late? How would she know which one to blame?
Elf
May 27, 2015 @ 2:35 pm
Interesting twist to the “campaign” – Every image of the women holding the signs in #BlameOneNotAll looks like the text was added later in an image editor.
The signs are all in the same font, and in several, the angle of the text doesn’t line up with the “blameonenotall” tag at the bottom. Some of them have text amazingly close to the edge of the paper–many printers can’t print that way. (Apparently, some of them adjusted their margins to 1/4″ and have access to industrial color printers, instead of the home/office kinds that crop letters that get that close to the edges of the page.)
Sally
May 27, 2015 @ 2:50 pm
Elf, you are a wise woman, and doing great work with your daughters. I’m sure they roll your eyes at you (b/c that’s what teens do) but I think you’re a good mom.
Sally
May 27, 2015 @ 2:53 pm
Not All Alligators are going to bite my arm off without warning, either — but I still keep my distance.
Sally
May 27, 2015 @ 2:55 pm
Men have such delicate, fragile egos. I’m glad yours is stronger than that.
Joan
May 27, 2015 @ 3:23 pm
This. It’s true that women are vilified for trusting men AND for not trusting men, but at least not trusting men has the advantage that it’s safer. Potentially. Most of the time. Of course, the safest thing is to pretend to trust them, while actually not trusting them. My father encouraged me to give creepy dudes wrong telephone numbers. His reasoning was that, at the time when they’d get aggressive about it being the wrong number, I’d already be far away.
Elf
May 27, 2015 @ 3:40 pm
Thanks. They don’t roll their eyes–internet drama is so different from our home life that they wanted help figuring out “why aren’t these guys getting it? Someone’s explained the whole thing!” And I had to say, “they don’t want to get it. They’re not there to understand; they’re participating to rile people up. Or to have enough numbers of posts that they can claim their side is somehow ‘equal.'”
I’m watching the #BlameOneNotAll discussion on Twitter, and it’s fascinating. There’s people arguing with it, and people trying to shout them down… but a shortage of women (or even men) actively supporting it. No tweets about how all women should feel safe because one doesn’t feel threatened.
Whole lot of “Don’t judge all the men!!!” but no claim of “… all women should feel safe!!!” That’s apparently a bit much for them; they just want us to “not judge;” our safety isn’t the actual issue here.
Joan
May 27, 2015 @ 3:45 pm
Have you given up the thing you did a while ago, with replacing troll comments with goblin monologue?
Because that was really fun.
Patrick Taylor
May 27, 2015 @ 4:42 pm
How are women vilified for not trusting men? I see many examples of women being vilified for trusting men, but I haven’t seen the opposite case. Or is it more being scolded for not trusting the guy who wants to walk you to your car?
Sylvan
May 27, 2015 @ 4:43 pm
Whole lot of “Don’t judge all the men!!!” but no claim of “… all women should feel safe!!!” That’s apparently a bit much for them; they just want us to “not judge;” our safety isn’t the actual issue here.”
This needs to be tweeted around the internet with letters of fire.
Ken Marable
May 27, 2015 @ 4:54 pm
I just took a look, and they are absolutely 100% Photoshopped. Or maybe MS Paint, even. They are really bad.
Also, apparently it was started by an Indian website (Mintified?) specializing in viral content. So, it’s not even true MRA stuff, just click-bait that the MRAs will think is a great campaign, and the rest of reality will get outraged. Either way, they get the clicks, word of mouth, and profit.
http://jezebel.com/very-dumb-blameonenotall-campaign-is-indias-answer-to-1707027861
Erica Wagner
May 28, 2015 @ 1:37 am
Guys like this want women who they consider their “property” (wives, daughters and girlfriends) to be scared of strange men, and of course these guys are eager to play the role of “protector” by keeping these women under lock and key. But if a single woman’s caution about strange men inconveniences them in their own search for sex, it’s something to rail against.
Because it’s all about them and what they want, of course. Part of the women aren’t real people thing.
Elf
May 28, 2015 @ 2:52 am
“Scolded” is only sometimes what happens if a guy takes offense that a woman won’t let him give her a ride home. Sometimes he gets downright vicious about it.
There’s also the whole “friendzone” BS, wherein “nice guys” get offended that women they’ve claimed to befriend refuse to “trust them” enough to sleep with them. (Or, refuse to let them in the house when they’re alone; refuse to get in the car with them, etc., because the woman suspects that he’s only “nice” when he has an audience bigger than 1.)
Guys who’ve decided they are the Guardian And Protector of a woman are prone to vilifying her if she decides she either (1) doesn’t need his protection or (2) doesn’t trust him to provide it.
There aren’t a lot of public examples. It’s often a one-on-one thing; what you’ll see in public is occasionally some guy complaining that “that bitch” was either “uppity” or “frigid” to him. He often won’t mention that she didn’t trust him; he doesn’t want her motives to be considered at all.
Jim C. Hines
May 28, 2015 @ 7:42 am
I haven’t completely stopped doing that, but it’s not something I do every time. It really depends on my mood and how much time and energy I have.
And there really hasn’t been much in the way of trolling lately. (I shouldn’t say that too loudly…)
Anonymoose
May 28, 2015 @ 10:56 am
Facts? Like the links Jim posted?
Add this one:
the US, the No. 1 cause for the death of pregnant women is murder.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20010320/number-1-cause-of-death-in-pregnant-women-murder
Quinalla
May 28, 2015 @ 11:11 am
Dare I bring up elevatorgate? That’s just one really public example of this BS that woman put up with all the time. Or go find the ones where women post conversations they had on dating sites where they insist on meeting a man in a public place for the first date and he gets defensive, then belligerent, etc. about it.
This is definitely one where women can’t win, if we trust we are blamed when we trust the wrong person, if we don’t trust we get called a bitch or man-hater or even worse things can happen.
Oh, go read this, it really explains this well: http://www.robot-hugs.com/risky-date/
Patrick Taylor
May 28, 2015 @ 12:24 pm
Dear God, the shit I don’t have to put up with because I’m a man. I dated online for a while (until I met my wife), and I NEVER EVER suggested we meet anywhere but a public place. I thought that was standard protocol.
Patrick Taylor
May 28, 2015 @ 4:31 pm
“There aren’t a lot of public examples” Which explains why it wasn’t on my radar. I did mean it as a genuine question, so thank you for answering.
I shouldn’t have used “scolded,” btw.
Elf
May 28, 2015 @ 5:14 pm
Patrick – it took me a while to figure out that it was a legitimate question, and then a bit longer to boggle over it. (In all the discussions of microaggressions and hostile environments, apparently this got overlooked.)
That’s the whole reason for the backlash against the “Schrodinger’s Rapist” concept and the essence of the “blame one not all” campaign… “how dare you not trust that I am a good guy? I’ve never done anything bad to you! What kind of paranoid, man-hating bitch are you, that you impugn my integrity by not trusting me immediately?”
The responses from men make a lot more sense if you consider that as the inspiration behind them.
D. D. Webb
May 29, 2015 @ 7:07 am
Once again I am reminded why I’m not on Twitter.
Gabriel F.
May 29, 2015 @ 6:25 pm
…fanatic religion? That’s a new one. Gosh, I thought I was just part of the Sekrit SJW Illuminati, now there’s a religion?
hk hill
May 30, 2015 @ 9:47 pm
#notallalligators is the perfect response to this latest bs