As Crys T said, of course there are other alternatives.

Surely, there are awful, awful men in this world with great capacity to inflict badness. I’ve known a few. But less widely acknowledged is the existence of women capable of doing equally horrible, deceptive, violent things. I mean, www.crimelibrary.com has a separate category for ‘women who kill.’ Why?

For the love of fuck, people. Generalizing is bad.

Um, I’m gonna go ahead and call “bullshit” on that. Of course women are capable of doing bad things. The point is that there is no pervasive ideology that not only legitimates the violence of women against men, but makes it an essential part of womanhood. But there is a universal and pervasive ideology that legitimates the violence of men against women and makes it an essential part of manhood. It’s called patriarchy, and all men are shaped by it to some extent.

I participated in that threat at Bitch, Ph.D., and I can personally attest that the bullshit was flowing deep and strong from the Righteously Offended Men’s Chorus. All the old canards were brought out…the anecdotes from college dorms, the stories about brutal women, the assertion that men get raped too, etc., etc. Because I’m lazy, here’s an except from my comment over there:

“Totally not surprised at the “not all men are assholes!” whine-and-cheeze-fest that has immediately ensued on this thread. Hey guys, check this out: Not all men are assholes, but…umm…most are. You could open your eyes to the experience of the women around you, or you could try what I do - date guys yourself! Because I can assure you that gay men are still men, no matter how gay, and therein lies the secret of the difficulty gay men have establishing long-lasting relationships. In a male same-sex relationship, you not only get to be subjected to masculinist assholery that your upbringing programs you not to tolerate (because hey, i’m a guy, I don’t have to take this shit), but you get to enjoy your very OWN masculinist assholery getting bounced right back at you by the guy across from you, because hey, he’s a guy, he doesn’t have to take this shit. So who’s gonna take the shit? The answer to that question will tell you everything you need to know about patriarchy.”

And let me add one final note: there is nothing more offensive and intellectually dishonest than men who think they’re making a point when they note that “men get raped, too”, because men get raped by other men, and it is exactly the same act of violent patriarchal aggression to force the victim into what the perpetrator sees as a feminine submission. Same patriarchal bullshit, so the existence of male rape victims does not make one iota of difference for the feminist point about the role of rape in the larger cultural system of patriarchy.

Lord, Twisty….now they’re all going to come over here and start it up in YOUR comments section.

A better question: why doesn’t crimelibrary.com have a “men who kill” category? The answer to both questions: male violence is the norm within the larger category of violence. Men are “expected” to be violent; when a woman (who, by nature, is nurturing) committs violence, then it’s shocking (especially if the victims of violence are her own children — but we won’t start up on that).

In other words, Mistress, I believe that your example, quoted above, actually argues against the point you’re trying to make: The existence of a “Women who kill” category suggests that killing (and perhaps all violence) is, in our culture, gendered male. If true, then wishing to swear off men, as a precaution (”Not all shrimp tacos make me ill, but I’m gonna play it safe, since so many do.”) is not an unreasonable reaction.

Reading about incidents like the one in Kenya, though, does NOT make me want to swear off men forever. But multiple examples of such behavior, great and small, make me wonder why I ever despaired at being single. I would never generalize about ALL men — I know too many enlightened ones, and too many women who I’d gladly drop off the end of the pier — but our male fellow-travelers do seem to have a greater tendency towards high-profile acts ranging from boneheaded to outright repellent. I don’t think it’s “natural” or anything. I just think they’ve been getting away with it for so long that it never occurs to them that they should do something different.

Addendum: Now that I think of it, perhaps “high-profile” is the key? Maybe men just get more coverage, and more opportunity to be idiots on a grand public scale. And for that, my dears, we CAN blame the patriarchy!

(BTW, Twisty: the pup is cute)

1. Sans (some aspects of?) patriarchy, the Basic Indispensible Family Unit is either mother and child or solitary individuals.

2. If so, men are socially “optional” in a way that women aren’t.

Then the idea of “swearing off men” has a large number of perhaps subconscious connotations? If a man swears off women for everything but reproduction, he’s basically exiled from the human family. If women do the reverse, they’ve exiled men…

That’s assuming my take on it is, if not exactly true in a reality sort of way, then at least true in a very subliminal psychological kind of way, and thus accounts for the reaction.

Nah, who can be bothered?

I read somewhere once that a person got poisoned by bad shellfish. Twisty’s decision to swear off shrimp tacos, crab sticks, fish fillets and sharks-fin soup because of this makes perfect sense.

And yes, Mandos, I’ve heard theories which suggest the whole genesis of the patriarchy (once, in the distant mists of time) was all about the fact that women have the babies. Men can’t. Men don’t even know for sure that a baby is theirs. In order to control the passage of their genes, men therefore ‘needed’ to control the bodies of women, and ensure they weren’t up to anything. And this power is not one they’re willing to give up.

Simplistic? Maybe…

But even without the DNA business, no one wants to be born peripheral. But that is the fear here: are men born to be peripheral?

Why? Because we don’t live in a matriarchy. These are not expressions of a culture that oppresses men, they’re isolated expressions of distaste for the dominant culture.

When men make less money then women for doing the same jobs, and when women actually start stoning men just for their gender, then I’ll care about anti-man rhetoric. Until then, I say men suck. Screw ‘em all

And what Christopher said.

I read a really good quote from Margaret Atwood the other day (summarising here madly). She asked a man why men were afraid of women and he said “because women might laugh at us and undermine us.” She asked some women why they were afraid of men and they said “because we’re afraid of being killed.”

Just about sums it up, no?