femsolid:

Last year when a man showed me his dick at the bus stop I videotaped it with my phone and when I got home shared it in my town’s facebook group to ask if someone recognized him. All the women were horrified and alarmed, almost all the men were laughing. The difference in terms of reaction was so clear. Women were scared and not laughing at all, none. The men were posting smileys and tagging each others. The sexual harassment I had endured was a big joke to them. I clicked on the post’s notifications and looked at the names of all the ‘laughing reactions’, you know ? All men. And then something else happened. A few men actually started blaming me. Blaming me for insulting the man in the video. Because as I was reccording this pervert I was also screaming at him to stop, that he was a disgusting pig (sorry pigs) and telling him to get the fuck away from me. And that was too unladylike for some men. They were like “there’s no need for this language”. Then some men and women alike started blaming me for simply reccording it because this was “obviously a sick man” and I was not “helping him” by “humiliating him” on the internet like that. I’m sorry I thought he wanted to pull out his penis in public ? Their empathy was towards the exhibitionist and I was supposed to offer my help to the man who hurted me. So it was hurtful but kind of interesting at the same time. First of all, I did find two people who recognized the man. And secondly this was a demonstration of how women who are harassed or assaulted are treated. If you don’t “fight enough” they’ll blame you (why are you reccording instead of calling the police ?!) if you fight it’s going to be too much (watch your langage lady). And whatever you do there is going to be a lot of men who are going to find what happened to you at least entertaining, like a private joke between men, and at worst sexually exciting (after all, what happened to me that day is a porn category). In the end when men hear about or see a woman sexually harassed or assaulted they identify with the man who is doing it to her, not the victim. Men don’t identify with women ever. They can’t identify with a sub-human creature. They identify with the one who is hurting women. And most of them see the man as someone doing what they don’t have the nerves to do or someone doing what they have done. A friend, an ally, a brother. Which is why men immediatly side with rapists when a story comes up. They find him excuses, they talk about “innocent until proven guilty” despite the overwelming evidence and the fact that a lot of rapists aren’t convicted because the justice system is fucked. Also, the woman is not “innocent until proven guilty”. Men say they won’t judge the man but certainly do judge that the woman is a liar. She’s been sentenced already. So when you’ve been assaulted and you go to the police and you end up talking to men, mostly, it then follows quite obviously that the reactions reported by rape victims go from laughs and jokes to invasive questions that translate amusement and sexual arousal, belittlement, humiliation and of course blaming. This is men’s usual reaction, not just the cops’. And again it’s because whatever a woman does when she is assaulted she’s in the wrong. She’s in the wrong because women are wrong by default. She was assaulted because she was wrong in the first place. And it’s because men identify with the rapist. It’s all of them you’re attacking by calling one out. Then they’ll say “not all men” but they certainly side with all men, whatever said men have done.