Men's Work
Apr. 18th, 2008 02:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_kae_ozReading ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dali_drama's recent post really got my blood up. And I couldn't help but think of one of the books I am reading "Men's Work" by Paul Kivel.
If you have hung out with me in person recently, you probably have heard me mention this book. Paul Kivel does work with Oakland mens groups, including workshops with men soon to be released from prison. It is about the relation of how men are raised and violence and sexism.
In the book when he asks a couple of the guys in the prison program "if you are walking down the street and get turned on, does that girl owe you anything [sex]
?" and they answere "[Yes]If she is the one who caused it".
There are a lot of these kind of statements. Statements that show there are still a hell of a lot of men who still think of women only in their relation to men and what they provide them.
Having to deal with men in this fashion is one of the most frustrating, anger inducing, and dehumanizing things in females lives. And we are often made to feel oversensitive and overemotional when we react to not being allowed our own space, our own feelings, and just the general respect men expect on a daily basis.
Yes, this is a sensitive thing with me.
*end rambling rant*
dali_drama's recent post really got my blood up. And I couldn't help but think of one of the books I am reading "Men's Work" by Paul Kivel. If you have hung out with me in person recently, you probably have heard me mention this book. Paul Kivel does work with Oakland mens groups, including workshops with men soon to be released from prison. It is about the relation of how men are raised and violence and sexism.
In the book when he asks a couple of the guys in the prison program "if you are walking down the street and get turned on, does that girl owe you anything [sex]
?" and they answere "[Yes]If she is the one who caused it".
There are a lot of these kind of statements. Statements that show there are still a hell of a lot of men who still think of women only in their relation to men and what they provide them.
Having to deal with men in this fashion is one of the most frustrating, anger inducing, and dehumanizing things in females lives. And we are often made to feel oversensitive and overemotional when we react to not being allowed our own space, our own feelings, and just the general respect men expect on a daily basis.
Yes, this is a sensitive thing with me.
*end rambling rant*
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 05:33 pm (UTC)That is all that I have to say about that.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 06:52 pm (UTC)Dear god,
The death I wish to rain down upon people.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 02:06 am (UTC)I've tried to explain this concept to many a man, but they tend not to "get it". Privilege is invisible to those who have it. "It's a man's world", as they say...
no subject
Date: 2008-04-19 08:12 pm (UTC)Of course, how many straight men have you ever seen freak out when a gay guy pushily hits on them or gropes them (proving, at times, than sexual orientation does not exclude assholeness). Yet they never seem to get that we feel the same way when some straight guy is pushy and/or gropes us.
Strange . . .