7 Deadly Sins Meme Day Three WRATH

[tripperfunster]

7 things that piss me off.

1) People that are cheap. Seeing as I live in the CHEAP capitol of the world, I get pissed off all the time. The time you spend finding a bargain should not outweigh the actual savings. Driving for a half hour to save a buck IS NOT THRIFTY.

2) Know it alls. Even if you actually DO know everthing (which I doubt), you don't need to prove it. STFU

3)People who drive like they own the road. You are NOT that important. Slow down.

4) Stupid People. Not people who are ACTUALLY stupid, but people who should know/do better but don't, because they are too lazy to find out how something should be done, or they just don't care.

5)Bigots who hide behind an agenda. Often that agenda is God, but not always. (I don't have a problem with people who are religious, just people who use it to spread hate.)

6) Perpetual victims of circumstance. This one will probably not win me any friends, but don't do stupid things if you don't want bad things to happen to you. Nobody deserves to get raped, but duh! If you dress provocatively, drink too much and go to a guy's hotel room, there is a very good chance you may not be able to back out at the last minute. Is that fair? Probably not, but life isn't fair. Nobody deserves to drown, but if you drink while boating, and don't wear a life vest, it just might happen. Is it fair? Nope. Same rules apply. I have friends who always seem to have 'bad things' happen to them, but the choices that they make have a LOT to do with it. Whaaa! Why does my life suck? I dunno. Take a look around you hon.

7) Accountability. Related to pretty much all of the above, OWN YOUR FAULTS PEOPLE! If you fuck up, grow a pair and TAKE RESPONSIBILITY. Apologize. Make it right. Stop blaming your mother/other people/the world for something that YOU did.

Comments

[emila-wan.livejournal.com]

Amen to all of those.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

[lucianwolf.livejournal.com]

I'm really proud of you, for this especially:

Nobody deserves to get raped, but duh! If you dress provocatively, drink too much and go to a guy's hotel room, there is a very good chance you may not be able to back out at the last minute. Is that fair? Probably not, but life isn't fair.

For some reason it's supposed to be totally okay for women to dress how they want, do what they want, and drink however much they want, and they are entirely innocent if anything negative happens. As a person with female bits, I call shenanigans and bullshit on this.

Well said.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Granted, not being innocent does not mean they should get raped, but there are choices we all make regarding our own personal safety. Only YOU can prevent forest fires.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

"Nobody deserves to get raped, but duh! If you dress provocatively, drink too much and go to a guy's hotel room, there is a very good chance you may not be able to back out at the last minute. Is that fair? Probably not, but life isn't fair."?

That is disgusting. You are taking the rapist's side over the victim's. Here's where that kind of thinking leads: Judge Blames 10-Year-Old Victim For Her Own Rape.

And of course at this point you say "well I didn't mean ten-year-olds, obviously it wasn't her fault" (unless you're a complete monster) but what's the difference? The fact is no matter what a woman wears or does or where she goes or does not go, someone can decide to rape her and then the media, the justice system and society at large will scramble for whatever excuse they can find to blame her instead of the man who raped her. Maybe he knew she'd slept with other men, or she had large breasts (because people with bodies like mine are inappropriate no matter what we wear, did you know?) or maybe she'd been drinking just like men do all the time without having to worry about someone raping them. These are all common excuses that violent criminals successfully use to remain on the streets.

And the logical conclusion of that is women pretty much have to hide under our beds with a shotgun, and if we have the audacity to do otherwise, to live our lives like we're human beings or something, then men just have no choice but to hurt and kill us. It's called rape culture, and you're supporting it. You think you're being cool and tough by being antifeminist but the oppression of women hurts everyone, even the women who go along with it.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

That's not what I'm saying at all. Regardless of what we do, or wear, or drink, we are not the ones doing the raping. It is ALWAYS the rapist's fault. And I certainly don't condone women hiding under their beds with a shot gun. There's a pretty big inbetween here.

Doing things like drinking too much and getting a ride home with someone you barely know are things that PUT YOU IN DANGER. None of these things make you a bad person that deserves rape, but they are all things that certainly up the chances that it will happen.

If I don't lock my doors at night, I'm not asking to get broken into. But it is a logical thing i can do to keep myself safe. That doesn't mean I need to build a moat and hire a body guard.

I'm not anti-feminist. I think that we women need to empower ourselves in positive ways. We need to take control and responsibility for our lives and actions.

There are consequences for the choices we make. Sometimes we will make all the right choices and bad things will still happen to us. sometimes we make bad choices and nothing bad happens.

Again, I am not blaming the women for rape. Regardless of breast size, clothing options or actions. But when you lose control of your body and or mind (via alchol, drugs or giving that power to someone you don't know well via taking rides with strangers or getting isolated with same) you definitely up your chances of it happening. There are logical, non extreme ways to help yourself stay away from those situations.

I'm very sorry that I've offended you. I value your friendship. I think you are a really neat person and I always enjoy your posts.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

I think you don't get my point. Nobody complains about victims of other crimes not taking responsibility for themselves. There are common-sense safety measures everyone can take, like locking their doors, but 1. no adult needs to be told that, and in fact we don't go around complaining about that, and 2. focusing on rape victims specifically, as people always do when they're talking about taking responsibility for one's own safety, shows that somehow we see rape victims as different from the victims of any other crime; this difference is that the vast majority of rapes are committed by men against women. That makes it hard to deal with it objectively, because rape upholds the patriarchy but the analysis and discussion of it also happens under the patriarchy.

The robbery analogy I used isn't really a good one; saying that women should be careful in order to avoid rape is more like telling black people before the Civil Rights movement that they should be careful in order to avoid being lynched. Rape is a tool in the systematic oppression of women.

Therefore reminding women that there are things they can do to reduce the probability that they'll be raped is fundamentally different from telling people to wear seatbelts and lifejackets. Certainly it's true that we can take steps to be safer but we all know this already, we don't need to hear it repeated yet again. And men never hear this; society may warn men to avoid drinking and boating etc. but we never tell men to restrict their behavior in order to make sure other people don't hurt them.

Because that's what this is about; we're not talking about people who hurt themselves by boating while drunk (I'll stick with this analogy for an example). We routinely focus on what a woman did to "get herself raped" as if that's no different from getting drunk and falling off a boat; the difference is the boat didn't decide to throw them in but in order for a rape to occur, someone has to decide to commit rape. When we remove the rapist from the equation, we implicitly hold him blameless. We imply that the woman looking slutty made him rape her just like the drunk driver made the boat capsize. That's the problem, that we treat rape as something women have to solve, (or accept and live with it if we fail to stop it). That's never going to work, instead we have to stop raising men to believe they're entitled to women's bodies.

There will always be crime, of course, there will always be psychopaths and it's hard to detect them and get them into proper treatment until after they've already harmed someone. But that doesn't mean we can't have policy-level solutions that work to end rape culture. If our culture didn't believe that women are less than men and that men are entitled to use us, the incidence of rape would decrease dramatically. There are human societies where rape is seen as equally abhorrent to cannibalism. It's possible and I we need to work towards that. And posts like the one above work in the opposite direction and perpetuate rape culture.

This post really upset me but I do still respect and admire you. Did you read the Shakesville posts I linked to? They do a better job of explaining rape culture. I'd like to continue talking about this if that's OK.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

I totally agree that we need to raise our men to realize that they are not entitled to take whatever they want. To take responsibility for their actions. The was the real point of my post,(tangents aside) and really, blaming the victim is the ultimate shunning of responsibility.

I also agree that women SHOULD be able to wear/do/drink what and as much/little as they like, (as men do) without fear of being harmed, but the plain fact is that we can't. Rapists are predators, and generally look for the easiest target. Women who are not in control of themselves due to exessive alcohol or drugs are a much easier target.

I was 'date raped' as a teen. I don't blame myself at all for what happened, but I DO see some things that I did that helped facilitate the situation. I was terribly vulnerable (new to the country) and was completely friendless. I'm sure this guys sensed that when he asked me out. He seemed very sweet, even came in to meet my parents before our date, but regardless, I GOT IN TO A CAR WITH A MAN I BARELY NEW. I let him take me to an isolated area. At that point it was just a matter of threatening me with death and/or injury to get what he wanted.

Again, I don't blame myself for what happened, (hell, I was only 15) but I DO take ownership of the things I should have done differently, and haven't done since then, obviously.

I did read that post about rape culture. There is a lot I agree with, a lot I'd never thought of, much that I, myself are guilty of, but a lot that I disagree with too.

I really don't think a woman should get drunk and go to a man's hotel room if she doesn't want to have sex with him. That still doesn't make rape her fault. Sex and rape are obviously not the same thing, but DUH!
You can't willfully put yourself in harm's way and then be surprised that you get hurt.

If you can find a way to convince me otherwise, I'd love to hear it.

I am very glad you're willing to keep the lines of communication open. I must admit, I was surprised at how much the de-friending hurt me.
<3

[redheadsarehot.livejournal.com]

I knew a comment like the one above was coming.

But I agree with you. Don't put yourself in stupid situations and you won't end up with bad consequences as often. Simple as that. People love to use that reasoning and get on a high horse about OMG YOU ARE ANTI FEMINIST. No, I'm anti idiot.

You're not saying it's the victims FAULT, of course it's not. But they could have been smarter with their decisions. We are a society that loves to blame everyone else, especially the govt, for everything that goes wrong in our lives. AND we live in a time where being a promiscuous drunk slut is considered cool (thanks Ke$ha) and its OMG SO CUTE AND TEH FUNNY to go to clubs and get drunk and tease boys and lead them on. It doesn't mean they should be raped, but their mamas really should have taught them better than that. I know I will certainly make sure my daughter doesn't grow up thinking that shit is cool.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Exactly, it is never the woman's FAULT. I really do equate it to my drowning scenario. Nobody deserves to drown either, but there are logial things you should do and not do to stay safe.

If a drunk person falls from their boat, I don't think; "stupid idiot, they deserved to die", I think; 'Stupid idiot, what were they thinking? What a horrible tragedy."

[droxy.livejournal.com]

I could copy this list, especially 6 and 7.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Be my guest!

[joanwilder.livejournal.com]

I read your post and thought 'uh-oh'. I completely agree with all your points, esp 6 and 7, but I knew someone was gonna...say what they did, even though I agree that you can be pretty disgusting at times. Slut.

Anyway, as a addendum to # 6 (Perpetual victims of circumstance), my wrath is ratcheted up even further when they use these circumstances to insist on curtailing my own freedom to speak, write, whatevs, y'know what I mean?

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

I know not only of WHAT you speak, but of WHOM. ;P

And uh ... MOI? Disgusting? I think not! :D

[bloopfish.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU! It's always frustrating to hear people talk about shit that's happened to them, when it's so obvious that they were courting trouble! This isn't just about rape either.

"I'm only fat because of my genetics", "I can only overcome depression with medication." I hate these! There is no way that I'm going to harp on at the overweight and the mentally ill, but ARGH, DON'T GIVE AWAY RESPONSIBILITY! Things can change, circumstances are not set in stone, but only if you take responsibility and take action. Do not look me in the face while eating an entire pizza and say "well, my entire family was fat, why should I bother?" like it's some kind of joke. Because that's not genetics, that's a lack of self control.

Why can't people be nicer to themselves?

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

People need to be both Nicer AND tougher with themselves. Or, more honest, anyway.

[xenafox.livejournal.com]

Haha I'm one of the number 6 people aren't I? xDD

I pretty much feel the same way on all of these...especially the one concerning idiots on the road. Those people piss me off, you know they'll going to kill themselves or someone else.

Lol @ at the idiotic comment left above. Some feminists don't understand reasoning, they just want a fight (most I run into do, so when someone has "feminist" on their profile I usually avoid them like the PLAGUE").

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

There seem to be a few topics that just cannot be discussed rationally on livejournal. One being rape, the other racism.

I must say though, I have learned a lot by jumping in on these talks anyway. She is actually a really great gal. I'm sad that I upset her, but we've been talking. <3