shevilfempire: rosa—sparks: I wish I knew how...

11th July 2012

Post reblogged from Shevilfempire with 85 notes

rosa—sparks:

I wish I knew how better to talk about my feelings about Daniel Tosh and Louis C.K. and comedy and lack thereof, but all I can think about is men.

And sadly, it’s not in a good way, like how I think about the cast of the Magic Mike or The Avengers or Idris Elba or Michael Ealy or Joe Biden, it’s the,

‘Oh the menz…’

I think that men, in general, regardless of sexual orientation, think highly of themselves and of their lot, and therefore, discuss and ponder rape in a completely casual way.

They are, more often than not, the perpetrators of rape, they are the defenders of other rapists, and they are, by in large, unable to fully cogitate on the effects of rape.

Women are the the majority victims of rape. Women of Color are raped more than any other race of women and for the most part, all of us are still unsupported and quite often, completely vulnerable and unprotected by assault.

For a white man to joke about rape means he has no concept of its significance or its devastating consequences. And really, why should he examine his privilege in this matter? The average white dood walking around suffers about ZERO when it comes to functioning in society. He makes more dimes in his job than PoC and any other race, and he sure as shit makes more than a woman. He is basically unchallenged by anything in his life and if he suffers a fall from the societal hierarchy, it is rarely a teaching lesson; it’s a stitch in his side that someone, probably undeserving and with ‘assistance’, took his spot.

It is lazy to use rape as a joke; people far more versed in comedy can and have talked about that, at great length. The idea of laughing about a person assaulted by another is gross and horrific. But I do understand, also, that comedy goes to dark places and can look at terrible things and try to spin them in order to shed light on the atrocity.

But there is, and cannot be, any way to laugh about rape. Especially when the power dynamic is so fortified by unequal male-female relationships.

But what has gotten to me is that it is STILL so easy, even though it’s completely gross, for a man to have no awareness, choose to be ignorant towards, or empower his own stances by flippantly dealing with issues of rape. And there is always this sortof malaise towards fighting the statements, even when we think men should ‘know’ better.

It’s not just that they say the horrible things they say, it’s that we’ve built a construct in which they are averse to ever step away and beyond. And that is what makes this soul-crushing.

Source: ro-s-aspa-rks

hitchhiking on the howling road