Your vagina is not a car

[BainsBane]

Clementine Ford on rape culture at Ted.

[flamin lib]

1. Rape culture is talking about little black dresses

as if men lack the physical and moral strength to control their bodies.

My grandsons will not enter society with that psychosis.

[Gothmog]

2. Great video

Thanks for posting

[ismnotwasm]

3. Ok that was a great presentation

She had me at "shame cave"

Now was this not clear? Were there not excellent examples given? Didn't she logically eviscerate that whole 'other crime' analogies?

Yet so many will still argue, without insight. Without logic.

[gollygee]

4. That was amazing

I see she a freaking column somewhere! (Yes, I googled.) Awesome!

Here's one on "your vagina is not a car"

http://www.dailylife.com.au/news-and-views/dl-opinion/your-vagina-is-not-a-car-20121022-28102.html

Listen, it’s simple ladies. If you drive your vagina around and leave it double parked on a dark street with the keys dangling in the ignition and an apple pie on the dashboard, how can you expect someone not to amble past and just take it? I mean, if I were to just wander off and leave my wallet sitting on the table in a cafe, should I be surprised if I return later to find it gone? More to the point, if (as one commentor so helpfully asked a few months ago) I were to spread all of my possessions on my front lawn and retreat to the comfort of my living room for a Here Comes Honey Boo Boo marathon, can I really complain if I emerge, hours later, bleary eyed from the self induced high of a televisual acid trip, to the astonishing revelation that my worldly goods have been pilfered by opportunistic suburban thieves? Indeed, I cannot!

(snip)

Yet this argument persists because I think we’ve never really addressed the root of its logical inconsistency. A vagina is not a car, and rape is not the same thing as opportunistically taking someone’s abandoned wallet from a coffee table. Do you know why? Because if I leave the keys in my car - AND I’M SITTING IN MY CAR - anyone who comes along and tries to steal it will have to physically assault me in order to take it. If I sprawl all of my possessions on the front lawn of my house and then embark on my Honey Boo Boo marathon, that’s not an invitation to rape - it’s a sign that it’s hard rubbish day.

Presenting vaginas as disembodied possessions just waiting to be stolen isn’t just inaccurate (and searingly offensive - how many people who cursed Peter Slipper for comparing vaginas to mussels have invoked the old car key argument?) it also completely denies the reality of assault by shifting it into some kind of arbitrary narrative of property theft. Enduring rape has exactly zero things in common with the insignificant inconvenience of having to replace your credit cards, and it certainly isn’t done by stealth. When a woman puts on a short skirt, she isn’t signalling her exit from the building that is her body. She hasn’t left her car running on an empty street and wandered off to find some frozen yoghurt. All she’s done is put on a short skirt. You still have to ask her if she wants to have sex with you. You should still want to ask her.

[chervilant]

5. Why do I suspect that

the resident misogynists will give this exceptional TED video a pass?

[BainsBane]

6. It points to many of the things we see regularly

like her point about due process, which I myself have raised on a number of occasions. That is always raised for rapists and domestic batters but rarely for crimes against men.

[chervilant]

8. Well, like you,

and several other brave DUers, I refuse to go quietly into their dark night.

[chervilant]

7. Of course,

I won't see the pathetic dissembling, since those poor souls are on my IL...