General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]noamnety
(20,234 posts)Men can simultaneously be hurt by it and benefit from it. It's not an either/or scenario.
We could even potentially argue that women are simultaneously hurt and benefit from rape culture. The damage is easy to see, the benefit isn't one we necessarily want, but here's one: because we don't have the same job opportunities, it's assumed that men will take care of us, and will pay the bill if we go out on a date. This is generally true even if, as two individuals, we have the same income.
In both cases there's a continuum of harm vs. benefit and I don't see it as an attack on women to acknowledge that in some ways we've been given less responsibility because we've been restricted from having responsibilities in the first place.
Another example referring back to my post down thread is that women don't get drafted for wars. Again, it's not an attack on women or anything I would get defensive about to say that out loud. I don't think men need to be defensive either about having their benefits spoken out loud. We get that it doesn't mean you personally want rape to exist. We get that if you could, you would eliminate it from the face of the earth.
We also get that there are opportunities that are given to men (journalism jobs, door to door jobs, closing late at night) because those opportunities are considered dangerous to women-who-might-get-raped, and that sets up a whole mindset where women need to be protected on some level but men are self-sufficient. And THAT mindset affects how people perceive men vs. women, which in turn affects how job candidates are seen in any job setting.