my squee has been harshed

[such_heights]

I have been very happy on the Internet this week! There has been a lot of amazing stuff everywhere. But then I made the mistake of going onto Facebook. I know, I know.

So, some backstory: lots of British unis, including the one I attend, have 'Overheard at...' pages, you know the drill. People overhear amusing things, write them down.

Going through the pages of comments is really quite something. I am depressed by but not surprised at the amount of misogyny, classism, racism, homophobia and general bigotry that pervades the 'humour'. I do hear those comments myself, after all. I tend to walk away rather than write them down for posterity, but there you go. I am dismayed by the amount of praising comments they've received, especially as some have proved controversial - namely, whether or not it's acceptable to describe someone as a geek. Way to go for the big problem there, guys.

But, I then went from not having the energy to be offended to being almost shocked. You think I'd know better by now, but it continues to really horrify me how readily people 'joke' about rape. Here, have some examples:

trigger warning

All of these were posted within a 24 hour sample, reproduced as found.

"I think we should go to [university club night] this week"
"Why?"
"You get free chocolate"
"Why?"
"Cos it's choculation or something..."
"Mate they could call it rapeulation and it still wouldnt sell it to me"

-

Boy1:mate did you see those two girls
Boy2:yes bruv, there the type of girls that are so fit, i'd rape them, and not even feel bad about it

-

"I don't need facebook to rape you"

-

guy1: "Ah i dunno mate, she's a bit weird.. that girl just LOVES rape!"
guy2: "...who doesn't?"

-

'...maybe if you rape her she'll get the message?'

eta: more the next day:

Flatmate 1: Oh my god, why is has someone put the door on the latch again? Some random girl just walked into the flat yesterday at like 1 in the morning.

Flatmate 2: Awhh mate, did you rape her?

-

"Give me £3 or I will rape you"

eta again: using this page as an ongoing record.

'i am so going to rape you when we get back to the flat'

-

"You know what they say....rape someone, have a coffee!!"

-

A clearly drunk lad stood in a packed bar one talking far too loudly
Guy 1: "I might take up rape"
Guy 2: "WHAT?!"
Guy 1: "Yeh ive been thinking, it's worth it as long as you get 4 or 5 good'uns before you get caught"

-

"I so would rape Cheryl Cole."

It's not like seeing something horrifying on the internet, these are comments from my peers, from the people who represent me, who attend my lectures, who live next door to me, who go to my social events. And that is what they think about women, that we are objects or possessions. And considering the things that have happened to me and other women that I know, both on campus and in the surrounding area, reading the above makes me feel actively threatened and unsafe.

But, Amy, it's just a joke - lighten up - why do you have to take things so seriously all the time - you're just overemotional you're overreacting nobody means it.

Yeah. Okay. Nobody means it, until they do. Then it's really not so fucking funny.

Comments

[burningmarl.livejournal.com]

YES.
Overheard in Cardiff is the same and it's fucking disgusting

[burningmarl.livejournal.com]

YES.
Overheard in Cardiff is the same and it's fucking disgusting

I really might complain to some of the Sabbs

[such_heights]

Yeah, I'm thinking about emailing just to say, wtf? Not that there's anything they can really do about it, but still. BLEURGH.

[kel_reiley]

that's rather horrifying :(

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

Horrifying. I completely understand what you mean about the horror being stronger because these comments are coming from your own community, not just random strangers on the internet.

Do you have Take Back the Night at your uni? I'm wondering if a women's student group that organizes an event like that could put together something like Take Back the Message Board.

[such_heights]

*nods* It's something I think I'll bring up once I'm back.

[heathershaped]

That's absolutely horrifying, particularly to see it from people you may see all the time.

*hugs tight*

[lorannah]

*Sigh* - people are horrifying a lot of the time. Just the amount of casual racism I experience at work on a daily basis is really grinding. And then you seem the same on TV as well. I watched a new comedy last night which made jokes about things being sexist and racist - whilst failing to notice that the entire show was both.

Actually, it's one of those weird things - whilst I feel a lot more educated and aware of many issues, which is 100% a good thing - it's also enlightened me to how uninformed the majority of people are - which is just depressing.

One of my collegues, who I love and hang out with lots, I think recently worked out that we have very different opinions on a lot of issues and is pushing me about a lot of things at the moment. She's been trying to convince me recently that she's the real minority in England now. Which is just so many layers of wrong. *headdesk*

[such_heights]

SIGH. I don't even want to know what your co-worker thinks classifies as a 'real minority', do I?

[lorannah]

Probably not. Let's just say she told me 'everyone's a minority nowadays' as well and I pretty much just wanted to shake her - I mean she's well educated, I just feel she should know better.

[glass_icarus]

D: That's awful. *hugs*

[tea]

I spend my days around a dozen or so guys in their early twenties, many of whom were accustomed to using the word rape "in the gamer way" while playing video games in the undergrad physics lounge. I asked the repeat offenders a few times not to say the word rape, and from then on in, everytime I heard someone say it, would just say "don't say that word".

It was sometimes exhausting, and sometimes and interesting experiment. These were good, sweet, not very macho guys, so I was never directly worried for my safety in that space, but it definitely lead to conversations about what the term "safe space" means to me and why them saying "rape", even if I'm not actually worried about them in particular, is the very opposite of safe spaces. It was tough - some days I refused to argue with people about it, especially one of my closest guy friends, who always wanted to debate it from an abstract philosophical position, kept trying to make me argue it rationally about it. He got the message, finally, when my boyfriend (another guy in physics) said, "sure, nobody can stop you from saying to word rape, but you can't stop us from thinking your a dick for doing so".

The harder battle was the guys I'm not as good friends with. One of them, C, is sweet in a kind of stupid way, and never could remember not to say rape when I was around. We ended up fighting over it in the lounge, one day, with me getting caught up in the pseudo-logical arguments trying to convince him, until I finally stopped, near tears, and burst out with "Look, you don't get it. I'm your friend, and you're saying something that's making me actively unhappy even though I've asked you to stop. You can keep saying it and I can't stop you, but that makes you a shitty friend."

He kind of froze, and went, "well, why didn't you just say THAT?" And has never said it since. Which made me realize that with men whom aren't actually completely insensitive, the straightforward "you saying rape hurts me, I'm your friend, isn't that enough to get you to stop?" argument is really all you need to say.

But moral: omg, university guys are TERRIBLE wrt the word rape right now.

[such_heights]

Ugh, I'm so sorry you have such a hard time with that! And oh my god, I hate the abstract philosophical/logical type arguments you get into about these issues WITH A BURNING PASSION. I mean, I'm a philosopher, those arguments are what I do with my time, but they are just not appropriate in all circumstances and used as a way to belittle actual people's feelings.

[tea]

No. And there are times when I don't mind talking about them, but when I'm in a space that I live and work in with predominantly men every single day, I don't want to have to feel stressed or pressured or obligated to explain that. Me saying "please, don't", should be MORE THAN ENOUGH. And I find when I stop letting myself get tripped up philosophically and make my plea solely on an emotional basis, it works. Possibly just because guys don't like making girls cry, but with C in particular, it was really quite remarkable how he suddenly got it, and got that the other "arguments" were really just not the point.

[gandaki]

Ugh, that's horrifying.

[nny]

the kids at school make rape jokes constantly, and every single time I tell them off at my most serious and tell them that there is no way in hell that it will ever be funny. It seems to be on the decrease? Ugh, kids.

[such_heights]

I'm glad you're having some effect! The whole thing is so dismal, and it's depressing to see it so widespread in up and coming generations.

[secondsilk]

OMG. *is ill*

There was an article about how humour is more thought forming than serious stuff. That racist humour makes people more racist than racist rhetoric does.

[phaetonschariot.livejournal.com]

On one of my rabbit lists someone recently posted about a radio station in Boston that gives prizes for the two funniest "police blotter" stories. A week or two ago, one of the winners was about a man who sexually assaulted a rabbit. The DJ joked about it (I don't know his exact words - the audio was provided, but I had no desire to listen to it, and I believe it's been taken off the radio's website now). In my letter to the station I was trying to explain how, when you joke about something, it's saying that it's okay not to be horrified. Humour is something light-hearted, it's coded as "this isn't serious". You don't (usually) joke about something that affects you so deeply - and when you do, it has the effect of seeming to take some of the awfulness out of it, at least temporarily. But the thing is, you're the only one who knows that you take it seriously enough to joke about. To everyone else, you're just joking, because that's what's behind almost all jokes.

[such_heights]

That is not surprising at all. D:

[gorgeousnerd]

Ugh, ugh, ugh. The use of that word so casually is common in my/our age group -- I hear it a lot when I'm with my peers -- and it really makes me cringe.

In better news, my brother-in-law (who's younger than me by a couple years) took a class on diversity as part of his degree requirements, and he's been standing up to his cousins, which is amazing because he generally isn't thought of as a hugely vocal guy. He's been really big on "people first" language: "a person who uses a wheelchair", "a person who is gay", and so on. One of his cousins referred to a woman they were interacting with as "that autistic girl", and my bro-in-law said, "Her name is [name], and she is a person with autism". That gives me hope for the future.

[such_heights]

That's great! I really, really wish more people around our age could take a second to think about this stuff, because otherwise it feels like nothing's ever going to get any better.

[verasteine]

Aah! That freaks me out. I know that shit happens and still... freaks me out. Rape culture is... so very frightening.

[sol_se]

Ugh.

Only tangentially related: The use of "rape" in gamer culture is very disturbing to me. When I started watched the Felicia Day webseries The Guild, one of the characters used it in one of the first episodes and it was like getting smacked in the face. Totally threw me out of the scene for a moment.

[such_heights]

I know next to nothing about gamer culture, so this is a new one to me - ugh, that sounds horrible! D:

[tea]

Ick, yes. See my story about - all of the instances were restricted to "damn, I got raped" or "you totally raped me that round, man", etc. And when I said AH NO I got back "but we just mean it in the gamer way!"

NO. I tried many times to explain that there are some words that shouldn't be watered down, and that you don't know who around you might have experienced rape and so is never ever going to think of the word in the "gamer way", and that you are completely abusing your male privilege to say that word without having to think of all its consequences, and that HI, THIS IS A PUBLIC UNIVERSITY SPACE THAT WOMEN ARE IN, CAN WE TALK ABOUT SAFE SPACES NOW?

It was infuriating, but after a few months of patiences/persistence/breaking down in tears, they got it. I hope.

[lefaym]

D:

Yeah, not surprising... but still horrifying.

[ontology]

Frakking frak. This makes me want to punch people in the face. You are talking about VIOLATING HUMAN BEINGS in one of the most horrifyingly intimate, destructive ways anyone can. Humans. People. Who love and live and are loved. My God.

[such_heights]

THIS. a;lskdjas *clings*

[mindabbles]

They are "joking." But not in the way they mean when defending themselves if someone confronts them. They are making light of it, and by doing so, contributing to an environment where it is acceptable. I know you know this, obviously. I also know we have talked about this phenomenon before, but it is maddening that people can be as sexist, heterosexist, racist, classist as they want, and in violent ways, and YOU are the one causing a problem if you gently say that is offensive. Blech. I do like the idea above of "take back the message board." That is a cool thought.

[such_heights]

Yes, exactly - that's a really good way of phrasing it, thanks Min!

I'm keeping an eye on the whole thing and putting out feelers as to who else I know feels the same, and seeing how we go from there. Because this is Not Okay.