A View from A Broad

Anger and guns
From

jazzqueen comes an interesting comment that makes me once again remember why I despise the 'women should just arm themselves' argument against rape. Arming women does not change the rape culture we live in. It does not change the men who rape or the men who passively support them or just ignore what they do. It puts it all on women without settling these rather glaring questions:

Exactly when are women allowed to use deadly force to stop a rape? How will they prove that Mr. Nice White College Boy meant to rape them? After all, a great many people still believe that short skirts incite rape, that only bruises mean she fought back, and that if she didn't want to get raped, she wouldn't have been there, done that, dressed like that, or so forth. Most of all, she wouldn't have assumed a basic level of safety only available to men amongst men. Rape, we are told, wll always be with us, so just deal with it, okay? Anything that focuses on women ignores the rapists.

But the post on anger produced this comment, and it's striking. Here you go:

What you and other commenters have said about anger got me thinking. I'm not afraid to express my anger when provoked, but one thing I've noticed is that people often laugh.
Actually, I say people, but the faces that come to mind all belong to men. See, I go clubbing a lot because I enjoy dancing to loud music. What usually happens is that some idiot thinks that because my clothes are tight he can grab my ass. I turn and get angry. Invariably, these guys laugh at me and are all "what's the big deal?"
One particularly bad night I had been groped maybe ten times in under three hours. I was standing outside a club waiting to get in, feeling really on edge. Someone standing behind me grabs my ass. I whirl and almost punch the guy in the face before I realise I know him; he's a friend of a friend. I glare at him and say "that was not cool." He grins. I repeat, vehemently, "that was not cool." He says "aw, c'mon, I was just joking around!"
I lost my head completely. I started shouting at him. He stood there and laughed, and when I got angrier he started shushing me. Shushing me. Like I was a child throwing a tantrum.
A bouncer friend of mine came over at that point, told the creep to get lost and ushered me inside.
I just... he laughed. Like I was just being silly.
This was in August. I've since stopped wearing skirts when I go clubbing, because a friend of mine said when I told her about the incident: "What do you expect, wearing a short skirt like that?"
I still get groped.

It's so silly for women to think they have rights, you know. Men have rights. Women have whatever is left when all the good parts are gone. Men are the players, women the stagehands. When it comes down to it, a woman has no rights that a man has to respect. Why, the idea is laughable.

I've had the same experience as

jazzqueen had. I got groped by a guy at a club and I shoved him so hard he stumbled. He got angry. After all, there I was, enticing him. What did I expect? I had made a bargain, and then I was trying to get out of it. What I remember most is his rock bottom belief that I had provoked him, that I was being a tease or something, that he was entitled to touch me. Consent to any guy was assumed. Nobody in the vicinity did anything. He didn't laugh, but he was angry. His rights to grab and grope were being infringed upon.

So, tell me again. How does giving a woman a gun do anything to his attitude? Let's assume a guy gives a woman clear evidence he intends to rape her. First catch: he's unarmed. He may be six inches taller than her, he may outweigh her by fifty pounds of muscle, but here in this country we have a history of totally ignoring any gender differences that do anything but indicate how superior men are. Anything which suggests that men are using their size to intimidate women must be ignored. So we have this unarmd guy and this woman.Does she shoot him before he rapes her? Where's the evidence then that he intended to rape her? If he's not a black guy in an alley, she's SOL. We all know that nice white boys don't commit, you know, real rape. They don't have to, for one thing.

So here's our heroine's choices. She can shoot him and get convicted of a variety of crimes, because you can't just go around shooting guys. The only guys you can shoot are burglars and guys who Don't Look Like Us. So she goes to jail. Then what do the rest of us do? She becomes like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith---the real life version of all those Evil Disney Mothers, while real life male scumbags get tossed into the collective dustbin of consciousness. We can't think ill of those that rule us. We can't look too closely at how they do it.

So tell me how giving women guns without changing the culture will do any damned good at all. It won't protect women, and chances are it will enrage the men who laugh at the idea that a woman has a right to enjoy her body while he does not. I have to say, too, a stray thought occurred to me. Guys who think they have such rights to women's bodies---what do you suppose their attitude is toward other methods of controlling those women's bodies? Do you really think you have to right to do anything with your body if they don't get off on it? Do you think they care about your body except if it gets them off? Do you really think they give a shit at all?

Giving women guns is just going to put more women behind bars. The very men who proclaim that this will solve the problem are removing themselves and their buddies from the responsible party list by suggesting it. "Hey," they whine, "We gave you an option, you chose not to take it. Not our problem any longer."

Here's a clue, guys: real choices are not between awful and worse. Such a choice is no choice at all and the idea that it's okay to offer these 'choices' and only these to women indicates just how little you think we're entitled to. You notice people never offer women real choices? How would you like some independance, some safety, some respect? No, what they offer you is the choice between being raped or being jailed. They think their hands are clean.

Guys who laugh at the idea that you should expect more are not on your side. They are not your friends. And there's lots of them out there.