Josh Marshall writes about the hate swarm attacking Zerlina Maxwell for having suggested, on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, that women shouldn’t be expected to arm themselves to protect themselves from rapists. As Zerlina said, telling women to get a gun is not rape prevention.
Another point Zerlina’s made on Hannity’s show is that it may not be so easy to shoot someone if you know them. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in data for 2005-2010, the rapist was a stranger to the victim in only 22 percent of cases. In 34 percent of cases the rapist was an intimate partner, a current or former husband or boyfriend; in 38 percent of cases the rapist was a well-known casual acquaintance. And in 6 percent of cases the rapist was a family member.
BTW, in the same time period, 55 percent of rapes occurred in or near the victims’ homes; 57 percent of the perpetrators were white men.
Hannity kept saying that teaching men to not rape would not stop “criminals,” but like many men Hannity misses what rape really is. Most of the time, the “perp” is not just some faceless, generic “criminal,” but a man the victim knows, and possibly trusted, and may be in a relationship with, and who may have no criminal record and wouldn’t dream of committing any other time of crime. Indeed, from what I know of the psychology of rape, especially in the case of intimate partner/acquaintance rape, the perp may not perceive his act as “criminal.”
As far as using guns to prevent rape, other stats show it doesn’t work. Again, through the miracle of Google, we can easily find which cities in the U.S. have the highest and lowest rates of rape. New York City has among the lowest rates; Anchorage, Alaska among the highest. But there’s no real pattern I can see, except that the U.S. does have an unusually high rate of forcible rape to go along with our unusually high rate of homicides and our unusually high rate of firearm possession.
Indeed, from what I know of the psychology of rape, especially in the case of intimate partner/acquaintance rape, the perp may not perceive his act as “criminal.”
You mean guys like Bill O’Reilly who sexually harrass women in order to satisfy their sexual desires? No violence there..just a slight reminder of possible economic difficulties in their foreseeable future if your charms are not received properly. It can’t be a crime if paying money to make it go away can solve it.
In civil societies (outliers like Switzerland aside) nobody packs a gun.
In fact, when Rand Paul was going all tinfoil about drones last week about drones, I was thinking it was a damn shame we even let cops carry guns, given how often “driving while black” becomes a capital offense every year.
You know, talking rape, or defining rape, or whatever the Goopers have been doing lately has worked out so well for them, I think they should continue. Don’t these clowns ever learn? Here’s an idea for the dems, in any race without an incumbent, find a woman and run her. Period. It will make the choice obvious to all who wants to advance women’s issues, which are everyone’s concern, and bring along many independent voters. I live in about as red an area as there is, and many of the women that I know who vote repub do so because they think that many of the social issues are settled law. So they vote to lower their taxes. If the issues returned, which it looks like they have, they would vote with their, well, self interests. The dems need to become the party of the woman.
Conservatives:
They come for the gun talk.
They stay for the rape talk.
And to the haters who watch FOX, Zerlina Maxwell is even better than a “Three-fer” – she’s a “Four-fer:” A black, Liberal, anti-gun, FEMALE!!!
And she disturbed their insular, fear-and-hate-filled little worlds so much, that they called her “The N-word,” and wished she, already a rape victim, would be raped again.
You know – “Good Ol’ Murkan Values.”
And I have no doubt, the bulk of the haters, consider themselves to be “Faithful Christians,” too.
Reading about this woman, and the Right’s reaction to her, makes me sad that the Mayans were wrong.
Guns are the answer to everything. I saw it in a Heritage Foundation study.
I can’t be sure about the nesscessity of using a gun to prevent rape, but the Taliban in me tells me it’s an imperative to prevent fornicating. WWJD?
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/brandon-man-70-accused-of-shooting-wifes-lover-dead-in-living-room/2108202
My guess is , that the thinking on the right is IF it really is a true rape , your body has ways to shut down the pregancy IF you are packing. But you know, rape – REAL rape is pretty rare, women just claim rape so people don’t think that they are really just sluts. And listen, if the woman knows the guy, thats not rape. That is some bitch trying to be upidy and decide when she wants to dish out the coochie, like she has a right! Who told them they could decide? It is her duty to submit to men at their will, not hers.All of this is happening because , in their minds, they gave women rights. Biggest mistake they ever made.
It seems to me that rape is about control and less about the actual act of sex. You can’t smack a broad around anymore (can you imagine you don’t have a right to run your family as you see fit or some activist judge will step in and take the womans side?).. women will actually get in your face and disagree!, like they are equals! The problem is women don’t know their place! They don’t fear men like they are suppose to and they want to be equal partners! This is not the order of how things are suppose to go. Bravo to any guy who won’t let em get away with it! Bravo to the guy who takes back a little bit of the power, because you know thats what she really wanted.She wanted to give that power back to the man, society just won’t let her. And look she is asking for it anyhow, otherwise she would be married and protected by her man( when he wasn’t raping her himself) instead of being out putting herself in a place where she could be “raped”(yeah right)
Just wait for the day some woman does blow her rapist off the planet. She will be torn to shreads.She will be the one on trial and everything she ever did, everyone she ever slept with, her entire underwear drawer and even if she read “50 shades of grey” will be the story. She would become an example of what would happen to the rest of us if we dared to stand up. She would become rush’s feminazi target.(remember what happened when fluke stood up just trying to get her insurance to cover birth control?)
justme,
PERFECT!
Yeah, if a woman actually blows her rapist’s balls off with a gun, or kills him, she will be put through the wringer.
How dare SHE!!!
And they will pick any and every nit they can find, to absolve the poor, poor, male “victim,” and make the real female victim, the perpetrator.
I’m married – second time. Both of my wives have at various times, pissed me off. I’ve never struck either of them – and I never will because I’m conditioned as a matter of CHOICE to walk away, leave the house – walk away or drive away, cool off – figure it out. And when I return after a few hours, it’s with the intent to work out a compromise or concede her point of view and ask her to see mine.
If I’m ever wrong – I plan to apologize, but it hasn’t happened yet.
Joking aside, Zerlina is exactly right. Men can be conditioned NOT to respond to an emotional incident with violence. (And justme is right – rape is almost always about control and dominance through violence – and damn little about sex.) The discussion from this week needs to happen over and over, because most guys, liberal or conservative can get the message, but it won’t sink in the first time around. Just walk away BEFORE you do something stupid.
Guns are the answer to everything. I saw it in a Heritage Foundation study.
I know, right? Like yesterday for instance. I had a stuck drawer in my kitchen; nothing I would do could open it. So I got out my trusty gun and blasted that sucker– no more stuck drawer! Then my teevee remote stopped working; I changed out the batteries and it still didn’t work. So I got out my trusty gun, and changed the channel. It was on Fox News at the time, so I guess it’ll be there forever now. I don’t mind.
[s] [of course].
When it came to Sandy Hook, the gun nuts said, instead of focusing on gun control, we need to “look deeper†and focus on why people commit violence. Guns don’t kill; people do.
Zerlina Maxwell also said we need to “look deeper†and focus prevention on the cause, e.g. men and whatever it is that compels them to commit violence in the form of rape. That earned her a vicious rebuke and threats of violence, even rape, from the “look deeper†crowd on the right. So much for their sincerity.
But my question is this: what set them off? That she’s saying that women don’t need guns, or that the focus needs to be on men? In either case, these people have some serious issues, none of which makes me feel good about them having guns or being around women.
what set them off? That she’s saying that women don’t need guns, or that the focus needs to be on men?
That is a good question. I imagine it arises from the essential mindset of the average male Fox News viewer. I suspect this mindset is several yards to the right of Fox News itself, which is overtly pro-gun but (mostly) covertly anti-woman. First, Zelina Maxwell dared to question the Fox News Talking Points, which is a sin by itself; second, she sounded somehow anti-gun, which means of course she is Pure Evil; finally, I suspect she came across as a Mouthy Woman, to a demographic that is really torked off by that sort of thing, and tends to spend life marinating in a kind of rage stew.
Just my theory. But again, really good question. I suspect the answer, whatever it is, would make my skin crawl.
what set them off?
Blasphemy! She dared to question their infallible understanding.
What needs to be asked is this: when a woman shoots and kills a man, and she says he was trying to rape her, are they really going to jump to her side, and say it was all justified? We already know that if a woman makes a rape accusation, she’s likely to be disbelieved, unless she’s bloody or bruised and/or has a useful rape kit exam taken… and that’s just for accusing someone in front of the police.
We could also bring up the *insanity* of threatening people with guns when, ten minutes ago, you were up for some kissing and cuddling (but wanted to keep clothes on, at least for now). The human brain just doesn’t work like that.
I’d also bet that some of the people who are calling for this are also the kind of people who are *mortally offended* when they hear that one must consider all men potential rapists until trust is established. That’s what one must do to be ready to grab a gun if things are going south.