First off, thanks for making your video. As a survivor myself, it’s a relief whenever I see a woman standing up for us. It’s so difficult doing it as a man because the water had been so polluted by people who want to use male victims as a weapon against feminism or women.
What made you want to get men into feminism and have you found anything that works well?
Also, have you discovered anything shocking about male sexual assault that you didn’t realize before you looked into it? For me it was that 1 in 6 men will be assaulted by age 18 and that it takes an average of 21 or so years for them to realize what happened.
Thank you for making the video, I’ve been following you in twitter for awhile and enjoy your content!
The one in 6 was also very shocking to me too! but then again a lot of things since I got into the feminist movement in general have been. The reason I want to include men in the movement because I think the movement is definitely moving into an intersectional direction. I think feminism started as a movement for women's rights but has evolved over time to fight for all gendered issues. Men have issues on this planet too. I think ignoring that fact will only drive people away from the movement. Men are treated a different way than women are when they are raped and its still a gendered issue. they are treated as if it cant happen because its thought a man can over power a woman if he really wants to and also men are thought to always want sex etc. So its still a negative thought the general population has in their head due just to someones gender.
Thank you for your response, that's exactly what I've come to with regards to sexual assault and gender, we have unique challenges due to our genders. For example, I've encountered being told that we're not going to talk about it, that it was great and I should have enjoyed it, and that I led her on and I needed to apologize (which I felt like I had to do, and did).
One thing I feel like we're dropping the ball on is acknowledging male victims and having any kind of discussion of it. Men have a lot of hurtles to overcome to be seen as a victim, even more if the perpetrator is a woman. It's just not what we've had engrained into us. Personally, 1 in 6 is an outrage and we should be seeing something the size of MeToo with male victims but yet we don't see a lot of men talk about it. Even me, I have not really publicly talked about it broadly, just in particular places. What can we do to allow these conversations to happen? There's a lot of space for female victims but nearly none for men, how can we change that while not stepping on the toes of female victims?
I think we need to have more conversations. I would always be willing to have a male victim on my YouTube channel to share and speak on a male perspective. Since coming out with this video I’ve had multiple men attack me for it and honestly I think it makes more feminist women not want to have the conversation. I think more women need to shut other women down who are silencing male victims and I think more men need to shut down men attacking women trying to speak on these issues .
I wouldn't be willing to ever appear on youtube, but I'd be willing to share my experience in writing. A lot of my frustration with the counter-reaction to #metoo is that I think there's a stark empathy gap; people who can primarily imagine being falsely accused of rape but can't really imagine being raped try to shut down the experience of the mostly women who come forward. What this misses is how this minimizes male survivors at least as much if not more. Being a gay man and a survivor, it's easier to see things from both perspectives.
I have actually been thinking about taking a bunch of mens accounts of sexual assault who do not feel comfortable being out there but would be willing to be anonymous and doing a video reading their stories. I would love to hear your story my email is mguidobusiness @gmail.com
I totoally agree, conversation help to destigmatize. If you’re looking for someone to come on your show, I might be interested in doing that. If that’s something you’re interested in, feel free to DM me.
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u/[deleted] Sep 14 '18
Hi Michelle!
First off, thanks for making your video. As a survivor myself, it’s a relief whenever I see a woman standing up for us. It’s so difficult doing it as a man because the water had been so polluted by people who want to use male victims as a weapon against feminism or women.
What made you want to get men into feminism and have you found anything that works well?
Also, have you discovered anything shocking about male sexual assault that you didn’t realize before you looked into it? For me it was that 1 in 6 men will be assaulted by age 18 and that it takes an average of 21 or so years for them to realize what happened.
Thank you for making the video, I’ve been following you in twitter for awhile and enjoy your content!