When a group of people decides to name their blog after a phallic symbol, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that they actually are huge cocks, should we? We're going to dive right in on a post all about whether it would be sensible to make street harassment illegal.
Once, when I was about 18, I was walking to a girlfriend’s house in an inner-city neighborhood late at night, and a woman happened to be walking in front of me, taking the exact same route I was. I kept walking, about a half block or so behind her, thinking little of it. When I had almost arrived at my destination, I noticed she had picked up her pace a bit and was looking over her shoulder from time to time. I didn’t really care, and continued on my way. By the time I was at the apartment, she was virtually running into her own place, which was directly across the street from my girlfriend’s. I stood in front of my destination, finishing a smoke before ringing the doorbell. Just as I was ready to go in, some guy opened a window several stories up in the apartment building the frightened woman had entered and started yelling at me about "stalking." In somewhat rough language, I explained that I had every right to walk from one place to another, and told him to mind his own business. He shut the window and left me alone.
If there were some "harassment" law, I imagine I could have been arrested and brought to court just because some woman was frightened that a man happened to be walking behind her at night. It wouldn’t matter why the man was walking behind her, because in the feminist world all it should take to have men arrested is a "feeling."
Right . . . so he didn't initially intend to make a woman feel threatened, but then realized he did make her feel threatened--but he didn't give a shit, and indeed deliberately continued in a threatening manner. I live in "the feminist world" and I don't want him arrested for that, but I do want to give him a stern look and remind him about human feeling and common courtesy.
I, and probably most American men, think it’s in poor taste to hoot or whistle at women. However, I’ve noticed that plenty of women rather like the attention.
Some may! Many won't. To me, the fact that some wouldn't--and you can't know which you're dealing with when you're whistling at strangers--would be enough to stop me from doing it myself, to disapprove of anyone who did it, and to support any woman who said that she'd like it to stop. So I'm not sure what he's trying to say here. It's in poor taste, yes. Some women enjoy it nonetheless, yes. Therefore it's . . . ok? What are you saying, Welmer?
[A law against street harassment] would give them [a woman] power to make the men stop in case it didn’t feel right. For example, she might not call the police if some strapping, young Navy officer propositioned her from across the street, but if a pasty, thin nerd remarked that she had a "nice dress" she’d call in the boys in blue to give him a concrete sandwich and dislocated shoulder as they wrestle him into cuffs.
I have a friend who, when we were teens, used to engage in what might be called harassment under Ms. Kearl’s definition. It embarrassed the hell out of me, because as we were driving around, he’d proposition every good-looking girl he saw. He was a good-looking guy, so they just loved it.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHH I see what you're saying! You're saying that Nice Guys can't get away with that shit; therefore women are Horrible Bitches because some women don't mind that behavior when it comes from some men--not to mention that none of those men are YOU because you are so Nice! It has all become clear.
Let me just point you to this edifying read about Nice Guys, Welmer. And this one. And while you're at it, tell me more about your hunky friend . . .
Unsurprisingly, like most young rascals, he had been raised by a libertine single mother.
A SINGLE MOTHER! BURN HER!
The guys at The Spearhead have a real THING about single mothers, it turns out. But before we get to that, let's finish off this bit about street harassment:
Hopefully, people are starting to realize that if feminists have their way, not only will we be legislated into a police state, we’ll be sucked absolutely dry to accomodate the feelings of women who demand that every aspect of their lives be defended with force of arms and law. We are already starting to reevaluate out profligate consumer culture; isn’t it about time we question the voracious hunger for entitlement our women have developed?
-Legislating Propriety
Women, if you're considering asking street harassment to be considered simply harassment (because that's what it is, and because a significant number of men apparently don't think enough of women or each other to encourage each other not to do it without legislation first being put in place), you are voraciously hungry for entitlement.
Read the comments for more men who actively enjoy frightening women who are walking alone, then consider the female sense of entitlement, then let the walls ring with hollow laughter. (Let's not even discuss that "our women" bit. Oh ok, briefly: Dude, we are not "your women.")
Anyway. On to single mothers.
Here in Seattle Joel Zellmer, a Kent man, is facing trial for the murder of a 3-year-old girl. He allegedly killed her for a $200,000 life insurance policy he took out on her with her mother. In 2003, the girl drowned in a pool in her new stepfather’s back yard. When the child drowned, the death was initially thought to be accidental, but prior incidents children came to light, and Zellmer was arrested in 2007. His first wife’s son had his legs broken in 1990, supposedly in a hit and run by an uninsured driver. Zellmer received a $25,000 insurance settlement from the "accident." Later, a baby somehow ended up in his hot tub, and was injured. In 2002, his fiancée left him after some suspicious incidents and his suggestion that she and her daughter get life insurance policies.
SINGLE MOTHERS! BURN THEM!
. . . but wait, you say. There's nothing there about single mothers. It's just a thing about a guy who likes hurting children for money, right? If we're going to blame anyone here, it's the guy who likes hurting children for money. Aren't we?
AHA, YOU HAVE FALLEN INTO MY CUNNING TRAP! I took this paragraph and rewrote it with the focus that a normal person who wasn't obsessed with eeevil single mothers would have employed. Here's what Welmer actually wrote:
Here in Seattle Joel Zellmer, a Kent man, is facing trial for the murder of a 3-year-old girl. He allegedly killed her for a $200,000 life insurance policy he took out on her with her mother. In 2003, the girl drowned in a pool in her new stepfather’s back yard. When the child drowned, the death was initially thought to be accidental, but prior incidents involving the children of single mothers Zellmer proposed to came to light, and Zellmer was arrested in 2007. His first wife’s son had his legs broken in 1990, supposedly in a hit and run by an uninsured driver. Zellmer received a $25,000 insurance settlement from the “accident.” Later, the baby of a single mother he was dating somehow ended up in his hot tub, and was injured. In 2002, he started dating several single mothers at once, and then got engaged to one, who left him after some suspicious incidents and his suggestion that she and her daughter get life insurance policies.
Here we can see that the problem here is not Joel Zellmer, but instead the single mothers he targeted.
The facts state that if a woman with small children is having a relationship with a man who is not the child’s father, the man is 60 times more likely to kill the children than a resident biological father. Of course, plenty of men who date and marry single mothers are perfectly decent, but sadly a lot of them are not. Some of them are downright homicidal.
Wow, that is a worry for these women and their children, isn't it?
It is every caring divorced father’s nightmare that some guy who doesn’t give a damn about his kids might soon become the “man of the house.” In these situations, the children suffer disproportionately from the choices that were ultimately made by their mother, and these choices are facilitated – even encouraged – by the law of the land.
Oh. I see. So it's not the children you ultimately worry most about here? Or perhaps even the women, who have the sole responsibility for these children for a variety of unhappy reasons? It's the weekend dads?
Personally, I’d recommend avoiding [single mothers], because in the majority of cases they chose to become single mothers. Only a fraction of them faced the kind of abuse or neglect that justified putting their children in that situation. In most cases, they either got tired of their husbands and dumped them or intentionally got pregnant by a man who had no intention or desire to become a father. A man with good sense should approach any relationship with a single mother with extreme caution. However, they are also an easy mark. In many cases, they are desperate, so some guys might choose to take advantage of that.
Oh. Right. Yes, of course. Poor old weekend dads.
. . . But. Seriously? You're not going to blame Joel Zellmer for that story up there, the killing children thing? It's really entirely the fault of the single mothers involved?
Men like Zellmer, if he really did murder the girl, are only taking advantage of easy prey.
- Worst Nightmare for Divorced Fathers
Oh. Um. Ok.
Right, I think for now these little bits are enough from Welmer and his rag-tag crew of giant cocknoses. But, as you can see from the self-congratulatory comments they get over there, there's very little dissent. All the more reason for you to Troll This Blog, if you've got the stomach for it. As always, do play nice.
(By the way: if you agree with Welmer (or if you ARE Welmer), you should just go away quietly now--not because I am afraid of the big scary logical arguments you might beat me down with manfully in the comments section, but because I'm a woman writer and you are duty-bound to avoid me.)
This is actually all so outrageous and ridiculous that I can't help but laugh. Wellmer totally made up this nonsense in his head and presented it not only as fact, but also totally losing sight of what that entire situation was truly about. The fact is that a man killed a child for life insurance money. That man is the villain. Not the little child, not the mother of the child. And the weekend father of that little kid is NOT the victim. That child is. Most people with brains will understand this. In fact, I'm sure even he and his ilk over there at The Spearhead understand that, but they just get off on bashing women so even if they have to make up nonsense to do it, they will. Convoluted logic is not good logic. But, apparently it gives these men some form of camaraderie. Which is sad and pretty much says that they likely have no lives of their own, and they've probably had bad luck with women throughout much of their lives. :p
ReplyDelete"(Let's not even discuss that "our women" bit. Oh ok, briefly: Dude, we are not "your women.")
ReplyDeleteThis imputes an arbitrary semantic construction to the phrase "our women" -- which could as well be taken to mean "the women of OUR society".
Thus, a woman too could speak of "our" women, in a kind of inclusive, collective possessive.
In a similar spirit, a woman could say "our men".
The over-arching collective "our" has been eclipsed due to the politicized nature of man-woman relations, and semantic googles have been tinted accordingly.