Thursday, November 29, 2007

Bindelpalooza Part One- Men Off The Streets.

Julie Bindal, author of such classic Comment is Free pieces such as "Why I Hate Men" and "An End To Gender" has been on a role this week treating us to no fewer than two articles on Wednesday plus one at the weekend.

First up is "Fighting Fear", Bindel writes:
One of my friends, who has been involved in the women's liberation movement for as long as I have, sneered at me when I asked her if she was coming on this Saturday's Reclaim the Night march through London. The inference was that she had something better to do. Well there is nothing better I can think of to do on Saturday. If you are planning to watch X Factor instead of marching alongside your sisters, chanting fabulous slogans such as "men off the streets," and "yes means yes, and no means no," consider this....
Well I can think of a few things better to do on a Saturday, gardening, shopping, reading, raping, going out for dinner or watching a film for example.
Despite four decades of campaigning against domestic violence, over 100 women are still killed every year by current and former partners.
In fairness she is the only writer at the Guardian who writes about the murder rate, but 100 murders out of around 22 million adult women ( that's a guesstimate) isn't exactly an epidemic. Obviously any number of murders is too high but this is just scaremongering.
Male violence towards women and children - yes, male - is pandemic. We must force them to change - to stop raping, killing and abusing us.
Oh do I have to?
. When I march on Saturday, I will be doing so for women everywhere...
That's awfully good of her, there hardly seems any point anyone else turning up.
...because sexual violence is the only thing in the world that affects all women
A big claim which she then expands on:
let me ask you (women) something. Can you honestly say, hand on heart, that you have never feared rape? Have you never modified your behaviour, even just a little, for fear of being attacked? Remember that time you took a minicab home, alone and drunk? Did you feel relieved the next day that nothing bad happened to you? Or when you walked through a park late at night alone?
I'm pretty sure that everyone modifies their behaviour slightly to avoid being a victim of crime. I'm not entirely convinced however that the small number of men who do carry out sexual assaults on women are going to be dissuaded by a coven of femiloons denouncing the entire male sex as guilty. Maybe I'm wrong and if only more people had attended last year then the Ipswich murderer would have paused for thought and been shamed into not murdering women by the guilt felt for making women feel unsafe.

It is of course true that men commit the majority of crimes and the vast majority of violent or sexual crimes. However Bindal appears to be have made the logical fallacy (or phallusy) that because most crimes are committed men that this means that most men commit these crimes.

2 comments:

JuliaM said...

"I'm pretty sure that everyone modifies their behaviour slightly to avoid being a victim of crime."

Indeed. The Met Poice even encourage it, with their irritating 'don't flash it about' poster warning against street robbery for mobiles & iPods.

"I'm not entirely convinced however that the small number of men who do carry out sexual assaults on women are going to be dissuaded by a coven of femiloons denouncing the entire male sex as guilty."

Well, it's been tried non-stop by the femiloons - perhaps they ought to pause and ask themselves if they are on the right track?

Self-awareness - it isn't just for Christmas!

JuliaM said...

And of course, it would be churlish to break into Miss Bindel's flow of male-directed invective and point her to the case in Australia of the two lesbians who battered to death a young flatmate because they found her 'irritating'.

I guess the 'sisterhood' hasn't all got the message yet...