My drive into work this morning started out pretty normal. I settled into my half hour commute with my vape, some coffee and the morning show on the local radio station. Morning shows are sometimes amusing, and mostly I don’t mind them – they keep the task of the morning commute light hearted and semi-entertaining. Plus, let’s face it, you would be hard pressed to find actual music in the mornings on public radio.

This morning was particularly disturbing. The hosts started talking about a case where a man pressed rape charges against a woman. The link to the actual news story is here: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/seattle-woman-raped-sleeping-man-police-article-1.1938146 . A basic recap of the story is a woman broke into her neighbor’s apartment and raped him while he was sleeping. He was sleeping off the effects of a party, and when he awoke from the “activity” he was able to escape the woman where he went to the hospital to get checked out.

While it is terrible that this man experienced being raped, it’s what happens next that really angered me. The radio show hosts started talking about the man in a very condescending way. They were joking about him being raped and couldn’t seem to fathom that a man would have a problem waking up to being raped by a woman. Then, they proceeded to make fun of the woman, stating that the 5’7, 240lb woman “probably didn’t have a hard time holding him down”.

This type of attitude is incredibly disturbing to me. It is in bad taste to joke about and make fun of a victim of rape, regardless of gender. If the tables were turned and it was a woman waking up to being raped by a man, then I highly doubt that the same type of jokes would have been made. Men are a hugely misrepresented group when it comes to talking about rape. It is a fallacy that men can’t be raped, and it’s just plain ignorant to think that all men would want any and all sexual attention from a woman. This type of negative thinking does a huge disservice to both sexes. Men have the right to choose their sexual partners and encounters just like women. Men have a say so over what happens to their bodies, just like women. To say that rape is only a women’s problem just shows how skewed our society is in regards to sexual crimes. The issue is so stigmatized that many men that are victims of rape keep quit just for fear of ridicule. This has to change!

The subject of rape is not a topic that should be discussed, ridiculed, or laughed at in any forum, much less a morning radio show. I will be writing to the station to let them know that I found it to be in bad taste and hopefully try to explain why rape isn’t an issue to be laughed at, regardless of gender. Will it do any good? Doubtful. Will it make me feel better? Doubtful. However, I do feel that they need to be alerted to the insensitivity and blatant disrespect given by their hosts this morning.

I was going to talk a little bit about the jokes in regards to the woman’s size in this post, but I feel that it would be a disservice to the extremely important topic at hand. That will be put on the back burner for another post on a different day. I digress.

I have two sons and two daughters. This is not the kind of world that I wish for them to grow up in.  Rape is no laughing matter. Maybe, just maybe, if enough people start to speak out against the double standards and injustice then people will begin to take heed. It’s incredibly hard to believe that in today’s society inequalities like this still exist. Sometimes, I have no hope for humanity.

Feminism:  The advocacy of women’s rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

Let those words sink in for a minute. Swirl them around in your mouth and let them linger on your tongue. Think about the impact that those words have on our everyday lives, versus what the common perception of Feminism is, while I speak a bit about the Ray Rice situation. We’ll come back to feminism, no worries there.

We’ve all seen the video by now and made opinions. I’m about to give my (very unpopular, I assume) opinion on the matter. Janay has admitted to being the instigator of the physical attacks, so I want to talk about that in detail, and what kind of mindset must have come into play. One simply does not hit another individual without the basic expectation of the blow being returned. Yes, you read that right. I’m not a fragile southern belle that believes that men shouldn’t hit women under any circumstance. I am very much of the opinion that if a woman hits a man, he has the right to hit her back (and vice versa). 

Slow down, now – deep breaths. I’m not advocating or promoting violence in any shape, form or fashion, but I believe that every individual person on this earth has a right to defend themselves against acts of violence. How does feminism fit into my beliefs? Why would I bring that up? I’ll tell you. Women fought long and hard to be treated as equals, however, when things get tough they try to backpedal into some idealistic 1950’s role, play the victim, and start blaming men for being barbaric. There is something all together wrong with the type of thinking when a woman tells herself it is okay to hit a man, but not to expect anything in return because men are raised (and socially held to a stigma of) not being able to hit women?

Fuck. That.

This is why I identify with the label of Humanist more so than Feminist, although, in this definition of women striving towards equality for men, the definition should pertain to actions. If you want to be treated as an equal to a man, don’t be surprised if after you hit him (once or multiple times) when he turns around and pops you one. Don’t cherry pick your beliefs. Don’t fight for something you don’t really want.

Equality is Equality. Period.

Let’s give another scenario involving “Rape”. Yes, Rape is in quotations for a reason. In this scenario, girl meets boy at the bar. They both imbibe, and are drunk by the end of the night. Boy asks girl back to his house, hotel room, or whatever and girl agrees and they have sex. Girl wakes up the next morning regretful, and accuses boy of getting her drunk to take advantage of, or “rape” her.

The problem that I have with this particular scenario is that both boy and girl are drinking, they both make a decision, but because girl is regretful she can try to excuse her way out of it with “rape”.  There comes a time when females have to take accountability for their actions. If she got too drunk, what makes it the male’s fault? Males and Females can make bad decisions, both separately and together, but it most definitely does not constitute rape.

We seem to have a belief system that is prevalent  of women wanting to be equal to men, yet when things get tough we are not able to stand up and take accountability for our action, lack of action, or bad decisions and place the blame on the males. This both sickens and saddens me. All humans, regardless of gender, should have the same rights – but they should also have the same responsibilities.

Nut up, ladies.