The responses to the recent Pennsylvania shooting speaks volumes about how we view (or ignore) misogyny.
In the aftermath of George Sodini’s horrific crime, I took some solace in the fact that the media was covering the crime as one targeted towards women. (Something they failed to do several years ago when similar shootings occurred.) And this weekend, I was even more heartened – and not at all surprised – to see Bob Herbert of The New York Times link the shooting to our culture’s hatred of women:
We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.
We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment.
Yet despite the links being made in the mainstream media, and the numerous bloggers and reporters who have shown that Sodini had ties to the “pick up artist” community and probably would have fit in well with the “Nice Guy” sect as well – some people are aghast that anyone would link Sodini’s crime to a larger culture of misogyny.
Take, for example (and this is just one of many), conservative anti-feminist blogger Cassy Fiano – who after a roundup of feminist blogger responses to the shooting, writes:
…To say that it is a “culture-wide problem” because America is apparently just still so misogynistic is ridiculous and wrong. And feminists know that. Most men do not harbor secret fantasies of forcing women to have sex with them whether they want to or not, nor do most men dream about enacting violence against women. Yet it doesn’t keep feminists from labeling men this way.
What I think it boils down to is that feminists no longer have anything to fight for. And so, a movement that once was dedicated to fighting for equality between sexes has now resorted to slandering all men as angry, violent, women-haters in order to further their own feminist agenda. George Sodini is a sick, evil man who I hope rots in hell for what he’s done. And while I don’t think feminists are evil, they should still be ashamed of themselves for exploiting a tragedy of this nature in order to continue to smear men.
I genuinely find this kind of reasoning completely fascinating. Calling feminists opportunists and conflating cultural criticisms with man-bashing seems to serve only one purpose – denial. (And some head-patting from misogynists, of course – but that’s a post for a different day.) Seriously, I have often wondered why anti-feminists spout what they do. The only answer I’ve been able to come up with is denial, and an extreme desire to believe that if they’re not one of those women (feminists, sluts, etc) then they will be safe. If they can separate themselves from the reality of most women’s lives, and the terrifying culture that is misogyny in America, then somehow they will be immune to it all.
Part of me gets it, truly. Opening your eyes to the way that U.S. culture views women – and hates women – is not pleasant. It’s scary and unsettling and makes you question…well, everything. But the sad fact is, you can’t wish misogyny away. It exists whether you believe in it or not.
And when you rail against feminists, or the idea that misogyny is a culture-wide problem – you are enabling misogynists. That’s why I wasn’t surprised to see that this was the first comment to Fiano’s post:
There is no ‘culture of misogyny’ at all. The feminists are, as usual, unhinged. to a point, I think Mr Sodini had a few valid points. I’m not the most attractive guy in the world, and have experienced downright offensive rejections when I attempted to approach an ‘attractive’ girl. The women viewed me as completely beneath them, and how DARE I approach them, since i clearly was not up to their standards. These were the same girls that cried and whined when they had sex with a guy that never called them back. So from one perspective, I can relate to his feelings. He simply took it to a serious extreme.
If the feminists want to blame anybody, they should be blaming themselves for how so many of them treat men in today’s modern society.
Another commenter calls Sodini “a victim of the women who dismissed him.” One person even singles out me:
If sex is but a good time, it’s a real insult to not sleep with a man; you are denying himself and yourself a fun, healthy time. If sex is special – if chastity means something more than just a way of life to be shunned – then not having sex with a guy is normal.
Once you criticise chastity, you reverse the default position from not sleeping with someone to sleeping with them. So, Jess, author of The Purity Myth, how do you feel about the logical consequences of your politics?
These commenters blame everyone from the women who rejected Sodini to feminist authors – but never the culture of misogyny, and rarely Sodini himself. Because for the men who benefit from this culture, recognizing that misogyny exists would mean having to change. And for the women who live in this culture, it’s just easier – and less painful – to believe that the widespread acts of violence against women are simply anomalies that could never happen to them.
But as Herbert writes, “we would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem.” Because maybe then, we could start figuring out ways to end it.
140 Comments
“What does he get out of killing women and then killing himself?”
A cowardly escape.
“misandry exists”
I disagree. In order for misandry to exist, it has to be unprovoked within a matriarchy like misogyny. Because its not, then it doesnt exist. Anyways, I bet you cant give me even one type of semblance of an example of misandry.
I am aware that we are not talking about if laws are sexist or not.
That barbie says math class is hard surely is not the reason that more women than men take english class, or that there are fewer women in math class.
Who are you going to blame for the numerous classes where women outnumber men ? G.I. Joe ?
I am sorry you made that experience, but you made that experience after you signed up, there was no flood of women making their way into those subjects with you. I doubt that is because they felt discouraged by society, seen as women do study, they just pick subjects they like and think they can handle, like most people who study.
You can not deduct sexism from an outcome alone, you need to investigate and see if sexism is actually the reason of an outcome, you can not just assume it to be.
For whatever reason beyond socialisation and outside influence, more men than women gravitate torwards hard science fields, not just in America, its the same in England Iran Italy Iraq Japan Argentine India, it would be quite the conicidence if all those societies have something about them that discourages women from taking math.
We really do not know why. Some say women all over the globe are discouraged by society to take math and math related fields, others say the reason is biological.
I can only repeat what I said. I can see how afghanistan has a culture of mysogynie and violence against women, but not the us. Some explicit material putting women down does not mean there is a culture of mysogynie against women. I doubt they have that much power and I do not think 2 isolated incidents in a timespan of 3 or more years when 40.000 or so Americans died to shootings in that timespan is a sign that mysogynie is rampant. I could understand you if out of those 40.000 shot 10.000 or even 2000 died because of the culture of mysogynie in your countrie, but not if it was the case when you have 13 victims and 2 perpetrators with that motivation.
The person referring to the Purity Myth and Jessica is one of Fiano’s commenters. I know I’m being nitpicky, but I just wanted to clarify in case there was a mistake. I didn’t read the comments, but I assumed the quoted commenters were men.
I feel weird making assumptions about Fiano’s motivations. I’d like to think she’s looking for head pats, because I don’t understand her and it’s easy to think that, but I worry that it might elide more important influences and reasons that she may have for thinking what she does. Maybe that’s just who she is. I don’t agree with her, and I can’t expect other people who don’t agree with her to pretend she may be right, but I’m more comfortable just meeting her arguments head on than speculating about her motives.
Every time I read “mysogynie” I twitch a little.
Unequal treatment of men and women is our judicial system is one.
“A Justice Department study of domestic homicides in 1988 found that 94 percent of men who were convicted of (or pled guilty to) killing their spouses received prison sentences, but only 81 percent of the women did. The average sentence was 16.5 years for husbands and a mere six years for wives.”
Multiple oppressions work in concert.
you may be correct, but i’m not sure how that sort of bigotry is a positive for your point. these men may indeed feel a black man should fry if he was the perp, especially if the victims were white women. but is it right. and if it isn’t, why is it ok to stereotype an entire gender for the nutty behavior of one
Nobody has stereotyped an entire gender. There is a difference between stereotyping a gender and identifying cultural misogyny.
Many men identified with Sodini, which is why they defend him. Had he been of a different race, those same men would not identify with him as much, and might even jump to point a finger at black men and criticize them (the Other) for their misogyny.
I’m just curious–Why are anti-feminist women always conservative/Republican? How did a conservative political ideology somehow become aligned with not caring for the equality of the sexes and the rights of women? I have heard of so many women who decline to call themselves feminists, simply be cause they hold conservative political ideology. That kind of alienation contributes to the misrepresentation of feminism and the acceptance of misogyny, because brutal acts like this are suddenly condoned because of “differing political ideologies”. The fact is that there is no alternative perspective you can bring to mysogyny, just like there’s no other way to like euphemize racism. (but people try, don’t they?)
I am sorry you made that experience, but you made that experience after you signed up, there was no flood of women making their way into those subjects with you.
Are you trying to say that it’s a woman’s fault if she feels frustrated in a field dominated by men… because she chose to enter that field knowing that there were not very many women? How are we ever going to reach parity in science, government, and business if men say “sorry the environment is hostile for you, but you should have known what you were getting yourself into” ? The problem isn’t that women are trying to enter male-dominated fields. The problem is that those fields remain hostile environments, even for the women who manage to overcome social messages they receive almost from birth that those fields are not for them.
You can not deduct sexism from an outcome alone, you need to investigate and see if sexism is actually the reason of an outcome, you can not just assume it to be.
Obviously nobody is arguing with you on this one. But there is a wealth of hundreds of years worth of research and lived experience which shows the sexism inherent in many aspects of our culture, including barriers to women in science and technology fields.
We’re not feminists because it’s convenient to blame all our problems on sexism. We’re feminists because sexism is an undeniable reality in our daily lives.
Maybe because a lot of women who kill their husbands do so in self-defense (the man was actually the initiator of the violence)?
I keep going back to the fact that no one was having these arguments about the Holocaust Museum shooter. No one was saying, “Sure he was a virulent bigot, but I don’t think his crime is a reflection of the racist and anti-Semitic subculture he was part of and the persistent problems with racism and anti-Semitism in the larger culture. He was just crazy. Isolated incident. Nothing to see here.” No, people said he was crazy AND his environment contributed to whom he chose as a target. Both/and, not either/or.
Certainly no one (that I’m aware of) said anything along the lines of, “Oh of course I don’t condone what the Holocaust Museum shooter did but I can understand it. The guy spent years trying to earn money, and he really, really desperately needed money. But those Jews would never give any of it up. No wonder he snapped!”
“They” believe/fear that feminists want to castrate/murder/enslave/render obsolete all men.
That’s why “they” think we’re still around. They think we think women are just inherently better.
Of course, “they” have always thought that, and will continue to think it, until equality is a reality.
I’m curious where you’re getting your statistics. While it’s true that the majority of violent crime is committed by young men against young men, it seems like you’re ignoring the huge problem of intimate partner violence which often results in dead women. Because women were there, and men who wanted to hurt them did. As the daughter of an abusive father, perhaps I’m more keenly aware of this kind of violence.
I’m not one to question your feminist credentials, but you call yourself a “proud” feminist. Yet you seem pretty ashamed of the rest of us.
I find it odd that so many women are viewing this crime as a insult to all women and ignoring the people who are actually grieving for the deceased- their husbands and children. What if one of those husbands or little boys were to read what some of you are writing? Right now, there are several husbands who just lost their wives and to lump them together with their wives’ murderer just because they are men smacks of blaming the victim. After paying such a price, if anyone could answer the question whether “misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem,” it would be them.
Also, we should all remember that if the victims in this crime had not been middle class, it is likely that none of us would have ever heard of it. It is not that women in the highest class are denying misogyny to feel safe, they actually are safer. A morning at your local municipal court will give you an idea of what the average domestic violence victim looks like, and an afternoon at your local common pleas court will give you an idea of what the average rape victim looks like. See for yourself.
Denial – I completely agree.
I’m also thinking that conservatives’ crazy talk about feminism and feminists is very much connected to their religion. Consider that there are *no* female divine powers or gods in Judeo-Christian religions. (Mary, mother of God, is not Divine.)
Conservatives worship a male god, the god of patriarchy. Feminine/female power is not tolerated! Of course such people will deny that misogyny exists. In the collective mind of conservatives women are nonpersons.
Thank goodness for Feministing! And thank you Jessica for this terrific article.
(**Ecofeminist Monica Sjoo’s writings on the subject of religion are brilliant.)
After paying such a price, if anyone could answer the question whether “misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem,” it would be them.
Yep.
The rest of your post was crap but that one point was a gem.
“I don’t know if you can really say that this is case of misogyny.”
Except for the part of his blog where he said he hated women.
Actually, I did get a lot of the “oh no, that was just a sad isolated incident, good thing Jews in this country are completely free from discrimination other than random crazy people” vibe. People tend to write off anti-Semitism as a fringe thing for neo-Nazis and not acknowledge that it’s still a pretty big problem, much in the same way they are willing to believe that there are a few crazy men out there who rape and kill women but misogyny isn’t really a systematic problem.
Re: “I find it odd that so many women are viewing this crime as a insult to all women and ignoring the people who are actually grieving for the deceased- their husbands and children.”
That’s a false and unfair criticism. These women & their families are very much on the minds of all of us here. Why else would we be discussing the crimes and surrounding issues in depth? Oh, perhaps we should just not talk about it and hope nothing like this ever happens again.
Goodness knows ff my mother, sister, friend, neighbor were one of those victims I’d want people to start talking and keep talking about what we as a society can learn from this and how we can go about changing! That’s compassion.
“Also, we should all remember that if the victims in this crime had not been middle class, it is likely that none of us would have ever heard of it.”
That’s why I visit this website. I think Feministing does a darn good job of highlighting unreported crimes & issues affecting women!
hey before you make comments about that you need to consider that feminists can be Christians too. In all actuality most christians believe that because we are all equal in the eyes of God we should all be equal here. Its mostly the evangelicals aka crazy fundamentalists who say that women are not equal. Please remember that before you make something like this about religion, because its not in any way. My savior did not command this man to go shoot a bunch of women, on the contrary he preached against violence towards women in a time when that was simply not acceptable.
We’re not feminists because it’s convenient to blame all our problems on sexism. We’re feminists because sexism is an undeniable reality in our daily lives.
THIS. Though you’d sure think otherwise reading Cassy Fiano and so many others like her.
More or less.
I think — explaining more now that my reaction is not quite so knee-jerk — it was not entirely difficult for me to come to terms with the concept of one single person violating someone else’s sexual boundaries.
It was a lot more difficult (and given the number of PTSD triggers I have that are related to the aftermath of the assault rather than the rape itself, one could say I’m not there yet) to come to terms with the fact that people who I thought would be on my side (or at least remain neutral) and in some cases whose job it was to help me implicitly and explicitly sided with my attacker.
Whether the people in question would openly admit to it or not, that is sanctioning violence against women. And granted, I realize that not every rape survivor experiences that from friends, health care providers, or the law enforcement system — but I also know that I’m not the only one who’s had similar experiences.
Heh.
I almost prefer the Discworld variant, actually.
“‘Slave’ is an Ephebian word. In Om we have no word for slave.”
“I imagine fish would have no word for water.”
Say I walk into a gym and shoot several strange guys at random. Then it comes out that I resent men because I can’t get a guy to date me and pay my way. In the meantime a plethora of top 40 hits are constantly harping on about useless men who don’t make enough money and how women should physically abuse them. There is also a plethora of violent porn where young men, many of them trafficked, are dehumanized and beaten by women. All the while our society’s major religions say that men should submit to women and their purpose in life is to serve and pay for women because of men’s original sin. Would you say the culture played a role in my deranged state and the deaths of the guys in the gym? I think any observant person of reasonable intelligence would say yes.
By the way the assessment that because it is worse somewhere else therefore it is not real here is really stupid.
Excellent point – bottom line is these discussions hurt foolish men’s pride. There is not a bigger, more destructive, non-issue in the history of humanity than the collective pride of foolish males.
However, it appears that you are using this tragedy as an excuse to complain about feminists. And, my dear, I have been called to jury duty three times now. I have seen what victims of rape and domestic violence look like. A diverse group that includes white middle class women.
Do you have an actual report or poll supporting what you just asserted?
Because, I don’t believe you can actually make a claim about what “most Christians” believe based on what you observe around you. Just because you may be around Christians that view men and women as equals, doesn’t mean “most” do.
But the field is dominated by men, BECAUSE less women than men sign up for those fields.
Are you really going to blame men, or society, that there is no gender parity in certain fields ?
Why should I lose sleep over the fact that certain fields are dominated by women and other fields are dominated by men, cant we just deal with sexism IF sexism is present and accept the fact that more women than men like subject x and more men than women like subject y ?
If somebody finds out, why more men than women take an interest in anything math related throughout space and time, that would be awesome, another mistery solved.
But I really do not see gender parity as a worthwhile goal, what good is it doing to anyone to read on paper that 50% of programmers are female or 50% of firefighters that died in 911 are female, or 50% of dogcatchers are female ?
To me a worthwhile goal is that every girl gets to study and later work in a field of her choosing, or live whatever life she wants to live.
To say 50% of women should live that life, is just as much choice as saying 0% of women should live that life, or 100% of women should live that life. The free decisions of men and women will probably never lead to gender parity in most fields and frankly myself I do not feel obligated to enter any field just to contribute torwards gender parity.
Fiano’s criticism seems valid when one considers the evidence that informs it. The overwhelming majority of violence committed in the United States is committed against males, not females. If there was a culture of misogyny, one would expect that the vast majority of victims of intentional and random violence, particularly random violence committed by men, would be against women. One would also expect to see a general cultural condoning and ignoring of violence against women. Yet, that is not the case.
Contrary to how feminist portray it, our culture considers the victimization of women far more important than any other group. The bulk of the innocent victims on TV police dramas are female. The media only reports missing blond-haired, blue-eyed white women. The overwhelming majority of the discussion about violence centers around women. The vast majority of victim services are for women, often excluding even boys who have been physically and sexually abused (or framing their victimization as lesser or unimportant). All of this occurs despite the statistics demonstrating that male victims, be they men or boys, represent the largest portion of victims of violent crimes.
The feminist myth that there is a culture of misogyny is simply a extension of a particular agenda. That many feminists have convinced themselves that they are under a constant threat is sad (not because of the effect it has, but because of the amount of paranoia require to bolster such an opinion), but fortunately it is not true. There is no culture of misogyny and to this point only a handful of people have blamed anyone other than Sodini. The vast majority of people have placed the blame solely on him, and a few people have asked whether his experiences with women played a role in what he did. Comparing this to anti-Semitism is both egregious and woefully misguided as history shows that the few people like Sodini who specifically targeted women usually had very horrible, abusive experiences with women. Understanding the potential ways that can effect someone is the best way to prevent other Sodini’s from acting on their anger. However, falling back on misandry and androphobia and blaming all men is much easier and comforting, and ironically very similar to the views Sodini held about women.
Please do tell me, how did I rile up the site ? America is not Afghanistan, America is together with other first world countries one of the countries which embraces feminism on all levels and puts a lot of emphasis on not only educating, but encouraging women.
The majority of people seeking higher education being female speaks volumes. I really question that there is a culture of misogynie in America that leads to deadly violence against women, when there have been only very few isolated incidents so far which do not even dent the statistics.
I can really only think of Sweden, who did more for women, but I doubt it is because the country embraces feminism more, I think its because that country has a high rate of employment and their goverment has more involvement and can therefore render more services to women, like daycare, something that in America would be seen as socialist and probably is socialist, but not necessarily evil and wrong, although that is the mood torwards socialism in America.
But the field is dominated by men, BECAUSE less women than men sign up for those fields. Not because there are “barriers”.
How would you explain the conicidence that there are barriers in the fields women take less interest in, but no barriers in the fields women dominate.
Doesnt that mean that there are no barriers, but that those fields are male dominated, because more men than women take an interest in those fields ?
Are you really going to blame men, or society, that there is no gender parity in certain fields ?
Why should I lose sleep over the fact that certain fields are dominated by women and other fields are dominated by men, cant we just deal with sexism IF sexism is present and accept the fact that more women than men like subject x and more men than women like subject y ?
If somebody finds out, why more men than women take an interest in anything math related throughout space and time, that would be awesome, another mistery solved.
But I really do not see gender parity as a worthwhile goal, what good is it doing to anyone to read on paper that 50% of programmers are female or 50% of firefighters that died in 911 are female, or 50% of dogcatchers are female ?
I do not see men complain that women dominate field X or Y I do not see why I should complain.
To me a worthwhile goal is that every girl gets to study and later work in a field of her choosing, or live whatever life she wants to live.
To say 50% of women should live that life, is just as much choice as saying 0% of women should live that life, or 100% of women should live that life. The free decisions of men and women will probably never lead to gender parity in most fields and frankly myself I do not feel obligated to enter any field just to contribute torwards gender parity.
Please don’t go there. Obviously misandry DOES exist. There is nothing to gain by denying it, in fact it HURTS feminism to deny it.
Obviously it isn’t as prevelant but to say it doesn’t exist is only serving to fulfill what people already think about feminists. It hurts us to deny it.
Your logic is fundamentally flawed anyways. By your logic only white people can be racist but that is obviously completely untrue.
Oh geez. Where to begin?
Historically women were offered fewer educational opportunities than men. My grandmother loved school and probably would have gotten a Phd if her parents had let her. But they didn’t. Because high school would be good enough for a mere woman.
You can say, “Well, that was the 40s,” but there are still people who think that education is wasted on women. So some women are disadvantaged educationally right from the start.
Because math and science programs are dominated by men, women may feel uncomfortable going into those fields because of the intimidation factor. There are likely to be fewer female role models for young women in those fields, fewer female advisers, and then you never know if your adviser is going to be one of those choads who thinks that women aren’t good at math and science (hint: there are many of these choads). Women have to work twice as hard to be taken seriously in math and science programs. If a man does poorly in math, it’s because he had a bad day on the test day or he’s so tired or busy. If a woman does poorly it’s because women are bad at math.
And then there’s the fact that when men enter into female dominated fields, salaries go UP. When women enter male dominated fields, salaries go DOWN. Funny how that works. Men aren’t complaining about female dominated fields (except kindergarten teachers–I’ve heard lots of complaining from men about that field) because when they enter into those fields, things get BETTER. And then a woman who goes into a field that is predominantly male, she has to deal with threats, intimidation, and harassment. Just look at the military. Maybe women aren’t going into “male” fields because men will do horrible, horrible things in order to hold onto their power in those fields.
I mean … come on. You can’t keep women out of the educational system for centuries and then argue, “But look! Most of the important historical inventions were by men! That means men are smarter!”
That might explain the conviction disparity, but not the sentencing disparity. Or quite frankly the sentencing/conviction disparity in every other crime. Even paired-t tests comparing people who were convicted of essentially the same crime with the same results always ended up with the women getting a lesser sentence.
Men are more likely to be murder victims than women, but the fact that 1/3 of female murder victims are killed by an intimate partner (includes spouses and boyfriends) while just 3% of men are … says something to me.
Because it’s not “random violence” against women. It’s “I own you, bitch, and I can kill you if I want to.” You don’t have to kill a lot of random women to hate women. Whereas, as someone pointed out, women who kill their intimate partners are often acting in self defense. Which, once again … shows there is a problem.
This guy killed women because he thought he deserved something from them. And until men as a collective group can understand that women owe them NOTHING, violence against women will continue to be a problem.
It’s also funny to me that “misandry” didn’t exist until feminists wanted equality. And that it seems to mean not a deep-seated hatred of men, but any questioning of patriarchial values. YOU DON’T WANT RANDOM MEN TO SHOOT AT YOU?? WHY DO YOU HATE MEN SO MUCH?? It’s so easy to call a woman a man-hater and “androphobe” when men are committing acts of terrorism on women. Hint: We would stop fearing men if men would stop raping, abusing, and shooting us. Feminists are supposedly man-haters and yet somehow we manage to not shoot tons of men or kill our partners when they break up with us. It’s fucking amazing.
I meant to type “underreported” crimes not unreported.
I agree. I had seen a few of her/his postings elsewhere, and I wondered the same thing.
You get a round of applause for this comment. That was awesome, and you worded it perfectly.
Oh man, I know just how you feel. The mental health “professionals” that were supposed to help me did far more damage than my rapist ever did.
I agree, but to make a blanket statement that implies that most Christians are hidden misogynists, and want to oppress women, isn’t fair either. Rebekah had a good point. I’m a Christian as well, and while I don’t agree with everything, I have been around enough fellow Christians to know that this type of behavior isn’t something that would be condoned. I think you are letting a few extremists dictate, and muddy your view of Christianity. I suggest you take the time to talk to other Christian women who identify as feminists before you come to such base assumptions.
So you are his psychologist? You saw him over a period of time? You treated him? No? Then you can’t diagnose mental illness.
I find it interesting that as a man, i have a statistically much bigger chance of getting gunned down than a woman, but YOU feel threatened and targeted.
quote : “It’s also funny to me that “misandry” didn’t exist until feminists wanted equality…”
Well it did, but we used to call it ‘chivalry’
At this point, I have to agree with everyone and say that you have to be a troll. Because I can’t see how a person who calls themselves a proud feminist, is so blind to the obvious misogyny that lies in this unfortunate incident. Women aren’t creating the sexist environment in very male dominated careers such as engineering. The sexist attitudes are already there before a woman even opens the proverbial class door. All of this is based upon how society rears us to think that science, math, etc, are solely men’s work and not a woman’s place. And to shame and blame women for the problems that they face in said field, is ass backwards.
Ummm..no.
All of that.
If you would like to see papers published in academic journals that describe some of the barriers that women face in science and technology fields, including ones that Kurumi & Cheese mentioned, start here and here.
Can you link me to that study? That’s really interesting.
But even if a man and a woman were convicted of the same crime (say, first degree murder of their spouse) I bet that a significant amount of the time, the woman got a more lenient sentence because she was suffering some sort of abuse (emotional or physical) from her husband, even if her murder was not directly self-defense.
THIS. And your comments above. Gosh, you’re my new hero. Seriously, I don’t know why you’re responding to folks who’ve demonstrated their aggressive ignorance (like proudfeminist) or who are arguing that feminists are misandrists… but your responses make it almost worthwhile to plow through their bullshit. Thank. You.