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WHEN I WAS 16, a 17-year-boy raped me in a field, and in the same year a much older man sexually exploited me for a period of four years. In college, I was twice seriously sexually assaulted. I’ve been groped, felt up, harassed and followed home.
All women can relate to this.
This is my call of hope to the men of Ireland.
Because despite everything I’ve been through, I am hopeful. My hope was never eroded by friends or indeed a society, who shrugged incidents off, minimised them, denied them, blamed me, or avoided it.
My hope was never eroded by the teachers who knew something was wrong, but ignored it. My hope was never even eroded by those men who to chose hurt me. But what does erode my hope, what chips away at it every day, and it’s sad that this is the category with the power to do that, is the silence and passivity of good men, men who do no harm to women or girls, but who also, just do nothing.
Men need to help dismantle the culture
When we talk about men’s violence against women, we talk about women; we talk about the victims and the survivors. We talk about how ‘not all men’ are violent, but leave out the fact that most men are very much silent. We don’t talk about how every single man can help dismantle our rape culture from the inside.
We don’t talk about it because don’t want to offend, we don’t want to scare them off. We want to be liked. We don’t want people to be uncomfortable around us. We want to keep men on-side when discussing, what I like to call ‘men’s issues with women’, rather than ’women’s issues’.
I am angry that I feel I have to cajole my man pals into caring. I hate that I consider my tone when speaking to them about these things. I hate that I censor myself in speaking my own truth because I am afraid it might make someone uncomfortable and therefore less likely to engage on it.
Men are built of tougher stuff than this. I hold men to a high esteem and a high standard.
They can handle compassionate non-judgmental but tough conversations. I know they can because I’ve had these conversations with them.
Afraid of causing offence to others
At 32, I am finally okay with ‘causing offense’, and men calling me a ‘militant feminist’, and a ‘feminazi’, and a ‘man hater’, or whatever else they want to say, if it means they might also be getting a little bit uncomfortable and thinking about how their behaviour may or may not be enabling a rape culture.
Because in every situation, personally, politically, societally, the only time significant change happens, is when we’re uncomfortable.
Peer influence is the greatest catalyst of change. So why should the men who objectify, harass and intimidate women, or the men who sexually offend, or the men who sit on the sidelines minimising the existence of sexual violence, ever have to think about their attitudes, when the men around them don’t mind and have nothing to say about it?
It’s time for all men to get a little bit uncomfortable. Whether you are rapist or not is completely irrelevant, just as it’s completely irrelevant that I was once a rape victim. We all exist in the world together, everything is relevant to each of us. It’s not about women telling men what to do, it’s about spreading the empowering message of ‘do what you can, where you can, with what you have to give’.
What I want men to know
And I want the men who do get involved, who actively try to dismantle and call out entitlement and objectification of women, which are the ingredients of sexual violence, how much hope it gives me, as someone who’s lived it.
I want you to know how supported I feel when you share an article about rape culture online.
I want you to know how encouraged I feel when you denounce the latest lenient rape sentencing, when you decry sexual exploitation, when you interrupt a sexist joke, when you challenge male entitlement.
I want you to know how strong I feel, when I hear that you volunteer for the Rape Crisis Centre collection day, when I hear that you don’t use porn because you don’t want to contribute to an industry that abuses women.
I want you to know how my world shines bright with hope when a man steps up and against any form of victim blaming.
I want you to know how much hope I feel when you listen, when you just want to discuss these things with me; these things that affect all men and all women.
I want you to know how safe the world feels when you have the balls to say not in my name. And I want you to know, in my darker moments, when the past comes and tries to take me down for a while, how healing it is to know that men like you exist.
I am an activist, not in spite of, but because, I have faith, hope and love towards the vast majority of men, who do no harm to women, but who could, if they want to, make such significant change. It’s time for those men to step up and say “I’m here to help, what can I do?”
Mia Doering is a White Ribbon representative, writer, activist, lapsed artist, and psychotherapist. She is interested in equality, creativity, social change, and psycho-education. If you would like to know more about the White Ribbon Ireland campaign to end men’s violence against women, please visit the website.
This was a speech delivered at the National Women’s Council annual Women’s Day Soapbox event.
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No study was really needed here.
Definitely no study needed, it’s already well known. I have a female gamer tag name, I wish I made a gender neutral one when I created it but I also don’t see the point in changing a gamer name I like due to some eejits targeting me for being a good female gamer just because I bruised their ego. Muting them is the best option for online gaming and deleting inappropriate messages as soon as they arrive in the inbox.
I’m a gamer, but as a bunch, gamers really are horrible. I only use my mic with people I know in real life. Otherwise I mute everybody.
@elaine You think that’s bad. You should see the male on male abuse. Don’t know how many times I have received online abuse from other gamers when you beat them. I’m not easily offended so I take it in good stride. Its great crack beating people online & they get all wound up LOL.
At least you don’t get pictures of other males bits and pieces though Graham, with obnoxious messages of rape. I know what messages other males get, I have male friends, male or female it’s not ok.
Wow yeah that’s too much. I don’t understand morons who do that. I’ll just send a pic of my knob to some random woman on the internet. Yeah she will definitely like that. Idiots. Did you report them for it?
Yeah I have through the xbox itself and emailing xbox support but to be honest I don’t think it’s taken very seriously, it’s happened a good few times to me. I’m 28 so I can let it over my head even when the messages are frightening but I do pity younger girls and boys who no doubt receive messages of that nature. I just hope parents are savvy enough to monitor contact that’s been made to kids on xbox live like their childrens activity on the computer.
That’s exactly what I was thinking. They don’t know what age the people they are sending the pics to are. Just block & report them I suppose. Your right Xbox probably don’t do a whole lot about it. I guess I’m lucky not to get them kind of pics from weirdos
But then again parents buy their children games that are over 15s or over 18s and they play those games online. You wouldn’t let your young kid watch a film with those age certs so why some let their kid play a game with the same cert? Gaming safety and responsibility should be thought to parents. haha this has gone off topic slightly. :)
Yeah parents definitely need to take more responsibility with the kind of games they get their kids. But also they could be mammy & daddies games that the kids are putting on when the parents are away. Your right this has gone off topic slightly. We need to finish this conversation over coffee :-)
In summary: 12 year old boys get mad because some girls are better than them at Call of Duty.
I’m on level 2 of snake. Chuffed.
Rule 16: there are no girls on the Internet.
The also probably live in their mothers basement and drink Mountain Dew by the bucket.
Its not a basement, it’s a command centre!!
Insert slow clap gif
Women gamers everywhere throw their hands up and say “we told you so!” Lol.
As I pointed out already on the Sen Higgins story; you get less abuse than men. Lol.
You say that the results of this study could be applied to other forums where people can act anonymously, like Youtube and Reddit.
Why is this the case? The research concludes that people who were doing badly in game were more likely to be aggressive towards females. What does this have to do with those sites? There’s no link.
Well I see online hostility towards women everyday but do hold out for a research experiment to prove it first.
It concluded that low status males have more to lose to competitive females. They are already struggling against better males in whatever task they are trying to complete and that is made all the more difficult by the introduction of females who may be better than them also. So they react negatively to this.
This could apply to many areas of society.
I don’t see online hostility towards women everyday.
I see hostility to both men and women online.
The link is that anonymity is common to the three. In a gaming environment, the sexist attitude can go unpunished and the same anonymity exists in youtube and probably to a greater extent in reddit, where throwaway accounts are even more common again.
As a generalised statement, I personally think this is a pretty useful study. Obviously people who openly abuse others online are losers but to gather evidence that they are worse at games which involve strategy is pretty interesting.
Halo might seem a simple point and click shooter, but better players are predictive & strategic. Proving that sexist flamers are effectively dumber at the games is an interesting statement.
Fozz, these two claims are pretty different.
The research shows that gamers tend to be more negative towards women when they have a *bad kill/death ratio* on a *videogame*. That’s it.
You’re not able to conclude from that limited knowledge that the same thing happens on social media sites, seeing as videogames and social media are fundamentally different environments (one being predominantly male, for one).
In what way can someone “do badly” on a social media site like they can on a scoreboard for a video game? They’re completely separate discussions.
It is interesting. I hope this insight can be used to help curb antisocial behaviour online.
Ciarán, you’re misinterpreting what the study actually found. It doesn’t show that the people who were ‘harassing’ (this is unclear – it says negative behaviour) women were worse at the game.
It may be the case that because the players were doing badly, they decided to take their anger out on the women they heard on voice chat. This doesn’t mean that they are actually worse at the game. The study is actually pretty careful not to explicitly claim that this is the case.
@Scarr. Exactly. I doubt the same eejits propose a toast to their opponents success when they loose to a male.
@malachi video games are anonymous social mediums too. If you want examples or the sort of vicious sexual aggressive abuse that you hear about being directed at celebs on twitter etc, check out the origins of the “Gamergate” scandal too.
Gaming may be male dominated, but aggressive sexism is a big issue there too.
Establishing and assigning traits to those who commit such abuses is the first step towards eradicating it.
The lessons which can be learned across such massive sample sizes can prove invaluable in fighting online abuse on all mediums. There’s a generation of kids coming who need to be taught how to interact on the Internet and we need the tools to direct the teachings.
Gamergate was to do with ethcial standards in video game journalism. Any harassment stemming from it was irrelevant to the goals of the movement and was condemned by those in the movement wherever it sprang up. Not relevant to what we’re discussing.
Woah, you say “massive sample sizes”? I don’t know if you’ve read many of these research papers but 160 odd games with 1-3 participants in each game is certainly NOT large. It is actually quite small for a study of this type.
Malachi, in halo, negative behaviour on voice comms can only really be in the form of harassment.
And sample of 189 incidents, ok, not massive, but certainly statistically significant.
Gamergate technically originated as journalistic ethics, but to claim that what happened there was related to journalistic ethics would in my opinion be grossly misguided. I wouldn’t dare claim that it was anything other than a shameful example of grotesque sexism.
Not true Ciarán. They never defined ‘negative’. It could simply be criticism, say “you should’ve killed him!” or “how did you lose the flag?!”, and I wouldn’t call that harassment. That would degrade and diminish actual harassment that is far more extreme.
186 participants is so-so. It shows a correlation, sure. But it really isn’t enough to making sweeping generalisations about.
Gamergate was about ethics in game journalism, and if you don’t accept then you’re just ignoring the facts. The movement resulted in multiple gaming websites *changing their ethics policies*. How exactly does a movement that just harasses women online get those kind of major results? I think it’s shallow to ignore the improvements the movement has made to the gaming industry.
Gamergate started as ethics and resulted in a debate, but more importantly it lead to significant harassment and abuse, specifically of females in the industry and highlighted the severe levels of sexism prevalent in gaming.
To ignore that and claim it was about ethics only is just…. unethical. In my opinion it’s to ignore the bigger issue.
As for negative, the severity isn’t relevant so long as a difference was identified.
Gamergate was a setup and no threat was made , she did it all for publicity. That yoke will say anything for attention. Gave out about violent games yet in picture’s of her game collection has dozens of violent games. She’s a hypocrite a fraud, and a clown.
Kids who don’t get their own way throw a tantrum. Shocker.
hmmm, comments open on this story but not on the callely or HSE stories how strange. Dear journal.ie why no articles about TTIP and the consequences for Irish citizens.
the journal PLOS One has way too much time on its hands
Played WoW for years and never saw or heard of female players getting abuse. We had a large (200+) friendly active guild which made weekly events for all types of players and everyone got along. Saying that, we rarely accepted anyone under 16 years old and put all new members on a months probation to see how they meshed. I miss the community big time but blizzard just diluted the game to a point where playing was dull and getting more directed to children.
As a girl who played WoW for years, I can confirm! Never had any sexist remarks, was part of a large guild too, well mixed in sexes, nationalities and 16+ (I quit when I couldn’t bring myself to play Kung Fu Panda btw!).
But I do think fantasy RPG gaming has a very different base – they attract a different type of player. Sure, you get your a$$holes, but it’s not as much of a pissing contest as FPS games. The abuse I’ve heard while my hubby plays CoD is unreal, if it was me I wouldnt open my mouth either!
So if a player is doing badly, they are more likely to lash out at other players. This is the findings of this study? Am I reading this right?
Oh, wait, I’m getting it wrong. If a MALE player is doing badly, HE is more likely to lash out at FEMALE players. I wonder what the stats were on women who play badly lashing out? Oh, they didn’t bother with that did they. No, they wouldn’t fit the narrative. I suppose it is progressive in that sense that the word “misogyny”, “basement-dwelling neckbeard” or “worst than ISIS” aren’t mentioned in this article. And Halo 3, really?
Reign it in!
“A total of 189 players spoke, all of them male. That’s not to say that women did not play, just that they did not speak…”
So no data on female reactions IS their data. Read sh*t properly before you go off on one!!
I just took one look at the headline and thought ‘Irish male bashing article’.
I played sport my entire life and have got abused tons of times so I have a thick skin but I play FIFA and world of tanks and the abuse I get is unreal. I hammer 95% of people I play on FIFA, I actually stopped playing on consoles because of the abuse , as on the PC you can’t message or contact someone and it tends to be more mature with FIFA anyway.
The other night in world of tanks in a mode called clan wars, a match was ending in a draw and because we didn’t let them win we got told to die and how we were the off spring of rape, get cancer etc. Really sick shit.
You basically do not need a study to find out these people need a life. as if you interacted like that in real life you would be hospitalized.
Tone policing… … really? Very progressive.
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