Tips for Men: Forward This to All Your Male Friends
The most violent element of society is ignorance.
-Emma Goldman
Castrate a rapist; have a ball.
-from a feminist t-shirt
Update Feb. 2004 and new introduction to this writing:
It's interesting that I have found this page's link circulating around in a few places. I guess, once something gets linked into one person's blog or live journal, it ends up in a few more of them too. Back when I first wrote this, and emailed it to some people, it did get forwarded around via email. I got, at that time, numerous positive responses and thank-you's from complete strangers.
The one that mattered most to me was from someone who worked at a detention center for juveniles, and he worked with young men there. A friend of his emailed the message to him (someone I do not know), and then wrote back to tell me about this. He decided to have them all read this, as many of them had been convicted of sexual assault, and then respond to questions about it. So, since some people seemed to like this message, I posted it on this page. That was quite a while ago.
I noticed recently that it was linked to a couple of places where people were discussing whether or not I could possibly have meant the part that directs potential rapists to kill themselves if they cannot prevent themselves from comitting rape. What's odd to me is how much that matters to people. The life of the rapist, seems, to some people, to be more important than the entire point of ending rape, which was the message I was trying to get out with this writing - that rape must, simply, end. There is no reason why it cannot or should not end. The only reason it continues is patriarchy and men's violence as a result of patriarchy, allowing people to think they simply have the right to violate other human beings' bodies.
That, actually, disturbs me, quite a bit - that rape is still so socially accepted by some people. For instance, some guy wrote on another website that I must be crazy and basically a man-hating, horrible person for having written this, since it says in one part that if you cannot prevent yourself from committing rape, please kill yourself, and also, since he saw that I had "all those crisis lines" listed on this website (those are mostly listed on the coping help for survivors of trauma page). (This person went on to say that if someone woman "gets herself raped" it is not his fault, so he was unhappy to find a webpage like this which indicates that violence men commit against women is actually the fault of men.) Yes, I actually believe (like a few other people) that helping women who have been victims of violence is a good thing to do, so there are crisis lines and many other resources for survivors of trauma on this website.
Not only men have seemed to have a problem with that one part of this writing. I've seen other women write that they really liked this writing, except for the part about suicide, as that seemed far too extremist to them. . I never have understood why anybody would really care so much that in a message which no actual rapist is ever going to actually take seriously (hello? do you think I thought they would take my advice?) I expressed a desire to see a rapist die before he destroys the life of another woman. So, this is getting very narcississtic sounding, since I don't actually ever look into who is linking to my website, but because I did recently, I just wanted to clarify something.
For all the puzzled readers.....if you are wondering whether or not the person (that would be me, and my name is Jen Robinson), who wrote this is advocating that people commit suicide, well, no I am not advocating that people commit suicide. If you are noticing those crisis numbers, many of them are specifically there for people who are suicidal (on another page of this site). However, if you are wondering whether or not I would actually say to a rapist, that if he cannot prevent himself from raping people, I would like him to die, the answer is, YES I would.
In a heartbeat. Ask any other woman who has been raped more than once the same question and see what kind of responses you get. In fact, to go further, I would offer to help the man with the act if he could not manage to pull it off alone. Does this make me a man-hater? If you like to label people that way, you probably will think so. If you actually knew me, you would know I do not hate men. I hate violence. I hate people who violate other people's bodies and minds and savagely brutalize them and leave lifelong damage.
I hate the number of rapists walking around free-as-can-be on this planet right now while millions of women and children who have been victims of their sexual abuse and rapes are walking around wounded, for life. I hate that a whole lot. I hate rapists, yes. Are all men rapists? Of course not. Do all men have the potential to be rapists? That's a matter that could be debated, I'm sure, if people care to debate it.
But the point of this writing was a very simple one, really. I wrote the below at 3 AM one night after reading another one of those emails that people always forward around telling women how to avoid being raped and how we need to take all these precautionary measures when we go out late at night or when we are in a parking lot or when we are home alone or when we are simply breathing, to avoid being raped. That email, just like all the other emails like it I had read, pissed me off. So collectively, they got me annoyed to the point that I decided to write what seemed to me, a more logical way to prevent rape. Tell men not to rape women.
You know, it's a pretty simple concept. We have a long history of male violence against women on this planet. A very, very long history. And for a very, very long time women have been trying to protect themselves from it. So far, as you can see from reading a newspaper, or simply talking to a woman you know, or maybe from your own experience you will know, it has not worked. We have not managed to make men stop raping us. I do not think we ever will manage that.
I don't believe that it is possible for one sex to convince another sex which happens to be priveleged with more power at birth, and conditioned by society for life to think it is a superior sex, that they should give up their power to commit acts of violence and stop it altogether when they have, en masse, shown no desire to do so throughout the history of time.
Sure, some individual men are against rape. You might be a male reading this now hating me because you think you are being blamed. It is good that some men are not rapists. The fact that almost all rapists (not all, I said, almost all) are male, and most victims of rape are female, should logically lead the average person to grasp the concept that MEN are the people who have a problem with THEMSELVES commiting these violent acts. This is not a problem for women to solve. We did not create this problem. Patriarchy created this problem, and rest assured, folks, it was not any woman who invented patriarchy. We have all been victimized by it for a few thousand years.
So, to end this little commentary, if you read the below, and are thinking it sounds horribly militant and just ever-so-mean to rapists or potential rapists - think, for a minute, about how many times as a woman (if you are a woman, or imagine if you were) one has to worry about rape in a lifetime. How often do women have to worry about men raping us? How often do we have to worry about sexual harassment, stalking, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, child abuse, ritualistic torture, and other crimes against women? How often do we have to worry that if we do the wrong thing, or wear the wrong clothes or go to the wrong place, at the wrong time, around the wrong people, we might be raped or killed, or raped and killed?
Most women, I would guess, worry about this for the majority of their lives, the majority of the time. The below piece of writing should take the average person about five minutes to read. If that is the only amount of time a man ever has to spend worrying that he might be responsible for men's violence against women in some way since he is doing nothing to stop it, then I think he's getting a pretty easy break.
So, yes, I meant the entire thing, all of it. And no, I do not regret writing any of it. And no, I do not care if it hurt any guy's feelings when he read it. And no, I do not give a damn if you think I hate men or accuse me of misandry or think I do not value the human rights of males because of the below writing. Frankly, I have more important things to worry about. One of them is, how am I going to sleep tonight? As a survivor of sexual abuse and rape that's something I worry about every single night of my life, every year, all my life. I care more about that than I care about any goddamn guy getting annoyed because I told rapists to commit suicide.
If you understand the above and feel the same - welcome to the wonderful world of radical feminism! That's one label I don't personally mind, even though "man-hating, feminazi, etc" usually follows it. I invite you to check out the feminist activism page where you can find some like-minded folks, if you've never found them before, as there are, actually a lot of radical, or anarchist or militant, or simply non-apologetic feminist women on this planet who are not afraid to describe themselves as such and often take pride in describing themselves as such. There is a lot of great writing by such women in print, though you will never see any of it on a bestseller list. Some such books are here in the women's bookstore.
To be nice, I have added an address at the top of the page where you can find a large listing of suicide crisis lines, if you are a prospective rapist who is wishing to find some way to live with yourself.
To end this update, my email address that was originally listed on here was one at AOhell, which I haven't had for quite a while. If you feel the need to rant and rave at me about this writing, you can use the guestbook on this site to do that. It's on the index page. If you really want to email me, you can write to evolving2003 at hotmail or feminist2004 at care2.com. If you want to link this page to your website or email this writing to someone, feel free to do so. It is nice to know people actually have read it. Before I changed email accounts, I used to get messages from women who said that every time they get a "how to prevent yourself from being raped" email forwarded to them, they respond with this message I wrote. That is great to hear. Also, I have, coincidentally, gotten very few "how to prevent yourself from being raped" emails forwarded to me since I wrote this and started to respond with the below message to everyone who sent me such an email.
- End of update, Jen.
This was written in 2002 sometime, and the email address listed was my address at the time, but is not an active address now. The below has never been edited at all, though I do have a longer version not on this site which could go up at some point. That one has closer to 100 tips. I never got around to finishing it. But you can write some of your own, of course, to add to the below, if you want to pass this around.
This is the text of an email I sent out which many people have told me they forwarded to everyone they know, so I'm putting it here for other people to see. If I had known so many people would write to thank for writing this, I would have spent much more time on it, but this is what I wrote at 3 AM one day after reading another spam mail about how to avoid rape. If you want to, feel free to copy this and send it to anyone, or repost it anywhere you like.
Please read this message.
I just got something forwarded from a friend that is another version of a very common email forward, and I used to be one of the people who forwarded them too, but they annoy me a lot now. They are the "What women should do to prevent themselves from being raped" forwards.
I've seen probably dozens of these emails now. What women should wear, how women should act, when women should and should not go outside and if they do how they should behave, how they should look, what they should do when they are approached by a strange man, how they should fight or not fight if they are attacked.
Here is what bothers me about these emails, and it is a pretty simple thing -
Women are not the people who can stop men from committing rape.
Men are.
So, I understand the good intentions behind whoever is writing these things, I understand why they are forwarded around the internet with the advice to Forward This To Every Woman You Know message always there. I have forwarded these things myself, in the past. I won't anymore.
If I've seen dozens of them, for years, I have to think that most people with email accounts, particularly women, have also seen them multiple times. And I'm sick of them. So I had an idea, and I'm really tired right now but because I just read another one of these messages, I'm going to write this.
You can forward this to everyone you know and put my full name on it, Jennifer Robinson. I live in Virginia. My email address is jendaizb@aol.com (updated note: that is no longer my email address), and I don't give a damn what people think of me for writing this. Most of these forwards don't have the names of the original author for some reason.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERY MAN YOU KNOW:
Fifty Ways Prevent Yourself from Being a Rapist:
1. Do not think you have the right to rape a woman.
2. Do not rape a woman. Do not rape a man.
3. Learn what rape is.
4. Rape is forcing someone to have sex with you when they do not want to.
5. Most rapes are committed by men who know the women they are raping. If the woman you are forcing to have sex with you happens to be your girlfriend, your neighbor, your cousin, your sister, or your wife, it is still RAPE.
6. When someone says no to you, that means you have no right to force yourself on them.
7. When someone pushes you away, or otherwise inclinates, verbally or with physical movement that they do not want to have sex with you, and you force yourself on them, that is rape.
8. If you see a woman in a parking lot, don't rape her.
9. If you see a woman walking alone at night, don't rape her.
10. If you see a woman in a short skirt, don't rape her.
11, If you see a woman with long hair, don't rape her.
12. If you see a woman walking down a dark street at 4 AM, naked, don't rape her.
13. If you see a woman who is not carrying pepper spray for self protection, does not know karate, does not have a gun, and is not even holding an umbrella to ward you off, still don't rape her.
14. If you see a woman who has a sign on her head that says "I Want Sex", you don't have the right to force sex upon her.
15. If you're at a party, and a girl is drunk, and she wants you to kiss her and touch her but then she wants you stop, STOP.
16. If you're on a date with someone and they want to go so far, but then stop, you STOP. If you don't stop, it is called rape.
17. Rape is a crime, whether you go to prison for it or not, whether it is reported or not, whether you're convicted, or whether anyone believes the woman you rape, or whether you get a goddamn medal of honor for all the rapes you got away with committing, IT'S A CRIME and it's a crime against humanity, which has more to do with your conscience and morals and the rights of women to live as human beings on this planet without having to be in fear their bodies will be violated, than it laws and prison sentences. If you are a rapist, you have violated a person's right to simply live. News Flash - you do not have the right to do that. Neither does any other man or woman you know.
18. Rape is about power. It is not about sex. Do something else with your misogyny than rape a woman. Try, say, reading a book. Or committing suicide to rid you from the planet so we will have one less rapist walking around.
20. Men are the people who can stop rape. Not women. For proof of this fact, look at statistics on rape for a second. It happens every minute of every day, and it is usually not ever reported so statistics on it are always underestimates. Women have been trying to prevent themselves from being raped for a few centuries. IT HASN'T WORKED YET.
21. Rapists destroy lives in a way that murderers do not. If you rape a person, you are as inhumane as a murderer.
22. Before you decide to rape someone, go to visit an emergency room one night, and ask the nurse on duty at the triage, how many raped women have been there that evening. Then ask about the rape kits they did on the women, the DNA evidence they collected. Then spend a few years of your life talking with women who were raped and see how it has affected them every single day of their lives. You might reconsider rape after that, if you're actually human. If you're not human, please kill yourself before you rape someone.
23. Note that you are living in a patriarchal society which is the only reason why committing rape will occur to you as something you have a right to do in the first place. Note that, despite this fact, you STILL DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO RAPE ANYONE EVER.
24. Know that a few million human beings on this planet right now want you dead, if you're a rapist, because we're sick and tired of you walking around, and our self protectoin mechainsms haven't worked, and you're not about to be a real popular guy if anyone finds out you are a rapist, unless, you are hanging around other rapists.
25. Know that whether anyone ever finds out you committed a rape or not, you are still a replusive, weak, pathetic, disgusting, grotesque, inhumane, repulsive, worthless, twisted individual if you rape someone, and this fact will remain true, and you will remain guilty forever, whether she tells anybody or not. And you can be the one to live with that; if you have a conscience.
26. If you don't have a conscience, go murder yourself instead of raping a woman.
27. Read Ms. Magazine instead of Playboy
28. Stay away from pornography. Most rapists love it. That should be a danger sign.
29. Cut your hands off. You won't be able to use them. That will help matters.
30. Cut your penis off. Or ask me to do it for you; I'll be happy to, if you're considering committing a rape.
31. Stay away from women.
32. Stay away from little girls.
33. Stay away from boys.
34. Stay away from the human race.
35. You are not the superior sex, never will be, never were, never are. Women are equal to you, and sometimes women will be smarter than you. This is called life. Deal with it.
36. Sometimes women will not like you. That is our right. See above.
37. Sometimes women will rebuff your advances. In other words, we don't always want to have sex with you. Note, no one has any duty to have sex with anyone, ever. You are no exception.
38. Sometimes women will think you are stupid, will make fun of you, will not treat you well, will fire you from a job, will laugh at you, will refuse to go out with you. Just like men can do these things, so can women. This does not mean you have a right to commit rape.
39. If a woman has sex with you one day and doesn't want to have sex with you the next, that is her right. You do not have the right to rape her.
40. If a woman has sex with you and one hour later does not want to have sex with you again, that is her right. You do not have the right to rape her.
41. If a woman has sex all the time, with lots of men, and you think she is a slut for it, you still don't have the right to rape her. Women have the right to have sex with who they choose, when they choose, wherever they choose if it is consentual. Just like men.
42. No woman has ever, will ever or does ever ASK to be raped. No woman LIKES being raped. No woman INVITES you to rape her. No woman has EVER ASKED FOR IT. Try to remember that.
43. You don't have a right to rape your wife, your daughter, your granddaughter, your best friend, your girlfriend, a girl you met at the grocery store, your boss, your coworker, your student, your professor, your niece, your next door neighbor, a woman you do not know, or ANYONE ELSE. Ever. Period. End of Story.
44. Do not forward around emails to people telling them what women should do to prevent themselves from being raped. Women have never, and will never be able to stop the phenomena of rape, even as women do a good job of trying to, because we are not the ones with penises. Very simple. You are the only person who can prevent you from raping me or any other woman. You. Not me. You. Not any woman. You. You must stop you from being a rapist. It is YOUR job. Take responsibility for it for a change. I'm tired of giving out the 1-800-656-HOPE number to women who have been raped. I WANT TO GIVE OUT A HOTLINE TO YOU. 1-800-STOP IT NOW
But that hotline does not exist.
45. Go build a crisis center to stop yourself and every other man you know from becoming a rapist. Get funding for it, which will require a lot of work on a daily basis. Hire counselors. Hold group therapy and individual therapy sessions. Try, again, to get funding for it because it will be difficult to do so. Women have been doing this for decades. They're called rape crisis centers and we have too many of them. They should not have to exist at all.
46. When you converse with your male friends, be sure to warn them to NOT RAPE ANYONE if they are going out late at night, or if they are going out with a new girl, or if they are doing anything at all where rape might be an issue of concern. Women do this all the time, warning their friends to be careful, warning their daughters, their sisters, their mothers to be careful, to watch out, to lock their doors, to keep their doors locked, to carry pepper spray. We have all sorts of advice we give each other based on our very rational fear of rape. Why don't you try giving every man you now advice on how to prevent rape?
47. If you know someone who is a rapist, do something about it. Do not ignore, tolerate, pretend you don't know or don't care, or congratulate him. DO SOMETHING about it, such as, telling him he is the scum of the earth, reporting him to the police, beating him up, or put up a billboard with his picture, his name and the word Rapist in bright red letters on his front lawn.
48. If you're a rapist, go to therapy for a few years, perhaps the rest of your life, spend some time in a psychiatric hospital, perhaps dozens of times, perhaps years, and try to figure out how to live with yourself and what you did, which is exactly what many women who are raped by people such as you must do.
49. Donate money to RAINN, since you haven't succeeded in stopping rape from happening yet, so we still need these sexual assault centers, and maybe you should try being the person who donates money to them, rather than the people who were raped. http://www.rainn.org 1-800-656-HOPE. Or donate money to your local sexual assault crisis center. Or donate money to one of the women you know who has been raped so she can go to therapy, because statistically, there is little chance that you do not know several rape "survivors".
50. SEND THIS TO EVERY MAN YOU KNOW. And when you get the next email telling every woman on the planet what to do to prevent herself from being raped, and it says, "forward it to every woman you know", don't do it. For an example, see the message below and consider how ridiculous it is that women should have to live in a world where we write, read, and send each other these kind of messages, and know that it is not fair, and wonder for a minute, why you never got a message like this before addressed to men.
Forwarded Message (the below was is one of many such messages I have had forwarded to me):
A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were interviewed on
what they look for in a potential victim and here are some interesting facts:
The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle.
They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets.
The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women who's clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors around to cut clothing.
They also look for women on their cell phone, searching through their purse or doing other activities while walking because they are off guard and can be easily overpowered.
The time of day men are most likely to attack and a woman is in the early morning, between 5 and 8:30 a.m.
The number one place women are abducted from/attacked at is grocery store parking lots. Number two is office parking lots/garages. Number three is public restrooms.
The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and quickly move her to a second location where they don't have to worry about getting caught.
Only 2% said they carried weapons because carries a 3-5 year sentence but with a weapon is 15-20 years.
If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn't worth it because it will be time-consuming.
These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas, or other similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands. Keys are not a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you're not worth it.
Several defense mechanisms he taught us are: If someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or w! ith you in an elevator or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question, like what time is it, or make general small talk, I can't believe it is so cold out here, we're in for a bad winter. Now you've seen their face and could identify them in a line-up, you lose appeal as a target.
If someone is coming toward you, hold out your hands in front of you and yell Stop or Stay back! Most of the rapists this man talked to said they'd leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would not be afraid to fight back. Again, they are looking for an EASY target.
If you carry pepper spray (this instructor was a huge advocate of it and carries it with him wherever he goes,) yelling I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY and holding it out will be a deterrent.
If someone grabs you, you can't beat them with strength but you can by outsmarting them. If you are grabbed around the waist from behind,
pinch the attacker either under the arm between the elbow and armpit or in the upper inner thigh - HARD. One woman in a class this guy taught told him she used the underarm pinch on a guy who was trying to date her and was so upset she broke through the skin and tore out muscle strands - the guy needed stitches. Try pinching yourself in those places as hard as you can stand it; it hurts.
After the initial hit, always go for the groin. I know from a particularly unfortunate experience that if you slap a guy's parts it is extremely painful. You might think that you'll anger the guy and make him want to hurt you more, but the thing these rapists told our instructor is that they want a woman who will not cause a lot of trouble. Start causing trouble, and he's out of there.
When the guy puts his hands up to you, grab his first two fingers aand bend them back as far as possible with as much pressure pushing down on them as possible. The instructor did it to me without using much pressure, and I ended up on my knees and both knuckles ed audibly.
Of course the things w! e always hear still apply:
Always be aware of your surroundings, take someone with you if you can and if you see any odd behavior, don't dismiss it, go with your instincts. You may feel a little silly at the time, but you'd feel much worse if the guy really was trouble.
PLEASE READ THEN FORWARD THIS TO ANY WOMAN YOU KNOW
(end of forwarded message)
