Villain of the piece

[imomus]

It was hard to be a man at the Barbara Kruger installation at the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art yesterday. A whole room was covered with text about what monsters of sex and violence men are, and in the information area it was all related to life in Glasgow with a series of chilling facts and figures about wife-beating in the city. It made Glasgow's Argyll Street feel like Elm Street and all men look like potential Freddy Krugers, about to batter their pinch-featured, ruddy-nosed wives or slay the Umbro- and Vodaphone-blazoned wee'uns they dragged behind them through the drizzle. It made Aidan Moffat's bruised, obscene, honest, romantic, depressing, dour lyrics at the Arab Strap acoustic show we saw immediately afterwards all the more apt.

Comments

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

I would've laughed my ass off and gotten kicked out. I don't know about Scotland, but here in the US, domestic violence statistics would have you totally believing that 100% of all men are slavering brutes who can't orgasm until they beat a helpless woman into a shivering pulp.

[bopscotch.livejournal.com]

Very true.

Curious

[(Anonymous)]

I'm curious what statistics you're talking about. Is there a link or reference you can pass along?

Re: Curious

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

The scary college statistic that 1 in 4 college women is raped was spread like a virus around my campus. The Office of Manhating put up posters and had little cards on the cafeteria tables emblazoned with that fact on it.


Nevermind that 1 in 4 college women would mean hundreds of thousands of rapes...

Re: Curious

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I believe the actual statistic is that 1 in 4 women (in the USA), by the time they reach college age, have been sexually assaulted at some point in their life, not that 1 out of every 4 women who go to college end up getting raped.

Even so, for sake of argument, let's use the 1 in 4 number. Heading back to college math (slipping standards, I know), 1 in 4, when represented as a percentage, is 25%.

That leaves us with 75% to make up, unless you forget to reference/link some other studies? Did you?

(75% + 25% would make 100%, the number used in the original post)

Thanks for your help in getting to the bottom of this.

Re: Curious

[(Anonymous)]

I remember this as one in three women at college raped, during the time that they were in college. It comes from an anti porn writer called Diana Russell, and her definition of rape includes "A man looking at you in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable." (I have the meaning but maybe not the exact words.) IE: Rape means whatever you want it to mean. This must make girls going away to college for the first time feel very uncomfortable.
(From a book called Defending Pornography, by Nadine Strossen, by the way.)