How should we look at custody battles? Societal norms historically cast mothers as primary caregivers, while fathers were often seen as financial providers. Despite shifts toward gender equality, these stereotypes sometimes still influence custody decisions.

80% of the time women are awarded primary custody of the kids.

https://www.cdc.gov/nisvs/documentation/nisvsReportonSexualViolence.pdf

Here's the PDF. My primary focus will be on pages 1, 3, and 32 respectively (I'm referring to the page numbers listed on the top of each page, not the pdf's page numbers - as there are a few cover pages and such that cause a discrepancy between the two numbers)

Rape, as it pertains to this study, is defined on pdf page 1 as "completed or attempted unwanted vaginal, oral, or anal penetration through the use of physical force or drug facilitation" - they also included being too drunk to consent, passed out, threatened with violence, etc.

They differentiate this from "being made to penetrate someone else" - which they define as when a (male) victim was "made to, or an attempt was made to make them, sexually penetrate someone without the victim's consent" - they use the same reasoning - violence, drugs, threats.

Strangely, they again separate both of these things from sexual coercion, which is being "pressured in a nonphysical way" - such as blackmail, gaslighting, lying, pressuring, and "influence or authority" - it's not specifically mentioned, but I believe that Quid-Pro-Quo sexual harassment would fall under this category.

There are a few other definitions (unwanted sexual contact, sexual harassment) that are of course important but are not the subject of this particular post.

On page 3, they publish their overall findings, stating (emphasis mine):

• 1 in 4 women reported completed or attempted rape during her lifetime
• 1 in 9 men reported being made to penetrate someone during his lifetime.

Of course, notably - neither of these numbers include sexual coercion.

Personally, I consider rape, sexual coercion, and 'a man being forced to penetrate someone without his consent' as simply being different forms of the same thing, rape - and while the level of depravity, trauma and violence varies from instance to instance, each fall under the category of rape, and should be treated as such.

The specific numbers for rape, SC, and MTP against women are on page 31, and the same for men is on page 32.

If you only count what they consider rape - the overwhelming majority of perpetrators are men, even rapes against other men. But when you consider all three at once, 31% of instances of completed or attempted nonconsensual heterosexual sex have male victims and female perpetrators in the 12 months prior to the study. (3,218,000 male victims of women as opposed to 7,264,000 female victims of men in the year of 2016) - one every 9.8 seconds as opposed to one every 4.3 seconds. Both are staggering metrics.

The reason why I chose to only include heterosexual nonconsensual sex is because the number for female-on-female rape and male-on-male MTP rape that the CDC found were too low to produce population statistics with a confidence interval of 95%, so I find that it would be disingenuous to include both. If you're like me and want to know anyways, the number of male-on-male rapes in 2016 was 244,000 and the number of the same for sexual coercion was 311,000 - still staggering but of course these two combined still only account for 14.7% of male victims.

As you could probably guess, I have a lot of thoughts about the CDC's decision to not count "a man being violently forced to have sex with someone" as rape. I believe that if this level of euphemism was used to define sexual assault against women, it would rightfully be called out as rape culture.

My questions are as follows:

1. Do you believe that "a man being made to penetrate someone" should be treated as rape?
2. Why do you believe the CDC chose not to do so?
3. If your answer to 1 was yes, do you believe that this fits the definition of rape culture?
4. What are your overall thoughts on how the CDC treats male victims, particularly in the case of male victims of women?

Reddit has recently released an updated policy against sexual harassment and non-consensual sexualization.

As this sub is already fairly strict on these topics, you likely won't notice any significant difference in the moderation here, but we wanted to bring this to your attention as you will now be able to report and expect results across Reddit when you encounter sexual harassment or non-consensual sexualization.

As a reminder, you should always report any unwelcome sexualization or sexual harassment in this sub by using the report button and contacting us via mod mail if you have any additional context to add to your report.

From Reddit's Announcement:

Reddit's harassment policy already prohibits unwanted interactions that may intimidate others or discourage them from participating in communities and engaging in conversation. But harassment can take many forms, including sexualized harassment. Today, we are adding language to make clear that sexualizing someone without their consent violates Reddit’s harassment policy (e.g., posts or comments that encourage or describe a sex act involving someone who didn’t consent to it; communities dedicated to sexualizing others without their consent; sending an unsolicited sexualized message or chat).

Women often end up doing the most when it comes to cleaning, keeping the house stocked, getting the children ready, and making the grocery list, etc, etc.

What steps do you take to make the mental load a bit lighter?

As a follow up to my last post, I think a major reason as to why I have felt so uneasy in regards to the women in my life as well as observing women online is my perception of femininity. When I observe women acting feminine, I have been interpreting that through a masculine-centric lens. It feels that femininity is seen as weak and inferior in comparison to masculinity. It made me think about the current women’s movements and how feminism is affecting society and culture today. I feel like too often, specifically in movies and other media, the feminist movement focuses on putting women in masculine roles in order to appeal to a masculine-centric society. Rather than empowering feminine traits and fighting the narrative that feminine roles and traits are “less than”. I see this as a misstep, while feminine traits are heavily influenced by society and culture, there are biological connections as well. While I don’t support regulating women in media to purely feminine roles. I think it would be worthwhile to spend more time empowering femininity. While I know this sounds like a conservative talking point meant to regulate women to the kitchen, I really don’t mean it that way. I just am trying to understand why I feel the way I do towards women and femininity. Do any of you guys have any opinions on that? I’m not tied to this position btw, I’m just curious.

What would be your response to feminist ruined star wars?

-Kathleen Kennedy talked about "making the force female and pushing out men"

-She implied feminism was the main theme for the sequels

-She said she wanted to reduce the male fan base

-one of the directors she hired said her main goal "was the make all men uncomfortable"

Hello, I am an 18 year old boy who has, over the last year or so, become increasingly cognizant and aware of how women are treated. It wasn’t until a began dating my first girlfriend, 9 or so months ago, where my perspective of society, in particular women completely changed. I can’t help but feel weird, uncomfortable, and deeply upset with how the women in my life view themselves. My sister the other day was telling me about how not viewing cash as actual money was “girl math”. I paused and responded saying “is girl math just ppl being dumb?” And she kind of shrugged it off. Seeing girls online and in real life express their desires for a tall strong dominant man who can take care of them makes me physically cringe. I feel like my girlfriend tries to dumb herself down when she is with me and it makes me feel horrible. Like to the point where I don’t even feel comfortable being in a relationship because i feel guilty. I also want to say that while this might sound like it, I’m really not the “i read feminist literature bro” stereotype that it might seem like I am. Sometimes I wish that i could be like my everyone else and just accept things as they are. My question to you who have the experiences of being a women as well as viewing the world through a feminist lens is how do you balance seeing and being aware of the inequalities, gross stigmas and expectations placed on women while still being able to enjoy yourself and engage in relationships under such social conditions?

May I have some insight to any of the above?

I'm sure I will ponder it all for a while. Hopefully looking further into it at some point.

Just trying to broaden my insight.

It is really beyond me to form any accusatory notions or theories.

Im aware of Historic Philosiphers and some Modern Male ones.

I would like to know the historically relevant women with regard to the above and broaden my insight.

I have to start somewhere.

I will at some point post to 'askphilosophers'. However I wanted to start with knowledgeable Women.

I didn't want any male input at this point.

Thanks.

Such as the small but vocal group that wants to basically just flip the patriarchy the other way into a matriarchy instead of equality, or the people that say “men can’t be raped” which is an absurd claim as I myself was raped as a kid.

Sorry if this sounds like I am saying you have to apologize for these people, that is not my intention. I just want to make sure these aren’t wider opinions.

Wasn't 100% sure how to title this, so I'm sorry if the title is a bit vague.

What has happened a lot in my life is that in certain situations I wanted to speak up for myself, or for a fellow woman, because a man or men was doing something I didn't think was okay. I will explain with an example:

There were 4 of us, two guys two women. We were all talking together, having a conversation with the four of us together, but it kept happening that the moment me or my girl friend spoke that the guys would start talking amongst themselves and not pay any attention to us. That got on my nerves so I said something about it. The guys were immediately butt hurt. Then they said they understood but then I was policed for "coming on too sudden, sounding too angry, sounding like a mother". They always said to me that if something's up, I should tell them about it. So I did. But when I did, the way I did wasn't good enough still? According to them, I should be even more accomodating and be softer about it. But tbh I dont think that's right. It tires me that women are endlessly policed to not say things, but even when we speak up, we're criticized and policed for the way we speak up. I have almost never seen this vice versa, where a man is criticized in the same way.

Anyway, my point is I would love to hear another person's thoughts on this. If I'm in the wrong or on the bad side, please let me know. Or if you have any resources or videos or podcasts talking about this specific problem, I would appreciate it sooo much.

Would the gender of the parent and child factor into your answer? Like if a mother stated it about their son versus a father about their daughter or parent about their same gender child?

If you are initially tolerant of the statement what actions to push the child to do sex would would you also tolerate?

If you find the statement objectionable what are the reasons?

easy = for adults, but no complex or academic writing
applied = concerned with everday life and situations, not with academic, philosophical discussions. Perhaps focussed on changing thinking and interactions in everyday life.
Examples: Laura Bates' Everyday Sexism

What do you think about female to male rape, and male rape victims in general? Do you believe that this issue should be regarded the same way female rape victims are regarded as?

I've been reading about pre-bunking and debunking and want to try the sandwich technique on the following:

Although there are obvious differences in the content of offense-supportive attitudes among rapists and child molesters, there is likely overlap as well. For example, both types of offenders may believe their offenses are not harmful as long as they are not overly violent (Bumby, 1996; Ward & Keenan, 1999). Similarly, Pemberton and Wakeling (2009) found evidence of sexual entitlement attitudes (e.g., sexual needs must be fulfilled, regardless of whether a willing partner is available) in both rapists and child molesters.

I have a good source to explain the harms regardless of perpetrator tactics, but given that it seems obvious that sexual entitlement is bad, I'm having trouble finding a good, compelling source that can explain it to someone who doesn't already get it.

Has anyone here had any better luck?

Do you like it?

My partner will move into my apartment soon. Their is a big income/wage gap between us. He makes triple the money then I do. Any advice on how to splits costs or do you split equally? We are not married and probably not in the future.

Greetings AFW users,

As many of you know, on June 12th we closed our subreddit as part of a greater protest against Reddit's upcoming API changes which kill third-party apps; apps which are hugely beneficial to users, especially those in the disabled community, many of whom have no access to Reddit without a third-party app. These apps have also been enormously beneficial to moderators.

On June 21st, the Reddit admins made it clear to our moderator team that if we choose to remain closed in protest, our entire moderator team would be at risk of removal.

We care a great deal about this subreddit and about giving users a safe and curated space to share thoughts, opinions, and experiences. Women's voices are silenced so frequently on the internet so we have worked very hard to keep this space available.

As a result of that dedication, we are reopening the subreddit under duress. Our reopening does not in any way condone or otherwise cosign Reddit's activities regarding third-party apps.

In addition to the above, we have always strived to keep this subreddit a place where people can ask and answer frankly. Due to the nature of the topics often discussed here, we have decided, for the safety of reddits users, we will be officially a NSFW subreddit. This does not change our rules; gendered slurs and blatant fap fodder are still very much not permitted.

Thank you all for your patience and understanding throughout this. We know this whole situation sucks.

Hi, what are some rad feminist instagram accounts that you suggest/recommend to follow?