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Topic: Any person in uniform is an enemy to women
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 25 November 2007 01:15 PM
quote: By rights, Ombeni should be nearing the end of her university life, perhaps fending off marriage requests or applying for teaching posts in the city. But her schooling, and her life's journey, were brutally interrupted almost five years earlier.Back then she was a typical 15-year-old with dreams of university and a better life. Her home was a village in the countryside, where, when she wasn't studying, she helped in the fields. It was while out working one evening that rebel forces captured her carefree innocence. For months she became their slave, both sexual and physical, as they lived in various wooded compounds along the Rwandan border. Heavily pregnant, and near death from lack of food, the rebels returned her to her village so her parents could watch her die.
Before you click this link, beware this is a horrific story. And no one cares. [ 25 November 2007: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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remind
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6289
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posted 26 November 2007 07:48 PM
quote: Originally posted by Cueball: I'd ask you to refrain from stalking me around the forum to prosecute your personal vendetta against me.
Oh please cueball, you wild imaginings that I am stalking are only in your own mind! And frankly, I believe you are using your outrage as a ploy to try and escape your wholely inappropriate commentary to webgear and making a joke in this thread! quote: As it is now perfectly clear, your real agenda is coming after me for my "bad behaviour" in the "feminist" forum, and really has nothing to do with what I said here.
bull shit, it is not perfectly clear, you are trying to shift the sands of YOUR actions in trivializing this and deflect onto me. quote: I made it quite clear that I would not be visiting your forum in future, and as far as I was concerned that was the end of the issue.
Uh, so we are just supposed to excuse your asshattedness in ALL other threads that should be in the feminist forum? quote: Now, you don't think that the German aid worker, is talking out of both sides of her mouth?What a stupid construction: "Any person in uniform is an enemy of women"? Pulease! She is obviously trying to extend the lesson generally beyond the bounds of the specific, and use it as an example of a more general nature. All people in uniforms are rapists, essentially. I disagree. I posed above what I think is the relationship between wars, uniforms and rape. It is certainly not localized to Africa, or anywhere in particular.
oh yes, let's ignore what she was saying and discuss other, like she is talking out of both sides of her mouth! moderators could you please place this in the feminist forum where it should've been in the first place? cueballs continued bad actions are wholely innappropriate. [ 26 November 2007: Message edited by: remind ]
From: "watching the tide roll away" | Registered: Jun 2004
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Stargazer
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6061
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posted 26 November 2007 08:33 PM
quote: That war is the enemy of women. I think that war provides opportunities for men who would rape to do what they want.
Men rape women. War is an excuse. This thread is about women and rape and you were out of line first with the joke and now with your trivialization of the issue that was raised, and which you refuse to see - that of the culture of masculinity. This is the centre of rape and this is what needs to be dissected. Michelle, we agreed ages ago that threads that were specifically women centered would be moved to the feminist forum so that this kind of thing would not happen again and again and again. We have already lost a lot of women posters due to these issues. Cueball, nor Webgear, should be turning this thread into a thread about uniforms and soldier's macho exercises, especially as a means of using war as an excuse for rape. Can you please move this so we can discuss this on a different level please?
From: Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist. | Registered: Jun 2004
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 27 November 2007 03:34 AM
I'll be happy to move this to the feminism forum. But moving this thread there doesn't mean that Cueball has done anything wrong in this thread at all.He was challenging the concept in the subject line in this thread that "any person in uniform is an enemy to women". I think that's a legitimate argument. It's a blanket statement and just not true. I don't like what soldiers do any more than anyone else and I don't particularly think it's a moral job, but I also don't think that every soldier on the planet is an "enemy to women" when it comes to rape and such. Cueball brought up some important arguments against it. Yes, he made a wry comment at first, because he saw a SOLDIER in the thread saying that this is an important discussion to have, and that clearly put the lie to the title that ANY person in uniform is an enemy to women. But because of past arguments with Cueball, remind flew off the handle and freaked out on him. And now she is demanding that the moderator back her up on this shadow-moderating and attack on another poster who hasn't done anything except challenge the blanket statement in the thread title? Come on. I don't think so. I think people have to realize that this is still a DISCUSSION forum. People are going to sometimes disagree with what we've written, and sometimes they're going to say so. Sometimes they might even use a different tone than we might like. There's no way I'm going to come down on a decent poster who has done nothing against babble policy. He hasn't posted ANYTHING anti-feminist in this thread. He's not making fun of anyone here (at least not before he was attacked for no real reason). I'm not going to be the babble vendetta enforcement unit.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312
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posted 27 November 2007 04:00 AM
quote: He was challenging the concept in the subject line in this thread that "any person in uniform is an enemy to women". I think that's a legitimate argument. It's a blanket statement and just not true.
But the title on the thread must be read in the context of the posted article in which case it is true. Cueball asks if it applies to women in uniform in the Congo. Assuming there are women in uniform in the Congo, and I am not sure there are, if their roles are to help capture women as sex-slaves, or to guard them as they are held, or to participate in the crimes against them, then yes, it does apply to women in uniform.But even if we apply the statement universally, without the context of the article, does it still hold true? Civilians, and especially women, are often the primary victims of war and we do not raise soldiers to bring peace. Not anymore, if we ever really did.
From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005
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Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
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posted 27 November 2007 04:10 AM
That's true. And so now, we're having a discussion. Cueball disagreed with the sentiment in the thread title and said so, and gave his reasons for it. Those who agree with the sentiment in the thread title are saying why they agree with it. That's usually what political discussion is all about, making statements, challenging assumptions, talking with each other about this stuff.In fact, I tend to agree more with your point of view on this subject, and I also don't believe that soldiers are trained primarily to help anyone - they're trained to fight, and ultimately that doesn't help women or anyone else. And I also think that if the whole world agreed with me on everything, it would be a much better place. Unfortunately, my fellow lefties might have a few ideas of their own.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
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Catchfire
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4019
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posted 27 November 2007 04:32 AM
I think anyone can tell that making a joke about a rape story is insensitive, no matter what semantic quibble lay underneath.The title is surely sensationalistic and deliberately incendiary, but inaccurate? Really? If we are really engaged in parsing the headline's diction, look at the construction: any individual in uniform is an "enemy" to women, plural. To take from this that any actual individual in uniform is immediately and specifically antagonistic and predatory against every singular, actual woman is to misread the statement. "Person in uniform." As Cueball's "joke" suggests, if a soldier takes off her uniform does she cease to be a threat? Obviously, such an answer is disingenuous to the spirit (and grammar) of the article. A person in uniform, a metonymical construct, a stand-in for a combat force in general. And these, as history shows, where war is again and again fought on the no-man's land of the female body, where war uses the female body as ammunition, as incentive, as battleground, and as spoils, are surely an "enemy" of, a threat to, women. So when a woman sees a "person in uniform" of whatever gender, of whatever sex, of whatever race, should she not be afraid? Should she not consider her an enemy? Or shall we further stretch the limits of interpretation to include McDonald's employees in the headline's embrace?
From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003
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