ladylike modesty and other super-powers
Harvey Mansfield has cropped up here a couple of times in discussion of his "desperately seeking Achilles" book on Manliness - but I have to share one last quote. From an article at Reason.com by Cathy Young:
Then there’s this, from the book: "To resist rape a woman needs more than martial arts and more than the police; she needs a certain ladylike modesty enabling her to take offense at unwanted encroachment."
Wow.
In Mansfield's world, women who get raped are responsible because they fail to take sufficient offence: presumably this is his version of the logic that any woman who reacts positively to any sexual interest at all has given consent to the entire human race.
Cathy Young's piece is worth reading because it points towards how much of Mansfield's panic attack about the state of men is primarily an attempt to define and control women - which tells you what kind of man he's really interested in.
2 comments:
It might help if commentators saw women/rape victims/survivors as real, human people!
"Ladylike modesty"? WTF? Why can't we be just who we are?
Loving your blog. Don't comment much but have been reading every day for ages. :)
Thanks very much. I'm actually feeling a bit off writing at the moment - preparing for my phd viva and writing huge unwieldly posts which never see the light of day. Must do better, particularly if people are turning up to read. :)
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