The Guy Behind Confused Cats Against Feminism Is Sick of Mansplaining to Other Men, Simon Davis, David Futrelle, Vice, August 1, 2014

VICE: What is it about feminism that makes people misrepresent what it is when they argue against it?
David Futrelle: When it comes to discussing issues of consent, I think in that case a lot of the critics of feminism resort to caricatures especially because it’s something that really is fundamentally challenging them. Like the guy that feels he’s entitled to blatantly stare at women in public, or pressure a woman until she agrees to have sex, because that’s the way he’s always done it and that’s the only way he’s ever gonna get sex.

They don’t always want to say that out loud and so they pretend that consent is this extremely complicated thing and that feminists want everyone to sign forms in triplicate before they can have sex. So I think particularly around the issue of consent, there’s an enormous amount of smoke that they put up. They don’t want to have an honest conversation and say, “You know what? I don’t think I can have sex with a woman unless I get her really drunk first”. They don’t want to say that. So they’re like “oh, you want us to fill out a form first, well that’s ridiculous.”

Richard Dawkins and Rape Rape, Libby Anne, Love, Joy, Feminism, July 31, 2014

Richard Dawkins has become widely known for putting his foot in his mouth on subjects like this. Not surprisingly, Dawkins is wrong—very wrong. By and large, the harmfulness of rape is in its violation of women’s consent. That violation is present whether or not a knife or stranger are involved. In fact, for some women, like my friend, date rape is compounded by the fact that the perpetrator is someone they trusted. And then there’s also the fact that women often process and work through their rapes very differently. Being raped by a friend may affect a given woman differently than it would her sister, etc.

Frankly, Dawkins doesn’t sound like he knows much more about rape than Todd Akin or any of the other Republican men who commented disastrously on rape in the last election cycle. Instead of pontificating on rape, men like these need to listen to women who have experienced rape, to therapists who work with rape victims, and to activists working to prevent rape and help survivors. This way they might actually learn something rather than putting their feet in their mouth making ignorant and harmful statements on the subject.