Victim advocates applaud Craigslist rape verdict

[Threedifferentones]

50. The statement "most men are complicit in rape culture" does not seem to intersect different forms

of oppression. Just the opposite, it focuses on one form of oppression, sexual violence, and attributes it to one broad group of people: a majority of men, ie most. I do not see how that can be argued to be an intersection of forms of oppression.

It's strange you should mention intersectionality, because it's the sort of concept I think you are not really employing. Framing social problems as something which are caused by men as a group is not intersecting forms of oppression or membership in different oppressed groups.

Noticing that victims of poverty, war and rape all get blamed for their own vulnerability, and the evil actions of their oppressors, is intersectionality, because it is a point that draws a parallel between different groups that are abused in different ways. Abusers have long known that if they can frame weakness/vulnerability as a moral failing, they can justify their abuse. IE:

1. If he weren't so lazy/stupid, he would not be out of a job and poor! When in fact most economic hardship or success can be attributed to accident of birth.

2. If he couldn't handle combat, he should not have joined the army! When in fact many people sign those papers just to get a decent job, and then find themselves thrown into a meat grinder when our leaders need a war.

3. If she hadn't gone to that bar alone, she would not have been in that position! When in fact if that rapist would either respect the rights of other humans OR fear the repercussions of getting caught he would not have attacked her, and she could live without that anxiety that I as a man will never know.

Another example of an intersectionality would be to point out that poor women are much more likely to resort to sex work, and that sex work puts one at a vastly increased chance of being abused. Then continue that by pointing out the correlation between skin color and economic status, and questioning the reasons it exists.

Though I believe feminist scholars first coined the term, intersectionality is not a word that must be used exclusively for issues of gender and sexual violence/oppression, and I think that point has a lot to do with SOME of the criticisms this group takes here on DU, which does not mean I don't notice all the trolling you take.