RAPE DEFENDERS! - Awful Men Commenting on Rape - VERY TRIGGERING

Whenever I read an article about rape, I notice that the comments are full of angry men (and some women) lashing out at rape victims and those who support victims and oppose rape. & it really isn't surprising, because about 300 thousand people get sexually assaulted every year just in the U.S. according to the Department of Justice (via RAINN.org). There are less rapists than victims, but that is still hundreds of thousands of rapists.  Because of (mostly) men who dominate comments sections like this, many mainstream news sources are dominated by awful comments, as rational, compassionate people wisely choose not to look at the comments at all. However, I think we need to face what a significant portion of people truly believe when it comes to rape.

Here is a rundown of the sorts of comments you see:

- Rape jokes

- Stop talking about rape, what about FALSE rape accusations! 

- Oh, so now you are calling men looking at women rape?!

- Women lie about rape!

- Being drunk and regretting it isnt rape!

- Feminists lie about rape!

- Liberals lie about rape!

- People are profiting off lies about rape!

- These people are not real victims and this article is an insult to real victims!

- Slurs/insults like: bitch, retard, cunt, twat, feminazi, variations on idiot, other general name-calling

- Telling anyone who expresses support for rape victims or dissent that they are a bad person in some way

- Men get raped too!

- "Debunking" the story

- blaming the victim

- relentless 'debating" with someone who has asked them to stop, even after being asked to stop or ignored

- invoking rookie-level debate club terms like ad hominem and "logic", right after calling someone a retard

So I'm going to start by addressing the LEAST aggregious of these problems, because most rational, compassionate people can easily see the problems with most of these behaviors.  To me, the least bad thing here is bringing up male victims, but I will get back to that one; the second least worse imho is the "debunking" crowd, assuming they didn't engage in any of the other behaviors which is rarely the case. I think it's fine to point out errors in an article, study, argument, whatever, and even if you pointing out those errors doesn't seem like the best way to be an ally, it is better to have the correct information and that can only happen when people are willing to correct wrong info.  So let's assume that you see a "debunk" comment that isn't full of insults and inaccuracies, that even (as they rarely do) takes a moment to acknowledge that rape is a problem - what's so bad about that?

Well of course, the primary issue I have is that these posters rarely DO take a breath to acknowledge any sympathy for rape victims and often do start by name-calling and often cite untrustworthy sources, a misinterpretation, or are simply incorrect.   But that all aside, the main problem I have with this behavior is that these people seem to think, like a Creationist trying to "debunk" evolultion or a Holocaust Denier, that if they can find ONE discrepency that merits the silencing of anti-rape activism and we can all go back to pretending rape doesn't exist.  Instead of reading the article and thinking about it, they are immediately jumping to a "yeah, but-!" position, immediately googling furiously and copy-pasteing an article that often has more nuance than the commenter realizes, in an attempt to "disprove" the stories of rape victims and thus urge people to ignore them. It's also a  problem that these debunkers think they are being rebellious when in fact MOST articles about rape are full of comments like these, and ignoring and minimizing rape is the norm, just like how racists think it is rebellious to call black murder victims "thugs". It's a "truther" mentality, and it makes people focus on correcting the debunking instead of experiencing the emotionality of how terrible rape really is.

So what about those male rape victims?  Well, let me say that I am known in the internet wilds for being a hard-core, unrelenting, revolutionary, cunt-wielding patriarchy-smashing feminasti, as you can tell from my general writing.  However, believe it or not, like many feminists I (*gasp!*) have criticisms of feminism and feminists.  Like racism for example.  And leaving men who are hurt by patriarchy behind is a major problem to me.  Feminists do a lot to help male victims, such as being the people who made raping a man illegal, but we need to do more, because MRAs certainly aren't going to help, they're too busy harassing female rape victims. Male rape victims get left out by the mainstream media way too much and it sucks. So having said that, why am I sick of seeing men commenting "what about male victims?" on articles about rape?  Well, if I am dying of cancer and my mom comes to visit me, would it really be OK for my brother to come into my room and demand she leave immediately to talk about his AIDS instead? Or would it be more appropriate for him to join her in visiting me, and then to ask that she help care for him next? That may be a clumsy metaphor, so let me say it straight: When people are talking about female victims, we should be showing support for those women. When people talk about male victims, I dont see women saying "women get raped too!",  I see them supporting those men. Also, a lot of these comments arent really about supporting men at all, they are about shutting down women.

Now, let's say at this point you think I'm totally wrong about these two things, which I will grant is not unreasonable.  You are saying I am over reacting. Perhaps so. It's an easy thing to do when rape has hurt people you love.  However, I think it is incredibly irrational to defend all the other types of heinous comments people leave.  Angry (mostly) men responding to a story about rape by calling the victims liars, for example.  Oh, sure, it might seem to an uneducated person on a single article about, say, Cosby, that these people are simply expressing a difference of opinion.  but if you start reading comments about ANY rape victim, over and over again, you will see the same claims.

A popular claim is that women who have been raped were simply drunk and willing. I think this comes from the assumption that a barely-concious female body you are using to pleasure yourself with is not resisting, and maybe you are drunk also, so therefore it was willing. The idea that women simply decide after sex that it was a rape should be ridiculous on its' face but somehow people dont question it.  But THINK, dammit, WHY would women do this? IF they had sex and they enjoyed that sex shouldn't they be happy? If rape victims get so much abuse that some rape victims literally commit suicide due to bullying, and comments sections are full of people calling them liars, and there is no monetary value to an accusation, what's to be gained?  IF women are constantly falsely accusing, why is it that EVERYONE agrees that most victims never even report rape?  Why is it that in our personal lives we know women who tell you about a rape and don't even quite see it as a rape (for example, I know more than three women who said a man held them down and forced himself on them and didn't think it was rape even though they did feel scared. This thinking in victims is sadly most common with child victims because for obvious reasons they aren't taught about sex, consent and assault at all before being assaulted). 

The "she lies!" myth is inherently ironic because it presumes that we should assume a woman is lying without any actual proof that she is lying.  I hope I don't need to explain how that is hypocritical to you. In this view, rape victims are guily EVEN WHEN proven innocent - people are STILL calling vindicated victims like the - idk 40, 50? - Cosby accusers liars. Victims whose rapes were captured on film are called liars. Victims whose rapists were actually convicted are called liars.

Another thing these Rape Defenders commonly do is pretend that their position is the LOGIC! one.  This is really common with men trying to shut women up. They will say that whoever is talking to them is "relying only on emotion", even when she cites studies and is very calm, even when HE is angrily name calling and making false, unsubstantiated claim.  The hypocrtical irony HERE is that the entire reason people rape and defend rapists is emotional! They want power, they are angry, reading about rape makes them feel bad, so they defensively attack the article, the victim, the victim's supporters. It's also incredibly fucked up to expect people to not have emotions about rape, hopefully feeling sad and angry that rape occurs. We all SHOULD be feeling emotional about this.

Below are some screen shots of some of the stuff men said about rape that fit with the examples I've given of shitty behavior. These are all from one thread. I may add more photos to this same post in future. I believe many of these men are rapists themselves. Obviously this portion is extremely triggering. 'm sorry I didn't devote any time to transcribing this for people who can't see images, if you would like a transcription let me know in the comments. Until next time, take care of each other and support victims, not rapists. 

this is one of the few comments that FB has actually removed.

the article & highest rated comment. MRAs often send people to a comments section to flood it with bullshit, but this site, Vice, has a lot of asshole readers for whatever reason.

"White Knight" is an MRA concept - a man who defends women to get into their pants.

this is an example of a relentless commenter who "debates" someone who has told him to go the fuck away. Note the stereotyping. My majors have been in Creative Writing and my medical field career.

I apologize to people with an illness for using language that equates bigotry to illness.

Another relentless commenter 

the Bush comment is a running 9/11 "joke"

IF I recall correctly Revenge of the Nerds did have a rape scene in it, ironically - a man put on a mask and pretended to be a woman's boyfriend. Rape of a woman as revenge on a man. Incidentally, I think Joel's joke is kind of funny and not that awful tbh but I might go to Feminist Hell for even thinking that.

Denial

saying rape is based on how conventionally attractive someone is, even though men and children and the elderly and the dsabled (no I am not saying old and disabled people are unattractive, just not by conventional stndards) and overweight people and all sorts of people are victims, and it really isnt about attraction for at least a significant percentage of rapists.

Women offering a much-needed dose of reality. THANKS SISTERS!

I

Dear Fat Shamers: Get the Fucking Fat Facts!

I recently watched a viral video (Im not gonna bother to mention which unless requested) featuring a "funny" "comedian" making the easiest and laziest and oldest "joke" in the book - which boils down to "Fatty fat fat fat! Ha Ha!"  & Im fucking sick of it.

Seriously, at one point in the video she literally tells fat people to "STOP EATING". 

Like a lot of "fatties", I literally did make an attempt to completely stop eating. The results weren't pretty. Turns out, we need food to survive.  Without it, you get dizzy and tired and just generally make yourself sick.  As much as you might assume (and it is an assumption, a wrong one) that fat people are unhealthy, starving is the exact opposite of healthy. Starvation can cause serious problems, such as death. Your body can't just live off stored fat, it doesn't carry enough nutrients to properly fuel all your moving parts day by day.

Now I'm only a beginning bio student, so take what I write here with a grain of salt and do your own research, but I sure as hell am coming from a more scientific perspective than "JUST STOP EATING!!1!" lady, and I will be providing some actual citations. I know "jokes" are often given the excuse of not having to be factual, but when your "comedy" is really bullying and when it pretends to come from a "health" perspective, it needs a serious fact check.

When you starve, your body has to break down muscles for glucose and protein because it cannot get that from stored fat. Starvation has an effect on your organs, because the body doesn't just "eat" from your stomach fat but scary stuff like "atrophy of the heart" starts to occur, because your body doesn't recognize cardiac muscle as seperate.  People die when their organs begin to shut down.  You can starve to death and still appear "obese" because your body will start cannibalizing your muscles and organs at the same time it is drawing from stored fat. An obese person could starve to death just as fast as a thin person. The average person can survive about 21 days without food (NOT that long without water though) and so far I have been unable to find any data suggesting that overweight people could survive for longer, or much data about overweight people and starvation in general.  I did find several completely impossible and irresponsible claims, and lots of people online asking the question and making assumptions.  One man even claimed he hadn't eaten in a year! Not possible. Yet wierdly even that ficticious story included passages about liver damage and other common side effects of not eating.

I also found a lot of health experts debunking fat-phobic mythology online, thankfully. One common piece of advice (ie on WebMD) is that diets too low in calories aren't as effective long-term as more moderate caloric intake, and could even be dangerous. So even getting close to starvation IS NOT SAFE, yes even for those sub-human, ugly fatties.  In the video, Ms. Concern Troll says over and over that she wants fat people to stay alive. Telling fat people to starve themselves will literally kill fat people (even without mentioning issues like suicide). So if you actually want us to live, fucking stop it with that shit. 

There are scientific studies and data that suggests that overweight people tend to actually be HEALTHIER than average weight to underweight people, particularly the latter, which should be obvious - having an extra store of fat is better than literally not having enough nutrients to fuel your body to the point where the body has to start eating away at your heart muscle. Not only are fat people not "killing themselves" by merely being fat, but they are actually LESS LIKELY TO DIE than skinnier people! healthland.time.com/2013/01/02/being-overweight-is-linked-to-lower-risk-of-mortality/. So maybe we should start mercilessly mocking thin people and pressuring them to eat more ice cream, because "we dont want them to die"?

A lot of "common knowledge" about weight is actually just common bullshit. The BMI, for example, has been repeatedly called out by researchers as totally fucking bogus, as it doesnt take into account things like muscle mass and bone density, and would thus falsely label very fit, muscular people like Brad Pitt as "overweight". BMI is not even a good indication of how much fat a person has on their body, much less their overall health. www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php)

The shitty fat-hating video is almost entirely (at least pretending to be) based on the assumption that mockery and shame will encourage fat people to lose weight.  However, at least one recent study (http://www.livescience.com/47787-fat-shaming-weight-gain.html) has shown otherwise; shaming fat people actually can cause them to GAIN weight.  People who feel ashamed of their bodies and hate themselves are not going to have a positive attitude towards things like exercise, people full of negative emotions are not going to be able to pass up a cookie as easily.

Body positivity, on the other hand, invites the fat girls to dance at the club without fear of mockery, and in so doing, allows us more opportunities to stay active.

In one part of the video, she says that she wishes she could eat whatever she wants, implying fat people just eat whatever we want.  THAT fuckin shit made me laugh out loud, bitterly, both middle fingers raised high. 

As a fatty, I have had to be FAR more conservative in my eating habits than the people around me. People who don't gain fat as easily simply do not have to take as much care to avoid certain foods as I do. I watch thinner people around me eating fattening things like white pasta while they make fun of me for eating big bowls of lightly seasoned spinach.  I say no to ice cream outings when skinny people don't have to even worry about that. I watched my chronically-UNDERweight sister eating Burger King on a twice daily basis at a time when trying my best to eat almost nothing every day and even forcing myself to throw up healthy foods like salad out of guilt and self hate only got me down to 150 pounds, still looking chubby. Skinnier people who eat a hamburger are encouraged whilst I can't even eat a piece of bread without someone commenting on how "concerned" they are about my body (yes, I get shit no matter what I eat or dont eat!).  Anyone who hasn't lived a life as a fat person, especially as (seen by society as) female, really can't fully understand what it is like to be so constantly food-policed. It doesn't help!  Obsessing over food only leads to more obsessing over food! Just as starving can actually slow down weight loss. 

Fat shaming me, Just as people giving me shit for smoking cigarettes, or for not shaving my legs, doesnt help me. It just made me feel bad! & it didn't help me quit smoking or convince me that body hair on (assigned) females was EeeeeVIiiiilLLLLL! I could also throw in things I've been shamed about like being vegetarian (I'm not anymore, but not because of shamers) or being queer (I chose Pride). You get the idea. Whether a behavior or state of being is legit bad for you (smoking) or totally awesome (queerness), bullying DOESNT FUCKING HELP.

When you see someone who is fat, you don't know whether they 

- have a medical condition that causes them to gain weight

- have asthma or otherwise cant exercise very well to lose weight

- just lost 100 pounds

- work out daily, diet, and are committed to slowly and healthily getting in shape

- tend to eat very healthfully naturally 

- maybe just dont have a lot of time to worry about their body between the kids and the job

- just had a baby

- have recovered from an eating disorder

- are suffering from depression that includes self-hatred and dont need your shit 

- or hey, maybe they just like to eat what the fuck they want and don't give a fuck and didn't ask for your fucking opinion, bitch.

And EVERY fat person already knows they're fat, thanks.

So spare me your "concern". You don't know me. My body is awesome and it is none of your damn business.

Eeeeviiiiil Femisms vs. Actual Real Feminism

OK, let's look at the actions feminists have achieved/are working on:

- Legalized Female Vote (a right men already had)

- Legalized female property ownership (a right men already had)

- Successfully allowed women to attend school from primary education to college (a right males already had)

- Changed the legal definition of rape to include more victims including men (giving more protection to men and women)

- Opened up the job market to give women equal OPPORTUNITY, continues to push for more job inclusion of women (a right men already had)

- fighting for women to not be paid less just because they are women.

- Fighting against victim-blaming in rape and abuse cases, including for children and men.

- worked and working in solidarity with the LGBT movement

- Questioning gender norms so that everyone can do whatever they want regardless of gender (benefits everyone)

- increasingly working in solidarity with anti-racist movements under concept of intersectionality.

Now lets look at anti-feminist claims:

- BUT CIRCUMCISION!! - not invented by feminists, not endorsed by feminists, many feminists are active intactivists, and the feminist concept of bodily autonomy helped launch the modern intactivist movement

- BUT DIVORCE COURT! CHILD CUSTODY! Most judges are still men, as are most law makers. Feminism opposes the idea that men are naturally bad at taking care of kids.

BUT NOT ALL MEN! the feminist idea of holding rapists accountable for rape comes from the idea that men are adults who can control themselves.

BUT I PAID FOR DINNER! the feminist push for equal pay and job opportunities means we do not want men to have to pay for dinner.

Basically, the things that men have against feminism tend to be things that are actually promoted by sexism.

I'm not sure how to insult this new anti-feminist hate group nonsense appropriately because calling it a sickness is an insult to the sick, calling it insane insults the insane (which is a very real issue, actually, because being mentally ill is not the same as being irrational, bigoted, etc and mental illness stigma really sucks), calling it stupid is an insult to all the good people who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer due to no fault of their own, calling it shit is an insult to our body's useful waste disposal process, etc. etc. Maybe we could start insulting people by comparing them to bigots because there are few things worse in the world than mindless hate.

The Nazis Hated Feminism

In 1934, Hitler proclaimed, "[Woman's] world is her husband, her family, her children, her house.

A popular way to insult women who want to be treated equally (ie not be harassed just for being women) these days is to call them FemiNazis. The term was invented by that bastion of wit and wisdom, Rush Limbaugh, in the 90s and has since been popularized by the hate groups who terrorize women online wvery time they open their mouths to say anything suggesting sexism might exist and might be bad. The term is ironic in displaying the speaker's ignorance of basic history, which is a cornerstone of sexist thinking in an time when even women who were alive back when women were barred from most careers and had only had the vote in the U.S. for 50 years support men like Paul Elam who make using men to hurt women a full-time career. I thought it might be interesting to examime the ways in which the Nazis were anti-feminist. My research is cursory, gleaned from secondary online sources like encyclopedias, and should thus be taken with a grain of salt and confirmed via direct primary sourcing for any serious scholarship, nonetheless, I am fairly confident it is generally accurate as the primary sources quoted included scholarly words, records, and other source-able material, and as it is logically consistent.

Nazism's central figure, Hitler himself, was an abuser of at least one woman in early life; he had a nonconsensual romantic obsession with his own (half-)niece, Geli Raubal, made her his housekeeper at 17, disallowed her to have consensual romantic relationships, abused and controlled her, probably sexually abused her in some manner, made her his prisoner, and finally drove her to suicide in 1931, out of despair because she could not pursue her dreams of singing, the man she loved, and was trapped with her a usive uncle who I think we all know was not a nice man. The Nazi party swept it under the rug in a typical example of a society that protected men who abused women. 

In an equal society, a woman would have more freedom, she would not be so easily controlled by a man. Her only hope of escape was marriage, and only if her uncle allowed it. Hitler clearly did not WANT this woman to have freedom and did not respect her feelings, seeing her as an object for him to control, an attitude that he would extend to millions of other people.

Furthermore, if the Nazis were feminist, surely they would not allow a woman-abuser to become their leader, right? Of course, if the Nazis were feminist, they probably would have had at least half their leaders be women. This is just the sort of thing sexist men take for granted - that in an equal society, half of leaders would be female, not 100% or so of them male.

Hitler is frequently quoted, from Mein Kampf and his speeches, talking about how women's role should be confined to motherhood. I'm not completely sure of the accuracy of quotes I found secondhand and in English, but given what we know about his actions we can determine such quotes to be in line with his thinking. In Mein Kampf, he says the primary aim of female education is for motherhood. He also said "A woman's world is her husband, her family, her children, her home, We do not find it right when she presses her way into the world of men."

His opposition to Communism, which promoted equality for women, is reflected in this quote: 

"The granting of equal rights to women, which Marxism demands...draws women into realms of society in which they are inferior."

This creepy quote makes a lot of sense given how he tortued his niece:

"A lass of 18 or 20 years is as pliable as wax. It must be possible for a man to impose his will on any girl. Indeed, a woman wants nothing else" - speech to Hitler Youth.

In my research, I found quite a few anti-feminist sites trying to put obviously fake pro-feminism quotes in Hitler's mouth, possibly as a joke, as if to say that if Hitler supported feminism, therefore it must be wrong, Aside from the fact that these quotes contradict his actions and other words he really did write and speak, if Hitler said the sky was blue that doesnt mean it is truly pink just because he was a bad man; it is simply bad logic. Likewise, feminism isnt good because Hitler opposed it, it is good for a variety of reasons that I think are frankly obvious but perhaps an article for another time anyway. 

As one example, one of the fake sites pretends Hitler was pro-abortion, which is only true when apploed to "inferior" people, but not as a support of women's autonomy; in actuality the Third Reiche not only made abortion illegal but imposed harsh penalties for it (and banned contraception) - for normative Aryan women, of course; for Jewish women it was encouraged or even forced. Mere discussion of contraception, even for the oppressed groups (why bother when they were to be killed, I guess) was illegal. While millions of Jewish and other targeted ethnic groups' children were mercilessly murdered, Aryan women were encouraged to have four or more children with Aryan men and discouraged from being single or having abortions. I mean, that just makes logical sense given Hitler's general game plan - if your goal is to have a particular race dominate, it just doesnt make sense to allow women reproductive freedom and thus allow Aryan children to not be born. At the same time, it is well-documented that the Nazis murdered homosexual and disabled people for similar reasons- their goal being to literally murder everyone who didnt fit their narrow idea of superiority. It is a strange idea that such a regime would view women as equals. Hitler glorified mothers but hated working, single women; single women were "staatsangehoringer", state property. Professional women were increasingly fired under Nazism. After 1936, women could no longer hold many jobs, particularly in leadership such as judges, not even as teachers or nurses. Feminization and modesty were stressed and even legally enforced.

Despite this, Aryan German/French/Polish etc women resisted in a variety of ways and were eventually needed, and even forced into, labor and military service, proving once again just how flawed this sexist ideology can be. While some women resisted sexism by becoming Nazi leaders, others resisted sexism and Nazism by becoming resistance leaders.  Because of course  the oppression of normative Aryan women is nothing in comparisom to the oppressed classes who were marked for torture and death.

Girls and Women who were Jewish, Roma, disabled, and otherwise deemed inferior were brutalized in specifically gendered ways in the Death Camps. Little girls are known to have been raped by S.S. officers, and females in general were often raped and beaten. There were at least 500 rape brothels run by the Nazis. Pregnant women were forced to have abortions or killed. Women were tortured in "experiments" and sterilized. Women could be forced to work or killed when seen as not strong enough to work. Women in camps worked together to survive and resist.

Women and girls were a key part of the resistance, even militarily. Women from many narions were eventually an importsnt part of the war effort. One well known girl was Sophie Scholl, a student who was executed as part of the White Rose French-Jewish resistace for no more than passing out fliers. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were gender-bending lesbians who used art to spread a message of resistance, decided to face death rather than give in, and ultimately died from prison conditions shortly after they were freed. And of course, Anne Frank is a very well-known victim of the Holocaust who still inspires us with her inner strength.

So the next time someone calls a woman a "feminazi", just remind them that it is people who want to force women into an inferior role and protect people who abuse women who are truly like Nazis, and it is women whi dare to resist who are the true heroes.

pictured: female resistance members

IT Is Blatantly Obvious That Sexism Definitely Still Exists

*Strong Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault (I'll put stars** around the worst parts so you can read the piece but avoid those parts)

I've been noticing a rather bizarre trend on teh interwebz in recent years; people, men and women ranging from teens to elderly men who should know better, who either pretend that sexism no longer exists, that it never existed, or that men are and have long been oppressed by women.  

I find this exceedingly baffling.  I mean, when I was 11 grown men used to hit on me in really disgusting ways - like masturbating at me, following me in a car. Does that happen to 11 year old boys?  Some people who I have mentioned this to either acted like they were shocked it happened or like it was no big deal ("you had tits, of course men harassed you." I was still only an eleven year old child with no sexual interests whatsoever). 1Those people were men. The women I mentioned it to had all had similar experiences.  Now, maybe not all women experience these sorts of things, but the YesAllWomen (experience harassment and sexism) hashtag was immensely popular precisely because MOST, and yea I'll go ahead and say probably all women do experience sexism, although a very small minority of women who tend to spend a lot of time hating on other women deny this.

*** & That's considered minor league stuff. I am considered lucky. I know several women who have been raped, some of them multiple times, and most of them were either blamed for their rape, told they were lying, in denial that it was rape (to any man daring to suggest that this doubt means it was not rape, ask yourself if someone holding an object over your face and penetrating you against your will in a manner that causes damage to your body sounds like fun; these are the types of situations women are not immediately recognizing as violence) or all of that; I also know a few men who have been raped and live with the added stigma of rape being a crime that is only suppose to be committed against women, which is still misogyny - the idea that women's bodies belong to men, that rape is inevitable, that men can't or shouldn't have to control themselves, that a man has to be magically stronger than everyone else or he is somehow a bad person rather than the person who hurt him, even if he was only a child and his abuser was an adult. ***

So I just really cannot understand how anyone can say that there isn't a problem here when the problem is so severe. I don't see anyone really saying that homophobia doesn't exist, and those who say racism is a thing of the past at least acknowledged it existed.  In the past, people justified sexism by saying it was best for women and men to have seperate roles and so on, but now people are simply saying sexism isn't happening.  

Part of the problem, of course, is our sub-par education system. When you hear someone saying something like "well men are the ones who have built everything", that is a direct product of an education system that has deliberately erased women from history.  In the same way, it is a symptom of ignorance that so many people think that something as institutionalized as sexism, wherein women did not receive the vote in the U.S. until the early 20s (for white women anyway), a fundamental human right which women world wide still lack based on gender alone, somehow will have dissapated within less than 100 years, as if all the people who were raised under the old regime immediately decided to treat everyone precisely equally the moment some women got the vote, at a time when women still could not safely wear pants in public, have a legal abortion even after rape or to save her life, hope to be taken seriously as a political candidate or CEO, and so on.

  I know a lot of these people are deliberately self-deluded, but I live in hope that people will consider the actual facts that exist in reality and turn away from ignorance. So I decided to compile some of the really blantantly obvious evidence that someone who has lived in a bubble may have missed. And really, it's not hard for men to live in a bubble. They are taught to stay away from girls from an early age; segregation is still one of the most powerful tools of oppression.

A lot of people don't know how to think critically. When something makes these people (we'll call them "Jack") uncomfortable -  such as the fact that other people might be suffering from a system that Jack benefits from, it make Jack feel bad. He has two options: he can do the hard work of trying to be part of the solution, or he can deny the problem exists.

I've actually seen people literally suggest, or rather insist, plead, and threaten that people stop talking about sexism because by talking about it they make it worse, or create the problem whole cloth. As if perfectly happy women with no problems are just sitting around, bored, and decided to invent something that isn't real. Nevermind all that historical evidence, nevermind all the data collected by such un-Feminist organizations as the FBI showing things like how many women are murdered by an intimate partner or all the scientific studies and collections of data showing that even male nurses get paid more than female nurses in a field dominated by women that is supposed to be woman's work (just as women in jobs dominated by men get paid less), hell even fields like cooking or poetry are dominated by sometimes super creepy, sexist men.

The U.S. has never had a serious front-runner female candidate for president, let along an actual female president, and the majority of congress is still male.  And to those who say women can't be leaders, that it isn't sexism because women just don't WANT to be leaders and aren't GOOD at it, please please please for the love of humanity study some damn history, because Cleopatra wasn't the only successful female ruler in history. 

I'm glad that things are getting so much better for women that women can actually attend colleges, apply to jobs, run for leadership positions, and so on. But it just hasn't been that long and it sure as hell isn't equal yet. And denying that fact is a huge part of the problem.  IF your feelings are hurt by the idea that you should maybe reconsider how you treat women, just think about how those women feel and maybe put basic decency first.