You do not put your hand on a woman
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Moonwalker
Little hunter frost
whenever somebody wants to prove a point, they turn to a set of statistics that benefit their narrative. But let me describe to you how statistics really work, and why they often don’t reflect the full picture of reality. When it comes to statistics, people frequently forget one key thing, they’re only as reliable as the methods used to gather them. A common issue is that statistics can be manipulated to support whatever point someone’s trying to make, while ignoring important nuances or context. Think of it like this: imagine walking up to a field full of grass, and here and there, you see patches of daisies. You want to know how much of the field is actually covered in daisies, so you construct a few squares made of sticks and place them randomly across the field. You calculate the percentage of daisies within each square, then average it out over, say, 10 squares, which sounds logical, mostly. Well, here’s the problem: you’re only measuring tiny parts of the field and assuming that represents the whole thing. But those squares can’t tell you the actual percentage of daisies across the entire field unless you measure the whole field. If your squares happen to land in daisy-heavy spots or daisy-sparse areas, your numbers are going to be skewed. And the same thing happens in studies. People take small samples, average the results, and then act like they’ve captured the full truth. But unless you’re measuring the whole group, you’ll never reach the true percentage. What’s worse is when people conducting studies pick their squares, or in this case, their sample, based on a pre-established narrative. If someone wants to prove a point, like say, that a certain group of people is affected by X, Y, or Z, they might target people who already fit a certain stereotype. And that’s where things get shady. Instead of accurately reflecting the whole population, they’re narrowing in on a biased group that’s more likely to give them the results they want. Let me give you an example of where this has been done. In studies about crime rates among certain racial groups, data is often presented in a way that implies certain minorities commit more crimes than others. What’s not always highlighted is how those stats are heavily skewed by over-policing in certain neighborhoods and under-policing in others. If you focus your data collection on neighborhoods that are disproportionately policed, of course the numbers will suggest higher crime rates in that area,it’s the statistical version of building your "daisy squares" in a place that’s most likely to fit the narrative. Similar tactics are used to push the narrative that fraud is rampant among welfare recipients. If a study targets people in economically disadvantaged areas who rely on government assistance, it’s easy to pull numbers that show a higher rate of fraud within a specific sample. But this doesn’t give you the full picture of fraud across all recipients, and it ignores the fact that many welfare fraud cases involve much smaller percentages than the studies like to admit. Basically, statistics can be misleading. They sometimes reflect a slice of reality, but not the whole picture. Now, let me give you a prime example of how statistics can be twisted to support a narrative. As I mentioned earlier, the case of Mary P. Koss, a feminist professor widely regarded as a leading expert on sexual violence in the U.S. Koss is notably linked to the infamous statistic that 1 in 4 American college women is sexually assaulted. However, this statistic is deeply flawed because it includes incidents that many victims themselves didn’t even perceive as assault. For example, in Koss’s research, something as minor as a man misreading signals and attempting to kiss a woman, only to back off when she shows discomfort, is counted as sexual assault—regardless of how the woman perceives it. This distorts the reality of what most people would consider sexual violence. What’s even more problematic is how Koss defines rape. She doesn’t consider instances where a man is forced to have unwanted sexual intercourse with a woman as rape or even sexual assault. Instead, she refers to these situations as "unwanted contact." This exclusion of male victims from rape statistics has had a huge impact on how government agencies across the world collect data on sexual violence. Take the 2011 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, for example. In the preceding 12 months, 1.6% of women reported being raped, but the number of men reporting rape was too small to provide a reliable estimate. Meanwhile, 1.7% of men reported being forced to penetrate a perpetrator—a situation that, under Koss’s definition, doesn’t qualify as rape. This skewed methodology drastically alters the public’s understanding of sexual violence, especially when it comes to male victims. The takeaway here is clear: statistics, especially in areas like sexual assault, are often manipulated based on who’s conducting the study and what point they’re trying to prove. In this case, Koss’s narrow definition of rape and selective inclusion of certain incidents has had a huge impact on how sexual violence statistics are reported worldwide.
Little hunter frost
When Shane Seyer was 12, he was sexually exploited by his 16-year-old babysitter Colleen Hermesmann. She became pregnant with Seyer’s child in 1989 and was charged with statutory rape shortly afterward. Instead of being convicted of rape, Hermesmann was declared a juvenile offender under the non-sexual offense of “contributing to child misconduct.” Seyer was subsequently court-ordered to pay child support. In 1993, at the age of 15, Seyer appealed this decision to the Kansas Supreme Court, arguing he should not be liable for these payments. He maintained that his babysitter (Hermesmann) took advantage of him sexually when he was too young to give consent. The Kansas Supreme Court ruled against him. The judgment stated that because Seyer initially consented to the sexual encounters and never told his parents what was happening, he was responsible for supporting the child. This court case set a precedent for male rape victims to make child-support payments. The financial needs of the children outweigh the court’s interest in deterring sexual crimes against male minors, even if statutory rape is the cause of conception. More recently, in 2014, Nick Olivas of Arizona was forced to pay over $15,000 in back-payments to a woman who had sex with him when he was 14. She was 20 years old at the time. Commenting on the Olivas case and others like it, Mel Feit, director of the New York-based advocacy group the National Center for Men, told the Arizona Republic newspaper: “To hold him unresponsible for the sex act, and to then turn around and say we’re going to hold him responsible for the child that resulted from that act is off-the-charts ridiculous… it makes no sense.” Peter Pollard, a co-founder of 1in6, an organization designed to help male assault survivors, explained in an interview with the Good Men Project why we downplay the severity of male sexual assault: “We’re all raised in a culture that says boys are always supposed to initiate and enjoy a sexual experience and males are never supposed to see themselves or be seen as victims. The easiest default is to blame the victim, to say ‘he wanted it,’ ‘he must have chosen that.’” These attitudes toward male sexual assault are apparent even in the way these men are treated during their court cases. In 1996, the court heard the case of County of San Luis Obispo v. Nathaniel J in which a 34-year-old woman became pregnant after sexually exploiting a 15-year-old boy. He was also forced to pay child support, and then Deputy Attorney General Mary Roth alleged: “I guess he thought he was a man then. Now, he prefers to be considered a child.” Some professionals, such as Mary Koss from the University of Arizona, who published the first national rape study in 1987, even argued that men and boys cannot be raped by women. In a radio interview, Koss stated: “How would [a man being raped by a woman] happen… how would that happen by force or threat of force or when the victim is unable to consent? How does that happen? I would call it ‘unwanted contact.’” Research indicates, however, that men can be stimulated and achieve an erection in times of fear and terror, despite not being aroused. Studies range from cases where men report arousal during assault, to scientific experiments that find men have erections under many non-sexual circumstances, including when they are unconscious. In her research, Myriam Denov, a professor at McGill University who holds the Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender and Armed Conflict, asserted: “The professional assumption that sexual abuse by women is less harmful than similar abuse by men has potentially dangerous implications for [male] victims of sexual abuse. If professionals fail to recognize sexual abuse by women as potentially serious and harmful, child protection plans will not be made.” She goes on to say that, as a result, the experiences of male victims who come forward to disclose sexual abuse by women may be trivialized. These misconceptions can lead to a delayed referral to social services or failure to provide victims with the care and support they require.
Little hunter frost
Moonwalker
Moonwalker
Nick Stockton
As a blind man I am at an automatic disadvantage against a sided man of similar build. As an adult with an equal baseline intellectual capacity to other adults, I know that it is wrong to initiate physical violence against another adult if they aren't being violent towards me. If I decide to hit a sided man because he makes me angry, I have no right to be taken seriously if I complain about him hitting me back. I'm an adult, and I know that hitting another adult could very well result in them hitting me back. As an adult, not a child, I'm expected to be able to anticipate the likely consequences for my actions. If I wasn't able to anticipate the near term or long-term consequences of my actions the same as other adults, I would not be granted the same rights and privileges of other adults. My rights and privileges would be limited, the way we limit the rights and privileges of children. If women have the same average intelligence as men, and expect to hold the same rights and privileges as men, then they must be held as accountable as men for initiating a physical altercation. believing that you can slap someone and not be slapped back is not equality, it's entitlement and privilege. Believing you can initiate violence against someone who is physically stronger than you, or in my case has vision where I do not, and expect that nothing bad will happen, is stupid and quite possibly deadly. I train in martial arts because if I am ever in a life or death situation, I want to have a greater than zero percent chance of surviving, but if I go out on the street and pick a fight with someone bigger, stronger, and better seeing than me, I likely will be severely injured or killed, and I will have no one to blame but myself.
Landon 205
Déjà Brew Diane
Déjà Brew Diane
Dj Ray
You’re not wrong about the statistics weighing negatively against women when it comes to violent crimes. But how many times have we seen portrayals of violence against men,  whether in fiction or in reality and it does not move us the same way if a man is on the other end. If a woman raises her hands to a man, it’s dramatic, sensational, oh snap! We men are raised the same way. The statement Rachel put as a topic for this post is something I and other men like me have often been told. And if baited or any such, we are told to walk away or no big deal. It’s a subconscious thing, an acceptable relic from a time when men were supposed to be men and bear whatever comes. Do not be wimps, but; at the same time do not be Brutes and lash out. I don’t think the argument is that women are not victims, what we should normalise is no violence. Not use statistics to soften or misdirect. As we supposedly grow and evolve, it would be nice if we learn that laying hands on anyone is never okay. 
Hot Coffee
Artemis
Moonwalker
Assault solves nothing.
Rachel K
I know. The gender biased makes me sick which is why I put this post up. 
Dj Ray
I believe no argument should ever spill over into someone laying hands on another, but i think despite the push for a difference in societal norms wich hopefully will continue to see women make great strides in all areas to which they aspire even the so-called male oriented areas, we are still subconsciously thinking that a man should be able to take a hit or two and suck it up. I've never liked those scenes in films and tv drama when an arguement gets passionate and the woman turns and slaps the man across the fase. (although sue me the sound designer likes how real it sounds lol) but seriously, why is this ok?
stix
Nobody has a right to laser hand on anybody else, that’s called assault sister 
Little hunter frost
Moonwalker
Chrysalis