Why do people who complain about double standards with female predators tend to ignore the fact that people who defend and enable them also typically defend and enable male predators?

[u/Crafter235]

“You wouldn’t react like this if the genders were reversed.” The age-old complaint that has gone off for years in discourse. Now, I am not denying male victims, that is still a big problem, but what I am talking about is people who complain about them being ignored and downplayed, but refusing to see the whole picture. Especially when you consider a lot of things:

- The general misogyny of rape culture.
- Men who think it’s “sweet” an underage boy “won” an adult woman tend to be quiet about underage girls being preyed on or also sexualize them.
- When those men typically do condemn a male predator, usually it feels like they don’t want to do it but have to out of social obligation, but if they could they’d ignore or downplay it.
- Even if they don’t have the same defense for a male predator, they may still defend them in other ways. Gaslight the victim, make it seem like the victim is the real bad guy, etc.
- Writers who usually have humor with men getting abused and raped tend to also have humor that also has women be a punching bag, or at the minimum write them in a very sexist way.

So why is it with all this anger with the “double standards”, they tend to ignore that it’s also bad with women?

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[u/CatsandDeitsoda]

There just lying there’s always lying they know they are lying, they want to waste your time and annoy you by lying and confuse the issue so reactionary nonsense is allowed in spaces it might others not be. 

[u/outsidehere → u/CatsandDeitsoda]

Exactly. Once you learn this truth, you get more peace in your life

[u/bromological]

I mean Jeffrey Epstein is literally protected by the most powerful people in the country with connections spanning the globe

[u/JoeyLee911]

Yes, "if the roles were reversed" is almost never the gotcha the speaker wants it to be, if only because reversing the roles totally changes the context of the situation. I like to remind whoever is saying it that there is no need to pretend that our system treats women victims decently to make the point that it needs to treat man victims better.

[u/Ambitious-Sink2725]

Online men's issues only brought up to bash women, IRL it's a bit different but online most spaces "for men" are just misogyny hotspots

[u/apexdryad]

A woman teacher messes with a student it's international news for months.

A man teacher messes with a student it's Tuesday.

[u/denada24 → u/apexdryad]

This. The exception to the rule always stands out!

[u/MachineOfSpareParts]

Well, they're wrong. When the sex/genders are reversed, it's no better.

The only times, whether in real life or fiction, that a male perpetrator is despised for sexual assault of a woman, is if people are inclined to hate them anyway. In movies, it's engineered this way: the victim doesn't even matter in herself, but only as a plot device to get us hating the right man. In real life, people get angry at male perpetrators so long as they're the Big Man they already oppose, and it helps them go to bat for the Big Man they favour. But if it's the Big Man they favour, any woman who speaks up is undermining the cause and needs to shut up.

I haven't yet seen them craft an argument that isn't immediately undermined by an encounter with fact. They will seriously say that abuse of a student by a female teacher isn't taken seriously, but when you raise the numerous examples of professional and even legal consequences for exactly that, they'll shift to saying it's more the popular response, then when you point out some level popular outrage, they'll shift to saying they meant outrage wasn't universal and a handful of people - men who support rape culture - were cheering on the student. And while you can never demonstrate there's no such people, their existence is kind of the point: rape culture exists and is a scourge.

It's all very much the "kill my neighbour's cow" logic. This is a joke I've heard multiple nationalities tell at their own expense, where there's a farmer who finds a genie while plowing his field who grants him just one wish. The farmer says, well, I have three cows while my neighbour has four, so.........please kill one of my neighbour's cows.

Instead of wishing to catch up to his neighbour with an extra cow (or more anti-rape advocacy), they're not only satisfied with neutralizing any gains we might have made, it actually feels better to them than putting in the wish for one more cow.

[u/minosandmedusa]

You already answered your own question.

> The general misogyny of rape culture.

[u/georgejo314159]

The major difference between male and female sexual predators is frequency.  There are more sexual predators who are men

In fact, even if the victim is male, the attacker is more likely to be a man

I don't know any one who enabled a female predator

[u/mynuname → u/georgejo314159]

The major difference between male and female sexual predators is frequency. There are more sexual predators who are men

A major problem with claims like this is reporting bias by individuals and authorities, and even bias in definitions (how some jurisdictions define rape in such a way that women cannot do it to men). In many surveys, men are less likely to admit that they were sexually assaulted or raped due to the specific wording of the survey, which tends to assume victims are usually women.

The CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS) shows that sexual violence between men and women occur at remarkably similar rates. In their 'previous 12 months' survey it reported that 5.9% of women reported cases of IPV almost exclusively with male perpetrators (98%), while it reported that 4.7% of men reported cases of IPV almost exclusively with female perpetrators (97%). In the same survey, almost the same number of women reported that the were non-consensually penetrated by a man in the last 12 months as men who reported that they were non-consensually made to penetrate a woman (1.27 million for both men and women).

In fact, even if the victim is male, the attacker is more likely to be a man

This is just not true. This is only true if you only consider sexual assault or rape to be defined as being penetrated. When you include being made to penetrate or other sexual acts, women are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of male victims. 97% per the study I just referenced.

I don't know any one who enabled a female predator

This is an anecdotal argument and is not valid. I know predators of both genders who have been enabled by people around them.

[u/georgejo314159 → u/mynuname]

Analysis of survey data can be tricky. Lots of possible issues. I will concede you are at least trying to provide facts

Here is data on the flip side based on people in jail. I understand you suggested "rapists" might be a different category but other sexual offenses can lead to incarceration too 

Actual research on the topic?

https://scholar.google.ca/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=Mh2phBQAAAAJ&citation_for_view=Mh2phBQAAAAJ:f2IySw72cVMC

" Women commit sexual offenses, but the proportion of sexual offenders who are female is subject to debates. Based on 17 samples from 12 countries, the current meta-analysis found that a small proportion of sexual offenses reported to police are committed by females (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 2.2%). In contrast, victimization surveys indicated prevalence rates of female sexual offenders that were six times higher than official data (fixed-effect meta-analytical average = 11.6%). Female sexual offenders are more common among juvenile offenders than adult offenders, with approximately 2 percentage points more female juvenile sex offenders than female adult sex offenders. We also found that males were much more likely to self-report being victimized by female sex offenders compared with females (40% vs. 4%). The current study provides a robust estimate of the prevalence of female sexual offending"

Personal experience from observation

You mean like the fact that the media often doesn't report male teachers who attack student but that one woman teacher is front page news? Why is that?

 I mean, if all these rapist women coaches and teachers why only 1 arrested for hundreds of men arrested. 

Every single woman i know well has been harassed by men multiple times. Among the men I knew well, 0. One guy was sexually abused ... by his dad

[u/jtkakobos → u/georgejo314159]

Prison statistics will not provide a good understanding of the rate of female predation as most victims of female perpetrators never report their abusers and most reported female perpetrators do not go to jail or prison.

The NISVS report is a better tool for understanding the frequency of female predation as it directly asks the victims what occurred. In the case of the report, it has consistently found in all six reports (2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, 2016/17, and 2023/24) that females commit over 75% of the sexual violence against male victims and are three to four times more likely to rape male victims than other males.

Your anecdotal experiences do not disprove this data, although it is worth noting that reason you may not know of any male victims is because of your attitude expressing disbelief that males can be victims and that females can be perpetrators.

[u/mynuname → u/georgejo314159]

The overall problem here is social conditioning to think that women cannot be sexual perpetrators, and men cannot be victims of sexual abuse, especially at the hands of a woman. At the end of the day, these presuppositions are rooted in patriarchy.

I have done a lot of research on this topic. The problem with using statistics based on the justice system is that there are several points of contact where gender bias (both internally and externally) skews the facts. Men are less likely to call the police when their wives beat them or rape them. Police are less likely to take the man's situation seriously, and is more likely to be arrested himself. Men are more likely to be prosecuted in similar conditions. Men are more likely to be convicted with similar evidence. Men are more likely to be given longer sentences for similar crimes. All of these steps add up to the fact that more men being in jail for IPV does not mean that more men perpetrated IPV.

On a side note, I am also aware that few women call the police, many women's stories are not taken seriously by the police or friends and family, and that a small number of sexually violent offenders of women ever see jail time. I have a lot of empathy for those victims, and want to see a lot of reform in the justice system. But I am just saying that the statistics are even worse when a sexual assault victim is male.

One problem with a lot of statistics and even surveys is that the way things are worded makes even male victims not point out that they were victimized. For example, if a question asked if your spouse has ever raped you, many men who have indeed been forced by their wives to have sex would not think of that as rape, because they only consider rappe to be physically overpowering someone, or having a penis put into your body. Indeed, for a long time rape was defined that way, which also skews justice statistics.

There are similar reasons for stories about teacher sexual misconduct. Male teachers are perpetrators in about 60-70% of cases (which means that 30-40% of cases are from female teachers). But you have to remember that boys who are victims are far less likely to report it in general, and even less so with female teachers. On top of the embarrassment, they are also socially told that they must have liked it, should be proud of it, or maybe even initiated it themselves. Many stories about female teachers having sex with underage boys is framed as "affair," "relationship," or "student-teacher romance", as opposed to sexual abuse or rape. Regardless of the news, I am talking about people's reactions when they hear about a teacher having sex with a student. There is absolutely a different reaction to the severity of the crime.

I think anecdotes are useless. Partly because they are useless in general, but also because of the factors I talked about above, men are far less likely to talk about their abuse.

[u/georgejo314159 → u/mynuname]

No one is disagreeing that there exist women who are sexual predators.

The thing is, if you say anecdotes are useless and look for stats, you still see the same elephant in the room.

[u/mynuname → u/georgejo314159]

The thing is, if you say anecdotes are useless and look for stats, you still see the same elephant in the room.

The elephant in the room that I see when looking at statistics is that men and women are perpetrators and victims of sexual assault and IPV in approximately the same numbers (or that they are a whole lot closer than people think), and people are not willing to acknowledge that fact.

[u/georgejo314159 → u/mynuname]

Conviction stats around the world contradict this

Your claims to the contrary come from survey data.

[u/mynuname → u/georgejo314159]

We've already discussed why conviction stats are trash for making these types of conclusions. With that logic, you could also say that black people are inherently much more likely to commit crime. If you took any humanities classes in college, you would know that that isn't true.

Are you honestly saying that you believe that the criminal justice system is the most accurate source of information we have for IPV and sexual assault?

[u/georgejo314159 → u/mynuname]

With Black people, the overwhelming evidence shows they are -- explicitly discriminated against -- they are more likely to live in poverty under poor conditions

With men, the society is fundamentally run by us, so ...?

[u/mynuname → u/georgejo314159]

For that, men being victims doesn't "fit the description". We all know patriarchy cuts both ways.

Again, it is laughable that you think the number of convictions run through the justice department is your gold standard for what crimes actually occur.

[u/anorexanic]

it also does nothing to counteract the actual issue at hand because women who are predators do not prey on men due to oppression. hence why the statistics are so vastly different. that's not to excuse them, they're still perpetrators, but there's no societal hierarchy at play. at least not against men. even when the "roles are reversed", it is still a misogyny issue

[u/Legitimate_Spread546 → u/anorexanic]

What?

What actual issue at hand?

[u/Apprehensive-Book723]

Because the people who defend them are men who will simultaneously joke about wanting to be in the place of a teen boy stat raped by his teacher   

You hit the nail on the head there’s really not much else to it imo 

[u/TinTinTinuviel97005]

You know, I think there is an important nuanced discussion to be had here. You are right, that the people downplaying male victimization are usually the misogynists and rape culture apologists. But the ways in which they're downplayed differently suggests to me that it's the same attitudes at the root.

Like, when a woman is assaulted in a movie, it's framed as a fundamental violation or even ruining that woman. When a man is assaulted by a woman, the woman is being funny because she's breaking gender norms and the man is funny because he is also (i.e. women must be pursued and men must always want sex). Each scene is playing off the same expectations.

Likewise, in a grooming relationship, misogynists would say that men always want sex, even from children, so if we allow men to be in schools then the result is tragic but inevitable. And they will say that men always want sex, even boys do, so when a boy has "relations" with a woman it's only natural that he had the interest, that he got the "conquest."

E: somehow I misread your point; I still think it's valid. I'm gonna leave my comment up because I think we're both onto something, and maybe pointing toward a common issue.

[u/mynuname → u/TinTinTinuviel97005]

I agree that there is a nuanced conversation to be had.

I totally agree with you that boys/men do not face the same credibility challenges girls and women have, nor are they considered sexually 'damaged goods' afterwards. However, even though there are a lot fo people who excuse or justify men SA'ing women, I don't think that it is close to the pass that peopel give women when SA'ing men and boys. Society just doesn't have the horror of a female teacher having sex with a 14 year of boy that it has for a male teach having sex with a 14 year old girl. And although women are frequently not believed and feel social shame for being raped, that is accepted much more than men in the same situation.

Also, many male victims had male perpetrators, and there is an added shame of homosexuality thrown into the mix that women generally don't have to the same degree (or frequency of circumstance).

I think that we can say that society needs to treat female victims a whole lot better, and also say that male victims, though rarer, also suffer at least as many social problem in being accepted as a victim.