Everyone's responsible for their own actions. Oh. Unless you have a penis. Then not you.

I've had several discussions and read several articles quite incidentally this past week or so that has loudly illustrated a rather depressing point: Men in our society (and more than likely the whole world) are consistently and thoroughly let off the hook when it comes to their character, conduct, and behaviour.  From the cop in Toronto telling a group of students that if women want to avoid being sexually assaulted they should "not dress like sluts", to the ruling in Thompson, MB that a woman's vicious rape was "a miscommunication by a clumsy Don Juan", women are constantly being held accountable for the actions of men.  Safety seminars and tips on how to avoid violence are constantly targeted at women: Don't dress a certain way, don't get sloppy drunk, never ever be alone out in public, etc.  How about occasionally throwing some advice then way of the fellas?  Maybe along the lines of....hmmmm.....don't rape people?  No means no?  A woman out dressed up and drinking is NOT, in point of fact, "asking for it"?  My cousin shared an article the other day about Joe Biden doing specifically this, and it was heartening to see:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0411/52773.html

It was heartening but notable because it's so rare.  Especially between men.  And this needs to change.  Men need to start being able to expect more of themselves and each other.  It was a man addressing the student's group telling women how to avoid assault, and a man ruling that another man wasn't a rapist but simply "misguided".  It's likely the power structure in our society will continue to skew male for decades into the foreseeable future, and if men are going to continue to run the power structure over 100% of the population, they need to begin trying to understand the half that's underrepresented.  With only 22% of sexual attacks reported to police, and only 4% of THOSE ever receiving convictions, either  swaths of women in our society are malicious liars that go to self-harming lengths to act out those lies to no result, or something needs to change.

"Look, the world gets an F in their treatment of women, but we (America) are getting a C-minus and we're bragging about it." - Mick Foley