Thread by @DrJessTaylor

That anyone ever has to refer to their rapist as a woman is the ultimate form of gaslighting. What a disgusting and deliberately traumatic thing to do to someone who has been subjected to rape. Yet again, the feelings of male offenders above all else.

I saw another take on this the other day, where someone was arguing that those of us who use the phrase ‘VAWG’ or ‘violence against women and girls’ or ‘male violence’ are bigots & it’s a dogwhistle.

Millions of women and girls are killed, trafficked, raped and abused per year

Everyone knows who the main offenders are. Every police force knows what cases they are holding. They all know that the vast majority of victims are female (95%+) and the vast majority of suspects are male (99%+) - those stats are vital, and have been unchanged for decades

Globally, the pattern continues. It is one of the most solid patterns in offending that we have. In the UK, all rapists are male by legal definition. But even in countries where that isn’t the case, the global stats still put males as 97-99% of all sex offenders.

We cannot claim to be tackling misogyny & addressing VAWG whilst also eroding the definitions of what it means to be female and what it means to be a woman. Misogyny is the hatred & contempt of females. VAWG is the systemic violence against women and girls, predominantly by males

This is not offensive, this is basic descriptive words for things we need to be able to talk about. Males who rape children & adults are not women. This isn’t difficult. Further, why on earth does anyone care how they ID when they clearly used male power to rape other humans?

From an academic perspective, for those of you not speaking up or saying anything - you know full well that the stats, theories, attitudes, impacts, experiences and literature is sex-segregated and sex-specific. Male rape is discussed as different from female rape, for example.

We know that there are sex differences between males & females in victim blaming, rape myths, BJW, trauma, disclosure, acknowledgment, reporting, help seeking behaviour, family support, blame & self blame, offending…

What are you gonna do when those categories are erased?

Discard 70 years of excellent literature because it’s not inclusive enough?

Amazing to me that we have this concerted effort to blur the lines of woman and female, but no one is budging about issues such as domestic abuse against men, male rape, the abuse of boys - everyone knows what sex is then, don’t they? No effort to neutralise those issues.