According to recent studies, nearly 40% of male victims of sexual abuse and rape were victimized by women. “Unusual” does not appear to be the apt word. So while you state “we make an even graver mistake when we deny that men … can be victimized by asymmetrical sexual relationships” you unfortunately make that mistake yourself with the above comment. By repeatedly suggesting that women preying on males is extremely rare, you are implying that it never occurs, which is demonstrably false. As such, your post does more to silence male victims and further shame them than it does to shed light on their victimization or acknowledge it as equal to that of females.

My annoyance at the “men are victims too” campaign is rooted less in a denial of the fact that men can be hurt by women and more by the implication that the patriarchy is an unreal construct

That is an instance of arguing belief against belief. An atheist is probably going to treat Original Sin as an unreal construct because he does not agree with Christian theories. However, it would make little sense to disregard or ridicule an atheist’s concern for the marginalization and mistreatment of gays based on his unwillingness to accept Christian beliefs. Failing to agree with theories and belief systems does not mean that the veracity of a person’s concerns is lacking. Annoyance is also not a valid reason to dismiss a person’s concerns.

We male egalitarians definitely believe the latter; we don’t necessarily believe the former. Close to equal, perhaps, but I don’t know if any of us have made the claim that women abuse men “far more often than” the reverse.

And I agree with Mythago on the point that, regardless of which gender is propositioning which, the fact that one is in a position of mentoring/educating the other is what makes this inappropriate.

It doesn’t change anything else about my reply but unless there were mitigating circumstances Luke didn’t mention or that you didn’t relay (for instance he’d been accepted to grad school and their professional relationship was completely over) then… I still think his initial conversation should be cautiously amicable but if there’s any conflict at all he should consider seeking institutional support.

figleaf

The one… I don’t know if I’d call it good but maybe I’ll call it fortunate… thing about this role reversal is that it’s setting people back just enough to consider that such relationships *can* be walked back towards something professional, appropriate, and ongoing. Something that may have been lost when the discussion was only about older men and younger women.

It should not happen because this woman is his mentor. “The culture we have” is relevant to Luke’s feelings about the situation, not the obvious impropriety of inviting a mentee to your home and hitting on them.

figleaf

Cool, cool post. Also pretty cool that people are addressing issues you’ve raised without… too much immediate drift. I may seem to drift a bit in this comment but I promise if I do I’ll bring it back to Luke’s specific concerns.

Probably by complete coincidence I wrote a post last night on the structural complications of men-must-invite/women-must-invite. (Another blogger, Em of Em and Lo, wrote a post basically encouraging women to keep asking, despite discouragement, and encouraging men to consider a response other than “woah, she must be desperate.”)

Of course there’s a rather large difference between heterosexual women asking men out in a bar (with men “gatekeeping” their replies) and women professors asking male students. The first is a good idea. The second, while technically “gender equal” is, of course, inappropriate.

I think a lot of patriarchy (ok, or for skeptics what we *call* patriarchy) is wrapped up in the traditional requirement that men are allowed the power to initiate and women have only the “power” to reply affirmatively or, most of the time, to decline. One consequence is that the situation Luke has found himself in is rare.

But that patriarchy’s a real thing only *masks* that power is often situational/structural rather than innately gendered. In other words patriarchy has insured men generally have the keys, not that only men are capable of driving.

So. *If* women mostly haven’t been initiators (blame patriarchy) and if women mostly haven’t been in academic mentoring relationships to younger men, then…

Well, then a couple of things shake out. First, obviously, it was harder for both Luke and his mentor to recognize that what she had proposed was *really* inappropriate. Second, I get the impression that it made it harder for him to recognize that the same recourses (both informal and formal) are available to him that would be available to a young woman in a similar situation. And finally, should he raise the issue it might be harder for him to be heard correctly — either by her or his college — than it might be for a similar young woman. (No, *finally* it might be harder for his mentor to get a “fair trial” since on the one hand there are expectations that her gender doesn’t do that sort of thing but on the other hand there are MRA/what-about-the-menz types who’d foghorn it endlessly. And in either case she have trouble being listened to for the part she actually played rather than what everyone’s stories would be.)

I’d like to talk for a second about Placebogirl’s point and say that the situation for Luke might have been even more complicated had the age difference not been so great. Because as she points out we do have *some* narratives, mostly negative, about “desperate” older women falling “foolishly” in love with younger men. See the character Ruth in “Pirates of Penzance” who, from my perspective, isn’t even that old at forty-seven years. Anyway, had the mentor been in her 30s instead of 50s some of the other complications that have been raised here, like the expectation that men shouldn’t “turn down” sex, might have come into play such that he would have been spun longer by the power differential.

The one… I don’t know if I’d call it good but maybe I’ll call it fortunate… thing about this role reversal is that it’s setting people back just enough to consider that such relationships *can* be walked back towards something professional, appropriate, and ongoing. Something that may have been lost when the discussion was only about older men and younger women.

I’m not absolving *anybody* here, just saying that just as the heated attractions of those teaching and studying in a current course can fall back to normal when the course ends, so mentor/protege relationships that haven’t been egregiously manipulative can also be guided back to normal after an appropriate intervention.

—

“My annoyance at the ‘men are victims too’ campaign is rooted less in a denial of the fact that men can be hurt by women and more by the implication that the patriarchy is an unreal construct, and that women have just as much agency and possibility and safety (if not more) than men.”

Agreed. But over time, as gender and other traditional imbalances continue to normalize I’m hoping we’ll start seeing more use of the word kyriarchy — the generic term for abuse of any and *all* power differentials.

So. About Luke. First of all I think he’s doing the right thing by talking about what’s happened. And I think it’s *incredible* that he’s recognizing that if he stays in academia he too might have… well… innocently isn’t the right word but maybe unconsciously is… wound up putting a student of his own in the same position he’s in. But I think it would be good, *after* talking to others about it, to communicate clearly but without any sense of obligation to his mentor, to let her know that he’s conflicted, that he felt maybe the unfamiliarity of the gender switch distracted them from warning signs that would otherwise have been really obvious, and that while he’d like to continue working with her (it sounds like it is) that she has to exercise her own responsibilities.

Because the thing is his situation is *not* an oddity, it’s a *early indication.* She’s not the only woman to find herself in this position, nor is he. Instead similar dynamics are almost certainly happening elsewhere already and as gender becomes more power-normalized it’s definitely going to turn up more and more often.

At least until everyone recognizes that what’s going on and stops whistling “it can’t happen here.”

It would also be great if he, and ideally she, could to continue modeling an appropriate, non-galvanized approach to resolving the situation. It would help all kinds of people who find themselves in their situation. In both non-traditional power gradients and… perhaps in traditional ones as well.

figleaf