In 2013, Professor Fiamengo wrote a very telling article on how feminism pushes the belief that the only pain that matters is women's pain, and the highlights the double standards that plague the movement.
She mentioned a light hearted moment at the opera where humour is happily tolerated by both sexes when the subject of the mocking is a man, but questioned if this would be equally accepted if the subject was a woman.
"Please silence anything in your possession that may be annoying to those around you. That includes cell phones, other electronic devices, your husband …"
Personally, I would not be offended by that joke, I'd smile and move past it, but if I stopped and considered the alternative, "your wife", would I still want to laugh? (yes) Would the audience still laugh in the same way? (probably not) Would I be sneered at for laughing - or worse? (probably) Would there be complaints? (absolutely!)
The article moves deeper into this double standard that is either deliberately ignored by feminists or a double standard that they are proud to not only enforce, but openly defend. Professor Fiamengo examines the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign in Canada, an anti-rape campaign by a coalition of women’s groups in conjunction with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which met with general approval in the mainstream media. Men’s Rights Edmonton countered this with their own "Don't Be That Girl" campaign, which was an anti-false rape claim campaign to address this important issue facing men in Canada, but this was met with outrage and criticism of the movement. Professor Fiamengo explains that "the difference in the posters’ reception tells us a good deal about the enormous social power of the woman as victim theme in Canada today" and that "the pervasiveness of feminist ideas about female innocence was vividly on display".
"The poster campaign is unsettling for its insistence that no matter what a woman does—no matter how careless and irresponsible—she is always innocent".
The article quite succinctly explains that taking personal responsibility is seemingly not required for women in the situations depicted in the "Don't Be That Guy" campaign. Instead of encouraging women to take sensible measures to avoid being in such scenarios, it ignores that entirely and places the responsibility purely on men who may be in the vicinity. But even worse than that, it describes the practise of encouraging women to take responsibility for their safety as misogynistic.
"Just because you regret a one-night stand … doesn’t mean it wasn’t consensual." is the message that Men’s Rights Edmonton expected its campaign would deliver, but it was criticized for making rape a joke, yet it was not about rape at all. It was about false charges.
This led to a further assumption in the community that women just don't lie about such things. This has been proven wrong, and even withstanding that, it is highly naïve to assume all women are always honest about rape accusations.
Enter Karen Straughan. She cited the case of Soner Yasa, an Edmonton cab driver who was saved from a false allegation only by the camera in his taxi, which proved his accusers’ story to be a vindictive fabrication.
Professor Fiamengo also provides three examples of crimes in Canada where women had dodged criminal charges by claiming to have been victims of unsubstantiated abuse, and all received reduced sentences or, in Doucet’s case, no sentence at all because of the credulity of justice system officials about female victimization.
* Karla Homolka, who participated with her husband in the sexual torture and murder of her sister and two girls whom she lured to their home.
* Allyson McConnell, who drowned her two sons in the bathtub after her husband left her.
* Nicole Doucet, who hired a contract killer to murder her husband.
The "Don’t Be That Girl" campaign message was simply, both men and women commit crimes, and men are tired of being singled out for condemnation while women’s culpability is denied. Many crimes and social problems that are often targeted by posters (fetal alcohol syndrome, home invasions, shoplifting) that involve groups other than white men, never receive such defamatory attention.
Professor Fiamengo goes a bit further in questioning the double standard and unfair targeting of white men in these situations, and this is still quite prevalent in Australia a few years since its publication.
"Can you imagine "Don’t be that Muslim" in a campaign about Islamic jihad? Or "Don’t be that Aboriginal Mother" in a campaign about fetal alcohol syndrome?"
I agree with Professor Fiamengo that critics would claim that "an entire group of people was being unfairly targeted for the actions of a few and in a manner more likely to induce public humiliation than behavioral change. The same is true of the image of white men promoted in "Don’t Be That Guy," and yet men are not even allowed to say so without incurring further outrageous accusations".
Hats Off to Professor Janice Fiamengo, keep up the good fight against those aggressive and ignorant feminists.
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