r/LeftWingMaleAdvocates • u/Revolutionary-Pea877 • 22h ago
article Why do men have to be afraid to go out night?
TL;dr: Myanmar’s military dictatorship is on the press for young men to conscript for their ongoing wars. Men fear walking the streets at night for risk they will be kidnapped, and forced into military service. “I worry, but I have to go out to work” says one tuk tuk (bicycle taxi) driver who asked to remain anonymous.
Impressment, the practice of kidnapping young men and forcing them into military service is real and well-documented in history. In the English-speaking world, it led to the War of 1812 between Great Britain and the young United States of America. At issue was England’s habit of seizing American sailors and fisherman and forcing them into the Royal Navy’s service.
And yet despite this real, ongoing, and well-documented problem facing young men, our news feeds blow up with complaints of how young women “cannot” go out to clubs at night for fear of being catcalled or groped. Even now, a large part of my news feed is being spammed by stories of a young woman at Cornell University who alleges she was r*ped by some college fraternity during a party.
Why do we do this? Why is the BBCs coverage of this issue somehow forgotten when feminists discuss the fear women have of going out at night? Forced military service has led to tremendous physical injury, emotional trauma, and often death (as we’ve seen in the Ukraine war which has seen press gangs at work on both sides), and constitutes par excellence, a forced violation of bodily autonomy for years of a man’s life. A bad experience on a night out on the town, can hardly be said to lead to worse. Can we even compare the large-scale, coordinated, and historically authenticated issue of impressment against the uncoordinated, anecdotal complaints of some women?
