John Cleese urges St Andrews students not to elect Q Manivannan as rector : unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

[–] CedricWhaley@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 3 weeks ago

in the running to become St Andrews rector alongside Brian Baumgartner - best known for playing Kevin Malone in the US version of The Office

That's definitely not where I thought the article was headed.

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[–] Wimopy@feddit.uk 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (6 children)

The Edinburgh-based former writer and academic said there was a "myth of the monster rapist" and "a demonisation of rape in the sense of it is a spectrum".

They continued: "It is a spectrum, none of which is any less or worse, but it is a spectrum of things that constitute one homogenised word 'rape'".

Manivannan went on to argue that the idea of a rapist as a "big burly man" was understandably a source of fear.

But the MSP told Rajasekaran that "any individual is capable of rape, including yourself and me, and I think that scary thought is the hardest to contend with".

Source: BBC

Delicate topic that requires more careful wording, but to me it doesn't sound like they were intending to downplay anything. That is also the claim made later during their apology.

I wonder if John Cleese - who has in the past few years gone down the rabbit hole of becoming a pretty hardcore right-winger and JK Rowling/transphobe supporter, - might be a bit prejudiced against Manivannan. I also wonder why his recent history is not brought up in the article. ~~Why is he even relevant to rector proceedings in a Scottish university?~~

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[–] aramis87@fedia.io 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 child)

Why is he even relevant to rector proceedings in a Scottish university?

As mentioned twice in the article, Cleese was himself a rector at that very University.

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[–] Wimopy@feddit.uk 7 points 3 weeks ago

Ok, that's my bad. Commenting after being unable to sleep much overnight leads to mistakes.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 2 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I understand what he is trying to say I'm just unclear about what point he's trying to make. I don't think any one was under the impression that you have to look the part in order to commit the crime so I'm not really sure why he's bringing it up.

Also I'm confused what the "it a spectrum" comment is about, is he perhaps trying to conflate stalking with rape? If so I don't think that's a helpful thing to be doing. It's very useful when a crime has a very explicit very limited definition and then other crimes that may or may not be related to it can have their own definitions.

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[–] Wimopy@feddit.uk 5 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I don't want to put words in their mouth or explain away what they said, so I will quote Wikipedia:

They said that their reference to the demonisation of rape concerned stereotypes surrounding perpetrators, arguing that rapists did not necessarily conform to a particular image and that such stereotypes could prevent victims from being believed, going on to explain that their reference to a spectrum concerned what they regarded as narrow legal and societal definitions of rape and sexual violence.

Which is based on a Telegraph article:

“The point I made about demonisation was that not all rapists fit a stereotype, and that all kinds of men can and do commit it.

“The vast majority of sexual violence is from men who the victims know personally. Victims should be believed regardless of who the perpetrator was, and rapists should be punished in the strongest terms.

“When talking about a spectrum I was making the point that laws often take a narrow definition of what rape and sexual violence is, which often allows it to continue without consequence. A full viewing of the interview clarifies this.

“In a country where rape has the lowest conviction rates of any crime, and reoffending continues, this is an urgent and important conversation we need to have in Scotland. Any suggestion that my statements minimise or excuse rape or sexual assault are deeply false and misleading.”

My personal impression would be this is getting at things like marital rape, but it's not clarified further here, and I don't have time to watch a full interview.

At face value though, all I get from this is they didn't mean anything malicious and they are definitely not a rape apologist, which is what a lot of the discourse around the topic seems to suggest.

As a side note: they are non-binary and use they/them pronouns.

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