“The Right To Cause Harm”

It seems to me that in the last few years a theme has emerged: people demanding the right to cause harm to others.

In Australia in 2021 thousands of women marched against sexual harassment & sexual assault in the workplace and in life in general. I didn’t start the movement, but I joined discussions early on, and played a small part among hundreds of women organising around the country. At one point I was named the Canberra Co-ordinator for this "March4Justice" in a Facebook group, and was suddenly spammed with dick pics (all of which were brown, for some reason) and men messaging me to tell me that women deserve to be raped. Angry men messaged me that it was their right, & the right of men everywhere to rape women. It was horrifying. Disgusting. Outrageous!

What about the right of women to bodily autonomy? What about the right of a woman to choose how, when & who she shares her body with?

If women demanded the right to rape men, to forcibly penetrate their bodies with objects causing damage, would they shrug and say "it's your right"?

NO THEY WOULDN'T!

Also causing harm to women: some of the supposedly United States declaring abortion illegal, causing harm to countless girls and women through dangerous pregnancies, interrupted lives and worse: punishments for trying to protect their well-being.

The internet is a horrifying source of comments by people bragging about causing harm to children and declaring they will do more. This is absolutely unacceptable. If this is what is publicly declared, I don’t want to imagine the horrors that have happened in secret.

Similarly, the American pro-guns movement insisting that their right to have guns to cause harm to hypothetical people is more important than actual public safety, more important than innocent people's lives.

Only slightly less obvious is the demand for "freedumb" from wearing protection. Protective face masks to reduce the spread of a potentially fatal and disabling disease from spreading. Refusal to wear protective condoms which prevent disease and unwanted or dangerous pregnancies. “Stealthing”, removing the condom during sex without the consent of the partner, is an assault. It puts the partner’s health at risk.

More obvious are the misogynistic human traffickers, the child abusers, the rapists, the drug traffickers, the companies which pollute the environment - everyone who makes a profit from causing harm.

Where did this sense of entitlement to cause harm to other people come from?

I am writing this because it is a mindset that I cannot wrap my head around. How is it possible for someone to calculatedly WANT to cause harm to others, but worst of all to DEMAND that they be able to act on it!

More importantly: how do we shift this to people NOT being able to cause harm. How do we change the mindset from obnoxiously ignorant ideas like "be an alpha and subject people to abusive control"?

I have met far too many people who have some kind of mental problem causing them to want to cause harm to other people. People with a social circle full of people like them. A social circle with enough “respectable” people to cry “I know them! They would never do that!” People want to admit to their own poor judgement of character, of being close friends with an abuser, even less than they want to publicly admit being an abuser.

People who want to cause harm are those who will lie and stir up trouble, and take delight it in. They turn other people against their victims. This happens in Domestic Violence. Gaslighting. Child abuse. So many damaging behaviours! Perhaps we need a diagnosis and treatment for this?

How to we educate EVERYONE on the planet, starting with those who already have appropriate attitudes and don't cause harm, to act with the primary motivation of doing GOOD and not causing harm?

It's such a simple and basic concept to not hurt people. To be compassionate. To recognise everyone, not create "us & those who are less".

We can all say & do things to encourage those around us in the right direction. But the whole world? Convincing those who want to cause harm to change their attitudes and actions?

What will it take?