I had a further exchange with David Wilson by email after these comments. Here it is:

“thanks for the comment but you have not approved it?
i don’t get it … whatever …
?
in any case?i see that you subscribe to the ideology of victimhood, nonsense, so be it, be well, David

“Hi David

The comments are automatically held over for moderation.? I get quite a bit of spam.

I am generally not a big fan of the notion of a victim but I just couldn’t think of a better term for what I was trying to express.

“ok then, really i would rather see exchanges like this published, email is ok but the benefit (if indeed there is any :-)) has to be in others being at least passively involved

camille paglia has set me to wondering about victimhood, she is more than a bit mouthy but makes some good points – it is almost automatic (for Canadians at least) to side with the underdog, when i saw George Weah vs Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf i assumed Sirleaf would win, it took another Canadian, Gwynne Dyer, to open the wide angle lens for me on that one

but … look man, this AIDS business is sexual, and it takes two to tango, dig it! or do you think that every case of AIDS is the result of rape? men have to be dying of it at about the same rate as women, if we daemonize the men and make all the women victims then i can’t see any way out of it that i am willing to contemplate, and ANYWAY such judgements as these are obviously divorced from any reality whatsoever, you seem like a smart guy, i hope you can fill in the holes in my sketch

be well, David.”

David has an interesting perspective. I wonder how applicable the principle is to South Africa where gender inquality is ingrained and often women don’t recognise the choice that they have?

I am hardly an expert on these issues and I am interested in anyone else’s views.