war on women
The motive for the assault remains a mystery
I've tried to blog about this twice now. I am nearly unable to think I am so mad. Don't like angry women? Fuck off and get the hell out. No unmoderated comments on this post folks. I'm not providing a forum for any man egos I might hurt or for any women who want to prove just how liberated they are by siding with their oppressors.
Every time I think of this, I cry.
It occurs to me that there are two very clear levels of reflection here.
One is deeper and involves the frequent questions that eventually come to mind when any atrocity occurs. Reaction on this level manifest in forms like: "Why do people hate so much?" "What moves someone to hate another group of people so deeply they would commit such horrific violence?" In this context, it would be absurd to wonder what Hitler's personal motive was, for example. We know enough to identify it as racism, antisemitism, hatred of Jews. To even say "Pathological hatred of X", unless "X" is "women", is just insane at this level. That kind of hate is always pathological.
However, when it's violence against women, we see evidence of another level of response. It is so common it almost entirely overshadows the deeper one. It is predicated on too many people having bought the myth of equality between sexes in this country, the myth that allows intelligent educated people to talk and write and publish about things like the "war on boys". From this level of ignorance, which seems like it should properly be called stupidity given the immediate and unavoidable reality of the situaiton, come the questions of motive. These quesitons are being published and republished, perpetuating an active denial of the facts of the situation.
"No motive yet known"
"Still no motive"
"We don't know why"
"I don’t know why he wanted to do this"
The simple and straight forward answer to the question of motive is hatred of women. It's oppression of women which is so ingrained in our society that it is not just condoned but promoted. It gives tacit and sometimes explicit approval for desires to commit sexualized violence and brutality on women. Don't like it? Does that bother your god damned "liberated man" "I'm not a feminist I'm a humanist" pollyanna universe? Hey, here's a page out of your book - Get over it. It fucking exists.
In a less wrong world, we'd see news blurbs like these:
"Yet another instance of gender motivate violence rocked a small community today..."
"Today's shooting is a reminder of the epidemic of violence against women in this country..."
"Reaction to Colorado shooting: Why do sexually violent men blend in? Are we a country of rapists?"
Instead of people sitting down and saying "hey what the hell is going on here with all the rapes and shit?" we have people who want to use the phrase "war on boys" when even the smallest bit of reparation is made or even token amends are attempted for the criminal inquality between the sexes in our society. So when your boys are lined up at gunpoint, taken hostage and threatened, systematically terrorized, sexually assaulted, and killed by a woman who has no other reason than a pathology that is so common she has apparently not stood out as having dangerous criminal intent prior to this act, THEN you can talk about a war on boys. Until then, SHUT the FUCK up.
2 comments:
Couldn't agree more.
I show a video in a class I teach that sums up your arguments in a very clever way. It's called "Tough Guise" and it's about violent masculinity. It works because the narrator is a big, very hetero-seeming, former football player named Jackson Katz.
One of the points he makes is that we gloss over the gendered nature of the school shootings and other male-on-female crimes. It's "kids killing kids" and "woman slain" rather than "boys killing kids" and "man slays woman." He points out, accurately, that if women were committing these crimes, you can bet we'd be asking what it is about female socialization that's at least partly responsible. But the fact that it's boys and men is taken as "natural" and not interrogated.
The visuals are really powerful. I recommend viewing it; I would expect that your university has it in its film/video library. It's produced by the Media Education Foundation.
I'm with you. It helps to know that I'm not the only one hearing the words that no-one says, much like what you mentioned on my post about suicide and it's languagelessness ...
This lack of language leaves the secondary victims (family of the dec.) and tertiary victims (all women) with unrequited, invalid grief. It takes a huge person to grieve healthily and completely for something that 'didnt happen'. This is why I like your post's samples of what should be said.
This is from a letter i wrote to a friend this week, in relation to my mum's suicide:
"I find the loneliness of losing mum this way to be the main unmoving problem. Every other element seems to evolve with each day's passing ... no one wants to look as suicide, not even for the sake of the healing of those left behind ... like the ones left behind are almost forced to be in denial like everyone else, denial of the violence and selfishness and illness. I've lost my dad already, and it was so different ... it's kinda wrong that dad's suffering has a place on the lips of those he left behind, but mum's suffering doesn't ... therefore simon and my suffering from when she was still living goes utterly untouched, forgotten, denied. "
This denial is like a moral/ethical crime. EG, mum's funeral had 1000 plus people present. I can count on one hand the number of her friends who have come forward to spend quite time with me and my brother and show REAL sympathy.
FEAR!! Why are people so afraid to see the TRUTH, fuck it?
Grrr.
Post a Comment