Women at Risk

[cally]

Women at Risk

I believe our culture accepts misogyny and that violence against females is celebrated in many films and music. This culture leads to men targeting women when their own lives are out of control. This op-ed in the NYTIMES expresses my view better than I can.


By BOB HERBERT
Published: August 7, 2009

"“I actually look good. I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me,” wrote George Sodini in a blog that he kept while preparing for this week’s shooting in a Pennsylvania gym in which he killed three women, wounded nine others and then killed himself.

We’ve seen this tragic ritual so often that it has the feel of a formula. A guy is filled with a seething rage toward women and has easy access to guns. The result: mass slaughter.

Back in the fall of 2006, a fiend invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.

I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar."

continues at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/opinion/08herbert.htm...

[saltpoint]

1. Make sure to read also readers' comments to Herbert's article,

a great majority of which are of the 'Great goin', Bob' variety, but a couple of which take him to task.

Herbert is a talent. He's off-target in this piece but is ordinarily terrific, especially on politics.

[Warpy]

7. Off target? He's directly on target in this piece

Violence against women and girls is deeply entrenched in this country. Mass murder of women and girls causes a blip in the news but little outrage. Men like Sodini are seen as only slightly aberrant.

One comment struck me as particularly articulate about this, "In my younger days, I certainly encountered men with that Sodini-like sense of entitlement, that notion that somehow women owed them love and sex, that if they couldn't win over a woman they desired, it was because she was being deliberately cruel.

"Invariably, there was something vaguely creepy about the men who complained that "women don't like nice guys." My friends and I could see that the so-called "nice guys" were "nice" only when they were putting on an act to ingratiate themselves with the object of their desire. In reality, they were self-centered, self-pitying, and lacking in platonic male and female friends. They didn't know the difference between a genuinely good-hearted nature and boring blandness. They claimed that women only liked "bad boys" or were rejecting them because of their appearance or lack of money, never mind the many plain-looking men of modest means have no trouble attracting women.

"They were deficient in emotional intelligence.

"I'm glad none of them had access to guns."

This article and this particular comment are holding up a mirror to our culture and quite possibly to you. If you don't like what you see in it, don't blame the mirror.

Change yourself and by extension, change your culture.

[saltpoint]

8. I cheer Herbert about as loud as he gets cheered on this site, and

that isn't often enough to suit me.

But I think he hangs his hat on the wrong hall tree in this piece. I hold with his few detractors in the Comments section this time.

[left coaster]

9. Well said!

[cally]

16. I agree that I found something vaguely creepy about the men

who claim women don't like nice guys. I've been married 26 years to a man and we have respect for each other. I think he's nice but he never whined to me that women prefer men who treat them badly because he knew I would take that as an insult to me to view all women as the same.

[Nikia]

35. I have a coworker like that

He complains about women who have turned him down. He was especially disturbed by being turned down by a fellow college classmate because "she wasn't really that attractive". He didn't seem to understand that even if she was the most repulsive looking woman on the planet that she still had a right not to date him.

[Heidi]

2. Recommended.

[left coaster]

3. This, right here, is the awful truth..

"I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar."


It's 2009 and the deafening silence continues.

[left coaster]

10. Like I said..

[seabeyond]

4. one of the best examples is generals daughter. i loved the movie. excellent movie. could on watch

once.

the scene where the actress ties herself down, to simulate the rape that had happened in the past was powerful. but what did hollywood do with it. drama, powerful, emotional.... they took that scene adn sexualized that woman to such an extent, oiling down her body and the angles of the camera, body movement, and here there is this powerful moment of her expressing the trauma of rape and director is sexualizing the simulated rape to turn on every male in the audience. it was so offensive and wrong.

[Deja Q]

5. Well, ask 30 million more out or buy a vibrator - don't shoot them for crying out loud!!

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[deep1]

19. Leftcoaster.......

But male bashing is ok, right? What about all the women calling men 'dogs, pigs, no good'? Why is that tolerated?


Why do people snicker when you hear about a crime where a man gets his penis cut off?

Double standards.............So many women want equal rights but want to be deferred to!

[cally]

22. Please stick to the topic...the post does NOT call men names

and we can discuss misogyny without bringing up whatever concern you have about women and what you infer women concerned about misogyny laugh or say.

[defendandprotect]

24. What is patriarchy . . . ??? Is it female-bashing, by any chance . . . ???

Challenging patriarchy is NOT male-bashing . . .

In fact, many males are bashed by patriarchy, but unfortunately too many males don't

understand that!

Where are females here or anywhere asking to be "deferred to" . . . ????

Talk it out . . .

[Darth_Kitten]

34. Oh, geez.................

Yes, you forgot how we nasty, uppity women get all upset and vicious when men open doors for us.

[ensho]

6. true

nt

[chrisa]

11. Sodini was a nutjob,

And hardly representative of men in America.

[left coaster]

12. You missed the point..

Sodini himself is not the major focal point of this news article, and discussion.. the acceptance and perpetuation of violence against women in American culture, is..

[AllieB]

14. It's a condemnation of the culture in general, not men.

So many men on this board jump to the conclusion that acknowledging violence against women is somehow bashing all men.

[Lorien]

29. Which is odd, because I'm white and I fully acknowledge the fact that racism

is alive and well in the US of A and must never be condoned or minimalized. The only reason for a man to object to such acknowledgment is if he's guilty of very bad behavior himself.

[Odin2005]

15. K&R

[City Lights]

17. K&R

We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.

[deep1]

18. I have some things to say..........

I am a woman, a black woman. You may think the following paragraphs come from a White Anglo Man, but it does not.


Reverse sexism against men is tolerated in this society over the past 20 years or so. Look at the commercials on tv and radio, where the husband/father is made to look like an idiot while the know it all wife/mother is so right. Does anyone ever wonder how this affects young boys? Hell the woman is always right, that is the message of these ads.

Girls are progressing in this country while many young men are left behind. When you disengage young men, more often, that leads to instability and crime. Look at the HBCUs, black women outnumber black men 3 to 1. It's not funny, boys are starting to slag behind girls in education.

I have three younger brothers, so yes I do care.

Reverse sexism is alive and well in this country and I am tired of this mantra of "men are so evil, women are so good". Someone has to speak up on this issue.

The sentences for women who commit the same crimes as men is much less severe. Why is it when a woman kills her husband it's championed, "Oh because he is a no good cheater", "he abused her" and all those other excuses and she hardly gets any jail time. Anything to justify his death!

Let a man kill a woman and he gets the book thrown at him.

Same thing with teachers who have sex with their students---female pedophile teachers are looked down upon less and given lighter sentences.

All this talk about the victimization of women, women have made great progress in this country. We have it greater than many third world countries in this world.

[Odin2005]

20. I'm a guy and IMO critiquing misogynistic cultural things isn't man-bashing.

The "Lazy husband" commercials are far less common then "hot chicks sell". Boys lag behind girls because it is far more acceptable for a girl to be "nerdy" then it is for us guys to be, and in fact that is the result of misogyny as well because us nerdy guys get demeaned as "girly men", equating intellectualism with lack of masculinity.

[deep1]

21. Point well taken........

however, I find the lazy dumb husband commercials offensive and not funny. The jokes are so tired. If you want to advance the rights of women, why feel the need to tear a man down? That is my problem. Why bash one in order to lift another? Respect is mutual.

Unfortunately, some guys do feel that getting an education is feminine which is sad, but that has hardly been the case for a long period of time. Many educators often ignore young boys especially the ones of color which may lead to a disengagement in education, thus leading to a life of crime.


I know I go against the grain of the majority of women, since I'm female myself, but in this country, women live in better conditions and have opportunities far more greater than their sisters in many other nations.

And btw, alot of people who get in the way of other women's progress are women themselves. Women are so jealous and catty with each other and that is a problem, "Oh she thinks she is so cute", or "Oh she is such a bitch, how did she get THAT job, by sucking you know what?"


Sometimes women are their own worst enemies........

I am definitely not trying to troll because I have been lurking these boards for a long time and I enjoy the topics. Sorry for the rambling, but this is one issue that is bothering me.

I'm probably getting too off topic.......

[REP]

23. Love your anecdotes. Too bad they're not data or anything.

Keep on fighting for the man!

[defendandprotect]

26. Too often males are killing females . . . that's female-bashing at the least . . .

LET'S DEAL WITH THAT -- !!!

And btw, alot of people who get in the way of other women's progress are women themselves. Women are so jealous and catty with each other and that is a problem, "Oh she thinks she is so cute", or "Oh she is such a bitch, how did she get THAT job, by sucking you know what?"

R E A L L Y . . . !!!

And that's intended to be helpful . . . and it's not female-bashing???

!!!

[Merlot]

31. Most of those "lazy dumb husband" commercials are written by men

in ad agencies. They are then approved and purchased by men who run the corporations. Why you would think women are behind those ads is a mystery.

Also, the dumb man/smart woman combo we see so much in sitcoms is targeted to appeal to men. The messages is that they can be loud, dumb, and rude, and beautiful intelligent women will "put up" with their behavior.

I don't watch those shows, and am very put off by the dumb man/smart woman scenerio. But I don't see it as man bashing, I see it as accepting bad behavior.

There are studies that show that in high schools, boys get much more attention from educators than girls do.

As for women being their own worst enemies, sometimes that is true. But to often it is the result of women having fewer opportunities and less pay and facing more discrimination. So they feel there is less opportunity to go around and are very competitive. Also, the bashing of women in the work place is very common by men, so a lot of women feel that it's ok to bash women as well.

[eridani]

32. Yes, and the reasons women live in better conditiions is because our mothers and grandmothers

--actively fought for those conditions.

[defendandprotect]

25. Isn't this what the right wing said about civil rights for African-Americans???

bashing-whites?

A movement engineered by communists?

We are still living in patriarchal times and challenging and questioning patriarchy

is NOT male-bashing!!!

[Lorien]

28. Well said. nt

[Name removed]

27. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Merlot]

30. Agreed. Good point.

[AllieB]

33. I've seen it also. It's very shocking.

[deep1]

36. Women at risk not as you think........

Regarding assertion that abusers pick on weak victims -- its been my experience this is true in only a minority of domestic violence incidents (and these tend to get the majority of the media coverage). When I was working as a public defender I was assigned to domestic violence court -- the job no one wants.

After reading hundreds of domestic violence police reports and interviewing innumerable participants and witnesses I've come to the conclusion that in the majority of domestic violence incidents the FEMALE actively participates in the violence (these everyday DV cases don't make the news).

Of course the men are arrested and prosecuted more often for several reasons:

First, women are much more likely to call the cops when they're pissed off at their significant other.

Second, when the cops show up they are more likely to determine that the man was the "primary aggressor" and arrest only the man (for some reason they often ignore obvious defensive injuries on men (i.e. scratch marks on the arms).

Finally, if the cops do arrest both the male and the female the Deputy District Attorney's who review the cases often file charges against the man only. All-in-all a year in domestic violence court lowered my opinion of many women as much as it did men.

I am sorry, I consider myself a progressive, but I refuse to follow the 'women are victims, men are evil aggressors' misandry that populates far too many people's minds. I am not specifically referring to anyone on this board.

And I would not compare this situation to the civil rights struggles--that's like comparing apples and oranges. Many WOMEN (white) were jumping at the chance to string up and murder black people---just look at that infamous 1930 lynching of two black men in Indiana and you will see the faces of women salivating at their brutal deaths. Yup, a man told them to watch, right?

As far as those commercials being produced by men, well perhaps many of them do this as to not offend feminists jumping down their throats!

I've said more than enough on this thread, I would probably get banned for not catering 100% DU ideals and would probably get called a female penis envying Judas, but I could care less.