Some thoughts on Paris

I've been trying to formulate some thoughts on the recent events in Paris and the following media tidal wave of articles, commentary, and editorials that have filled my social media news stream.  I've been encouraged by the fact that many people have been reaching beyond the mainstream news wire articles and have been pointing to the fact that the tragic events in Paris a few days ago were not the only tragic events in recent days.  What troubles me is that much of the discussion is centered on othering the people who have chosen to commit such violent acts as it does each time humans commit such large scale acts of violence against each other.

What I would like to say in the aftermath of all of these recent tragedies, specifically about the events involving human choices, is that the source of this violence is nothing we haven't seen before.  Recognizing that these people who have carried out these attacks as being people who do not represent any kind of majority is important but we have to be careful not to put them into a category that hints at them being unique, one-off extremists.  What must be in place for someone to commit an act of violence against another is a firm belief that what they're about to do is justified and okay.  To get there one must find a way to dehumanize the person or group of people they're preparing to commit the act of violence against.

Make no mistake, the ingredients of dehumanization and justification that motivated the decision making process for those who carried out the attacks in Paris, Beirut, and Baghdad (as well as for the many other violent acts committed that did not make the news) are also present in our own communities.  Those same ingredients are a factor when our government openly declares that an official inquiry into the missing and murdered indigenous women and girls is "not on their radar."  Those same ingredients are a factor when our media tries to place the blame on people of color who have been the victims of police brutality.  Those same ingredients are a factor when a judge openly blames a person who experienced a sexual assault that they're the one at fault.  Those same ingredients are a factor when our society as a whole believes that violence against women is "just the way things are."  Those same ingredients are a factor when People of Stature (professional athletes, actors, etc) are not held to the same level of accountability the rest of us would be.

Those same ingredients are a factor in every instance where one person is deciding to commit an act of violence against another.

The repetition is intentional because too often the link is not clear and putting theses kinds of violent acts into their own containers only contributes to a society that is tolerant of violence.  It is also important to be clear that this kind of dehumanization and justification does not just manifest out of thin air, it is the product of attitudes and beliefs that inform a persons world view as they come up and into their own sense of who they are.  These attitudes and beliefs are informed by a multitude of factors that include, but are not limited to, our peer groups, media, educational systems, the communities we're born into, our own degrees of privilege, our own willingness to self-educate, and so on.

My only ask here is that we all put energy into not only sending our positive thoughts to those who have recently experienced violence but into continuing that push to challenge and change the harmful attitudes and beliefs that contribute to the dehumanization of others.

So much for #safestampede

So I seem to be following rather decent people on facebook as I had to find out through someone else that apparently there's a video being shared around that depicts a woman and two men apparently having sex.  Since it's surfaced many people have been gleefully sharing the video and/or slut-shaming the woman in the video relentlessly.

If you're one of those people, congratulations, you're the worst.

There's many, many different things wrong with how this situation is playing out.

First off, we have no idea whether or not consent was given for any of the people in the video and I don't seriously believe anyone in the video agreed to be filmed or for it to be shared to facebook.  So, again congratulations, if you've shared or slut-shamed the woman in the video you've shared a video of a sexual assault or shamed someone for experiencing a sexual assault.

Of course it is entirely possible that everyone in the video consented to the experience, although I still don't get the sense they would've consented to being filmed or having the video shared on facebook.  If it is, in fact, true that there was consent and you're one of those people who have shared the video or slut-shamed the woman in it, congratulations: you're still the worst.  Thinking less of a women because she engages in sex with two partners is textbook slut-shaming and says more about you than it does about her.  Putting women's sexuality on a pedestal, creating some ridiculous notions of purity/virginity, and shaming them if they deviate in any way from our expectations is one of the ways our society tells women that their bodies are not their own and their sexuality is not their own.

How come you're not targeting the men in the video?  Why are they allowed to participate in something like this freely without criticism while you direct all your shame towards the woman?  If it's because you think it's okay for men to behave in this way and not okay for women to behave in this way, well then you're sending the message to men that they are not responsible for their sexual behaviors and that they have much more leniency when it comes to their sexuality.

If you've shared this video or slut-shamed the woman you're demonstrating why we needed something like #safestampede in the first place.  Sexual harassment and/or sexual assault have been stampede staples for a long time (well technically they've been staples of our society in general but that's for another time) and part of the reason we've come to this point is deeply connected to how society holds men and women to very different standards when it comes to sex.  From "boys will be boys" when people are growing up to slut-shaming women when they're older, we've routinely sent the message to male-identified people that there is a great deal they can get away with and that even if they do step out of line they're going to not experience the same level of scrutiny.

Those men people who chose to sexually harass or assault others during stampede that we have in mind when we tweet #safestampede are men people who have likely grown up with certain sexist views normalized and they've likely not been challenged on those views when they've expressed them.  Sexual harassment occurs because men people believe that women are dressing for them and, because of this, they feel they have a right to then comment on her body and dress.  Slut-shaming this woman validates the idea that women's bodies and sexuality are up for public scrutiny while their own bodies and sexuality are not.  We needed #safestampede because we didn't hold men accountable for their behavior and we needed #safestampede because of how women's bodies and sexuality are policed.

But now? After having engaged in some communal slut-shaming? Well, it'll be hard to take that hashtag seriously...yay us!

SCOTUS and Normalized Violence Against Women

"Because Eminem said it at a concert where people are going to be entertained..."

This reasoning just makes my skin crawl.

The Supreme Court decided to not to convict a man who posted threatening lyrics from singer Eminem on his facebook because they felt the standard to convict was too low, which gives us yet another example of how our society normalizes violence against women.  People have been critical of Eminem and his views about women for many years now and for good reason; the fact that he would write such violent songs about women and the fact that millions of fans would buy the albums already speaks volumes about how normalized violence against women is in our society.

But now, in this case, because some people find lyrics describing violence against women entertaining, the Supreme Court feels that they cannot considered threats and should be protected under Free Speech regulations.  While the man in question may not have said, explicitly, that the lyrics were in reference to his partner, the fact that he would post them publicly in the context of just having split up is troubling.

At least, it should be...

It's troubling because SCOTUS's invokes 'context' as a way to defend the decision not to convict when it's the context of where and when the man is using the lyric that they should be looking at.  The most dangerous time for women experiencing domestic violence is attempting to leave or immediately after having left the relationship, so for this man to be posting lyrics like this publicly has to, or should, be concerning.

Let me put it another way.

If a friend was posting lyrics that were about suicide, would we ignore them because songs are entertainment and there's no subtext to why someone would post lyrics like that publicly?

Music can be a powerful tool for emotional catharsis and there are a lot of feelings that people can have that can be addressed through listening to certain songs.  We all have songs in our music collection that are for very specific times in our lives when there's more negative thoughts going on than normal and we need a bit of extra help.  Internally identifying, validating, and naming those feelings through music can be a healthy way of addressing them.  But, if we start publicizing certain things it changes the context of the situation.  Again, if we consider the situation where someone is posting media that talks about suicide we'd start to get concerned about whomever was posting the material.

Whenever we make something public, part of our motivation is seeking validation for whatever it is that we're sharing; we're testing the waters to see how people feel or react to something that we think is important.  It can be normal things, like vacation photos, or it can be harmful things, like lyrics containing violence against women.  Now, not everyone who posts something alarming on facebook is guaranteed to act on them in every instance, but it should raise some red flags if we know that there's more to the story in terms of who is posting and it should tell us that there's something that needs to be addressed.

Sadly, though, this is a kind of chicken-and-egg example of normalized violence against women; if violence against women is so normalized that it can be considered entertainment, then it shouldn't surprise anyone that SCOTUS wouldn't identify it as threatening.

Linkage:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/supreme-court-elonis-facebook-ruling/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/supreme-court-facebook-threat_n_7470634.html

The discussion we should be having about Josh Duggar

I'm going to be upfront about something.  I had no clue who the hell Josh Duggar was or why everyone was talking about him until there was so many different articles about what went down that I could no longer ignore it.  The Learning Channel was something I stopped watching long before I gave up on cable television altogether so there is a lot that I've missed out on.

Or not, I suppose.

Combing through the various articles detailing the actions of Josh Duggar and the subsequent societal skewering of him, the family, the show, and TLC there's a major discussion that I feel is not being had.

Yes, Duggar's actions are not "mistakes."

Yes, Duggar's actions are criminal.

Yes, the fact that many rushed to his defense is a clear indicator of rape culture.

All of those discussions are good.  However, there is a major problem in how his choices are being talked about and the category of offender that he's being lumped in to.  For the record, I don't have a problem with him being labeled an 'offender' given that he's admitted to his behavior and the choices he made.

He also apologized and recognized how harmful they were...granted only in the context of how those actions could ruin his life, but I'll take anything I can get given the state of things.

The discussion that's not happening is that Josh Duggar is being placed into an 'offender' category, in addition to his religious background, that is starting to 'other' him in the sense that people are not feeling surprised at his actions.  Any time we talk about someone who chooses to abuse children terms are brought in that villainize them, which is a product of the human desire to inflict harm on those that we think deserve it.  The Duggar Family's bigotry makes the catharsis all the more sweet and makes it easier to think of Josh Duggar as a monster who deserves all the negativity we can muster.

However, by turning Josh Duggar into a Pariah we also turn his choices as well as the attitudes & beliefs that motivated them into a Pariah as well, removing them from our life experience.  Once we've done that it's easier to think of Josh Duggar as sick and twisted and his actions are equally perverse and horrific, which allows us to distance them from ourselves and our own actions.  I get the impulse, I share it, but this process is something we're going to have to get away from if we're ever going to start reducing the amount of sexualized violence in the world.

By distancing the attitudes & beliefs, including the behaviors they ultimately motivate, from ourselves we hinder our ability to figure out where they coming from and what is perpetuating them.  Josh Duggar is not a monster from another realm, he is a human that grew up in Western society much like millions of other people.  There is a case to be made for certain mental conditions that some people may have that mean they're attracted to children, but not all of these people choose to act on their desires.  The molestation term is being used in conjunction with Josh Duggar's actions, but regardless of whether or not he has a psychological condition his choice to commit abuse against multiple people is not a product of being unable to control his desires.  Josh Duggar felt that sexually abusing was a choice he was entitled to make; that the boundaries of another person were not worth respecting.  This entitlement is not 'monstrous' it's, sadly, an everyday thing.

From Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" to the rampant sexual objectification in movies and video games to Sebastian Vettel being a little disappointed there were no Grid Girls, society tells men that women's bodies are for their enjoyment.  Given Josh Duggar grew up in this world and grew up in a family who has traditionally divided gender roles that give more social standing to male identified people, his choice to sexually abuse five girls shouldn't seem that shocking.

Josh Duggar is an easy target: his family's bigoted views, his choice to sexually abuse young girls, and the fact he's part of a rather unorthodox family mean he's already 'othered' for a lot of people.  Make no mistake, Duggar should be held legally accountable for his crimes, but society is not gaining anything by vilifying the actions of a person who admits that what they did was wrong.  We don't get points for punishing the obvious.  We need to look at the less obvious, the parts of society and ourselves that are the source of sexualized violence.

Until the public outcry is as unified regarding Josh Duggar as it is about Formula 1 Grid Girls (or other normalized sexual objectification), until people are not willing to let professional athletes get away with sexual assault, until the majority of society stops dismissing Feminism, until we start believing people who have experience sexualized violence and not imply that they somehow brought it on themselves, until we recognize that violence against women should not have become a normalized experience, until society really starts looking inward and in places that are personal we're not going to get anywhere.

Slut-shaming and faux-pologies, newest superpowers for the Avengers...

You know, I really thought that with Joss Whedon at the helm of a major, AAA property with a cavalcade of Hollywood talent that we would see action/superhero movies begin to move in a more progressive direction.  At the very least I was hoping that some of what Whedon has been celebrated for saying in terms of his engagement with social justice issues would rub off a bit on some extremely privileged Hollywood actors.

I don't know why I thought this.

Naive optimism?

Probably.

I am legitimately disappointed but I'm not all surprised at the comments that were made by Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans about Black Widow; fictional or not, what they said was hurtful and the faux-pology did not help things.

For the record, I'm not the biggest superhero fan.  I did watch the 90s Spiderman and X-Men as a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nolan Batman Trilogy, and do turn to the marvel superhero movies now and then for a bit of brainless entertainment.  I do like big, overarching, consistent stories and the movies that have come out of the marvel universe have certainly been intriguing in that respect.  I was also very happy to hear that someone like Joss Whedon had been tapped to helm the movies that bring together several different stories and would appeal to a great number of people that probably were not part of the Whedonverse (Firefly, Buffy, Angel).  Joss Whedon isn't without his faults as he's certainly had some questionable and problematic engagements with Feminism and social justice stuff (the whole "why I hate feminist" speech comes to mind), but he's thrown support behind Anita Sarkeesian with regards to bringing more awareness to the harassment she's experiencing.  I also recognize that Whedon had much more flexibility with his own stuff than he does with something as long-established as marvel superheroes, but all of this amounts to nothing more than nice excuses for ignoring the lack of progress being shown.

Black Widow is the only Avenger in the current run of movies, apart from Hawkeye, to not have her own movie about her own adventures.  Moreover, from weird contortions that magically display Black Widow's butt and cleavage simultaneously to extremely sexist questions about Scarlett Johansson's underwear and diet, movie posters, costuming, and panel interviews have revealed all manner of systemic sexism directed at both Scarlett Johansson and the character she plays; she's even being left off of the merchandise for the latest iteration of the Avengers-Marvelverse installment "Age of Ultron."  And now we have some pretty standard slut-shamming coming from Johansson's costars to round it all out.  Awesome...

The usual script for this sort of thing is playing out as I write this: feminists are calling out the comment, anti-feminists/anti-sjws are whining that feminists are too sensitive or just don't get the "satire," fence sitters are, well, sitting quietly on their fence, and mainstream media outlets are rolling with the article in a non-committal way because they know they'll get a couple extra clicks for the next few days or so.  But here's why I'm writing something about this: representation matters.

For millions of girls and women who love comics the comic world, and greater geekdom, really sucks for representation; moreover, anyone trying to change it is subjected to a mob of hateful, ignorant people (who are mostly men, lets be honest here) who feel that sending rape and death threats to the change-makers is a good way to prove that there's not a culture of hatred and misogyny in the community.  Any representation that the millions of girls and women do get within this community is fraught with problems involving body type, sexuality, sexual orientation, objectification/sexualization, racism, and, in many cases, are only incorporated to supplement the story-lines of the white, cis-het, male heroes.  Finally, the representation is often an escape-hatch excuse for people that are actively resisting the efforts to improve representation in the greater geekdom.  It usually shows up like, "the comic industry isn't sexist because [insert name of one of a small number of female led comics] has her own book."

When Renner and Evans make comments like the one they issued the faux-pology for they directly contribute to the problem that girls and women are facing in the greater geekdom.  Their comments maintain the sexist status quo and validates the opinions of the hateful people sending the rape and death threats to those advocating for social change.  For many, what they said probably doesn't seem that bad considering other incidents; however, the fact that something like this doesn't seem like a big deal is part of the problem.

So I was just about to post this when a link to an awesome new tumblr came across my dash and it's in direct response to the comments that have come to light.  It's called #ProjectRomanoff and it's created by the Agent Romanoff fandom as a way to get some positivity going around the character they love, here's the first post:

"Okay all, so as I said last night, I think we need to get some positivity going in our fandom right now. Natasha Romanoff is a mutlifacted and complex character we have all come to love and I think, in light of what’s happened recently, we should spread that Natasha love. God knows I’m sure we all need it.

So I’m proposing #projectromanoff. Often times, female characters are sidelined as love interests, placed in male dominated spaces by their creators, and then blamed at their closeness with those male characters. For so many women, who find themselves in characters like Natasha, those criticisms are hurtful in the real world because so many of us have experienced them in our own lives. When characters like Natasha become the butt of sexist jokes, it can be exhausting for fans because those words hit so closed to home. So lets spread some love, not only for our fav ex soviet assassin but for each other. Tag your works as #projectromanoff, meta, art, fic, playlists, photosets, edits, anything you want, anything Natasha centric, and fill each other’s dashes with Natasha love! "

Sources:

http://www.themarysue.com/grossvengers-age-of-dolton/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chris-evans-jeremy-renner-apologize-791013

Power & Control

When this crime made it's way around the world a few years ago I had trouble processing the level of violence.  Now, one of the offenders is being interviewed about that event and I am once again struck speechless as a different level of violence is being directed at the victim of the crime.

Make no mistake, victim blaming is an additional act of violence.

Advocates working to end violence against women often talk about sexual violence as not being about sex or desire, rather the crime comes out of the realm of a need for power and control as well as a sense of entitlement brought about by unearned social privilege.  To commit the initial crime the men, in this case, would need to already have significantly harmful views of women, have justifications already formed in their minds, and only needed one additional factor to finally choose to commit such a violent crime.  As it states in the interview these men believed their actions were justified because, in their view, she was violating a social norm being out past a time they, and society, had set for women to be home by.

The recently released interview further elaborates on how these men view their own actions, the views they have of women, and that they do not feel any degree of remorse for the violent crime that they committed.  

"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy" - An attitude and/or belief about women.

"Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good." - Another example of their attitudes and beliefs regarding women.

"had a right to teach them a lesson" - A justification.

"She was beggar girl. Her life was of no value." - A justification.

Attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which are then used to inform the actions or behaviors.

It is important to point out that these kinds of attitudes and beliefs do not just manifest randomly and it is even more important to point out that the attitudes and beliefs that became justifications for actions are common in every community.  He very clearly draws a line between notions of "traditional" gender roles and the justifications he and the other men made for their actions.  Not every person out there who is invested in "traditional" gender roles is on the path to commit acts of sexual violence; however, it is important to point out that had these men been raised differently they might have not done what they did.

There is a similar parallel in all sexual violence cases: attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which guide action.  Harmful views about women and gender roles established early on, reinforced in various ways as men and women grow up, and, if left unchallenged, can become justifications for actions later in life.  This why we need to challenge unassuming aspects of rape culture; narratives like "boys will be boys," pieces of media that normalize violence against women, aspects of culture that enforce traditional gender roles, and so on.

I'm sorry to end on a note that isn't exactly positive, but I don't think it would be appropriate.  In this case to sanitize the message avoids the issue.  We have a problem in our society, we cannot dismiss it as a "one-off" random event.  We need to face it head on.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31698154

http://jezebel.com/delhi-bus-gang-rapist-mukesh-singh-blames-victim-for-fi-1688870998