Your systemic sexism is showing: why no one is defending MLA Deborah Drever

[Author's note: the article contained herein does roll with a very gender binary based theme and I should point out that any of the issues that I've listed here as being problematic for female-identified people are often magnified for anyone who falls outside of traditional binaries regarding gender or sexuality or who is non-white]

A favorite anti-feminist argument is often made that since there are female-identified people in positions that were traditionally held by male-identified people and that these positions happen to be powerful ones, feminism's cause is long over and activists should just shut up already.

Unfortunately, a lot of the people that make this argument don't take an extra moment to listen to the feminist rebuttal which states that just because women are in positions of authority, it doesn't mean that issues of systemic sexism are solved.  There are countless articles, books, blog posts, and so on that have been written by feminists who are trying to call attention to the more subtle forms of systemic sexism that face female-identified people in certain fields.

In video games and the tech industry, there's rampant entitled misogyny that can make work environments, cons, expos, and just the everyday experience feel extremely unsafe for female-identified people.  There are many examples of attempts to call out these attitudes being met with an extremely hostile and violent defense, which often conclude with some statement claiming that this is just the way the industry is and you either put up with it or quit.

In the business world, women's bodies, family aspirations (if any), and professional aspirations are heavily policed.  From archaic sexist notions around birth control coverage and maternity leave in the United States to the whole concept of "Having it All" only ever being applied to female-identified people pretty much globally, female-identified people are routinely made to feel unwelcome; often shamed/encouraged to have children, but rarely given support to do so.

Finally, and here's the main focus of this post, in the political world female-identified politicians are likely to be analyzed/scrutinized on their appearance, emotional demeanor, and personal history.  When Allison Redford was found out to have been misusing tax payer money Albertans were, understandably, frustrated and many people rushed to criticize her and her choices.  While her actions were certainly worthy of criticism I felt the type and amount of criticism failed to match the crime; Redford wasn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, politician to misuse tax payer funds.

Now I'm not a PC minded person and I have to admit I experience a dash of schadenfreude when politicians of parties I don't align with screw up and are lambasted for it; however, even in situations where I don't particularly like the person or what they said it seems society really lays into female-identified politicians when they mess up.  I'm thinking specifically of a comparison involving, say, Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin as compared with Rand Paul or Todd Akin (funny sidenote: I couldn't remember his name so I typed "legitimate rape guy" into google and got his name).

For Bachmann or Palin, there is almost a consensus when they screw up and it is far less likely that people would be willing to forgive or make excuses for their actions; moreover, there is a greater likelihood that society will start dredging up every other mistake and screw up Bachmann or Palin made, further lambasting their character.  Whereas for Paul or Akin, while the feminist/social justice community will remember their actions, there is a far greater likelihood their actions with be either forgotten, ignored, or excused with the likely claim of whatever it was they said/did being "taken out of context."  For the record, it is a frightening thought, for me, that any of Bachmann, Palin, Paul, or Akin have, or have had, political power.  However, I can't help but notice the different ways they end up being treated in society.

Now I am a bit biased in the sense that I do happen to consider politicians to be people (they are, seriously, go look it up) so I'm always willing to give them a bit of wiggle room in terms of their ability to move through the world and make decisions.  Given that I accept that they are people and given that people are imperfect, one must expect the odd screw up here and there and be willing to forgive on a case by case basis.  In fact, a screw up here and there is likely to make me more interested and sympathetic towards the politician and make me more likely to believe stuff when they say it; I am far more interested in hearing a person's opinion about a policy than I am hearing a political parties position parroted through a human shaped puppet.

So how does MLA Deborah Drever factor in.

Well, I'm seeing the same trend that I saw with Redford; she's being lambasted by the media from all sides, she's been suspended by her party, constituents are crying for a recall option to get her removed from office, and she's being tasked with "making it up to everyone."  As with Bachmann, Palin, or Redford, I doubt she'll ever be able to make it up to people because people are already campaigning for her resignation from political office altogether.  Hell, even after Redford had resigned from political office in disgrace I remember seeing continued criticism of her life well after the fact.  The fact that we linger on female-identified politicians indicates a subtle, yet powerful, systemic misogyny that is in play in our daily lives and probably effects each of us regardless of the state of any progressive mindsets.

There have been male-identified politicians who have made homophobic comments and who were removed from office or encouraged to resign, but society didn't linger.  After the customary attempts to ensure people that whatever it was was "taken out of context" failed, the media and community at large concluded that the next reasonable step was to get them out of political power.  I would say that Deborah Drever's comments were on the same continuum of homophobic comments, but I would not say that they were coming from the same place and with as much systemically instilled hatred as other comments.

Yet, no one rushed to convince people that Drever's instagram was "taken out of context."

In fact, many rushed to drudge up every other questionable piece of her social media, cathartically critiquing each one.  Moreover, she's been made to apologize for each and every "mistake" as society lingers on her faults, savoring each moment.  And finally, to complete the catharsis, polticial analysts are now suggesting:

"The controversy around Deborah Drever has shown that, going forward into the digital world, politicians will be under a lot more scrutiny online.  Political scientist Melanee Thomas says that it will only become more vital as representatives are younger."

To which I can't help but ask: what was so unique about Deborah Drever that only now will "all" politicians be under more online scrutiny? And what's with the shot about younger politicians?

I have a real problem with this negative fascination with young politicians and the idea that they're somehow inferior to the "experience" of older ones; that "young people" don't know what they're doing if they're doing something other than what the older generations want them to be doing.  Are we really suggesting that dumb decisions become more understandable or worthy of our forgiveness the greater the time difference is between when the decision got made and when the person decides to run for office?  If Deborah Drever was 36, instead of 26, would we not be having this conversation?  Or is 46 the magic number? 47? 50?

Moreover, I can't help but wonder about the male-identified MLAs.  Are we not talking about their bad decisions and how young they are because they haven't made any bad decisions and youth doesn't negatively impact them in the same way it does for female-identified people?  Or are people just not inclined to look because it feels "normal" to have male-identified politicians so there's no need to search for something to undermine their character?

Food for thought.

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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.

Fun with analogies! A Bill C-51 approach to bike safety!

I don't like head injuries.

My friends don't like head injuries.

The NHL doesn't like head injuries. (or class-action complaints for that matter)

Head injuries, quite generally, do not have the greatest reputation of being very fun.

Naturally, wherever there are situations where there is a chance one might experience a head injury there are often measures put into place to avoid such an experience; one such famous and beloved measure to preventing a head injury is known as a helmet.  Helmets come in all kinds of sizes and shapes and can be found in may different contexts: construction sites, hockey, american football, biking (motor and human powered), and so on.  For the purposes of this particular analogy I will be rolling with the biking context (again, either motor or human powered) and I will be applying the Bill C-51 logic to bike safety.

From the moment where the ability to operate a bike first comes into our lived experience we're taught to wear a helmet to avoid experiencing a serious head injury; for many this was explained through fear as we watched many a video of unfortunate watermelons having rather explosive interactions with pavement.  With a healthy dose of fear most of us grabbed a helmet and then set out to experience what it was like to operate a vehicle with only two wheels.  Everyone seemed to have a pretty good understanding of what the helmet was going to provide for us and wearing one didn't mean we went around with a perpetual fear of potentially needing to use it.  Biking is risky and while a helmet may prevent the worst of the worst, there is still a chance that one might experience a rather serious head injury as we meander about.

However, despite the risk, many did and many do make the choice to operate bikes on a daily basis; millions of people, in fact, engage with bikes accepting the reality that there is still a chance they might come to significant harm while operating one.  Helmets are also thought to be good things to have, even though they are not guaranteed to make one invulnerable to harm.  We take advantage of a freedom that's available to us, accepting the fact that while we can reduce the risk of significant harm, we're never completely guaranteed to prevent harm from ever coming to us.

Our illustrious government has other ideas about bike safety.  Our government is very afraid of head injuries, more so than your average bike operator.  They are so fearful of head injuries while operating a bike that they have become fixated on the chance that a head injury might occur even while wearing protective equipment.  Exactly why or how they've become to be so paranoid about the potential for head injuries is anyone's guess; however, they have come to the point when they are desperate to convince the rest of us that their fear is justified and they are going to extreme lengths to do so.  Much like the traumatizing videos of happy watermelons meeting an early demise, the government has been stirring the pot when it comes to head injuries by cherry-picking evidence about the prevalence of them.  They're at a point, now, in their propaganda where they're even suggesting that one might experience a biking head injury completely out of the blue or even just randomly experiencing a head injury.

Helmets are no longer adequate.

More extreme measures are required.

So, the government puts into place Bill C-51 to improve bike safety for all Canadians.  This bill gives them the power to intervene in citizens lives whenever they choose should the government feel that a potential head injury is remotely possible sometime in the very near future or sometime in the very far future.  For individuals deemed at risk of experiencing a bike related head injury the government is prepared to confiscate their bike, helmet, riding paraphernalia, and anything in that person's life that may lead them to think about engaging with a bike.  By preventing these individuals, and applying the regulations broadly, from experiencing a bike related head injury they are, subsequently, making it safe for the rest of us to not experience a bike related head injury.

Well intentioned? Perhaps.

Practical? Hardly.

One cannot monitor every single person in this country for bike related thoughts.  The government has to know this.  So the only result of such an over-reaching and impractical bill is for the government to become hyper-vigilant when it comes to putting this bill into practice.  Will it prevent bike related head injuries?  Well if you don't allow anyone to ever do anything related to bikes ever again, remove all mention of bikes from history, and discretely eliminate anyone who has heard, knows, or is aware of the existence, past or present, of bikes then...yes, you will prevent all future instances of bike related head injuries.

Bottom line is this: If you want to have a country where the people are, generally, free then you have to accept the risk that some will find a way to exploit the system.  You have to accept the risk that despite your risk reduction tactics, you may still find yourself in a harmful or hurtful situation.

If, however, you are NOT interested in having a country where people are, generally, free then, by all means, impose blanket restrictions on the people, reducing their freedoms to the point where every second of their lives is controlled by you.  Just don't sit there and try and tell us that this is actually "for our own good" and is really all about "protecting" freedom.

Post inspiration/source: http://thinkpol.ca/2015/05/09/supporters-publicly-abandoning-liberal-party-over-trudeaus-support-for-bill-c-51/

Entitlement and Sexualized Violence

As activism moves forward trying to raise awareness about sexualized violence you may have heard people talking about sexualized violence not being about sex or desire, but being about power & control as well as a sense of entitlement held by an offender.  There have been a few metaphors or analogies that people have turned to in an attempt to make the concept more accessible to those who have not challenged themselves to think differently about sexualized violence.  A popular one is making it's rounds on twitter and tumblr where the author suggests that if you hit someone with a spade you wouldn't say that the person was gardening.  A similar analogy would be to make the point that if one person hits another with a baseball bat, you wouldn't say that they were playing baseball.  In both analogies, you would say that the person who did the hitting committed an act of assault.

Sexualized violence can, and should, be viewed through the same lens in that what occurs when someone chooses to commit and act of sexualized violence they are committing violent assault, not having sex.  The distinction is important because it reflects what is actually going on and it puts the focus on to the violence of the act.  When acts of sexualized violence are framed in terms of sex and/or desire it minimizes the impact on those who experience it, sets up a situation where the survivor/victim can start to blame themselves, and creates a situation where the offender is less likely to be held accountable for their actions.

When someone chooses to commit an act of sexualized violence they are exerting their will (power & control) over another human being because they feel that it is their right or that the act is something that's owed to them by the person they've targeted (entitlement).  This is not a decision that gets made randomly nor is it something that is as accidental as, say, stubbing your own toe.  Part of the reason feminists and allies call out sexist media, which the uninformed public usually fails to see the importance of, is that they're trying to call attention to the fact that sexist media is one of the factors that influences the development of our attitudes and beliefs.  When a rape joke goes unchallenged on a regular basis, or many different pieces of media make rape jokes, it becomes normalized and soon becomes something the majority of people mistakenly accept as something that is "just part of life."

Moreover, negative attitudes and beliefs about women have been long established in society, which means that by the time someone is exposed to a rape joke they may have already developed some negative views about women in the first place; usually these pre-established beliefs are instilled in the home by parents and other family members.  So because people are growing up in a society that has accepted violence against women as normal and that when they engage with the world they see media that seems to reinforce this concept any negative attitudes and beliefs are further solidified.

Once something like this has been accepted as "fact" then it becomes part of their worldview and or own worldview is a major tool we use to move through our lives and helps us interact with the world.  If a person has negative views about women, for instance (this process shows up in other areas as well: racism, homophobia, etc), and they've incorporated this into their world view then it gets much easier to engage in more overt negative behavior towards women.  And, unfortunately, the easier it gets the easier it will be for the person in question to engage in the behavior more often and, the more often they engage in said behavior the easier it becomes.  This is the point where entitlement starts to creep in.

Now, how this entitlement comes into play is a very complex and there is a great deal to unpack, but for the purposes of this article I want to focus on three specific factors:

1.  No one has challenged the person's behavior

2.  The person has had their attitudes & beliefs validated on a regular basis

3.  For cis-males, their male privilege has further contributed to the entitlement as they've been raised under the "boys will be boys" framework of excusing violent behavior and not holding them responsible for it.

For those that don't know the framework of "boys will be boys" manifests as girls being told that "he pulled your hair or teased you because he likes you" or if boys fight it is written off as a right of passage and not addressed.  While it doesn't directly manifest in sexual violence down the road, it does send the message to cis-males that their behavior towards women can be violent and that violent behavior, in general, is acceptable for them.

With negative attitudes and beliefs about women established and strong sense of entitlement in place, a person can more easily justify acts of sexualized violence, which may first start out as sexual harassment or it could include incidents of sexual assault, like groping.  Once someone is at the point where they are engaging in acts of sexualized violence they have stopped seeing what they're doing as wrong, so when people challenge them on it or, in the case of Paul Nungesser, they choose to report his actions to an authority they are likely to see that only as an act of violence against them.  In their eyes, or in the eyes of Paul, their actions were justified not only by their own attitudes and beliefs, but also by the greater society they`ve grown up in.  Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his choice to commit acts of sexualized violence and Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his inability to reconcile how the community responded to him and his behavior.

For Paul Nungesser, he is the only victim in this entire situation.  He was entitled to do what he did and he was entitled to not be held responsible for it.

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So, I think I'm going with NDP and here's why...

First, let me say something about some biases I have going into this post.

I do not trust politicians.

I do not like the state of "Democracy" in North America.

I do not trust the system.

The spirit of what Democracy should be is that the people elect representatives because it is the best possible way to ensure that concerns of the people are addressed by the government; we need elected representatives because governing people is a full time job and a democracy cannot function without structure (in a practical sense, millions of people cannot each weigh-in on every issue and total consensus is not always possible).  In theory, the people of any given community select a representative to participate in government who they feel best represents their interests and will do the best job of governing.  A representative must have ideals, integrity, and interest to be a good candidate for this sort of thing as not everyone is capable of governing.  The representative must always work in the best interest of the people that put them there, regardless of personal beliefs, opinions, or external influences.

That is a little about what we should have.

We don't.

Modern "democracy" has become a farce of banality and frustrating public relations spin where the people who are afforded the opportunity to participate come from the highest of privileges and who carry said privileges into office with them.  The privileged few who have the opportunity to engage in politics have made democracy into a game about winning elections and not about how to best govern the people.  Yes, a candidate who receives the most number of votes (or in our case has the most votes of anyone one party)  technically "wins" the election; however, framing it in Win/Lose binary has more in common with games than it does with government.

I said earlier that I believe representatives in a democracy must posses ideals, integrity, and interest to be effective in governing people.  Those ideals, I feel, must always be concerned with what is best for the people, above all else.  Those ideals, I feel, should not be about towing the party line or keeping their privileged friends happy with subtle politicking behind closed doors.  Having party platforms is one of the reasons democracy has been reduced to the mess it is today as it is the party ideals that have taken over as the primary influencing factor for how a representative governs the people.  It is this notion that a Progressive Conservative (which is a contradiction of terms by the way) must always act as a Progressive Conservative in all things, the up shot being that the Progressive Conservative puts their party's ideals before the desires people that they are supposed to be governing; the same goes for Liberals, NDPs, and the Wildrose.  Party representation means that the elected party governs the people who's party affiliation matches their own and, from what I've seen done in practice, elected parties tend to ignore the people who's affiliation differs.

Like I said at the outset, I have no faith in politicians nor the system in which they participate and I will hold this position until I see reason to believe otherwise.

The other source of my pessimism/realism (however you want to label it) comes from the realities of how the Obama Administration has played out in the United States, while we do have completely different political structures one of the major problems manifested in a very large and obvious way.  Republican concerns about Obama were very clear before anyone was elected and this is fine, they are fully entitled to have an opinion as to whether or not they like the other side.  However, what this manifested as was practically childlike obstinate behavior.  To show their dislike the Republican side made sure that the Obama Administration was one of the least effective governments in recent history by refusing to participate, at all, in any decisions that the Administration was trying to make; they would even refuse to participate in concessions that the Obama Administration was willing to make to help them stop pouting for a minute and govern the country.

If a party is truly interested in governing the people in the best way possible then they must respect the will of the people even if that means respecting who they have chosen to represent them in government.  When the Republicans of the United States made it their mission to refuse to participate in governing, they directly insulted the people who cast their vote.  They demonstrated that they're only interested in respecting the democratic process if they are the beneficiaries.

Again, our governments are very different in a structural context, but, make no mistake, they are almost identical in terms of how the parties are behaving with each other.  It is a game of winners and losers, a game where the privileged few fight over who has the power, and all the while the people, who selected these representatives, suffer and are ignored. The state of modern day "democracy" is dismal.

With that said, I saw a glimmer of hope with the public debate that was held recently.

NDP Party Leader Rachel Notley demonstrated, with a very simple phrase, what I feel to be a sign that there is reason to believe she and her party are interested in focusing on the concerns of the people over and above their own party ideals.  The question posed to each candidate was around forming a coalition government in the event that a minority government is selected, however, it was how each party responded to the idea that prompted Notley to make the statement that I'm interested in.

Each of the other candidates remained rigid in their party ideals and plainly stated that they are not interested in working with anyone else, under any circumstances.  This means we can infer that should they lose the election, they would follow in the footsteps of the Republicans under the Obama Administration and refuse to participate; doing everything in their power to make sure the elected government, whomever that ends up being, couldn't do their job and govern properly.

Notley was the only candidate who stated that they would respect the will of the people and ensure that they would work with the elected government, if it wasn't themselves, to be best of their ability with the hopes of making sure that Albertans have the best possible government.

It wasn't much and my lack of faith in the system and the politicians prevents me from getting overly optimistic, after all it could simply have been good politicking on her part.  But, having said that, it's a subtle yet intriguing statement to make when every other candidate was rolling with the status quo in terms of party politics.  When I consider her move, the underwhelming performances of the Liberal and Wildrose candidates, and the totally disrespectful behavior of Prentice over the past few months I can't help but be drawn to throwing some support behind one of the lesser evils.

Notley and the NDP could still turn out to validate my pessimism, but for the longest time I've been looking for one of the parties in our government to display single factor, aspect, or ideal that would separate them from the others.  This small act, which just shows you how dismal things really at the moment, is enough...for now...

Video of the debate is here.

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

Silent communities perpetuate sexualized violence.

This story is already almost a week old and it didn't have the staying power that other issues of sexual violence being perpetrated by athletes usually has; I'm thinking of Steubenville, Ray Rice, and so on.  I am not at all surprised by this, however, as Canada is still trying to navigate systemic normalized violence and doing this when the perpetrator is of a certain kind of fame.  Moreover, when the offenders happen to be involved in hockey that falls within the stream that sends players to the NHL, people are even less likely to stick with the situations or take a stance that doesn't involve victim blaming.

I found this particular article to be interesting and indicative of how much of society still isn't ready to have greater conversations about sexualized violence and really grasp the fact that the source for this violence is much more complex than they might think.  This article is a perfect example of how the social minds in Canada are trying to reconcile the idea that sexualized violence is bad with the idea that offenders don't fit a "typical" mold.

When I employ the term "typical" here in reference to perceptions of who an offender might be I am referring to the notion of offenders who commit instances of sexualized violence being: older, mentally ill, unkempt or otherwise visually unappealing, preferring to jump from the shadows or bushes, attacking random women, and so on.  The list here is not comprehensive and it is not all of these specific things all at once, more a combination of a few of these traits that comprises what people expect an offender to hold.  Part of the desire to do this falls into a "keeping myself safe" mentality wherein if I can convince myself that offenders are easily identifiable then I can be on the lookout for them and, as a result, avoid experiencing sexualized violence.

The reality, unfortunately, is much less pleasant.

While there are certainly instances of sexualized violence occurring in situations where the offender is not known to the victim/survivor, the numbers coming from reported instances tell us that offenders are much more likely to be people we know and the sexualized violence is more likely to occur in spaces where we might feel safe (homes, schools, dorms, etc).  Considering how unpleasant it is to sit with this fact I can hardly fault people for turning to methods or mindsets that help them feel safer without actually making them safer.

The young men that committed the acts of sexualized violence covered in this article are everything put the "monster" society has taught us to expect in situations like this.  Hockey is a celebrated sport and past-time within Canadian culture to the point where many families build lives around the sport; playing professionally, raising their children in the sport, and so on.  Fandom around professional teams also plays a significant role in Canadian culture as it plays out from things like defining friendships to being the justification for riots after a major loss.

The players themselves, often coming from places of social or financial privilege, gain a special social status within our culture for their abilities and this is not to say that the players don't sacrifice when it comes to pursuing the dream of a professional career.  However, one cannot ignore the red flags of creating a special social status within Canadian Culture for people that are already accustomed to higher levels of privilege.  Male privilege sets up men to develop a strong, harmful sense of entitlement when it comes to how they view other people.  It is also important to point out that while they hold many different privileges, people who are not part of the "hockey community" fall outside of their scope in terms of who is valuable.  Once again, this makes a lot of sense as they devote a major portion of their lives to the sport which does reduce one's scope anyway.

When you consider a few of these facts: (1) That people are not willing to accept that offenders who commit sexualized violence can be people we know and trust, (2) Society creates special privileges for Hockey players, (3) Male hockey players get a double helping of privilege and entitlement, and that (4) women are seen as sex objects that bestow sex on men, you can begin to see some red flags popping up.

For this article, we can see a few things playing out.

First, there's the hesitancy to want to get to the real issue for these players and so the subject matter experts turn to a familiar theme: young boys growing up away from their family.  While this certainly plays a part in why these young men decided to commit sexualized violence it would be naive to think this was the be-all reason for their behavior.  Many offenders grow up in stable families, which, again, goes against the myth that sexualized violence offenders can be easily identified in that offenders had some kind of troubled family life.  In fact, rigid adherence to the gender binary and the subsequent gender roles that come from the binary are more likely to be a factor when it comes to people gaining a sense of entitlement around sex.  Even in cases where one or more of the parents are not present or involved I would look to this being even more relevant; again, if I don't have a parent around me as I grow up I'm going to learn about that absent parent from other sources or I'm going to learn about my gender roles from society.

Another aspect emerging from this article is the cognitive dissonance between a league that "has policies in place" and the fact that this kind of thing keeps coming up.  A major flaw in how we view sexualized violence revolves around a lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the connection to, what we see as, every day behaviors and the legal definition of sexual assault.  Most people, when asked directly, would say that sexual harassment and sexual assault is wrong; however, the same people probably couldn't identify incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault beyond very obvious, often sensationalized, incidents; I'm thinking specifically of the stranger assaults mass media usually runs with or the way in which sexualized violence is portrayed in popular media (Crime Dramas, Movies, etc).  So, on one hand, people understand and agree that sexualized violence is wrong but, on the other, there is a lack of understanding when it comes to recognizing it in their daily lives.  Moreover, many behaviors that would fall under the umbrella of sexualized violence have become so normalized we no longer really identify them; behavior that gets people to bring the "boys will be boys" sentiment into discussion is the kind of behavior I'm talking about.

And, finally, the way in which the Hockey Community "keeps things in the family," so-to-speak, is also very apparent in this article; the subject matter expert clearly states that when she did attempt a study, she was blocked from getting relevant data by the teams.  It's hard to trust that a league is actually doing something to combat the issue of entitlement and sexualized violence when they don't allow for proper studies/investigations to be conducted that could identify ways to change the culture.  There is a problem, but until the community itself is willing to recognize that they're not going to be able to solve it themselves we're not going to see a change.  More importantly, until they realize that they are partially to blame for this kind of behavior we're not going to be able to implement policies and programs to make a difference.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people within the Hockey Community are of ill intent, maliciously resisting a culture change; however, by not being willing to ask the tough questions they are allowing sexualized violence to continue within their own community.  One need only look at how many people we're involved in covering up Sandusky's child sexual abuse or the sexual assault that was committed by the two football players in Steubenville.  In both cases, sexualized violence was allowed to continue, covered up, and a culture of victim blaming was encouraged; all to protect people that the community thought "couldn't do such a horrible thing because they were good people" and didn't fit the stereotype of a sexualized violence offender.