A bad week to be female

This week brings to my attention two horrific stories about brutal gang rape. Have a barf-bag ready.

First up, a judge in Australia has ruled that a 10-year-old aboriginal girl "probably agreed" to have sex with the nine men who brutally gang raped her. No punishment for the rapists. And she's standing by her decision. You know, just to show everyone that women can be misogynists, too! Honestly, I don't see how anyone with a shred of intelligence and/or empathy could possibly come to the conclusion that a 10-year-old could possibly know what was going on in a situation like group sex. This was not group sex, this was a gang rape. Men don't "have sex" with little girls; they rape them. I'm sure some relativists would argue that Australian aboriginal culture is vastly different from Western culture and that we have no business going in and telling them how to live life. And for the most part, I agree. Until people start getting hurt, such as the case with female genital mutilation. There are absolutes in this world, people. And little girls should not be getting raped just because their culture condones it. It still isn't right.

Next, Jamie Leigh Jones was working for KBR in Iraq when she was drugged, then gang raped and assaulted by her coworkers. If that weren't brutal enough, KBR (yup, that KBR) locked her up in a shipping crate, denied her medical care, and told her that if she said anything that she would lose her job. She finally convinced a guard to lend his cell phone so she could call her father back in Texas, who set in motion the rescue of Jones by the US Embassy. What really gets me is that the prosecutor (I know, I know, he's the good guy, but still) in this case claims that KBR had fostered a "boys will be boys" atmosphere that allowed the rape to happen. My problem is, why do we still chuckle and shrug our shoulders whenever someone uses the phrase "boys will be boys" in these situations? How about "boys will be sociopaths" or "boys will be criminals", which is much closer to the truth? But clearly, KBR had created an atmosphere of lawlessness and misogyny, which, when mixed in with the violence of war and occupation, created a perfect storm to allow this to happen.

Just goes to show you that womens' bodies are still acceptable cannon fodder in the war for dominance.

I weep for these two.

Thoughts on Reconstructive Surgery After Mastectomy

I've written before about my experience with a breast tumor, having it removed, and specifically telling the surgeon that I did NOT want reconstruction on my breast other than a tidy scar.* I'm really very small chested, 32A, and while my adolescence and early twenties were difficult, I've come to appreciate my itty bitty titties. So, when faced with the terror of possible cancer, I just wanted it out of me as soon as possible. Some friends thought it was silly of me not to get implants, because I would be knocked out anyway, spread out on a table with my boob cut open. Honestly, I didn't want to live life with big boobs. I'd worked so hard to accept my IBTs that I didn't want to throw it away. Not to mention that my recovery from a lumpectomy would be difficult enough without bags of saltwater sloshing around.

Following the Twisty Faster philosophy, I have since found myself disapproving of women who have reconstruction after a mastectomy. If I were to find myself getting a mastectomy, I probably wouldn't get reconstruction. I feel like women place too much importance on breasts because the patriarchy tells them that their value is wrapped up in their fuckability. People are so offended by boobless women because they force people to think about women as human beings who have feelings, struggles, illnesses, and probably a lot of other qualities we can't gather just by looking. I'm reminded of the movie "Pieces of April" where the mother, who is suffering through chemotherapy after a mastectomy, shows the senile grandmother a picture of her topless after her surgery, which was taken by the son. The grandmother is disgusted at the photo, which the mother treasures because it was taken by her son and quite beautifully done. The mother was proud of her son's talent and love, and the grandmother was just disgusted that she would put her booblessness on display.

I thought that women should be proud of mastectomy scars, and that they should show them so that people weren't so shocked to see a boobless woman. But today, reading Amanda's post about an article on the Details blog, I read a comment by Mnemosyne that really made me reconsider:

If you’d had, say, your ear removed because of cancer, no one would think it was bizarre for you to want to have something that at least vaguely resembled what had been there. But breasts have been so sexualized that some people have gone too far the other way and declared that replacing a missing body part is bowing to the patriarchy.

You know, she's right. If it were any other part of my body, I would most likely want reconstruction. If I lost my nose, or my lips, I'd want to have them rebuilt. If I had a giant chunk of flesh taken out of my body because of melanoma, I'd want to have reconstruction. So why was I so critical of breast reconstruction? I think this is what happens when body parts are sexualized -- we rebel against this sexualization by denying them existence. Is this a rational response? I don't know. I applaud the women who protest bans on toplessness by going topless, just to prove to people that breasts are not sexual by nature, but have been sexualized by our culture. We have internalized the sexuality of breasts so much that we even joke about babies loving the boobs.** What we forget is that babies love the boobs because they are the natural food source, not because they're pretty. It all boils down to the fact that sexualizing body parts is harmful to everyone and should never be taken lightly.

*My father, always the joker, was sitting by my bed as I was coming out of anesthesia. The first thing he said to me was, "Wow, they made your boobs huge!" Not. Funny. But so typical of my father's sense of humor.

**I'm really thinking of those stupid "Look Who's Talking" movies, which I refuse to link to. Talk about reinforcing gender norms!

Really? This again?

So Mike Huckabee has trotted out the tired claim that because women have so many abortions, we have to import illegal immigrants to do jobs we don't have enough people to do. Right. He's apparently been hanging out with Tom Delay.

Any time this argument comes up, I wonder how many illegal immigrants the speaker has employed either directly or indirectly. And I'm sure that Mike would be more than willing to take that field picking job away from an immigrant. Way to conflate arguments.

Virginia Tech Shootings: The Misogynist Angle

There's been a lot of talk about gun control in light of the VT shootings this week. That's highly understandable, and it's a necessary discussion to have. I do not want to address that because I am terrified of guns. As a girl, spending the night at a friend's house, I had a gun pointed at me by an intruder that forced his way into the bedroom while we were sleeping. That pretty much turned me off from guns, considering there was no way to defend myself. So I am not going to address that issue here. (Others are doing a very fine job.)

I do want to address how misogynist this act was and how our society rarely acknowledges the danger stalkers present to their victims. Lifetime movies and romance novels will describe stalking as a form of flattery, often with the woman either giving in to pressure or ending up maimed/dead before anyone pays attention. Unfortunately, this reflects real society as well.

Part of what triggered the VT shooter was rejection from a female love interest. I have no doubt that it played a major part in his rage, acting as a tipping point in a life filled with disappointment, confusion, and despair. But these feelings do not form in a vacuum. Obsessive thoughts/feelings are a product of enculturation, or, rather, what you obsess over is determined by your culture. Our patriarchy sends a rather clear message to men that they deserve the affection and attention of the women of their choosing. Just read any MRA or Nice Guy's blog post or comment. Now that I'm reading reports* that the other victim in the dorm (aka "Stack") may have been the love interest's SO, I can't help but think that a hefty sense of entitlement was at play.

I'm quite certain that other factors triggered this rampage. Could the shooter have "snapped" in the same way if the situation with the love interest had ended differently? I'm sure he could have. But we have just seen, not only through the rampage itself, but through the violent writing and stalking behavior of the shooter, just how much he valued female life. That would be not at all.

Another point I'd like to make is that the campus and Blacksburg police did not deem a "domestic shooting" urgent enough to lock down campus. That sends a very clear message to victims of domestic violence, or, females**, that when a partner physically harms them it isn't as serious as if a stranger had harmed them. Some have argued that in a domestic dispute, the perpetrator rarely targets anyone outside the relationship. That may be true. But if the police had locked down campus, they would have had a better chance of catching the shooter because he would have had a much harder time escaping. What all of this tells me is that the police simply were not that concerned about someone DYING because it was the result of a domestic situation. He only killed his love interest, and apparently that doesn't count as a real murder. Because we all know the pain of unrequited love, right? RIGHT?

Sisters, we have a long way to go.

* I'm very reluctant to believe much about the personal histories of the victims, especially the dorm victims, at this time. Our media are too quick to get the story on the wire to really check facts, thus creating a vicious rumor mill.

** Before you send me a nasty message arguing this point, YES, I realize that men can be victims of domestic violence. However, the overwhelming majority of victims are female, and I am working with generalizations here.

A Lesson for the Men

Not that any of the four people that read my blog are men, but just in case.

A couple of weeks ago on a Saturday, I was walking home from (of all places) the hair salon. There's a stretch of road that's a little busy before I get to my apartment, and I usually avoid it with a shortcut, but construction has recently blocked that shortcut. I'm forced to use the busy stretch of road.

As I was walking this stretch of road home, not once, but TWICE, I was whistled and hollered at. I was wearing baggy jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers. My hair was wet, because I don't like having my hair blowdried, and in a scrunchy. No makeup. No jewelry. Minding my own business.

I was quite unnerved by being harassed by drivers as I was minding my own business on a gorgeous day, walking home and enjoying the sun. I told one of my male friends about it. I asked him if he had/would ever do anything like that, and he said no. But then he said something that really pissed me off. He said, "Hey, at least you're getting some attention. I don't get whistled at, and I'd be really flattered if some girl whistled or hollered at me from her car." So I asked him why he'd never whistled at a woman walking down the street, and he answered that it isn't a great way to get a date, and that he's not a jackass.

Ah, but he IS a jackass in another sense. (I do love him dearly, but he's far from a feminist, as interpreted by his insisting on calling women "girls". I intend to bring him to enlightenment.) This is the problem that men have with the whole unwanted attention/street harassment conundrum. Clearly, what happened to me was street harassment. Why? Because the men who whistled and hollered at me were not paying me a compliment on my appearance or trying to let me know that they are interested.

No.

These men were very clearly asserting their power by intimidating me. As I noted before, I was not dressed provocatively. In fact, I was dressed rather sloppily, for comfort only. I had no makeup on to draw attention to eyes, lips, etc. I should also note that I was completely lost in thought, probably looking down at the beginnings of spring flowers popping from the ground.

I hear some of you asking, "But, QuiteContrary, what if this man was really into you, warts and all?" And in return, I have a question for you. What do you think you'll accomplish by whistling or shouting obscenities to a woman walking down the street? Do you really think that I'll swoon and start chasing after your car? Has that worked for you in the past?

Probably not.

Which brings me to my point that these acts can only be interpreted as acts of intimidation. No man ever harasses a woman walking down the street (whether they are in a car, walking past, or sitting on a bench) thinking it's a successful way to get a date, or even compliment a woman. They are simply exercising their patriarchal right to treat a random woman as an object and intimidate her, simply because she has the audacity to be seen alone in public.

A few months ago, while visiting a friend in Washington, DC, I was alone at the National Gallery of Art. I was examining a painting, deep in thought, when I suddenly felt a presence behind me. Okay, someone had personal space issues. They were probably from another country, where personal space is not a huge issue. I can deal with that. Then I felt something hard on my lower back. I knew immediately it was that asshole's dick.

I moved forward. So did he. I went to the next painting, so did he. And he quickly returned to the same position. I exited that room and went to one with a rather nasty looking guard. So did he. And, well, you can guess where he decided to stand. The guard did nothing, even though I know he saw it, considering we were the only two people in the room.

I was terrified.

And I was fucking pissed as hell.

Remembering that I'm tired of being a victim (which I'll write about in a later post) I swiftly turned around, looked him straight in the eye, and asked loudly, "Do I know you?" Luckily, this was enough to send him on his way.

But this proves my point that the motivation behind these acts of harassment are not to compliment a woman or try to get to know her. It is an anonymous intimidation technique. There have been several stories going around the feminist blogosphere about this sort of thing, and I think every woman can identify. And before you try to defend these truly sick fucks by saying that the women you know appreciate this sort of treatment, let me tell you that either you are lying, or the women you are referencing are lying. It's not flattering, it's fucking scary.

It's International Women's Day

Yay. We get a whole day. Men get 364 days, but we can celebrate our day. I think I'll treat myself to some chocolate and red wine through a straw. But first, I'm going to Blog Against Sexism.

A group on my campus (I can't remember who) gave out long stem roses to all of the female faculty and staff. Which was nice, but wasteful and ineffective. (Neither I nor my assistant took one, just because we're crazy feminist bitchez like that.) I hear that there was a coffee and dessert table in the campus commons for the female employees, as well.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great to have social events with other women. There's a women's faculty group on campus that has great socials off campus, and I always try to go. It's important for women to be free of constraints like caretaking, leering men, feminine speech and manners. We need to be as honest and personal as we feel necessary, which is only comfortable around other women.

I'm just disappointed that roses, dessert and coffee were the only programming. It felt almost like a bribe, "We'll give you some sugar and caffeine, so you can't complain we didn't do anything for IWD!" Where are the poetry slams? The art exhibits? The feminist theory discussion groups? The rallies? This is the perfect day to expose people to the real lives of women, and the real hardships we face as we navigate the workplace while raising our children and husbands, as legislators try to deny us the right to our own bodily autonomy. (I've always said that no man I know could ever be a woman for even a day!)

Many people say that feminism is over, sexism doesn't exist at all. Fuck that. Sure, we're "legally" equal to men, but we still have lots of tiny revolutions left. Shakes Sis had a great post today, and this passage sums it up perfectly:

That we've (mostly) achieved equality under the law and some semblance of sexual liberation doesn't mean sexism is, like, so over. It means that those were the easiest things to accomplish.

The rest is a fuckload harder.

Compared to, for example, eradicating all use of feminine terms to convey weakness, fear, vapidity, or other negative qualities, changing the law so that women can't be fired just for being women was like waving a magic fucking wand—and that's the reality of battling sexism that too many people fail to see. The really endemic, intrinsic sexism expressed in a million "little" ways is what perpetuates inequality—the kind of inequality that makes some guy at the hardware store talk to me like a three-year-old imbecile, but talk to Mr. Shakes like an equal.

And to all the men who accuse feminists of being too hung up on the "little battles" rather than the big ones, I say this: try having your ass grabbed, or getting winked at by your boss, or told to make a pot of coffee by one of your colleagues. Try watching your male colleagues get grant money and promotions more than you, but do half the work. Try having complete strangers order you to smile as you stumble through the last part of your day, in a haze because you've worked 9 hours with no lunch break and have to do some errands before you finally get to go home, just to have more shit to do before you can relax. If you can relax. Try having your government try to punish you for having sex.

Just try it.

Smile, dammit!

There’s been a bit of a kerfuffle in the feminist blogosphere again, this time with regards to those men, wreaking of entitlement issues, who will stop a strange woman on the street and order her to smile. Most of the discussion revolved around the entitlement complex that many men have, and how they act like royalty by demanding their servants (in this case, strange women) to perform for them. Which is certainly a great summation of the entire issue, and one I would not argue with one bit.

But I’d like to go a step further. In our culture, the smiling face is considered the most beautiful and the most welcoming. When someone is happy, we know it by their smile. When someone smiles at us, we take that as a sign that we made them happy. Therefore, when someone is smiling, it really can “spread joy” and makes those nearby happier.* When someone smiles at you, there is a feeling that something you did made that person happy, whether it’s the way you look, how you walk, what you said, how you smell, you get the idea. Most people agree that smiles are a good thing.**

There are large groups of men who still consider women part of the scenery. Any man who goes to a strip club, Hooters, or catcalls women on the street is one of these men. (Which is why I don’t date men who do this.) I’d like to add “men who view pornography,” but that would most definitely put all men in the category, and I’d like to leave my thoughts on porn for another post. When women are expected to wear makeup, do their hair, dress in patriarchy-approved clothing, shave legs at a minimum to be considered part of mainstream society, and men can walk around in sweat stained t-shirts and pants with holes in the crotch as part of normal society, there is a problem.

So, we women still have not gained the status of human being yet, we are still relegated to the company of the sofa, drapes, and ficus. Which brings me back to the “smile, dammit” bit. My thoughts on these fuckers? That they assume they have the right to visual pleasure at any time, and who better to give them visual pleasure than the sex objects they see all day? (I use the term “objects” consciously, because these men don’t see women as anything more than fuckdolls.) I think these assbags get a kick out of demanding a strange woman to smile and seeing her succumb because it shows that he has the power in that exchange.

Most of us women succumb out of fear, or out of outright dumbfoundedness. “Did he really just tell me to smile?” As a woman who has heard this her entire life, it is a great way to ruin a woman’s day. Before my feminist days, I thought there was something wrong with me, and that I was ugly in some way. It made me so insecure. And then I realized something: What if something was really wrong? So the next time it happened, I told the shithead, “My dog just died today, so leave me the fuck alone.”*** The guy was pretty speechless, and I doubt he ever ordered a woman to smile again. I did this a couple of times, in a few different situations. (For example, during a time when I was incredibly thin due to severe depression, people (mostly women) would comment on how thin I was, as if I had no idea. They actually asked me if I ate! Duh! So I started telling people I was on chemotherapy, just to jar them. It worked!) After dealing with these intrusive situations, I realized that the men were not concerned about me and my emotional state, as some “smile demander apologists” would say. If they were truly concerned about my emotional state, and I indeed looked upset, they would ask me if I was okay, or offer some help.

Until men as a gender get the message that women are human, with human emotions and human experiences, I’m afraid we are stuck with teaching them individually that women do not exist for decorative purposes, but as active members of the human species. I’d like to think that, every time I came back with a snarky response to a “smile demander apologist” that an angel got its wings and a misogynist had the epiphany that women are human. Is this a little thing? Sure. But it’s the little things that pile up and up and up until our shoulders break, and women everywhere start to feel beaten down by the patriarchy, ready to give up. All of these little things are related to how we are viewed by men, which is the essence of the patriarchy. If we didn’t correct the men who insist that the female secretary get his coffee, or the men who catcall the woman going to her first day at a new job, or the ever-present ass-pincher, we’d be stuck in a world that women don’t feel comfortable in. A world that would push women back into the private sphere and out of harm and aggravation’s way. I don’t want that. I’ll take my tiny revolutions.

*Except for those weirdoes who keep a permagrin, like my neighbor. In that case, it’s just creepy. People who are happy all the time worry me, as they seem like they could snap at any moment and end up shooting up a roomful of people.

**Disregarding folks from East Asian and other cultures, in which smiling can be a sign of confrontation, a rude display of familiarity, etc.

***My dog was, in fact, peacefully napping at home at the time.