Thanks, Jezebel!

Sometimes I think that the internet is a beautiful place, where people can send each other smiley face emoticons and share respectful conversations, but luckily, Jezebel refuses to let me remain oppressed, and is constantly lifting the patriarchal veil that the male hegemony tries shoving over my eyes. 

That's why it alerted me to the presence of this article., claiming that marriage is a good way for a woman to protect herself from male violence.

I'm not going to discuss all of the problems with this article, because there are too many, but I will mention two points that particularly irked me.

1. This article paints men either as saviors of women or as oppressors of women - but in either case, it paints men as the people in control of women's welfare and happiness. This painting leaves no room for men and women to have a healthy relationship as equal partners. Furthermore, it dichotomizes and stereotypes men.*

Leopold von Sacher Masoch, i.e. the man who masochism is named for, said that men are destined to either subjugate women or be subjugated by them, until women are given the rights and education that enable them to have equal relationships with men. (Masoch might have used the word "dominate" instead of "subjugate", but I don't remember, because it's been too long since I read "Venus in Furs".)

Masoch was right, and this article perpetuates the uneven gender dynamics that he sought to ravish.

2. This article points to many statistics regarding marriage and women. I haven't done my research, so I'm not going to question the statistics. I will however, claim that the statistics do not present the full story. For example, one statistic is that married women live in safer neighborhoods. But this isn't necessarily due to the magical power of marriage, you see: Marriage = 2 bread winners = more money = better neighborhoods = safer neighborhoods.

So the marriage statistic speaks more to the economic realities of America than any inherent qualities of marriage; It would be interesting to see the neighborhood differentials of single vs committed lesbians and gay men.

The article also claims that children who live in households where their parents are married are less likely to suffer abuse, and that children who live with their mom's boyfriend or a stepdad are more likely to suffer abuse. It neglects to mention that this is often because the boyfriend or stepdad is the abuser, so this isn't a case of fathers protecting children, so much as a father's presence precluding the presence of a male abuser.

But what bothers me most about the article, is the tone: Women, its true some men do bad things - but look, some men do good things too! 

Well, yeah, that's true. Both men and women to good and bad things to each other. But not every article, or series of articles, about crimes committed by men against women has to come with a disclaimer. When a crime that reflects a social trend occurs, the media obsesses over that social trend for a few weeks. In this case, that trend is mysogyny - and after years of oppression, women are allowed to complain, without adding, a "But my dad's really nice" after every paragraph.

Or maybe I'm wrong: Maybe "Fatal Attraction" should come with a disclaimer, "Warning: Not all women are crazy", and "Law and Order: SVU", should have to show five minutes of Brad Pitt looking really supportively at Angelina Jolie before each episode.

But I prefer to think that people can read or watch something that depicts violent sexism, and still understand that many non-sexist (or at least, not consciously sexist) men and women walk among us.

And by people, I mean men, of course.

* One of the under-explored elements of gender identity is the way that it pressures men to behave in certain ways and conform to certain stereotypes. Feminists tend to focus on how gender affects women. This makes sense, because feminists are fighting for women, and because some feminists believe that gender is a patriarchal construct, with misogyny embedded within the structure of gender itself, thereby affecting women more negatively than it does men.

Boko Haram: Some Thoughts

It finally happened: Women were kidnapped from their school for the crime of being women and wanting to be educated. Some say they've been married to their kidnappers, while other surmise they were sold as slaves.

The story is being spun as an assault on education, a human rights crisis, a terrorism story, a tale of the ineffectiveness of the international community to effectively work towards a safer planet - but, with the exception of Nicholas Kristof*, its not really being spun as a women's issue. I say "not really" because there are some voices out there - notably, Leimah Gbowee - but they tend to be a) few and b) non-Western.

Modern American Feminist groups (and, from what I can tell, European ones as well), so quick to fight for an extra week of maternity leave or critique the weight of the trendiest Hollywood actresses, seem oddly silent about this. If Feminism is about fighting for a better world for women (and for all people), and about eradicating the gender inequalities that can be found across the globe, why aren't we fighting for our Nigerian sisters, or against a world in which being educated is so much more dangerous for women than it is for men?

Part of the answer might have to do with a feeling of disempowerment in the face of such tragedy. The "#Bring Back Our Girls" campaign shows the depth of that disempowerment, where we feel the most we can do is post a twitter status or a photograph. Even world leaders, such as Michelle Obama, are participating in the campaign, which started as an attempt to get world leaders to do something more than just post a photograph.

Of course, part of the reason world leaders are stopping at photographs is that they feel disempowered to - afraid to send in troops**, unsure how to cast out a group that's already been outlawed, but at the same time, afraid of pushing that group to further extremes, and owning precious little that might prove an incentive for Boko Haram to come to the table: A group whose title means "Western Education is Forbidden" is fairly unlikely to be lured into peace by the promise of eventual participation in Western society, and financial bribery hardly seems like a good long-term solution.

So what are we to do, exactly?

I don't know, but I think part of the answer lies in spreading awareness, not just about the kidnapped girls, but about the general plight of women's education around the globe, and the links between poverty, corruption, violence, unstable governments, and women's education - both in that these things help cause many of the obstacles women pursuing education may face, and in that educated women may be one of the best tools for fighting these social ills.***

I think part of that awareness also has to be about spreading the stories of the kidnapped students: So often women have remained nameless, delegated to the margins of history, portrayed as powerless victims. Perhaps the best thing we can do for these women is to recognize who they are: To know their names and their stories, and acknowledge the power they were exerting over their lives when they chose to learn - and most importantly, to learn from their example, and to exert power over our own lives - to take action, and to try to make ourselves a little bit better and a little bet smarter, so that next time a crisis occurs, maybe we will know some of the answers.

* an would I expect anything else from the co-author of "Half The Sky"?
** lest it a) start a war b) prove political suicide or c) all of the above
*** Example: Poor sanitation may deter women from coming to school while menstruating. The poor sanitation may be a result of poverty, as well as a corrupt government that pockets money instead of spending it on infrastructure. But poverty helps cause corruption, which helps governments to be ineffective and unable to protect both women and men from violence.