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.
