Growing up with a mother who came from an abusive upbringing, and has centered her career on helping battered women, it has been hard to escape from the realities of domestic violence. Gender-based violence and the effects of “doing masculinity” can be detrimental—physically, psychologically and emotionally. There are many factors that lead to physical, verbal and sexual abuse, such as our cultural environment and the way hegemonic masculinity is reinforced in the media. The impact of abuse is cyclical and has been shown bleed over from one generation to the next. According to the National Violence Against Women survey (NVAW), 78% of rape victims are women and 80% of the time, those who were sexually violated knew their perpetrator. Out of those who reported being physically assaulted, stalked or raped, 64% of women (and 16% of men) reported that the perpetrator was an intimate partner, someone they probably trusted. Beyond the bruises, fear and anxiety, abuse is also linked to several other harmful effects. Reporting on findings from the NVAW, the American Bar Association notes (here) that girls who have experienced physical or sexual abuse are more than twice as likely to smoke, drink or use illegal drugs when compared to those who have not had such experiences, 32% of girls who had been abused reported having eating disorders, while only 12% of girls who had not been abused reported such disorders. The fact is that there are enough women who have suffered abuse at the hands of men that most of us know a victim of abuse and can put a face to these statistics. Is it any wonder why there is so much masculine violence aimed toward women when misogyny virtually floods the airwaves and can be so easily downloaded? As demonstrated in the documentary Beyond Beats and Rhymes, today’s hip hop often depicts violence perpetrated against women and seems to depend on exploiting and objectifying female bodies. This music may be catchy, but having it all over the radio is sending the wrong message to our youth. . . The extent to which masculine abuse against women is ultimately the result of hip hop may be debatable, but it is less debatable that abuse is cyclical. Those who abuse are often themselves victims of abuse. This was the case with my mother’s stepfather, who was her abuser. Not surprisingly, he was also abused as a child. The only way my mother knew how to break out of her abusive world was to reach out for help and spend decades in therapy. We have been raised in a society where masculinity is defined by muscles, strength, power and control. Just as the young men stated in “Tough Guise,” masculinity defines who men are and when men are not masculine enough, they are too often taunted as pussies, faggots, babies or bitches. If a man cries or appears emotional, he is stamped with any or all of these dreaded names. Jackson Katz’s film reminds us that true men are to be tough and emotionless, and there is evidence to suggest that the imperatives of masculinity are only becoming more severe. As Katz brought to our attention, G.I. Joe’s biceps have doubled in size over the past 20 years, and the musculature sculpted onto the Superman action figures has steadily increased. Young boys in our society are under the impression they will only be men if they are huge, muscular and powerful. They see men in the movies, television, music videos, and in the intimacy of their own homes demonstrating their masculinity in part by degrading women. These televised role models physically and verbally abuse women in order to gain respect, power and control. . .
Even though my mother got the help she needed, I still see how it affects her and her sisters. I have watched how they struggle to create healthy relationships with non-abusive men and how they find it difficult to become attached to people who truly care about them. They have battled with addictions and depression and are paralyzed when somebody close to them slips away. As I have observed with my mother and her sisters, it is incredibly hard putting a stop to abuse because those who are abused are often too scared to seek help. The men who are doing the abusing often do not feel the need or desire to change because they have been so thoroughly immersed in a culture which ties violence and aggression to their masculinity. As I have mentioned above, many of these men grew up with their fathers abusing them, watching their own mother’s get beaten up and raped, or even witnessing gender-based violence on television and in their communities. It is often the case that even when abusive men realize they are doing something wrong, they make excuses for their actions. Anderson and Umberson point this out in their article, “Gendering Violence: Masculinity and Power in Men’s Accounts of Domestic Violence.” They write that men often “excuse, rationalize, justify, and minimize their violence against female partners,” and moreover, “batterers deny responsibility for their violence” (p. 488). They typically blame women for “extreme provocation, a loss of control, or a minor incident that was blown out of proportion. The abusive men participate in the violence because they are ‘doing gender’ ” (p. 488). Violence, therefore, is a means of achieving masculinity, and men likely use violence to achieve their masculinity because it has been modeled for them time and again as an effective means for doing so. Abusive men, then, are following in the footsteps of the men in their lives. In order to end this destructive, devastating pattern, young men need to be taught how to interact with women without the possibility of violence. I believe violent speech acts and images, especially in music and video should be made illegal. I understand that depictions of violence toward women are only a fraction of the problem, but making such depictions illegal would be start. This would end to flippant justifications that society somehow approves of abuse from men, that “all men are doing it” anyway, or even that truly manly, men beat and rape women. Additionally, women need to understand that help is easily accessible. My mother is a supervisor for the Center for Abused Persons and there is a 24 hour hotline that anyone can call if they need immediate assistance or if they simply need to talk to someone. If you are being abused please seek help, and if you know someone who is being abused, please encourage them to seek help. There may not be a second opportunity. ~ Terrapin Love
2 Comments
Go Terps and Wenty disagree over whether one can broadly say that gender inequality is subsiding over time. G.T. argues that we’re “constantly improving” and Wenty begs to differ. In a sense, I think there might be some truth to both of these perspectives. In some ways, improvements have been made, and in others, we are still a sharply divided society. Whether society is improving would seem to be debatable, but in a sense, it doesn’t really matter. Shouldn’t we be more concerned with whether gender inequality exists today, and if it does, what we intend to do about it? . .
I recently watched the documentary, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter,” which gives one a sense of the experience of American women during World War II. With men rushing into battle in the Pacific and European theaters, a labor scarcity developed on the home front, and women were encouraged to enter the labor market. Men may have been risking their lives in war, but women were expected to make a different kind of sacrifice for the nation. They demonstrated their patriotism by entering the workforce in order to maintain production in a wartime economy. Staying home was not an easy option for many women, for they risked being accused of not supporting their country and being branded traders. On the one hand, there were clear improvements in terms of women’s labor force participation, but on the other, the process by which women were encouraged to go into the workforce was a manipulative one. Women were first compelled to demonstrate their nationalism by entering workforce. Then, once the men were back from the war, these same women were expected to prove their patriotism again by abandoning their jobs and returning to the home. If G.T. and Wenty were to discuss this historical moment, G.T. would likely emphasize women’s growing workforce participation as proof of an improving society, while Wenty would likely insist we can not overlook women’s forced exodus. What is clear is only that anticdotes can be selectively mined from history and pulled out of their larger context in order to make any point one wants to make about the advancement or retreat of gender equality. Therefore, I would like to take a different approach. Irrespective of what happened in this nation’s past and whether a clear trend of improvement can be established, I would like to move the debate forward with a modest proposal: if gender inequality exists today, then it behooves us to work toward ending it. In short, I think it does exist, and I think we should knock it off. For starters, women today are still victims of employment-based discrimination, a clear sign that even if our society is improving, we have a long way to go. By and large, women still do not earn as much as equally educated men. In the recent Time article, “Why Do Women Still Earn Less Than Men,” Laura Fitzpatrick reminds us that in 2008 women in the U.S. still earned only 77 cents on the male dollar. When the topic of job discrimination is discussed in the media, it is often framed in terms of race, but gender is an important part of the story even if journalists fail to notice. For example, it is not just Blacks, but Black women especially, who are concentrated in the least paid and lowest status jobs. Another measurable form of gender inequality is that women continue to be the victims of sexual violence. Each year a large number of women are raped and sexually assaulted. In Carolyn Sprague’s recently published article “Sexual Harassment,” she states what by now should be obvious: “The majority of victims reporting instances of sexual harassment are women, and the vast majority of reported aggressors are men.” Today–this very minute–one can observe that men regularly feel entitled to interrupt and talk over women. Today, men still feel more entitled to grope women in public. Job discrimination, sexual harassment, groping, interrupting–all of these observations demonstrate that “our” society is still characterized by gender inequality, and there is still work that needs to be done. Go Terps seems to argue that we should simply have faith that life will constantly improve for women, but why would anyone instill so much blind trust in a society with such a bad track record? By now, women have been treated unequally for centuries. If society really has been constantly improving, it is has only been through the direct actions of people. As I look out my window today–right now–I see no compelling evidence for why we should stop fighting for change. ~ Summer Lover |
AuthorsThe Class Blog Project, or CBP, is a blog featuring undergraduate students forming a critical dialogue with each other around ideas related to the sociology of gender. Archives
May 2010
Categories
All
|