“It was decades ago, but SARA…remembers perfectly the panic she felt when she realized a car was following her as she ran along a country road at dusk..She desperately tore into a cornfield and listened as the vehicle stopped…I remember hiding in the cornfield and hearing them and then just running as fast as I could in the other direction and making it out of the cornfield and all the way to my house and being petrified..That experience has never left me, and it’s 25 years ago
“[She} often recalls that evening as she hears comments yelled by passing motorists when she trains along city streets…The killings raised alarms about how women can defend themselves and why they must be ready to fight off attackers in the first place.” [L.Meredith & S.McFetridge; 9/23/l8; Assoc. Press]
This post is inspired by Marilyn French”s 1992 book by the same title. French documents many of the ways “civilization” has treated women as second-class persons, and worse:
“..men-as-a-caste – elite and working class men – continue to seek ways to defeat feminism, by rescinding or gnawing away at its victories [legal abortion], confining women to lower employment levels [putting a “glass ceiling” over professional women], or founding movements aimed at returning them to fully subordinate status [“fundamentalism”].”
But society pays as well. On pages 162-177, French describes “War Against Women In Art” – only this isn’t against women alone: “expression is, and always has been in this and every state since patriarchy, subject to taboos. Taboos are political..exist to keep people from thinking independently, which might make them aware they are oppressed…aimed at precluding solidarity in groups that threaten the elite, mainly people oppressed by the elite. Taboos are enforced by power. In the United States, private expression is free, although small communities censor speech by pressure, shunning,.. harassing..unpopular views.”….
“However, public expression is censored everywhere: either directly [by laws..or by state terrorism] or indirectly, under the euphemism of “the market.” The United States uses both methods…the power of money usually suffices to censor public expression…In the United states, censorship is imposed…by corporations [Tv, print media].”
Creative people [books, TV, film] “..know what they cannot say…self-censorship is even more insidious: restraints have been internalized…America’s ruling class has found a solution to the problem of expression: it is not necessary to maintain a KGB and gulags when you can simply keep dissenting ideas from being diffused.”
Pages 170-172 describe the saga of “Ms” magazine, and the advertiser’s requirements for ads and locations; “to promote a certain kind of beauty, food, and fashion.” One major cosmetics firm refused “Ms” ads because it was selling “a kept-woman mentality.” The male exec said he knew his customers “and they would like to be kept women.” Another major advertiser demanded none of its ads in any issue mentioning gun control, abortion, occult, cults, or disparged religion.
Also: women must be happy all the time
The number one commandment: portraying men-as-a-caste as responsible for women’s problems is forbidden; if one man appears an oppressor, another man must be her savior. When this taboo is broken. “men protest. Primary example: “Thelma and Louise,” which “is radical; it breaks two major taboos: it shows men at war with women, and women retaliating against men.”
“Most films and television shows are produced by men for men. Their main purposes are to show white males triumphant, to each gender roles, and to cater to men’s delight in male predation and victimization of women, especially young, pretty, near-naked women…”
“For GOP Representative Mary Bono, the suggestive comments wouldn’t stop from one male colleague. He even approached her on the House floor to tell her he’d been thinking about her in the shower…”This is about power, said former California Senator Barbara Boxer, after describing an incident at a hearing in the 1980s where a male colleague made a sexually suggestive comment about her from the dais, which was met with general laughter and an approving second from the committee chairman…”When I was a very new member of Congress in my early 30s, there was a more senior member who outright propositioned me, who was married, and despite trying to laugh it off and brush it aside, it would repeat.” [Erica Werner & Juliet Linderman; 11/4/17; Assoc. Press]
French’s pages 181-207 discuss “Men’s Personal War Against Women.” “To be female is to walk the world in fear..” Male violence against women is epidemic because the entire social system [press, police, courts, legislatures, academia, welfare agencies, professions] cooperates.
“Study: Many women report forced first sex..1 in 16 describe such experiences…it happened at age 15 on average and the man was often several years older.”
The results were often traumatic and lasting: “more sex partners, unwanted pregnancies and abortions..more reproductive health problems…Other studies have found..long-term effects of sexual assault may include social isolation, feelings of powerlessness, stigmatization, poor self-image and risky behavior.” Lindsey Tanner, 9/17/19, Assoc. Press]
“Mercy emergency room physician Tamara O’Neal had reportedly broken off her engagement with the gunman…a few months before he confronted her in the hospital parking lot Monday and shot her several times…Mary MacLaren..”That’s the most dangerous time, when the person tries to get out of” the relationship…”The Mercy shootings also highlight the high risk of violence at hospitals and other health care environments…The rate of nonfatal injuries sustained by nurses is three times higher than the average of all other private sector workers..” [“At work, women face most danger from partners, exes.”; Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz; 11/25/18; Chicago Tribune]
“Each year, roughly 125,000 rapes are reported across the United States [14 per hour]…But in 49 out of every 50 rape cases, the alleged assailant goes free…by far the easiest violent crime to get away with.”
“Usually only a certain type of victim will see her rapist prosecuted…We heard over and over detectives use the term”righteous victim”..A woman who didn’t know her assailant, who fought back, who has a clean record and hadn’t been drinking or offering sex for money or drugs – that woman will be taken seriously…In cases of acquaintance rape, detectives expressed doubt and blamed the woman..spoke skeptically of “party rapes,” in which women drank too much “and make bad choices.”
“Prosecutors, particularly elected ones, are measured by their wins and losses..”They only allow certain victims to goto trial…They’ve got to have the perfect victim, the perfect crime, the perfect witness – and anybody who deviates from that is not going to have their day in court.” [“An Epidemic of Disbelief. What new research reveals about sexual predators and why police fail to catch them”; Barbara Haggerty; August, 2019, The Atlantic]
The USA is the only industrialized nation without paid leave for new mothers; almost 1 in 5 families headed by single women are ‘food insecure’; the gender pay gap could cost women more than $430,000 lifetime; 67% of minimum wage earners are women; 35% of American women are living on the brink of poverty; the percentage of women on U.S. corporate boards is about 12%; only 27% of workers making over $100,000 are women; women college athletes receive $176 million less in annual scholarships; 19% of middle and high school girls said they had a hard time studying as a result of sexual harassment in school; women in the military were more likely to be rape victims than be killed in combat; one in 7 women [1 in 18 men] have been stalked to the point of fear; women are afraid to leave drinks unattended at a party for fear of being drugged; just 12% of engineers are women, the number of women in computing was 27% in 2013; the Google-Apple-Facebook-Twitter workforce is 10-20% women. [“79 examples of how women are still treated unequally”; American Association of University Women; circa 2015]
“Kentucky’s ‘child bride’ bill stalls as groups fight to let 13-year-olds wed Concerns focused on rights of parents to allow children to marry at younger age.”….Donna Pollard, a Louisville woman who said she was married at 16 to an older man who began sexually abusing her when she was 14, has advocated for the bill. She told Courier Journal that opponents included the Kentucky Family Foundation, a Lexington-based conservative group…” [Deborah Yetter; 3/4/18; Louisville Courier Journal; USA Today Network]
“Between 2000 and 2010, nearly 250,000 children in the USA under age 18 were married, including some as young as 13. Most of these children were girls; most of the people to whom they were married were much older men…Data show..most of these marriages have tragic consequences for girls on all levels: economic, psychological, physical, sexual. These girls endure poverty, abuse, untreated health crises including those arising from giving birth before their own physical maturation, and the near-certainty of passing on lives of poverty to their children.” [“Rape and Impunity Child marriage is a related example of entrenched injustice”; E.J.K.; 7/30/18; Mpls. Trib]
French: “Humans are the only species in which one sex consistently preys upon the other.” Women are also often treated as a “special interest group”!!!!! 51% of the human population is a “special interest group”. – on par with corporations?
Humanity’s problem is this: in 1992, a serious academic book with the title “The War Against Women”. could be written, with much documentation itself, and far more from other sources. – and NOTHING in the following 30 years is very much changed. Funny coincidence [?????] – similar to humans destroying the planet we live on.
With Justice For All 