Every single time this happens, and it happens a lot (see this article in the LA Times from October for a timeline of shootings since 1984), I feel more and more frustrated that instead of diminishing it seems to happen more and more often. We're not untouched here as it wasn't that long ago that the Mall in Columbia had it's own active shooter event and many of us, if we weren't there, know someone who was there that day.
Friday's attack at Planned Parenthood was directed at women which reminded me of the battle in Congress to re-authorize the Violence Against Women Act in 2013. Did you even know there was an International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women? It was November 25th. I missed it too. My thoughts also wandered around to basic attitudes towards women and the ever increasing violent language used towards us, especially online. If you're not familiar with Gamergate, here's Zoe Quinn explaining what it's like to be the most hated person online, mostly because she's a woman. If you want to know how people regard women online, just read the comments after they post or make their own comments.
To complete the curve of where my thoughts took me as I thought more and more about the shooter they went to the basic way women are treated on a daily basis by friends, family and co-workers, not just the cat calls and whistles when we're walking about or being told to 'smile', but the general disrespect we all encounter. In my own family boys are preferred to girls. My grandfather told my mother once "You're always happy with whatever you get, but a boy is special." When my Dad called my Grammy back in 1976 to let her know the new baby was a boy she expressed relief that he wasn't another girl. I scored an excellent Dad and he was insulted since he thought my sister and I were pretty great. My Uncle told me once that he thought all the women he worked with who got promoted had slept their way to those jobs. Years ago as my Grandfather and his wife were leaving our house he handed my sister and I each a $20 bill and then handed my brother a $100 bill. If you want to know where someone places their priorities, look at where they spend their money.
Until we pointed it out to them and they stopped, my sister and I would be in a deep discussion with her husband and my Dad would jump in and pretty soon we would be ignored while the two men carried on a discussion. My Dad and my brother-in-law are very much feminists, but they were acting within socially accepted norms at the time. Men get to talk and women don't.
This happens at work as well. I've been the initiator of a meeting where a man has walked in and asked me to make copies of his handouts. "I'm sorry, I can't, I'm running the meeting." They look a bit taken aback. My fellow female co-workers and I have numerous examples of meetings where the men just talk over the women as if they're not even in the room. The message is quite clear - be quiet women.
Where am I going with all of this? I think it's the very basics, the foundation for how we treat women that needs to change. Some people like to shrug off political correctness, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about changing attitudes not just using the right words. What is the saying? Think globally but act locally? That's what I want. I want people to think about how they treat their Mom, their sister, their wife, their daughter and all the women in their lives. It's not just men that I'm talking to here either. I see women put down other women also. Everything we do is a matter of degree. In one house the father talks over the mother when she's speaking and people think that's a small thing, but if that's not so bad what is the degree up from that? Is that wrong? What is the message that the daughter gets when the father does this? Do women count? Do we get to have a voice and decide for ourselves who and what we'll be? Or do we have to wait for others to be quiet before we're allowed to talk? Should we raise our hands and wait to be recognized while men get to speak freely and 'own' the floor?
This subject is rich with possibilities and I could discuss the whole rape culture that we live in and the fact that we idolize women for how they look and not what they think, but others are better at that than I am and I think I've already made my point above. How we treat girls and women on a daily basis matters to how we think of them in general. Once women are seen as equals, and despite all we've achieved we're clearly not seen that way, then I think we'll start to see improvements in how we treat abusers of women. It won't be acceptable to just drop charges. We are beginning to see more and more attention being paid to how women are treated, including Jimmy Carter stating that mistreatment of women is the number one human rights abuse and Emma Watson's speech on gender equality and feminism at the UN.
There were a lot of red flags with this shooter, not only did he have a history of domestic violence, he seems to have been a Peeping Tom and animal abuser too. Individuals who abuse animals are also very likely to abuse people. The FBI has announced that it will begin tracking animal cruelty in 2016. Animal abuse is a key indicator in domestic violence situations and should never be ignored. Let's not ignore women either.
No comments:
Post a Comment