(Cross-posted from the Arctic Feminist)
There’s been a lot of interesting news on twitter today. Its started my wheels spinning. Ian Watkins (lostprophets) has pleaded guilty to 11 counts of attempted rape of an infant girl. Nigella Lawson’s attacker Charles Saatchi has been given license in the British media to slander her character despite the fact that he was photographically documented brutally assaulting her. Oh and of course Karen Ingala Smith’s project “Counting Dead Women” has been taking off and been at the forefront of my mind.
Whats become even more clear to me is if a woman like Nigella Lawson, who is famous and successful, consistently in the public eye and many women in similar positions are subject to not only the threat of male violence, but to male violence itself, where does that leave women like you and me? We become numbers added to body counts that only exist because some crazy feminist out there thinks our lives matter enough to count.
Its also amazing that we still have people under the impression that being a child rapist is a “sexuality” and that we should all feel sympathy for men who brutalize children. Erasing yet again the damage inflicted upon those who are raped in childhood.
Why do we hesitate to see male violence and the male sex caste for what they are? Why do we not see that there is a war being waged against the female sex that has been going steady for thousands of years and that we are losing, badly? Why do we not see that all women, no matter what they achieve are always under the threat of some man getting to define them (as victim) forever? We desperately need to build communities that function away from men. Refuges for our refugees. We need to stop acting as if all of this is just a misunderstanding and get serious about putting an end to male violence, for good.
The Arctic Feminist: I lazily blog about whatever I want. Always from a radical feminist perspective
Once again women must ‘fix’ male violence and its outcomes. Not all men are violent yet the whole meaning of male is becoming synonomous with violence and fear. Only men can fix this. They need to construct a new maleness that does not rely on ownership and power over someone or something weaker. Being nurturing and creative is harder than punching someone but violence is not working for you so give it a try.