Bleeding to get in
January 30, 2010
I’ve never been much of a joiner, but lately I’ve been considering joining a women’s club in a neighboring town. What does that mean? Well, for starters, joining such a group represents my desire to socialize with other members of my sex. I haven’t always been very good at that. Nursery school teachers remarked at how I would play alongside other children rather than with them. But joining a women’s club would also mean the opportunity to participate in organized charity work, book club meetings, yoga, etc. without having to take the initiative to find these activities on my own.
Sounds like a plan. I’ll join a women’s club.
In college, I didn’t pledge sororities, which in principle should offer the same comforts: friendship, challenges to one’s altruistic nature and motivation to be active. I had a couple of girlfriends from high school who went to the same college and decided to pledge a sorority to enhance their social circle so that they wouldn’t rely on only each other for company. Good idea. I think they endured some hokey initiation ritual and then became fast friends with several young women in the sorority and even roomed with them for their remaining three years.
Meanwhile, over in my dorm building at Boston University, my neighbor cried herself to sleep several nights in a row because a high school sweetheart of hers at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) had drunk himself to death while pledging a fraternity. We on that specified subject floor all silently concluded that the Greek system was flawed – especially for young men – and inwardly congratulated ourselves on being film geeks, often-blocked writers and dark artists instead of joiners. We certainly weren’t headed for sports teams, the military or even religious cults…yet. We were safe from hazing. And as a woman, even knowing how shallow and vicious girls could be – threatening to beat me up because my sweatshirts were Hanes® and not Champion® brand, and calling me names because I was chubby, and telling me that they’ll “be (my) best friend” in exchange for secrets that they then blabbed all over school, etc. – I felt certain that hazing was a male problem, something women are exempt from.
But let’s be clear about the word “hazing.” It doesn’t simply mean prerequisite achieved or initiation performed. According to Dictionary.com, hazing means “subjection to harassment or ridicule.” And in some cases, that harassment and ridicule has resulted in death. While a boy I knew had pledged a fraternity and was beaten with a paddle until his ass cheeks were bright red and blistered, so much so that he couldn’t sit or lie down for days; the MIT chap had passed out in a drunken stupor, vomited in his sleep and choked to death…all in the name of acceptance.
According to StopHazing.org: “Hazing is an act of power and control over others – it is victimization. Hazing is pre-meditated and NOT accidental. Hazing is abusive, degrading and often life-threatening.” And hazing is a problem for women as well as men.
The New York Times reported in “Girls Just Want to Be Mean” that psychologists have traditionally assumed that boys are more naturally aggressive than girls, and therefore more prone to engage in hazing.
That consensus began to change in the early 90’s, after a team of researchers led by a Finnish professor named Kaj Bjorkqvist started interviewing 11- and 12-year-old girls about their behavior toward one another. The team’s conclusion was that girls were, in fact, just as aggressive as boys, though in a different way. They were not as likely to engage in physical fights, for example, but their superior social intelligence enabled them to wage complicated battles with other girls aimed at damaging relationships or reputations – leaving nasty messages by cellphone or spreading scurrilous rumors by e-mail, making friends with one girl as revenge against another, gossiping about someone just loudly enough to be overheard. Turning the notion of women’s greater empathy on its head, Bjorkqvist focused on the destructive uses to which such emotional attunement could be put. ‘Girls can better understand how other girls feel,’ as he puts it, ’so they know better how to harm them.’
So, while we should be warning our daughters about the risks of rape, date rape and other forms of violence from men, we should also be warning them about the emotional wounds that women can and do inflict. And if we know girls who possess “superior social intelligence,” we have to teach them not to be mean.
Remember Jesse Logan’s story? She was an 18-year-old high school senior who sent a text message containing nude photographs of herself to her boyfriend. But after she and that boyfriend broke up, he circulated the pictures to high school girls knowing that they would be cleverly mean about them. True to form, those girls were mean; and poor Jesse hung herself at home in the lonely privacy of her bedroom. Armed with plenty of ammunition – the secrets and insecurities we wish to hide – mean girls can and do fire again and again at will.
It would seem that boys can also be vicious – the boyfriend instigated the taunting of Logan; and after a recent incident of sorority hazing at my second alma mater Rutgers University in New Jersey, it would also seem that girls too can be violent. This month, Rutgers suspended the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority and authorities arrested six members after severe hazing was reported by several pledges. The claim: hazing included beatings with a 1′ x 6″ wooden paddle, and starvation. One pledge was so badly injured that she ended up in the hospital. The six members who have been charged with aggravated hazing, an indictable offense, are free on $1,500 bail. They are all adults and could face up to 18 months in jail if found guilty.
Make no mistake: this is not an isolated incident. Recent hazing incidents have been reported at Drake University in Iowa and Rider University in N.J., to name a couple. And according to HazingStudy.org’s “Hazing in View: College Students at Risk,” 55 percent of college students experience hazing and, in 95 percent of said cases, the hazing goes unreported. Like in instances of rape, women (and men) must be encouraged to speak up about hazing. It is harmful and possibly deadly.
No matter how badly you want to be accepted – and as women we know from fashion, television and movies that to be part of an elite group (the skinny girls) is something we think we need because the alternative is so rarely spoken of or even seen unless it’s full of ridicule (witness a bloated Kirstie Alley on magazine covers, for starters) – we cannot allow other girls and women to encourage us to be victims. We have to learn to love ourselves as we are. And if necessary, we have to feel empowered to be alone or to start our own groups based on the aforementioned positive tenets: friendship, altruism and well-being.
I’m excited about the prospect of joining a women’s club for those healthy reasons, but I’m not bleeding to get in. The minute a wooden paddle comes out or a snicker is made about my clothes, I’ll be headed for the door.
SeXXX robot or Stepford wife?
January 17, 2010
It’s here: Roxxxy, the world’s “first” ever sex robot. Not just a doll, she’s a fully automated pleasure giver developed by a New Jersey-based company. (Great! That’s just what New Jersey needs: more questionable notoriety! It’s a great state, I swear!) According to an article in The Huffington Post, this robot is better than a sex doll because she’s connected to a laptop and can carry on a conversation: “I love holding hands with you,” Roxxxy told her creator when he touched her hand at a recent Las Vegas, Nevada expo.
Wait just a minute there! I thought the whole point of a sex doll or robot was to be the same for men as the vibrator is for women: non-conversing, non-politicking sexual pleasure. The idea that a man pleasures himself with a doll or robot in the privacy of his own home doesn’t offend me. Women don’t lose anything in this scenario: men who ONLY want to receive pleasure rather than give it as well aren’t worth having relationships with…unless that’s what you want. And the ones who do want meaningful human relationships can use sex toys for additional fun on the side rather than looking outside the relationship for sex with other women.
But what if the men using these sex robots are trying to make meaningful relationships with these female stand-ins? What’s wrong with this picture? Why aren’t these potential buyers of robotic conversationalists trying to have meaningful relationships with real women or men, sexual or otherwise? And if they are, why do they need a robot unless it’s just used for getting off? Scarier still: do some men want their female companions to be robotic anyway, saying only the things their weak egos want to hear?
Hetero women today already have it hard enough. According to an article in Marie Claire about the male midlife crisis, “guys (today) are part of a cause-less generation. They didn’t grow up burning their draft cards or fighting the Nazis. They weren’t part of the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, or any other movement. They were spoiled as kids and now they want to spoil themselves as adults.”
And according to this article, today’s young men mostly want to play video games in their free time. That time does not include buying a house in the burbs, and having/raising children with a wife they personally talk to every day. I worry that if we give these guys the option – girlfriend or sex robot? – they’ll go with the robot because it’s easier. And because it’s no longer just a toy, guys won’t get lonely around Roxxxy because they can talk sports and even politics with it.
I don’t engage in any discourse with my vibrator. Real sex and real conversation are the benefits of my marriage to a real man.
This line of robots isn’t the first for this robot developer, but it is the most advanced.
Douglas Hines, founder of Lincoln Park, N.J.-based True Companion LLC, said Roxxxy can carry on simple conversations. The real aim, he said, is to make the doll someone the owner can talk to and relate to.
‘Sex only goes so far – then you want to be able to talk to the person,’ Hines said.
The phrases that were demonstrated were prerecorded, but the robot will also be able to synthesize phrases out of prerecorded words and sounds, Hines said. The laptop will receive updates over the Internet to expand the robot’s capabilities and vocabulary. Since Hines is a soccer fan, it can already discuss Manchester United, he said. It snores, too.
Owners will also be able to select different personalities for Roxxxy, from ‘Wild Wendy’ to ‘Frigid Farrah,’ Hines said. He’s charging somewhere from $7,000 to $9,000 for the robot, including the laptop, and expects to start shipping in a few months.
A Japanese company, Honey Dolls, makes life-size sex dolls that can play recorded sounds, but Roxxxy’s sensors and speech capabilities appear to be more sophisticated. Hines’ goals are certainly more far-reaching.
An engineer, Hines said he was inspired to create the robot after a friend died in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. That got him thinking about preserving his friend’s personality, to give his children a chance to interact with him as they’re growing up. Looking around for commercial applications for artificial personalities, he initially thought he might create a home health care aide for the elderly.
‘But there was tremendous regulatory and bureaucratic paperwork to get through. We were stuck’ Hines said. ‘So I looked at other markets.’
The broader goal of the company is still to take artificial personalities into the mainstream, beyond sex toys, Hines said.
‘The sex robot thing is marketing – it’s really about making a companion,’ he said.
Okay, Mr. Hines. I’ll buy that you have nobler intentions than contributing to the market of sex toys. But your idea that you can preserve someone’s personality is truly terrifying. A personality is just that: personal. No robot or computer will ever be able to fully simulate the miracle of life. Who do you think you are? God? Mother? Uh, father?
We humans implemented the telephone to make interpersonal communication faster and easier. What happened? Over time, we stopped walking across office floors to put in face time with each other and started picking up the phone every time we needed a bit of information. Then, we figured out that email was an even simpler way to disconnect from social interactions. We’ve substituted email for phone calls. And when people started (mis)reading tone and inflection into email, we invented emoticons to give “personality” to our informative missives through little bits of code. When, at last, we got tired of typing full sentences, we switched over to instant message systems and texting on our cell phones. Now, we don’t even need to learn to spell as children because almost every common phrase we use has an acronym or abbreviation. Sometimes, we even stand right next to each other and text rather than talk. Will we forget how to make eye contact? Will we forget how to speak?
And the real question for sex robot creators and buyers is this: will you forget what it’s like to love and care for somebody else? For like all of our blatant abuses of technologies that minimize social interaction, surely the ongoing development of a sex robot is just one more step in the evolution of a completely isolated, alienated human being. If you’re in the market for a sex robot who talks, won’t you soon expect to be able to purchase a sex robot who cooks, cleans, does laundry, runs errands, earns a decent wage and raises your adopted children? Where do you draw the line between sex robot and Stepford wife?
It’s true that not all people have it easy when it comes to meeting members of the desired sex. But buying a sex robot is the easy way out, and it’s detrimental to the human race. If you’re using a sex toy for sex, it’s a tool. If you’re using it for conversation, it’s a hindrance. According to another source, “Mr Hines sees his creation as not only a recreational innovation but as an outlet for the shy people with sexual dysfunction and those who want to experiment without risk.”
Experiment without risk; go for it! Shy people and those with physical dysfunctions who would seek out robot discourse usually aren’t suffering in just the romantic areas of their lives. They might need therapy and possibly medication to cope with most human interactions, from handshaking to speaking to sex. I worry that giving a “shy” person a sex robot/Stepford wife might only worsen his shyness. We get better at being with people the more we do it. And the less we spend time in the real world with real people, the less we’ll be able or even want to.
And of course, there’s this: a sex robot will never love you the way a woman can and will. Is the advancing Roxxxy a substitute for love? Will we forget how to love and be loved in return?
Fem’s “Top Ten” (English language narrative feature films of 2009)
January 3, 2010
Last year, 2009, was a great year for women’s issues in English language cinema. Though mainstream critics may have missed the boat on most of them, I hereby take it upon myself to rate 10 films on two scales: 1. relevance to contemporary feminism and 2. cinematic achievement. Each scale allows me to designate films 1 – 10 and then add the two numbers together for a final total, which determines placement on the list. With this system in play, I present a “Top Ten” ranking that includes fair to outstanding movies that American audiences witnessed in 2009. An asterisk (*) denotes a film that would appear on a “Top Ten” list based solely on criterion 2. I’d like to point out that I am not a real film critic – as in, even though I’ve studied film, nobody pays me to see and write about movies, for shame! – so I’ve seen movies on my budget. If I’ve missed any that you think belong here, let me know and I’ll look for them on DVD or consider amending the list.
Keep an open mind and enjoy!
10. The Proposal (1:5, 2:2 = 7)
Crazy am I? I did not thoroughly enjoy this silly film when I sat through it with two new girlfriends last spring; however, I did stop and think about something the moment the film’s protagonist (Sandra Bullock) admits to crying in the bathroom after a messy, public argument with a subordinate colleague. That sounded to me like something I might have done. To avoid showing any signs of weakness, I would have hightailed it to the ladies’ room where I’d be free to be…well, a lady. Let’s face it: sometimes women do need a good cry. Crying relieves tension and stress and helps to clear emotions from our minds so that we can be more like…well, men. Bullock’s character is no exception. She’s a woman trying to adapt to a “male model of careerism,” the model that predates the Second Wave of Feminism. But the question that I pondered during the latter half of this movie, chuckling here or there, I admit: why are women adapting to male careerism rather than working to make the workplace adapt to us?
This isn’t always the case, at least not in the United States. We have achieved maternity leave and pay. In some if not most cases, we’ve worked toward equality of treatment and pay on the job. But that still leaves the crying: every working girl knows that she can’t cry at work either because she once did (guilty!) and then found herself subsequently ostracized for it, or because she’s seen it happen to somebody else.
The bathroom is for doing things we hide from public view and crying is something that we believe belongs out of sight and out of mind. But if you’re used to work bathrooms with rusty sinks, musty smells and nowhere but the toilet to relax, why should your temporary moment of emotional relief be sequestered to a 3 by 5-foot area that faces a sign reading “If you sprinkle when you tinkle…”? Some offices now have nap rooms. Perhaps they should also have cry rooms.
9. Observe and Report (1:6, 2:2 = 8)
Moderately humorous at times, but overall a painful examination of naked male insecurity, I point to this film solely for the “date rape” dilemma that ensued following its release into theaters. (For clarity, I don’t think this instance counts as a date rape – which is an ambiguity intended by the filmmakers, I suppose – because the man involved is clearly not able to distinguish that the woman is under the influence of drugs and alcohol and not consenting to their sex for two reasons: 1. he’s deranged and 2. she yells, “Why are you stopping, motherfucker?!” in the middle of it all. It’s a disgusting scene nonetheless and certainly NOT funny.) Here’s the setup: a woman agrees to go on a date with a man she barely knows and while having dinner consumes much alcohol and some of his prescription anxiety medication, of her own volition. She subsequently vomits and he, reacting to this ugly display, affectionately kisses her and tells her he accepts her just as she is. Cut to: he’s humping her while she’s passed out, he pauses when there’s no reaction, she awakens and insists he keep going and…the scene ends. Yuck!
Do I detesteth too much? I think not. While this scene would be more compelling as a date rape admonition with one of two additional factors – he’s cognisant that she’s in no condition to give consent or she tries to fight him off – it still serves to warn viewers against the dangers of abusing drugs and alcohol at all, let alone in close proximity to somebody you don’t know well enough to trust with your safety. Take heed, ladies. Avoid this scenario at all costs. We have to try and protect ourselves from idiotic men and would-be rapists. We owe ourselves that much and more.
On the one hand, I recommend women see this film/scene for its sobering ugliness; but on the other hand, I think these filmmakers should be forced to clean toilets with toothbrushes for trivializing an issue that IS a serious problem in the U.S. AND EVERYWHERE ELSE!
8. Away We Go (1:5, 2:5 = 10)
Maya Rudolph, John Krasinski and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Away We Go
This is a film about parenthood and more specifically, motherhood. It is primarily a woman’s story and one that involves the searching for home and identity before the birth of one’s child. As seen through the eyes of its unconventional lead (Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph – charming!), existing mothers are either disinterested in their children, detached from reality, obsessive-compulsive or long-suffering. She doesn’t want to be any of these mothers and searches for a way to balance self and motherhood. This is a must-see for any woman grappling with the idea of who we women become as we become mothers and what are the most important things we take with us as components of our identities as we travel through life.
7. Sunshine Cleaning (1:7, 2:5 = 12)
For this touching odyssey of two underachieving sisters going into business for themselves, filmmakers interviewed two real-life women business owners about the realities of crime scene cleanup…and those women confirm that Sunshine Cleaning got it just right. The biggest battle women face in life is perhaps the one we face when looking at ourselves, honestly, and accounting for our choices or lack thereof. Does the former cheerleader turned single mom and maid (Amy Adams) want to rely on the approval of a married man, her lover, as the sole support for her fragile ego? Does her pothead, deadbeat sister (Emily Blunt) want to always cower in the shadow of their dead mother? No and no. And the way out is to stand up tall, dig their heals in and make lemonade from some very sour lemons.
True, crime scene cleanup is not the most glamorous profession – in fact, it may be the least glamorous profession there is. But this film reminds us feminists that good business practices and a strong work ethic can help us distinguish ourselves as conquerors of our American Capitalist economy. Remember to support women owned and operated businesses whenever possible to help empower the women in your immediate locale.
6. *Inglourious Basterds (1:5, 2:8 = 13)
Leave it to Quentin Tarantino to create an epic poem of a movie about Nazi Germany. I loved nearly every moment of this witty, at times intentionally campy and spirited tribute to…well, itself: epic cinema! While female director Kathryn Bigelow turned out a more conventional war narrative in 2009 that has people talking “Best Director” Oscar for the first woman ever (The Hurt Locker), it is the unconventional spirit of this war narrative that forces me to think about the way our culture glorifies and skews violence. And speaking of unconventionality, get a load of the women in Inglourious Basterds: they are forces to be reckoned with! At once full of sly vengeance and a commitment to ending violence, these women in disguise (adeptly portrayed by Melanie Laurent and Diane Kruger) are essential players in a cruel and gratuitous game, in much the same way their warrior predecessors like Boudica and Joan of Arc were before them. In short: never underestimate a woman’s ability to fight for a (noble) cause.
Melanie Laurent in Inglourious Basterds
5. *Avatar (1:6, 2:8 = 14)
Also on the subject of women and the war/peace effort, this bold and visually hypnotic fairytale focuses on a fictional alien goddess-worshiping, spiritually matriarchal culture where men and women fight, hunt, harvest and pray together as equals. It’s beautiful! And as for the human world that Director James Cameron presents: women may not be calling all the shots there, but they do harness their own moral agency in science and diplomacy.
This trend of exploring female agency is not new for Cameron, who brought us the adventurous heroics of Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio’s Lindsey Brigman in The Abyss (1989), and Jamie Lee Curis’ Helen Tasker in True Lies (1994). In fact, when I think of these movies, I don’t think of Arnold Schwarzenegger saying “I’ll be back;” in fact, I don’t think of men at all. I think of Hamilton doing pull-ups, Mastrantonio volunteering to drown in an aquatic vessel filling with freezing water, and Curtis doing a wacky strip tease thinking she’s a spy. These are fantasies I enjoy participating in: I’d love to save the world, save the man I love or at least spend 24 hours thinking I’m clever enough to master international espionage. And in real life, I take this fantasy, this agency, and apply it to the things I can change: the lives of the people I know and love. Kudos to Cameron for injecting feminism into the action film genre that’s generally devoid of interesting women.
As for female agency in Avatar, let us not forget that Sigourney Weaver’s Dr. Grace Augustine and Michelle Rodriguez’s Trudy Chacon say “No” to the carnage of this alien culture and fight to preserve it. And on the side of the Na ‘vi, Zoe Saldana’s Neytiri adopts a foreign soldier and teaches him to respect life rather than destroy it. And he, in turn, respects her life and her choices. She tells him he can choose a woman as a lifelong mate, and he responds, “But she must also choose me.” If only this were the way all men looked at women’s choices…
4. *Bright Star (1:6 2:9 = 15)
Edie Martin and Abbie Cornish in Bright Star
Of course, not every film can be a landmark feminist achievement like Jane Campion’s The Piano (1993). But Campion has done again and again what so few filmmakers can: understand and visualize the female condition. Bright Star is no exception. Rather than telling a straightforward narrative of revered poet John Keats, Campion tells the story – or rather maps the emotional landscape – of Keats’ great love, Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish in a breathtaking performance). This isn’t your typical love story; this is instead a flight of fancy wherein a passionate girl designs and wears elaborate fashions that depict her sense of self, and secludes butterflies in her bedroom, where she daydreams and cries and pines the days away. What teenage girl didn’t endure this experience…or what felt like this experience? And Keats almost becomes irrelevant…he might as well be David Bowie (to me) or Justin Timberlake (to somebody else), etc. At once, Bright Star is a romance AND an exclusive journey into the soul of a prurient teenage girl. Nobody visualizes female sexuality like Campion!
3. *Julie & Julia (1:10, 2:7 = 17)
Further proof that he needs to retire, Roger Ebert chastised the characterizations of the husbands of Jule Powell and Julia Child in his review of this film. “Both husbands are, frankly, a little boring,” he wrote. “They’ve been assigned their supporting roles in their marriages and are reluctant to question the singlemindedness of their wives…if the men had been portrayed as more high-spirited, (the film) might have taken on intriguing dimensions.”
Well, Mr. Ebert, I (respectfully) disagree with you on several points. The husbands aren’t boring; they’re just NOT in a movie ABOUT THEM. Quelle suprise! This is a movie, as the title clearly states, about Julie and Julia. This is a movie about women finding their identities from what you so patronizingly refer to as their “singlemindedness.” And yet, to Director Nora Ephron’s credit, I do know what each husband does for a living and what he is passionate about. She didn’t even have to give us that. We female film audiences have sat through many a good movie with poorly (under)written female characters. We’re entitled to a movie about real women now and again, don’t you agree?
And you can’t ask for a better, more sensitive, more nuanced portrayal of a supportive husband than that given by the great Stanley Tucci as Diplomat Paul Child! I hope he gets the Oscar. So there: the Oscar winner I’d like to see come out of this movie is one of your “boring” husbands!
Julie & Julia is about two women who discover their strengths and generate feelings of self-worth, ironically, in the kitchen. Julia Child can’t have children – that is her great sadness – but she leaves her mark on us in other ways. We love her joy, her bliss: her loves of food, wine and sex! And Julie Powell’s sadness comes from feeling like she’s a 30-year-old failure. “Will I be a writer?” she asks herself. “You are a writer.”
Just because nobody pays me for this blog, doesn’t mean I’m not a writer. I am a writer. This is the identity I create for myself.
2. *Precious (1:10, 2:8 = 18)
The very fact that Director Lee Daniels had to go outside of traditional casting methods to find the right actress (Gabby Sidibe, a bright, shining beacon of realism) to portray a morbidly obese black teenager, pregnant with her own father’s second child, goes to show you that Hollywood has it all backwards when it comes to women. Not only could I not get enough of peering into Sidibe’s stunning yet stoic face, but I left the theater wishing there was another movie playing that could move me in the same way: force me to look at real women squarely in the eyes and accept us. For that’s what Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones does: she goes from looking in a mirror and seeing a white, skinny, conventionally beautiful teenager (her fantasy self) to looking in the mirror and seeing a strong, black, finally literate teenager (her real self). This film took my breath away!
The film also demonstrates how misogyny and racism often work hand in hand to hurt women. There are truths about the black, Harlem culture revealed in this story and the way the women therein are taught to (de)value themselves (i.e. the number of children you have denotes self-worth, there’s no possibility for survival/advancement beyond the welfare office, etc.) that form the backbone for a formidable thesis: illiteracy, poverty and self-hatred form a cultural cycle that is nearly impossible to break. Just look at the shocking, albeit beautiful, posters for the film:
The first image shows how the sexual identity of Precious has fallen prey to a violent man, her own father – as well as her own jealous mother. The second image invokes thoughts of pre-Civil War southern (U.S.) black domesticity. And finally, the third image sets us, the viewers, free. Precious will grow; she will change; she will fly. And we get to go on this journey with her. (Note: Precious is the film adaptation of the novel Push by Sapphire, which may be worth reading for additional thematic material not found in the film.)
1. *Coraline (1:10, 2:9 = 19)
When I was a girl, I was sometimes unhappy. I was not unlike Coraline, but it wasn’t just my name that people misunderstood: it was my frustration at being born with a perception that didn’t match those in my immediate locale. That’s why, when I went to see Coraline in theaters last February, I wept like a baby when a little girl, not unlike me, crossed into a (dream) world where women are as beautiful as they imagine themselves to be and parents seem interested in the life of their child, only to find out that in order to stay in this fantasy place, she has to sew buttons over her eyes. In other words, she has to blind herself to the fantasy in order to live it. There’s nothing like showing somebody a wonderful world of options and then taking all options away except one! That’s cruel and unusual punishment.
Coraline is adapted from a novella for youth by Neil Gaiman, but much of the visual artistry is the brain child of the filmmakers who rendered stop-motion animation flawlessly to create a female-identified real world and a female-identified, even vaginal, alternate universe. In the former, Coraline and her parents rent an apartment in a grand, pink Victorian house. There’s a black cat (a pussycat) always watching her, two old ladies, hard of hearing, living in the basement, a talkative boy whom Coraline detests, and a circus performer with a collection of mice living in the attic. These creatures are present in the alternate world but, like Coraline’s father, the men are rendered dumb, even absent, while the women reach their former glory as vivacious Vaudevillian starlets and the mother, “the Belle Dame,” rules with an iron fist.
You're a long way from home, Coraline Jones.
At first Coraline is tempted to travel the vaginal tunnel to eat the tasty food prepared by her “other mother,” to wander the ovarian gardens with her “other father” who gives her the time of day… But once the buttons come out, she knows something is wrong and she decides that disinterested parents and gray clothes are better than a fate of self-induced blindness, when one can’t see the things one wishes were true when they ARE true and right before one’s eyes.
This story hit me like a ton of bricks. What we women want are choices. What we NEED are choices. Coraline represents what girls have historically suffered: knowing there’s more to life than what they’re offered, but feeling powerless to achieve the more. Coraline is the reason we founded feminism and she’s the reason why feminist empowerment, the agency to find and seize our choices, is the most important thing that we can inspire in our daughters and the women we know who aren’t already empowered to choose the things they want in life.
Untested rape kits in America
December 20, 2009
** To support the nonpartisan Justice for Survivors of Sexual Assault Act of 2009, visit http://www.hrw.kintera.org/rape-kits. **
According to a recent 5-month CBS News investigation exclusive, at least 20,000 rape kits have gone untested in the United States. To put this figure in context, the investigation revealed some startling facts and figures about rape in the U.S. at large:
- nearly 90,000 women reported they were raped in the U.S. during 2008; an additional 75,000 rapes are estimated to have gone unreported
- the arrest rate for the same period was only 25%, less than the 79% for murder and 51% for accusations of aggravated assault
- according to RAINN (The Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network), only 6% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail
- when an alleged victim contacts law enforcement claiming to have been raped, she or he generally receives a test (a rape kit) that will help prove that the rape did in fact occur and, with DNA evidence gathered from both the test and the suspect, that the suspect did commit said rape; but the investigation revealed that at least 20,000 of those tests administered in America have gone untested, making it impossible for the legal system to potentially punish at least 20,000 rapists
- many states have revealed that they have unanalyzed rape kits collecting dust on shelves: CBS provides a state by state breakdown
- in addition, officials from at least 12 major cities (Anchorage, Baltimore, Birmingham, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Oakland, Phoenix and San Diego) said they have no idea how many of rape kits in storage are untested
- according to law enforcement officials, rape kits don’t get fully tested because of cost (up to $1,500 each) or because victims sometimes recant their accusations
- New York City purports to test every single rape kit it executes – over 1,300 in 2008 – and its arrest rate is 70%
This information may provide answers to some of the big questions about our human inability to eradicate rape that feminists tackle on a daily basis. Clearly, in a judicial system with a goal of discouraging rape crimes by harshly punishing rapists, that goal cannot be realized when so few rapists are punished. But the information forces us to ask additional questions. Why are roughly 75,000 women silent about rape? Why isn’t it policy, at the state or federal level, to complete the rape investigation promptly? Why has insufficient money been allocated to these investigations, making $1,500 per rape accusation unfeasible for local law enforcement? Why do some rape victims claim that they have been raped only to revoke the accusation later?
I wish I had answers to these questions, but I only have speculation. I suspect that many women don’t value themselves enough to feel they deserve American “justice.” I suspect that many of them are afraid to cry out for help and, in doing so, help protect others from violent offenders. I only know that I want them to feel empowered enough to do so.
Much of the mystique around rape exists because our society still disagrees amongst itself on the nature of rape: is it sex or is it violence? The legal definition of “forcible sexual relations” does not coincide with many philosophical definitions that account for sex that occurs when one party is unconscious or under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Does date rape or rape in circumstances where alcohol is present mean that a rapist is a corrupt individual who will always pose a threat to other people? Can rapists be rehabilitated? Is rape as damaging a crime as other forms of assault or even murder? I just don’t know. Does anybody?
If rape is a byproduct of misogyny, then the sooner we eradicate gender expectations from our culture (i.e. women are supposed to be meek and sexually accommodating and men are supposed to take what they want, by force when necessary) the better for all potential rape victims. If you have to hate someone in order to rape them, then let’s work to eliminate the source of hatred: misunderstandings of who we are and how we think we each should behave. But this theoretical notion may not be possible to implement at all, and certainly not right away: it will happen generationally if it can.
I am sure of several things:
- while New York City’s arrest rate is not good enough at 70%, it is better than the national average by far, proving that follow through on these rape kits will help to put more rapists behind bars
- the 51% arrest rate for aggravated assault, which is more than double that of rape, proves that rape is not taken as seriously by law enforcement at large as are other forms of violence
- a victim doesn’t get to decide when a crime against her/him is punishable or not; ergo recanted accusations should still be followed by fully executed rape tests in order to prevent a possible rapist from performing future violent acts on others
- 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, but there are SOME things that people can do to protect themselves SOMETIMES (RAINN)
I do not subscribe to the notion that women are victims and men are rapists by default. In the case of the CBS investigation’s rape victim Valerie Neumann, then 21, her alleged rape occurred after she and a “friend of a friend” spent hours drinking, she had thrown up and subsequently she had passed out. Why was she drinking to excess with a man she had just met? Had she stayed sober and stayed at the public place (a bowling alley) where she met this man, she would have removed herself from such a dangerous situation. Of course, that does not preclude an assailant from following her home or secluding her in a dark, private corner of the parking lot. No. The world is a dangerous place SOMETIMES. But Neumann could have taken better care. College age women are 4 times as likely to be sexually assaulted than others because of the drinking and the lack of security they endure. And 43% of rapes take place between 6 p.m. and midnight with an additional 24% before 6 a.m. (RAINN) Don’t walk home alone at night. Don’t go anywhere with a man you just met. Don’t drink from open containers. Don’t drink alcohol at all. Protect yourself.
Neumann deserves “justice” for the crime that was committed against her. According to her preliminary examination, there was enough evidence to suggest forced penetration, and semen was found in her underwear. The suspect provided a DNA sample, but Neumann’s rape kit was never fully tested. The explanation: prosecutors did not think that they could win a case against the suspect.
It is my belief that rape has little or nothing to do with sex – sex is rape’s milieu – and almost everything to do with hatred and violence. In Neumann’s case, a date rape, alcohol played a significant role in her sexual experience. Whether the law considers it “rape” or not is irrelevant. It’s still wrong and painful for the victim. While a courtroom drama may not have ensued, a fully executed test confirming the suspect as the perpetrator would have at least resulted in an arrest: and an arrest would have sent a message that this type of violence will not be tolerated…at least to the lone perpetrator and maybe to some of his friends.
I pose a call to action with regard to getting the rape arrest rate to nationally meet and hopefully exceed that of New York City’s and one that would increase the sexual education of teenagers and young adults in high school and college. I ask the Federal Government to force state governments to force local law enforcement officials to fully examine ALL rape kits. Additionally, I ask that the Federal Government mandate that all high school seniors take and pass a responsible sex education class before graduating. The class would entail an understanding of sexuality, its consequences, both for violent sexuality and consensual sexuality, and a signed pledge from students (male and female) to be responsible sexual participants. While conservatives will note that this may cause a slight increase in tax rates nationwide, we cannot continue to be negligent and naive about sexuality and violence. (To you cheapskates, my response: Go back to kindergarten and learn how to share!) We need to teach boys how to control their bodies and respect human beings. We need to teach girls and boys how to protect themselves and make responsible choices. And most of all, we need to teach ourselves that one rape is too many; certainly, 20,000 or more unpunished is grotesque and inhumane.
If you agree, or if you are at least concerned, contact Attorney General Eric Holder, a public servant, at:
-
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW Washington, DC 20530-0001
phone: 202-353-1555
email: askdoj@usdoj.gov
Be sure to include a copy of the CBS news report with your letters and emails.
- Think you can’t or aren’t making a difference by writing? Meet Florence Holway:
In 1991, Mrs. Holway, then 75, was brutally raped in her rural New Hampshire home by a 25-year-old intruder. There was nothing she did to deserve this attack. There was nothing she should have done to prevent it. But that didn’t stop her from working to correct it. Her indignation and 12 years of hard work inspired the state of New Hampshire to change its rape laws. While Holway’s rapist served a mere 12 years in prison for his crime, future rapists will serve 15 to 20 years for first offenses, 20-40 for second offenses and life in prison without parole for third offenses. HBO made a documentary about this struggle and accomplishment called Rape in a Small Town.
Anyone can and should make a difference. We have to start somewhere. So pick up your pens!
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