by Marty Coleman | Jun 1, 2014 | Margaret Atwood, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
It’s #3 of my Violence Against Women series, sparked by the murders in Isla Vista and UCSB, my Alma Mater. Addition events in India with the rape and lynching of two teenage girls only increases my desire to keep this issue on the front burner.
Size Matters
No, I don’t mean THAT size. I mean the size of the anger, the size of the ego, the size of the insecurity (which of course could possibly be linked to THAT size, who knows). In most cases men feel a little embarrassed and maybe a little humiliated by a woman laughing at them. It might sting a little, and it might make them a little angry. But most men are not all men. And all it takes is one man whose anger is BIG and whose predilection to violence is BIG to create a violent situation.
Not All Men
Too often men will listen to a woman talk about an incidence of sexual violence and their response is will be, “Well, not all men are like that.” But what they don’t realize is that for a woman, they may know most men aren’t like that, but they have very little way of knowing which man is which. I heard a great analogy the other day to help a man understand what a woman is dealing with.
Yes, All Women
Imagine you are given a bowl of M & Ms and are told that you shouldn’t worry too much because they are mostly safe, but there are about 10% that are poisonous. Would you be inclined to grab a handful? I doubt it. Well, that is how many women, especially those who have had run-ins with poisonous men already in their lives, feel about men in general. It’s hard to know who is who in advance. And yes, all women have to deal with it.
The quote above is true: Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them.
Hidden Men
The other thing us men who aren’t poisonous don’t realize is that we don’t see the poisonous men doing their damage, their seductions, their manipulations, their intimidations because they don’t do it around us. They do it when we aren’t around. What does that mean? It means we don’t default to saying, “Nah, that didn’t really happen.” or “eh, I am sure he didn’t mean anything by it.” It means we have to default to believing a woman when she tells us that it has happened. It means if a woman says WE are doing it, even if we don’t think we are, we stop and believe them. We don’t believe them because we are guilty of something (even though we might be). We believe them because the effect of what we said or did gave them that feeling. That is enough.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Margaret Atwood, 1939 – not dead yet, Canadian author
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by Marty Coleman | May 28, 2014 | Anonymous, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
This is part 2 of my series on Violence Against Women. It was sparked by the violent events at my Alma Mater, UC Santa Barbara, last week.
Pleasing
To my female friends and readers: do you try to please your husband or boyfriend on a regular basis? Are you able to? If you are and they appreciate it, great. I hope they are trying to please you in equal measure.
But what about when you can’t please them? What happens when nothing you do is good enough? What do you do when the man says you aren’t thin enough, pretty enough or a good enough homemaker, child raiser or money maker? Then what? What do you do when you aren’t good enough in bed, aren’t wild enough in public, aren’t sexy enough in your attitude? Then what? Are you hit? Abused? denigrated? assaulted? What do you do to stop it?
Avoiding
If you are like most women I have talked to who are in that situation, you will try everything to make them not be angry, not be violent, not be dissatisfied. And if they are never satisfied have you stopped trying to please? I imagine that is very scary because he has power. power to hurt, power to seek revenge, power to make your life even more miserable.
Divorce
People often cite divorce statistics saying 50% of marriage end in divorce. They use it as a way to condemn modern society. But I think there is another reason. A good reason. And it’s because women have started saying ‘No More’. I know it’s not the whole reason, but I do know it is a BIG reason. More and more women are no longer willing to be the punching bag, verbally or physically. They no longer have to just suffer through it, they can get out and they do. I think that is a good thing.
Here and Now
If you think I am just talking about this as an abstraction, I am not. I have a friend in the here and now who is seriously contemplating divorce for precisely this reason. Her husband will not support her efforts to be fit, to be strong, to have friends, to be even minimally independent. Does she want to have an affair and blow the family fortune? No, she just wants a life, that’s all. She is more than happy to tell him all about it, to introduce him to her various friends and activities. But he not only doesn’t support her, but actively tries to stop her. He denigrates her and threatens her with divorce again and again. He isn’t stabbing her with a real knife, but he is stabbing her with his words.
What Men Can Do
It’s not easy for me to always understand what women go through since I don’t live it directly. But the truth is many women deal with this all the time in one way or another.
What I try to do now that I didn’t do before is to listen and believe them. They aren’t lying to us and they aren’t making it up. They are facing it and would like to at least be respected enough to be heard and believed. It won’t harm us to listen and react with the love and respect we would want for ourselves.
You can see the entire series so far here.
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Anonymous
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by Marty Coleman | May 27, 2014 | Mignon McLaughlin, Violence Against Women - 2014 |
This isn’t going away and I am wanting to talk about it.
Isla Vista
To even be talking about this is disappointing. The world is filled with men who don’t believe women should use their mind to make up their own mind about things. To pursue relationships or not, to pursue careers or living arrangements or travel or money or style or design or art or a million other things.
If you have any doubt you need go no farther than the town of Isla Vista, next door to the UC Santa Barbara campus in California. I lived in Isla Vista while attending UCSB back in the 70s and the shooting there is particularly disturbing because of the familiarity with all the places they are mentioning as the shooter rampaged around the town.
A young man killed 6 people on a rampage against women. He killed two members of the Tri-Delt sorority standing nearby after failing to get into the Alpha Phi sorority he wanted to attack or the toll of women would have been much worse. He killed 4 men but he was not enraged about men, they were unfortunate to be where they were, not targeted because of their gender.
Veronika and Katie
But the two women were, not because of them as individuals but because of their gender. The women, Veronika Weiss and Katie Cooper, were targeted because the murderer felt he was unfairly rejected by women. It’s unclear if he ever attempted to actually date any women, all that is known now is he claimed to be a virgin and blamed women for his inability to have sex with them.
Rape Culture
He was involved online with a group that is virulently anti-women. They portray them all as sluts and whores who manipulate and deceive for their own advancement and pleasure. They are not to be trusted but to be manipulated themselves into having sex with these men. Why? Because the men deserve to have sex with them. Why do they deserve it? Because they are men and women are supposed to do what men want of them.
Under the Radar
This is under the radar in the US most of the time. You don’t hear about these groups and their attitudes directly. But you do hear about date rape often enough and where does that come from but the same mind set of deserving the sex.
On the Radar
It is not under the radar however in other countries. The newspaper just this morning had an article about a woman having been stoned to death in front of a courthouse in Pakistan by her father, brothers and fiance. Why? Because she married a man she loved instead of the man her family told her she must marry. In other words, she had her own mind and followed it. And the men in her family and in the society don’t want that to happen. They don’t want women with a mind of their own, just as the murderer in Isla Vista didn’t want women who would or could reject his advances if they wanted to. They, as the victim in Pakistan, were obligated to obey the man and not have the power to make their own decisions about the matter.
Avoidance
What do I think is the solution? Heck if I know the big answer. But I know one small answer. Never, EVER spend substantial time and effort on a man who does not respect your intelligence. If he doesn’t respect your mind, he doesn’t respect you. Period. And it will come out. And when it does, it won’t be pretty. Much better to stay away from the beginning.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author
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