And by rape you know what I mean. A judge does not have to walk into this room and say that according to statute such and such these are the elements of proof. We’re talking about any kind of coerced sex, including sex coerced by poverty. You can’t have equality or tenderness or intimacy as long as there is rape, because rape means terror. It means that part of the population lives in a state of terror and pretends… that it doesn’t.
I am guessing that my astute readers will recognize that quote, but in case you didn’t, it was a portion of Andrea Dworkin’s speech, “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape.” I am also guessing that a lot of you have been wondering why, in my War on Terr’r, I have yet to discuss the most significant form of terrorism that women face: sexual assault. I was saving the shock and awe for the endgame; the War on Terr’r is about to become an occupation, meaning I’ll still be fighting it but won’t necessarily want to say so all the time, and so this topic seems like a fitting one to address before I declare major combat operations over.
Let me start off by saying that I’m going to talk about patriarchy in this post, which I rarely do. I often find myself, when I think about things like rape being a tool of the patriarchy, feeling as if I have lost my mind because I can’t figure out how these things perpetuate themselves, can’t separate the chicken from the egg. I generally avoid referring to the patriarchy because I consider doing so taking a shortcut, but I have to here, despite my discomfort. The reason I avoid referring to the patriarchy is that it’s often an incomplete explanation. Yes, we live in one, but why does it continue to exist? Why does a ship with no one at its helm continue on the same course? Are rapists consciously trying to uphold a vast and oppressive social system when they act, or (more likely) are they taking out inchoate aggression on an individual victim? Are men who use pornography making a conscious choice to promote women’s subjugation in our society, or (more likely) are they allowing their selfishness to override their humanity for a few minutes at a time? All of the senses in which women are degraded and devalued in our society are related to each other, but why do they seem to dovetail so perfectly? How can something that seems pre-planned operate with no organizing force? Is the organizing force simply the hatred of women? If it is, then whence does that hatred come? This train of thought is circular, it goes nowhere, and it drives me up the fucking wall because I believe the only way to extirpate something is to find its root.
But let’s get to the point. Sexual assault is terrorism. Rape is terrorism. But who decides what sexual assault is? Who decides what rape is?
People seem to think Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s “I know it when I see it” guideline for identifying obscenity works with rape and sexual assault. We’ve all seen movies, or heard stories, from which we find out what a rape is “supposed” to look, sound, and feel like. Strange men in alleys with weapons rape, gangs of frat boys rape. Women walking alone after dark get raped, women who get too drunk in bars and at parties get raped, women who don’t learn to fear and avoid men they don’t know get raped. Rape is violent, loud, and unexpected, and it could be lurking around every corner.
What does that image of rape do in service of the patriarchy? It allows all but that very small proportion of rapists whose actions have threatened the patriarchy itself off the hook, and it does a fairly sound job of controlling women by making them afraid to venture out alone or overstep the bounds of acceptable female behavior (i.e., it’s an effective terrorist tactic).
It’s estimated that only 21% of women who report having been raped report that a stranger attacked them. Does that simply mean that for every 21 stranger rapes, there are 79 acquaintance rapes? I wish the numbers were that “low.” First, let’s remember that that’s 21% of reported rapes. Women are highly unlikely to report a rape in the first place, but they are even more unlikely to do so when their experience doesn’t match our cultural conception of what a rape is, especially once they see how acquaintance rape victims are treated by our justice system, media, and society in general. Spousal rape? Druggings? Forget it. Those have hardly even been deemed crimes yet. Rape, being the most serious form of sexual assault, is the most likely form of sexual assault to be taken seriously and to be prosecuted. It’s a fairly sad commentary on the progress women have made toward a safe, equitable relationship with men when even the most serious form of terrorism they face is often ignored.
Stranger rape threatens the patriarchy’s ownership of women’s and children’s bodies, and so women generally have men’s support when they find themselves victims of rape at the hands of a stranger, if you don’t take into account the fact that the rapist’s attorney will most likely be allowed to call the victim a lying whore in court (gee, thanks, guys). Acquaintance rape, including spousal rape, is a whole ‘nother story. Because of the way our legal system works, women are assumed to have consented to sex unless they can prove otherwise, which is a fucking travesty if there ever was one. Lack of consent in a stranger rape is easier to prove than in an acquaintance rape, but the onus is still on the woman to prove she did not give her consent. In the case of acquaintance rape, the victim usually has virtually no way of proving that she did not provide consent. Know what that amounts to? I don’t believe that most men think about this consciously and plan to take advantage of it, but it basically means that our culture and our legal system are telling men that women are available for raping, especially if you know them.
So, we have none but the most cursory of protections from our legal system. We’re the weak, men are the powerful, and the institution that promises the weak protection from the powerful is run by and for the powerful, which means it operates at the expense of the weak. Men decide what rape is, and men have decided that the only kinds of rape they will make any kind of serious effort to help us avoid are those that threaten their ownership over our sexuality. There it is, and my head feels like it’s going to explode; I doubt that any individual man would say, “Fuckin’ A right. The whole plan is to set up a system where I can rape anybody I want, but I can also put motherfuckers in jail who rape the women and children I’ve set aside for myself to rape,” but that’s nonetheless the way shit works.
Does rape, then, really amount to terrorism on the part of men aimed at using fear to manipulate women’s behavior? This is where things get very complicated and very contentious. It’s also where most anti-feminists get their straw men from. Andrea Dworkin has been accused of saying that all heterosexual sex is rape, and feminists are often accused of saying that all men are rapists. That ain’t the fucking deal. The deal is this: men know that women live in a precarious situation in this society, know that women are vulnerable and lack the protections and power they have, and some of them use that knowledge to their own advantage. That means, in concrete terms, that some men sexually abuse some women knowing that they can get away with it because women don’t have the power to fight back, don’t have the might or even the support of the justice system behind them, don’t have any other option but to acquiesce. That means that some men coerce women into having sex with them, some men take advantage of women’s fears to manipulate them into performing sex acts they do not want to perform, some men purposely create fear in the minds of women in order to get them to comply. Fear isn’t limited to the fear of violence: it includes the fear of being abandoned, the fear of financial destitution, the fear of being left to raise children alone, the fear of being mistreated in one’s own home, and so on.
Are we to differentiate coercion from actual physical force or the threat of violence? I don’t think so. I think that when a man uses fear to coerce a woman into having sex against her will, a rape has occurred. I’m not as radical in my view of heterosexual sex as some people are; I believe that consent is possible and that there is such a thing as un-coerced heterosexual sex. Maybe I have to believe that because I’m not a lesbian, but I still do believe it. Patriarchy places women in a position in which all of our choices are limited, but I think the intent of the people involved in a sex act is the crux of the question of whether a rape has occurred. Now, that doesn’t mean that I excuse the behavior of men who are so ignorant of their own privilege that they don’t understand that coercion is tantamount to rape. Rather, it means that I’m charitable, that, despite vast amounts of evidence to the contrary, I believe most men are human beings and that most of them don’t want to hurt us and don’t want us to do things we don’t want to do. It’s the men that, knowing we do not want to do something, use force, fear, or dishonesty to make us do it anyway that are the terrorists.
To recap, not all heterosexual sex is rape, but sex that has been coerced through the use of actual force or through fear (of violence, poverty, abandonment, etc.) is rape, and is thus a form of terrorism. Individual men are instruments of patriarchy, not its architects, but that does not remove their responsibility to acknowledge and address their own privilege, nor does it excuse their patriarchy-enforcing behavior.
Rape is meant to force women into boxes, to limit their actions, to remind them who’s the fucking boss, but it doesn’t always go as far as rape. Sexual assaults of any kind have the same effect. Let me tell you two stories.
When I was 11, I was walking home from school down Fulton Road, alone, when a white truck drove up on my left. The shitbag driving it slowed down, honked, and then raised his pelvis up so I could see through the window that he was having a wank, and then drove off. I was fucking TERRIFIED. I only knew one person who lived on that street, and she lived 1/2 mile away, and the entire street was fucking deserted. I was positive this motherfucker was going to come back and kidnap me and do who knows what to me in his fucking chicken shack or whatever. I went home and was too afraid to even tell my mom because I didn’t know how to explain what the guy had done. For months I refused to walk home on Fulton Road, opting instead for a potentially more dangerous route that was also much longer, and I never again walked down that road alone, even though I lived in that town for 10 more years.
When I was 16, I was at a party with some people I knew, and one of them had brought his friend, Eric. I sort of tertiarilly (I love coining words) knew Eric through the dude I was dating at the time. He was basically kind of an alpha-male asshole and was constantly doing shitty things to people that he got away with because people thought he was cooler than they were, and because that was how people who did shit on boards acted back then (and still do – I’ll be writing about the misogyny inherent in the skateboarding world shortly). Anyway, someone wanted to take some photos, and this motherfucker decided that he would get his dick out whenever he was in a photo with a girl, myself included. I don’t pretend to know what he thought the effect of doing that would be, but it scared every girl he did it to and made all of us quiet all night. It put us in a sort of tailspin because we didn’t know what was going on or what we had done, just that we had been disrespected and insulted and that his intent was to show us that he had the power turn us into victims, and so he was in charge.
These two incidents can be called sexual assaults. “Sexual assault” is a nebulous term because the patriarchy (in the guise of the justice system) gets to define it, but any act that is sexually aggressive in nature and is intended to create fear in the victim can be called a sexual assault in my book. (I don’t know that the law is even the appropriate way to deal with these sorts of incidents, anyway. I think these call for vigilantism. See my suggestions on dealing with sexual harassment.)
That’s what the wiener does for men who misuse it. I know I’ve got some readers who are into wieners (I’m still on the fence), but they can be and are used as weapons by terrorists. The wiener may be cute to some (I really don’t get you two, seriously), but it can also be used as a tool (!) of oppression against women who are seen as having transgressed whatever arbitrary role the penis owner has decided he would like to impose. Men can flash us, masturbate in front of us, or play stupid jokes on us and other men with their wieners, and the net effect is always the same: they’ve asserted power over us by creating fear in order to manipulate our behavior.
That means that all sexual assaults, up to and including rape, are acts of terrorism aimed at taking away our freedom as women and as human beings. That also means that the War on Terr’r won’t be over until Ms. Dworkin gets her wish, and not just for twenty-four hours.
26 Comments
June 7, 2008 at 11:59 am
Well, I suppose I’m into weiners because I haven’t had any experiences like the ones you describe here. The acts of terr’r I’ve encountered have all been verbal, minus some butt-pinching back in junior high. I also don’t really see how a guy flashing his junk is much of a threat unless you’re alone, because if there was an Eric Sorenson in my midst, my first reaction would be to ridicule his genitalia. Vienna sausages, anyone? But, hey, I live to shame @ssholes, and should it get out of hand, I believe that an armed society is a polite society (and the state I live in seems to agree), and so sk8er boi’s little weapon would be no match for the one I’m packing.
June 7, 2008 at 11:59 am
Patriarchy operates through the replication of social values from one generation to another. So, that you are brought up to believe the world works in a certain way, you can’t imagine another way of doing things, and you pass on that belief system (whether or not you want to). I have oft thought that it is not its survival that is suprising, but why things change.
I have lots to say about why all sex can be conceived as rape and why men like to show off their penises as a form of terror, but I pretty much cover it all here: http://letterbyafeminist.blogspot.com/2008/03/follow-up-to-anti-sex-rape.html
On another note, despite it being none of my damn business, I hate the banner of the rather ugly dude with the fists. I keep thinking he is there to rescue us and I don’t really want him to, thanks all the same. But that’s just me.
June 7, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Feminist Avatar – I know that patriarchy is perpetuated in such a manner, but that it seems to work so seamlessly as a comprehensive social system is what often seems odd. I suppose I expect things to change and am surprised when they don’t, so maybe my cognitive dissonance comes from our having differing viewpoints on change and continuity.
As for the banner, I put it up to go with the War on Terr’r as it comes from my favorite silly, hyper-patriotic movie, but the time may have arrived for a new one. He’s only here as back-up, in any case.
June 7, 2008 at 3:13 pm
I’m so glad you quoted that speech. It’s my absolute favorite. And this post was every bit as good as I was expecting.
The state of consent by default is one of the things that irks me the most. Enthusiastic consent model, ftw!
June 7, 2008 at 3:58 pm
After taking a break from all media and thoroughly enjoying not being manipulated mentally and emotionally, I decided to seriously curtail my online activities. I’m whittling down my list of blogs to read, but yours will certainly remain.
Your blog is vibrant, your posts are great, and you’re just, like, totally awesome! (Uh-oh, 80’s flashback).
June 7, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Fear isn’t limited to the fear of violence: it includes the fear of being abandoned, the fear of financial destitution, the fear of being left to raise children alone, the fear of being mistreated in one’s own home, and so on.
That’s why I feel that single most important weapon in a woman’s arsenal against the patriarchy/sexism/exploitation/whatever is to NOT BE FINANCIALLY DEPENDENT ON A MAN…EVER. That means not only should a woman have a job, she shouldn’t put herself in a position where she does anything or has anything that requires two incomes for its continuation. That includes having children, and living in a better home/neighborhood than she can afford on her income alone. It’s really easy to become attached to the good life. I have a co-worker who is only just now applying for divorce from an asshole…she’s in her 50’s. She lives in what I consider a fucking palace. She just signed a lease for an apartment that is more than twice what I am paying for mine. We make similar salaries, and I know that apartment is eating up most of what she makes in a month. But she said, “I have to live in a “safe” neighborhood, and I have to keep Christopher in the same school district.”
See, some young girls see that kind of shit and they think, “I just need to find a better man than she did.” “I bet they weren’t really in love the way X and I are.”
But I see that kind of shit, and I immediately think, “It’s marriage that’s flawed. It’s financially dependence on men that’s the problem.”
June 7, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I can’t really say I’m surprised that things don’t change much, as I’ve seen more depth and intelligence in the eyes of livestock, than in a fair amount of humans. Besides, the way things are benefits men, and people are generally pretty selfish, so why would they change? Yeah, I’m a bit of a misanthropist. I also laugh at people who think that Obama is going to change anything.
June 7, 2008 at 4:37 pm
The worst imagery I’ve ever seen in porn is the guy slapping the girl’s face with his dick. Porn is seriously a vehicle in which insecure, undesirable (or just really perverted) men get to indulge in visual fantasies of getting to abuse the very women that wouldn’t ever give them a passing glance in real life with their penises.
June 7, 2008 at 5:03 pm
chlorophyll – I’ve seen something like that, too, when I was fairly young, and was pretty well traumatized by it. In fact, I think it might have been one of those, “Holy shit, men hate us!” moments that helps lead people toward radical feminism.
Me – Had I not been 16, I would likely have had a much different reaction to that dude. Unfortunately, guys who do stuff like that know that adult women are less likely to be cowed by such behavior, and he got away with it at the time.
bonobobabe – You are 10000% on point. I’m all for avoiding financial dependence and I recommend it to any and all. Also, thanks for keeping me on the short list!
June 7, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Ok, my first thought is this: it’s correct that you state sexual assault as a form of terror. I am on constant alert. I’m not *paranoid*, but I take precautions. My friends don’t. In fact I haven’t seen one friend of mine who seems concerned about safety. In fact one of them works at her school past dark sometimes, and others of us are concerned for her. She actually said to my mom “Why would anyone notice me?”….a couple of people I knew were kidnapped.. He later dropped them off and threatened them not to tell where’d they been. Interestingly, this MO had worked up until my friends; they promptly called the police.
We hear about prisoners beating up child molesters, but we never hear about them beating up a rapist of an adult. (This just occurred to me.)
June 7, 2008 at 9:27 pm
You must’ve had a normal life…I had to learn at an early age to stand up for one’s self, because trying to ignore people only makes you a bigger target, and I found I couldn’t rely on adults to help, even the ones who are supposed to be there for you. While I wouldn’t have had a firearm at age sixteen, I still would’ve at least said something, since I was already dead tired of people’s stupid shit.
June 7, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Tradition evolves as the species evolves. Various ways of thinking and social norms are passed down like genes. It’s dangerous, however, if we think that somehow a forced or planned society would be better in any way. I don’t disagree that sexism is a retarded (literally) way of thinking, nor do I disagree that rape and sexual assault are moral reprehensible to highest degree, however, it’s naive to think that primitive men somehow colluded to oppress women. As a species we adapted to our environment in such a way as to maximize reproduction and survival, not just of the species itself, but to reproduce the traits and characteristics which would facilitate this process of survival, reproduction and adaptation. This in no way is meant to legitimize rape, but it might be worth investigating, even though it’s painful to think that our species might be the product of a group of abusive men who raped women and thus assured that their genes would be passed down through the generations.
On a side note, there is evidence in the Odyssey of a pre-established matriarchal society which was coming into conflict with the patriarchy that we see more clearly in Homer. Particularly, when Odysseus washes ashore on the island of the Phaeacians, it is before the queen (Arete – I believe her name is, a Greek word which is commonly translated as “virtue”) that Odysseus must bow and beg for assistance.
But anyway, I’m just saying that human-kind has adapted before, and unless we are fundamentally different beings now, we can adapt again.
Evolving, though, it seems to me, should not be forced (and I know you didn’t say anything to that effect, but it’s a logical suggestion that many socialist and fascist thinkers have entertained (and no, I’m not saying that I think you are a socialist or a fascist)) but rather it should naturally occur, and I believe it will.
June 7, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Konservo – I don’t doubt that there were cave men raping women in order to ensure the survival of their genes. As a historian, however, I think it’s fairly dangerous to trace modern problems back to such remote origins. I think it makes things seem far simpler than they really are. That’s why these sorts of things occupy so much of my mental energy, because they are so complex and because it isn’t possible to put them all down to a single source or pinpoint their origins. What I’m interested in is how patriarchal norms are perpetuated through the actions of individuals who are not conscious of the entirety of the system they are supporting but only of their own interests. It’s one of the most interesting features of oppressive social systems. You would think that so many individuals acting in their own self interest would lead to chaos, but it does a marvelous job of reduplicating entire social systems, to the point that those social systems appear to be the product of some directing force even when they are not.
I’m aware that there is evidence of matriarchal societies in pre-Homeric Greece, which is interesting, but I don’t know that the evidence is definitive. Claims have also been made that Chinese society was matriarchal before the Shang dynasty, but those claims are based on Marxist ideas about the trajectory societies follow through history rather than actual evidence. I suppose confirmation of the existence of matriarchal societies would be encouraging, because it would offer alternatives, but I don’t know that those alternatives would be practicable in the modern era. As far as I know, all known matriarchal societies have existed under primitive conditions.
The modern world system is the product of, or at least operates in tandem with, patriarchal social structures. That’s my main point of divergence with a lot of other radical feminists: a lot of radical feminists believe that the only alternative to patriarchy is a complete restructuring of all of human society. That would be nice, but I don’t see it happening, so I’d rather try to figure out a way to reach equality from within the current system that we live in (not that I don’t believe that this system wouldn’t see drastic changes on the way there).
June 7, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Well, I’m one of those radical feminists who think the whole system needs an overhaul. Have you read “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn? That book helped me to see that it’s all connected. Civilization, The Patriarchy, etc.
As for people acting in their own self interest, what I find fascinating is how often women will do things that are totally NOT in their best interests.
Also, society as a whole is actually not acting in its best interest. It’s not in our interest as a species to pollute the water, air, soil, etc. It’s not in our interest to destroy the planet.
I think it’s funny that people think that males’ behavior is due to their having such long term goals as continuation of the species, yet men are raping and pillaging the planet making it unlivable for the next generation. It seems rather assbackward.
June 7, 2008 at 11:38 pm
bonobobabe – I’ll check it out. I just don’t know how realistic any systemic restructuring really is. Plus, most revolutionary movements, of which primitivism would most definitely be one, usually entail a lot of death and suffering.
People acting in their own short-term self interest is, as you say, not in their long-term self interest, but people are stupid. You have people thoughtlessly acting in their own self interest and accidentally perpetuating an entire social system that works in their favor in the medium run, but that also, as you point out, works against them in the long run.
June 7, 2008 at 11:52 pm
the stuff from bronze age Greece actually is more suggestive of matrilocal society, not necessarily (and probably not) matriarchal.
Whatever to Augustus Pontifex Maximus.
As if genes for raping (!!??) excuses fuck-all, if they even exist, which we should not assume. (“ass”-”u”-”me”, remember?)
June 8, 2008 at 12:08 am
oh jeez… :roll: there isn’t supposed to be a smiley in my last post, it’s supposed to be a closed parenthesis.
Yep. This is what Friedrich Hayek calls catallaxy, he applies the term to his main field (economics) as well as biological and anthropological/sociological orders.
Other radicals feel that a complete restructuring is needed too, so then it becomes a question of who’s vision to construct. Personally, I don’t think that a restructuring can sufficiently replace the existing order. For if the independent actions of humans across the globe over several generations produced the societal order that we have inherited, that process transcends any one group of people or set of actions. It seems to me rather presumptuous to think that a new social order could be planned in advance and imposed upon the order which arose through such an intricate natural (natural in the sense that the order was not preconceived by humans before its “physical” manifestation in society) process.
I feel that she who is most qualified for any particular opportunity or job, it doesn’t matter if it’s a mechanic or the President of the United States, should get the job if she desires it and takes the necessary actions to qualify for the position. This, it seems to me, would benefit everyone in society and lead to the personal satisfaction of the individual. I don’t think that we should be so concerned with equal representation, inequalities as far as payment or the ratio of women to men in high-level positions are merely symptoms. They are effects and to treat inequality as a cause will not achieve much but infringe upon the rights of others (i.e. if we try to force equal representation and we make sex or race the criteria instead of merit). The challenge I see, is getting the (I’ll call them) “traditionalists” to recognize the merit of an individual which can only be seen once the bias and prejudice is suppressed.
June 8, 2008 at 12:14 am
I guess some people think of primitivism as a revolutionary thing, but most primitivists know that you can’t go back. There are too many humans and not enough unspoiled land.
Where primitivism shines, I think, is in showing people that there is another way to organize themselves. There is a myth that humans lived short, painful, dreary lives before they figured out how to be “civilized.” But there was never a case of, for example, native americans willingly leaving to live like white people, but there were always white people running away to be with the natives. Primitive people didn’t jump at the chance to become civilized; it was forced upon them at the end of a sword, or gun.
There is some evidence that early humans were egalitarian, and only after agriculture did they start becoming hierarchical.
So, I think it’s nice to learn about primitive humans because they lived close to the land, close to non-human animals and didn’t try to run the show the way civilized humans did and continue to do.
As for a complete restructuring, I don’t think it will ever happen, even though I think it needs to happen. Civilization is like violence (in fact, that’s what civilization is predicated on). Once you bring it to the table, you can’t undo it. We’ve had a taste of power, and we won’t go back. Same with patriarchy. Men love the power they have over women. Men in charge love the power they have over other men (and women). They will kill before they’d give up the power.
So, even if something drastic happens due to the whole peak oil/global warming thing, we won’t restructure anything. The people remaining will enact the same bullshit they’ve always enacted.
Yeah, I’m ever the optimist.
June 8, 2008 at 1:00 am
bonobobabe – You’re right. There is actually quite a lot of evidence that “civilization” leads to social differentiation. Pastoral nomads tend to have much more egalitarian social structures than agricultural societies do, and I can think of several examples of nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples settling into agriculture and quickly stratifying.
I suppose it is valuable to learn about alternative social structures, but it still seems to amount to wishful thinking to me. I’d rather put my energy into trying to figure out a solution to what we’re facing now, which, as you’ve said, primitivism can’t deal with. I, too, am an optimist in that I hope we can figure out a solution that will minimize the number of people who have to die.
June 8, 2008 at 1:29 am
Konservo – I’m going to shock everyone else and agree with everything you’ve said, though I’ll be adding some qualifications.
About revolutions – social structures grow organically and develop their complexities over long periods of time. To think that one can apprehend the entirety of that process and come up with a viable alternative is, in my mind, the pinnacle of hubris. See most revolutionary leaders for examples. What often happens with revolutions is that the revolutionaries, once they’ve had their revolution, find that the institutional structures they’ve done away with were what was holding society together at the seams. And so they end up reduplicating them and packaging them in new terminology. I suppose, then, that that makes revolutions part of the organic growth process, but whatever. What it leads me to is the conclusion that revolutionary programs generally don’t anticipate everything creating a new social order from the ground up entails, and so they usually end up doing nothing more than speeding up reform (if that). Revolutions are generally a huge waste of resources and human life that accomplish very little in the grand scheme of things, so I’m not for ‘em.
About affirmative action – I agree with you that she who is most qualified ought to get the job, but it isn’t as simple as that. Libertarians (and Republicans) love to talk about the best man/woman getting the job, but there is usually an unspoken assumption that the playing field is even. I’m against affirmative action for two reasons: it was implemented by low-level bureaucrats with no discussion, analysis, or consensus (see John David Skrentny’s The Ironies of Affirmative Action or Hugh Davis Graham’s Collision Course), and it has been used (quite brilliantly, I might add) as a wedge issue for 4 decades to divide the white from the non-white working class. As such, it has allowed conservatives to paint themselves as the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s (and many other Civil Rights Movement leaders) crusade for a colorblind society, all while pulling money out of the programs that would make such a society a possibility.
Let me elaborate. I do not believe that anyone deserves to be guaranteed equality of results, but I do believe we ought to be guaranteed equality of opportunity. And I don’t mean just some bullshit law that says that people aren’t allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, whatever. It’s either dishonest or naive to claim that there is anything resembling equality of opportunity in America today. Real equality of opportunity would mean FEDERAL school funding, equal across the board, that provides EVERY student in the country with the kind of education that would allow her/him to compete for college admissions and jobs. What I mean is that all of our citizens ought to be protected from the kind of dire poverty that prevents them from providing the kind of home in which a child can be healthy enough and safe enough to learn. I don’t believe that federal money can solve every problem, but I do believe that it’s only when we’ve guaranteed each child in America a place to live, food, health care, and an education that we can claim to have afforded anyone equality of opportunity. The problem is that we’re impatient. It would take at least a generation of such a program to see any real results, and there’s no way it would last that long; Republicans would start whining that the money being spent wasn’t producing any results within a year.
But affirmative action is fucking brilliant; it keeps the otherwise progressive white working class voting against their own interests (meaning voting Republican) out of indignation at the unfairness of group preferences, and it keeps liberals at each other’s throats instead of working together to pass legislation that would make equal opportunity a reality.
Way to go, Nixon. I think that motherfucker might have been the political genius of the century, and here’s why. He knew that African Americans were pissed off that they were seeing so little progress after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1965 because it had removed only one institutional obstacle to equality, and left several, such as extreme poverty, segregated schools, and unequal school funding, in place. He knew that the Democrats were planning to try to remedy that by passing sweeping social legislation that would do its best to create the kind of equal opportunity I’ve described above (Johnson’s Great Society program). He also knew that white people were getting pissed about the riots and were losing their patience with the struggle for black civil rights because of the urban riots taking place.
So he took care of all three problems at once. He put a damper on the riots by offering limited affirmative action programs to blacks (which worked: the riots stopped), he appealed to racist whites in the South with his whole “silent majority” “law and order” (read: we’ll but them black people back in their place) Southern Strategy, stoking their anger (without them knowing he had done it) by quietly approving racial hiring preferences in federal contracts, and he got white working class voters to desert the Democrats in droves, effectively destroying all hopes that Johnson’s Great Society would ever come to pass and creating a chasm between white working class voters and non-white working class voters (who approved of the new affirmative action programs) that has lasted until today. And Republicans get to talk about a colorblind society. Fucking genius.
June 8, 2008 at 7:30 pm
I don’t disagree with that, as long as it doesn’t mean dumbing down the curricula.
I don’t agree with preferential treatment based on sex, race, religion, creed, etc. or what is known as “affirmative action.” When I say that the best woman or man for the job who wants and works to get the job should be the one who, in fact, does get the job, I have in mind an “aristocracy” in the original sense of the term, i.e. the best people to be in a position of power are given power, (not in the modern sense where it has come to mean something like “the rich have the power” or “plutocracy”). Who the best people to govern are can be decided by the people (after all, they are the governed, they can decide who is best to govern is/are). But a major problem is, in a society where prejudice and bias, spin and lies, etc. affect people’s judgments, it’s hard for one to show her or his merit. The result is that occasionally idiots who people “want to have a beer with” get elected.
June 8, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I only recently had the epiphany that our rape culture is a form of terrorism. It keeps a class of people living in fear. It is also not done for the ‘pleasure’ of the event itself, necessarily, but for its symbolic value-it is not to force ’sex’ but to indicate control, power, etc. based on sexual domination.
(for example, the 9/11 attacks were not for the purpose of killing people, but the purpose was bigger-to make a symbolic statement and/or instill fear. Rape is not about forcing ’sex’ (and from that, gaining sexual pleasure) and it’s not necessarily only about the event itself, but I think it’s also about what the act symbolizes: sexual power over the victim personally, and women as a class generally).
Just some preliminary thoughts.
June 8, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Brilliant post, as usual, N.D. “Individual men are instruments of patriarchy, not its architects, but that does not remove their responsibility to acknowledge and address their own privilege, nor does it excuse their patriarchy-enforcing behavior.” – Nine Deuce
Perfectly stated.
Bonobobabe, I too agree with you completely. It’s about the money, absolutely.
June 17, 2008 at 3:30 am
I don’t think that many people understand that patriarchy is necessary, maybe even a necessary evil. I don’t think that Western Civilization exists without it.
If a man cannot know his own children, especially sons, what incentive has he to work? If he cannot raise his son to follow in his footsteps and inherit his wealth, why should he save? Without these incentives, why should a man do little more than support himself? Why marry? Why father children? Why pay taxes? Why work at all?
Western Civilization and all its wonderful amenities find their source in patriarchy. Men take risks, build, invent, and struggle to become successful, to marry pretty women, and produce handsome sons that they know are their own. And to those sons they leave their land, houses, tools, and gold.
I do not deny that some women have suffered—and continue to suffer—at the hands of some men. But I see no alternative but a return to the cave. And who wants that? Without Western Civilization, all women would be vulnerable, hungry, thirsty, and dead by thirty. Women (and men) would certainly suffer more from the absence of patriarchy that because of it.
September 28, 2009 at 7:20 am
You’re completely right. Some womin, far removed from us, have suffered at the hands of men, far removed from you.
The Western Civilization AS WE SEE IT NOW could not exist without patriarchy because it was/is built with patriarchy in mind. Why couldn’t there be a society where my sisters and I don’t have to live in fear? Of being raped. Of being beaten. Of being killed. If there was no hope for a society free of this, then there would be no hope that life would get better. I doubt mass femail suicides would be very beneficial to patriarchy.
January 19, 2010 at 10:36 am
“A Man”, even though you’re long gone: WTF? If you’re relying on civilization and “progress”, then we have DNA tests that can tell you which child is so unlucky as to have a one-dimensional father. Also, why does a man have to marry and father children? Why does a person’s wealth have to come from his/her parents? It’s so nonsensical…haven’t you even heard of matriarchal societies? Or clan-type societies in which the entire village raises each child? It would work better for each woman to have a subordinate man to help her raise her child, anyway, even if it’s almost as abhorrent an idea as the patriarchy you propose. Slight differences in individual strength are irrelevant: men would act subservient to women if that were the norm.
You’re like the blind man who only knows about the elephant’s tail. You’re afraid that the elephant can’t exist unless it can swing back and forth in midair. If you know about the whole elephant it makes a lot more sense…