In the wake of this
year’s UCSB Isla Vista shooting, after 22-year old Elliot Rodgers killed six
people, his manifesto was circulated widely through the nether-realms of social
media. Clearly the accumulation of defensive and painful rationalizations from
a disturbed young man who may have benefited from better mental-health care,
this document wretched with a too familiar narrative: women have all the power
in sexual relationships, women are cold and unfair in declining the propositions
of men; in short, women are at fault for the violence enacted upon them.
In many ways, Elliot
Rodgers was not a lone gunman. He was the inevitable conclusion of the ideology
of Men’s’ Rights Activism (MRA), of libertine pickup artists and neg-hitters, and
of every movie and tv show about a nerdy, down-trodden guy. In Rodger’s mind,
he was entitled to “win the girl;” failing this was a great injustice.
In a welcome break
from the lone misogynist com monster narrative, thousands of women took to the
internet to express outrage toward this ideology.
The #yesallwomen campaign gave a voice to the sexual aggression most women face
every single day for their infuriating crime of walking around in public space.
With #yesallwomen, and in many more forums, outrage was directed not at Elliot
Rodgers, but at the rape-culture in
which he was raised; at the constant social violence toward women that is
denied as often as it is committed.
Still, the term
“culture” fails to fully encapsulate the way systemic power works. Discussing
the Isla Vista shootings, activist Jen Roesch writes, “sexism is the set of
ideas that both flow from and serve to justify the unequal status of women.” In
other words, ideology is born from already
unbalanced power relationships, and then serves to reinforce or maintain those
in power. It is no accident, for instance, that the “Mommy Myth” (of idealized
motherhood) soared in popularity at the conclusion of each World War when men
came home to reclaim their position in private production, or that Weight Watchers was created in tandem with the Women’s
Liberation Movement.
Behind every
lone-gunman is a cultural ideology, and behind each cultural ideology stand the
institutional and systemic forces of oppression. Pointing to the ideology is a
good start, but ultimately we must address our social institutions. In the case
of Isla Visa, this means demanding change from the universities that stage
mock-trials in their own kangaroo courts, the police precincts that fail to
process rape kits, and the criminal justice system that is somehow still
completely beguiled about how to take victim testimony seriously.
And women are not the
only people who can’t walk down the street without being harassed. In 2012
alone, 136 unarmed black men were killed by police officers and security
guards. From then to now, an unarmed black man has been killed every 28 hours –
and that’s just the body count. Let us not forget the constant barrage of
micro-aggressions experienced by people of color on a daily basis: being
followed, being stared out, being touched without consent – these last examples
will sound familiar to #yesallwomen.
And just like Elliot
Rodgers, the police officers implicated are not lone gunmen, but the result of
institutional and systemic oppression. In this avalanche of murders, such
systemic oppression includes the discriminate policing of black neighborhoods,
suspension of basic civil rights at the discretion of law officers, and failure
to prosecute police or “white on black crime.”
And yet, in remarks
uncomfortably similar to the ugly idiom “she was asking for it,” last week, the
New York Times published an article claiming Michael Brown “was no angel.”
This is just one of a
many of strains of ideology that holds people of color responsible for the way
they are treated by the police. The ideology insists that black culture creates
young men that don’t know how to behave themselves (a myth, by the way, that
has been debunked by social scientists more than once), and in turn, are killed
for their own insubordination. “If he hadn’t demonstrated aggression…” “If he
hadn’t talked back…” “If he had just dropped his cell phone...” …he’d still be
alive. But rest assured: he was no angel.
Angels don’t exist;
neither do monsters. Many of these young men have been defended by their
families and communities who exonerate their characters. And even if a single
one was not a total pillar of community and goodness, was not a followed by an
ethereal orb of light to alert all passersbys of his saintliness; even if any one
of the young men killed was, I don’t know, a real human teenage boy, then murder
is as justifiable a consequence for copping an attitude as being raped is for
wearing a low-cut blouse.
So, what about
feminism in the wake of Michael Brown? The proponents of women’s rights must consider not only the interests of
all women; we must consider the interests of all people. Like untying a knot
made from multiple strings, to set one loose, you must untangle the others.
Concerning one social justice movement in the interests of another is the
quickest way to see past the lone-gunman, past the ideology, and onto the
social institutions that are invested in subjugation of both women and people
of color in order to maintain the status quo of current power
relationships.
- Written by Victoria Silva, MA
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