Laci Peterson was not alone
A study by the Washington Times found that 1,367 pregnant women and new mothers have been murdered in the U.S. since 1990. Why haven't they all received the same media attention Laci Peterson received? Why was her death sensationalized and the other 1,366 ignored?
And why are men so misogynistic and so violent?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10074-2004Dec18.html
And why are men so misogynistic and so violent?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10074-2004Dec18.html
posted by Editor at Large at 9:28 AM
1 Comments:
There are many theories why men are misogynistic (women hating). We live in a misogynistic culture. One only needs to look at t.v., go on the web and look at porn (but I'd rather you not) or browse a history book to see women are played down as "beneath" man. Our language is derived from mysogynistic beliefs. Women have not been studied in science or health, but a male model is always used. Women's bodies are different from men's and we need women's bodies to develop the science that determines our medical practices.
If we go way back to prehistoric times we find that men needed women in order to centralize power. They needed them to work their fields and produce their offspring. They used brute force then to get women to do what they wanted and they use it today. American culture privliges men through systems of oppression. These are institutions which have the power to distribute resources and do so unfairly--have done so for years. This nation benefits from all the unpaid labor of Native Americans, slaves, and women. The "second shift" is usually the woman's job if she works out of the home.
The history of sexuality is a history of telling men that their "seed" was more important than woman's. Only recently does science look at male's ejaculation as "fertilizer" and women's egg as "seed". When women marry they lose power by losing thier name. In some cultures they lose much more. People of little power are not respected in western culture.
Some people believe men hate women because a woman is usually the primary care-giver of men when they are boys. This makes men feel powerless in the face of their need for their mother's love and approval. With fathers frequently being out of the picture--all the blame is on the mother.
Gender is socially constructed and derived on a sliding scale. There is no 100 percent "male" nor 100 percent "female." We all land somewhere in the middle along the scale with some of us more at one end of the other. Men are afraid of being penetrated. It is seen as a "woman's" position and seen as a negative thing that "happens" to you. This also creates a lot of homophobia in our culture. At one time, there was no word for homosexual, or heterosexual. Men had sex with men and women with women. It was part of acceptable society. The Church/State put an end to all that by questioning if you were really male if you had a sexual-object choice that was not female. This was to control reproduction, develop armies, workers, people to support the Church. Mysogynestic ideas are nurtured through the bible and it's all male telling of Jesus's life.
Many reasons why men are mysogynistic. The question for any one man is "Do I hate women?" For a man to truly answer this, he must look at his practices. Does he have women friends? Does he look at porn? Has he every raped someone? Does he understand how he is priviliged? Most men need to take a Difference, Power and Discrimination course of some type to understand these very deep seeded, cultural issues.
Sincerely,
Jules
Post a Comment
<< Home