Connecting with other women as sisters has always been our superpower and our salvation. Sisters help us birth our babies, counter insults, commiserate with us when the patriarchy tries to break us, and encourage us to manifest our dreams. Most recently the sisterhood has seized social media to unite us in protests and actions designed to dismantle the patriarchy.
Sisterhood is an antidote to male entitlement and probably is why women haven’t slaughtered men who abuse us and attempt to keep us pinned down in our “proper sphere.” A newly released study, The Facts Behind the MeToo Movement, found that 81 percent of women and 43 percent of men have experienced some form of sexual harassment and/or assault. Over one-quarter of women (27%) and one in 14 men (7%) have survived sexual assault.
Which social group comprises the most frequent mass murderers has been a big topic in the past ten days ever since a white male once again showed us where to point our fingers. Women as mass murderers are so rare, they’ve not been well studied. Women commit 10 to 13 percent of homicides in the U.S. but only 8 percent of firearm homicides. Of all the mass shootings since 1982, only 3 have been committed by women. One of many similar articles points to “toxic masculinity” as the underlying reason for the preponderance of men as mass murderers— the desire to kill seems to be driven by a “catastrophic sense of male entitlement.”
Male entitlement is so pervasive, it is behind even internet comment attacks. On Twitter, Facebook, and here at Daily Kos men express their personal outrage freely, often over trivial or everyday events. They dig in, looking for reasons to be domineering. In comments to my previous WOW on January 13th, two men jumped in for (apparently) their first visits to WOW to tell us what we are doing wrong. One man mined the comments to find his “pet peeve” topic and protested that a petition opposing sex trafficking violated the right of free speech. Then he went on to argue (7 times) that sex trafficking isn’t really a big problem because the data are wrong.
Another man took offense with our group name (War on Women) saying it implies that the enemy is men. Exemplifying mansplaining, he pontificated that this name “is not only overly simplistic, it is counter-productive . . . White male dominance as a political and cultural given peaked around the mid 20th century.” (Guess he didn’t read White Men Account for 72% of Corporate Leadership at 16 of the Fortune 500 Companies or know that 76% of all millionaires are white men or that 70% of white men in the U.S. are represented in Congress by a white man.)
I let all that slide (mostly) because I avoid people who use comments as weapons and take preposterous positions. Also, my WOW sisters countered them with facts and citations (thanks ❤️). But, a blog post this week by Ijeoma Oluo titled When A Woman Deletes A Man’s Comment Online reminded me of their entitled aggressions. In Oluo’s case, the male reaction was all-out social media warfare.
It had started on Facebook, with multiple comments left on my page, the same screenshots posted over and over. He then looked up my Twitter handle and railed against me there, trying to drag in a celebrity, his followers, and one of my employers. According to him, I was a fatwa-issuing Nazi (I’m not making this word choice up) of no journalistic integrity who was censoring the public. [...]
If this shocks you, you are likely not a semi-prominent woman on the internet, because this happens, to greater or lesser severity, about once a week.
Oluo explores what’s wrong with his behavior and her opinions about what constitutes debate. The whole blog post is worth reading, but I’ll share only her summation of these guys who take umbrage easily and personally. (I added bold to her text and had difficulty not bolding it all.)
To be able to take issues fundamental to the health and safety of millions of people and turn them into sport where winners and losers are decided by talking points requires some level of insulation from the negative impacts of the outcome in order to enjoy participating.
It is no surprise to me that online debate has become the international sport of cis white men. Those who are least likely to be negatively impacted by the outcomes of discussions regarding the rights of marginalized people, who are driven by little more than ego and the risk of slight discomfort if society is made more equal, can gleefully jump from post to post, forum to forum, challenging the heartfelt pleas of those most at risk. “Well actuallys” are flung at those working for justice and equality like drive-bys of apathy. And those who are fighting for their lives are then forced to battle each challenger bearing advanced degrees in Google and entitlement in order to prevent the outright dismissal of their lived experience.
In summary, if you are male and feel the need to set me straight or “well actually” anyone in the comments here or elsewhere, stop first and consider the following.
- What is your stake in the issue? Are you insulated from negative impacts?
- Are you turning a discussion into an argument?
- How do you define “winning” this argument?
- What are you willing to do to win?
- Why do you want to win?
- What are the consequences to you if you don’t comment?
- Why not learn by reading and thinking about the topic without comment?
For over a decade, the ACLU has been raising alarms about teaching methods widely in use in public schools across the United States premised on the notion that there are fundamental, sex-based differences that determine how students learn and develop. Proponents of these methods frequently cast boys as active or dominant, and girls as passive or submissive — stereotypes that normalize the power dynamics that lead to abuse and harassment. [...]
Michael Gurian, a popular author and chief proponent of this philosophy, has claimed: “Pursuit of power is a universal male trait. Pursuit of a comfortable environment is a universal female trait.” He suggests that boys who like to read or do not enjoy contact sports have a problem, and should be disciplined and made to spend time with “normal males” and play sports.
So how does this stereotype play out in real life? The following two tweets are from the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting.
The examples quoted are samples and do not include all the horrible findings from the investigation.
• Top USA Swimming executives, board members, top officials and coaches acknowledge in the documents that they were aware of sexually predatory coaches for years, in some cases even decades, but did not take action against them. In at least 11 cases either Wielgus or other top USA Swimming officials declined to pursue sexual abuse cases against high profile coaches even when presented with direct complaints, documents show. With some of the complaints, the decision not to pursue the case was made by Susan Woessner, USA Swimming’s current director of Safe Sport.
• In the more than 20 years since Wielgus took charge of USA Swimming in July 1997, at least 252 swim coaches and officials have been arrested, charged by prosecutors, or disciplined by USAS for sexual abuse or misconduct against individuals under 18. Those coaches and officials have a total of at least 590 alleged victims, some of them abused while attending pre-school swim classes. [...]
• USA Swimming since at least 2010 has kept a list of more than 30 coaches and officials “flagged” by USA Swimming officials after being arrested or accused by law enforcement of sex crimes including rape and child pornography, but not disciplined by USA Swimming.
The report, the first of its kind, was designed to provide a fuller picture of who these women are and what they need. It involved detailed interviews with 434 women conducted between Aug. 26 and Sept. 8, 2017, by service providers who know them. [...]
Nearly a third — 31 percent — said that violence is the cause of their homelessness or housing instability. The number is nearly three times the rate previously reported in the 2017 census.
In addition, 29 percent reported they had engaged in “survival sex” in their lifetime, a term that was defined as “trading sex for food, money, alcohol or drugs, a place to stay, or any other goods.”
And 28 percent said they have been at some time forced, threatened or pressured into performing a sex act with another person. Of those, 36 percent said they had been trafficked.
Overall, 54 percent said they had been a victim of violence during their current episode of homelessness. The rate was higher — 63 percent — for women with a history of violence. Research has linked childhood abuse and trauma to higher rates of mental health issues, substance abuse and other risky behaviors in adulthood.
Formally or casually, whisper networks thread through the sisterhood. Knowing which men repeatedly harass and assault women is essential to our safety.
Whisper networks, writes journalist Moira Donegan, are a “long-standing partial remedy” in response to pervasive sexual harassment and assault. These are “informal alliances that pass on open secrets and warn women away from serial assaulters,” warnings that circulate privately among tightly knit cliques. Whisper networks aren’t burn books for amusing women or getting men fired. In a world where sexual assault isn’t taken seriously, a whisper network becomes a form of protection.
But joining a whisper network comes with a catch: it invites participants in on the condition of silence. And because of that, we often miss that whisper networks are a double-edged sword: the same secrecy that protects victims and whistleblowers can shield perpetrators as well.
How job advertisements are written matters when it comes to attracting more women scientists.
Two studies highlight yet another set of differences between female and male researchers. One suggests that messages that link career success to ‘brilliance’ in science can discourage some women from pursuing certain career paths or education opportunities. The other finds that women are more likely than men to offer ‘honorary authorships’ to scientists who might not deserve the accolade — courtesy that risks obscuring the magnitude of their own contributions.
I want to read the full study to learn if the men who talked too long thought they didn’t talk enough (or just the right amount).
Male speakers at life-sciences conferences exceed their allocated time more frequently than female speakers, especially at large conferences, finds a preprint study. (bioRxiv)
Sexual harassment in the art world is nothing new, but since October, a number of cases have brought new visibility to the problem. Most recently, the art collector Steve Wynn – known for spending millions on art, like a $28m Jeff Koons sculpture – resigned as CEO of his casino company after sexual harassment claims surfaced on 7 February. [...]
A public letter was published in the Guardian on 30 October by the campaign group We Are Not Surprised under the headline “We’ll stay silent no more over sexual harassment in the art world.” The letter read: “We are not surprised when curators offer exhibitions or support in exchange for sexual favours. We are not surprised when gallerists romanticise, minimise and hide sexually abusive behaviour by artists they represent. We are not surprised when a meeting with a collector or a potential patron becomes a sexual proposition. We are not surprised when we are retaliated against for not complying. Abuse of power comes as no surprise.”
Ditch the sexy nurse fantasy along with the all doctors are male myth.
Sexual harassment against women in medicine has been studied for decades: A 1995 study found 52 percent of all women in academic medicine said they had been sexually harassed. [...]
The traditionally male field of medicine has seen some change: 2017 marked the first time the majority of entering medical students were female, according to a report by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
But women of every rank — from surgeons to nurses to residents — said that instead of embracing their rise, some male peers or superiors act inappropriately toward them instead. [...]
2014 surveys show women were more likely to report having personally experienced sexual harassment. 30 percent of women had been the victim of sexual harassment compared with 4 percent of men.
About four million French women - 12% of the total - have been raped at least once in their lives, a survey suggests.
The study for the Fondation Jean Jaurès, a Paris-based think tank, also says 43% have been subjected to sexual touching without their consent. [...]
Here’s one approach to not trusting women with our own bodies: legislating us as walking wombs.
A Republican proposal that would effectively prohibit abortions in South Carolina is reaching the state Senate and, if its author has his way, the United States Supreme Court.
The bill, which was approved by a state Senate committee along party lines — a 12 to 9 vote — would grant legal rights to fertilized eggs from the moment of conception, according to The State. If passed, it would effectively make it impossible to receive a legal abortion in South Carolina. Because other so-called "Personhood laws" make a point of saying they are subject to the United States Constitution, while this one does not, it will quite likely be sent to the Supreme Court in the hope of overturning the landmark 1973 abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade.
Here’s another approach that respects women.
“Gaslighting” . . . came to denote psychological warfare, the deliberate undermining of another’s sanity. More recently, it has been resuscitated as a metaphor for the cultural sabotage of women’s perceptions, for trivialising their concerns as imaginary. Gaslighting is about women fighting to get men to see their point of view.
Storytelling is a key battleground: for years women used “whisper networks”, gossip as self-protection, warning each other about dangerous, powerful men; this time, controversially, lists were produced and circulated. “Me, too” means the speaker has experienced anything from unwanted sexual contact to assault; but it also means “listen to me, too”. There is a reason we use “voice” as a metaphor for power, agency and activism. Male privilege is the entitlement to be the centre of the story, for male voices to dominate, for male interpretations to define it, for a woman to be dismissed, in the words of the husband in Gas Light, as “a perfect little silly”. [...]
Patriarchy works unseen to valorise men’s perspective, and invalidate women’s. When we don’t recognise the way it shapes the world, then we do not understand that world properly: our perspective becomes unreliable. In other words, patriarchy continues to gaslight us all.
[bold added]
Sisterhood coalesces around our shared realities and enables a community where women are the story’s center. We aren’t trying to eliminate men, but to override toxic masculinity. We create a space where women are neither dominated nor marginalized. A space where we hear our voices and no one thinks they are “silly.”
We understand what our sisters are suffering, even if their circumstances don’t match our life experiences. We are united by more than shared suffering, however, and celebrate life’s joys and personal achievements. We encourage each other to step into the world and use our talents and gifts.
Sisterhood is our superpower and with this power we make the world better for everyone.
THIS WEEK IN THE WAR ON WOMEN PROVIDES A WEEKLY SUMMARY OF NEWS ON WOMEN'S ISSUES AND INFORMATION ON CURRENT POLITICAL ACTIONS.
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