Hate Crimes Against Women: Enough is Enough!
June 12, 2010
by Patricia Garrison
|The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
How many times must females be killed because they are female, before we start decrying these horrific acts for what they are: hate crimes? Although gender is included as a category in the federal hate crimes bill signed into law last year, the recognition that women and girls are targeted and murdered solely because of their sex has yet to infiltrate our cultural framework or spark any sense of collective outrage. The media have yet to cover these crimes as acts of growing anti-women violence. Given the pervasive sexism in news and entertainment, that should come as no surprise.
To be sure, our vulnerability as females is nothing new. At all ages, females are 90% more likely to be the victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment and rape. While not all crimes targeting women can be classified as hate crimes, what does appear to be a serious and growing trend are the random killings of females by men for no other reason than that they are female.
This past week, Geraldo Regolado killed his wife and later himself, but not before shooting six other women and killing three of them in a Florida restaurant. “He went straight for the women,” according to a police detective:
Last year, a man entered an all-female aerobics class in Pittsburgh, shot 10 women and killed three of them before killing himself. His apartment revealed a stash of hate-filled writings and videos directed towards women, fomented by his inability to get a date. A few years ago, women and girls were killed in their homes and backyards in New Jersey and other Eastern states by a truck driver with a known hatred of females who targeted women living off interstates. He was finally thwarted by a father who heard the killer enter his young daughter’s bedroom and caught him in a choke-hold. It’s heartbreaking to recall the mass murder of nine young Amish girls by a local milk truck driver who let the boys go before executing the girls, aged 6-13, in their Pennsylvania school house.
At the core of these crimes are hatred of females, yet the media, and society insist upon seeing them as isolated. Yes, they’re terrible and disturbing, but explainable, right? After all, these men were spurned, rejected by women, or troubled by some past event.
We could spend time dissecting and analyzing why society and the media resist calling these crimes what they are and refuse to go beyond discussing some tepid motive for the rampages. But, I think we inherently know what the reasons are. Culturally, we have regressed to a point where the objectification of females is pervasive and accepted – by both genders. Meanwhile, boys and young men are given strong cultural cues that to be a ‘real man’ is to control abuse and degrade women. When sexism is permitted to flourish for years in a society that already glorifies violence, sexual exploitation and machismo, this is what you get at the extreme.
We have, I think, made progress in acknowledging that when crimes are committed against people because they are gay, African-American, Latino, or Jewish than they are indeed hate crimes. As women, we need to think about crimes against our gender in the same way, call them what they are, and demand – loudly – that enough is enough.
patricia, completely agree with your statements.
that is why adding on women to the hate crime bill will not do anything for us. culturally hate is understood against people for their sexual identity or their race. but men and women live together and demeaning of women is seen as a lesser emotion than hate. i think study of the civil rights movement can be instructive for us. African Americans used to be seen as lesser humans just like women today. they were not hated but forced to stay as property and cheap labor. if they agreed they even were appreciated. just like obedient women. i see patriarchy less as heritage through the male line, but as a policy for men to have access to a or many female bodies. I think we need acceptance for women as independent human beings. this right is not prevalent here just as in the very oppressive countries. we need the rights for our daughters to develop their potentials without being sucked away in early sexual relations and dependence on men, in the inferior role women are driven by so many means.
we can this fight as a continuation of the civil rights movement. rights which are still not given to women of either race.
This is one of the main pillars in the problem that faces feminism. This is one thing we should be going after. It’s great that it is starting to be recognized in writing what a hate crime is. When I talk about this it is hard for me to avoid ascribing motive to it, such as if I want to say “with reluctance we have included women in hate crime legislation.” Otherwise I can just say “now we have included women in hate crime legislation” but if I say that it makes it look like we are progressing, linearly; all of the above I know it’s not necessarily the case so how do you say something without expressing what you can’t and don’t really mean? Anyway, while I’ve been attempting to distance myself from a lot of things I’ve said that have been immortalized by the internet, I came up with this idea of male theology. There is little doubt that men raise eachother as part of a, a club, an exclusive group so to speak, the appearance of its exclusivity making its maintenance and membership innately desirable. Part of the belief system of males is that they delineated from a god and this is pervasive in much of human culture such that all humans to a degree have this innate belief set. So humans like to see an order to nature, and themselves as outside of this natural order. Then men must see themselves as outside of women, at the very base of male theology is this: how they interpret their body compared to women’s in the context of a religion that teaches a god. This constructs a framework, a base for misogyny, and why it appears that misogyny is inherent, innate, immediate, like a reflex.
Then of course there are other things in male theology, which behaves in the mind like an exclusive club. I’m this, I’m not that. Or I’m this so I’m better than that.
Most of what men do to women in society is a reflection of their hate of women. It’s a hate crime and not just when they kill women. It’s when they beat women. It’s when they rape women. Unlike when they beat or hurt another man. When they do it to a woman, its largely because of hatred of her sex.
But I see violence everywhere and rarely now do I see an important distinguishing factor between the sexes. I see sameness and motives. So I’ve been distancing myself from radicalism of any sort. I do think, though, that this is one of the main things society should do, is identify the motive behind these actions as misogyny, or in other words, a hate crime.
Personnaly, I think that hatred of women is seen by most men — most, I’m not playing that “oh I’m sure you’re not like that, Male Reader” game — as completely reasonable and understandable, something which a normal man would of course sypathize with. It’s just tacky to act on it so extravagantly. Your average man who is not a murderer will still look at that and think to himself, “Well, I wouldn’t SHOOT one, but I can totally understand why he’d want to.” Even if it’s deep in his subconscious, he’ll think it, and no I’m not stepping down from that. Hatred for women is a deeply unhealthy but otherwise perfectly common part of manhood. There is just no other conclusion to reach.
You are absolutely correct. No, it is not just random crazy acts of violence – it is the culmination of hatred against women. Pat, this was painful to read. Partly because of the violence that you reference and partly because it should be so easy for society to call this what it is but we (collectively) do not.
Then again, it’s you know, maybe not. Maybe rape is a form of sexual sadism, that mostly men engage in. It’s hard to say where sadism comes from, the desire to overpower something, but rape is an easy way for men to express that, and it’s simply easier for them to go after women. Hate is human. If you’re going to hate something, you hate something you’re not. Men can express hate with fists and guns and violence. Men fight that way. But all humans hate and all humans fight d all humans have motives that come from somewhere. Morality sometimes comes from being oppressed. In fact, you can identify a very particular type of morality that comes from those who bear the brunt of slavery. I expressed mainly my loathing.
Rape as sexual sadism is certainly used by the general hatred of women, in porn, in general arguments, by men who truly hate women, but do rapists hate women or are they merely convenient targets?Is the true misogynist more like the guy who in general hates women, discriminates women, etc.
Regardless of the roots, whether it’s simply easier to hate the obvious thing you are not, the opposite gender, its misogyny, these crimes should be classified, recognized as a hate crime and this should be one of our main goals.
I agree with Patricia’s article. But don’t confuse Corporate Media culture with real culture. Much of what goes on in Corporate Media is NOT OK with most people in our culture and many people do not participate in Corporate Media. Remember that there is NOT a free market in media. With Magazines you have to get the distributor to place them in the racks where they can reach customers…this means distributors act as gate keepers and new independent idea magazines can’t have a voice. With TV all channels and the delivery systems are owned by 5 or 6 media companies and no one but those companies can get a new channel or even a new program on the cable line up so new ideas are gate kept out of the market place. Then they have set up the delivery system so that you have to take a pre selected, one size fits all men 13-50 with an IQ under 70 package, and thus subsidize the malecentric views or take zero channels. If you complain that the channel line up is malecentric they might throw in another one of their tit and ass channels for women (OXYGEN, E!) which few women watch. But none of this Media Bull$h!t could stand up to a free market and everyone in media knows that. So I agree images of women in media are extremely important in fomenting this woman hate but the culture corporate media shoves down our throats does not reflect the real culture we live in. The old men of corporate media have been very poor stewards of our culture. But that really doesn’t surprise me since evidence shows men also can’t run government, religion, or the financial system without profound corruption.
If civil rights was only about black women, there would never have been a Martin Luther King or the change we see today.
The patriarchy must keep the illusion that women are lesser beings to men because if we are ever “equal” and the playing field is “level”, they know they would not have the lion’s share of power they have enjoyed since the beginning of time.
The “hatred of women” for some insane reason, maintains the male ability to rationalize violence, suppression, oppression, injustice, against the other half of the human race. How else could they live with themselves?
Kiuku,
I think many people wonder the same thing and this is perhaps why rape (and VAW statistics in general) are not taken seriously.
Is this just a form of sexual perversion that men sometimes engage in?
I don’t think so and one realization that has convinced me otherwise is that rape and VAW statistics are not the same from country to country and culture to culture. In countries/ cultures that are more misogynistic, there is more rape and VAW. In countries/ cultures with less misogyny, there is less rape and VAW.
In fact there are (small) cultural groups in China, India and New Guinea with cultural values that are so respectful of women (some would say matriarchal) and in these cultural groups rape and violence against women is very rare. Wow! It doesn’t have to be this way!
This is not just about sex it’s about hate.
Alison,
So, we have to figure out “why men hate women”. Until we can address that irrational feeling towards females just for being females, we can not expect men to respect women any time soon.
And men say women are hard to figure out! Could this be a simple case of self-hate by men towards themselves that they simply avoid dealing with by transferring that hate upon women? If that is the case, then it explains a lot about obama and his behavior.
Men have to have an underclass to feel superior to. When there are no women around, they invent an underclass by singling out the men who don’t measure up to whatever arbitrary standards they have set and demeaning them. I was one of the first women at an all-male college. One of the professors said publically that the arrival of women on campus would take some of the pressure off of the young men who were usually the targets of hazing. Unfortunately, from a woman’s perspective, he was right, and some of those young men relieved of their status as the underclass showed their appreciation by joining in on the harrassment of the women.
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