How do we safely and effectively mobilize women in objecting
to the presence and practice of Men’s Rights Associations (MRAs), when the
motives and actions being protested are those that place women at risk of physical
harm and emotional trauma?
Many that sympathized with Elliot Rodger blamed the “friend
zone,” blamed the women in Rodgers’ life for not having sexual relations with
him – they blamed women collectively for the tragic events of Memorial Day
Weekend shooting, suggesting that it was purely a response to the denied access
to their bodies. If women had “done their job,” the sexual frustration, which
caused the horrific events that took lives and compromised others, never would
have occurred.
I would (and will) assert that misogyny, and not the resounding
“no’s” from women in Rodger’s life were to blame.
The men that individually or in their association to
others, that act as the performers and perpetuators of misogyny are to blame.
Elliot Rodger is to blame. His sense of entitlement and privilege,
specifically to the body of another is to blame.
Instead of challenging the culture or examining the roots of
Rodger’s evils, waves of commentary regarding social media activism run
rampant. Even discourse of millennial hook-up culture has over shadowed in some
instances the horrors of the actual event.
Misogyny is so deeply rooted within our culture, a constant
thread in global and American history, that we may not even recognize when we
are contributing to its ideologies.
And so, it is with this that I provide my own commentary to
the pile:
The “Friend Zone” is a misogynist product living in a
feminist ideology.
The innate and natural desires of men to engage sexually
with women should be protected and honored – after all, it is the most natural
of systems in the world, says they.
When women “friend zone” men, they deny the natural progression of male-female
dynamics, placing everyone, even themselves at risk.
This is where
misogyny lives.
This is of course to say, that all male-female relationships
begin with the assumption and presumption that sex is able to happen, and more
likely than not will happen.
The “Friend Zone,” by our cultural standards isn’t where
society in the masses begins, but instead where individuals seemingly end up.
Speaking from my living-that-twenty-something-kinda-life soapbox,
I never hear of anyone “leaving” the “friend zone,” only of the definiteness of
individuals being entered into it.
Rodger’s sympathizers blame this mental, emotional, and in
relative terms, physical domain for the hurt and harm caused just a few weeks
ago.
The Friend Zone is where sexuality goes to die, as
one-by-one men are placed there by women (and in this regard we hardly ever
hear of men placing women in this undesirable plot). A chosen few are moved
from left to right – they are slid down the scale.
This is where
misogyny lives.
We are so culturally included to misogyny that we,
collectively, have accepted this idea.
We have accepted, on some level, that men are moved into
the Friend Zone, and not out of it. In doing so we
have acknowledged that sexuality is the only dynamic in which male and female
relationships develop.
In essence, the “Friend Zone” was developed out of the
reality that women could in fact be friends with their male counterparts
without wanting, needing, or exclusively seeking out a sexual relationship.
And it is in this that we must recognize how dangerous
misogyny is. The term “friend zone” wasn’t popular identified until the early
2000’s. Coincidentally, language and dialog surrounding female sex and
sexuality began to change as college campuses saw the beginning of the uptrend
of women.
Misogyny kills.
Literally. In the last three decades, all but one (61/62) mass murders have
been executed by men. Of those sixty-one? 90% are white.
“What are you
trying to say?” you ask.
I’m trying to
say: Misogyny kills. Literally.
Most victims of
such killings? Women. The most common target of these shootings? A current or
former wife or girlfriend.
Misogyny is not a
question for red states or blue states.
Misogyny is a
culturally institutionalized hatred that has been so deeply integrated into our
society that many can’t begin to see it, even when it's surrounding them.
While women make
up more than half of the global population, their status as a people, as a
body, as a force has still more than not gone unchanged.
Last week a high
school in Utah came under attack for photo-shopping images of young women to
impose more "modest" clothing on their photos. Shoulders were
covered, sleeves were made longer, and any exposed cleavage was covered up.
Misogyny lives here.
For generations
women have been told to cover their bodies. Student handbooks indicate that
"too low" or "too short" is a dangerous distraction to the
educational environment. And while the dialog surround the sexualization of
children and related child psychology may validate the utilization of dress
codes, misogynistic seeds are planted as one only side of the dynamic is
addressed: there is no objection in our student handbooks to the objectification
of female bodies by young impressionable high school men.(The “she was
asking for it” mentality lives here.)
We fail to
address this dangerous institution because more often than not conservative
forces are quick to denote feminists as their ideological enemy.
We fail to
address this harmful and hurtful status when we impose “traditional” notions of
masculinity on young men, identifying sex as a status, and not as a privilege
of consent in (or outside) the parameters of a relationship.
MRA leader, Paul
Elam said to writer Jaclyn Friedman: “I
find you, as a feminist, to be a loathsome, vile piece of human garbage. I
find you so pernicious and repugnant that the idea of fucking your
shit up gives me an erection.”
This is where misogyny lives.
We fail to address
this oppressive manic because while many are willing to say the elevation of
ideologies of individuals like Paul Elam or Elliot Rodger are wrong, it is
still a vastly radical notion to push for gender parity at home, in the work
place, and on our city streets.
