Saturday, August 8, 2009

Targeting Women, II

Bob Herbert's Column today "Women at Risk" talks about "the deadly mix of misogyny and guns." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/opinion/08herbert.html?_r=1
"We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected. . ." He writes". . .Life in the United States is mind-bogglingly violent. . .[women and girls] are attacked because they are female."
Herbert touches on not only the Pennsylvanian gym killings, the Amish school killings but also the Virginia Tech killings. He also mentions the pornography industry, battered wives and girlfriends, and attacks against women in our armed services. An expert he interviews says that most of the attacks are based on the attackers trying to regain or prove their manhood, and committing a violent act is one way.

Herbert concludes noting the we need to "acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem. . .combined with absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions."

We need better gun control laws and gun safety laws.
We need to teach our children that violence is not the appropriate response to anger or frustration.
We need to see and treat women and girls as equals.

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