Guyland

I am reading Michael Kimmel's Guyland as news comes across that an 18 year old Rutgers student committed suicide by jumping of the George Washington Bridge the other day because of action that his roommate and another classmate took--using a webcam came to stream live over the internet the dead boy's private sexual encounter. An eighth grader in Houston took his life also this week because of anti-gay bullying. A 13 year old California boy who has been in a coma for the past 9 nine days since hanging himself to escape from the hell that is anti-gay bullying died this week, too.
Three deaths attributable to anti-gay bullying in half a week. "Homophobia is ubiquitous. . .And sometimes gay baiting takes an ugly turn and becomes gay-bashing" states Kimmel on page 9. Guyland is about masculinity, about how boys become men... and anything or anyone that challenges their concept of masculinity is fair game.

Our book group is reading this book to get some insight into how to grow feminist men. So far, I am getting insight into the misogyny that guys in guyland exude--they like girls, but seem to hate women. And, why young women buy into the the guyland world--females' social status is still determined by their relationship to men (p.245) (Simone de Beauvoir was so on the mark in her Second Sex as were-The Radicalesbians who penned the 1970 "Woman Identified Women" and defined heterosexism.

Our book group will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday Oct 14th to discuss the book, and we will go hear Dr. Kimmel deliver the keynote address at Marist the evening of October 22.

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.

Targeting Women

The recent shooting in Pennsylvania targetted women. Can we say misogyny? Yet, the main stream media is not focussing on this aspect, just on the shooter's sad life.
It seems Bob Herbert noted (Oct 16, 2006 after the shooting at the Amish School) that the media and society does not focus on misogyny because as he stated "The disrespectful, degrading, contemptuous treatment of women is so pervasive and so mainstream that it has just about lost its ability to shock."
The only article I have found that actually defines misogyny in connection with this shooting is in the Christian Science Monitor,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0806/p02s05-ussc.html

More Media Misogyny

Here is a blog which has been trackingthe media's sexist statements/coverage of Hillary Clinton
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-sexism-watch.html

Misogyny

Sexism is a reality for every woman and girl, not just Hillary Clinton. So as Bob Herbert says in column "Politics and Misogyny" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/15/opinion/15herbert.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
"With Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s win in New Hampshire, gender issues are suddenly in the news. Where has everybody been?"
He then goes on to point out the more explicit sexism in the media and in Nevada, where the candidates have been campaigning which he calls "the misogyny capital of America."
Herbert says that sexism is an issue that have to address, especially as potential future Commander in Chief, since sexism and the derivative violence is rampant in the military --one third of military women surveyed in a 2003 health study said they were either raped or victims of attempted rapes while serving our country.
Herbert ends his column with " If we’ve opened the door to the issue of sexism in the presidential campaign, then let’s have at it. It’s a big and important issue that deserves much more than lip service. "
And, let's do more than just talk about it!