Rethinking Headlines
University of Washington Tragedy Sparks Renewed Awareness Effort
The above should be the headline of every newspaper in the land. I know… what in the hell am I talking about! Allow me to explain: With the 'Male Threat Alert' level now at red, we all should be taking a hard look at our security. We simply cannot turn down the funding and other resource requests of our national leaders at such a time of great peril. It should be obvious to us all now that the creation of the Department for Female Security (DFS) was a necessity. We can no longer wait for those males who would perpetrate violence on us to come to our front doors. No, we must take the fight to them!
I know…there is no “male threat” system and no DFS. But the point of this is to shed light on a serious situation that I’ve thought and written about in the past. Ironically, its seriousness may be lost on many because of its widespread nature.
Nearly four thousand people were murdered in the tragedy on September 11, 2001. Since then, countless billions have been spent in an effort to “stop terrorist” from doing something similar again. Fear of terrorism abounds. We must do something! However, what many of my fellow citizens are failing to realize is that more women of all ages are killed every year in our country by their own domestic partner, whether husband or boyfriend, than died that fateful day…EVERY year for the past few decades or more! That amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of 28,000 deaths since 9/11/01. Now, before you twist the intention of my comments, for those that would be tempted to do so, humor me by reading on.
Here are the facts. Men commit the vast majority of violent crimes: 80% of murders; 90% of assaults; 95% of domestic violence; 95% of dating violence; an estimated 85-95% of child sexual abuse; 98% of rapes. Additionally, males commit 76% of violence against other males. Therefore, not just women would benefit from less violence (Media Education Foundation video documentary, “Tough Guise”, 1999). Why is this happening?
It seems that something about male culture is at play here. According to the Media Education Foundation, media plays a significant role in creating or perpetuating this culture. Although I agree that media plays a role, I think there’s more to it. For example, at a high school I once saw a poster for the school’s wrestling team that spoke of how some people might poke fun at young men in tights, all sweaty and rolling around on the ground with one another but would never dare to say such things in a wrestler’s presence. Do you think the poster’s creator was attempting to inform us how sensitive wrestlers can be and that if such comments were to be made “to their face” they would be forever emotionally scarred? Or perhaps it was to imply that someone would get hurt if such comments were made in a wrestler’s presence and that the young men of the school should join because they will become tough and become capable of beating up others. I’ll let you determine for yourself, but I rather believe it is the latter.
For those ‘real men’ reading this, don’t give me that crap about men being too feminine these days. I was just reading about that simple type of sentiment. (Link to Seattle Times: Girdle your loins) Let me say, at the risk of proving my own point about male acculturation, I’ll be the first one to pummel another should that action be needed. Still, that reason won’t be that the ‘other’ simply disagreed with my stance on an issue or forgot to put the beer in the fridge before the ‘big game’. Nor will it be that the other was rooting for the opposing team or didn’t take out the garbage yet. I think (hope) you get the point. We need to take a hard look at what is being done about domestic abuse.
I know we as a country spend countless dollars on ‘responding’ to crime. What I also know that there is nowhere near the urgency to fight American on American violence, particularly violence toward women, as has been the case for fighting terrorism. Let’s get real people…do you realize you have better odds of being injured during your morning commute or on the way to the grocery store than by some act of terrorism? So why don’t we do more about violence against women? Is it because the numbers of injured and killed women by way of domestic violence is not a single horrendous act grabbing the headlines of our advertising dollar driven media? Is it because we -males who control and for whom most of our societies systems and institutions were designed- don’t care about women? Attention ladies: pay close attention to the answers to these questions given by the men in your lives.
I think the more important questions however should be…what is it that causes men to be so violent and what can we do, as individuals and as a society, to raise young men who don’t resort to violence on impulse? I said previously that we need to “look at what is being done about domestic abuse”, but more precisely, we as a nation and as individuals need to examine not just the issue of domestic abuse, but why and how we think about societal issues in general. I don’t have answers to these questions, nor do I think any one person does. So with every passing year, another 4,000 or so die…and that’s just the known cases and only women, saying nothing about violence committed against other men and boys. How much longer until root-cause-analysis of our cultural pathologies, and how we are or are not addressing those, becomes the norm at the local, state and national level?
In memory of Rebecca Griego…may she rest in peace. No I didn’t know her, but that shouldn’t matter.
The above should be the headline of every newspaper in the land. I know… what in the hell am I talking about! Allow me to explain: With the 'Male Threat Alert' level now at red, we all should be taking a hard look at our security. We simply cannot turn down the funding and other resource requests of our national leaders at such a time of great peril. It should be obvious to us all now that the creation of the Department for Female Security (DFS) was a necessity. We can no longer wait for those males who would perpetrate violence on us to come to our front doors. No, we must take the fight to them!
I know…there is no “male threat” system and no DFS. But the point of this is to shed light on a serious situation that I’ve thought and written about in the past. Ironically, its seriousness may be lost on many because of its widespread nature.
Nearly four thousand people were murdered in the tragedy on September 11, 2001. Since then, countless billions have been spent in an effort to “stop terrorist” from doing something similar again. Fear of terrorism abounds. We must do something! However, what many of my fellow citizens are failing to realize is that more women of all ages are killed every year in our country by their own domestic partner, whether husband or boyfriend, than died that fateful day…EVERY year for the past few decades or more! That amounts to somewhere in the neighborhood of 28,000 deaths since 9/11/01. Now, before you twist the intention of my comments, for those that would be tempted to do so, humor me by reading on.
Here are the facts. Men commit the vast majority of violent crimes: 80% of murders; 90% of assaults; 95% of domestic violence; 95% of dating violence; an estimated 85-95% of child sexual abuse; 98% of rapes. Additionally, males commit 76% of violence against other males. Therefore, not just women would benefit from less violence (Media Education Foundation video documentary, “Tough Guise”, 1999). Why is this happening?
It seems that something about male culture is at play here. According to the Media Education Foundation, media plays a significant role in creating or perpetuating this culture. Although I agree that media plays a role, I think there’s more to it. For example, at a high school I once saw a poster for the school’s wrestling team that spoke of how some people might poke fun at young men in tights, all sweaty and rolling around on the ground with one another but would never dare to say such things in a wrestler’s presence. Do you think the poster’s creator was attempting to inform us how sensitive wrestlers can be and that if such comments were to be made “to their face” they would be forever emotionally scarred? Or perhaps it was to imply that someone would get hurt if such comments were made in a wrestler’s presence and that the young men of the school should join because they will become tough and become capable of beating up others. I’ll let you determine for yourself, but I rather believe it is the latter.
For those ‘real men’ reading this, don’t give me that crap about men being too feminine these days. I was just reading about that simple type of sentiment. (Link to Seattle Times: Girdle your loins) Let me say, at the risk of proving my own point about male acculturation, I’ll be the first one to pummel another should that action be needed. Still, that reason won’t be that the ‘other’ simply disagreed with my stance on an issue or forgot to put the beer in the fridge before the ‘big game’. Nor will it be that the other was rooting for the opposing team or didn’t take out the garbage yet. I think (hope) you get the point. We need to take a hard look at what is being done about domestic abuse.
I know we as a country spend countless dollars on ‘responding’ to crime. What I also know that there is nowhere near the urgency to fight American on American violence, particularly violence toward women, as has been the case for fighting terrorism. Let’s get real people…do you realize you have better odds of being injured during your morning commute or on the way to the grocery store than by some act of terrorism? So why don’t we do more about violence against women? Is it because the numbers of injured and killed women by way of domestic violence is not a single horrendous act grabbing the headlines of our advertising dollar driven media? Is it because we -males who control and for whom most of our societies systems and institutions were designed- don’t care about women? Attention ladies: pay close attention to the answers to these questions given by the men in your lives.
I think the more important questions however should be…what is it that causes men to be so violent and what can we do, as individuals and as a society, to raise young men who don’t resort to violence on impulse? I said previously that we need to “look at what is being done about domestic abuse”, but more precisely, we as a nation and as individuals need to examine not just the issue of domestic abuse, but why and how we think about societal issues in general. I don’t have answers to these questions, nor do I think any one person does. So with every passing year, another 4,000 or so die…and that’s just the known cases and only women, saying nothing about violence committed against other men and boys. How much longer until root-cause-analysis of our cultural pathologies, and how we are or are not addressing those, becomes the norm at the local, state and national level?
In memory of Rebecca Griego…may she rest in peace. No I didn’t know her, but that shouldn’t matter.
