It's always nice when people write about how violence against women is still such a huge problem in this country...something most of us here on Feministing are well aware of. Here is an article from a Twin Cities, MN newspaper about just that.
Some highlights:
"But there's a larger factor to this perennial slaughter. It is not solely about firearms. Quite a number of female victims are stabbed, choked and bludgeoned to death. It is also not about state rankings, but about state of mind.
We are a culture that has not rid ourselves of the mind-set that women are inferior and still somehow possessions or personal property(...)
I frankly believe that education starts in the home and at an early age. We need to innoculate boys early in life, teaching them to respect women and treat them as equals.
And we need to tone down the media images and the songs and the commercials that continue to objectify women."
Sigh. About time someone else made the connection between objectifying women, our culture and its inherent sexism/misogyny and violence against women. Now if only more of our average fellow Americans would realize this...
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We ourselves can make an impact in leading by example, but there are so many barriers to advancing this badly needed message. All of the distinctions that create problems in other areas like race, class, ethnicity, and religious identity are in force here and cutting through those things are challenging, to say the least.
Why did this provoke a tired sigh response?
Yes, readers here are well aware of this issue, but everybody else should be too! I applaud this paper for telling it like it is, especially for calling out the culture instead of victim blaming.
So, in your eyes every male child is a violent criminal unless you indoctrinate him otherwise? Sounds to me just like a hollow attempt to slander every single boy for something they've never done, and they are extremely unlikely to ever do.
That's a constructive point, but as it stands we essentially teach all females that they are potential victims and I don't see that being fair either.
"We need to innoculate boys early in life, teaching them to respect women and treat them as equals."
I don't see that as treating boys in the negative sense (bashing males), nor are violent men uncommon. I see that as raising a society in which violence against women is not normalized.
It wasn't a tired sigh response, it was a sigh of relief that issues of violence of women are actually being talked about like they're important. And in response to TD, I don't believe that teaching boys that girls deserve respect and that they are equal implies that they are all going to be violent criminals. It implies that we grow up in a society that obviously teaches something different - that women are not worthy of respect or equal to men, which, yes, could lead to some men being violent towards them. I'd rather teach people about respect now and not have to deal with disrespect and violence later...