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Not our fight: Male violence and the bystander effect

By Lauren Richardson | Published: May 12, 2013

It’s a Thursday night in Nairobi, Kenya. The air is cool, but the atmosphere is warm. The music vibrates the stairs, swells outward from the bar, and inflates the street with every downbeat. People from the world over gather at one of the city’s favorite watering holes to swap stories and pass business cards as they fill, empty, and revive their glasses with clinking ice cubes and catalytic spirits. They work hard and play hard, living a fast life from Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. Tonight they are well groomed and blue blazered. Dapper. Progressive. Smart. They laugh jovially and shake hands, meeting future bosses, fiancés, and best friends. They are entrepreneurs, academics, aid workers, artists, teachers, diplomats, doctors, bankers, lawyers, military officers, and journalists. Makers. Shakers. Collectively, in one form or another, they represent every major pillar of power and influence in the modern international system. I would guess that by most metrics, they are good people.

There is an SUV parked haphazardly on the fringe of these good people. Inside it, with the door ajar and the windows down for all to see, a Kenyan man beats a Kenyan woman. He wails on her, thump after relentless thump. Thwack! You can see her reach for the door only to have it slammed hard against her by the man who has decided that she deserves no say in her well being. Thwack! He puts his whiskey into the cup holder. He takes the time to crack his knuckles. He hits her harder and harder, until her protests are muffled into silent, private sobs. It is not the kind of crying that pleads “Save me,” but that of a solo fury that says “I will endure.” His fists rise and fall and from a distance it feels almost rhythmic, a harrowing compliment to the spinning of the DJ. Her head ricochets off the window and into her palms. He smiles and finds great pleasure in the show of power he has put on for his gathering, yet silent crowd.

These good people, these people whom, albeit in different industries and capacities, are each individually working to make the future a better place than the present, do nothing. They, of relative privilege, watch the aforementioned horror unfold. Some are stunned. Some don’t notice. Some shake their heads. It’s a shame, they think. It’s fucked up, they think. It makes my blood boil, they think. But they do nothing. They hold their girlfriends tighter. They back their friends away from the scene. They try to break their stares. They go get more drinks. These are good people. But they do nothing. They are silent. Read More »

On being a male feminist

By Joshua Hubbard | Published: May 11, 2013

I’m a cisgendered man and a proud feminist, pursuing a PhD in women’s studies. This fact solicits strange looks and even stranger comments from a host of interlocutors. Apparently, most people harbor very specific notions of what feminists and women’s studies majors look like, and I don’t quite measure up.

For a lot of people, “women’s studies major” and “feminist” are preceded by the compound adjective “man-hating.” Such common collocations preclude men (at least those who are not profoundly self-loathing) from adopting these labels. A feminist is a cranky woman who can’t deal with her own inadequacies, so she blames men for her lack of success. Her response to phantom sexism is attempted emasculation.

Male professors, somewhat sympathetic to what they perceive to be the feminist cause, have said things that reveal similar beliefs. One male professor explicitly told me that feminism is the project of dismantling male privilege. Thus, no man could pursue his rational self-interest and be a feminist.

Some self-identified feminists have also taken issue with my participation in classes and activism. For these feminists, gender is the only axis of difference that matters. My gender makes me part of the problem, and precludes my involvement with any attempted solution. Men are violent. They exploit and abuse women. All men enjoy unfettered privilege that is dependent on the continued subjugation of women.

These notions of feminism are pervasive, but they fail to account for the complex ways in which race, class, sexuality, nationality, and gender intersect to order our world. In recent decades, academic feminism has moved toward a more comprehensive study of power and difference. But, overly simplistic notions persist, leading many to look at me as though I have two heads when I say, “I’m a feminist.” Read More »

Tagged allies, Feminism, gender, male feminist | 2 Comments

“Carla, I don’t want to taste my own menstrual blood!” What feminism means to Carla Busazi, UK Editor-in-Chief of the Huffington Post

By Inkprogress | Published: May 11, 2013

The Cambridge Union and Huffington Post’s Forum on “What Feminism Means Today” exhibited a number of different views from a diverse panel of successful women. For Lucy-Anne Holmes, founder of the ‘No To Page Three’ Campaign feminism is about “trying to make women feel as powerful and as fabulous as they can”. For Conservative MP Claire Perry, feminism seemed a political tactic to legitimise Cameron and Thatcher’s governments as committed to women’s issues – protecting them from budget cuts, and expanding opportunities in the workplace. (Somewhat puzzlingly given this and the appointment of a grand total of one woman to Thatcher’s Cabinet.) After the event I was able to chat a bit more to Carla Busazi, Editor-in-Chief of the UK’s Huffington Post and host of the forum, on what feminism meant to her.

Carla’s work at magazines that can be accused of making women feel inadequate as a matter of course, such as Cosmopolitan and Glamour, presumably places her in a difficult position as a feminist. Understanding her roots in this setting, perhaps it is understandable that a more status-quo veneer will dominate but I was left dubious and underwhelmed by her perhaps bland view of what being a feminist meant, and what kind of assertions were ultimately compatible with such an account.

“Sometimes, I hate to say it but, women are their own worst enemies.” This self-proclaimed feminist reinforced stereotypical characterisations of ‘the feminine character’ and, although recognising balanced male-female environments as the most constructive, propagated a faintly uncomfortable notion of feminine reliance on men in the workplace. Alongside ideas of the value of collaboration more generally, she particularly focused on damaging female competitiveness, of women “pulling up the ladder behind them”. She also expressed feelings that men are useful in quelling the “high emotion” of all-female environments. This was complemented by an emphasis on the increasingly common view that the movement should strive to be inclusive – it being as important that men are happy to identify as feminists as it is that women are – men being necessary for female emancipation. Read More »

Tagged career women, Carla Buzasi, Claire Perry, conservative, definition of feminism, editor, equality, exclusive feminism, female stereotypes, female-centric, feminism in the workplace, Germaine Greer, high emotion, inclusive feminism, Lucy Holmes, Lucy-Anne Holmes, male-centric, men in feminism, menstruation, neutered feminism, pulling up the ladder, Thatcher, washed out feminism, what feminism means, what is feminism?, women in the workplace, women's magazines, Work | Leave a comment

The sacrifices I was raised on: how empathy brings us closer to a radical politic of family

By Strong Families | Published: May 10, 2013

Originally posted at Strong Families and at the Community blog, by Shanelle Matthews

My biological dad was in prison when I was little. My mom, single at the time, would drive me, my brother, and sister to see him. Because I was little, I don’t have a lot of memories of this time, but I do remember one thing. At the prison, an impassable glass partition separated my dad and me. I couldn’t touch him and he couldn’t touch me. We talked on a black, scratchy phone that connected the two sides of the glass. It was brief and sad.During the time my dad was in prison, my mom worked several jobs. She was a single parent to my siblings and me and was forced to work around the clock to support us. Because of this, her time with us was limited. When she was away at work—which was often—Dora and Betty and another woman whose name I can’t remember cared for us. My mom was committed to making sure we had food and clothes and somewhere to live, things I got to take for granted. Betty and Dora and the woman whose name I can’t remember were all undocumented immigrant women from Guatemala. They spoke little English and sometimes spent the night at our house. One of my brother’s first words was “zapato” (Spanish for shoe). It wasn’t until I became aware of the fight for domestic workers’ rights that I realized that these women from Guatemala were taking care of us so they could take care of their families. How maddening to recognize that the cycles of poverty that we face today are the same as those our parents experienced decades ago.Writing this I started over two and three and four times. It wasn’t until the fifth try that I understood that my mom, my biological dad, and the women from Guatemala shared a common thread—their lives were divided by partitions, literally and figuratively. But the fight for a living wage, to end mass incarceration, and to create comprehensive policies on immigration and a pathway to citizenship, all of these threaten to topple the barriers affecting our most impacted communities: immigrants, poor people, and people of color—often one in the same.My biological dad, my mom, and the women from Guatemala were kept away from their families by partitions, fences, glass ceilings, and social prejudices. What held these dividers in place was bureaucratic red tape; the kind that builds on outdated notions of what families look like and what they deserve. The kind of red tape that forces immigrant families to wait fifteen years for health care; the kind of red tape that keeps same-sex couples from marriage, second-parent adoption, and spousal benefits; the kind of red tape that limits access to comprehensive sex education, access to contraception, reproductive healthcare, and culturally appropriate resources for families of color; the kind of red tape that allows border patrol officers to shoot and kill families desperate for a better quality of life. This red tape is responsible for the deaths of millions. In the process, we’re becoming desensitized to empathy. Read More »

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Amanda Berry Rescuer Angel Cordero: “I did what had to be done.”

By a male | Published: May 10, 2013

Angel Cordero (from ABC NewsChannel5)

Angel Cordero. Please remember this name.

What is most important in the story that continues to unfold in Cleveland, Ohio, is the fact that three women and one child are free from a decade of captivity at the hands of accused Ariel Castro, and are trying to recover and make up for lost time. Amanda Berry’s daring escape while her captor was out buying food, led authorities to the other captive women.

In yet another development in the story, it is being reported Tuesday and Wednesday that in fact, it was another neighbor, Angel Cordero from the house across the street to where the women were being held captive, who was first on the scene, was actually the one who broke through the door, and was first to speak to Amanda Berry. He urged her to hurry before Castro returned to the house, and directed Berry to a neighbor’s house to use the phone. Cordero is also the one described as directing Charles Ramsey to another neighbor’s house to place his famous 911 call.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2321736/Angel-Cordero-Second-neighbor-claims-HE-freed-Amanda-Berry-kicking-locked-door-out.html

“In an earlier interview with local channel [sic], Mr Cordero went into a bit more detail about Ramsey’s role, saying that by the time Mr Ramsey arrived, Amanda was already ‘outside with the girl’.”

Another report omits Ramsey completely.

http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/man-helps-missing-women-escape-from-cleveland-home/-/1719418/20051968/-/9y9dgkz/-/index.html

Another story identifies Cordero as the neighbor Ramsey says he saw running to the house where the women where being held from across the street, whereupon Ramsey also ran to the house. In some of his accounts, Ramsey uses the word “we” when describing the rescue, as in “we can’t get in that way,” without specifying who else “we” was. That person, according to more recent reports, was Angel Castro.

How could the pack of media on the scene or flurry of later reports miss this important detail? In addition to Mr. Cordero being even more humble than Charles Ramsey (both downplay any heroism, Cordero also says he deserves no reward, and says he bears no grudge against Mr. Ramsey becoming acclaimed as “the” neighbor who rescued Amanda Berry), Cordero does not speak English well, relying on his niece to interpret for him in interviews. He is also reported to lack the “flamboyance” of media sensation Mr. Ramsey.

Three women are freed from a decade in captivity. One accused kidnapper, captor and rapist is being held and charged. Why worry the details over which neighbor did what, or who was first?

The reason is Angel Cordero is being overlooked by many, even being called a liar and glory seeker by some online, because of his lack of English speaking skills in front of the camera, and his humility. He was (his attitude could be changing) allowing the more outgoing Mr. Ramsey to have the spotlight. Ramsey is featured in online videos, and has his face on unauthorized t-shirts and other merchandise bearing slogans such as “Eatin Ribs & Savin White Girls” (sic) with 2,857 active listings on eBay. Hodges Cleveland, the restaurant where Ramsey works as “dish technician” is also selling t-shirts for charity.

Unless you are referring to the racehorse jockey of the same name, Angel Cordero does not have jack in his honor (yet). He does not have “American Hero” or “Angel Cordero for President” merchandise in his name. Police didn’t single him out in initial announcements on TV. People do not know who Angel Cordero is.*

Mr. Cordero’s story, and his role in the freeing of Amanda Berry deserve to be heard. His story should not be another example of how people of color go unnoticed in America.

*I see I spent too much time on this. Interviews with Cordero are now getting out. WTF. I see ABC reports Thursday, “Charles Ramsey, the neighbor who said he helped free three women from a Cleveland house of horrors, told ‘Nightline’ that another neighbor, Angel Cordero, got to Amanda Berry before him, then decided to walk away.” Ramsey refers to Cordero as “the Dominican,” who told him, “I’m not getting involved in that.” Ramsey tells Nightline, “I did what I had to do.” The men are neighbors. I hope it does not get ugly.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/amanda-berry-neighbors-dispute-rescue-details/story?id=19143927#.UYzLe5X8VFR

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