The bumper sticker announces that "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." I'd like to append that thought. For women, if we're not occasionally homicidal, we're not fucking human.
I am having a Valerie Solanas moment. Known to most as the paranoid schizophrenic who attempted to kill Andy Warhol, thus earning a biopic portrayal by Lili Taylor (in action above), Solanas is often trotted out as an example of misandry in the feminist movement by those who seek to undermine our credibility. Solanas wrote in 1968's The SCUM Manifesto that "civic-minded, responsible" women had an obligation to "destroy the male sex." Countless women who would like equal pay and safety everywhere they walk STILL refuse to identify as feminists, because if they did so, they'd be seen as "anti-male."I love men. I married a man, probably the finest person of any gender I've ever known. My firstborn is a beautiful boy for whom I would do anything, including give up my life if necessary. That goes for my sweet nephew as well.
But god almighty, there are times when I hate MEN so deeply I shake. I hate them. To be a thinking woman in rape culture is to know suffering so intense it is almost unendurable. It's not post-traumatic stress, it's PRE-traumatic, formed the moment that a male doctor pulled me out of my unconscious mother's body (as was typical in 1971), took a look between my legs and declared "IT'S A GIRL!"
I have never experienced sexual violence, but this is can be attributed more to dumb luck than anything else--not the unfashionable clothes I wore, the confrontational stance I took in the public, the self-defense class I aced, the well-lit streets I have walked. I am lucky, not "better."
Women with their hearts open live in both fear and pain. Women I know have been raped in their homes, in their dorm rooms, in their workplaces. They have been raped by their fathers, their brothers, their partners, their bosses. They were raped as girls, and they were raped as women. The circumstances around the crimes were different, but the attackers had WHAT in common?
If you said they were MEN, you're right.
If you're going to argue with me about women abusers, like Nancy Garrido, and how terrible it is to wish anyone dead, even a monster like her husband Philip, you need to go elsewhere. Go to People.com and examine photos of the Duchess of Cambridge's hats. Order something from Etsy. Flame Mark Dayton on the Strib.com, I don't care.
Allow me to experience, then move forward from, this rage.
FFI:
SlutWalk Minneapolis: http://slutwalkminneapolis.tumblr.com/
Rape & Sexual Abuse Center (Uptown Minneapolis): http://www.neighborhoodinvolve.org/
Aurora Center (U of M, Twin Cities Campus): http://www1.umn.edu/aurora/
RAINN-The Rape, Incest & Abuse National Network: http://www.rainn.org/
Thank you Shannon Drury for this radical rant (very much a compliment). You've articulated an issue that many struggle with. As a survivor who continues to struggle with this dialectical dilema of both and. I have an intense and passionate love for my partner, and my son, as well as find that there are times when my passionate hatred for many of the male gender challenge my ability to function highly in the face of triggers from my past and fear of the what may come to pass. Many may find this irrational or inexplicable, but that is my reality and how I have come to function in the world in which I live. This world where rape is normal.
ReplyDeleteThank YOU for this. I truly appreciate it.
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