Most people who read this know me. And most people who know me know a few basic facts about me, including the fact that I was engaged to an abuser before I married Jeff and that I am a staunch egalitarian, as is Jeff. Thus the funny name and the equality in the household.
Anyway, I'm reading The Macho Paradox (by Jackson Katz) right now and it's making my head spin in a good way. I'll review it when I'm done, but in the meantime read a better review at the website for Christians for Biblical Equality.
In the book, Katz talks a lot about how the language we use frames the way we think, and that the language the media uses when discussing men's violence against women hides the truth about the subject. First, it frames each instance as an isolated event perpetrated by some uniquely deranged individual rather than as part of a pattern of men's violence against women. He uses O.J. Simpson, Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant as examples here. Second, it treats men's violence against women as a women's issue, rather than as a men's and women's issue. The focus in coverage of men's violence against women is often on the woman's experience of the violence, rather than on the man's responsibility for it. In extreme cases it even seems to transform the victim into the perpetrator and the perpetrator into the victim (such as calling Kobe Bryant's alleged victim his "accuser.").
All of this has made me interested in the coverage of Chris Brown's recent assault on Rihanna. For those of you who aren't obsessed with People.com, Chris Brown and Rihanna are two very popular singers. aged 19 and 21. He was recently arrested and is charged with assaulting her and threatening to kill her. Basically, from what I can gather from the statements, he beat the tar out of her (and an unscrupulous law enforcement official released the photo of her injuries!) and when she called for help he told her he was going to kill her. He released a statement expressing "sorrow and sadness" about what "transpired." Last week it was reported that they are reconciling.
So, what's the headline? Does it ask why he did it, or if he'll ever work again?
No, the coverage focuses nearly completely on her. I even read today that "she might be able to get him off the hook" if she refuses to testify against him, now that their "volatile relationship" is intact again!
Really?
We have a long way to go.
1 comment:
Excellent, excellent look at this horribly frustrating phenomenon. I hadn't heard the reconciliation rumors! My favorite feminist blog, Broadsheet on Salon.com, has been following the coverage of this and had some interesting things to say about it. For one thing, when the coverage was focusing on the people who were taking one 'side' or another, many of Rihanna's fans (also friends and family) were talking a lot about how nice and how beautiful she was -- they meant well, but the implication was that his crime was especially egregious because it was against somebody who didn't *deserve* it. As if anybody does.
Pet peeve: when people stonewall any discussion of destructive language by dismissing it as 'politically correct'. There's a reason Orwell's dystopic government in 1984 restricted the language of the people -- because simplified language meant simplified ideas. Words have meaning -- and power -- and they are inextricably linked to our ideas, whether consciously or not. They come loaded with implications. They *create* ideas.
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