In the wake of the Las Vegas Shooting, controversy has amassed surrounding gun violence laws, reform, and registration. I am here to discuss something else. Many people are quick to blame mental illness as the root cause of such tragedy, as if it could ever be that simple. 18.2% of the total adult population will develop a mental illness at some point in their lives, and women experience a disproportionate number of these especially those such as depression and anxiety; however, this is not reflected in mass shooting statistics. A plurality of these mass shootings have been committed by men, a 98% male enterprise. Mass shootings are carried out largely by men, disproportionately white, and media does little to address this. What we have here is a "boys will be boys" phenomenon blown to epic and frankly sadistic proportions. It is expected that men will be the, for lack of a better word, "gunman". I want to state at this juncture that most men don't commit violent acts, most men know it to be weak and heinous in nature, it is not those men that this piece is addressing. When a shooter who identifies as a Muslim extremist attacks, it is deemed the fault of the entire religion, when a shooter is African American race is the first factor discussed, however when a white man is the shooter they are merely "a lone wolf", a perfect example of privilege being invisible. They are painted as an outlier when really they adhere to the in place system of extreme masculinity better than anyone. They are extremists in their own right, but ones that go unidentified and unchecked.
0 Comments
I, a liberal white male, sometimes have this false pretense that everyone on our campus is welcoming and accepting of all people. Reality is occasionally blinded from me due to my privileges, but some chicken-scratch on the wall of the bathroom was a direct slap-in-the-face to that idea. “I’d rather be a pussy-grabber than a dick grabber.” Didn’t need to read that as I was relieving my bladder. As I analyzed that sentence, I came to the conclusion that the writer believes that sexually assaulting someone is better than being a male engaging in homosexual acts. Like I don’t understand how someone could think that. Being gay is worse than destroying another human’s life? I’ve always known that this campus isn’t full of politically correct liberals, but believing that it is makes life easier for me. But that sentence really forced me to see that the reality of this campus is way different than what I wish this campus was like. Sexism and heterosexism are still thriving here, no matter how “progressive” I want UNC to be. Rape culture and homophobia need to be eradicated from our campus (and also from the world in general), which is why organizations like CAGE are so important. On the morning of September 22nd, the Trump Administration, under the recommendation and direction of Betsy DeVos, has rescinded the 2011 Title IX guidance including the Dear Colleague Letter established by the Obama Administration. This guidance outlined campuses’ obligations to support survivors and held university and college administrations accountable for the way they handled sexual assault cases. Before this document was issued, many institutions ignored their obligations under the law, both because colleges and universities failed to understand them, and because schools knew few students understood the law well enough to assert their rights.
Throughout the past few months, DeVos has been laying the groundwork for this action claiming that the current system for processing sexual assault cases is broken and unfair to both survivors and accused students. She has repeatedly discussed these falsely accused students and survivors as equally failed by Title IX policies under the Obama Administration. She has failed to recognize that only two to six percent of sexual assaults are falsely reported (according to the FBI), a rate lower than the false reporting of any other crime--and that one in five women, as well as many gender non-binary, transgender, and male students will experience sexual violence during their time on campus. Her rhetoric is not only false; it is a direct attempt to silence the voices of survivors on campuses. Carolina Advocating for Gender Equity (CAGE) stands with survivors and calls on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and all of the organizations affiliated or within this institution to publicly commit to upholding prior Department of Education guidance, including the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, despite its removal. Students deserve to attend a university that believes them and supports them. Sexual assault policies must be centered around serving survivors, not questioning the credibility of each survivor while granting perpetrators more rights. The system is indeed in need of work, but vilifying survivors and enabling perpetrators is the wrong action. Thank you to everyone who came out to our first Feminist Friday of the year! Dr. Rachel Schaevitz from Carolina Public Humanities led us in a great discussion about "Women in Film." Be on the lookout for our next Feminist Friday in October!
CAGE is proud to be a part of the newly founded Carolina Feminist Coalition's inaugural event, a Mix & Mingle on Friday, August 25, 2017! Please join us to meet feminists and local feminist organizations both on and off campus. If you are a first year interested in any facet of feminism, this is the perfect event for you!
This event is located in the Hitchcock Room of the Stone Center and is formally hosted by UNC Siren, Feminist Students United (FSU), Project Dinah, and Carolina Advocating Gender Equity (CAGE).
Men interrupting women isn’t a problem confined just to debate stages—it also happens on the Supreme Court. According to the Harvard Business Review, 65.9% of all interruptions on the Supreme Court were directed at Justices Ginsberg, Kagan, and Sotomayor. And it’s not just the male justices who are at fault—male advocates do it as well. Female justices are also more likely to frame their questions more politely earlier in their tenure, which the HBR says “provides an opportunity for another justice to jump in before the speaker gets to the substance of her question.” Manterruption also happens in the workplace, in everyday conversations, even in class discussions.
So what can we, as a society, and as a campus, do about it? There’s the usual approach—that of telling women to simply assert themselves—but that’s simply not enough to restructure a sexist space into a more equal one. Part of the work must also be done by those in power. On campus, that means professors and TAs have to be a part of the solution themselves. Enforcing no-interruption policies in class discussions would be a great start—if figures of authority express public disapproval of a practice, that practice is, at least in some measure, delegitimized. Parents can teach their male children not to talk over the women in their lives, and their female children that they’re worth listening to. Employers can call out their male employees when they interrupt—and if those employers are male themselves, they must acknowledge their own complicity in the problem. Equality can’t be achieved via a single Women’s March or a single speech given by a leader—it requires a constant conversation, but that conversation can’t be had effectively if the people most affected by it are crowded out before it even starts. Manterruptions, as silly as they may sound, are a significant part of the larger problem, and they too must be addressed. While sentiments regarding gender equity may be changing and liberalizing in certain groups, national recognition of gender issues is reflected in the gender representation in the national government, particularly the legislative body. In the United States, only 19.4% of 535 congressional seats are filled by women, shedding light on the ridiculous gender imbalance and sexism that is still rampant in the US. Furthermore, the US has yet to elect a transgender or genderqueer representative to Congress, demonstrating America’s transphobia and adherence to the gender binary.
Disappointingly, the US’s percentage of female representatives is actually lower than the world’s average, 22.8%. I find this statistic somewhat surprising since the United States is often globally thought of as a center of liberation and justice. In fact, Rwanda proudly has the highest percentage of female representation in parliaments worldwide, having 63.8 percent of their seats occupied by women. This notion many Americans often have, of American equality versus the developing countries’ oppression of women, is an incredibly incorrect concept. Countries around the world have elected women as heads of state and into high ranking government positions, many of them countries Americans consider underdeveloped. Bangladesh, Chile, Liberia, India, etc., have all experienced time under female leadership. 70 countries worldwide have, for at least some time, have had a female head of state: 8 of these in Africa, and a considerable number in South American and East and South East Asian countries. While these numbers are not remotely perfect, they do speak to a certain degree of prejudice that is lasting and adamant in the United States that other, even more stereotypically oppressive countries, have overcome. As more and more countries shatter this glass ceiling, it will be interesting to witness how the United States handles its own gender discrimination, specifically in regards to people across the gender spectrum and their representation in government. After all, if the purpose of the legislative body is to represent the people in government, then the people that compose it should demographically reflect its constituents.
Social issues, specifically gender oppression, need to be looked at from a macroscopic, intersectional point of view that acknowledges that identities are multifaceted, and problems cannot be approached as if aspects of individual’s identities are mutually exclusive. CAGE has helped deepen my ability to think and act to promote intersectionality.
The various components of our identities are inextricably linked, which is part of what makes the world so incredible. However, for many, the intersections of their characteristics creates more dimensions for systemic injustice and inequality. One of the problems I have with the mainstream feminist movement is that it was constructed by and catered toward heterosexual, middle to upper class, white, cisgender women. Feminism by definition is equal opportunity and political, economic and social rights for all people. I agree that the movement has shifted toward greater representation for marginalized groups, but the loudest voices are still those of the most privileged women. CAGE empowers all people to advocate for a more equitable, loving environment. I am proud to be a member of CAGE. Join CAGE for our November Feminist Friday focused on the issues that women in sports face today. EXSS Professor Deborah Southall will be our guest speaker for the evening, along with a small panel of UNC athletes to discuss their experiences! We are so excited to have her speak with us and we hope to see you there!
|
Archives
April 2019
Categories
All
|