Archives for posts with tag: violence

Me, Too is Not Enough

October 19, 2017 //
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As a childhood sexual abuse survivor, a workplace sexual harassment survivor (fired for reporting my incident), and as a teen and young adult male who was almost certainly guilty of sexually abusive behavior toward some of the girls and women in my life, I am really encouraged by the “Me, too” movement sweeping the world. My individual accountability is important, but unfortunately, it is not enough.

Awareness of a problem is crucial to solving it. And the “Me,Too” campaign is acknowledging and increasing that awareness. However, avoidance, denial, rationalization, minimization all contribute to our institutions not producing a comprehensive problem-solving response to sexual abuse and harassment. In part, that’s because there is no solution to it as an isolated problem. We are perpetuating the denial if we operate as if there actually is one. Unless we address this as just one bar, of the many, that keeps us in the male supremacy cage that author Marilyn Frye described many years ago, we are unlikely to ever solve this problem. Girls and women lack the right over their own bodies, their right to reproductive freedom, their right to equality under the law, their right to education, their right to control of property and money, their right to not be considered property, their right to equal pay, their right to authority over their children, and any other rights we can think of. These are all bars in that cage.

All this is a natural outgrowth of a patriarchal living system–A Dominator System, as Riane Eisler calls it, rather than A Partnership System.

As I worked for over twenty years coordinating a program to help hold men accountable for battering their partners, while I volunteered for, and sat on the local rape crisis center board, as I spent years on an anti-violence task force, and co-leading a Men Against Rape group, presenting trainings to school systems to prevent sexual harassment, according to FBI statistics, the violent crime rate in The United states steadily declined in all but two areas: domestic violence and sexual assault.  This is not a coincidence.  It is also not a coincidence that well over 90% of all violent crimes against women and men are committed by men. We are the problem—as long as we allow ourselves to be. To use an appropriate metaphor, our trained-in violence is just the tip of the spear. Boys are trained to be served by women. We are taught that we are better than women.  We are the ones that matter. We are the family of Man. Not long ago a survey showed that when boys were asked what they would do if they were suddenly turned into a girl, some said they would kill themselves.

In study after study, we find that when a work product is being identified as created by a woman, both women and men rate it as inferior to one identified as created by a man. We know that every major institution in our society is shaped by men and the values that have been perpetuated for at least 3500 years. We know that the orthodox form of all current major religions on the earth were shaped and developed in patriarchal, male dominated cultures, and they reflect those values.  These are the bars of that cage. If we want to fix the problem, we must identify it.

The sexual objectification of women, the use of women as tools for sexual gratification, the coerced or forced cooperation for that gratification, are just bars in that cage. If we want to eliminate them as a problem, men everywhere must face our own culpability, recognize and challenge the institutions that shape our attitudes and actions, make a commitment to be accountable, learn to listen to, and join with our sisters, the feminist wombin who are, and have been, leading the struggle to dismantle and transform the cage into a great table where we can all share the feast that life has to offer us.

Through this process we will gain the genuine opportunity to solve the problem of sexual harassment and assault.

River Smith is still the same troublemaking eco-feminist punk he’s always been.

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The Joys of Flag Burning

July 4, 2014 //
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I almost set fire to the American flag a half dozen times as I spoke to my Liberation Brew TV audience year after year, asking the question, ”Why would someone want to burn the American Flag?” As I dangled the miniature flag in my hand, just out of reach of a candle flame, I would list the dozens of good reasons why someone might like to destroy this symbol of American power. I would also speak of the many reasons that people want to honor it. The United States represents a beacon of hope and perceived freedom to many around the world. Unfortunately, it also represents some of the worst oppression and genocide in the history of the planet.

How many millions have we enslaved? How many hundreds of thousands have we slaughtered? How many countries have we threatened or invaded? How many governments have we overthrown? Ask the Africans, the Native Americans, the Latin Americans, the Iraqis, The Haitians, the Cubans, The Iranians, and all the others our government and military have violated. They may be able to tell you.

Though I still have the TV show on local cable, I haven’t done a threatened burning in a while now. In part, that’s because I haven’t been inspired to. Perhaps a little history is in order here. Beginning in the late nineteenth century states passed anti-desecration laws primarily in response to the over commercialization of the flag. All kinds of companies were using it to link their products to patriotism, and a lot of people who considered themselves real patriots, didn’t like it.

There was little trouble and there were few incidents regarding desecrating the flag until 1963 when a man responding to the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers was arrested for burning a flag. In the years following, as the Vietnam War unfolded, flag burning incidents and arrests became a common feature on the TV news, and were occasionally reported after that. Finally, in I989 the Supreme Court, citing the First Amendment, declared all laws against desecrating the flag unconstitutional. Even though local governments have found ways to charge people who burn the flag with public safety violations, that’s not been good enough. Between 1990 and 2006 our congress tried seven times to pass a constitutional amendment that would make desecrating the flag no longer protected speech.
While my little flag burning theatre was in response to these misguided legislative efforts, I am still tired of the reflexive flag waving that goes on now. I know it feels good to experience ourselves as a community. “USA! USA! We’re number one! We’re Number One!” It’s natural for people to want to belong, but nationalism is a sick concept that divides the world community. And the principle of “American Exceptionalism” which leads us to believe that The USA is always right and good is sicker still. Come on, shout it with me, “USA! USA!”

So, when are we going to face the truth: The United States is not the greatest country in the World. It certainly has the most powerful military, and at present, it is still the mightiest economic powerhouse. That sounds good, but what does it mean to the average American citizen, and how does their life compare to the life of citizens living in any one of the other industrialized democracies of the world?
Somehow, all the other industrialized democracies, outside the old soviet sphere, have managed to develop national cradle to grave health care systems that provide superior affordable health care to virtually all their citizens. And guess what? It has not destroyed their economies.

The United States may be the greatest country in the world for the wealthiest 1% of the population. It may be the greatest country for a handful of fossil fuel energy companies, corporate farmers, and hedge fund managers, who all get major tax breaks. However, according to The Social Security Administration nearly 40 percent of all workers in the country made less than $20,000 last year. That’s below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four and close to the line for a family of three. On average, these workers earned under $18,000. According to U.S. census data, half our population lives in poverty.

The old myth of the American Dream has been revealed for what it is. International surveys show that over a half dozen countries make it easier for a citizen to rise up economically than our nation does. In fact, studies show that in this country the greatest predictor for what economic class a person will be in when they die, is what class they were in when they were born. A survey by The Associated Press reports that four out of five adults struggle with joblessness and near poverty at some point during their lives. “USA! USA!”

On average, according to The World Health Organization, The United States has a homicide rates about seven times higher than the other industrialized countries. No country in the world locks up as many of its citizens as ours does. We have the highest documented incarceration rate, and we have the most people locked up. That’s about one in every one hundred adults—three times the rate of the next highest country. Come on, shout it with me “We’re number one! We’re number one!”
We are the only developed nation that doesn’t have legally mandated paid vacation. Our country is one of only five countries in the industrialized world that have no mandated paid family leave.

As we have been celebrating our political independence, driving over roads and bridges that are in greater disrepair than at any time during the last half century, can we face that we are not looked upon by international election observers as a model of democracy either? They all know that the presidential election of 2000 was stolen. That is not a “liberal” or “conservative” observation; it’s an objective one by independent observers. Come on, “USA! USA!” They know too that state and congressional districts have been gerrymandered to deliberately avoid having a simple one person one vote democracy, and that racist restrictions are being renewed to discourage large segments of our population from voting. “Okay, all together now, “We’re number one! We’re number one! USA! USA!”

Does anybody have a spare flag? I think I’ve got a lighter around here somewhere.

River Smith has been co-producer and co-host of Liberation Brew, a satirical news show in Northeast Ohio for about 20 years. A former local NPR commentator and talk radio show host, he also ran in the only all vegan democratic congressional primary, with Dennis Kucinich in 1998.

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Steubenville, Rape, and The Long Struggle to Change

April 19, 2014 //
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So, I just heard on the radio that authorities are finally looking into sexual assault charges against a Florida college star athlete for an incident that took place last year. Over and over again I’ve seen sexual assault cases against star athletes conveniently swept under the rug. You can bet the teenaged athletes who, at a 2012 party, assaulted a young teen girl in Steubenville, Ohio, have seen it too.

 As a man who committed what I consider attempted sexual assault more than once as a teenager, I have watched the events unfolding over the last year and a half in Steubenville with great interest and much sadness. Whether we examine the cultural training and influences for boys like me a half a century ago or for those in the present, media messages and unequal power relationships that promote objectification of women and sexual aggressiveness of men abound. Sexist stereotypes and rape fantasies are reinforced day after day. 

The films of my grandparents’ time and the films and television shows of mine promoted rape and sexual assault, too. The heralded 1939 film, Gone With The Wind has a celebrated scene where Scarlett has made her disdain clear to her husband, Rhett. He attacks her, picks her up against her will and takes her upstairs to … what? The next scene we see Scarlett lying in bed, smiling. What does that mean? What’s the lesson drawn?  When, fifteen years later, Marlon Brando, in the acclaimed film, On The Waterfront, violently attacks Eva Marie Saint, and the viewer sees that she evidently wanted him to do that, what does it mean?  What does a thirteen year old boy learn from that?  When three or four decades after that Nicholas Cage does the same to Cher in the award winning, Moonstruck, and she decides she loves him, what in the world is the movie maker telling boys about women, and about how men should behave?  So called serious films continue to perpetuate this image of the heroine waiting to be taken by the strong, impetuous hero. The scores of comedy films made over the last ninety years that have implied that it is a good idea to ply women with alcohol to “loosen them up” also continue to provide lessons today. 

When most video games marketed to teen boys depict women as either helpless damsels who must be saved, or strong, evil women who must be vanquished, what is the message the boy gets?  When thousands of rap songs constantly label women as “b***ches” or “hos”, or as their body parts, who simply are there to please the males, what does the eleven year old boy learn about girls and women? What messages do the girls get about themselves? 

We live in a patriarchal, sexist culture where women hold less than 20% of our elected offices on average, less than 5% of CEO positions of our largest corporations, less than a quarter of the top positions in our cultural institutions. Most film directors, most video producers, most advertising executives are men, while single mothers are the largest group of adults in poverty. These conditions help determine whose vision defines our world—what’s valued as important, what’s not. 

Over one-third of teen girls report violence from their male partners.Thousands of women each year are raped or battered by guys they know.  In one survey it was reported that 23% of women who served in the Iraq/Afghanistan wars were victims of at least one attempted sexual assault by their male comrades. At the same time, the markets for violent pornography and sexual slavery are at all time highs. 

This is the environment in which these teen boys committed horrid crimes of violation and degradation against an innocent young woman. This is the environment in which a community of youths and adults supported and tolerated those crimes.  It was a similar environment almost a half century ago when my friends and I crossed similar boundaries, and were not held accountable.  As bad as it is now, it was worse in some ways then. The voice of women could barely be heard. That was before brave women came together to create rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters, before women rallied to challenge “the problem with no name,” and demanded liberation for women and the right to control their own bodies.

The voices are getting louder, but it is still hard to be heard over the cheers for a game winning touchdown catch or the dissonant noise of one more porn video or Hollywood flick that swallows the landscape.   

As I write this and you read this, women in our country are being battered; women in our country are being raped; women and girls in our country are being sexually harassed, and boys are being taught that either it’s okay or it doesn’t matter that much. We’re also not being taught that this is not simply a “violence against women” problem, but something even bigger.  We are not being taught that this is an inevitable result of living in a patriarchy. We are not being taught that until we fully challenge the distorted masculinity that comes from living in a dysfunctional patriarchal system, we will never reach the roots of the violence.  In the meantime, we do what we can.

As power relationships slowly change, sexist images are challenged, and women’s voices are heard, perhaps we can hope that, even if we haven’t yet stopped the sexist violence, it goes unacknowledged and unpunished a little less often.  A small victory, but a critical one.   

River Smith is former co-chair of the National Organization for Men Against Sexism (NOMAS), former coordinator of Men Against Violence (a community centered feminist-based batterers program), and author of A Conspiracy To Love: Living A Life of Joy, Generosity, and Power.

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