I read an incredibly frustrating story today about Florida state Rep. Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples), who, at hearing about whether to implement a dress code for students, noted that "there was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gang-raped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute."
This immediate connection, this assumed cause-effect relationship that Passidomo is using to justify the need for a dress code sickeningly trivializes the reality of rape. Passidomo is the perfect example of women exercising internalized sexism against each other. Passidomo might not be openly supportive of patriarchy or misogyny, who knows? But her remarks and what she explicitly references certainly bespeak a sexist position that rape is the fault of women who prostitute their sexuality for attention.
Like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Phyllis Schlafely, or any other conservative woman who actively participates in anti-feminist rhetoric (in Palin's case, while still claiming to be a feminist), Passidomo reminds us that it does not matter what gendered performance you take on in life. Sexism permeates every facet of society and can be embodied by any body, regardless of what we anticipate.
Just a few weeks ago, I went to a talk by two anti-sexist male activists at Cornell. They discussed everything from masculinity in the Black community to sexism on spring break. One girl, a student at Cornell, went up during the question and answer period and asked why the girls who were walking around in bikinis (in a video we watched) didn't deserve to be harassed by the men standing on the street corner. "They knew what they were wearing," she remarked.
In my opinion, it is this kind of logic--perhaps the same kind touted by Passidomo--that is unfathomable. Regardless of whether a person seeks attention, wears something sexually revelaning, NOBODY ever seeks, deserves, or enjoys the act of rape, of forced sex. Not to mention the entire notion of what girls wear, how they seek attention totally ignores patriarchal restraints on power, the limitations of choice in a hyper-sexualized, consumer-driven market, etc.
When will people stop trying to find reasoning for rape. You can't rationalize violence that cruel and intimate.
GREAT POST! Human nature seems to show us that we have an extreme want to explain and rationalize every single thing! Sometimes there cannot be explanations for things so terrible like rape. There are so many women who believe that girls who dress like "sluts" deserve whatever they get. No one deserves to be raped under any circumstances, so why does society keep telling us that it is okay to make explanations for these things?
ReplyDeleteI so often run into people explaining how girls/women should "except" to be assaulted because of the way that they've dressed or conducted themselves...even my own mother. Yikes, Mom.
ReplyDeleteSo true! I feel like trying to find a reason for rape is like trying to find reason for murder; even if there's a reason, does it make it less terrible? There should be NO excuses for it! A crime is a crime and a woman is never "asking for it".
ReplyDeleteHere is that video I was talking about it class: the slut walk in Toronto (a riskier version of taking back the night). Just thought someone might be interested in seeing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vOCnZOcr8w&feature=player_embedded#at=107