Joanna Schroeder thinks there was a time when Girl Power was necessary, but believes now we should be promoting Kid Power.
As a mom of two little boys, I’ve been bothered by the notion of “Girl Power” for some time now.
I know where Girl Power came from, from a place where young women growing up had very little power, very little voice. Many of us felt passed-by, we felt hopeless about our dreams, we felt dismissed because we wanted to grow up to be something different than what was expected of us.
Let me say, first, that I deeply admire mothers and teachers. Teachers are, in my mind, among the most important members of our society. They are shaping young minds. They should be receiving high six-figure salaries alongside that of the most talented surgeons, inventors, and scientists.
But when I was a girl, in the Midwest, there were only three kosher answers to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”: Teacher, nurse, or mommy.
So when I told everyone in second grade that I wanted to write books, a group of kids started calling me “stuck up”. It’s weird. I still don’t quite get it. But that same thing set me apart all the way through high school. I wanted something different, and how dare I be different? A much worse punishment befell boys who were different, and so I teamed up with those boys. The ones who were gay, or perceived to be gay. Or the ones who were nerdy, or gentle, or straight-edge skate punks, or whom otherwise set themselves apart from the fratboy-jock mainstream.
The U.S. has changed dramatically since then (in most places). A little girl who wants to be a doctor, an astronaut, or a construction worker is praised, encouraged and given tools to get there. And much of that change is due to Girl Power. For that, I love Girl Power and wish that phrase has been around when I was small.
But it could very well be that Girl Power comes at an expense to boys. My sons, 7 and 4 years old, were not a part of the oppressive patriarchy. Those two sweet little squishy faces don’t have any understanding of race or gender, aside from the obvious facts that everyone’s skin color is a little different and that there are boys and there are girls.
I am smart enough and educated enough to understand the privileges my boys were born to: whiteness, maleness, their parents’ education and class… And I hope they always understand that by the nature of their European decent, they will most likely (God willing) never meet the horrific fate of Trayvon Martin. It isn’t something to be ashamed of, but it is something to be aware of.
But that doesn’t mean that they don’t face struggles. They are a part of a generation of boys who are being marginalized because of their sex. My oldest is one of those squirmy boys, the types that can’t seem to be still. He stands next to his desk instead of sitting, he wanders around the classroom, he reads books when he should be listening, he wants to talk about bugs and soccer and Ninjago with his friends when he should be doing his sums.
In other words… He’s a 7 year-old boy. The girls are very different at this age, they tend to be more studious, more focused and they keep their bodies still. While there are outliers even in his classroom: two boys who are incredibly quiet and focused and two or three girls who are fidgety and chattery, at this age they are very different.
If we start to turn these natural traits into pathology, as we’ve been doing, we are shaming our boys into thinking they aren’t smart. Or worse… into thinking they aren’t good.
This week, an article in The Guardian keyed into many of the feelings I’ve had while volunteering in my son’s classroom:
There’s a lot of really inspiring work going on with girls, and there’s good reason to focus on their empowerment. But I’m disturbed about the promotion of Girl Power as the development panacea. There’s something dangerously retributive about an approach that simply flips an inequity around and approaches power as a zero-sum game.
Exactly. There’s something dangerously retributive about an approach that simply flops an inequity around…
That doesn’t mean that we now need Boy Power. It means we need a new system of empowerment that isn’t binary. Each kid has his or own unique traits and skills, and if we try to squish them into the narrow and uniform box that our educational system currently offers, we’re damaging everyone.
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The Guardian article also goes on to address men in the women’s movement.The author and I agree that men belong in the women’s movement, but I go another step further: Women belong in the men’s movement.
We need to stand by our brothers, our husbands, and our friends and say, “You know what? There need to be more resources devoted to helping male victims of abuse of all types, there needs to be a revolution in our education system to stop marginalizing boys, particularly boys of color. There needs to be a change in the criminal justice system to stop the cycle of punishing men of color significantly more harshly than anyone else and then tossing them into a violent and rape-filled prison system, where the only way to survive is to associate with gangs. We need rape-crises counselors in jails and prisons, for both men and women. We need to stop simply expecting our young men to sacrifice their lives in war, and let them know that they are valued. Fathers need more parental rights, and in turn more parental roles should be expected from them.”
Gender equality is not about stepping on one sex to climb your way up to the top. It’s not a zero-sum game. There are feminists who think that men should not be involved in the women’s movement. I cannot even begin to address those women, and I keep my distance from them. They don’t represent me. But I also get the sense that some feminists think men should be involved in the gender-equality movement simply to help women. This excerpt from The Guardian piece points out what I think is problematic:
Around the world, we’re seeing work that’s inspired by an agenda for change that doesn’t leave boys and men out of the equation – mobilising men to stop violence against women, and challenging and changing men’s attitudes to intimate relationships and fatherhood. By tackling deadly ideals of masculinity and opening up alternative ways of being a man, these initiatives are transforming boys’ and men’s intimate and interpersonal relationships and creating the basis for greater equality.
While I agree to the idea that our changing expectations of what a man should be is freeing to men, this paragraph sounds a lot like saying, “We want you to join us, so that you can help us make the world better for us women. Oh, and it might be good for you, too!”
Instead, let’s include boys and men in the fight for gender equality because it is the right thing to do. Because boys have value, because men are important.
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I implore both men and women, Feminists and Men’s Rights Activists, to understand that this is not a zero-sum game where I will crush you down to get on top, and you will in turn crush me back to have your needs met.
The time for Girl Power on the playground is coming to an end, and instead it’s time for Kid Power to take over. We all still have that kid inside us who wants to feel powerful, we all still want a mantra to chant to make us feel we can make it through the day and be better than we were before. Girl Power isn’t enough, and neither is Boy Power.
Imagine each kid (and each grown-up in turn), as an individual: the fidgety little boy, the little girl who loves soccer, the boy who wants to dance ballet, the girl who loves pink and sparkles, the boy who would rather play violin than basketball, the girl who wants to write novels… all having equal access to resources, while still being seen as our unique selves, all feeling acceptance and empowerment simply because of who we are.
In order for that to happen, we have to stop climbing on top of one another to get ahead.
Photo courtesy of Tammy McGary
About Joanna Schroeder
“My sons, 7 and 4 years old, were not a part of the oppressive patriarchy.”
I think you will find it difficult to understand the predicament of your sons until you let go of this fiction. Consider the current condition of the two genders:
Women have almost completed their jounrney into equal OPPORTUNITY.
Men have not even begun their journey into equal PROTECTION.
The “oppressive patriarchy” currently oppresses men, almost exclusively. It would be more accurate to call it a matriarchy.
As to the rest of the article, you make a very good point. I am going to send you a slightly different point of view. I have two sons also, 7 and 1. The “retributive” mission of the American education system is what brought me into the gender debate (my seven year old was severly repremanded for drawing a picture of a tank during recess).
Despite the repression of my son, like you, I have great admiration for a few very good teachers that remain in the education system. I want to share a true story about two of these teachers (one female and one male).
Thank you for your article, it was a pleasure to read it.
The “oppressive patriarchy” currently oppresses men, almost exclusively. It would be more accurate to call it a matriarchy.
I don’t think we can call it a matriarchy until women occupy the majority of positions of power directly, instead of utilizing a significant amount of proxy power. For instance, if we had a female president, female vice-president, maybe some female joint-chiefs of staff, etc etc., then you could say matriarchy.
Right now we have a patriarchy that supports bad aspects of Feminism in order to take attention away from the fact that we are all being screwed. Just like rich Whites did to poor whites in regards to slavery in The South.
Thank you, Zek. All good points.
If the male politician has to create female oriented laws in order to keep his (time consuming, non-family oriented) job, who has the power?
I find the term patriarchy to be unhelpful, for exactly this reason. Too ambiguous. However, I don’t think it needs to be a show stoper that prevents productive dialogue.
No! No, we don’t live in a patriarchy or a matriarchy. We don’t live in a patriarchy because the men in power do not use that bother to the benefit of all (or even a majority) of men. We don’t live in a matriarchy because, as you say, there aren’t enough women in power to utilize that power directly for the benefit of women.
There is another option (actually there are several, but never mind) We live in an oligarchy. Each and every position of power is filled by a person who has exactly one thing in common with every other powerful person. Wealth. And they do, indeed, use that power for their own benefit. Politicians can (and do!) vote to give themselves raises and pension benefits for gods sake.
This is where both MRAs and feminists get it wrong. They believe that gender is the primary source of privilege/oppression. They’re wrong. It isn’t gender, it isn’t even race. It’s money. You have enough money, everything else is secondary.
Money, class, wealth. Trips up everything else. Keeps the poles fighting each other.
Ehh… I’m inclined to disagree that there’s one social label which governs everything, because if that were true, Henry Louis Gates Jr. wouldn’t be stopped outside his house, would he? Rich People of Color wouldn’t still face structural racism, would they? Shoot if money was the only thing that mattered, many of my fellow Jews would have long since seen an end to anti-Semitism.
Seems to me the proper term is “kyriarchy” if you want to describe the intersectionality of power as it is practiced. But if you want to describe it based on gender, then patriarchy is probably an accurate reflection of the faces in power — though not their sympathies, obviously.
But I do somewhat agree with Anthony that patriarchy is too vague a word to be useful, and it implies that men benefit even when they’re lower-class or part of an ethnic/religious minority. Certainly Black men do not benefit from “patriarchy”, as we’ve seen lately. That said, it can’t be an oligarchy either because that presupposes that power remains in the same hands over time, which it does not as we’ve seen from the dynamics of gobalization and the spread of technology.
Personally, I feel that power is circumstantial — gained by fortune or conquest, or other methods, and lost far more easily. But the people in power do share similar traits; they just aren’t socio-cultural labels. They’re similar because they’re all in power, and proponents of controlling those who are not.
I still believe we live in an oligarchy, but I’m going to let you have the last word on it because I don’t want to drag this any more off topic than it already is.
I was going to pipe up and say kyriarchy, but you got it.
“Exactly. There’s something dangerously retributive about an approach that simply flops an inequity around…”
This. This happens everywhere there are poles. Race. Class. Gender. Age. Nationality. Orientation.
Why do we do this? To call for the end of violence against women doesn’t mean anyone wants to increase violence against men….that would mean that there HAS to be a certain amount of violence (or that we believe there always will be “violence” waiting to be violent) and if you limit the amount against women, it will increase against men.
Or if you get more people of color in school/education then you will automatically decrease whites in school. Or that you want that to happen.
How about ending violence against all humans? How about ending suffering overall? How about increasing educational and career opportunities for everyone?
How about kid power? But only if that won’t take away from our elders
“To call for the end of violence against women doesn’t mean anyone wants to increase violence against men.”
But it does imply that violence against women is somehow more important then violence against men(or worse). Particularly when the people focusing on violence against women are actively marginalizing male victims.
A better question is ‘to call for the end of violence against people doesn’t mean anyone wants to increase violence against women or not address it.’
Sure. I’ve not got an issue with that. But I see this zero sum thing all over the place. It’s not just gender. I have the feeling it’s an inner dynamic of the human primate-if I see one person/group/policy getting “this” then that must mean it’s being taken from me.
Sadly, sometimes that is true, but it isn’t always true nor does it have to always be true.
People are fearful.
Why don’t you actually look at what campaigners to ‘end violence against women’ are actually doing and saying?
http://www.genderratic.com/?p=1238
Or you can say that I’m the problem and that I’m the one ‘thinking from extremes’.
I’m not talking about you typhon. I’m talking about a general trend I find troubling for the reasons mentioned. Any two poles focused on a zero sum game create and reinforces the conditions for that zero sum. I see it at my work all the time which has nothing to do with gender. The trend is what I’m fixing problematic.
Julie: “I have the feeling it’s an inner dynamic of the human primate-if I see one person/group/policy getting “this” then that must mean it’s being taken from me.”
How can you think the person believes it’s being ‘taken’ from them if they never had it in the first place?
That’s an entirely different matter. The person in question has to determine what they’ve had and what’s been taken and if that’s come from a personal dynamic, or a systemic one. I was speaking of systems.
Oh, and Julie?
I respond to manboobz here:
http://www.genderratic.com/?p=1238
There never was an oppressive patriarchy in the way that feminism describes it. Thats just the revised history and propaganda that creates the hate that deludes people into believing that retribution is deserved and necessary.
Re. the feminist education system …
There is a study going around that found that “girls believe they are cleverer, better behaved and try harder than boys from the age of four” and that “By the age of eight, boys had also adopted these perceptions, the study from the University of Kent found.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11151143
I have never once seen any documented proof that Patriarchy never existed.
A few of you claim that, but it is so backwards to our documented history, that I’m still waiting to see the proof.
Im not saying that patriarchy never existed. It clearly did, just not in the way feminism alledges it does or did.
>I have never once seen any documented proof that Patriarchy never existed.
Why don’t you define what patriarchy is?
If it’s merely observing that the majority of positions of overt power are held by men, then you’re correct.
But I don’t think patriarchy theory ends there.
“I have never once seen any documented proof that Patriarchy never existed.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Beautifully written, Joanna! I, too, am raising a son, who has ADD (although of the inattentive type) and receives services in his awesome middle school…his teachers all tell me he is sweet, motivated, and prepared for class but easily distracted and a bit slow with his math calculations…So true what you say about being aware of the differences in educating boys and girls, and even truer that it is crucial to recognize everyone’s unique traits…I have to let go of the way I was educated and tailor my responses to my particular child….I think he will thrive if everyone recognizes his strengths as well as his weaknesses (ie., spelling, reading fluency, etc.)….
It’s funny how I thought my kid would be just like me at the same age…I thought for sure he would be acing every class and be way ahead of the pack….although I would like to point out that even for a brainy overachiever like myself the educational road was still filled with potholes and danger along the way: perverted teachers, mentors , and advisors were always too close to me and harassing….Even a straight A girl can be brought down by the people she should be looking up to and trusting…
School isn’t easy for anybody…it helps to have vigilant parents and real teachers you can trust guiding your kids…there are so many ways to fail if you are not careful…!
Thanks, Leia!
I have this friend who is an inventor… The guy is BRILLIANT. He did terribly in school and even now the guy cannot sit still. We’ve heard him confuse Ghandi for Morgan Freeman (?) and The Pope for Ghandi (?), and he’s incredibly unaware of the world around him, politically.
But he has invented some of the most amazing products that you probably use every day (of course I can’t say which ones) and solves practical problems in seconds. Beyond that, he’s very in tune with people’s feelings, and very sensitive to them and is great and relating between people (and therefore also amazingly manipulative when he wants to be, less so as he gets older).
But he was terrible in school! I think we just aren’t quite equipped yet to embrace different types of intelligence, and that’s left our country with MAJOR gaps in skilled labor. Too many people with crappy or even good college educations, but no real skills that match the job markets. Many companies are way understaffed because our workers aren’t skilled in that arena.
It would benefit everyone in our economy if we could embrace different learning types and stop funneling everyone toward a university degree – rich or poor – not everyone wants nor needs one, but everyone needs a skill and training for something. Education does not have to equal university.
Many people believe that both ADD and ASD (in moderation) are adaptive, because they help innovation and problem solving. In a kitchen full of knives, the most useful tool is the spoon. People who have a different problem solving apparatus may see what other missed.
This is why, for example, delayed acquisition of language (4-5 yo) is associated with extreme scientific accomplishment (eg Einstein). Language happens when two minds think alike. Genius happens when one mind sees what all others missed.
But he was terrible in school! I think we just aren’t quite equipped yet to embrace different types of intelligence, and that’s left our country with MAJOR gaps in skilled labor.
I think this is why throughout the ages people that are seen as geniuses by those of us who are looking back through were often seen as insane, dangerous, and against whatever the established norm is (such as a heretic in times of religious domination or a communist in times of government domination).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r9V5WV_Fbk#t=0m42s
That is all
The present U.S. school system discriminates against boys, therefor it is better to have separate schools for boys and girls.
Right you are rapses! All you have to do is look at those elite’Prep Schools’ that parents are willing to spend 40-50K on tuition. Almost all of them are single sex schools. Ironically, most of the ‘Cultured Elite’ that want to keep our education system as is, went themselves to these schools and in fact send their children there. I guess what’s good for them and what’s good enough for us of the ‘Unwashed Masses’ are two different things.
Sorry Joanna, I got to call you out on this one. Your about the same age as my daughters (my oldest is 32) and there’s no way they were told in school their choices for a carrer were simply “Teacher, nurse or mommy”. Right from 1st grade on, their teachers told them they could be whatever they wanted to be. I remember them coming home all excited and telling me so (of course ,at that age, what they wanted to be changed daily) No, it’s just that with 2 sons, your point of view has changed and you see the ‘colatarel damage’ of modern feminism. Men and especially boys! With statements like “tackeling the deadly ideals of masculinity” you don’t see a problem? Really, I didn’t know that Masculinity was “Deadly” in of itself. Oh, and by the way, those feminist you”Don’t associate with”? Guess who’s ‘Driving the bus’?
She also notes that it was other kids (rather than adults limiting her) that mocked her for her choice, and the mocking didn’t have anything to do with gender. She was called “stuck up” for wanting to “write books” (presuming this is where the insult actually originated)… I’m not sure how being a girl played any part in that… A boy could be called stuck up for wanting to write books just as easily…
amen, joanna! as you know, i’m seeking a place for my own voice right now in this conversation…and i’m finding that it’s almost becoming a venture in *starting* the conversation. trying to make a space for gender equity that is truly egalitarian, not oppositional.
Des, I think it is about starting the conversation… Or trying to bridge between the two movements to find a way to create something new — something that is sustainable — that can carry both sexes to equality.
You know we’re here when you want to write something on the subject!
Totally blew the formatting on that one.
Hahaha!
It’s okay, I can go fix for you in a minute. But I wanted to say that the most crucial part of what I was saying was that we should do it because boys matter, because men matter.
And you know, women can understand where you’re coming from, too. Women should be able to hear what you’re saying, as we’ve come from a tradition of being expected to sacrifice everything for our families. Often, women wanted to say, “listen, I’m a human, too!” — Now we have a lot of people recognizing it, but we often refuse to recognize the same pleas from men.
I was a kid in the heyday of the “girl power” movement. All it ever meant to me was that apparently girls could do whatever they wanted, and i couldn’t. And by “whatever they wanted” i don’t mean be a doctor, I mean things like hit and insult boys.
When I was in eighth grade, we were asked to write a paper making a comparison between two things. IIRC I chose to compare greek and egyptian mythology. A girl in my class decided to write her paper comparing the intelligence of boys and girls. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you what her “conclusions:” were.
As if that wasn’t bad enugh, did our (female) teacher ever tell her that her subject matter was inappropriate, insulting, childish? No. Of course not. In fact, she scored a fairly decent grade on the paper. At least a B.
And when I asked that teacher what her reaction would have been if I’d written such a paper (conclusions reversed of course) rather than answer my question, I was given a detention for “acting up.”
Unfortunately I was, at the time, the kind of kid who didn’t make waves. So that’s as far as it went, but I learned the real message of the “girl power” business, “whatever you do to boys doesn’t matter.”
Here’s how “Girl Power” manifested in my life:
-Girls and women hurting and abusing me with the boys and men. As an adult, zero support for the former, plenty for the latter. Finding out the issues is “Unfamiliar” when it’s been happening for god knows how long with others like me!
-Having to watch with disgust as movies like “Brave” catapault female portagonists into the stratosphere at the expense of the male characters or worse, reducing the men to doormats and targets of abuse by the female character if they ever made a mistake with her while making them bad at everything compared to the female protagonist
-Having to be told that my hurt from the girls and women didn’t matter compared to what the boys and men did. People telling me “You’re priveledged. Shut up. Men benefit from sexism.”
The only positive “Girl Power” moment for me:
-My mom saving me from a hospital stay after having suicidal thoughts as a teenager (article to come later).
8ball, thank you for your story. It’s very validating to hear it.
You’re welcome, Eagle. I’ve got more. That was just the one where I was descriminated againstby someone who was supposed to be an auhority figure.
there’s also the time when a friend and I went to a pool, she stole my locker key and held it out of my reach (she was taller than me…actually I think she still is taller than me) abd said that if I kept trying to get it back, she’d scream rape.
There’s also the time I was randomly punched it the back of the head and told “don’t hit me back, boys can’t hit girls”
I don’t believe we live in a patricarchy OR a matriarchy, BUT our society is gynocentric. We as a society seem to be almost exclusively focused on what is best for women. You see it in public policy, law, TV, Movies etc etc.
Your white kids may not suffer Trayvon Martin’s fate, but they’re very much at risk of suffering this boy’s fate: he was set on fire for being the wrong color. White.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-03-04/news/31122324_1_white-boy-fire-tv-station
“The Guardian article also goes on to address men in the women’s movement.The author and I agree that men belong in the women’s movement, but I go another step further: Women belong in the men’s movement.”
Omg, someone gets it! I could kiss you!
Too often I feel people see boys as priviliged without realizing they’re also at high risk. Bullying is at high levels, violence is NORMAL in schools, and as they age the fights get more risky. Once they’re men, especially in young adulthood, they’re at the top risk of violence.
Men have struggles, boys have struggles, women, girls, everyone has struggles but too often I’ve seen an attitude of “men have all the power” so people focus on women first, and when women are hunky dory O.K, they will focus on the men. The Grrrlll power movement was good but the retribution of it, the acceptance of women hitting men, hell anytime I hear a legitimate concern about men with equality I hear the automatic “Women have been oppressed for thousands of years”. Do we have to wait thousands of years before we give a shit about men?
Then we get the good ol white ribbon campaigns, political office for women and equality, “violence against women” or if you really want to appeal to the heartstrings “violence against women AND CHILDREN” (Nice way to garner more support and “other”ize men). Gee, I wonder why more men aren’t in the women’s movement? I recently saw articles asking this question, and I sense this expectation that men are supposed to help women and their issues, even pledge to never harm a WOMAN and stand up against those who do (Note, not harm a human, not harm a man or woman). Yet what do I hear when men ask for women to help the men’s movement? “Women have done blah blah for x amount of years, campaigned, rallied, yadda yadda, men need to do it themselves”
From the article – “As Alan Greig has so eloquently put it, it’s not about bringing men in by talking to them nicely and making sure they’re not put off: it’s about naming male privilege, and getting men engaged in holding other men to account.
Around the world, we’re seeing work that’s inspired by an agenda for change that doesn’t leave boys and men out of the equation – mobilising men to stop violence against women, and challenging and changing men’s attitudes to intimate relationships and fatherhood. By tackling deadly ideals of masculinity and opening up alternative ways of being a man, these initiatives are transforming boys’ and men’s intimate and interpersonal relationships and creating the basis for greater equality.”
It’s men’s fault! Men have to step up and work at it, men have to call out other men. Do women not have any responsibility there? I call bullshit, it’s everbody’s responsibility, not just 1 gender.
Why aren’t there more men advocating for women’s issues? 1, Men are blamed and pushed with the responsibility to change too often, 2, Men are told to sit down, shut up priviled male and can’t voice an opinion at times, 3, When we hear the word equality yet this major focus on violence against women with very little spoken on men’s victimization ESPECIALLY when the majority of violence is against men, we start to question whether equality means for all, or for women only.
I don’t mind helping women out, but if they aren’t willing to help men out why the hell would I bother? Are my tears not worthy? is my wound not bleeding? It really can sound selfish, and seem like entitlement when there is an expectation for men to help out women. When’s the last time you saw a massive campaign to end violence against men? I can’t think of any here in Australia, the closest would be an anti-binge drinking ad yet last year men here were asked to pledge to never abuse a woman and stand up to violence against women. In a country where victims of violence for a 12 month period in 2005 were 443,800 women and 808,300 men. (1)
From what I see of violence discussions in feminism, gender equality areas, etc it tends to be violence against women. Violence against women is terrible, I hate it, but it’s not the only violence in existence! In 2004 Violence killed ~3.8million women and ~17.9million men, War and civil conflict killed ~1M women and ~6.3M men, self-inflicted injuries ~7.8M women, ~11.68M men (2). Men were 3-6x more likely to die from violence, yet where are these violence against men campaigns? Where is our white ribbon for men, where are the campaigns calling on women to speak out against other women who abuse, rape, harm their partners/men. The stats are out there, it’s proof there is significant levels of violence against both genders, even domestic violence and rape between the genders, yet we only really talk about the women.
HOW the hell do we expect to stop violence as a whole when we ignore an entire gender (women as perps, men as victims for instance). Can someone logically tell me the reason we should only have campaigns to end violence against women, and why there is no male equivalent of the white ribbon campaign? Why are we so obsessed with helping women that our men suffer in silence? Is it the last acts of chivalry and male self-sacrifice? I cannot logically understand why we have stats showing stupid amounts of violence against both genders, yet we talk about one gender the most and it’s the gender with the lesser number of victims (although still extremely significant!!!). I’ve heard people justify rape campaigns as male perp, female victim simply because male victims were the minority so male victim, female perp posters etc didn’t exist. If we used that logic then violence against women would never get airtime because the sheer size of male violence, but how the hell would that help?
Thank-you hugely Joanna, I am extremely impressed and hope a lot of people read this. We need the support of everyone to tackle the major equality issues, violence, etc, and we need to support everyone in that quest. Pain is pain, no matter the gender, we all feel it, we all suffer, men are not immune to the effects of violence!
(1: ht tp://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by+Subject/4125.0~Jul+2011~Main+Features~Victims+of+violence,+harassment+and+stalking~5110 )
(2: http://www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/DALY6 2004.xls )
The daly link has a space in it purposely at “/DALY6 2004.xls” It’s an excel spreadsheet listing the causes of death for 2004, not sure why they left a space in the link though…
I had never really thought about “Girl Power” in those terms, but you make a very good point about it being retribution or a zero-sum game in many cases.
I would illustrate it this way: think about how chilling it is for someone who is not white to hear the exclamation “White Power!” A lot of those chanting this would say they’re not racist, they don’t hate anyone, they just “put their own people first.” Perhaps there are forms of Girl Power extremism that would make very similar arguments.