An overwhelming amount of sexual assault, rape, 'slut shaming', and sadly, resulting suicides, have dominated news networks and social media feeds for months.
Each one has touched the hearts of many in unique ways, but we really need to let these tragic events start touching our minds in a more registering and progressive manner.
There are few things that can be said on these issues that haven't already been brought to the surface by history, by feminists, social leaders, families of the victims, clinical professionals, and really anybody with a sense of rationalism and compassion.
As is anyone who advocates for change on this platform, I tire of justifying. I am exhausted from analyzing and speaking out against the same mistakes only to be met with regurgitated responses.
I am all too familiar with being told that we're too concerned with being politically correct, or that women are seeking to place themselves above men. For the millionth time, pick up a dictionary and read for yourself that feminism is an advocation for EQUALITY. Nobody is trying to scramble to the top of this ethical food chain to eliminate the top predator. We just want to sit and harvest the bounty of parity together.
What we're really all too concerned with is resisting positive and worthwhile changes to our hard wired social and cognitive contexts. This is a history which malignantly continues to repeat itself.
I have always said that too many men complain in private about their close female friends or relatives in abusive relationships while they ACCEPT the abuser into their social circles and afford him privilege as though nothing is happening.
Silence communicates consent and complicity. The bystander effect contributes to an enormous portion of the ideologies that we accept and participate in, especially for men. When men in powerful roles continue to allow sexism and endorse abuse, it is a failure to lead by positive example. Leadership failures account for so much of what we accept, and even more of what we allow to happen.
Champion boxer, Floyd Mayweather, returned to the world of professional boxing at the coveted MGM Grand in Las Vegas over the weekend. Mayweather comfortably extended his unbeaten record to an astonishing 44 victories. You know what's even more astonishing? Society was too busy celebrating his welterweight title to remember that Mayweather beat his girlfriend and threatened to make her "disappear" in front of her two children just a few years prior. An act for which he avoided trial completely and was minimally sentenced to just three months in prison for. Let's not forget that the judge delayed Mayweather serving his time so that he could fight Miguel Cotto on the grounds that the fight would provide an "economic boost" to Las Vegas. An outstanding example of failed leadership at the cost of a continued acceptance of abuse.
Men do not only abuse women, this is not solely a women’s issue. Men abuse children, and most importantly, men abuse other men on a compelling level. So why do we continue to practice victim blaming when a woman is sexually assaulted or falls victim to domestic violence? Why are the questions only about her and not her abuser? Why do we force her to identify herself as ‘battered’ while we remove her abuser from the conversation? It is because cognitively, we’ve been structured to do just that.
For so long we’ve allowed these dangerous ideals to stand at the forefront of decision making, identity development, and societal implementation.
Take twenty minutes and share this video on your twitter, Facebook wall, or as I have done, on your blog. Sit down with some male friends and share it with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTvSfeCRxe8
Dr. Jackson Katz is right, we don’t only owe solid leadership, education, and equality to women, but we also owe it to boys and young men who played no active role in being born into a society that demands such a skewed and dangerous ideal of masculinity from them.
Until next time,
A Fabulous State
