Women, Action and the Media founder Jaclyn Friedman says
culture must heal ideas of masculinity, build new structures of justice
Editing, re-reporting, commentary by
Carolyn Bennett
It is true that the abduction and rape in Cleveland, though
currently being subjected to rabid media sensation, is “no surprise” (as Jaclyn
Friedman says) ─ despite Americans’ feigning “shock” (consider U.S. government abduction
and assassination at home and abroad) ─ but a reflection of an untreated
chronic pathology.
Facts of American relations at home and
abroad |
| U.S. Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski |
A male graduate of U. S. Ivy Leagued Harvard University is paraded
before the media, promoted and passed off as an authority saying Hispanic
people are mentally inferior and should not be allowed to immigrate or gain
citizenship in the United States. Members of the U.S. legislative and executive
branches of government are murdering people all over the Middle East and Africa. In this week’s
news (alongside the Cleveland case), a U.S. military male holding the rank of lieutenant
colonel is reported having accosted a woman in a public parking lot, a soldier promoted
by the same military establishment that routinely cultivates, promotes and
retains rapists of women and other fellow soldiers serving in the U.S. military
as well as those who rape women in countries all across Asia ─ from Japan and Korea
to Iraq ─ wherever U.S. military and other personnel are deployed.
F
|
reedom to these rapists is taking whatever they want and
taking it by violence. From the White House to the U.S. Houses of Congress to neighborhood
houses, there is an impunity of violence among American males (time and again, they
get away with it) ─ and often with the complicity of women in power who could stand against it, speak out against it;
but who instead go along, acquiesce to violence committed by American males.
 |
| Post- U.S. war on Iraqis |
Speaking on today’s Democracy Now program pegged to the
violence against young women in Ohio, Jaclyn Friedman gets to the heart of a pandemic
pathology. Undertaken as a whole
culture, she says ─
We have to heal our ideas of masculinity.
Build new justice structures and strengthen the ones we have.
She says, “It is easy to put all the attention on this one
case.” [Both men in the Cleveland case, the accused and the intervener in the
rescue, had histories of domestic violence.] But sometimes such reaction “is counterproductive”
as there exists in the United States “a continuum of violence.”
Impunity missing corrective structure
Neighbors many times in Cleveland had tried to bring authorities’
attention to suspect behaviors long before the victim was able, ten years after the
abduction, to find an opening for escape. But the structures necessary to remove
the impunity for this violence were missing, Friedman says. Police apparently did not take the allegations
seriously. They and others looked the other way.
 |
| U.S. Cleveland neighbor Ariel Castro |
H
|
ad Ariel Castro been alleged to have been dealing drugs, she
observes, a SWAT team would have descended on his house. Without “structures
that remove impunity for violence,” violence continues unabated (as drone
strikes, extrajudicial assassination, endless wars).
Toxic masculinity: total impunity for rapists
Most rapes go unreported but when people do come forward, when
they report, when they do bring charges of rape, Friedman says ─
The charges, compared with other
violent crimes, are very unlikely to be prosecuted.
Even when rape charges are
prosecuted, they are very unlikely to result in convictions.
This happens within the military
and it happens outside the military, which is why sexual violence is a pandemic
in this country and elsewhere.
Culture must mend culture of violence, end impunity
Jaclyn Friedman says we must “heal our ideas of the
masculinity. Build new justice structures and strengthen the ones we have” ─ a
herculean task undertaken by the whole culture to mend and amend this cultural defect.
“We need to create police or other justice structures that
communities can trust”: consider an undocumented immigrant who has been raped” (in
the shadows doubly intimidated into silence); “consider communities and
individuals who, for great reasons,” she says, are inclined to distrust police.
H
|
igh in our list of priorities is the drone program, Friedman
observes; but where are the resources for solving the problem of rape, she asks.
If, as a culture, “we prioritized women’s safety”; if “ending sexual violence”
were high on our list of cultural values ─ “we would be pouring massive
resources into this cultural problem.”
Calling for ‘more policing’ or ‘better policing’, though necessary,
is insufficient, she says. “We need to strengthen
existing justice structures and build new ones.” Make our combined effort, the entire
culture’s priority ─ to heal our ideas of masculinity.
Sources and notes
“Behind the Cleveland Kidnappings, a Culture of ‘Toxic
Masculinity’ and Gender-Based Violence,” May 9, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/5/9/behind_the_cleveland_kidnappings_a_culture
Jaclyn Friedman
Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, performer, and activist, founder
and the executive director of Women, Action & the Media (a national
organization working for gender justice in media). Her books include Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual
Power and a World Without Rape (edited); What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex
& Safety. Her article “Drinking and Rape: Let’s Wise Up About It” was originally
published by Women’s eNews (February 2007) and reprinted in several major
online outlets. Friedman is a popular speaker on campuses and at conferences
across the United States and beyond; and has been a contributor to many print
and broadcast outlets and programs.
Friedman holds an MFA (Emerson College) in creative writing.
She has been a student and instructor of IMPACT safety training and in that
capacity “helped bring safety skills to the communities which most need them,
including gang-involved high school students and women transitioning out of
abusive relationships,” http://www.jaclynfriedman.com/about/bio
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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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