Dudes search for something important in hate crime to be upset about
Pages and pages of hate-filled ranting against women. Fifty bullets sprayed into a crowd of female strangers. Three women dead, nine wounded.
Clearly a hate crime against women, right? Not if you’re Markos Moulitsas or Greg Mitchell or this dude. If you’re one of these guys, “hate crime against women” doesn’t even quite make sense. Hate crimes are serious and important, by definition; but shooting up bitches is just life, man. If you’re one of these guys, what you do is pore through the pages and pages of George Sodini’s hate rants against women, your eyes glazing over as you look for something important, until you finally light on the one paragraph that refers to black men and President Obama. Aha! Now that’s important.
Clearly, opine the dudes, this was a racist crime. The misogynistic screeds? The random shooting of a bunch of women? The dead bodies on the floor, the lives broken? Not about women at all. It was really an expression of Sodini’s resentment of black men. In other words, something important.
In the thread here yesterday, Esther said:
I remember reading a comment elsewhere saying that to this guy, as to others (though not all), women existed as a “form of consumption”. They aren’t real people with their own dreams, interests, strengths and flaws, hobbies and jobs, families and friends… they exist to “be consumed by men”.
There are degrees of that, Esther. There are degrees.
35 Responses to “Dudes search for something important in hate crime to be upset about”
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janicen says:
The rage I’m feeling right now makes it difficult to think straight but I can’t help but be stunned that these writers are more upset about Sodini referring to Obama as a “black man” than his reference to women as “white hoes”. Greg Mitchell even changes Sodini’s words to “white women” rather than “white hoes”.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:59 pm EST -
Toonces says:
Are they afraid if women get any fauxgressive attention towards their silly little “issues” that The One wouldn’t be re-elected? I don’t know if that quite makes sense, but I do wonder if this isn’t strategic? I mean, this is sick enough to be on purpose, and we saw similar things happen all throughout the primaries.
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Violet says:
I don’t know if that quite makes sense, but I do wonder if this isn’t strategic?
I don’t know about strategic. These guys are bone-bred assholes, and their strategy is just to keep the bitches down. But I don’t know if it’s strategy so much as it’s just the way their tiny pinhead minds work.
Markos is the guy who referred to feminists as the “sanctimonious women’s studies set” and complained, “where are the damn burkas when you need them?” when women objected to sexist ads on his site.
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sam says:
“form of consumption”
Every time I talk about prostitution and someone replies, “Prohibition didn’t work” I am reminded that men view women as more beer-like than people-like. Would that I could find the words to describe the look on their faces when I incredulously retort, “Prohibition of black slavery didn’t work?”
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iiii says:
It’s not strategy. They quite sincerely think of us as livestock it’s socially acceptable to fuck. We are fundamentally not-people to them. You might as well talk about hate crimes against Holsteins, for all the sense it makes to them.
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Toonces says:
I didn’t mean to take away from Markos’ and the others’ sincere, raging, gleeful, security-blanket-like misogyny. I just think it’s a little weird they’re even commenting on the story, I guess. They’re all about dominating the narrative and whatnot, and whiny bitchez iz totes bad for their preferred prescribed worldview. I’m not sure it matters anyway, though, whether it’s strategic or not.
I actually think (and I doubt I’m alone here) that their anti-racism is quite often just cover so they can practice their beloved misogyny (and other assorted bigotries). I’d be surprised if any of them posted on say the possible racist implications of that NORML poster, for example.
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somebody42 says:
I’m with Toonces. I read the Daily Kos and HuffPo threads as attempts to “other” Sodini so the men can think “his behavior is symptomatic of right-wingers, not ordinary (liberal) men like me.” They can say to themselves that he committed mass murder because he’s a right winger, which they are not, rather than because he’s a misogynist, which they are. They can regard him as a “psycho”, an aberration, a “one-off”, and not someone who took the ideas ordinary men have about women to their logical extreme.
I perceived a similar pattern in media coverage of Afghan women under the Taliban. They focused on Islam, not patriachy, so they wouldn’t have to look at themselves and what their own culture would look like taken to its logical extreme.
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Hedgepig says:
The murderer suggested offering black men white women as sex slaves as a way of compensating for the fact that white men used to rape black women slaves.
Who was wronged by white men raping black women slaves? The black women slaves? No! Black men of course!
Who should be compensated today for black women slaves having been abused in the past? Black women? No! Black men of course!This murderer suggests that women should be handed over to men as sexual slaves and the dudes are horrified by…his racism!
It’s one thing for a crazed psychopath to be blind to the obvious, but sane men sharing his perspective?? I feel sick. We really do inhabit different universes don’t we? And our universe has a very small number of people in it, and their universe has lots and lots of heavily armed people.
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Toonces says:
I think somebody42 got at what I’m picking up on: they’re petrified of anyone paying attention to the pervasive, deadly misogyny in the world because they WUV It, so they’re commenting so as to change the subject as quickly as possible, and changing it to racism has worked pretty well over the past year and a half.
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gxm17 says:
I’m not sure they fear attention brought to misogyny. They’re just sticking to the game plan that includes misogyny as a socially acceptable form of entertainment. Episodes of violent bloodshed (which can’t be laughed off) must be marginalized and diminished, and when a gender hate crime does somehow manage to garner MSM attention it must be quickly channeled to something that is culturally unacceptable, like racism. Racism = serious. Sexism and misogyny = entertainment. Even the neanderthals understand that gunning down women isn’t funny but they have to call gender violence something else otherwise they won’t be allowed to giggle about misogyny in public anymore.
One of the most frustrating aspects of this crime is that the police have stated that this was a hate crime and yet the media won’t call it what it is. “He just had a lot of hatred in him,” said Police Superintendent Charles Moffat. The killer did not know his victims and they were targeted because they were women. This is as clear a case of gender hate crime as you can get. And yet the silence is deafening.
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Swannie says:
These articles , for me, exemplify the lack of consciousness of women as equals in this patriarchal society , and presents a clear window into the knee jerk subconscious hate-filled misogyny that emerged during the presidential campaigns. Women winning at the level of Potus or even VPotus would have meant a seismic and tectonic shift in the thick crust of consciousness and would penetrated and shaken and moved the patriarchal bedrock of behaviors that men enjoy as a rsult of the patriachy , at a level heretofore unknown to most “modern men”
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m Andrea says:
It’s one thing for a crazed psychopath to be blind to the obvious, but sane men sharing his perspective??
Yikes Hedgepig. That is a stake through the heart.
I’m not sure why everybody believes men don’t hate us, they tell us everyday. Didn’t take me very long before I believed them. Not to start an argument or anything, I just don’t feel there is any point in trying to “change men”. They are pigs and want to wallow in filth. So let them and work on liberating women instead.
What is this “we’re all in this together” bullshit? They want to continue the mommy/whore dictonomy and we want out, so where’s this “togetherness”?
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Hedgepig says:
Yeah, I know, I don’t know why I keep being surprised. It’s a bit like the sheep being surprised each morning to find the grass is green.
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anna says:
So what’s a straight woman supposed to do? Force herself to sleep with women instead? Political lesbians and all that.
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janicen says:
Well, the story has finally trickled out to the MSM. Thank you, Violet, for posting about this.
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RKMK says:
Fucking pathetic Markos. I feel so sorry for his daughter. You’d think he’d have picked up a little understanding by now. /disgust
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yttik says:
That link, “Women at Risk
By BOB HERBERT” is fabulous:“We would become much more sane, much healthier, as a society if we could bring ourselves to acknowledge that misogyny is a serious and pervasive problem, and that the twisted way so many men feel about women, combined with the absurdly easy availability of guns, is a toxic mix of the most tragic proportions.”
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RKMK says:
Agreed, yttik; the whole thing is pretty quotable:
Back in the fall of 2006, a fiend invaded an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania, separated the girls from the boys, and then shot 10 of the girls, killing five.
I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar.
…
We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected.
We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment.
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yttik says:
Thanks for posting about this, Violet. I’ve been wandering around on the intertubes ranting about it for a couple of days now. May a thousand fleas infest the shorts of the blogger boys who keep trying to change this story into something “important.” It astounds me how they simply step over the bodies of all those women and focus on racism and this lunatic’s feelings about Obama.
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leis says:
Janicen-that link was awesome. I read thru the comments and was pleasantly surprised that the vast majority were in support of the position he took. I really expected to freak when I started to read the comments, but how refreshing! People agreeing that we are drowning in misogyny. It also takes a person of color to point out the obvious without being called a racist; if this person had targeted any other group based on race CNN, MSNBC and Keith (gag) would be rabid in trying to prove they are uber-aware of the issues and taking a righteous stand in speaking out against it.
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Lexia says:
Someone in the comments to the previous post asked about hate crime legislation that covered women. This is from a comment I posted this here last year:
“As for hate crimes legislation, federal hate crime laws specify protection on the basis of race, creed (that’s religion, including those that openly discriminate against women), ethnicity and national origin. Not gender. The oldest of these laws, the one to just collect statistics, even includes sexual orientation, but leaves out gender.
Of the 45 states and DC that have hate crime laws, all of them cover race, religion and ethnicity. Only 28 cover gender. Again, more cover sexual orientation – 32. Source data here: http://tinyurl.com/6e2yyj”
These past two years have shown the depth of hopelessness for improving the lives of women in the U.S. or even of slowing the degradation of our legal, civil and economic rights.
There won’t be a revolution. Women who still can need to take their skills, their experience, their education, their concern for the country they live in and, while they still have them, their futures, and leave. The sooner the better, age being the single biggest factor restricting immigration to the more civilized countries.
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Nora says:
Great article by a man. Where are the women MSM “journalists” ( if they can be called that)? Not one article or National news report I’ve seen. It seems that it isn’t any good having women in positions of authority or prominence (like Katie Couric) since they are just going to support the misogynstic society to protect their jobs/income. I admit I am not in a good place today, but maybe we would be better off getting men on our side since prominent women aren’t worth shit?
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Toonces says:
There are quite a few really frightening/gross comments on that fantastic op-ed now, so it’s possible it got linked at some menaretherealvictimz corner of the internet. Just a warning to anyone having a bad day.
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m Andrea says:
Nora, I think it’s because there aren’t enough women journalists who cover “serious” news. When there’s only a few spaces allowed to females, competition is tough, so the women who do apply will toe the party line in order to get and keep their jobs.
That is why “tokenism” is such a nasty one-two punch. It presents only the illusion of equality yet makes it more difficult to identify and fight real injustice. The old boys network (and the new boys network on the intarwebs) can cheerfully declare that inequality has been “mostly” eliminated so there’s little reason to complain. It appeases the masses, takes the edge off the urgency. But if you do complain, you’re “exagerating” the depth and breadth of the problem and gee, “why do you hate men”? Just relax, you’ll get yours someday.
It’s a game of plausible deniability which they’re hoping to string out forever. Hmmm, what does Machiavelli suggest as a response? I’ll go check. lol
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gxm17 says:
“Interesting” comment @ #186 on the Herbert thread:
This crime is not about misogyny. It is about a man who desperately desires a woman and cannot have one.
The man idealizes women but is inept. I was one of those and found myself so desperate that I chose to try to become a women. … This was my response to the emotional distance I experienced with women. I wanted desperately to become the woman I desired.
George Sodini was horribly wrong and extremely angry. But not because of hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women (as the dictionary says), but because of his ineptness and his failures.
The idea that this is misogyny misses the real nature of the problem: a world full of women gorgeous or made gorgeous, and full of unrealistic expectations, and men too emotionally incompetent or too unrealistic to attract what they so badly desire. …
Sometimes I think the problem with so many men is that they just want to crawl back up inside us. Really, guys, do we have to do all the damn work? Do we have to carry you for freakin’ ever? Enough already. You have a penis; deal with it… sans the violent tantrums.
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Leis says:
Jesus! There were 126 comments when I read it. 186 wanted to become the women he desired? How fucking creepy is that? Silence of the Lambs, anyone? I desire to not have to shave my legs, however I don’t wish to become the razor. And people wonder why men scare the shit out of women?
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Mustang Shelby Single Payer Convertible « Donna Darko says:
[...] Violet Sox: Dudes search for something important in hate crime to be upset about [...]
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Esther says:
Yep, I agree that there are degrees. As I said in the last paragraph of my comment:
“What he did showed an extreme form of a lack of empathy seen a lot.”
Thank you for writing about this outrageous and disturbing lack of empathy in the media.
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Northwest rain says:
I also feel sorry for DK Marcos’s daughter — it was evident from his early remarks about his daughter that she would be treated with a bit of contempt compared to the “perfect” boy child — his first born.
Most of the time women just don’t see or comprehend that they are hated by men — not ALL men — but enough to make our lives very miserable at times. Young women for the most part won’t understand the extent of the misogynistic attitude of this culture/society until they get a bit older.
And then women are women’s worst enemies — it is often women who make sure women stay where they “belong”. Prime example — NOW and MS magazine and the “feminists” love affair with 0zero.
Misogyny is learned behavior — and the only way it can be reduced is through education. It is the role of the media to help educate — but they are part of the problem.
Not much at all has changed since “women’s lib” was made a dirty word way back in the 20th Century.
There are a few good men and some of us are lucky to be married to decent guys who often really just don’t understand what we are fussing about.
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purplefinn says:
Northwest rain says: “….And then women are women’s worst enemies……….”
The price is heavy and the rewards can be few in being a feminist. I so appreciate those who stand and push back against the devaluing of women. I believe that one of the best things women can do is simply enjoy each others company.
May the proponents and gatekeepers of patriarchy, feel every ounce of the alienation and stress that comes from trying keep women in “their place.”
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tinfoil hattie says:
maybe we would be better off getting men on our side since prominent women aren’t worth shit?
and
And then women are women’s worst enemies……….”
Come on. You are blaming women for patriarchy and sexism? Women don’t rape and kill other women. Women do “go along to get along” in whatever ways we have to, and unfortunately, sometimes that means aligning with the oppressor because it seems that will be the easiest route to take.
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RKMK says:
Not to mention, if Bob Herbert’s article was written by Roberta Herbert, it would be dismissed as hysterical, biased whining. That is, prominent women are bound by the same sexist traps we are.
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Philosimphy says:
For some reason I am extremely annoyed that there have been no “editor’s picks” from the comments of Bob Herbert’s article.
A few weeks ago, well July 25th to be exact, there was a fluffy little interview of an Elle editor IIRC who dared to posit that women make better managers. 300 comments followed blasting her for having such balls.
article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07.....orner.html
comments: http://community.nytimes.com/c.....orner.htmlSomehow, the editors managed to choose some “quality” comments from that bunch – and quickly too! The 7th and 8th comments were both featured. – Both deriding the interviewee for her uppity opinions…
7 said: “Shamefully, we only condemn people when they claim male superiority, not when they claim female superiority.” – this was said about a week after the Sotomayer hearings.
…. but SOMEHOW the editors could find NOTHING worthy of selection in the 300 comments to an article about the real motives of a woman-hating killer on a rampage.
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SKM says:
I second tinfoil hattie. Blaming women for misogyny is just more of the same old same old.
This is the blaming to which I refer:
And then women are women’s worst enemies — it is often women who make sure women stay where they “belong”.prominent women aren’t worth shit
Let’s keep our eye on the ball instead of falling for feats of patriarchal misdirection.
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Melinda says:
Re: prominent women in the media. Remember that female journalists must often get the permission of a male editor before doing a story. Like some have said above, a woman writing these things would have been tagged as whiny and hysterical. So, she wouldn’t have gotten beyond the pitch stage in most newsrooms.
