Rihanna and Driving While Female: The Defense Rests
[Partly recycled from a comment on a thread]
The Rihanna beating
saddens me to no end. Just another example of how no woman is safe from
violence at any time, because most times it's coming from the guy right
next to her, behind locked doors, in privacy, the guy who'll come home
to her the next night in most cases. And if she does do something
severe to protect herself as everyone always suggests, the courts in
most cases hand out severe punishment.
We have the illusion that it's sexual, about rape, but most of the behind-doors violence is just about that - hateful physical force and abuse, anger, control, dominance, ownership, in a non-sexual setting. Much of the rape is non-sexual in that it's not about arousal, it's just another form of control, affirming who's in charge, who must assent.
Shakesville summarizes the fallacies of the "defend yourself" advice, well worth a sickening read. And an update, where battered women who use violent means to defend themselves are being convicted/plea bargaining at a rate of 75-83%. There is no defense. Shut up and drive, shut up and take it, our societal prescription.
And while cases like Rihanna and Whitney Houston will get attention, and point out the sad fact that no woman is safe no matter how much money and success and power, most victims will not have access to societal support, to legal recourse, to psychological help.
And then there are the peculiarities, such as if Rihanna hadn't been beaten so badly, if she'd just been forced to have sex, would she have even been able to report it, without permanently damaging her career, give her bad press? How many women trying to achieve something have free sexual favors tossed into the mix of requirements for success or inclusion?
It's a strange dynamic. It could be much worse, such as the rape gangs in the Congo, but it could be much better, say as in many European countries. Let's say we're around D+/C- range on these issues. I wonder if Eric Holder will have a chat with us on sexism and violent abuse one of these days. Might fit into his DoJ portfolio.
Excellent diary, but it saddens me that it must be written in the first place.
February 27, 2009 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
You know, there's a part of me that's (I don't have an accurate word for the emotion - relieved, happy (not really), something...) when this happens to someone like this - because it makes news, and draws attention to a horror that usually takes place behind locked doors, in dark places, where no one sees. I hope out of it we can see the problem, find solutions...but then I wonder if there is any real solution to it....can we stop it? Or can we only provide a safe haven from it? (When we even do that.)
February 27, 2009 9:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
It seems unlikely that we will stop it. It is, however, getting slightly better all the time. As abyssmal as a 75-83% conviction rate for women defending themselves may be, I would question whether there was even a 17-25% success rate for women 50 years ago. Our consciousness grows. We even elect African-Americans to be President these days, and who thought we would ever see that day?!? I will argue at one time none, then it got to around 17-25%, and then we did it! We won;t be able to stop old white men from getting elected ever again, but we have changed.
Let's keep on keepin' on!
February 27, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
A trio of great posts today Des. Just my luck in the midst of work hell. Marking my territory to say thanks for this and the Holder posts - I'll be back later to comment.
February 27, 2009 11:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
Women should be happy that we're allowed to drive.
February 27, 2009 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cannot go into this fully now because I’m in the middle of slaying a paper monster. I will come back and post more fully but for now I will say this -- In response to top drawer maroons like Ms Flanagan, whom Eichidne responds to as well and Melissa at Shakesville links to, I have one thing to say – the full enfranchisement of girls comes with the full ownerships of said girl of her sexuality and body. Just that simple. It’s not complicated at all.
Another thing, can we just freaking kill all this abstinence education. It does not work and is built on a sick edifice of pitting a girl against her ownership of her own body. I’m sick of reacting to the punitive mindset of established patriarchy/paternalism which blames Eve for every ill. Sick of it.
And finally, what Melissa said --
Yeah. That one. That thing about trust and she is so right. How does defense training overcome the emotion of trust? And once violated, how does one ever come back to trusting oneself again, let alone another?
Also, I am not sure AG Holder can overcome all this in one Obama term or even two. It's pervasive. When have the courts ever stood by women when it comes to this kind of violence and personal betrayal?
February 27, 2009 3:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't expect AG Holder to magically turn around millennia of screwed up behavior. But when it comes to a judge finding a woman in contempt because she won't view a video of her own rape, or having women victims be incarcerated from their own rapes, that a 12-year-old being dragged from her front yard by unidentified undercover cops and beaten is indicted for resisting arrest, etc., yes, the DoJ can step up and make sure justice has quite a bit more sanity to it. It's a no-brainer. The system sucks right now. 9/11 gave us a brain fart we haven't recovered from.
February 27, 2009 4:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Until human beings are released from the bondage and stranglehold of religion, women will always be second class citizens. That is the problem.
February 27, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, it may be a contributing factor in some areas, but misogyny and dumbass behavior is pretty non-denominational and even afflicts atheists and agnostics.
February 27, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
But religion provides them the justification.
February 27, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good post. Rec'd. Two quibbles.
(1) I honestly see us as being a flat "D" on this issue. Just because some third-world countries are "F" level doesn't mean we get to go on a bell curve.
(2) Holder would be responsible for the prosecution of the Chris Browns, in a general sense. The underlying societal issue that legitimizes some of this disgusting behavior, though, is outside the DOJ's purview.
February 27, 2009 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Answered above, his purview is his purview - not to change the world, just to do his job as dilineated. The way Gonzales et al. didnt.
February 27, 2009 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Excellent post. So much to fix in this world.
February 27, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rec'd. Very thoughtful.
February 27, 2009 4:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm privileged to attend lots of Laker games and was at Game Five of the finals against the Celtics at Staples. Now generally i find singing of the national anthem quite boring and during times of national shame will actually remain seated.
Well, Rihanna sang the national anthem that evening and i have to say it was the most beautiful and inspired rendition i have ever heard. Really amazing coming from such a young woman. Been a fan ever since...
So this whole sorry episode with Chris Brown doubley saddens me. Is it a hiphop thing, a chauvinist thing, a drug thing, a young male ego thing...? Just very hard to understand and supremely frustrating.
Real men don't hit women ever--period...
February 27, 2009 5:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
One of the most infuriating things about this whole sorry episode was when I read that sites posting Rihanna's pictures afterward got huge spikes in traffic. What can most charitably be described as morbid curiosity and more likely as pathology in the public at large is, over and above the tragedy here, a real problem.
Leave her in peace for the moment. Somehow I doubt she's eager to be the spectacle/headline of the month in this.
I know I keep quoting the late Walt Kelly, after he first made his famous statement: We have met the enemy, and they is us.
February 27, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I rec'd this blog earlier but couldn't comment at the time because the brutalization of women and little girls infuriates me to speechlessness. So now, everybody knows how to shut me up. For a while.
It's so lopsided. Had a bad day? Go home and slap the wife around a little. That'll make you feel like a real man.
Hey, we're havin' a war over here! After we get done shooting some people, let's rape the women! Make em have our babies and do a little ethnic diluting.
Let's get a bunch of old guys together and start a polygamist church...that way we can f**k little girls legally!
It's just disgusting.
Learning self defense is great if it's possible you're gonna get mugged in the parking lot. But, education is a better deterrent...not for the women and girls, but for the brutalizers.
Before it even starts, stop it. Teach it in the schools. Dammit, if I can sit through Wed. afternoon filmstrips on 'My Changing Body' in sixth grade, boys can sit through a video of how to diffuse feelings of powerlessness. Girls can sit through it too.
If their parents won't tell them it's not right to hit each other, if their parents are actually hitting one another themselves, some entity has to step in and tell the kids, "Don't do it. Don't hit. Just because you see it being done doesn't make it right."
It seems that more than just teaching the three R's will always fall upon schools. I can't think of any other place for a program like that.
February 27, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had a mother and sister and wives and a daughter and two stop daughters and I just do not understand it. I cannot stomach it.
The propaganda system--movies, tv...except for porn..there is no sanctioning of this behavior.
You obviously have put together a great post and you have a great response here.
I do not see this as a right wing or left wing issue. Although I do not think that guys like rush offer any help in this area. running around calling any woman who stands up for herself as a feminazi.
February 27, 2009 8:29 PM | Reply | Permalink