THE INVISIBILITY PROBLEM

Gender bias is alive and well and wreaking havoc in our lives. Today I’m going to focus on only one aspect of the long term result of living in a society in which the beliefs and rituals of control and domination perpetuate the use of coercion and violence to settle disputes, manage human relations and affirm masculine identity. 

Violence against women is perpetrated at a shocking rate. In this country, a woman is raped every 4.5 minutes, and assaulted every 90 seconds, and though we know this is happening, very little is being done to examine the issue and provide real solutions.  Violence against women is not a women’s issue…it is a human rights issue, a human problem that involves every adult member of our society.

Why aren’t men’s groups talking about how to rein in the violence, or teaching boys to respect women as equals and as human beings?  Simply put, the male centered society in which we live paints a gender biased picture that warps our ability to address this issue for what it is- a product of the near religious ferver of the belief in domination and aggression as the solution to everything from disputes between countries to disagreements between women and men.

It is invisibility and unconscious acceptance of male privilege and violent ‘solutions’ that makes abuse of women at the hands of men nearly invisible although it happens every day, all day. And I am not interested in male bashing here, so don’t mistake what I’m saying as a condemnation of men.

 Think about this:  If people of color (pick any minority) assaulted whites at the rate that men assault women every day in this country, there would be national mobilization to correct the problem and to ‘contain’ this dangerous population. You know that is true.

It is ironic that women are considered to be the over-emotional, irrational, dramatic and unstable when it is the male of the species that is responsible for the vast majority of all assaults, rapes and murders. And I don’t believe that men are so unable to ‘control their passions’ (anger and sex drive) that women must be trained to be careful about how we dress or where we go…yet, that is exactly the story that we are sold.  Violence against women is talked about as a ‘woman’s issue’ rather than something that has gone terribly wrong within the male population, making the problem nearly invisible to the very men who can make a difference. 

Allan Johnson states: “When we refuse to plainly state that men are the perpetrators, then individual men who are not rapists never have to consider how their connection to male privilege also connects them to the sexual violence of men who are.”  Without the efforts of good men who are willing to interfere, educate, and deliberately revise the way gender bias and male privilege warps our culture, we will be unable to stop this pattern of violence.

 One of my daughters was raped when she was in college. I was nearly abducted and raped when I was in my 30’s. I know of four women friends were beaten by their husbands, two others who were raped. And that’s just what I know from conversations through the years, who knows what I’d find out if I asked.

 
I am writing about this because I want you, dear reader, to wake from the slumber that society induces. If you are a man, you can make a difference by stepping up, speaking out, talking with other men, mentoring young men and being an advocate for women.  It is your right and responsibility as a man to learn how to solve this terrible issue.   Women, I encourage you to speak up, persist, refuse to be invisible, and tell the truth about your experiences. Together, with men as our allies we can- and must- empower each other to end the pattern of violence.