Editor’s note: As an eco-feminist organization, Deep Green Resistance draws links between the exploitation and mistreatment of women, the destruction of compassion and solidarity, and the ongoing ecocide of the natural world.
Rates of sexual abuse today are staggering. On average nearly 500,000 people over 12 years of age — the vast majority of them female — are sexually assaulted each year in the United States. Some 12.5% of children are sexually abused.
In this piece, Jocelyn Crowley draws links between the mainstreaming of violent pornography and endemic sexual abuse — increasingly normalized as “rough sex” or kink, reminding us that we must not forget that sexual abuse of women is at the core of patriarchy.
NB: This piece contains graphic descriptions of sexual abuse. Click here for information about stopping porn addiction.
While doing research for an article I recently wrote regarding the level of radicalism which can and might exist within mainstream realms such as rape crisis centers, I stumbled across a documentary regarding how sex traffickers now frequent drug rehab facilities for the purpose of recruiting victims. These traffickers lure victims away by proposing that the victims are being transported to another drug rehab facility.
Although I formerly worked for an anti-trafficking facility, this was all new to me. I listened in a state of deep horror as several young women described how traffickers repeatedly “sold them for sex” (paid rape) to various individuals. While everything stated by the brave survivors who were strong enough to tell their stories left a deep imprint on my consciousness, the most disturbing and transformative story was from a young woman who stated that while being trafficked, the trafficker stated “Did you know that four men just ran a train on you for $20? Just $20. That’s it.” Her point was plain. The trafficker was informing her that she was worth little to nothing and that, as a mere object, he maintained the subjectivity necessary to determine what the cost of her objectification would be.
It is well-known that pimps use these types of breaking strategies to convince victims that no one cares about them, and the strategies wouldn’t be repeatedly used if they weren’t effective. Yet the reason that her words were particularly jarring to me at that moment is because I had recently become reirritated by the reality of fake feminists and their inaccurate discourse, nonempirical understanding of gender, and superficial work that they do to uphold male supremacy under the guise of creating a more equitable world when they could actually join the radical feminist family in the unapologetic, unrelenting condemnation of men who subject women to any and all forms of sexual abuse.
I won’t go into deep detail regarding the asinine, ineffective efforts of the liberal feminist community here, but suffice it to state that they make things like the cultivation of good heterosexual marriages, equal pay for equal work, and abortion rights integral to their platform and diminish the role that sexual abuse plays in perpetuating male supremacy due to fear of truly speaking to power and recognizing that the men they serve are the biggest threat to the viability of the planet and half its population
Although the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade was a substantive blow to women, I agree with the radical feminists who argue that the sustained attention given to the abortion debate is actually a distraction and the diverting of female energy from the most significant source of women’s oppression: any and all forms of sexual abuse. Indeed, I think that radical feminist energy should be continually redirected to the recognition of, rumination regarding, and antagonistic response towards the variegated forms of sexual abuse that transpire in all realms, including the now sexually normative and culturally acceptable spheres of prostitution and pornography.
While other forms of gender-based abuse are problematic, rape and other forms of sexual assault and oppression are the most egregious because they reduce women to objects and revivify a cultural landscape in which individuals are reduced to a state eerily comparable to slavery in which their bodies are no longer their own but rather a resource that is extracted for capital and/or pleasure of nefarious masters (pimps, johns, boyfriends, husbands, and all other men who appropriate female bodies). (Also, if is true that prostitution is the oldest institution in the world, this would mean that it predates all forms of traditional slavery on the planet…and this would be saying a lot regarding which forms of oppression and against which groups are most deeply imbricated into the psyches of the citizens of the planet.)
While I have read much literature regarding rape and other forms of sexual abuse, I was most recently stirred by my rereading of Gloria Steinem’s stunning essay “The Real Linda Lovelace.” This essay recounts the horrific, brutal violence (both sexual and non) suffered by Linda Boreman at the hands of multiple men, including her former husband Chuck Traynor.
Much of Steinem’s retelling of Boreman’s sexual abuse stems from her awareness of the pornographic film Deep Throat. Although individuals immersed in malestream, normative thinking regarding gender and sexuality viewed the film as an intriguing and perhaps grotesquely fascinating representation of “sex,” radical feminists know that the accurate interpretation of this media representation is a replication of the culturally normative practice of treating women as sexual objects and physical receptacles (mouth, anus, and vagina are just “holes” for men to enter) who exist as such for male pleasure. This assessment is grounded in material reality rather than mere abstract philosophical speculation because we know the film involved a man inserting his penis in Linda Boreman’s mouth as well as a hollow glass dildo being stuck in her vagina while men sipped liquid from it.
Radical feminists can learn many lessons from these depictions, one of which is that culturally normative male sexuality is about disregarding the concept of female pleasure in sexuality or inverting it to promote the myth that women receive pleasure from giving men pleasure. These patriarchal myths are perpetuated through Deep Throat, and Steinem makes this reality plain upon noting that the director-writer of the film, Gerry Damiano, “decided to tell the story of a woman whose clitoris was in her throat, and who was constantly eager for oral sex with men” (267).
Here we see the inversion of biological reality, which is that the clitoris is a central and primary source of sexual pleasure for women, such that this component of female anatomy is geographically relocated to the back of a woman’s throat for the purpose of suggesting that having a penis inserted into a female’s mouth is physically stimulating in a manner that results in substantive pleasure. The reality, which Damiano diminished through this inversion of biological materiality, is that this form of oral sex has the primary impact of generating male, not female, pleasure. The pleasure is not mutual or equally distributed between both partners because the clitoris is indeed not located in the back of a woman’s throat.
Damiano’s mythological distortion of female sexuality and the female body reinforces male dominance by perpetuating the core patriarchal idea that women exist to service men. As a cultural artifact, the film reinforces the idea that this ideology can be legitimated through the development of fictional narratives regarding women’s biology.
The use of a hollow glass dildo in Deep Throat also upholds the mythology of male supremacy that is normalized within the pornographic realm. Steinem recounts this scene in context of the horrified response of Nora Ephron, a writer who, upon seeing this in the film, stated “All I could think about was what would happen if the glass broke” (268). I’m fairly confident that I would have responded similarly if I sat through a scene in which a hollow glass dildo was inserted into a woman’s vagina and then filled with Coca-Cola that was subsequently drunk through a surgical straw.
Yet when Ephron shared her concern with some male friends, they told her “that she was “overreacting” and that the Coca-Cola scene was “hilarious”” (268). This response reflects the desensitization that most people, particularly men, experience when confronted with the reality of female objectification coupled with the perpetuation of the idea that women’s bodies exist for the purpose of servicing men. In this case, the servicing grotesquely melded the realms of food and sex such that the source of male satisfaction involved being able to use a component of female anatomy for sexual titillation and the alleviation of thirst. (If the person who drank the Coca-Cola was actually thirsty, because it is quite plausible that he was not and just wanted to demonstrate the extent of his control over a female body by indicating that he could find more than one way to utilize her vagina and, given the opportunity, would do so. I think it’s also important to note that this component of the film reflects the male proclivity to utilize the power of creation and artistry in a perverse manner that involves misusing, obliterating, or disfiguring female bodies such that their process of “creation” is actually more comparable to “destruction,” making their “creative process” a patriarchal reversal (the opposite of what it claims to be). I think it’s also important to note what this specific form of patriarchal reversal might be rooted in, which is plausibly male jealousy over female anatomy and its capacity to give birth and life to a living thing, with the male perverted response being a proclivity for destroying the source of life, female bodies.)
The lies that men tell about female bodies through pornography are not limited to the mythology of a clitoris in the back of the throat or the insertion of a hollow glass dildo into a woman’s vagina. Chuck Traynor, Linda’s long-time abuser/husband, perpetuated myths regarding female psychology and anatomy by having her memorize a set of lies to recite regarding her role in pornographic films when interviewed by the public. This is why, when Nora Ephron interviewed Linda Boreman and asked how she felt about making Deep Throat, Boreman responded “I totally enjoyed myself making the movie” and “I don’t have any inhibitions about sex. I just hope that everybody who goes to see the film…loses some of their inhibitions” (268).
As Steinem notes, “Linda would later list these and other answers among those dictated by Chuck Traynor for just such journalistic occasions” (268). Furthermore, Traynor punished Boreman for showing any type of unacceptable emotion when he sold her for sex (paid rape). For example, Boreman cried after being successively raped by the five men Traynor sold her to. One of the men, apparently disturbed by her emotive response, refused to pay. Upon learning of this, Traynor punished her with physical abuse. In recounting this, Steinem notes that Boreman “had been beaten and raped so severely and regularly that she suffered rectal damage, plus permanent injury to the blood vessels in her legs” (268).
The reality of the physical and sexual abuse that Boreman suffered at the hands of Chuck Traynor as he sold her for paid rape is disturbing for several reasons, including the fact that it constitutes a form of severe dehumanization. This abuse is operative and real male depravity, not simulation or speculation.
Yet while the reality of male depravity is disturbing, the level of ignorance that the masses have regarding its occurrence within the realms of pornography and prostitution is perhaps even more disorienting. Collective resistance plays a key role in defanging male supremacy. Therefore, the reality that most individuals are not fully aware of the profound abuse that transpires within these realms of cultural acceptability means that there will be a lack of attention towards solving the problem because of a lack of awareness that there even is a problem.
Even though Boreman was forced to make the film Deep Throat at gunpoint, this is not what the viewers of the film saw. What they saw was her happy, smiling face in the film, with this depiction being utilized for promoting a multitude of male myths regarding female sexuality, including the fact that women are most sexually satisfied when they are satisfying men (which is one of the reasons that I think fellatio has become normative within heterosexual relationships despite how profoundly one-sided it is). The masses are unaware of the dynamic of violence that went into making this film and thus don’t even understand that Boreman was not a willing participant.
It is also disturbing to note that while many individuals may have been horrified to learn of the abuse behind Deep Throat, they would be unperturbed about watching a modern pornographic film in which a woman “willingly chose” to participate, but did not give consent for various sexual acts that were subsequently forced upon her — under the premise that “she is just acting” and therefore it’s “not real, just a creative depiction of sexuality without the typical inhibitions.” This type of abuse, along with so-called “revenge porn,” voyeur videos, rape fantasies, racist tropes, incest themes, and videos of child and adult sexual abuse, are common on modern porn websites that are accessible free, 24/7.
Thus while many people might be uncomfortable regarding the reality of a lack of female consent, they are unbothered by rape and abuse if it occurs in context of a “fantasy.” (I put the word fantasy in quotation marks here because the creation of pornographic films that involve this system of relationality is not entirely fantastical because the production required real actors and we also now know that many of the female actresses are not actually giving consent to portray themselves as not giving consent. Rather, they are actually being raped. In fact, many porn films are filmed rapes that were uploaded into communities of individuals who consume porn.)
With all of this in mind, there is an important point for radical feminists to consider: lack of female consent and arousal regarding forms of “sex” that take place in its absence appear to be a part of normative collective consciousness, also known as the mainstream. So, the low level of receptivity to banning porn and prostitution should perhaps be unsurprising and respected, meaning that radical feminists should perhaps redirect their energy away from convincing individuals who accept and appreciate the perversity of porn that it is a problem toward the development of alternative communities for those who want it to have neither central nor tangential impact and import in their lives.
As I continue to think critically about the sexual abuse of women, I find that new and old questions and concepts flourish in my psyche. One is an assertion that I have heard many ostensibly empathetic, sensitive individuals make regarding radical feminist discourse on sexual abuse. The assessment is: “Sometimes I think these radical feminists take the most grotesque, egregious cases of sexual abuse and present them to the public for either 1. shock value or 2. To promote the idea that these extreme cases are normative and widespread.”
Sometimes I think the people who make this statement have been trained to recite a line for the purpose of perpetuating fake conversations and false consciousness rather than engaging in a potentially awkward or life-altering discourse, or perhaps they simply don’t want to believe that abuse is as common as it actually is. I haven’t drawn clear conclusions regarding the motivation for the recitation yet. Anyway, there are many problems with these assertions, but I only wish to address one here.
The individuals who assert that extreme sexual abuse (such as that experienced by Linda Boreman) is somehow detached from what transpires in the mainstream heteronormative culture are submitting a misleading supposition. This is the case because even though most men are not traffickers and pimps, and most women are not trafficked or prostituted by these men, the majority of the male populace consumes the sexual objectification and assault of women in the form of pornography, prostitution, and/or attendance in strip clubs (where many young women are seasoned to go from stripping to prostitution).
Additionally, while it is not the fault of women that men engage in these nefarious activities, the majority of the female populace creates the conditions necessary for these depraved behaviors to continue through self-silencing, victim-blaming, and becoming a male apologist (ie, “Oh, he’s really a good guy. What we saw right there is not who he really is, just a mistake he made.” Blah blah blah.)
This is what the people who say that radical feminists are presenting extreme cases that don’t reflect what most men and women think and feel or would consent to need to understand: “Literally millions of women seem to have been taken to Deep Throat by their boyfriends or husbands (not to mention prostitutes who were taken by their pimps) so that each one might learn what a woman could do to please a man if she really wanted to. This instructive value seems to have been a major reason for the movie’s popularity, and its reach beyond the usual universe of male-only viewers” (267).
In reflecting on Steinem’s assertion here, it should be plain that the production and consumption of media depicting the sexual abuse of women and thwarting/inversion of female sexuality is an unequivocally mainstream endeavor. While the abuse that Boreman suffered may be considered extreme and not reflective of what most women experience in heteropatriarchy, most of the American populace is now actively contributing to the sustaining of industries that profit from the violation of her and other women trapped in the realms of prostitution (including pornography) and trafficking.
In summation, male supremacy in context of abortion laws is a significant topic that should continually be addressed. Yet, this newest manifestation of male supremacy should not sideline radical feminist discourse regarding the most egregious form of patriarchy, sexual abuse. As such, let’s keep talking about the sexual abuse of women, please.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia.
Works Cited
Steinem, Gloria. Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1983.
Editor’s note: This article has been published in The International Journal of Human Rights. Unfortunaltly we don’t have the rights to publish the whole article which is behind a paywall, but we are publishing the extract and some quotes.
Featured image: The surface mine storage place, mining minerals and brown coal in different colours. View from above. Photo by Curioso Photography on Unsplash
ABSTRACT
This article describes the connections between resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, and climate change. Although resource extraction and prostitution have been viewed as separate phenomena, this article suggests that they are related harms that result in multiple violations of women’s human rights. The businesses of resource extraction and prostitution adversely impact women’s lives, especially those who are poor, ethnically or racially marginalised, and young. The article clarifies associations between prostitution and climate change on the one hand, and poverty, choicelessness, and the appearance of consent on the other. We discuss human rights conventions that are relevant to mitigation of the harms caused by extreme poverty, homelessness, resource extraction, climate change, and prostitution. These include anti-slavery conventions and women’s sex-based rights conventions.
Farley writes: “In this article we offer some conceptual and empirical connections between prostitution, resource extraction, poverty, and climate change.1 These associations are clarified by Seiya Morita’s visual diagram, in Figure 1.2 In the short term, resource extraction leads to a sudden increase in the sex trade, as shown by the arrow on the left side of the diagram. In the long term, resource extraction causes climate change as indicated by the right arrow. Climate change then leads to crises in peoples’ ability to survive extreme events such as drought, floods, or agricultural collapse. These climate change catastrophes result in poverty which then mediates and channels women into the sex trade. The arrow on the bottom of Figure 1 illustrates this process.
The initial phase of resource extraction launches and expands prostitution
“At first, colonists and their descendants subordinate indigenous people who live on lands rich in natural resources. Historically, extraction industries have exploited young, poor men who are paid well to perform jobs that no one else wants because the jobs are unplea- sant and dangerous. This initial phase of resource extraction temporarily results in a boom economy with cash-rich but lonely working-class men. In order to pacify the workers and enrich the pimps, women and girls who are under pimp control are delivered to workers in these boom/sacrifice zones such as the Bakken oil fields in USA and Canada, gold mines in South Africa, coltan mining regions in Colombia, and logging regions in Brazil.3 This movement of trafficked women increases prostitution both in the boom town and in neigh- bouring communities. Following is an example of this process.
“The Bakken oil fields of Montana/North Dakota/Saskatchewan/Manitoba are located in lands where the Dakota Access Pipeline causes physical, psychological, and cultural damage to the community, and ecocidal harm to the land and the water.4 In 2008, large numbers of pipeline workers moved into the Bakken region’s barracks-style housing which were named man camps. Sexual assaults, domestic violence, and sex trafficking tripled in communities adjacent to the oilfield sacrifice zones,5 with especially high rates of sexual violence toward Native women.6 Adverse consequences of living near extractive projects include increased rates of sexually transmitted infections and still- births; general deterioration in health; ecological degradation and climate change; threats to food security; and political corruption – all of which severely impact women.7 When resource extraction is terminated, for example when coltan mining was halted in Congo because of environmental protests, the newly expanding sex trade remains in operation, an enduring legacy of colonisation. Belgium’s domination of Congo gradually shifted from state to corporate colonisation.8 The Belgian colonists’ commodification of the nation diminished the people’s social and political power, leaving them poorer, with fewer resources, and often desperate for a means of survival even before the later phase of climate change occurred. This sequence happens wherever resources are commodified. Initially, a boom economy based on resource extraction creates short-term job opportunities and wealth previously unknown. Prostitution is established both to pacify the workers and to generate money for pimps and traffickers. When the boom economy goes bust, men’s continued demand for paid sexual access, combined with women’s need for survival – drive the institution of prostitution, which remains even after the extraction industry has ended.”
Melissa Farley (2021): Making the connections: resource extraction, prostitution, poverty, climate change, and human rights, The International Journal of Human Rights, DOI: 10.1080/13642987.2021.1997999
Melissa Farley
Melissa Farley is a research and clinical psychologist who has authored many articles and 2 books on the topic of prostitution, pimping/trafficking, and pornography. She is the executive director of Prostitution Research & Education, a nonprofit research institute that conducts original research on the sex trade and provides a library of information for survivors, advocates, policymakers, and the public. Access to the free library is at www.prostitutionresearch.com.
In response to the murder of Sarah Everard, here in the UK, women and men have risen up and protested in support of women’s right to be safe. The peaceful public protests have instigated further violence against women under the guise of pandemic restrictions.
This is one DGR member’s response to the discussions about the level of violence against women and girls and the root causes. We need more men to speak out against patriarchy.
“Your silence will not protect you” Audre Lorde
Most of the women I know, intelligent woman all, are not as afraid as they should be. You can see how high the wall of patriarchy is as you look up at it. I can see from my perch up here also how thick the wall is and how many men are behind it, holding it up.
Men like me, every man, is dripping in entitlement. If you do not learn it in the family, they teach it at school. If school does not programme a boy then our culture will drown them in it. We are all swimming, all the time, in patriarchy. It is everywhere.
It works like a steroid for men and a poison for women. Sure, not all men react violently when on steroids but everything I do is based on my privileged position. My privilege is entirely normalized within society and entirely rationalized within me. Every man in Western culture is privileged and entitled due to patriarchy.
Can we dismantle patriarchy?
I am familiar with the argument that societies contain just the odd bad man; I disagree with this over simplified assertion. My view is that patriarchy is an offshoot of the ability to accumulate wealth and thus create perpetuating systems of oppression. The first systemic accumulation of wealth was the seizing and guarding of food grown in agriculture. Agriculture further has the effect of forcing us to learn to objectify living things (soil,nature, women) to keep our self-belief, our ‘right’ to take. Agriculture had the direct effect of causing violence in the pursuit of resources.
Of relevance, to this argument is the ‘abduction of a Sabine Woman’. Women were needed, viewed as a resource, and taken by those blue printers of modern society, the Romans. Forget that liberal Harari and his “I don’t know why women are oppressed”. Women have a value to conquering armies, not as fellow humans but as bounty of the conquerors. The rest follows a direct causal path. So, it is possible that patriarchy is not going anywhere whilst capitalism is here and objectification is the norm.
Can men do something, anything to improve the current situation?
Yes, of course. For all the reasons women state, for all the reasons women are protesting for. The law is on the side of men and we know that law shapes power. If it was a crime, with a significant consequence, for men to harass women in the street, if it was an aggravated offence after 8pm, then violence against women and girls would reduce. If the porn industry was recognised as harmful and measures put in place to curtail it then male entitlement might lessen women and girls may not be groomed, exploited, or damaged as much. If it was a serious crime for men to purchase women’s bodies then men would do it less and the support systems such as trafficking would be less profitable and therefore smaller.
I apologise for the terrible metaphor, but you must score when you are in the opponent’s penalty box. When was the last time that this issue was so central in the mainstream media? When will it be again? In the UK we could get something into law on this wave of interest. There will be a backlash. Men are lying low at the moment, but they will be back with a vengeance. I can imagine a male plain-clothed policeman patrolling a nightclub being interviewed for the Daily Mail and explaining how all the women dressed and danced in a provocative manner – the implication being … well you, women already know. You have been here before, fought before, hard won rights.
Do we have someone to rally behind?
Those in power throughout the ages, religion, political parties, the media, woke campaign groups have done a remarkable job of dividing women, turning them onto themselves on a personal level and fuelling horizontal violence at a structural level. The ruling classes are effective when oppressing dissenting voices.
The male driven denial of women’s rights, enforced at every turn by violence, is causal and symptomatic of an overwhelming amount of personal suffering and the unrelenting cycle of biome degradation.
This was written by a man, father and guardian in DGR.
For more on the creation of patriarchy, read Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy, or read this transcript of a talk Lerner gave on the topic.
Featured image: Abduction of a Sabine Woman (or Rape of the Sabine Women), a large and complex marble statue by the Flemish sculptor and architect Giambologna. Photograph by Mary Harrsch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Editor’s note: That this incident from Roman mythology, in which the men of Rome committed a mass abduction and rape of young women from the other cities in the region has been a frequent subject of artists and sculptors, shows clearly how obsessed this patriarchal culture is with rape and violence against women.
In Part Two of a two part article Jocelyn Crawley offers the reader a history and systemic analysis of the harms towards women. Part one has been published the day before.
One might hope that the patriarchal process of calling women who resist the sexual abuse and all other ideological inclinations of men would be a historical reality that lost traction and prevalence through time. However, this phallic phenomenon is an integral aspect of contemporary, mainstream (malestream) culture. In the chilling report “Booted: Lack of Recourse for Wrongfully Discharged US Military Rape Survivors,” readers learn that Juliet Simmons was drugged and raped in August 2007. The assault took place in her US Air Force barracks and she reported the abuse. However, her first sergeant made it plain that he did not believe her. Despite the fact that she continued completing her job-related responsibilities and received exceptional performance evaluations, she was discharged for having a “Personality Disorder not specified” after being sent to an appointment with an Air Force mental health provider.
As the report goes on to indicate, classifying women who resist sexual advances as mentally unstable is not an anomalous element of the military. In fact, the report documents the experiences of several other women who experienced similar modes of silencing and dismissal via the patriarchal mantra-modality “woman you are insane.” Like Simmons, Quinn was subjected to this patriarchal reversal in which the insanity of men is made to appear sane so that the perpetrator of a sex crime is recognized as innocent and rational while the victim is irrevocably depraved and maniacal. After joining the Navy in 2002, Quinn thrived and received awards but found that her vocational vitality was threatened after she rejected her master chief’s advances. Once this happened, she was informed that the master chief was waiting for her to commit a “mistake” so that he would be able to have her removed from “his” Navy.
Following these events, Quinn was raped by a Navy technician and did not report the abuse due to concerns regarding the fact that she had already been classified as a troublemaker. After suffering more abuse from shipmates who set her body on fire with a lighter, she was moved to another unit. While there, a first class petty officer groped her breast and verbally harassed her. Her transfer request was refused and she was then forced to complete a night shift with him. She refused to do so and was ordered to spend six to eight hours daily standing at attention. Shortly thereafter, she was discharged from the unit on grounds of her having a “Personality Disorder.” In addition to reflecting patriarchal society’s proclivity to dismiss and disempower women who resist sexual violence by asserting that they are mentally unstable, these real-life occurrences reveal the role that this phallic practice plays in destabilizing a woman’s job security (which in turn could increase her economic reliance on a man.)
I construe this reality as a patriarchal reversal.
In her own work, Mary Daly talks about patriarchal reversals as men reconstructing reality in a manner which privileges them as innately valuable and superior to women. Within the realm of patriarchal reversals, male actions and attitudes are unquestionably right and any thought or behavioral pattern of women is immediately and incontrovertibly dubious. One of the most prevalent patriarchal reversals is that Eve came out of Adam’s rib, with this myth being utilized to promote the ideas that 1. men are the origin of life and creation and 2. “God,” like the male Adam, is male. In context of patriarchal reversals pertaining to mental health, the notion that women are less mentally stable than men works to perpetuate the myth that they are somehow more competent, logical, and therefore the ideal sex to “rule the planet.”
In her important article “Women Aren’t Crazy,” Jennifer Wright explains the role that portraying women as crazy plays in privileging men and creating environments through which members of the male sex can subordinate women. In her text, Wright notes that
“The notion that women who are not compliant are insane is one that’s been used to silence women for generations. One of the most remarkable things about the Harvey Weinstein scandal is realizing how many women would have been so easy to dismiss as crazy if they’d ever come forward before now.”
Wright goes on to elucidate this principle by articulating how absurd victims such as Rose McGowan would have sounded to most individuals upon stating that Weinstein had hired former Mossad agents to extract information from her and stifle forthcoming data regarding his behavior. Yet evidence exists that this is the course of action that Weinstein took for the purpose of suppressing information regarding his sexual depravity and abuse of women.
As made glaringly evident by the role that accusing women who challenge the patriarchal praxis of sexual abuse as being insane plays in structuring historical and contemporary society, this androcentric practice is designed to discredit members of the female sex who are not willing to passively accept malignant male activity. In discussing this in his piece “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England,” MacDonald writes that
“The authorities define insanity so that it invalidates the protests of its victims and use mental institutions as repositories for malcontents and rebels. The feminist model is essentially a variant of the neo-Marxist one: instead of paupers, the casualties of bourgeois capitalism, the victims of psychiatry are women, the targets of repressive patriarchy” (261).
MacDonald’s assessments are accurate and they reveal the role that accusing women of being insane plays in perpetuating the patriarchy. If dissidents (here defined as any individual who adamantly and unequivocally rejects and challenges patriarchal praxes such as sexual violence) run the risk of losing social power and cultural capital because they are characterized as insane for speaking to power, they are much less likely to express dissent and create the palpable dissonance necessary to inform the general public that something is disturbingly and dehumanizingly wrong.
When a woman’s voice is invalidated due to gaslighting and cultural consensus that her accusations amount to insanity, the male perpetrator of the crime is empowered to continue victimizing other members of the female sex who may also feel intimidated into silence on grounds that they will not be believed. As usual, the patriarchy-not women-is the problem.
The solution is to listen to women and review the empirical data that painstakingly elucidates the pernicious, patriarchal processes that men utilize to perpetuate the oppression of members of the female sex.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985). quoted in Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
In Part One of a two part article Jocelyn Crawley offers the reader a history and systemic analysis of the harms towards women. Part two will be published the following day.
When I first discovered how widespread acceptance of and/or compliance towards rape, pornography, pedophilia, prostitution, and sex trafficking are, I was enraged. I once viewed a documentary indicating that pimps systematically show little girls videos of women performing fellatio on men to “educate” them on how to provide this “service” to the males they are trafficked to. One thought I had while attempting to process what was transpiring was: this is crazy. In addition to drawing this conclusion, I was filled with unalloyed shock and deep ire. I then reconceptualized the prototypical way I interpreted reality (men and women coexist together in a state of relative peace marked by periodic hiccups, spats, “trouble in paradise,” etc.) and came to understand that patriarchy is the ruling religion of the planet with women being reduced to the subordinated class that men systematically subjugate and subject to a wide range of oppressions.
Part of patriarchy’s power is making its perverse rules and regulations for how reality should unfold appear normative and natural while categorizing anyone who challenges these perversions as insane. Insanity is defined as a state of consciousness confluent with mental illness, foolishness, or irrationality. According to patriarchal logic, any individual who attempts to question or quell its nefarious, necrotic systems and regimes is thinking and acting in an illogical manner. To express the same concept with new language to further elucidate this component of material reality under phallocracy: anyone who does not accept patriarchal logic is illogical or insane according to patriarchal logic. For this reason, it is not uncommon for women who challenge men who sexually harass or intimidate them into sex trafficking to be called insane. It is critically important for radical feminists to examine and explore this facet of the patriarchy in order to gain more knowledge about how phallocentrism works and what can and should be done to abrogate and annihilate it.
To fully understand the integral role that accusing women of being insane plays in normative patriarchal society, one should first consider the etymology of the word.
As noted in “Stop Telling Women They’re Crazy” by Amber Madison, the term hysteria entered cultural consciousness “when people didn’t want to pay attention to a woman” . When this happened, the woman was oftentimes taken to a medical facility and was subsequently diagnosed with hysteria. The phrase “hysteria” was an umbrella term meant to reference women who “caused trouble,” experienced irritability or nervousness, or didn’t reflect the level of interest in sexual activity deemed appropriate by men. The word hysteria is derived from the Greek term “hystera,” which means uterus. Thus the etymological history of the word informs us of the attempt to conflate the psychobiological experience of insanity with the material reality of being a biological female.
In recognizing the role that patriarchal societies play in attempting to establish confluence between insanity and the material reality of being a woman, it is important to note that individuals who take the time to carefully scrutinize patriarchy are cognizant of the male attempt to make mental instability a fundamentally female flaw. For example, Elaine Showalter has noted that the primary cultural stereotype of madness construed the condition as a female malady (Showalter, 1985, as cited in MacDonald, 1986). As noted by Julianna Little in her thesis “Frailty, thy name is woman: Depictions of Female Madness,”
“The most significant of cultural constructions that shape our view of madness is gender. Madness has been perceived for centuries metaphorically and symbolically as a feminine illness and continues to be gendered into the twenty-first century” (5).
In the twenty-first century, individuals who have wished to challenge the notion that the thoughts and emotions experienced by women are automatically and inevitably signs of insanity utilize the term “gaslighting” to refer to this insidious mindfuckery.
The history of men accusing women of being insane in response to accusations of sexual abuse is well-documented.
One significant case which should be a part of public consciousness is that of Alice Christiana Abbott. Abbott poisoned her stepfather in 1867 and, upon being questioned, stated that he had had an “improper connection” with her since she was thirteen. After informing others of this, the majority believed that “something was the matter with her head.” However, there was nothing wrong with her head. In fact, I argue that she operated according to a rightness of mind which recognized sexual assault as fundamentally wrong. Abbott’s stepfather threatened to have her put in reform school if she spoke of the abuse, and this was the assertion that prompted her to act. When her case took place in the Suffolk County Grand Jury, Abbott was committed to the Taunton Lunatic Asylum (Carlisle, “What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?”) That the sentence for challenging a man who sexually abuses a woman incorporates classifying her as insane indicates the patriarchy’s ongoing attempt to construe its malevolent, depraved rules and regulations (which include normalizing and in some cases valorizing the sexual abuse of women) as natural and appropriate.
(The historical reality of men accusing women of being insane and utilizing the assertion to severely limit their life choices and thereby sustain patriarchy is not limited to issues of sexual abuse. In fact, men have appropriated the accusation of female insanity against women who committed any acts which challenged their power. This fact becomes plain when one considers the case of Elizabeth Parsons Ware Packard. Packard married Theophilus Packard and experienced ideological disparities with him pertaining to religious philosophy. Specifically, Packard began demonstrating interest in the spiritual ideologies of perfectionism and spiritualism (Hartog, 79).
Perfectionism is a thought system advocating the notion that individuals could become sin-free through will power and conversion. Packard also assented to the notion of spiritualism, with this religious movement promoting the idea that the souls or spirits of dead individuals continued to exist and were also capable of communicating with living people. Theophilus Packard maintained conservative religious views that stood in diametric opposition to the aforementioned ideologies, with his own perspective including the notion of innate human depravity. After Elizabeth Packard began openly questioning his ideas and exploring her own, their ideological dissonance led to his accusation that she was insane. The accusation was officially made in 1860 and Packard decided to have his wife committed. Elizabeth Packard learned of his decision on June 18, 1860. It’s important to note that the patriarchal nature of this scenario is not limited to the interactions and ideological disparities existing between Elizabeth Packard and Theophilus Packard as two individuals. In fact, state law revealed its own patriarchal proclivity for privileging male interpretations of reality for the purpose of disempowering and dehumanizing women. This is the case as when, in 1851, the state of Illinois opened its first hospital for those who were allegedly mentally ill, the legislature passed a law which enabled husbands to have their wives committed without their consent or a public hearing.)
To be continued . . .
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830-1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985). quoted in Macdonald, Michael. “Women and Madness in Tudor and Stuart England.” Social Research, vol. 53, no. 2, 1986, pp. 261–281. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40970416. Accessed 20 Feb. 2021.
Male violence against women is one of the most serious problems in the world. The numbers are staggering. Every year in the US, more than 230,000 sexual assaults are committed. At least 1 out of 6 American women have suffered rape or attempted rape, and 1 out of 3 women worldwide.
Native American women are the most likely targets of sexual violence. 44% of sexual assaults and rapes target children under the age of 18. Almost 2/3 of all sexual assaults are perpetrated by a non-stranger. Sexual assault is one of the most under-reported crimes – 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to police. Only 3% of rapists ever spend a day in jail.
Resistance Radio with Wendy Murphy
In this podcast Derrick Jensen interviews Wendy Murphy, who talks about the level of sexual assault experienced by women and girls. She describes how, in our culture, language can be used passively and therefore lead to accepting sexual violence as the norm. Wendy states that how language is used connects with real world experiences and can be translated in the courts as unjust verdicts.
Changing the way we talk about sexual violence can change the way we feel and shift from passive to proactive in relation to harms towards women and girls. Wendy created a multi-disciplinary team – The Judicial Language review – which enabled the team to review decisions in courts and state whether language is appropriate. The project critically analyses discourse, providing alternate phrases and use of language to the courts. Wendy gives real life examples of how language is used in the media and the courts to minimise (brush aside) the harms done towards children and strongly advocates a cultural shift, including the need to challenge passive use of language.
