I don’t have to tell you that Steubenville is all over the news.
I don’t have to tell you that it’s a fucking joke that Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, the two teenagers convicted of raping a sixteen year old girl, were only sentenced to a combined three years in juvenile prison. Each will serve a year for the rape itself; Mays will serve an additional year for “illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material.”
I probably don’t even have to tell you that the media treatment of this trial has been a perfect, if utterly sickening, example of rape culture, with its focus on how difficult and painful this event has been for the rapists who raped a sixteen year old girl then bragged about it on social media.
And I almost certainly don’t have to tell you that the world is full of seemingly nice, normal people who want to go to bat for the convicted rapists. I’m quite sure that you already know about the victim-blaming that’s been happening since this case first came to light. You know about the fact that people have actually come out and said that the real lesson to be learned here is that we need to be more careful with social media (i.e. go ahead and rape but make sure you don’t get caught). You already know that people seem to think that being a sports star and having a good academic record should somehow make up for the fact that you are a rapist.
I don’t have to tell you any of that because it’s all par for the course.
What I do want to tell you is that you need to stop using the “wives, sisters, daughters” argument when you are talking to people defending the Steubenville rapists. Or any rapists. Or anyone who commits any kind of crime, violent or otherwise, against a woman.
In case you’re unfamiliar with this line of rhetoric, it’s the one that goes like this:
You should stop defending the rapists and start caring about the victim. Imagine if she was your sister, or your daughter, or your wife. Imagine how badly you would feel if this happened to a woman that you cared about.
Framing the issue this way for rape apologists can seem useful. I totally get that. It feels like you’re humanizing the victim and making the event more relatable, more sympathetic to the person you’re arguing with.
You know what, though? Saying these things is not helpful; in fact, it’s not even helping to humanize the victim. What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.
The Steubenville rape victim was certainly someone’s daughter. She may have been someone’s sister. Someday she might even be someone’s wife. But these are not the reasons why raping her was wrong. This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story.
The “wives, sisters, daughters” line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying,
“We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence.”
This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.
Women are not possessions.
Women are people.
I seriously cannot believe that I have to say this in 2013.
On top of all of this, I want you to think of a few other implications this rhetorical device has. For one thing, what does it say about the women who aren’t anyone’s wife, mother or daughter? What does it say about the kids who are stuck in the foster system, the kids who are shuffled from one set of foster parents to another or else living in a group home? What does it say about the little girls whose mothers surrender them, willingly or not, to the state? What does it say about the people who turn their back on their biological families for one reason or another?
That they deserve to be raped? That they are not worthy of protection? That they are not deserving of sympathy, empathy or love?
And when we frame all women as being someone’s wife, mother or daughter, what are we teaching young girls?
We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men. That they need to make themselves attractive and appealing to men in order to be worthy of protection. That their lives and their bodily integrity are valueless except for how they relate to the men they know.
The truth is that I am someone’s wife. I am also someone’s mother. I am someone’s daughter, and someone’s sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world. Those are not the reasons that I should be able to live a life free from rape, sexual assault or any kind of violent crime.
I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn’t even a discussion that we should be having.
So please, let’s start teaching that fact to the young women in our lives. Teach them that you love, honour and value them because of who they are. Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it’s a basic human right. Teach them that they do not deserve to be raped because no one ever, ever, ever deserves to be raped.
Above all, teach them that they are people, too.
The Belle Jar 
Hope it’s okay to re-post/blog this. Amazing. Thank you for writing this and articulating what is often difficult to suss out…
Totally! Go for it! I am flattered 🙂
So when soldiers who die overseas are described as loving husbands, sons or brothers, is that a case of trivializing their deaths based on their relations?
Wonderful thoughts.. well written!
I do not think of wife, mother or daughter as possessive or weak words; in fact, I think they are powerful. I think it’s dangerous to whittle down the amount of “acceptable phrases” we can use without sounding ridiculous — I’m a PERSON with a husband, I’m a PERSON with a child, I’m a PERSON who has a mother. Come on. There are MANY things wrong with this news story coverage, but this is not one of them. I am proud sister, wife, daughter, and have never felt degraded when
someone introduces me as such.
The point of putting these personal stamps on a victim we do not know is to trigger empathy. If someone says the word “sister” in this context,
I immediately picture my own beloved, beautiful sister and someone doing this to her causes my blood to boil. It’s just human nature that
we are so absorbed in our own lives that it sometimes takes that comparison to jolt us out of it. We as a country and world need to teach the importance of respect for human life in general before these terrible actions will abate, and one way to start is to remind people of the loved ones whose lives they highly respect and that this could have happened within their family/friends.
When someone speaks out AGAINST a lack of humanity, there is no insidious plot to devalue humans.
I read this, and I understand the sentiment, but at the same time I can’t help rolling my eyes a little. People use the “brothers, sons, and fathers” line in reference to anti-war discussions… do women not serve in the military? Do men only have value as people when they’re sons or fathers? NO! The rhetorical device is used exactly as you say, to open the door to humanity! When the wives/fathers device is used, it is strictly targeted at the small segment of the population who needed something like that to be said at all — which is NOT most of us. The speaker certainly does not intend the motives you are assigning to them, they’re searching for a way to turn on the light in someone’s darkened mind.
And so yes, I roll my eyes, because here I see here a person looking for something to take offense at in the face of overwhelming public outcry against the REAL offense to humanity — the rape itself. Why? I see a person who prefers to invent and then attach meaning to words rather than allow the words to speak for themselves. Why? You’re feeding your own narrative, and thus help perpetuate the very mentality that you profess to oppose. You clearly do not identify yourself as “just a person”, obviously, you identify yourself as an aggrieved and oppressed woman. You need to find insult to feed that identify, and when none is offered you’re happy to invent one.
This reminds me of the silly insistence that people use the weird term “mailperson” instead of “mailman” — you insist on drawing attention to people’s differences rather than just letting them be people, all the while crying “just let me be a person!” So… be one, and let everyone else be one too.
Let me clue you in — people don’t care if the mailperson or the mailman drops off their letter because most people understand that the label is not designed or intended to hold any more meaning than “the way that this letter got put into my mailbox”. It could have been a man, woman, child, Asian or Caucasian, or a giant walking lizard. It was the friggin’ mailman. People understand that when someone speaks of harm to your mother, your sister, or your wife, they aren’t saying that all other people don’t matter. When I advocate against gun violence, I am not saying that I like and accept all other forms of violence, and people understand that. When I am opposed to wage inequality in America, that doesn’t mean that I accept and welcome global poverty or the inequity between nations, and people understand that. People of reason and thought. Only when you make yourself into a cartoon character do these words take on new and false shades of meaning and implication. You’ve created a fantasy world to support the identity that you’re clinging to while you call the rest of us crazy.
The bottom line here is that you’re maligning well-intentioned people for false reasons. You’re assigning bad faith to people who have demonstrated the opposite. You’re searching for insult where none is to be found. Stop, and be a person for a while.
All that said — the sentences were too light. Luckily for humanity, the internet will never let these two forget or move past this. There is a hidden sentence that will hinder them for life. It isn’t the way our legal system ought to work, it isn’t the kind of justice that we’d prefer in our violent culture, but a type of justice will still be done here.
Pretty powerful piece.
I agree with what you’re saying, for the most part. Women are absolutely people, and should be respected as individuals, that is an absolute truth which I understand and support completely. However, what I don’t get is where this part comes in…
“What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.”
“We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men. That they need to make themselves attractive and appealing to men in order to be worthy of protection. That their lives and their bodily integrity are valueless except for how they relate to the men they know.”
Aside from the fact that two BOYS raped a sixteen-year-old GIRL, where in the “wives, mothers, daughters” expression does it say anything about men? What about a married lesbian who visited a sperm bank, who was also born by artificial insemination? Sounds like a silly example, but I guarantee, a few are out there. I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest. Thing is, the only “male” part of that equation is the sperm cells, and at least for now, that’s a physiological inevitability that sperm comes from SOME male. I’m sure someday, science can find a way around that…
So yes, while I do absolutely agree that women shouldn’t be judged, assessed, or identified solely by “who possesses them” (because women aren’t possessions, you’re absolutely right), assuming that a woman can be a wife ONLY to a man, a mother ONLY because a man impregnated her, and a daughter ONLY because a man made a conscious or unconscious decision to father her, is a bit insensitive to women who have never really had any primary male figures in their life, whether directly or indirectly.
Since when do the words “wives, sisters and daughters” automatically refer to a woman’s relation to a man? A woman can have a sister, a daughter has a mother, and a woman can have a wife! The author is critical of something she herself has imagined.
Completely ridiculous. How about when a man is killed in a war and we hear people say that he was a loved brother, son and father. Or we hear the argument “imagine if it was your son going off to Iraq”. Does that mean we see him only as an object who is only valued because of his relationships with other women (or men)?
No. Of course it doesn’t. It means we want people to feel a connection with a fellow member of the human race. We want people to understand the depths of hurt surrounding that one individual.
I am proud to be a sister and a daughter, and if I get married in the future I will also be proud to be a wife. When people refer to me in these contexts, I don’t get on my feminist high horse and shout that the are not valuing me as a person; I recognise that that is part of who I am.
I am a sister, a daughter, a girlfriend and a friend. These things have helped shape me into the person that I am today.
Your entry was powerful and your words moved me. Thank you.
May I have your permission to share this?
Yes, please do! Thank you!
A agree with this coverage 100%. I am a wife, mother,
daughter and a woman.
I couldn’t disagree more with the author on this. From an anthropological perspective, cultures rationalize violence and domination by creating distance between the perpetrator and victim. Using familial analogies don’t “humanize” victims, they break down the walls of the unknown other. This phenomenon isn’t exclusive to violence against women, but all discriminatory behavior. Just last week, a right-wing conservative Senator rocked the GOP by changing his position on gay marriage. Why? Because his son is gay and he wants him to have a happy loving relationship like the one the Senator enjoys with his wife. Before he was making laws that prevent “the others” from polluting marriage but now he was making laws that impact his family. I’m a pretty hardcore Foucaultian and all about exposing issues of gendered power, but this argument falls short.
When I read this, I wanted to yell out Bullshit! You say that the “wives, sisters, daughters” thing is “advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man”? Bullshit! Only if you’re simple minded and sexist to think that way! Not every woman is married to a man, not every woman has a father, and not every woman has a brother; that’s not the point of “wives, sisters, daughters” or at least I’ve never seen it that way. The way I see it, it is saying she’s a person with a FAMILY that loves her. I’d say the same thing for men as well. They have friends and family who love them, they are human, and they should not be treated like their opinions and thoughts don’t matter. They should not be treated like they don’t matter. And no one, not man, not woman, not child, should ever, EVER, be raped. THAT should be the point.
Dumb argument. We’re on media overload, we tend to be desensitized, and humanizing any victim cannot be a bad thing. You’re the one assuming that when they say “Your sister, your mother,your wife”, that they’re talking to men. Lots of women have sisters and mothers. And, as you pointed out, it’s 2013 and more and more women have wives, too. Dummy.
This is a brilliantly written article. I notice a lot of people criticizing it based on the idea that women too can relate to the “wives, mothers, sisters” argument, and that the reverse “husbands, fathers, brothers” argument is sometimes used to invoke empathy for men in unjust situations (thought I think the argument for women is almost overwhelmingly more common). As the author states, this line of reasoning not only dehumanizes women who do not have any family members, but it keeps people from realizing that they should empathize with rape survivors not because it “could have happened to them or a loved one,” but because empathizing is the right thing to do. We should empathize with rape survivors because they are our fellow human beings, it’s as simple as that. As a final point, I am skeptical that this line of reasoning even helps men to come to their senses. Many of you have probably seen the horrific video that was leaked in the months leading up to the Steubenville trial in which several young men who were present on the night of the rape, particularly a young man named Michael Nodianos, laugh drunkenly and how “dead” the survivor appears, and joke that “She is so raped right now.” At one point, another boy asks, “What if that was your daughter?” and Nodianos simply replies, “”But it isn’t,” before continuing with his sick diatribe. Sadly, this young man’s indifference to rape survivors is all too common in our society, and clearly, more needs to be done to educate these men besides appealing to any love they may have for women in the their lives.
Hear hear
Reblogged this on husysweet and commented:
Most times I feel that women are viewed as second class citizens of the World.
Reblogged this on zlowdown and commented:
I could not have said it better myself.
“The truth is that I am someone’s wife. I am also someone’s mother. I am someone’s daughter, and someone’s sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world. Those are not the reasons that I should be able to live a life free from rape, sexual assault or any kind of violent crime.”
I disagree. I think those are some of the most important roles we play, and to remind people of our impact in these relationships reminds everyone (rapist, victim-blamer, and women’s advocate) that we all are valuable. While most women may be physically weaker than men and victimized, they carry great significance and strength within families. While I agree with you that even women with no relationships to others deserve to be treated as human beings, I understand and support the rhetoric that reminds all of us of our relationship to each other on this planet. It isn’t about possession and belonging to a male; rather it’s about making choices each and every day with the awareness that we should treat others as we would want to be treated and our loved ones to be treated.
Interesting point of view. Here’s my experience of ‘getting it’.
I got onto a subway car filled with strangers. It was Sunday and lots of families were there. I smiled at a little girl who reminded me of my daughter, and felt a gentle loving feeling for her. I thought, “Sure. She could be my child.” and let the love flow to this little girl and other small children around.
But then I remembered that one of my own kids is quite a lot older. I realized everyone on the train under 19 could be my child. I mentally embraced them all.
“But why stop at 19? My kids will deserve my love no matter how old they are,” I reflected to myself. And I let love flow to each person in the train. That is how I learned to love these ‘strangers’ on the subway with me–by relating them to people I already loved.
I just linked your post in my blog because it is well worth the read. Please keep writing. http://thedoubleparent.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/your-unconscious-and-rape-culture/
Wonderful commentary! Way to raise awareness! Thank you!
I also earned a lot from Ted Bunch’s presentation last night at UNM, titled “Why Good Men are Silent” in which he showed how boys are still being taught that females are less than and how the perpetuation of perception of women as property is still in play, and must change.
As you note here, Ted Bunch, who is the co-founder and co-director of A Call To Men, http://www.acalltomen.org/ talked about how our language is framed to uphold this misperception, even to how we report the crimes against women. He used one statistic report as an example of this in that it is put in terms of women i.e. “80% of rape victims know their attacker,” when the more revealing way to frame it would be “80% of rapists know their victim,” revealing that men are stalking and pre-meditating their crimes.
He didn’t bring up the daughter, sister, wife verbiage but admitted sometimes he too doesn’t hear his own language that fosters this unequal perception of men and women.
I am going to send this blog to him so that he can think about it as well, and incorporate it into his efforts to get men out of their “man box” to start changing this perception as well.
Thanks again
As a man I am sickened that crimes like this are perpetrated in supposedly enlightened cultures. There are no excuses for it, ever. The idea tof ‘promising football players’ having their careers impacted in some way because it turns out that they are criminals is, frankly, revolting. There are a lot of stakeholders in the perpetuation of punishment being unfortunate or regrettable, from the media (or certain sections of) and how it slants the facts to the continued objectification of women culturally.
We do not disagree on any of this, I think. But I don’t agree with you that by calling someone a mother, sister or wife defines them as a chattel or is perpetuating the problem. I am a father, brother and son, and each term does define me to a degree. It’s not all I am, but I certainly can’t see that any of them would define me as a possession.
The vast majority of people would be sickened by the actions of these rapists, but alas the vast majority of people will remain personally unaffected and largely unmoved, at least to any practical degree. If you want to sharpen the dulled edge of the argument for these middle grounders, you have to find an empathetic vocabulary, a way to frame it for them. If you spend your argument raging against Obama and anyone else who uses these shortcuts then you’re wasting precious time and energy.
Those who defend the rapists ARE part of the problem, I again agree, but those who are in the middle, disgusted but largely unmoved, need to have the scales lifted from their eyes. Their ignorance is a huge problem.
I don’t understand what you mean about the implications of the rhetorical device for others, fostered or rejected by home, non-mothers etc. The rhetorical device is an attempt to show the horror of the victim’s experience to those who have no concept of it, and have no gauge for the effects of such a life-changing crime. It muddies the argument to bring other strands in if you haven’t got broad-based empathy and build an appetite for positive
action.
The kernel of your wives/mothers/sisters argument lies here: “What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.’ I think this is bogus, counter-productive and diminishing to the majority of men. If we cannot identify with the victim, then the chance of our showing proactive concern or remodelling behaviour which actually does add to the problem dwindles away to almost nothing. You are missing the point if you cannot speak to the target audience in a language that it will understand and relate to. It certainly helps me to understand, when I imagine such sickening acts happening to my mother, wife or sisters, not because I feel like I own any of them, but because I KNOW them.
Reblogged this on From T to Tube and commented:
Could not have said it better myself.
I will separate your “I am a person” from the steubanville trial. They have nothing to do with each other. Then, I will give the opinion that the reason for the identifying of “wives, mothers and daughters” instead of saying “women” or “persons” is to personalize the point. Endear the listener to the subject and get a more emotional response from the listener. Purely a literary trick. Religion uses them all the time. Don’t make something more than it is. Finally, I will sit back and wait, because regardless of how much sense I am making or how right I may be, agreement is not fashionable.
Thank you so much for writing this. I felt like someone threw a rock and shattered my perceptions — several decades as a feminist and I never thought of this. I’m just shaking my head right now. It’s one of those things people say — hell, that I’ve probably said — that shows the best of intentions, and yet perpetuates the insidious belief that women only have worth if they are owned by men. I will be sharing this on my Facebook and my blog.
Really interesting, thanks for helping me look at it differently. Being a feminist, to me, means advocating equality for all. Men are rape victims too, but it’s rarely talked about. To properly reflect the magnitude of the problem and how it affects all of humanity, the question really should be “what if it were someone you knew?” And you know what? A person you know probably has been raped, they just keep the secret. This point may have already been made, but with more than 600 comments, I couldn’t go through all of them.
Agreed.
Mind Blown. This is not a perspective I had considered before (“What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.”) and I’m embarassed that I hadn’t thought about the rhetorical implications of using this argument. Thanks so much for this.
An excellent point – I love the diverse points this whole fiasco is bringing to the forefront of media concerns – even if I don’t love the fact that it even happened. I’ve had my own difficulties with the case, as documented here, i’d love people’s feedback.
http://emilygrenfell.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/theres-something-missing.html
Not only am I a Person. I am Woman.
I really don’t like extending the attack to Obama. We live in a nation where men don’t care about women’s issues. To try and force them to give a shit, the President and others use these rhetorical devices. Getting shitty at Obama for this is inane. Can we please try to be on each other’s side, progressives?
You know, I have yet to hear someone say, “These rapists are our Husbands, Sons, and Brothers….” Just a thought…
I have heard that phrase. I can’t find the direct quote, but it was something along the lines of “We shouldn’t have to teach our daughters to avoid rape. We should instead teach our sons not to rape.”
Zerlina Maxwell said it and got a lot of hatred for it. I strongly agree with her. There’s a NEED for society (us, moms) to be straightforward with boys and teach them that if they don’t hear the “yes”, it means NO. The link:
right?!
The problem is that the media is saying that. Instead of calling them rapists, they are appealing to us to think of them as the males we love. To think of them the way we think of brothers, sons, nephews, friends.
No one needs to say to the rape apologist, “What if he was your husband-son-brother.” The rape apologist is already thinking that way.
This particular framing device is already working to the advantage of the rapists, and they’re not going to complain about being humanized by it.
No, but they are always saying those sorts of things of men in the military. Besides, recognizing that rapists aren’t just scary strangers but can be the men we know and love is a whole different, difficult (though necessary IMHO) kettle of fish.
I agree with both the article and your comment.
I admit not to reading all the comments but would have liked a more balanced article which also castigates the wives, mother’s and daughter’s who flood one third of the internet with pornography.
I see the point of emphasizing too much on the roll that gives the female value but think we are losing focus of the reel issue. Sexual assault is one of the most socially expectable crimes in our society. I have had to learn that the hard way when I pulled a friend off of another friend & have been shunned for speaking out against it from the people I considered close. Most people say they are against sexual assailants but when it is someone in there social circle or own family they don’t want to get involved or believe it was someone they have cared about. Educating our youth is something we need to really start with. Not just females either. I know a hand full of males who have been abused & assaulted too. Silence is a very powerful thing & when we don’t talk about it we only encourage the violators to keep doing what they are doing & condoning their actions. I know 2 different stories of people who have made false allegations & the result of one was devastation for not only the accused who was murdered but the accusers’ father who also got killed. I have known people who have had open & shut cases & society still wants to chastise the victim & empathize with the violator. In 2013 it is shocking that society still has the mentality but ignorance is not being educated. Haven’t we grown past the prehistoric mentality of, “It’s just not talked about?”
“Women are people.” Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention. Half of America couldn’t give a damn about people. People are starving all over the world, victims of genocide in Africa, the victims of our shock, awe and drones in Muslim Asia and malnourished, uneducated, over-incarcerated, overworked and underpaid right here in the USA. Sure women are people, but that just lumps them in with the rest of humanity who most of America feels should be fending for themselves.
But our daughters? You don’t have to be a man to feel protective of your daughter. I don’t even have a daughter and that kind of language manipulates me.
Of course women are people. If you think people in this country get justice, maybe you’ve got a point. In my experience, the people who need justice in this country need to use every trick in the book to get it. Even if it means exploiting the parent/daughter relationship.
I agree!
The President’s speech DID reduce women to possessions, because instead of speaking to America as a whole, he appeared to only be speaking to men by saying “our wives, daughters…” as if they are owned property.
However, when you say “that could have been your daughter.” Or, “that’s somebody’s sister.” It humanizes the victim! I’ve used this and I think this article is way off base here. I understand the issue, but to mention a connection creates more than just a Jane Doe in your mind; it conjures up blonde hair and green eyes and converse sneakers and etc., etc.! It creates a person in someone’s mind even more, it doesn’t lessen the impact of her humanity. I’m glad you feel the same way
I think it’s a little over the top to say that you are “defining” a woman by calling her someone’s wife, daughter, or sister, and then claiming that is tantamount to saying she is only valuable through her relationships to men. For goodness sake, I am a woman and I have a mother, I have sisters, and in this day and age, some women even have wives. Those relationships are in no way specific to a woman to a man! The sentiment gets somewhat lost in this flawed argument, and takes a good and important point about the value of all humanity and puts in a corner with someone who seems to just be looking to start a fight. There is certainly enough real and intended offense in this world that we don’t need to be inventing any to prove our point.
Thank you – very well said. I thought the exact same thing.
That’s exactly what I was thinking, there are a lot of logical jumps in this. We view other people of all genders in light of our relationships with them, and they tend to view themselves by their relationships as well (think of how important the identities mother or father or brother are to most people). Activating that rhetorical device makes a lot of sense, because it touches nearly everybody.
Remember when Obama framed the discussion of Trayvon Martin’s killing as “What if he had been my son?”. And think of how many discussions of war and soldiers use the device “Those soldiers are people’s sons”.
I totally agree with you.
My first thought while reading this was that it DOES happen in the same way with men. Think about when a few male soldiers are killed in combat. We often hear, “That young man was someone’s son, someone’s brother.” Or, “he was devoted husband to so-and-so.” I have never once thought those words to be offensive or demeaning, whether in reference to men or to women. I am PROUD to be valuable to others, whether those others are my son, my dad, an employer, a friend, whatever.
In general I hate, hate, hate when people are accused of looking for something to be offended about, but for the first time, I think I’m seeing a case of it. Katie, your response is excellent. The “what if it was someone you knew/loved” argument isn’t just common, or just used for women, it also happens in real life. Look at the Republican congressman who recently did a 180 on gay marriage after finding out his son was gay. In referring to girls and women as potential sisters/wives/daughters, I don’t think people are saying “imagine if these women had value,” I think they’re saying “imagine if these women had value to you.” It might not be right, but human nature says we care more about the people we know personally.
I agree that she does come off a bit strong, but she certainly isn’t “inventing” offense. A lot of the racism and sexism that occurs today is subtle and pervades our culture through things like media and language, but it’s important that we recognize that they can also be real and damaging.
totally agree. I really wanted to support this blog post, and I thought it was very nicely written. Ultimately, however, a lot of our value as human beings does come from our relationships in the world… whether those be with men, women, children, or any other sentient being. Obviously, in the United States in 2013, the vast majority of people recognize that women have serious value as individuals. As you wisely pointed out, the above argument doesn’t exclude or prevent women from having individual value. It just pulls at the protector in all of us, man or woman, thinking about harm coming to someone who we love.
Amazing comment that sums up how misguided and pointless this post is. My first thought was, “wait, don’t women have wives, sisters and mothers too.” It would be nice if people really thought things through before making an angry blog post that co-opts a tragedy to drive traffic to their page.
Agreed. After the Trayvon Martin shooting, Obama said something along the lines of, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon Martin.”
We, as humans, are inherently more empathetic toward people who are close to us.
This kind of rhetoric clouds a debate that is full of actual –not projected– sexism.
There’s nothing more that I can say that you haven’t said already and that hasn’t appeared in the comments, but this is fucking brilliant. Thank you for so eloquently stating something that shouldn’t need to be said, eloquently or otherwise.
“The truth is that I am someone’s wife. I am also someone’s mother. I am someone’s daughter, and someone’s sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world.”
Actually, they do, in fact, help to define you and they do, in fact, add value to who you are because relationships do that. They change us, help us to grow up, and help to renew who we are, for better or for worse.
Why do feminists on blogs like these get so defensive over the natural aspects of life? Instead of realizing that it actually adds to who you are, feminists have to take the negative route out of insecurity or defensiveness and look at it as “glass half empty” as though it’s taking away from who you are when it’s not doing anything of the sort.
Take a breath. No one thinks you’re less of a human because you may not be a mother or a wife. But you’re always someone’s daughter (orphan or not) because you couldn’t exist otherwise.
I wish I could ‘like’ this.
Its for stuff like this, I can’t align with the feminist side. I see good intentions, and agree with the principle of equality – but so much is lost.
When we use the phrase, “Wife, mother, daughter…” to evoke emotion we are implying that people are only important as far as their relationships to others are concerned. This is dangerous. If we are only allowing ourselves to be emphatic to a person who is assuming a specific role situated inside of our patriarchal language format we are also denying or lessening our ability to show empathy for people not conforming to these roles. Language does matter.
When you attack this article by saying, “Why do feminists on blogs like these get so defensive over the natural aspects of life? Instead of realizing that it actually adds to who you are, feminists have to take the negative route out of insecurity or defensiveness…” you are grouping and presenting your own image of what feminism and feminist are. This grouping implies that you have a tendency towards bigotry and a lack of humanist empathy.
The point of this article is to say that we should be able to appreciate and empathize with other humans not for the other people in their lives, but for the very fact that they are human.
I think the point of the “mother/daughter/sister” line is that the majority of people DO see their mothers/sisters/daughters as human beings having intrinsic worth. It’s not just by virtue of their relationship to us.
Few people will tell you, “Yeah, I love my sister, but if she wasn’t my sister, it wouldn’t be a big deal if she got raped.” You love your sister because she’s a person, and when someone tells you to imagine another girl as being like your sister, what they mean is, “Remember, that girl is also a human being with thoughts, feelings, life goals and loved ones.” We use family members as examples because everyone has them, and these are often the people we know (and therefore love) the best.
To get offended over this seems absurd to me, and while I consider myself a feminist, I have to agree with Z on this one. Pitching huge fits over microscopic slights is counterproductive, and frankly, it doesn’t do anything to help our reputation for deliberately looking for things to get offended over. It’s not bigotry to point out that a frustrating number of feminist bloggers tend to do this. I’d like to agree with these people, and a good part of the time I do, but then non-issues like this one are treated like catastrophes, and I’m just left thinking “Seriously?”
It is not just about feminism. It’s about women’s rights.
And the title is not literal, but provocative to draw attention by reversing stereotyped concepts.
It is about the narrowed down definition of women decontaminated to a care-taker, giver, mother, and the indirect being defined by their roles in relation to others.
It is about the sexual being diminished to be a mother, to someone’s wife so that the sexuality of the woman is not a threat to the society anymore.
It’s about how the society sees the woman, which in return tells you how a woman should be, which also in return defines government politics and its practices.
And the common belief that if you are not how a woman should be, then you might be deserving what will or had happened to you.
And that the women’s rights are no different than any human’s rights, and do not need to be someone’s anyone to have those rights. So it should be defensive in this case.
I don’t get this Western hypocrisy, when the same discourse is created in Eastern societies, Western School puts the label : It is always about the un-civilized, poor, patriarchal societies out there somewhere in the East. And everyone gets so defensive of women’s rights.
However, when the same discourse is replicated in Western societies, it is always about the cold-hearted feminists talking nonsense, somehow.
The problem with this theory is that you are assuming that rape apologists are all men. Sadly, there are PLENTY of women who help propagate the rape culture. I wish that feminists were willing to address women’s complicity in these problems. This isn’t a men vs women issue. Framing it as such actually diminishes the problem at hand. How many times do you hear women calling other women whores, or shrugging their shoulders when they hear about a sexual assault? Women stick up for perpetrators all the time, starting with the women who refuse to press charges. We need to start with women standing with women first. As long as women are perpetrators of the rape culture, we have no business just blaming male deniers.
Well said, Jacqueline. How can men be expected to stand up for women, when women themselves are so apathetic towards the plight of their stricken counterpart. Whining doesn’t help. We need more women to bell more cats.
I agree.
I don’t see where you find that assumption, that all rape apologists are men? The point here is that a woman doesn’t have to be related in any way to a man to have value. Her value is a fact of her existence.
Yes women are socialized to be rape apologists also, to not believe a rapist is a rapist, to not believe men take advantage of woemn, to believe a man’s word over a woman’s.
This article is just an attempt to wake people up to how we all view the value of women, and the reality is that some can’t seem to believe or value a woman without imagining her as being someone else, someone related, someone they know and love. Bellejar is asking us to be bigger than that, to see any woman and value her as a person, irrelevant of her role in society, irrelvant to her relationship to others.
A feminist who knows what she’s doing would never deny what you just said…
You’re right, I haven’t yet received my license to feminist.
I for sure think that women participate in rape culture. I also think women participate in the patriarchy. This post isn’t specifically aimed at men, although to be honest I think that when people use the “mother sister daughter” argument they are almost always talking to men.
While I completely agree that the Steubenville rape case has been a TRAGEDY and a total disgrace, I think you are getting a little too pissy about the notion of attaching value to a woman based on her relationships to men. Yes. Pissy. I’ll be the first to stand with you in defense of women and for the cause of being seen as a person instead of a sister or wife. But I don’t feel degraded when someone asks to consider a victim as a “mother, sister or wife.” It calls on the listener to personalize the situation. And truthfully, who I am, as a person, includes being a sister and a wife. I take pride in that. I am an independent person of my husband and I do not draw my self-worth solely from my marriage or from the relationships I have with my family… but I am not going to condemn someone for propagating the “rape culture” (as you so eloquently put it) when they use the “daughter, mother, sister” phrase. I get where you could make that assumption and I guess if I was an angry feminist with a blog, maybe I would manipulate that phrase to support how I WANT to interpret it. But that’s just it… you interpret it one way, and I, another. The Steubenville case is infuriating. The fact that the rapists are being victimized makes me nauseous and my heart breaks for the true victim. No one should be raped… ever. But I think you are burning the wrong idea.
It’s awful, simply awful, the way our legal system punishes bright young football players. I mean, you slip up once, commit a casual little rape (and then brag about it the next day on facebook), and suddenly you have to spend a year, an entire YEAR, in juvenile prison. How thoughtless of the victim – to pass out at a party and allow herself to be raped and urinated on by several 200-lb football players, thus ruining the lives of those poor men…
THIS IS NOT A PARODY
THESE ARE THE WORDS OF THE MEDIA
ARE YOU FURIOUS YET???