Women’s inability to be in public places as safely as most men should be a major human rights, social justice issue, right? But usually it’s relegated to the “style” or “women’s issues” section of the news, meaning it’s not important news. It’s like it’s just a given that women are unsafe and we should follow “safety tips” like not going places alone or at night. If we don’t, then what were we thinking? Of course we’re going to get harassed and assaulted!
What the hell crap is that?!
This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Where is the OUTCRY around the world? Given my feelings, then, I am fascinated by the blog post “The Left’s Sexual Terrorism” on American Thinker and the question, do leftist men engage in the sexual terrorism of women, including through street harassment?
Like most of my young clients, Becky considers herself a progressive leftist. But unlike her peers, she is also angered by the Left. Becky’s main gripe is street harassment — and liberal men not having her back.
Her friend told her, “The brothers harass you to put you in your place, to knock you down from your high holy horse. It’s about power.”
Becky’s story reminded me of these chilling words from Eldridge Cleaver, the ’60s Black Panther who admitted to raping several white women to advance the revolution. He once wrote:
Rape was an insurrectionary act. It delighted me that I was defying and trampling upon the white man’s law, upon his system of values, and that I was defiling his women. … I felt I was getting revenge.
Observing the political scene today, it’s clear that the sexual menacing hasn’t stopped. Sarah Palin has been on the receiving end of a steady barrage of sexual degradation. Here’s a title of an article from the June 2010 Harper’s Magazine: “Is Sarah Palin Porn?”
According to the new book Game Change, Palin was devastated when she was attacked fast and furiously. Her torment was by design. As Cleaver revealed, the Left has been using and abusing women for years.
The “wilding” of Palin was meant not just to demean her, but to frighten her. Leftists wanted to expose the raw nerve of vulnerability lying deep inside every woman’s soul. It is the knowledge that anytime, anywhere, we can be raped.
The word “vulnerable” comes from the Latin vulnus, which means to wound. And this is exactly what the Left has been doing to conservative women like Palin — terrorizing and wounding them.
The radicals are experts at controlling women. They’ve been dominating their own women for decades. To say that the Left is a safe harbor for women is to misunderstand their roots.
The women’s movement arose partly because women were locked out of positions of authority in the antiwar and civil rights movements. Even more disturbingly, women were brainwashed to believe that their main duty was sexual. As civil rights activist Stokely Carmichael infamously phrased it, “The role of women in the movement is prone.”
When SDS member Marilyn Webb dared to stand up at the National Mobilization Committee to advocate for women’s rights, she was laughed off the stage with catcalls and cackles of “Take it off” and “Take her off the stage and f**k her.” After her appearance, her life was threatened.
I’m feeling pretty angry at the moment and am still trying to process the whole post. I am a history major and one class I took was about U.S. history in the 1960s. This was the time of the anti-war movement, civil rights movement, red power movement, free love movement, etc. Women were barely touched on in my class; they were not considered leaders and their rights were a postscript (though to be fair, the 1970s was the time of more activism there – because women were upset over being excluded in the 1960s). I’ve read several books about women in these movements in the years since and there were so many women behind the scenes, getting things done, and getting no credit, getting treated like sex objects and maids. By the liberal men working for human rights issues.
I just don’t get it. What is SO threatening about women having power, recognition, a voice? And today, what is SO threatening about women being able to walk down the street in peace? Why isn’t the inability to do so a human rights issue?!
I want to shout out, “Leave us the HELL alone. Don’t harass us, don’t rape us, just respect us. And join us in working to end harassment and assault in public places!” But would more than a handful of leftist (or rightist or neitherist) men listen (thank you v. much current male allies)? Given the amount of vile hatred from men that I find in the comments section whenever street harassment is mentioned in articles in areas not designated “for women,” I think not. And that makes me so angry and sad and scared.
Anyway, I don’t agree with everything in the article, but I definitely think her overall idea is right on. Your thoughts?
Pedal says
Sadly, it seems like a lot of “progressive” men are unwilling to lay aside their male privilege in order to recognize or fight the issue of street harassment. A lot of my male friends and past boyfriends just brushed off my angry reaction to harassment as hysterical behavior. And even those who do empathize don’t seem too interested in taking action to fight this problem.
Mark Susskind says
I must admit I have liberal leanings on some issues but not on others. I may not agree with some of Sarah Palin’s reported policies, but I would never negatively criticize her for her externals, like simply being a woman, a mother, a wife, a religious congregant, or a game hunter. I read some of the linked articles attributed to Robin of Berkeley. I support so-called women’s issues not as a means to get laid, but because I believe that women shouldn’t need to feel like they are being mashed under anyone’s thumb.