"Feminism is a favorite whipping girl...feminist women are, indeed, not born feminist. But this does beg the question, doesn't it..? --why do they become feminist?

"I can't speak for all feminist women; no one can speak for all feminist women...However, I can state with confidence that many of the factors that drove me from a state of non-feminism approaching active antipathy to feminism, to publicly identifying as a feminist, are shared by a lot of other women.

"I'd love to discuss all the factors--but in the interests of article space, I am going to focus on just one of them. I believe that if this one specific factor were removed, there would be far fewer new feminist women...

"The factor: Sexual predation.

"For one, imagine what it would be like to not only be smaller, weaker and slower than almost every male you know, but also that all those males know that you are smaller, weaker and slower than they are...

"Now, imagine that all your life, from your boyhood onward, there had been a steady stream of males, from boys your own age up through adult men, who had tried to have sexual intercourse of one description or another with you and were often undeterred by your lack of interest, response or enjoyment.

"Say that, as you grew up, when you were alone with one, while most of the time they didn't try to forcibly rape you, once in a while one of them did--but you never knew in advance which one it would be. Say that, once you reached adolescence and young manhood, you found that if you drank too much alcohol, other men would not infrequently try to use your inebriated or unconscious body for sex--again, indifferent to your lack of interest, response or enjoyment, and you never knew when it would happen and when it wouldn't...

"[T]here is one place where this situation is somewhat similar for them, and that's in prison. Many men are terrified and revolted by the idea of going to prison, and the primary reason for that terror and revulsion is their exposure to, and the knowledge of their own lack of ability both to defend themselves physically from and to get sympathetic aid from the authorities from, sexual predation. Think of prison, in terms of sexual predation, as simply a more violent and concentrated form of the life of a girl and woman in terms of sexual predation--because it is.

"No, I'm not exaggerating...."

The purpose of The Feminist Dissident is to give feminists a chance to speak directly to my audience, and my audience to debate the issues with them in a civil manner. Uncivil comments will be deleted. To read previous entries, click here.

The Feminist Dissident column below is penned by Lisa Kansas, a feminist and a chemical engineer in Maryland. To visit her blog, click here.

If you are a feminist and are interested in submitting a blog post, please email me at glenn@glennsacks.com.

The Evolution of A Feminist; or, Don't Like Feminists? Stop Helping Create Them
By Lisa Kansas

Pat Robertson said it best: ""Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." More succinctly put, feminism is a favorite whipping girl. Feminism has become that magical word--"mainstream"--but that hasn't made it popular or generally regarded in a positive light. And of all the folks out there that really hate feminists, men's rights activists are probably among the most virulent and vocal about it.The big difference between hating black people or Jews and hating feminist women--the difference espoused by people who hate the latter and not the former, say--is that black people or Jews are born that way. It isn't a choice; being a feminist is a choice, a philosophy, not an ethnicity. Very true--but this argument leads to another, conspicuously not followed through upon by those who advocate it. As they say, feminist women are, indeed, not born feminist. But this does beg the question, doesn't it..? --why do they become feminist?

I can't speak for all feminist women; no one can speak for all feminist women, all women, all feminists, or all members of any other subgroup of humanity. However, I can state with confidence that many of the factors that drove me from a state of non-feminism approaching active antipathy to feminism, to publicly identifying as a feminist, are shared by a lot of other women. I'd love to discuss all the factors--but in the interests of article space, I am going to focus on just one of them. I believe that if this one specific factor were removed, there would be far fewer new feminist women--all you'd have to do to achieve a world much freer of mainstream feminism would be to outlive all the defanged old ones. (Witness their trouncing during the Democratic primaries as an example of that dynamic.)

The factor: Sexual predation.

Men are uniquely placed, as a group, to help end this problem and rid us forever of lots of future feminists. And it is a real problem, and it is a problem that I think men do not quite understand in its impact upon women in the same fashion that, say, white people do not understand what it's like to grow up black. Not the day-to-day experience with all its million-and-one little unpleasant episodes, tens and hundreds of greater unpleasantnesses, and the periodic whomper of a crappy one that sometimes alters the entire course of the recipient's life for the very much worse.

For one, imagine what it would be like to not only be smaller, weaker and slower than almost every male you know, but also that all those males know that you are smaller, weaker and slower than they are. (Men who are on the smaller side are not always automatically assumed to be easily physically dominated by larger men--but all women are assumed to be easily physically dominated by all men, whether it's true or not). Now, imagine that all your life, from your boyhood onward, there had been a steady stream of males, from boys your own age up through adult men, who had tried to have sexual intercourse of one description or another with you and were often undeterred by your lack of interest, response or enjoyment. Say that, as you grew up, when you were alone with one, while most of the time they didn't try to forcibly rape you, once in a while one of them did--but you never knew in advance which one it would be. Say that, once you reached adolescence and young manhood, you found that if you drank too much alcohol, other men would not infrequently try to use your inebriated or unconscious body for sex--again, indifferent to your lack of interest, response or enjoyment, and you never knew when it would happen and when it wouldn't. Say that, as well, you knew many other smaller, weaker, slower men for whom this life situation was commonplace, and while technically every last bit of it was against the law, you didn't know anybody, yourself included, who had ever actually involved the law. You read the newspapers, though, and saw how the smaller, weaker, slower men who did involve the law got treated and what they were called by prominent spokespersons, lawyers and religious and conservative "values" leaders.

I know that men, especially the smaller, weaker and slower men out there, can empathize with this, as there is one place where this situation is somewhat similar for them, and that's in prison. Many men are terrified and revolted by the idea of going to prison, and the primary reason for that terror and revulsion is their exposure to, and the knowledge of their own lack of ability both to defend themselves physically from and to get sympathetic aid from the authorities from, sexual predation. Think of prison, in terms of sexual predation, as simply a more violent and concentrated form of the life of a girl and woman in terms of sexual predation--because it is.

No, I'm not exaggerating. As I said, I wasn't born a feminist, and indeed had an antipathy toward it in its institutionalized form all the way up into my later teens. I can't say that I fully evolved out of that and into the fully-fledged self-identity of feminist til my early thirties; it was a process, a long one. However, it began around the time my mom kicked me out at age sixteen.

Skipping over the whys and hows of that, it introduced me to something that I was not aware of til that time--that living within the boundaries of one's family, as a young girl, conveys a great deal of sexual safety in terms of the encroachments of total strangers, and also, that in most instances, it was not boys my age that were the problem--it was grown men, in their early twenties up through, in one memorable instance, early fifties. Especially if one is desperately poor, as I was--it's hard to survive on a minimum-wage part-time job and attend high school while paying rent and living expenses. There were many men who got to know of my circumstances through various means, and not to put too fine a point upon it, saw a golden opportunity to make a cheap whore out of me, knowing as they did that I was perpetually starving and exhausted and unable to afford medical care and other routine necessities of life. And, of course, there were those, fewer in number, that saw no need to even offer me the use of their washing machines or a ride in their car to the laundromat in exchange for sexual favors--they thought that, since I was smaller, weaker and slower and had no family and not even a phone to call for help, they could simply show up at the door and take what they wanted.

In the town I grew up in, every kid who was "on his own" or "on her own" knew all the other kids who were, so I knew several boys that were in similar situations to my own. The starvation and exhaustion were the same--but the sexual predation was not. It was, in short, a powerful and additional risk that I bore on a continuous basis solely due to my gender. That was the first realization that awakened me to the idea that, perhaps, there was a need for that devil, institutionalized feminism, after all.

The second realization was that de jure equality does not result in de facto equality. All those things were against the law, quite unambiguously--the sexual solicitation, the attempted rapes--but that did not stop the men who attempted to commit those crimes against me. I have no way of knowing how many men were stopped by it, but I do know how many were not, and were at least in appearances completely unconcerned with what the law might or might not think. Was it because they thought I'd never involve the law? Was it because they thought that if I did, nothing would come of it? Again, I have no way of knowing. But certainly they thought something that allowed them to completely disregard it. So my second awakening was that legislation against crimes that overwhelmingly victimize women--sexual solicitation, rape--is not a sufficient deterrent.

Again...my lack of parental support at age sixteen, while not the most common one, is hardly one that's impossible to find. But anecdotal evidence is, of course, only that--one person's story. But there are numbers out there to support it. For instance:

The National Runaway Switchboard Statistics on Runaways from Peer-reviewed Journals and Federal Studies reports that 80% of of runaway and homeless girls report being sexually or physically abused. According to R. Barri Flowers's book, Runaway Kids and Teenage Prostitution, there are about 650,000 teenaged girl prostitutes in America, and more than two-thirds of all girls who leave home before age 18 will end up as prostitutes. The International Child and Youth Care Network says that ""survival sex" is even more common, according to the task force, volunteers and police:

"It starts with a person offering to share their motel room for a few hours so a kid can clean up and get some sleep," Gregg,an investigative assistant for the Oceanside Police Department. said from her desk at the Police Department. "Then it becomes, 'Hey, wasn't that nice of me? Now give me a kiss.' The next time it goes further and further and eventually becomes prostitution."

Imagine you had a daughter, whose mother kicked her out and you didn't know where to find her. Imagine that she was pretty, and bright, and quite sexually innocent--I was some man's daughter, obviously; it's not an imaginary scenario. Do you think that what happened to me could never happen to your daughter, or your sister, or your niece, through no fault of her own (as it wasn't mine)? Do you genuinely not believe that there are many men out there that there are who are ready to prey on your daughter, your sister, or your niece, should she become homeless and unprotected by nothing save "the law?" Other women can't save her--if those men aren't afraid of the law, will they fear just another woman, smaller, weaker and slower than they are?

And what about the majority of girls, who do live at home? Their experiences, are less extreme, but the predator-prey dynamic is still there, and has a long-term psychological effect. Just recently, from Toronto:

A growing number of teenage girls view sexual harassment and even assault as "normal," says a top Toronto school board official.
Gerry Connelly described the "new normal" phenomenon during her keynote address at the annual Safe Schools Conference in Toronto today.
"A young girl will see somebody being pushed against a locker and fondled inappropriately, or they are being touched inappropriately and they say: 'Well that's just the way it is,'" said Ms. Connelly, director of education at the Toronto District School Board.

33% of students surveyed reported being sexually harassed in the school over the past two years. Twenty-nine per cent reported being the victim of unwanted sexual contact, including touching or grabbing at their school, and 29 female students or 7% of respondents reported being the victim of a major sexual assault at their school.
Another report on sexual harassment at 23 Ontario schools by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health showed that 30% of Grade 9 girls and 28% of Grade 11 girls reported having been touched, grabbed or pinched in a sexual way.

Ms. Connelly said she was disturbed to learn that 80% of TDSB students said they would not talk to teachers or police about crimes they witnessed or experienced.

According to the US Department of Justice, 17.6 % of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape. Of these, 21.6% were younger than age 12 when they were first raped, and 32.4% were between the ages of 12 and 17. The FBI estimates that only 37% of all rapes are reported to the police. U.S. Justice Department statistics are even lower, with only 26% of all rapes or attempted rapes being reported to law enforcement officials.

My evolution into the feminist you see before you today was only begun by those experiences and realizations--many more, where my gender became a weapon to be wielded against me, were required to truly implant it into my psyche, to make it an intrinsic part of who and what I am. However, due to a need to keep things concise, other than a bare list of what those things were--the military, marriage, engineering school and engineering career--I can't detail them all here. I wish I could--the story's not complete. But, perhaps, it's enough to begin to build an understanding based on empathy. I think, and I hope, that men's rights activists can understand what it is to have one's gender, a cornerstone of one's identity, become the reason one is used and abused by others. It is a terrible thing.

I said near the beginning of this article, that men were uniquely placed as a group to help overcome this particular problem--the sexual predation of girls and women--that results in so many feminists. And they truly are--not because most men are sexual predators--I don't believe that; I know that's not true. When I was living on my own, there were many more men who did not try to abuse me than did. But I do know that men often look away from the reality that most sexual predators are men. And not only that--that it is epidemic that any girl who is unprotected by family is considered fair game in not only our culture, but even much more blatantly in many others. People, regardless of gender, do not respect the law if it is not enforced, and even more pertinently on a day-to-day basis, people do not cease behavior that is winked at or simply ignored.

Stop ignoring sexual predation--speak out against it. Don't stop your efforts to combat false rape accusations--they are evil things. But recognize that one big reason they're easy to believe for so many is that sexual predation is distressingly common enough that it takes no stretch of the imagination to believe that a rape or attempted rape has occurred. It isn't just about showing no mercy to false accusers while showing great mercy to real rape and attempted rape victims--that isn't even the most important thing you can do. The most important thing you can do is something no woman can--speak out among men. Don't support pornography that shows girls and women used and humiliated like animals or toys, or worse, mock-raped or even raped for real. Don't pretend not to know who among you likes his girls younger, or laugh or say nothing when the sneering references to girls and women as nothing but targets for use overtakes the conversation. I have spent a fair amount of time in the company of men in traditionally male settings; I know that all these things occur on a regular basis. A woman can't say or do anything about any of that and be taken seriously, not taken to heart. But a plurality of men can.

This isn't about tit-for-tat; it's not about proving which gender has it "better" or "worse"--all this is about is getting rid of feminism. All that I have related here, in terms of the sexual predation experiences of girls and women, is true, and it is also true that they are a driving force in terms of keeping the machine of institutionalized feminism alive, well and healthily thriving. It isn't "Women's Studies" classes, nor is it even feminist rhetoric. Most women, like most men, don't even have a college degree, and most girls, especially those in small and medium-sized towns, don't ever meet a single, self-identified feminist to talk to while growing up. Until about fifteen years ago, the internet wasn't a common resource and most of those girls and women prior to that never really laid eyes on a single line of feminist writing.

Feminism will die a natural death if the real, sad reasons young girls and very young women become feminist are taken away--if all that's left are the cadre of any gender that wants to work the system, feminism will go the way of all scams. But it's not one now for far too many women, and it won't end without a majority of men as well as women committing to end the real and sad causes.

Or don't, and have feminism around, and mainstream as long as women equal or exceed men in numbers, forever. It's up to you.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Sexual Harassment, Feminist Dissident. You can trackback from your own site.