Beyond the Hashtags

#YesAllWomen  #NotAllMen

It’s hard to know what to say about the killing spree Randall Elliot engaged in on May 23rd. So much has already been said. And yet it doesn’t quite seem like enough has been said. Or maybe it’s just not what I’ve wanted to hear.

You see, Randall Elliot isn’t the problem. This was just a specific incidence of a broader issue. It doesn’t matter if it’s a 22 year old who is pissed off because he can’t get laid.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a man in Indianapolis who repeatedly drugged his wife and raped her while she was unconscious because she was “snippy”. For that matter, the problem is not the judge in the case who sentenced the rapist to 8 years of home detention (prosecutors asked for 20-60 years in prison) and then told the woman to forgive her husband.

They’re all symptoms of a problem that has shown up with increasing frequency and that is the discounting, disregarding and dismissing of women everywhere.  We used to think that these kinds of atrocities only happened in other countries, in “less civilized” societies (think “honor killings” or “forced genital mutilation”). We believed that the advancements made by the women’s movement of the 1960s and1970s were correcting this problem  We were wrong.  It’s happening here in the USA and it’s complete intolerable.

What to do then? I know my words won’t be popular but we, as women, have to raise our voices and state unequivocally that this is unacceptable.  And we have to do it over and over again until our message gets through.  It’s all well and good to add the Yes All Women hashtag to our tweets and Facebook postings but it’s not enough because in a few months this will fade out and some other phrase will be popular.  We have to look at this behavior and call it out for what it is... bullshit.  

It doesn’t matter when or where. Much has been said lately about the way females are harassed at SciFi/Fantasy/Media/Comic conventions. Yes it’s wrong and yes plenty of people blog about it. Necessary but insufficient. We have to call out the miscreants at the time they’re being jerks. We have to say “Not cool, dude” or “Don’t be a dick” (thank you Wil Wheaton) or just say “Not acceptable!” And we have to do it over and over again.  If someone says a woman is worth less in some capacity just because she is a woman, that person needs to be hauled up short and told this behavior won’t be tolerated.  Do not debate about why we’re worthy.  Just call their bullshit for what it is and move on.

We have to tell the judge in Indianapolis that his sentence was grossly negligent. We have to tell parents, coaches and teachers in Steubenville, Ohio that when a bunch of jocks use an inebriated girl as the object of a gang bang, they cannot sweep it under the rug. We have to get up in the faces of Department of Corrections officials who don’t tell rape survivors that their attackers have been released from prison, despite the fact that the law requires them to do so (my own personal experience).

And one final thought for those who believe this message is only to those of us with two X chromosomes, listen up fellas.  Every last one of you, especially the #NotAllMen guys, needs to stand up and say the same thing. Psychosocial studies would tell us that this kind of message will have more impact if it comes from men than from women but leaving it to the guys just perpetuates the problem. So while it’s important that everyone speak up, it’s truly a case where we have to heed the call of Aretha Franklin.

“Sisters are doin’ it for themselves!”