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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Why do we talk about 'rape culture' but not 'murder culture'?
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S. Bacchus
Shipmate
# 17778
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Posted
I don't think a day goes by when I don't read an article that uses the phrase 'rape culture' (I probably should read the New Statesman less regularly). It's not a phrase that was in common use until fairly recently. Rape was discussed as a crime like any other, although perhaps it was discussed less openly than it should have been.
But one thing strikes me. People, mostly women, are raped. Other people (or not infrequently, the same people) are murdered. Some aspects of popular culture seem to glamorize rape. Many aspects of popular culture glamorize murder. For example, early James Bond films have scenes of what is pretty clearly rape being played as if it were no big deal, but almost all action films of all period treat shooting and killing people as if it were normal and even glamorous.
So, what makes 'rape culture' different from 'murder culture'?
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'It's not that simple. I won't have it to be that simple'.
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
A few years ago I was asked to take the funeral of a gentleman who had served as a soldier in the Wehrmacht. He had been captured as a POW during the Sicily landings. As it happens my Grandfather was involved in the Sicily landings on the other side. I was sorely tempted to joke that it was fortunate for all concerned that they were both such terrible shots.
Had the gentleman concerned captured and raped my grandfather that would be entirely different. C. S. Lewis observes in Mere Christianity that if he and a German soldier had shot one another during WW1 they might have chuckled about it moments later during the afterlife. Complicatedly, it is possible to want to kill someone and respect them. This is not the same with rape. Hector and Achilles, Sorhab and Rustum, Grant and Lee, Montgomery and Rommel it is possible for mutual respect to exist between mortal enemies. Not between rapists and their victims.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
You do hear of a "culture of violence."
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
So, what makes 'rape culture' different from 'murder culture'?
One of the things that struck me about the Steubenville rape case was that there was a coach known to smooth over the consequences of his players' sexual assaults. It seems less likely that a similar "fixer" would be available for high school football players who killed someone.
At any rate, there have been times when you'd find certain murders excused on the grounds that the victim had it coming or it wasn't really a big deal, but those were usually part of some other social pathology like racism or religious bigotry. As such, "murder culture" is usually analyzed in those terms rather than by itself.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Gildas wrote - quote:
...it is possible to want to kill someone and respect them...
- if they pose a mortal threat to you or a loved one etc. I can see that might be the case. With particular reference to war. But absent such a threat is that at all likely? I'm having difficulty dreaming up scenarios for that one.
I suppose what I am saying is that if you take that exception away, do not murder and rape both become heinous crimes in at least a comparative way again?
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
I think the glamourisation of killing is largely a fantasy for most people. Certainly for most people in the UK. It probably has pernicious effects when people are contemplating going to war, and may have pernicious effects on the police; but it probably has less effect on people's day to day lives. When people actually get killed in real life it's a big thing; people in official uniforms get involved. Whereas playing down the importance of consent does affect people's day to day lives. And because it's less obvious, and it takes more to get people in uniforms involved, it's more important to tackle it at the level of attitude than at the level of legal penalties.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
So far, no Tea Baggers have told murder victims to lie back and enjoy it.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
quote:
Why do we talk about 'rape culture' but not 'murder culture'?
I would guess that journos who use the term 'rape culture' are externalising something which feels sufficiently different to their own sense of (lustful) self, to be safely objectified as something firmly 'other'.
Whereas the general culture is so confused about violence, war, vengence and its sense of (wrathful) self, that no such external objectification feels credible, outside of vaguely pornographic depictions/fictions of gangsta behaviour etc.
The more the latter comes to look like the former, the further on we go with losing our identification with the perpetrator, the more denial we build in regarding our need for salvation, the more f***** we all are...
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
Sports Illustrated has been running an article this week about the Oklahoma State University football team, and the troubling culture that has apparently arisen at that school over the past 15 years or so. Today, the focus was on the use of sex as a recruiting tool. Many schools have hostesses, female undergraduates who show football recruits around the school. The article alleged that a handful of the hostesses were providing sex to the players, to get them to commit to the school. The school strictly forbids sexual contact between the hostesses and recruits, but it seems that a handful of players and hostesses consider it to be part of the job.
Down in the comment section of the ESPN story on the investigation, people were generally calling it no big deal. Many people expressed envy of the recruits. A few even pointed out that the women probably enjoyed the experience of sleeping with a football player.
Now I know that the comment section to any online story is rarely an Algonquin Long Table. But ESPN makes you log in with your Facebook account, and everyone can see who you are and what you do. At least one of the comments came from a high school teacher.
While the alleged encounters may not have been rape, they still were troubling, because they encouraged the idea that a male football player will be entitled to sex with whatever woman he wants while he is in school. And the readers seemed fine with it- in fact, they thought that the women should have been delighted to get the chance to have sex with a 17 year old potential football star.
I don't think people would have excused murder in the same way- people aren't expected to murder people, and people don't think that certain athletically talented people are entitled to murder people. The rape culture discussion is intended to highlight a certain acceptance and even embrace of male sexual entitlement, an acceptance that does not exist for murder. So that, I think, is why the discussion is so different.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
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Og, King of Bashan
Ship's giant Amorite
# 9562
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
quote:
Originally posted by S. Bacchus:
So, what makes 'rape culture' different from 'murder culture'?
One of the things that struck me about the Steubenville rape case was that there was a coach known to smooth over the consequences of his players' sexual assaults. It seems less likely that a similar "fixer" would be available for high school football players who killed someone.
I worked for a District Attorney one summer, and we had a few teenage sex assault cases. They were disgusting enough that I dropped any desire to work full time as a criminal prosecutor. Part of the problem was that these teenage boys had seen enough movies to know how it worked; you go to the party, provide some drinks, and then have sex. At no point did they think this was a bad idea. Even texts between the victim and her female friends were shocking in the way that friends thought it was a normal thing to happen. I think it happens more at high school parties than we like to think, even if fixers are not involved.
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"I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That's despair?" ― Walker Percy
Posts: 3259 | From: Denver, Colorado, USA | Registered: May 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
You do hear of a "culture of violence."
At least as often as "rape culture" in my experience-- and the term has been in use longer.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
An "honor culture" in parts of the world where a raped girl is killed by her relatives or a dueling culture such as existed in the US before the civil war are both murder cultures.
They are somewhat disguised by the names which is interesting in itself.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
C. S. Lewis observes in Mere Christianity that if he and a German soldier had shot one another during WW1 they might have chuckled about it moments later during the afterlife.<snip>
Hector and Achilles, Sorhab and Rustum, Grant and Lee, Montgomery and Rommel it is possible for mutual respect to exist between mortal enemies. Not between rapists and their victims.
Because all the mortal enemies mentioned are male . A bit of male bonding going on I suspect . Like the night club brawlers who are close to hugging each-other in a casualty ward , having shortly before 'glassing' one another in a pitched battle.
No bonding in rape I wouldn't have thought . The assailant takes what they want and then leaves.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
"Rape culture" is a newer idea than murder (and hence may attract somewhat more attention) simply because the idea of rape itself is a newer idea than murder.
For eons, women were not even considered people, much less beings with rights over their own bodies and/or lives. They were owned outright. How can a man "rape" someone who lacks both personhood and rights? When the social code under which a man lives (and apparently some continue trying to live under this code) entitles him to use a woman's body whenever and however he wishes, "rape" as a concept tends not to exist; no rape, no rape culture.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
"Rape culture" is a newer idea than murder (and hence may attract somewhat more attention) simply because the idea of rape itself is a newer idea than murder.
For eons, women were not even considered people, much less beings with rights over their own bodies and/or lives. They were owned outright. How can a man "rape" someone who lacks both personhood and rights? When the social code under which a man lives (and apparently some continue trying to live under this code) entitles him to use a woman's body whenever and however he wishes, "rape" as a concept tends not to exist; no rape, no rape culture.
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Culture involves communal support of something deemed either normal or worthy.
Murder rarely involves that. Perhaps from time to time there have been sub-cultures that do that. Perhaps the Manson family may be an example of that. Most murders are solitary affairs.
A lot of rapes are solitary too of course, but there exists a category that isn't, and Croesos mentioned the Steubenville example earlier. There appears to be a penumbra of entitlement and permissiveness about it which - to me at least - looks like it contributed in some way. This is not in any way to diminish the culpability of those committing the crime - simply to point out that it did not take place in a vacuum, and likely the surrounding culture has played a part.
I think it's a useful concept. I'm a bit concerned it might get over-used in a sloppy sort of way. That could devalue it, which would be a shame.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Perhaps in my last post I should have said "perpetrator acting alone" rather than "solitary".
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
"Rape culture" is a newer idea than murder (and hence may attract somewhat more attention) simply because the idea of rape itself is a newer idea than murder.
For eons, women were not even considered people, much less beings with rights over their own bodies and/or lives. They were owned outright. How can a man "rape" someone who lacks both personhood and rights? When the social code under which a man lives (and apparently some continue trying to live under this code) entitles him to use a woman's body whenever and however he wishes, "rape" as a concept tends not to exist; no rape, no rape culture.
Sorry. Hate to disillusion you, but that just is not true. People 50 years ago may by modern standards have had different standards on sexual exploitation and abuse of consent. Nevertheless, I can assure younger shipmates that in those days, rape was regarded as a very shocking and bestial thing, that was so awful that it hardly ever happened but when it did, it should be punished very severely.
People were horrified that, for all its heroism etc, the Red Army broke this taboo.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
"Rape culture" is a newer idea than murder (and hence may attract somewhat more attention) simply because the idea of rape itself is a newer idea than murder.
For eons, women were not even considered people, much less beings with rights over their own bodies and/or lives. They were owned outright. How can a man "rape" someone who lacks both personhood and rights? When the social code under which a man lives (and apparently some continue trying to live under this code) entitles him to use a woman's body whenever and however he wishes, "rape" as a concept tends not to exist; no rape, no rape culture.
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
Unfortunately it's painfully easy to reconcile. The woman in this law is just like a bag of sweets you've knocked onto the floor and split - you've broken it so no-one else wants it, so you have to buy it.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Nevertheless, I can assure younger shipmates that in those days, rape was regarded as a very shocking and bestial thing, that was so awful that it hardly ever happened but when it did, it should be punished very severely.
People were horrified that, for all its heroism etc, the Red Army broke this taboo.
I think the taboo the Red Army broke was not maintaining the pretense that "rape . . . hardly ever happened" rather than being something commonplace in invasions.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
My understanding (and I am not sure where I got it from) is that, while rape has been a crime in English law for centuries, for most of that time it was seen as a crime against property rather than the person. As Karl explained, in that context forcing the victim to marry her rapist makes perfect sense.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
I think there is something a little deeper here. We as western cultures and societies love violence. We absolutely revel in it. Just play a video game or watch some TV. Double tap. Kill a Zombie. Join the army. Supersize your meal "do you want a gun with that?".
And we channel sexuality through a weird violence-repression filtre. It's okay to "fuck you up" with a gun in a video game or on TV and show that to children, but don't show someone actually fucking someone. Some MMA but no sex. A loaded gun is good with the censors and the public, while a loaded penis is bad. A gaping head wound is okay, a gaping vagina is bad. For all his faults, Freud was on to something when he told us that when we're careless, we will channel violence into sexuality, and we will turn sexuality into violence.
But love, kindness, charity? We do that after we kill, and then as a pacification of the unleashed beast within us and as redirection.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Rape originally meant forced abduction or kidnapping. It shares the same root as the word "raptor". The sexual element came later, and the exclusively sexual element later still. Then most recently feminist theorists have broadened it back out somewhat by pointing out that it involves power as well as sex.
It has been treated at different times and in different places as a crime against the person, a crime against property, and a crime against the public. A further factor is that the way it is dealt with in law may not reflect the way it is seen in contemporary society. Roman writers speak of it as a derelict behaviour against the person even though it would be dealt with by recompense to the paterfamilias (until Constantine changed the latter and made it an offence against the public) and execution of the perpetrator.
A similar situation probably applies during the feudal period as everyone who was not a freeman was "owned" by the action of fealty.
This lot just won't yield to generalisations. You'll just generate a flurry of counterexamples from all over the place. There are times and places where claims such as those made above are accurate, and others where it may be technically accurate but just be a legal construct. And of course others where it is simply untrue.
(ETA x-posted with no prophet)
[ 14. September 2013, 17:44: Message edited by: Honest Ron Bacardi ]
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
I think one noticeable difference between rape and murder has to with repeated offenses. In the United States, a typical murderer kills one person once in a lifetime(and is caught). Despite the suggestions (and preferences?) of TV scriptwriters, serial killers are rare. Rape, on the other hand, is a crime a man may commit repeatedly: a vice, a bad habit, a hobby. (Much the same can be said of the arsonist, burglar, pickpocket and strong-arm robber.)
Perhaps a serial rapist should be punished much more harshly than a one-time murderer.
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
The subject of rape, (and it's implications on both sides), gets an early hearing in the Bible with the story of Potiphar's wife who falsely accuses Joseph of rape because he refuses to yield to her seduction . So I think it was plainly understood from very early on just how serious a matter it was.
Does this talk of 'culture' means 'acceptability'? . Rape seems to be acceptable to a proportion of men during the chaos of warfare when otherwise it wouldn't.
Murder seems to be afforded an underlying acceptability to most of us most of the time . We may be appalled by it, but we never cease to be enthralled by it.
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Change is the only certainty of existence
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet:
I think there is something a little deeper here. We as western cultures and societies love violence. We absolutely revel in it. Just play a video game or watch some TV. Double tap. Kill a Zombie. Join the army. Supersize your meal "do you want a gun with that?".
While I'd agree with most of that, the word 'western' seems unnecessarily narrowing. Not that it lets us off the hook, but as someone mentioned over on the 'Purification through violence' thread, everybody is at it.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
Sure: who came first, Cain or Levi?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Soror Magna
Shipmate
# 9881
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Posted
Murder victims are rarely accused of lying or told they were "asking for it".
Posts: 5430 | From: Caprica City | Registered: Jul 2005
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
Sure: who came first, Cain or Levi?
Huh?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
Sure: who came first, Cain or Levi?
Huh?
My original point was that murder was considered a crime before rape was. According to the ancient set of documents which allegedly record, among other things, the Levitical legal system you referenced, rape was a crime . . . but of what kind and against whom?
The "rapist" was being "punished" by taking on the burden of supporting the woman he'd raped. In short, this is restitution. Presumably the woman's father or brother or husband was actually responsible for the woman's support hitherto. She's now damaged goods, and the male originally responsible for her can't (if father or brother) recoup whatever investment he's made in his property by marrying her off at a good price, or (if husband) be certain that future offspring are actually his. So the rapist gets saddled with her.
Rape, as we currently understand that term, is a crime against the individual who's been forced into sex. It's not a property crime. The above treatment of rape clearly makes the crime one of property damage against another man who is the original owner of said property, not a violation of the woman's rights and bodily integrity.
If you think otherwise, look at the situation from the woman's PoV: she's now the property of the guy who raped her. Violated, then yoked to the violator. Not much consideration for her situation there.
As to Cain, I was simply pointing out that this is the second crime (the first being disobedience) referenced, AFAIK, in the same set of antique documents containing the much later Levitical code you referenced.
So we have, first, disobedience; second, murder; third, property crimes; and much later, after the astonishing discovery that women might actually be people, we have rape.
[ 15. September 2013, 01:05: Message edited by: Porridge ]
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
This is why the "Imagine it was your sister!" doesn't sit well with some folk- while it might be meant to personify the object of rape to some it harkens back to the idea that the only way a woman could be important to yo is if she belongs to you or your family.
Only very recently have I seen "or one of your female friends!" on that list. To me, that addition makes a huge amount of difference.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
For eons, women were not even considered people, much less beings with rights over their own bodies and/or lives. They were owned outright.
Women have undoubtedly been seen as subordinate for centuries, and this is undoubtedly a bad thing, but your statement above is obviously false.
Men were expected to sacrifice themselves for women - "women and children first", and I believe there was a male survivor of the Titanic who was regarded for the rest of his life as a vile coward because he didn't obey this principle. In older chronicles the statement that a soldier did not spare the women or the children would be an immediate marker that he was cruel and bloodthirsty. This would hardly be the case if women were seen as property - who would ever say 'valises, suitcases and children first'?
Assault (I mean physical assault) on a woman has always been tried as a crime against that person, not against the menfolk in her life, although the latter would undoubtedly be seen as having a personal interest in the result.
Women could become sovereigns in most of Europe. Again, it is undoubtedly unfair that they had to wait their turn behind the men, but England has had a Queen Elizabeth Tudor, but never a King Diamond Necklace or Prince Lump of Coal.
I also think that you can't separate the subordinate position of women from historical social relationships generally. For most of history, hierarchy and subordination has been seen as a perfectly natural thing. Serfs were subordinate to freemen, freemen were subordinate to lords, lords were subordinate to kings, women were subordinate to men.
Individual freedom, in the sense of being able to choose your own destiny, just did not exist. If you were born a serf you lived with the rights and obligations of a serf, if you were born a prince you lived with the rights and obligations of royalty, if you were born a woman you lived with the rights and obligations of a woman. I think the modern way is better but I don't think it is purely a matter of gender.
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
My understanding (and I am not sure where I got it from) is that, while rape has been a crime in English law for centuries, for most of that time it was seen as a crime against property rather than the person.
I imagine it comes from Marx or one of his disciples. Marx's critique of capitalism is incisive, but he tends to assume that absolutely everything in the world can be explained in terms of property relations. Thus the evils of bourgeois marriage must arise from treating wives as property. It does not occur to him that they could arise from some other cause.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It also stems from those anthropologists, influenced by Levi-Strauss, who argued that women have been 'exchange objects' in patriarchy. That is, they have been exchanged between tribes, clans and families, to cement alliances. It seems vastly more complicated than that, since for example, some cultures had rules such as cross-cousin marriage; also in some cultures, the mother's brother had a vital role.
But at any rate, in many such cultures, the woman was property, gift, and exchange object.
However, the basic theory has been criticized as ignoring many other facets of tribal exchange, for example, 'inalienable possessions' produced by women, who are thereby given much power.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
That makes the assumption that only he women had no right to choose in a medieval arranged marriage.
When a marriage was to cement relations between nations, just how much choice did the man have (other than not having to live in a foreign country)?
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
balaam
It looks like you missed the bits where I said, 'it's vastly more complicated than that', and 'the basic theory has been criticized as ignoring many other facets of tribal exchange'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Ricardus: quote:
Men were expected to sacrifice themselves for women - "women and children first", and I believe there was a male survivor of the Titanic who was regarded for the rest of his life as a vile coward because he didn't obey this principle.
This is true up to a point, but the example you have chosen is a poor one. 'Women and children first' is not part of maritime law and the first documented case of it being applied was in the mid-nineteenth century. Until then, men were more likely to survive a shipwreck.
The male survivor of the Titanic you refer to is J. Bruce Ismay, the chairman of the White Star Line who was on board as a passenger and was subsequently branded a coward. Many people still think he should have chosen to go down with the ship, like Captain Smith. Other male passengers who survived were also accused of cowardice, but he came in for most of the criticism because he was one of the owners of the line.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Women have undoubtedly been seen as subordinate for centuries, and this is undoubtedly a bad thing, but your statement above is obviously false . . . In older chronicles the statement that a soldier did not spare the women or the children would be an immediate marker that he was cruel and bloodthirsty.
In many instances, sure. In others, not so much.
For example, in Numbers 31: 15-16, the women spared (and then sexually "known") by Israeli solders were alleged to be responsible for treason (don't you find it odd that the soldiers who slept with them aren't the traitors?), bringing plague upon Israel, and then ordered by Moses murdered, along with all their male children. Any female and still-virginal children were to be parceled out among those same soldiers, for their own personal, um, use.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Assault (I mean physical assault) on a woman has always been tried as a crime against that person, not against the menfolk in her life, although the latter would undoubtedly be seen as having a personal interest in the result.
“Always?” Not quite; it depended very much on who was assaulting her. According to Blackstone’s 1765 Commentaries, a husband was prohibited from violence against his wife unless it was “reasonably necessary” in correcting and disciplining her. For serious offenses, he was allowed to use whips and fists on her; otherwise, he was restricted to more moderate corrective means. This might be a matter of legal dispute in some jurisdiction somewhere, but if I were married, and my husband came after me with a whip or his fists, I would consider myself "assaulted," even if the law permitted this "correction" of my alleged serious offense against him.
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
Women could become sovereigns in most of Europe. Again, it is undoubtedly unfair that they had to wait their turn behind the men, but England has had a Queen Elizabeth Tudor, but never a King Diamond Necklace or Prince Lump of Coal.
It’s interesting, then, that Elizabeth I went to such extended and tortuous diplomatic lengths to avoid marriage, apparently for the very purpose of not being forced to hand over her wealth and influence to her newly-acquired husband – or perhaps it was because she didn’t care for the notion of being assaulted, perhaps even executed, by him. You know, like her mother.
A second point, though, is perhaps more pertinent: what percentage of women became monarchs? How relevant is this phenomenon to the lives of women generally in these same historical periods and geopolitical realms?
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I also think that you can't separate the subordinate position of women from historical social relationships generally. For most of history, hierarchy and subordination has been seen as a perfectly natural thing. Serfs were subordinate to freemen, freemen were subordinate to lords, lords were subordinate to kings, women were subordinate to men.
Individual freedom, in the sense of being able to choose your own destiny, just did not exist. If you were born a serf you lived with the rights and obligations of a serf, if you were born a prince you lived with the rights and obligations of royalty, if you were born a woman you lived with the rights and obligations of a woman. I think the modern way is better but I don't think it is purely a matter of gender.
As Wilde notes, the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Nevertheless, tootling around among references to women in various primitive legal codes uncovers a fair amount of law pertaining solely to women, of which not much works in their interests.
A few samples: In ancient Rome, men could divorce women. Roman women acquired this right only in the late Republican period. (See A History of the Wife, Marilyn Yalom, pp. 30-31) In ancient Babylonia, a woman who refused to stay married to her husband could be drowned in punishment; a man in the same situation was required to pay a fine to the wife. (See Women’s Work, Elizabeth Wayland Barber, p. 171) We can turn to the Bible for examples of women being treated differently on the basis of their gender: God punishes Eve in Genesis 3:16 for her disobedience by ordaining pain in childbirth accompanied with unrelenting “desire” for her husband, so she’ll have to go through the process repeatedly. In the New Testament, that painful childbirth is woman’s route to “salvation” (I Timothy 2:15). (What this means or how this works, I can’t begin to guess, though there’s a thread about it in Kerygmania.) Wikipedia notes that Islam excludes women from its sumptuary laws; these apply solely to men.
The notion of subordination, as you note, is endemic in human societies; we are primates, and most primates organize themselves socially in this fashion. That said, it’s not easy to find human societies in which women are not treated quite differently from men on the basis of their sex (as opposed to class, race, and/or other potential social "markers." Subordination may be "natural" or "inevitable," given our primate status, but what’s natural or inevitable about women rather than men being in the subordinate position? As you note, women are sometimes monarchs.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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HCH
Shipmate
# 14313
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Posted
A minor comment: In Viking culture, women could have divorces at their request. In the Laxdaela saga, as an example, a rather feisty woman named Gudrun is married four times; she divorced her first husband.
Don't assume that all old cultures are alike.
Posts: 1540 | From: Illinois, USA | Registered: Nov 2008
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Hawk
Semi-social raptor
# 14289
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
For serious offenses, he was allowed to use whips and fists on her; otherwise, he was restricted to more moderate corrective means. This might be a matter of legal dispute in some jurisdiction somewhere, but if I were married, and my husband came after me with a whip or his fists, I would consider myself "assaulted," even if the law permitted this "correction" of my alleged serious offense against him.
Not for nothing is the phrase: "the past is a foreign country". We are often appalled by the practices considered normal by our ancestors, but taking things out of context and comparing them to our own norms tells us very little about how people of the time perceived things.
Historical methods of discipline permitted from masters, employers and persons of authority is often harsh to our eyes. The punishment of men in the navy for instance would be considered akin to torture nowadays.
Taken in context we see the strong legislation to regulate the punishment of women to be a measure of how less tolerant society was of violence against women, rather than otherwise. In another example, the mines and factory reform movements of the early 19th century shocked society by highlighting the harsh and degrading working conditions men and women laboured under. In response the authorities banned women from working in such degrading conditions, though tellingly men continued in their labour, with only limited reform. It was far more acceptable for men to suffer than for women.
There's no denying that our past society certainly had a massive gender power imbalance, but in term of violence against women, compared with men, there was comparatively zero tolerance.
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“We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
See my blog for 'interesting' thoughts
Posts: 1739 | From: Oxford, UK | Registered: Nov 2008
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HCH:
Don't assume that all old cultures are alike.
I haven't.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:
Not for nothing is the phrase: "the past is a foreign country". We are often appalled by the practices considered normal by our ancestors, but taking things out of context and comparing them to our own norms tells us very little about how people of the time perceived things.
Rubbish! Were you speaking of one custom, perhaps. But what we see is a pattern. A massive pattern as to the inequity of valuation between women and men.
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Only very recently have I seen "or one of your female friends!" on that list. To me, that addition makes a huge amount of difference.
Perhaps this can be changed to "What if it were someone you know and care about?"
This gets 'round all the messy subordinate rubbish.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by JoannaP:
My understanding (and I am not sure where I got it from) is that, while rape has been a crime in English law for centuries, for most of that time it was seen as a crime against property rather than the person.
That's not true. Really, its not. There was at least one 17th-century case where a husband was executed for encouraging another man to rape his wife - the crime was against the woman, not her husband.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hawk:Perhaps this can be changed to "What if it were someone you know and care about?"
This gets 'round all the messy subordinate rubbish.
I would go much further. What if it was anyone? I see women I do not know walking on the streets, and I find myself considering that they are vulnerable and I think we are called to consider the vulnerabilities of all. It does not matter if I give my coat to someone who is cold and I know them, or to a stranger. All must be protected and helped.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
That was me, not Hawk. And this is why I used the word someone. Gets 'round gender and all that.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
I think the optimum response is "what if it was you?" but our culture has loaded up the act of rape with such consequences of humiliation and blame that people's minds will just reject that by reflex.Even women.
May or may not be related to the above, but something came up in class that made me think of the various discussions we have been having about rape on the Ship: In 1980's Guatemala, there was a governmental oppresion against the Mayan natives that became intense enough to call Genocide. Soldiers under the direct command of General Rios Montt testified that, in the razing of one village of about 200 people, every man, woman and child was killed, and thrown into a well. (The remains were later discovered and autopsied.) When the general entered the village, the villagers were immediately separated into a men's camp and a woman's camp.The women and girls were raped and thrown in the well. The boys were outright killed and thrown in the well. Two pubescent girls were kept theoretically to justify claims of a guerrilla rousting, but were basically used for sex and strangled after two days.
This MO was repeated in 626 Mayan villages across Guatemala.
If you have the stomach for it, I am going to ask you to do a little lectio on that last collection of sentences, and consider the implication of where rape--which we all have agreed is a act against an individual-- falls into play. If the point was eradicating the village, they did not need to rape the women and girls to do that. If the point was humiliating individuals, why didn't they rape the men?
Rape of a community's women has been a war tactic for millennia, and the way our various cultures have evolved, it seems(to me) to be less about inflicting punishment on any specific people, or even about taking a soldier's prerogative (although that might be part of it, or at least how it may presented to those soldiers who are squeamish about it), but more about terrorism-- it is a way to keep the people in the community in check (or the communities surrounding, in the case of Dos Erres.) The whole "property" thing we have been talking about comes into play-- the trauma shifts from the women being tortured to the men shamed and humiliated by inability to protect their wards.
More about that here. Warning:hugely disturbing.
So, as a woman, it is chilling to see evidence that, if the army of town of Millbrae invaded the town of Daly City and they decided they were politically outraged enough to rape every woman in town, the leaders of both towns would be arguing over the women's heads about the outrageous travesty that happened to them.
If the horrific aspect of what happened to the women was what was most important, victims of war rape should be receiving veteran's pensions. And honors.
[ 16. September 2013, 19:41: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
This last post of Kelly’s demands response. I have none. I can’t even imagine one. No doubt its recent rapid descent to the bottom of this page reflects others’ feelings as well.
I’m a rape survivor, now years past the event, and I feel I’ve made as effective and complete a recovery as anyone could expect to make, given my own particular circumstances and constitution. Yet Kelly’s link leads straight over a cliff for me. I suspected it would; I avoided reading it at first. When I finally did read it, the information it contains laid me out flat (emotionally, not literally) for a couple of days.
No one posting on Comet’s Hell thread (Park this) has referenced this “rape culture” thread (as of my last reading, anyway), and predictably, much of that Hell discussion has shot off in various trivial and/or crazy (special pens for women?! Seriously?!) and/or irrelevant directions along with more serious ones.
Yet I hear the genuine rage expressed on Comet’s thread as a direct response to this one, perhaps even to Kelly’s link.
That said, I want to say a few things about this rape culture thread before it disappears from Purg’s front page on its inevitable but undeserved journey to oblivion.
On re-reading it, here’s what I find:
1. Some posters seem to claim that “rape culture” is somehow not a real phenomenon, but
instead a deep misunderstanding of what we’re looking at, viz.:
a. It’s unfair, wrong, or false to evaluate ancient behavior, laws, or customs by the standards we use in our own culture(s).
b. Rape has always been seen as a terrible crime and consequently happened rarely and was (and is) dealt with harshly; nothing new here, move along.
I’d like to be wrong about this, but both types of response look like profound denial to me, especially after reading Kelly’s link. The essential denial seems to be “It’s not as bad as people make it out to be,” or, alternatively, “It’s a problem, but it’s under control; nothing needs to change.”
2. Some posters seem to claim rape is not taken seriously enough, even now, within our “civilized” culture(s) and we need to take action, though arguments about what actions to
take and for or against whom seem effectively to halt any possibility of action.
This brings us to Kelly’s link, which seems to blow both (1a) and (1b) out of the water, and exposes (2) as, at best, trying to harpoon whales with crochet hooks.
If most of us, today, in what we might call “the civilized world,” can agree that rape – that is, forcing an individual to engage in any sexual act s/he does not consent to – is (A) legally and morally wrong, and (B) a crime against the coerced individual (as opposed to a property crime which lowers or destroys the value of the individual for that individual’s “owner,” as in ancient times -- or modern honor killing), then what? Kelly’s link exposes our denial. It’s a staggering problem. It’s as much a problem right now as it has been for millennia. Some estimates put rape as high as 1 in 3 women world wide (male rape is notoriously under-reported, and stats I’ve found are specific to country or penal systems or the gender of the perpetrator) experiencing sexual assault in their lifetimes. The current world population being roughly 7 billion people, with roughly half of them female, means that we’re talking about more than a billion rape victims among women, and an unknown number of male victims over and above that.
If rape were a disease, the entire planet would be amassing cross-border resources in united efforts to eradicate it. Or no, we wouldn’t. Consider HIV and AIDS.
Both rape and AIDS/HIV are associated with sex. Is that the issue which apparently makes us throw up our hands in helpless denial?
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
This last post of Kelly’s demands response. I have none. I can’t even imagine one. No doubt its recent rapid descent to the bottom of this page reflects others’ feelings as well.
I’m a rape survivor, now years past the event, and I feel I’ve made as effective and complete a recovery as anyone could expect to make, given my own particular circumstances and constitution. Yet Kelly’s link leads straight over a cliff for me. I suspected it would; I avoided reading it at first. When I finally did read it, the information it contains laid me out flat (emotionally, not literally) for a couple of days.
You are stronger than I. I felt as you, that Kelly's post deserved further reply, but could not bear to click that link. Still haven't.
quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
Both rape and AIDS/HIV are associated with sex. Is that the issue which apparently makes us throw up our hands in helpless denial?
In regards to rape; I do not think it is sex, per se, but the nature of the crime. It is horrible and difficult to solve. That rates explode in war and unrest suggest far too many people are capable of committing, or tacitly allowing, rape. This also makes people uncomfortable. Ah, uncomfortable. That, perhaps, is the link with with AIDS/HIV. That which makes us uncomfortable, we ignore.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Sorry for the cherry bomb. I just felt it was hard to prove the case of a rape culture without addressing the issue of how rape dehumanizes the victim, both in the eyes of the perps (who have to dehumanize them to do it) and the victim's community (who employ various forms of denial to cope, many of which further damage the victim.)
Porridge and Lilbuddha, I feel you. When we covered the Dos Erres stuff in my Latin American History class, the teacher asked us to get into small groups and discuss the reading matter, and I stammered, "You want us to TALK?"
So, I came to share another link, hopefully easier to read-- this manifesto by Soraya Chemaly on how sexual shaming is used to bully women:
quote:
The creation of these images is not remotely sexy, it's about production not seduction, objectification not agency. As with hand-wringing concerns about teenage girls, most of the critiques of Cyrus' vulgarity can be distilled into various ideas about women’s bodies, how they are used, by whom they are used, and for what purposes. Otherwise, we'd be talking about men doing everything that she does. I mean, remember what happened when five-time Grammy nominee Miguel simulated sex on stage during a concert earlier this year? Maybe we'll see a symbolic gesture of forgiveness coming Cyrus' way 40 years from now, but I doubt it.
[ 20. September 2013, 21:11: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Please reconcile this with the Levitical law that a rapist was required to marry and thus support his victim?
The section of Exodus which deals with this is actually instructive to read in context:
Exodus 22:16-17
"When a man seduces a virgin who is not engaged to be married, and lies with her, he shall give the bride-price for her and make her his wife. But if her father refuses to give her to him, he shall pay an amount equal to the bride-price for virgins. "
Which is preceded by:
"When someone borrows an animal from another and it is injured or dies, the owner not being present, full restitution shall be made. If the owner was present, there shall be no restitution; if it was hired, only the hiring fee is due."
The preceding verses are all about some sort of property theft. It amuses me to discover the the NIV (obviously incorrectly) makes the section break at verse 15 rather than verse 17.
Incidentally, re the 'rape' vs 'murder' culture. To have a murder culture, you'd have to have a graduated set of behaviours from one group against another that escalated through jokes about violence to threats of violence, through to actual violence and murder all the while blaming the victim. There probably are situations where this is the case - some multi racial slums for instance, or various Hutus/Tutsi's in Rwanda at various points or blacks in the antebellum south.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Incidentally, re the 'rape' vs 'murder' culture. To have a murder culture, you'd have to have a graduated set of behaviours from one group against another that escalated through jokes about violence to threats of violence, through to actual violence and murder all the while blaming the victim. There probably are situations where this is the case - some multi racial slums for instance, or various Hutus/Tutsi's in Rwanda at various points or blacks in the antebellum south.
Excellent.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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