As usual, violence against women permeates the news as it permeates society.
Think you can just go enjoy a concert event like Woodstock and be safe? Not if you are a woman! So far there are 4 reported rapes from the recent incarnation of Woodstock but area counselors say they spoke to many more women about sexual assaults from being groped and molested to rape. State Police Captain John Wood indicated that investigators are braced for more reports. Video footage of the concert is being examined for leads to the identities of the rapists but investigators are understandibly pessimistic about singling out such men from the scattered group of concert attendees.
One rape took place in a mosh pit 30 yards away from the stage as Limp Bizkit played. Some people expressed the theory that the aggressive bands drew a more aggressive audience than former Woodstock events.
In other news from February, a solution to the rape problem has miraculously been discovered by an Italian judge. For years we've wasted our time with self defense classes, buying weapons, pepper spray, and other methods when the solution was as simple as a trip to the mall.
Tight blue jeans, according to an Italian judge, make it impossible for a man to remove them and rape a woman without her cooperation.
With that statement he overturned a judgement against a 45 year old man who had (allegedly) raped his driving student.
Women in Italy and around the world were outraged by this verdict from the dark ages, and women lawmakers in Italy wore jeans as a protest with signs reading, "Jeans: An Alibi For Rape." U.S. Congresswomen joined those in Italy in wearing jeans to the House chambers.
Closer to home yet another serial killer, Cary Staynor, who preyed upon women was thankfully arrested for the murders in Yosemite. Why do most of these guys choose women as their victims? Are they all symbolically killing their mothers? (As many tv shows and movies have suggested they are.) Or are women just the easiest targets next to children (who are also often victims)? A woman co-worker and I, discussing this issue, agreed that we both secretly felt relieved that Jeffrey Dahmer was killing men instead, although we felt sorry for his young (and gay) victims. It's a sad world when we feel relieved that finally someone is not killing women!
On a less violent note, I have watched for the past year as a panel of citizens wrestled with the decision of what woman to put on the new silver dollar. Initially they thought about African American women, but couldn't seem to decide on a specific woman. Then they considered Native American women, but again shied away from choosing a specific woman. At one point they said she would resemble liberty but have the features of a Native American woman in the spirit of Sacajawea (the Shoshone woman who guided Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean). Now they describe it as having the face of Liberty with features "inspired by Sacajawea."
However, they face opposition from Rep. Michael Castle R. Del who wants to fight for the Statue of Liberty as "the greatest and most recognizable symbol of freedom worldwide."
Does anyone have time to count how many actual, historical men we have on our money? Do you think the suggestion to have a coin with an image "in the spirit of Lincoln" but not really Lincoln would have succeeded? Could we perhaps have more than one unit of money with women's real images on them? How about bumping Jackson (a coworker suggested) in favor of a woman? Let's say Sojourner Truth? And for our silver dollar, a full representation of Sacajawea not obscured by any abstract representation of Liberty.
Does anyone else see a connection between this issue and why most people can't readily name 10 women from American history as they can 10 men? It's certainly not true that women weren't there and doing things worthy of mention!
The department of Treasury is the place to write. I'll find their address and add it to the labyris home page soon.
I guess we're lucky we got the Susan B. Anthony silver dollar--although the size of that coin caused a lot of problems that perhaps were attributed to the image. It was often confused with quarters. By the way, you can pick up Susan Bs quite easily at the post office--their machines give dollar change with the coins.
Did anyone else feel as disgusted as I did by the media feeding frenzy over John F. Kennedy Jr.'s death? What real news was omitted or obscured as every media pundit was given air time to tell us what we were all thinking and feeling and to rehash the Camelot myth?
Let's put this into proportion: any time people that young die needlessly, it is a tragedy. But to indicate in any way it is a greater tragedy just because the family involved is famous is an insult to every other family who lost loved ones that weekend.
The only way to stop this trend is to A.) tune out and B.) let the networks and their advertisors know why. This applies to all media portrayals of such things as school shootings, celebrity deaths, anything about which we hear more analysis and drama than factual news.
Feel free to send me urls about uppity news items. I'm going to make this a regular column along with my husband's "what's wrong with this picture" column.