Vilification of Men

[M. Lafontaine]

From: ro...@world.std.com (Derek M Rose)
Subject: Vilification of Men (Lt. Col Seton)
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 1995 00:41:34 GMT

Rape and Violence are Abberant

Several women have objected with my and others' descriptions of rapists
as "abnormal" and rape as "abberant" -- supposedly
because you can't tell who is a rapist by looking at him. One wonders if
they'd describe serial killers as normal, because we
wouldn't be able to pick Ted Bundy out of a crowd.

But what's the truth? Some men are violent, vicious creatures, there's no
denying that. But as we all hear on the news what a beast O.J. Simpson was
to his wife, how much to we hear of the heroic acts of Ron Goldman?

The only plausible explanation I've heard for how two people were killed
by one knife-wielding man so close together is that Goldman was on his
way to Nicole's condo to return her glasses when he caught Simpson
attacking her. So the unarmed Goldman must have gone to her aid against
a man with a twelve-inch knife, putting up a heroic struggle that left
his hands black-and-blue, and dozens of knife wounds to his hands and
forearms. A struggle which, in the end, he paid for with his life.

Yet it is only the man-as-criminal, the man-as-violator that we hear
about,seldom the man-as-protector, man as savior.

Quotes from Warren Farrell

As Warren Farrell writes in The Myth of Male Power, when a woman is attacked,
the media will report it as "two men attacked a woman." Yet "when men save a
woman, we emphasize their function (fire fighters, doctors). When men hurt
women, we think primarily of their sex (men) not some men's behavior
(violence).
Which creastes in our subconscious an anger toward men that, in turn,
allows us to feel more comfortable with their disposability."

He contines, "We call women who are nurses 'helping professionals'; we call
men who are police officers 'cops' (or 'pigs'), not 'saving professionals.'
Thus we associate men's physical strength with how men use it to hurt women,
but not how they use it to save women -- not only as police officers and
fire fighters but as women's personal bodyguards, ready to die before a
woman they love [or even a stranger] is raped, robbed, or murdered."

But why, then, aren't there more men out there like Ron Fitch- Thorton and
the like, trying to redefine masculinity? Actually, there does seem to be a
number of groups like the Boston-based "Real Men" springing up. But most
men, including myself,reject the notion that masculinity itself is a cause
of violence; indeed, it is boys who lack the discipline and guidance of a
father who are among the most likely to grow up to be criminals.

In any case, the facts are that day after day, many men put their
wellbeing, their health, and sometimes their very lives on the
line to protect women from all manner of threats. Consider the origin of
the tradition of sending women and children first into
the lifeboats of a sinking ship -- does anyone know how the custom began?

Col Seton

According to the Boston Globe (Ask the Globe, Jan. 19), it may well have been
through the actions of soliders aboard the English vessel Birkenhead in an
1852 tragedy. The ship hit rocks near Cape Agulhas, Africa, and only three
of the vessel's eight lifeboats proved seaworthy. These had already been
boarded by the twenty women and children on board when the ship's
captain, Robert Salmond, ordered the soldiers to jump overboard and swim
to the boats. But their commander, Lt. Col. Alexander Seton, realized that
the boats would be swamped, and drew his sword to hold back the soldiers.

But his threat was unnecessary.

The soliders stood steady, even as the ship broke in two. Of the 476
soldiers on board, 454 made the ultimate sacrifice, including both
Salmond and Seton.

Firefighters

And how many times, I wonder, have we all passed by a fire station or a
fire alarm and taken for granted that if we need them, they will come?
Did you know that in the United States alone, there are almost one
million municipal firefighters who volunteer to risk their lives to
save strangers? And that ninety-nine percent of them are men?
(Farrell, p. 36).

Consider this recent piece by Boston Globe columist Patricia Smith
("Special burden of a firefighter", Feb. 3), who recalls the
visit of a fireman to her elementary school. At the time she wasn't
impressed, comparing the unglamourous job with that of the
police officer ("Officer Friendly") who had recently visited. She writes:

So there was poor Peter something-or-other, intimidated by a class of
fidgety clockwatchers who'd already decided that he was yesterday's news.
We laughed about him for weeks afterwards -- his darting eyes, halting
voice, shiny head, flopping boots. What a loser.

Thirty years later, I stare at a photograph of Keri Melendy,
a young woman who is carrying her dead father's hat, a fireman's hat,
and weeping. And I remember other photos: a burly fireman on his knees,
breathing into a child whose skin is charred and brittle. Firemen
silhouetted against orange, angry flames, lowering their heads to rush
back into the monster's mouth. A screaming fireman holding a woman who had
just died in his arms. I remember his head thrown back as he wailed at
an unjust God to bring her breath back. To take his instead.

Even as ol' Officer Friendly offered up soft warnings about traffic and
truancy, he knew that we knew he had thepower to take life away by firing
a fatal shot. Jittery Peter something-or-other, bless him, was weighted
with a peculiar burden. As a fireman, he was able to give life back,
over and over again, even if it meant surrendering his own. And now
I realize that he would have done just that, for any one of us.

Recognition for Honorable Men

We of course need to be doing something about the men who rape, the men
who batter, the men who kill (and yes, the women who do so too).
We should continue discussing whether to kill them, whether chemical
castration is an effective punishment,and what we can do to prevent more
people from joining their ranks.

But what we shouldn't do, and what we can't allow certain women on this
forum to continue doing, is painting all men as brutes and potential
rapists while ignoring and denigrating the sacrifices many more men
make everyday; and of portraying men who do these terrible things
as anything less than the abberant monsters that they truly are.

Out of fairness to Bob Zinn's friend, out of justice to Lt. Col. Seton,
out of decency to Ron Goldman and Keri Melendy's father, I say:
let us stand up for our brothers, and let us put an end to this
vilification.