In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: January 2011

On mental illness and crime

I’m hoping to write more about this in the coming days, but this article in Slate is a good look at the connection between mental illness and crime — that is, that people with mental illnesses are much more likely to be the victims of crime than the perpetrators, and our culture so thoroughly ties mental illness to criminality that we have created an environment of intellectual laziness when it comes to looking at the actual causes of crime.

Shortly after Jared Lee Loughner had been identified as the alleged shooter of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, online sleuths turned up pages of rambling text and videos he had created. A wave of amateur diagnoses soon followed, most of which concluded that Loughner was not so much a political extremist as a man suffering from “paranoid schizophrenia.”

For many, the investigation will stop there. No need to explore personal motives, out-of-control grievances or distorted political anger. The mere mention of mental illness is explanation enough. This presumed link between psychiatric disorders and violence has become so entrenched in the public consciousness that the entire weight of the medical evidence is unable to shift it. Severe mental illness, on its own, is not an explanation for violence, but don’t expect to hear that from the media in the coming weeks.

Certainly, some people with mental illnesses do commit crimes — but that shouldn’t really surprise us, since people with mental illnesses are people, and some people commit crimes. I’m worried, though, that “he’s crazy” will end up being the easy card to pull in the particular case of the Arizona shooting, without recognizing that, mentally ill or not, Jared Loughner participated in the same society as the rest of us, and was undoubtedly influenced by the culture in which he lived — mental illness does not typically put one on an island all their own, totally unswayed and oblivious to everything around. We need to take a good look at the culture and sub-cultures we’ve built in the United States; “he’s crazy” is a cop-out, and it’s irresponsible, and it doesn’t alleviate us of our responsibilities.

Part of taking a good look at our culture is looking at how we treat those we’ve deemed insane or unstable or ill. It’s looking at how we don’t provide resources for all the people who need them, across the wide spectrum of mental and physical illness. It’s looking at how a punitive criminal justice system punishes the mentally ill. It’s looking at how a soundbite-driven media demonizes the mentally ill.

Pima County Sheriff Dupnik was on-point yesterday when he said that Arizona has become “a mecca for prejudice and bigotry.” But while we’re challenging the racist, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, anti-health-care, violent rhetoric that has come out of that state (and so many others), it’s also worth challenging the rhetoric and the assumptions we use when discussing mental illness, and especially the tenuous connection between mental illness and crime.

I’m hesitant to write about this topic on Feministe, since whenever mental illness is brought up we get a slew of ignorant and often hateful comments. So I’m putting this whole post on moderation, and will be deleting comments that demonize the mentally ill, or are bigoted towards people with mental illnesses. Because everything is being moderated, it may take a while for your comments to be approved. Thanks for your patience.

So Naomi Wolf is just trolling at this point, right?

I mean really.

Wolf argues that rape victims should have their names published in the press, because withholding their names “harms women.” Why does it harm women? Because it implies that rape is really really bad. And also it means that rape victims aren’t accountable to… someone. She seems to say that anonymity in the media means that rape victims will never have their motives examined, and that the context of the alleged assault will never come to light. Which is just not true. In fact, that is exactly what we have courts of law for. And that’s why Wolf’s argument falls totally flat — we do have legal mechanisms in place to counteract all of the harms she alleges occur from keeping rape victims anonymous. We do not, however, have very many mechanisms in place to counteract all the harms that routinely occur to rape victims when we publicize their names in the media. We also have a whole lot of people, like Wolf, who are happy to publicly shame rape accusers, and who in doing so discourage other rape victims from coming forward. And we have a disturbingly low reporting rate for sexual assault, and an even lower conviction rate. And, while Wolf says that the clothing a victim was wearing or who she had sex with previously are “irrelevant,” those details and others are very often trotted out to discredit women who accuse men of sexual assault; rape accusers are routinely painted as sluts or gold-diggers or attention-whores or vengeful bitches or crazy people. No other class of alleged crime victims are so often and so systematically disbelieved and shredded in the media.

Which is why we don’t publicize their names in the media.

But Naomi Wolf knows all of this. Most logical and ethical people can reason through all of this. I sincerely believe that Naomi Wolf, at this point, is not interested in the substance of even her own arguments. I believe she’s interested in reviving a gasping career, and she’s realized that this is a pretty damn good way to get people to talk about her again. She’s the Ann Coulter of feminism, and I’m sure the right-wing-welfare checks will start pouring in any day now. I hope she at least gets a nice house in Connecticut out of it.

Kiddie Couture

Image of a young girl in make-up and heels; another young girl in a fur coat and sunglasses driving a car.

French Vogue features its youngest models ever: Kindergartners. They’re fully made up and are striking eyes-cast-down, pouty-lipped poses. And the spread is called “Cadeaux,” which means “gifts.” Um, yuck.

The copy asks, in part, “What makeup at what age? What makeup does one wear at 13? What about at 70? Obviously not like one does at 20.” Styling a spread about choosing the right makeup when you’re 13 or 20 or 70? It makes complete sense to choose models who look like they’re about 9.

In Vogue’s defense, fifth-graders were probably too fat.

Feministe Feedback: Sexual Assault Resources on Campus

A Feministe reader writes in:

I go to school on a teeny tiny (<500 students) college campus where, I have noticed, there are really no resources for victims of sexual assault. there are campus counselors, but they’re pretty well overbooked and kind of hard to get ahold of; all the bathrooms have lists of related hotlines taped to the stall walls, which is unquestionably a good thing, but I’m thinking maybe people would like to have an option around that’s a little more personal. I’m thinking some kind of safe space where people can feel comfortable sharing their stories with peers if they so desire, because there’s really nothing like that here.

there are, however, some things I have to consider. the campus is so incredibly tiny that I don’t know how realistic it would be to organize a face-to-face group. all it would take would be one person sharing someone’s supposedly anonymous secrets with one other person, and suddenly the entire campus knows. but, at the same time, I think the lack of a space for the victims of sexual assault contributes to a campus-wide silence. understandably, we don’t hear stories of rape happening as anything more than gossipy campus whispers–they’re vague, pulp fiction-esque horror stories that get passed around in the bathrooms. but beyond that, there’s only silence when sexual assault is concerned, and as much as I would like to think that this means assaults aren’t happening, statistics make me think otherwise.

so what are some ideas?

Any suggestions?