Ann, I
agree with you that sometimes people are killed for the sole reason that they are a certain kind of people. There's incontrovertible evidence that sometimes Jews are targeted, sometimes Christians, sometimes black people, sometimes Muslims, sometimes prostitutes, sometimes civil rights workers, sometimes boys, sometimes gay men - or gay boys. And, yes, sometimes women. And we
must recognise that - you're right there too. If we turned a blind eye to the fact that particular groups get targeted, we'd be turning a blind eye to hate and prejudice and failing to put in place protections against hate crimes.
I don't think anyone here would disagree with you about that simple fact. I think the reason that you get a certain reaction to some of your posts is that you
appear to - whether you mean to or not - give the impression that you think girls or women being killed is a
worse crime than anyone else being killed.
Yes, there are parts of the world where the treatment of women is awful and inhumane. There are, and have been, parts of the world where treatments of other less-powerful groups is equally awful and inhumane. I think what most of us are saying is that discrimination against
any group - whether that discrimination results in oppression, slavery or even murder - is equally bad. The targeted slaughter of women is no worse than the targeted slaughter of blacks or gays or Jews.
(And, as an aside, I remember having an ultimately fruitless email debate with an American academic, when I was still working in a British university, who staunchly argued that discrimination on grounds of race is morally worse than discrimination on grounds of gender. *headdesk*).
Recently, I've been made aware of one consequence of the focus of attention and resources on one group of - I hate to use the term 'victims', as it implies a helpless state, but let's use it just for this example - victims of sexual assault. The majority of resources for treatment, consciousness-raising, shelter and so on goes to women victims/survivors, and as a result little or nothing is available for male sexual abuse victims/survivors. One of the consequences of this concentration of resources has been that society as a whole, or the sexual abuse 'helping community' in particular, has almost been able to deny that there is even a problem affecting men. Male victims/survivors can find almost no-one to listen to them. They call helplines, only to find the phone slammed down the instant the person on the other end realises they're talking to a man. Women campaigners against sexual violence call all men abusers and refuse to acknowledge that men can also be abused. Sexual assault units are geared to deal with women, and men who are themselves victims can feel unwanted and that they're viewed with hostility and mistrust by the very people who should be trying to help them... because the overall focus is that those who fall victim to sexual abuse are women.
This is an exaggerated comparison, of course (though it's true and I've been told this by a male abuse survivor and activist), but I mention it only to make the point that if we focus on one group of victims we run the risk of diminishing the experience, or even existence, of other groups of victims. Of
course it matters when women appear to be singled out to be murdered. The point is that it matters
equally when some other group is singled out. No one of Neimoller's targeted groups in his
famous quote matters less than any other, just as in my favourite Donne meditation he says
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
I wish women as a group were never the targets of killers. I wish the same about gays, blacks, men, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Rastafarians and any distinctive group you could name - because any targeting of any specific group is appalling and hateful and deserves our attention.
Wendy
