I have been thinking about her this week.
It was the first headline I read Monday morning, over the day's first cup of coffee. A local man shot and killed his ex-wife. She was found in her apartment, in a suburb south of Madison, with two fatal gunshots to her head.
They were married 23 years. They had two teenage children. Their divorce was newly final.
She did everything she was supposed to do. In the face of physical assaults and death threats, she managed to keep her job. She managed to save money and move out and settle herself in a new apartment. She managed to get a restraining order. She managed to file for divorce.
This is all hard, brave work, when the force you are managing against is a man who wants to kill you.
She did everything she was supposed to do.
On Saturday, May 16, he showed up at her door carrying a gun. This is the moment that catches me, the moment that happened next. Did he push his way in? Did she try to talk him down from his rage, thinking it was like all the other times and he would stop right before he crossed that line? When did she realize that he wouldn't? When did she think, "I will not see my daughters again"? Was it fear or terror she felt at the end, in the final seconds before he pulled the trigger? Or was it something closer to a desperate relief, that finally it was over, and he wouldn't be able to hurt her anymore?
This story is more than the headlines, more than the manhunt, more than the ex-husband's body found two later in a nearby park, death by self-inflicted gunshot. The story is more than the newspaper accounts of their turbulent, violence-ridden marriage. It's more than the measly $500 bail the ex-husband received after he tried to strangle his wife and attacked his daughter with a fireplace poker the day after Christmas.
The heart of the story is the moment that matters -- the moment Francie Weber realized she was going to die, at the hands of someone who claimed to love her and then exerted every effort to inflict harm. The look in her eyes. The thoughts in her head. The panic. This is the moment her terror becomes real.
I read the newspaper account to Joe that night. "That makes me so mad," he said. He stood up from the couch where he had been sitting. He paced the room. "How could any human being do that to someone else?" he asked. "Doesn't it make you angry?"
I paused and sighed and looked away.
Because anger isn't the word for it. To be perfectly honest, I told him, it makes me feel a little defeated. It's a reminder that sometimes it will never be enough. Restraining orders and divorces and new apartments and fresh starts sometimes don't help if an abuser is hell-bent on killing you. Prison helps. But most domestic violence cases are never reported to the police. And often, prison only happens once something horrible has occurred, something like murder.
What does make me angry is that despite this crime, and despite the fact that the most recent murder in that same suburb was yet another domestic violence homicide, and despite the fact that the news these days from all parts of the country (like here and here and here ) seems to be fraught with headlines of husbands killing their families, we as a society still don't seem to think of domestic violence as a real problem.
Yes, we pay it lip service. But we still appease ourselves with the false reassurance that domestic violence doesn't happen to "people like us."
What makes me angry is that more people don't consider this a public health emergency. How can we fight for economic justice -- of any kind, for anyone -- or lobby for health care reform, or demand an end to torture, yet ignore the fact that one out of every three women in this country is terrified of the person in their own home?
These issues are related. Economic justice for women fleeing abusers is critical -- not having financial resources of her own can be one of the main obstacles preventing victims from leaving their abusers. Health care is critical -- consider how many costly emergency room visits are the result of intimate partner violence.
And if the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib captures our attention and inspires nationwide calls for investigations and policy reversal, then the torture of women and children (and to call systematic physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse "torture" is not an exaggeration) in every community in our country should rally a similar and related cacophony of outrage.
And yet it doesn't.
It isn't seen as political. It isn't seen as important. It isn't something that happens "to people like me."
Until it does. And now another woman is dead, and two kids are parentless, and the community is left to ask, once again, "why would someone do such a thing", and then we forget until it happens again.
Because it will keep happening until we demand that it stops.
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label culture. Show all posts
5/21/09
6/28/08
Food
All the signs point in the same direction. "Dark times," my brother called it. "The end of civilization as we know it," JK said.
The rising gas prices, the salmonella-flavored tomatoes, the roller coaster of a stock market, the global rice shortage, the global banana shortage, the torrential floods, the crazy-eyed look of desperation on the faces of people who'd rather numb themselves on Survivor re-runs so they can pretend they don't hear that whistling sound as the wind rustles the fraying edges of the tattered fabric that has become our country.
And now this.
I spent an hour at the grocery store this afternoon. Let's leave aside the fact that today was maybe the third or fourth day since last September that one could actually call "hot," what with the strange weather we've been having here, with record amounts of snow, rain and cold. And let's leave aside the fact that the vast majority of my fellow shoppers dejectedly shuffled behind carts filled more than usual with foodstuffs like canned meat and cellophane-wrapped hydrogenated sugar (i.e. cheap stuff that isn't rice or bananas or tomatoes).
Let me dwell on this. Today was the third grocery trip in a row when I couldn't find a basic staple on my list because the store was out of stock. I mean truly basic things, like fruits and vegetables. The time has come when Americans (gasp, shock) can go to our grocery stores and actually not find waiting neatly packaged on clearly labeled, evenly spaced shelves all the food a person could want, because, well, it seems we're on the cusp of joining the majority of the world which happens to be dealing with a food shortage, and has been in fits and starts for quite a long time (i.e. always).
I'm not complaining, necessarily (although I really really wanted that squash today). The U.S. food system sucks, for us as eaters and workers, for people in other countries, for small- and mid-scale farmers, and for the planet. So we go to the store for peaches and the store is out of peaches because the trucks couldn't come in last night because fuel is too expensive and the truckers are on strike, and by the way, so are the farmers in some other country whose name you can't pronounce correctly, so how about an apple instead? Oh wait. We're out of those, too.
So we come face to face with our privilege, which is fine by me. Even if it means I suddenly need to start learning 101 ways to cook chard and nettles, because we have a lot of those growing around here and a girl can probably stay pretty full as long as she uses enough olive oil.
We were at a dinner party the other day. Another guest, it turned out, routinely dines at restaurants that serve caviar. She didn't understand all the silly protest over foie gras. She lives near one of the Great Lakes yet didn't quite get the "big fuss" about water conservation. She appeared to believe that if a resource of any kind was in her sight, it was hers for the using. Which means she was American.
Which is, I realize, what really made me a little angry at the grocery store today. It wasn't the fact that they suddenly didn't have squash. It was that, instead of rushing to the streets or at least to the farmers' market, almost everyone I saw was elbowing each other out of the way to cram as much cheap, high-calorie "food" into their carts as they could. These weren't caviar people. But they had options beyond, "if it's in front of me, I'm taking it, consequences (to myself, to my children, to the economy, to the planet, to people who are even poorer than me) be damned."
The rising gas prices, the salmonella-flavored tomatoes, the roller coaster of a stock market, the global rice shortage, the global banana shortage, the torrential floods, the crazy-eyed look of desperation on the faces of people who'd rather numb themselves on Survivor re-runs so they can pretend they don't hear that whistling sound as the wind rustles the fraying edges of the tattered fabric that has become our country.
And now this.
I spent an hour at the grocery store this afternoon. Let's leave aside the fact that today was maybe the third or fourth day since last September that one could actually call "hot," what with the strange weather we've been having here, with record amounts of snow, rain and cold. And let's leave aside the fact that the vast majority of my fellow shoppers dejectedly shuffled behind carts filled more than usual with foodstuffs like canned meat and cellophane-wrapped hydrogenated sugar (i.e. cheap stuff that isn't rice or bananas or tomatoes).
Let me dwell on this. Today was the third grocery trip in a row when I couldn't find a basic staple on my list because the store was out of stock. I mean truly basic things, like fruits and vegetables. The time has come when Americans (gasp, shock) can go to our grocery stores and actually not find waiting neatly packaged on clearly labeled, evenly spaced shelves all the food a person could want, because, well, it seems we're on the cusp of joining the majority of the world which happens to be dealing with a food shortage, and has been in fits and starts for quite a long time (i.e. always).
I'm not complaining, necessarily (although I really really wanted that squash today). The U.S. food system sucks, for us as eaters and workers, for people in other countries, for small- and mid-scale farmers, and for the planet. So we go to the store for peaches and the store is out of peaches because the trucks couldn't come in last night because fuel is too expensive and the truckers are on strike, and by the way, so are the farmers in some other country whose name you can't pronounce correctly, so how about an apple instead? Oh wait. We're out of those, too.
So we come face to face with our privilege, which is fine by me. Even if it means I suddenly need to start learning 101 ways to cook chard and nettles, because we have a lot of those growing around here and a girl can probably stay pretty full as long as she uses enough olive oil.
We were at a dinner party the other day. Another guest, it turned out, routinely dines at restaurants that serve caviar. She didn't understand all the silly protest over foie gras. She lives near one of the Great Lakes yet didn't quite get the "big fuss" about water conservation. She appeared to believe that if a resource of any kind was in her sight, it was hers for the using. Which means she was American.
Which is, I realize, what really made me a little angry at the grocery store today. It wasn't the fact that they suddenly didn't have squash. It was that, instead of rushing to the streets or at least to the farmers' market, almost everyone I saw was elbowing each other out of the way to cram as much cheap, high-calorie "food" into their carts as they could. These weren't caviar people. But they had options beyond, "if it's in front of me, I'm taking it, consequences (to myself, to my children, to the economy, to the planet, to people who are even poorer than me) be damned."
12/12/07
The Office
JK and I indulged in an evening-long marathon of the British version of The Office last night. After the third episode, I started feeling a little funny. I began almost dreading the next one.
The show is well-written and smartly acted. The humor -- much of which involves male characters making off-color remarks and gestures directed at female co-workers -- makes us cringe and squirm so much that we almost have to laugh. I laughed. But after a while, I realized I was doing more cringing than laughing.
The writers' portrayal of workplace sexual harassment supposedly illuminates the absurdity of this behavior. That's why we think it's funny. The show doesn't require us to accept the idea that sexual harassment is acceptable in order to laugh at it -- quite the opposite, really. We're not exactly encouraged to identify with the guys tossing around the off-color jokes and ogling their female co-workers.
But we also laugh because workplace harassment (of women) is familiar. It's expected. The show draws its humor, in part, on our collective understanding that this kind of environment is a regular -- although theoretically unacceptable -- occurrence in the lives of many women.
I usually think smart, ironic humor is a good way to shed light on -- and even educate about -- social issues (Margaret Cho and Chris Rock are sometimes good examples of this; Sarah Silverman, in my opinion, is not). But every now and then, I wonder whether the "smart, ironic" part is just a cover that allows people who are usually male to get away with stupid, sexist jokes that otherwise might be considered tasteless.
I don't blame all individual men for the existence of sexism. But I do think that adults with Y chromosomes tend to be a little more comfortable laughing outright at an expression of sexism without any pause to consider its real-life origins or implications.
After six episodes of The Office last night, I suggested we call it quits. "Are you getting bored?" JK asked.
"No," I said, "honestly, I'm just kind of tired of the harassment humor. It's getting a little old."
He had no idea what I was talking about. Sure, he noticed the jokes, but he was able to watch them purely through the lens of humor. He didn't cringe every time a new character who shared his gender walked onto the screen, knowing full well they were about to experience a barrage of behavior meant to humiliate them.
Sexism -- and sexual harassment in workplaces and schools -- is still a real problem. And I think humor can play a part in addressing it. But at the end of the day, there are countless other things I'd rather be laughing at.
The show is well-written and smartly acted. The humor -- much of which involves male characters making off-color remarks and gestures directed at female co-workers -- makes us cringe and squirm so much that we almost have to laugh. I laughed. But after a while, I realized I was doing more cringing than laughing.
The writers' portrayal of workplace sexual harassment supposedly illuminates the absurdity of this behavior. That's why we think it's funny. The show doesn't require us to accept the idea that sexual harassment is acceptable in order to laugh at it -- quite the opposite, really. We're not exactly encouraged to identify with the guys tossing around the off-color jokes and ogling their female co-workers.
But we also laugh because workplace harassment (of women) is familiar. It's expected. The show draws its humor, in part, on our collective understanding that this kind of environment is a regular -- although theoretically unacceptable -- occurrence in the lives of many women.
I usually think smart, ironic humor is a good way to shed light on -- and even educate about -- social issues (Margaret Cho and Chris Rock are sometimes good examples of this; Sarah Silverman, in my opinion, is not). But every now and then, I wonder whether the "smart, ironic" part is just a cover that allows people who are usually male to get away with stupid, sexist jokes that otherwise might be considered tasteless.
I don't blame all individual men for the existence of sexism. But I do think that adults with Y chromosomes tend to be a little more comfortable laughing outright at an expression of sexism without any pause to consider its real-life origins or implications.
After six episodes of The Office last night, I suggested we call it quits. "Are you getting bored?" JK asked.
"No," I said, "honestly, I'm just kind of tired of the harassment humor. It's getting a little old."
He had no idea what I was talking about. Sure, he noticed the jokes, but he was able to watch them purely through the lens of humor. He didn't cringe every time a new character who shared his gender walked onto the screen, knowing full well they were about to experience a barrage of behavior meant to humiliate them.
Sexism -- and sexual harassment in workplaces and schools -- is still a real problem. And I think humor can play a part in addressing it. But at the end of the day, there are countless other things I'd rather be laughing at.
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