At the risk of belaboring my point...
The Justice Department tweets:
@TheJusticeDept The Justice Dept
"Teach boys early that there is no place for violence in a relationship. Learn more: ow.ly/79DLU
30 Oct Favorite Undo Retweet Reply
Then there's tv commercials like this one:
http://youtu.be/6bY4uoDV_pUWhich, similar to the Justice Department publication, says we need to “Redefine what it means to be a man.”
Redefine, as in change our understanding, of manhood. Basically, that manhood, as we understand it now, needs to be changed because an inherent part of being a man is being a possible rapist. It deduces that the probability of a man becoming a rapist (or batterer or pedophile for that matter) is so likely that we don’t just need to do what we already do, which is take a very dim view of rape and punish those who commit it harshly, but that we actually need to change manhood itself, because in some way manhood is the problem.
The commercial opens with:
"He’s tough. He’s strong. He’s aggressive. He’s powerful."
These are the hallmarks of masculine nature and reasonably assumed to be the characteristics of manhood that need to be changed so the baby boy in the commercial doesn’t grow up to become a rapist. Those characteristics are generally considered to be masculine traits in human males. Whether by genetics or socialization or a combination of both, these are the qualities that we value, expect, and respect in men. Why? Well, for one the human race would have been a dead end evolutionary experiment if men were not that way. Survival has its demands. I would expect that was particularly true 3,000,000 years ago on the African Savannah. But more relevant to modern times is that this is still what we expect of men in order to protect and provide for families as well as their societies.
One of the many problems here is that none of these characteristics are demonstrably causal of rape any more than they are of armed robbery or becoming a police officer or a marine. Sure, rapists and marines may share many of the same traits, but they contend that the same exact traits that lead men to rape women also lead men to lay down their lives to protect them.
Following this line of logic, if it is characteristic of men to be tough, strong, aggressive and powerful, and that results not in protective guardians and providers for our society but the tragedy of rapists victimizing innocents, then the solution being pointed to in this commercial, is obvious.
We need to engineer men who are fragile, weak, meek and powerless. And we have to start that in the cradle, hammering it in with a toxic dose of innate shame and self-loathing for having been born male.
What would you think if the baby in that commercial had been black? In fact, please come up with one social ill for which you think it is fair and legitimate to target any other monolithic group because of the actions of a few. What group of human beings are you willing to put out there and say, “We need to change the meaning of what it means to be a….” Fill in the blank as you see fit:
Woman?
Asian?
Jew?
Homosexual?
African American?
Hispanic?
It is misandry in action, and it is a form of hate just as surely as any other. Good intentions or concerns about rape don’t license one to practice hatred.
