The Moment of Silence is Over

As I sit here on the last Friday before most of my major final assignments are due, I think of all the ways in which female oppression around the world is the same but different, instead.

A woman in Beijing, China confronts the brutal abuse she faced at the hands of her husband. 

Beijing. I was just there. I left with this euphoric feeling of how beautiful the city was, how it was different than the US.  But, it’s so much the same.  Women – silenced because abuse is something to be ashamed of. Something you aren't supposed to talk about publicly.

Women in Haiti are still being raped.  Still being silenced, because girls are so promiscuous… No help from the cops because girls always want it anyway. Men raping women, raping children, raping babies….and it’s the victim’s fault? It’s the victim’s fault that she was held down and violated?

Source: FreckledChimp

Silenced.

I live in a culture of women that think they’re free because they get to walk out of their front doors without having to cover their hair or hide their faces.  They can show off their legs and get into cars with men that aren’t family members.  But, when (God forbid) they are raped – the question lingers: well, what were you wearing? The judgment rises: maybe if you hadn’t worn that tiny skirt…Why did you get into the car with him? Why did you go out with him?

Yes, because men can run the country and tell me what to do with my womb, my reproductive organs, MY BODY, but they can’t control themselves around a woman in a skirt.

Forgive me my Muslim friends if I get this wrong, but isn’t part of the oppressive culture surrounding hijabs and burqas directly related to the sexuality of women? And how women must cover themselves to avoid raising the lusts of men? Please, correct me if I’m wrong.*

Wholly different circumstances, but still so much the same.  America likes to place itself on a pedestal, pointing a naked finger at all of those other countries that are so backwards and must be saved from themselves. “My, look at how women are treated in Iraq/Iran/[insert othered Middle Eastern country of choice here] we must liberate them so they, too, can be free like our women!”

You throw too many stones America.

It seems that women, by their very existence, are responsible for their rape, their abuse and their status as object, as less than in any country.  And when we speak up against it – we’re feminazis, we’re seeing things, we’re not working hard enough, or we work so hard we’re bitches and ballbusters.  When I confront blatant sexism and misogyny I “can’t take a joke." We're liars because "stuff like that" doesn't happen "here." Or, we just don't understand because that's part of "culture." 

Whatever.

STOP letting them silence you.

*Note 8/28/2013: I meant in no way to disrespect women who choose to wear hijabs, etc. My comment was focused on the idea that how women are clothed, in form, is in anyway related to how they are or should be treated. I am still learning. Forgive me if I overstep or mis-speak while doing so. 

Marissa Alexander

Wow. 3 posts in one week! I know I should be focusing on final assignments/exams for the semester, but life just keeps distracting me.

I was minding my on business this morning, taking down my hair and attempting to style the lioness’s mane while listening to the radio.  The TJMS to be exact.  This particular segment concerned the plight of a young, black mother in Florida who is facing 20 years in prison for “defending” herself against her verbally and physically abusive husband against whom she'd filed an injunction.  And I use the word “defending” loosely because what she actually did was warn him.  She didn’t even touch him – but we’ll get to that later.

From what I can tell, he entered her home and began to attack her while she was using the, how shall we say, facilities.  She managed to escape to the garage to her car, at which point she realized she couldn’t get the garage door open due to mechanical failure, she didn’t have her car keys and she didn’t have a cell phone to call the cops. She had no other means of egress.

What she did have, concealed in the garage apparently, was a gun – for which she had both a permit and training. According to her personal testimony, found here, her husband and his two sons were supposed to be exiting the house through the front door. She goes back into her home through the kitchen only to find that her husband is still there.  Her husband yells “Bitch, I’m going to kill you,” and charges.

Now, if someone’s just physically assaulted me in my home, and  screamed that they were going to kill me while they’re charging at me in my home – I’m going to fire the weapon I’ve been trained to fire.  I’m going to protect myself.

And that’s exactly what Marissa did. She fired her weapon into the ceiling in warning. Her husband (now ex) fled the domicile. She was denied the right to have her case dismissed under the now notorious “Stand Your Ground” law because, according to Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt she could’ve have escaped through a window, the sliding glass door, or some other exit.  Mind you, this woman had just given birth 9 DAYS ago. Do you really think it’s fair to ask her to slip out through a window?

More to the point, this man was in her house. He was the intruder, and he admitted to being the aggressor. There was an injunction against him and he violated it, thus committing a crime. There is documentation of his physical abuse toward her. But Marissa had to flee? She had a duty to retreat?

Under the “Stand Your Ground” law people who feel threatened have no duty to retreat.  Under this law, they have the right to defend themselves. I’ve included the important bits of Stand Your Ground as they apply to this particular case:

“A person is presumed to have held a reasonable fear of imminent peril of death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another when using defensive force that is intended or likely to cause death or great bodily harm to another if:

(a) The person against whom the defensive force was used...had unlawfully and forcibly entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle...and

(b) The person who uses defensive force knew or had reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act was occurring or had occurred”

“A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

Marissa is now charged with 3 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with no intent to harm, and child abuse because she fired a weapon with her child in the house because, according to Judge Elizabeth Senterfitt, she had an opportunity and the means to escape.

Once again, the victim is blamed. Once again, the victim is made out to be a criminal and once again - women's rights, especially in the face of violence directed at them, are abrogated. 

If you do nothing else today, please follow this link to the blog her family has put together for her and follow this link to sign the petition in her honor.  This woman does not deserve 20 years in jail for protecting herself, especially when Florida has granted her the right to Stand Her Ground.