“Every Bone In Her Face Was Broken” — The Murder of Anne Pressly
Dec 1st, 2008 by admin
Anne Pressly was only 26 years old when she was brutally murdered. She had been an anchorwoman for a television station in Arkansas. If you watch the videos about her life that can be found on Youtube, she comes across as a good and kind person, a lot of fun and funny, willing to be goofy, unpretentious, very real, likeable. She lived alone with her two cute dogs. She was an engaging and charismatic woman; at one point it is reported she went to interview a film producer and ended up with a small part in the film!
Her murderer broke into her home in late October, sexually assaulted her, and brutally beat her. He broke every bone in her face. Her jawbone was separated from her skull. She fought her murderer, even broke her hand trying valiantly and courageously to save her own life. After he battered and bludgeoned her, after he sexually assaulted her, he stole her purse and used one of her credit cards. She fought for life in a hospital and for a little while, it seemed as though there might be hope. But she never regained consciousness and then she died.
A man has been arrested and charged with her murder. DNA evidence has connected him not only with the attack on Anne Pressly, but with the rape of another woman, an Arkansas schoolteacher, last spring.
Anne Pressly seemed to have it all. She was traditionally beautiful, young and energetic, with her whole future ahead of her. She was smart, funny, likeable. She’d attended good schools, had many friends and decent parents who loved her. She was a rising star in her profession and was widely respected by her colleagues and those she encountered in her work. A friend said of her, “If there was anyone who didn’t have an enemy, it was Anne Pressly.”
But, as is true for all of us as women, Anne Pressly did have enemies. She was a woman and her thousands and millions of sworn enemies were and are misogynist men. In the end, everything she had going for her could not protect her from the terrorism and brutalities all of us, as women, know about, face and fear all of our lives.
I’ve wondered this before writing about vicious, horrific murders of other women: Where is our women’s memorial? Where is the monument memorializing the millions and billions of us raped, sexually assaulted, beaten, tortured, murdered because we were women and therefore vulnerable to the predations and violence of misogynist men?
I suspect there is no memorial because it would be too enormous, too immense, too vast a project to create any monument large enough to accommodate such a gigantic list of names. And I suspect there is no memorial because men, (and sadly, some women, too) would object to being reminded of precisely what men do to women in the world because we are women. I suspect men would not want to be reminded of how true it really is that women are a terrorized people and that our terrorizers are, overwhelmingingly, men.
Heart
As I was reading this latest case of femicide my thoughts were almost identical in that I thought irrespective Anne Pressly was a very successful woman in respect of her career. Irrespective of the fact she was very well liked, respected, young, energetic this did not prevent her being raped and murdered by a man. Endlessly, women and girls are told ‘don’t go out alone at night, don’t wear certain clothes, don’t talk to strangers (meaning of course men but we must never say that taboo word), don’t be too presumptuous, don’t upset men’s fragile egos. Oh the list is endless and none of these admonitions will prevent women being raped, beaten and murdered by men.
Why? Because men choose to commit these crimes against women and it is not about individual men it is about men as a group being socialised and believing it is their right to commit any form of sexual, physical and psychological violence against women because women are female NOT male.
Daring to even ‘join up the dots’ and say cases as this one wherein a man deliberately chose to rape, brutally beat Anne Pressly and then finally murder her will still be seen as ‘isolated incidents wherein a deviant male loner enacted his monstrous fantasies on a woman.’ We must not tell the truth about men’s sadistic and at the same time, routine, normal violence against women because to do so will bring down society as we know it.
That is why there are no memorials to the innumerable women and children brutally raped, beaten and of course murdered by men who believe it is their right to decide whether or not a woman or child lives or dies.
Holding men accountable for their actions is seen as ‘man-hating’ another tactic used to deflect attention away from the male perpetrators and their apologists. I’ve no doubt it will be ignored the fact Ms. Pressly fought quite literally to the death against her male attacker and yes she enacted what we are sometimes told to do - fight back - but this man had already broken every bone in her face. Ah but I hear claims ‘this man is a monster, or else he is insane.’ The usual excuses will be used to deny men’s accountability. There certainly is a war being waged on women and whilst very few will acknowledge why - the truth is this war which has been occurring for centuries is due to one central issue - the fact men as a group have declared they alone are human and they alone have human rights to dignity and full human status. Women so men have declared are inferior beings, whose only role in life is to serve men’s needs and also to endure men’s contempt and misogyny. Women are not human and they have few rights - most certainly not the right of dignity and full human status.
So, instead we will continue to hear admonitions and men telling us we must seek male protection because if we don’t the the big bad ‘bogey man’ will come and commit violence against us. Of course they will not tell us that the ‘big bad bogey man’ is all too commonly not a male deranged monster but the respectable man, the male relative, the male work colleague, the male peer in fact any man simply because he is male and has male power and privileges.
These kind of things make me unable to give up the word “feminist” however close I sometimes get. Feminists are the only ones who, in any kind of consistent, organized, clear fashion, care to get to the bottom of this terror. This woman! Who was she hurting?!–no one! Going about her life trying to be a productive and kind person! But so many men would take her life away for any number of reasons. I hate the indoctrination of hatred of women and it *does* exist at every level, profoundly and in spades. Because of socially acceptable and deseminated and thriving misogyny this beautiful young woman has been murdered. By a male misogynist terrorist. Feminists are the only ones who get to the bottom of this.
Extremely frightening to read about. And what a great comment by Jennifer Drew. I keep thinking, what do we do? Most of the men in society would, I believe, go along with actions taken to prevent such horrible acts. But what can we do? I don’t have any solutions, but let me ramble a bit. As far as my reading has made me understand such actions we have identified a part of males who grow up with fantasies about rape and/or violence. The fantasies start at early age, when o boy becomes sexually aware. Should education of boys be changed to include courses that will teach them about the brutal consequenses that can follow from their actions. Will it help? Should we try to identify those aroused by unlawfull actions at an early age? If so, how? Self reporting might help some, if a non judgemental attitude was the approach. But I believe most people, even young boys wouldn’t admit to such thoughts. There are tests that measure penile reactions. But applying such a test to all pre puberty boys might do a lot of harm. Thank goodness we are speaking of a minorety of boys we are looking to identify.
I don’t have any solutions, but I would like to hear others thoughts about this matter. We must do something. If not we are stuck with the rules on how to dress, where we can’t go and the paternal Janus.
Just saw this story on the “malestream” news last night. I’m glad I read about these stories HERE first.
I believe that men are inherently monsters and dangerous to women. Create a country where men don’t exist, and you’ll see a very different social reality. We must create at least one country or major city where men are either an extreme minority or who are not allowed to live there at all. All women worldwide would be welcome to come to this place. Like Israel, women need a homeland of their own!
P.S. In my comment #1, the woman was living in a very dangerous neighborhood — piggish boy gangbangers all over the place. So she took precautions, and it’s a good thing she did. I would advocate women leaving all bad neighborhoods, but that is the prision of poverty when men are in it.