Why the Favreau Groping Photo Should Remain Front and Center
Dec 26th, 2008 by admin
I keep coming across commenters and bloggers who are blaming feminists for the wide circulation of the photo of Jon Favreau and his fellow Obama staffer groping the cardboard cutout of Hillary Clinton. After all, say they, if we would just stop talking about it, never mention it again, never post the photo anywhere, stop making such a BIG DEAL of it, people would just forget about it. It’s OUR FAULT that it’s become such a BIG DEAL.
You know what? These ideas and this kind of blaming are the heart and soul of male supremacy and always have been. If girls would just stop talking about their male relatives sexually assaulting them, the reasoning goes, then families wouldn’t be destroyed because the cops go after the family perpetrators. Because, you see, it’s girls TELLING that destroys families, not men perpetrating. If women would just forget about being raped, the reasoning goes, rape wouldn’t be such a BIG DEAL. The problem isn’t that women are sexually harassed or accosted or objectified, it’s their MOUTHS that are the problem. If they’d just shut their big mouths, there’d be no problem. If women would just let it go when they are mistreated, badgered or abused by men, or when they come across sexist imagery in media or on billboards, if they’d just turn off the music when it’s misogynist, why, things would be absolutely copacetic and fine and dandy, but what do women do, they make this HUGE DEAL. They won’t just forget about it. They’re vindictive and vengeful. They have rage problems. They have no sense of humor.
And by way of this particular reign of terror, really, this standard to which girls and women have been held since time immemorial — just don’t talk about it, just forget it, don’t cause problems in the family, don’t make a big deal of it — it is 2008 and women remain second class citizens and we are abused and battered and raped in numbers greater than anybody ever suspected. It goes on and on and on.
The problem, you know, is not that women are talking about what harms us. In fact, it is only when women make a big deal of things that ANYTHING ever changes for us, and even then, things rarely change much and never quickly.
Those who suggest we should just let the Jon Favreau incident go, forget about it, are not thinking about women’s history, this bigger picture or the implications for women when we are told to be quiet and stop making such a big deal of misogyny. They aren’t thinking about women at all. The problem isn’t that feminists are talking about the photo and posting it; the problem is that the incidents leading to the taking of the photo occurred in the first place, were photographed and posted to the internet. The problem is the misogyny of the President’s “Speechwriter in Chief.”
Heart
I believe someone once said that the only incest taboo is the taboo against talking about it and exposing the male perps.
What would have happened if the Holocaust ONLY involved women being killed? What happens when governments like Iran attempt to be “holocaust deniers”? So why is it that men think it fine and dandy to cover up the crimes of Favreau, and honor him to boot?
That’s the issue. And as long as men can get women to “shut up” we’ll be raped and abused anyway. Women have nothing to lose by fighting back with every word they’ve got! Remember in the state of patriarchy, we are powerful when we don’t believe anything the oppressors say about women EVER!
It’s called denial, denial, denial. Deny male sexual violence against women and children is at an all-time high, deny men who rape women and girls are rapists. In fact deny anything which could remotely hold men accountable and responsible for violence against women.
So, the same old misogynistic message keeps repeating itself ad naseum, namely women and children should remain silent and only speak when spoken to by a superior male. Women and children should blindly obey and hold males in thrall because males not females are human and males not females are the ones who continue to define and decide what is and is not male sexual, physical, psychological or just plain male domination and oppression of women.
BUT - these messages will not succeed because not all women and children are obedient slaves to men’s demands, since there are countless women and children of whatever ethnicity, class etc. who do resist despite male threats and punishments being meted out to them.
One question - why are the excusers, deniers, apologists for Favreau’s misogynstic and violent act of sexual violence against a woman creating such a stir. Could it be because the dominant male group has to work endlessly and ceaselessly to keep women and children subordinated. Remember the male dominant group has to work 24/7 to ensure male supremacy continues which is why so much effort is being put into such propaganda. We must be doing something right if male supremacy is working 24/7 to prevent the truth being heard and more importantly read.
This issue really should remain front and center. I think 200,000 women major political donors need to get on this. I think we need to contact all the women Senators, Governors, Representatives and other powerful women to get on this. I think women need to get real tough real fast on this Favreau issue, because it is an early indicator of things to come.
I always felt that Obama’s speech seem weirdly empty as a woman.
Now I know why, this was the man who was writing the words about women that came out of Obama’s mouth.
Oddly (but increasingly less so as time goes on) the three second-wave big name non-bloggy feminists I e-mailed about this issue were all “boys will be boys”. Not the actual words but the sentiment. One countered with awful (eh?) things a noted women politician has done, such as marry a man who became a masher. (I mean, there are other kinds, right?)
Lesson: Don’t marry a masher. But ok, be one.
Jennifer Drew you are so DEAD ON RIGHT!! Yes, we are doing something right, patriarchs are working 24/7 because women are rising up. We’re blogging about Favreau, we’re not shutting up about this. We are persistent age after age.
Remember women, we have the keys to taking apart patriarchy the way they would take apart a car engine. We know their denying tactics, we know their pornification tactics, we know the sexual tactics, and we know the male weakness for assuming women are dumb.
They have underestimated us constantly, and now we force them to mouth platitudes too. Just think, even right wing christian male enemies now say, “Oh I think lesbians are fine, I’m all for civil unions.” HA (as Heart would say)! They hated this idea awhile ago, but lesbians went to court and pushed them against the wall once again.
Yes women, I know things look bleak, but know we are winning this battle for freedom, we are undermining male supremacy every chance we get.
We’ve got them on the run, so let’s keep pushing, let’s make the voice of liberation of all women loud and clear! I know this blog gives me great incentive to fight on and to be even more clever and better informed than ever. Jennifer Drew, for your post number two, I nominate you heroine of my day!!
[...] also has another post about how this jerk is not only still employed by Obama but is writing his inaugural speech, and [...]
Women DO get punished even worse for speaking up though. My life has been a living example of this. I lost everything because I wouldn’t keep my mouth shut and won’t recant. Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking I must be really stupid to have given up everything I’ve given up for my pride.
I don’t care. It has nothing to do with me. I voted for the first time in my life on November 4th; I voted for Heart. But the fact that Heart didn’t win changes nothing. I live on a patch of dirt that some call a piece of The United States of America. I don’t call it that. I call it Home. I don’t recognize The United States of America’s claim on the land. I don’t recognize this government, the previous government, none of it. It has nothing to do with me, my partner, our life, none of it. Perhaps it’s too cruel to say “I don’t care.” I honor Ms. Rodham’s choices, but at the same time, this is what men are. It’s what they always will be. I feel it’s a waste of time to try to change them and I choose to not interact with them at all.
Amananta - you’ve given up nothing when you stand firmly to your principles. The only way women will advance and be considered human is people like you and me and others like us who spit in their faces.
Our “long national nightmare” will cease when polite girley-girls wake up and declare it is over.
Amananta Re your comment #7– Never ever think of keeping to principles as “I must be really stupid.” I don’t think there is a radical feminist on the face of the earth who hasn’t suffered great privation, attacks, ostracism, loss of jobs, children and a hundred other things in service to integrity. I want to support you integrity, and to say that what you did matters! When women come together we know this even as an online community. We understand how women slow down and save other women because of their courage.
I know for a fact that every lesbian who put her neck on the line from the 1920s on up to 2008 mattered in changing a cosmic reality, so that patriarchy is put on the defensive.
Each woman here is a heroine in her own right, and don’t you ever forget it!! Thanks for your powerful post. The honesty and simplicity of it I know will stay with me!
Amanata,
I don’t know if keeping to principles is stupid or not. But please remember: we need you and we need you alive. If “compromise” of your principles means you stay alive and able to function and not living a life of desperate privation, then it is no compromise. It is survival. Only you can make your choices about your life, but please try not to paint yourself into a desperate corner by a need to keep to principles. Stay alive. Stay whole as much as possible.
I think sometimes, that it’s a character trait Amananta. I do it too, but I think lots of women do. And it’s ok to regret what you’ve lost, and another time, maybe make a different choice, only to revert to type the next time. When I was little I can remember my mother telling me I had to learn not to cut off my nose to spite my face.
Sincerely
Very tiny nosed person.