When women buy into patriarchy

Note: I wrote this post on 28 June, and held off publishing to think about it. I still have not gotten some of the screenshots yet.

Self-defined feminists are still the minority of women, radical feminists make up an even smaller minority of that minority. We do not give men ‘the benefit of the doubt’ when something horrible or violent happens, because we are too aware of the widespread nature of male violence, particularly that directed at women and children (directed at other men, is out of our remit, but strengthens the case that male violence is society’s biggest problem).

We do not deny that sometimes, women commit horrible crimes, but they are so much in the minority—males committing over 95% of the world’s violence and murder. There is no way any thinking, rational, person could believe that females are ‘half the problem’ or that ‘women do it too’ is any kind of logical viewpoint. Particularly if you want to stop the world being a horrible,violent place—but sure, if your aim is to keep things as they are, deny the majority of the problem, and keep the status quo, then it is a logical viewpoint. Sick, but logical.

Male dominance (“patriarchy”) relies on vast numbers of the dominated class (females) buying into their own oppression. The brainwashing for this usually starts in girlhood (the grooming to ensure almost all females ‘become’ heterosexual and actively seek out marriage and motherhood), reinforced by the various media (films, news, tv, magazines). The concept of the ‘nuclear family’ is an incredibly important tool in keeping the majority of women under the supervision of the male head of household, and also breaks the bonds (isolates) women from each other. Women are conditioned into having loyalty to ‘their husband’ most of all, frequently at the expense of other women.

The ‘default’ position within a male dominated society, is to give males ‘the benefit of the doubt’, but always assume guilt towards females. Nowhere is this more true in rape cases, where consideration for the males’ (plural, given the prevalence of gang rapes, particularly school ones) “reputations” and how even bringing charges against him/them “could ruin his life”. The flipside to this excuse-making, is to accord as much blame as possible to the female victim/s. Excuses like “she flirted”, “she dressed like a slut”, “she should not have been drinking/out at night”. This has had some tragic consequences for victims, particularly young victims, and some have committed suicide after the ordeal of the trial.

How this post came about, was in reading (in a facebook group) about the death of a toddler left in a hot car to die. The alarm bells should have sounded for sane and rational people that the toddler was left in the vehicle (outside temperature of 32°C, inside vehicle over 50°C or more) for seven to eight hours.

Even with such a massive length of time, common knowledge to the general public that one does not leave animals or children in cars (and there are usually a lot of PSAs reminding people in Summer), a petition was started to have the charges dropped against the father of the child.

At least part of the petition said:

This is a horrible accident. The father loved his son immensely. Justin already has to live with a punishment worse than death.

Within less than a week, that petition got over 11,000 signatures of support to drop the charges. As a few more details were released, the petition was closed (and it seems that signatories were able to remove their support).

Over 11,000 people signed a petition calling for the murder charges against Justin Ross Harris to be dropped. Now, due to new evidence revealed against him, the petition has been closed.

Justin Ross Harris, 33, had over 11,000 supporters hoping to see the murder and child cruelty charges against him dropped. The supporters firmly believed the death of Cooper, Justin’s 22-month-old son, was an accident and felt he was being treated unfairly. However, new evidence suggesting that Justin may have intentionally left his son to die in the backseat of his vehicle was enough for his supporters to step down. […]

However, once the CCPD released more information regarding Cooper’s suspicious death, the Change.org petition was quickly and quietly shut down by it’s anonymous creator.

“This petition is closed due to the new information released in regards to this case,” wrote the anonymous creator. As of June 28, the petition only had 668 signatures — over 10,000 less than the 11,274 signatures that were present on June 25.

It is unclear when the petition was started, but reports suggest it has been online since at least Monday, June 23.

The death of Cooper Harris was Wednesday 18 June, charges were laid by the next day. The police department started receiving a lot of criticism for those charges. Police eventually revealed two pieces of vital information:

1. On Harris’ work computer, a search or searches were found ‘how long does it take for an animal to die in a hot car’
2. Harris had gone to his car at lunchtime to put something in the vehicle in either the driver or passenger side (conflicting reports as to which side)

A bit of a slamdunk for a (pre-meditated) murder charge, particularly as police reported to local news that the vehicle “smelled to high heavens like a dead body.” Other evidence that emerged was that Harris had taken his son for breakfast at a restaurant about ten minutes away from work; Harris drove away from work about a mile to a nearby shopping strip where witnesses reported Harris’ bizarre hot/cold dramatics and ‘discovery’ of the child in the car (remember it stunk). The autopsy has revealed that Cooper Harris died from hyperthermia, consistent with being left in the hot vehicle. It is bizarre that Harris would put on the performance in the car park insisting that the child had choked, when the child was in rigor when removed from the vehicle, so had died hours earlier, and was probably dead during Harris’ lunchtime visit to the vehicle.

Oddly in this case, there was no marital break-up or impending break-up (that we are aware of, which is a common feature in these cases). Leanna Harris, the child’s mother, has been advised not to speak to the media, and there has been no indication of her involvement either, in spite of some media speculation.

Even before the additional information released within the last week, the go-to default ‘public opinion’ was in full swing. The petition with over 11,000 signatures protesting that a ‘poor innocent man’ had been charged over a ‘tragic accident’ (sorry, but 7-8 hours is at least wilful negligence). Had this been the mother who had done the same, there would only be a petition along the lines of ‘burn the witch’ and ‘death penality is too good for her’. There would have been no forgiveness, no presumption of innocence, as there was with the father named. This phenomenon of men’s presumed innocence and women’s automatic guilt are two sides of the one coin, and the latter only exists because of the first.

Sadly, it is frequently a majority of women participating in this. A quick look at the remaining ‘supporters’ on that petition (the most recent few entries are confirming that the police are correct in charging Harris).

[SCREENSHOTS PETITION – have not gotten around to getting them yet!]

But it gets worse. With the results of the autopsy confirming the cause of death (and no prior cause of death with the car used as a cover-up), therefore no hint of the mother’s involvement at all, the woman-blaming continues anyway! “where was the mother?!” “I am sure the mother was involved somehow”. This is a pathological degree of misogyny, and as it comes from women, internalised misogyny. A sample from one thread below.

           

The analysis of the 31 comments of that thread: 15 mother/woman-blaming’; 11 neutral/approprately placed anger; 2 tagging other people; 2 rational; 1 male-excusing. Basically half of those comments were mother blaming or woman blaming, and all of those comments came from women.

Regular women, you need to get a clue, because there but for the grace of the-deity-of-your-choice, goes you. It could easily be you, blamed for something you had no control over, no responsibility for. What mother hasn’t left their child or children in the care of some relative, biological father, or father figure at some time? It is an unrealistic demand placed on women that they are to blame when leaving children in the care of another (deemed responsible) adult. I will guarantee that many of the women criticising this mother, have left their children in the care of ‘responsible adults’.

That is not to say I recommend leaving children, particularly young children, with male relatives (including the fathers and step-fathers) as many tragedies (and sexual assaults) do occur, sometimes in less than half an hour.

This all comes back to the male problem again, only a few males can be trusted with children, but you cannot tell which ones unless something has gone wrong (after the fact). And chances are, that the mother will receive ‘half or more’ of the blame for the actions of a male. It is not uncommon for women to go to prison for the crimes that men do, merely by association—their guilt or accomplice status being circumstantial at best, this includes drug dealing, stolen goods, etc, even when most or all of the evidence points to the male or males involved.

In western countries, the prison populations are roughly 90% male, 10% female. However, whereas a significant number of males are incarcerated for violent crimes, the opposite is true of female prisoners—most females are in prison for non-violent crimes, and many crimes that males are rarely incarcerated for. This is the result of mainstream society judging women far more harshly than men.

The default position of assuming woman-blame or mother-blame really has to stop. It is not only unfair, it is unrealistic in the majority of cases. It is totally unrealistic in a landscape where males commit over 95% of the world’s violence. Nor is it remotely like ‘equality’ when more venom is aimed at the very small number of women who are actually guilty, compared to men doing similar and worse crimes.