It took me a very long time to realize that mainstream comic book industry isn’t at all interested in me, isn’t at all talking to me; that it is, in fact, talking over my shoulder to the straight white man-boy (and people who identify with the straight white man-boy) reading his comic book behind me.
Every time I imagine that I’m just being hyperbolic, seeing problems where none exist, and return to the beloved hobby of my childhood, I am unceremoniously reminded of just how hostile that environment is to a conscious mind. I made the regrettable mistake of reading the current issue of a comic book that I had long abandoned: Wonder Woman. The book’s current course, and current success, can be traced, I believe, to its decidedly macho-friendly, anti-feminist tone.
It wasn’t enough that this new iteration of the character jettisoned her previous origin of a child being formed from clay by a desperate Queen Hippolyta and blessed with powers by loving set goddesses (and one god) from the Greek pantheon. To add insult to injury, we were told that not only was Wonder Woman now the product of a tryst between Hippolyta and Zeus, the womanizing king of the Olympian gods, but that she also belongs to a tribe of man-hating women that periodically creep away from their island hideout to have sex with unsuspecting men, murder them, and would murder the male offspring from those unions too if not for the kindness of another god. If it sounds like ancient Greek misogynist propaganda with a modern twist, it’s because it is. And it is, in my opinion, all for the benefit of making Wonder Woman relatable to a bunch of men in the industry and in the audience, who simply can’t relate to a character designed to attack patriarchal notions and empower women in revolutionary ways.
In the latest issue of Wonder Woman, another character, a new god named Orion, slaps Wonder Woman on the ass in a fit of sexist entitlement. Wonder Woman is denied the ability to respond to the assault because of other matters that take precedence in the story. The story seems to be saying that there are some things more important that getting upset over some harmless slap and tickle. You can almost hear chants of “Let a man be a man! Stop trying to emasculate us!” in the subtext. The wonder, for me, is in how this scene was deemed acceptable and harmless to begin with.
I’m sure that to Brian Azzarello (the writer of the story) and most guys in general, it was all very innocent, designed to show us, through action, just what kind of rapscallion Orion is. No one asks, however, if there are other, less rape-y ways to convey the same point. I imagine most men don’t see the harm because men rarely have to be on the receiving end of these sorts of violations, which are products of rape culture. Largely, men don’t have to walk through creation tense and braced for anything in nature to leap out on them and sexually violate their bodies and spaces. One out of every six men aren’t raped. Ninety percent of rape victims aren’t men. Men’s bodies aren’t under the constant policing and legislation of other men. Don’t let the members of the “men’s rights” movement (yes, that’s an actual thing) hear you say this, though. Ruling every major institution on Earth apparently isn’t enough; men have to be considered innocent and absolved of every crime, too. Patriarchy is a helluva drug.
When you have the luxury and privilege of wielding massive amounts of institutional power, Wonder Woman getting slapped on the ass in a comic books seems like a silly thing to get worked up about. It doesn’t matter that this act is just the latest in a string of very clear hostilities toward the idea of female and feminine self-government and self-determination—hostilities that aren’t limited to comic books. I propose that this action isn’t harmless, not even when it happens in the funny pages. I believe depictions like these reinforce the idea that there are no limits on men’s behavior, particularly in relation to women’s bodies. If the most powerful woman in the universe can get slapped on the ass and all she gets to do in response is get angry and, generally, live with the violation, men’s power is reaffirmed and all is right with the universe.
Except that it isn’t right.
I made another crucial error: I posted my feelings on a comic book message board. Not known for their cultural or political sensitivities, many comic book message boards are merely echo chambers in which people who are, by and large, sycophants gather to reinforce each other’s narrow-mindedness and reflect each other’s images at twice their actual size (to paraphrase Virginia Woolf). The audience, at least by way of message boards and comments sections, is remarkably repetitive when faced with sociopolitical criticism about the stuff they love: first defense, then denial, then a hyper “rational” analysis of why there couldn’t possibly be any misogyny/racism/sexism/homophobia in their beloved art form. They insist that the problem lies with the observer not with the object being observed. Dwayne McDuffie, rest his soul, had this audience pegged.
My comments were met, mostly, with simmering rage or the aforementioned cognitive dissonance: “Let me explain this to you rationally: I’m not a bigot and I like this book. So this book couldn’t possibly be bigoted in any way.” Anyone who agreed with my commentary was summarily dismissed, talked over, or explained away.
And, of course, there’s the tried-and-true option of dragging out the token members of the audience, the few blacks or women or queer people in the ranks who support the status quo. Nothing says “conversation ender” like, “Well, I have a female friend who said it was okay. So it’s not misogynist.” As though institutional pathologies like misogyny, racism, or homophobia require that every member of the oppressed class sign off on its identification; as though members of oppressed classes don’t succumb to the psychological warfare that is bigotry and participate in and perpetuate ideologies that are harmful to them and others in their social group; as though the oppressed don’t sometimes identify with the oppressors. Stockholm syndrome is very real.
I’ll agree that the problem lies within the observer (only not the observer the aforementioned audience believes), but the problem also lies within the object being observed. The reason why this audience doesn’t perceive any harm, intentional or otherwise, is because the creators, institutions, and this audience are literally speaking the same language. White supremacy isn’t white supremacy amongst white supremacists; it’s reality. Misogyny isn’t misogyny amongst misogynists; it’s normalcy. Homophobia isn’t homophobia to homophobes; it’s just the way God intended things. It’s very difficult for anyone inside a giant circle to have the necessary perspective to perceive its full shape.
There’s a reason relatively few women, black people, or openly queer people are employed in the mainstream comic book industry or hold relatively few positions of power within the institutions that distribute them. There’s a reason why those who are employed there have to do much to tamp down any perceived differences in opinion or worldview and get on board with the straight white male status quo. It has nothing to do with women, black people, or queer people not being talented enough to compete or there not being enough them present in the potential talent pool. It has everything to do with already being friends with an influential straight white guy at the company. It has everything to do with a group of frightened individuals setting up shop in their citadel, trying desperately to fortify their tower of straight white male hegemony in a world where that hegemony is becoming decidedly less tenable.
And you don’t only see this happening in the comic book industry. You see it in mainstream politics as well with organizations like the GOP trying to decide if they should jettison some of their more outrageous, overt bigotries in order to court enough Latinos, women, and gays to win elections. It reads to me as a sort of panic, a sort of regrouping of the straight white guard as they try to figure out what it means to be straight, white, and male in a world where queer people are demanding civil rights, a black man is the leader of democracy, and women are asserting control over their own bodies.
One of the ways in which they think they can reclaim the power they believe they’ve lost is through media propaganda. Since Obama’s re-election in 2008, for example, we’ve seen the incredible return of overt racist paradigms like the white savior and black pathology, as well as the puzzling return of 1950s values in relation to feminism post-Sarah Palin—not just in the real world, but in entertainment media as well: Did you miss World’s Finest #7, where Power Girl decided she knew everything she needed to know about African nations and their child soldiers because she watched KONY 2012? Or what about Miles Morales in Ultimate Spider-Man, who was not only at odds with his criminal uncle, but has to hide his identity from his ex-con father, too? Because, you know, nothing says “black” like criminal pathology. And don’t get me started on Bunker in Teen Titans, the gay Mexican character whose power is, wait for it: creating purple energy bricks. Purple. Bricks. I couldn’t create that big of a stereotype even if I tried really hard. But for some folks, it’s apparently rather easy.
We’ve seen these corporations pay lip service to diversity, but it’s always diversity for diversity’s sake—that is, diversity because they think it makes them look cool and hip in multicultural spaces. But bigots don’t understand the difference between diversity and tokenism, nor do they recognize diversity as something beneficial to themselves. They don’t see it as something that can open them and their organizations up to new ideas, new audiences, and new ways of being. They always regard the concept of diversity suspiciously, as something forced upon them, a notion that tries to coerce them into being politically correct, a practice the makes them, against their will, admit into their ranks “unqualified” people who didn’t “earn” their spot (because, you know, being a popular writer’s friend is considered earning a spot).
When called out on their nonsense, these corporations blame the bigotry on their audience: “Well, we tried to get this product featuring X Minority Figure off the ground, but the audience just wasn’t ready for it.” Bigots, unfortunately, have a collusive and mutually beneficial relationship that allows blame to be passed around (but never landing where it should), while keeping us distracted from the fact the structural impediments remain unmoved. And that’s all according to plan.
I’ve concluded that it’s useless to have these discussions with people whose fantasies rest on the fact that none of the social conventions upon which comic books stories are built can be seriously challenged or interrogated. It’s pointless to have these debates in this “post-racial” age where you’re only a racist if you use the n-word, you’re only a misogynist if you beat up women, and you’re not a homophobe, you’re just beholden to religious principles. Bigots—even passive, rational ones—are incredibly similar in their reaction to criticism: “My feelings are more important than your struggles.”
The only option left to individuals like myself who have had enough of the microaggressions and the chorus of defenders and deniers—who have had enough of the grating, tone-deaf depictions of women, people of color, and queer people in these often poorly written, poorly drawn, increasingly expensive books—is to opt out. And that decision is made evermore clear when you consider that the industry has been bigoted since its inception and you simply weren’t conscious enough to detect it when you were a kid. While the country has taken strides toward being a more perfect union, the mainstream comic book industry has, for the most part, dug its heels in and refused to move.
So I admit defeat. I am, ironically, waving the white flag. The bigots win. I’m plum tuckered out. I don’t have the energy to fight anymore. I say if they like the comic book industry and its product just the way they are, faults and all, let them have it. As long as I don’t ever have to read a misogynist Wonder Woman story or a racist Spider-Man story or a Superman story told by a homophobic extremist ever again, it’s all good. There are better products to spend my money on. That the mainstream comic book industry doesn’t want my money for fear of alienating their core audience of bubble blowers is the fault of their bad business model, not mine. In the meantime, I’ll be over here reading novels digitally on my iPad. These works, at least, reflect the world as it is, as it could be, as it should be, rather than as some defective, reductive supremacist fantasy.
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Robert Jones, Jr. is a writer/editor from Brooklyn, New York and creator of the Son of Baldwin blog. He is currently working on his first novel.
I came to this same conclusion back around 2000, and every time I think, maybe there might be something…I’m forced away by the man-boy mentality again. Thank the gods for Nishi UKO’s “Collectors” which is written for *me*.
I’m currently having my worldview mutated by David Graebner’s book Debt, which argues that peonage is, in many ways, central to the history of slavery, money, warfare, prostitution, etc. Anyhow, he’s an anthropologist, and explains how “heroic” (honor-code violence) societies are the ones most comfortable with objectifying humans through the force of brutality and cash. I did think about comics.
It’s interesting to compare that Orion/WW moment with the scene in Arkham Asylum where the Joker gooses Batman. When the Joker does it, he’s (a) clearly evil, and (b) the sexualization of the hero is diegetically part of a deliberate effort by the sexualizer to humiliate and destroy him. When it happens to a man, in other words, its an aggressive act of violence and violation; when it happens to a woman, it’s funny/just one of those things.
Morrison threw in a little sexual harassment of WW in his JLA run too — only verbal, but still pretty repulsive.
Not really trying to defend Marvel or DC, but I think a more nuanced view- that a book can be progressive in some ways and sexist in other ways- is probably more useful than reducing a book to the most sexist or racist panel you can find.
It’s funny to see you dismissing Ultimate Comics Spider-man. Another Hooded Utilitarian contributor was praising Bendis as a GREAT LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE BATTLING THE EVIL OF RACISM:
https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2012/06/bendis-still-sends-me/
Similarly I seem to recall Teen Titans in one story-line I read (though admittedly I dropped the book so don’t know how it turned out) had a female character that looked like genuine monster- not sexy at all. This was allegedly one of the sexist things about the genre- that women couldn’t look like monsters like the Hulk, but Teen Titans played against the stereotype in that storyline.
Azzarello’s WW is pretty wretched, I think; that’s not really the most sexist panel, unfortunately. Haven’t read Ultimate Spider-Man, so can’t speak to that.
I’d agree with you that works of art can have good and bad parts. I don’t think Robert’s exactly arguing that the comics in question have no redeeming value whatsoever, though. More that there are other better options out there…and that he feels like superhero comics are (compared to other things) really not interested in speaking to him.
Bert: “I’m currently having my worldview mutated by David Graebner’s book Debt, which argues that peonage is, in many ways, central to the history of slavery, money, warfare, prostitution, etc. Anyhow, he’s an anthropologist, and explains how “heroic” (honor-code violence) societies are the ones most comfortable with objectifying humans through the force of brutality and cash. I did think about comics.”
For a good reason, no doubt.
Well, Robert is dismissing both Marvel and DC. I would imagine most fans of these companies would recommend as counter examples Captain Marvel (female protagonist written by a woman) or Ultimate Comics Spider-man (which the contributor I cited seems to think is wonderfully progressive) or one of DC’s women written books starring female characters (Batgirl, Sword and Sorcery, or Birds of Prey, although I’m sympathetic to the idea Batgirl’s constant references to The Killing Joke are sexist…).
I don’t necessarily like any of those books much (Bendis can write a pretty decent page turner, though) but if you are looking for books that are not awful, they’d be more obviously things to sample than Wonder-woman, though it sounds like Robert has sampled Ultimate Comics Spider-man and thought it was racist.
I’ve been slapped on the ass a few times by women who were only friends. Maybe I should’ve went to counseling to get over the latent trauma … And then there’s baseball, second only to prison rape …
He’s not a friend, Charles. He’s someone she just met, with whom she is working. It’s like being introduced to someone at work and then having them pinch your butt.
Do you go around slapping women on the ass who you’ve just met? And then when they protest, you explain to them that they’re overly sensitive and mock them?
Also, look at her face? The incident is supposed to be funny because it’s humiliating to her.
The fact that having your head chopped off is worse than being punched in the face doesn’t make it socially acceptable to go around punching people in the face.
What does being a friend have to do with it? An unasked for, sexually agressive act is still a violation, right? Don’t most rapes occur with known acquaintances? If this is part of rape culture, so was what happened to me, repeatedly.
And, I can’t keep track, Orion doesn’t know WW again? They were on the JLA together, but this has been reset, I’m guessing?
It’s been reset, yeah. They just met.
And, I mean…it’s not like they were ever best friends. They were work acquaintances.
And to your first point…no, context matters — and, you know, gender matters too, I’d guess. Hugging a friend can be appropriate; hugging someone you don’t know without permission can be very uncomfortable.
And you’re strawmanning something fierce. You know quite well (and the feminists you’re strawmanning know quite well) that there’s a difference between friends patting each other on the butt at a bar and work colleagues slapping each other on the ass at work. You’re comfortable with the one; I suspect you would not be comfortable with the other. If I’m wrong, disabuse me. You’re constantly slapping and hugging female coworkers on the job, right? Do you think that, if you were doing that, they would have the right to complain? Or if they did complain, would they just be hysterical whiners crying rape?
“One out of every six men aren’t raped.”
So, you’re saying that five out of every six men ARE raped?
This sort of shoddy idiocy is typical of the most arrogantly smug post I’ve read in years.
“Purple bricks” are homophobic? Grow up, fool.
Or let me put it this way. Consent can be given in various ways; if you have a relationship with your friends where butt patting is okay, then that’s okay, and it isn’t an unwanted sexual advance, but something that is consensual. I mean, do you feel it isn’t consensual? You’re saying I think that it is, because you’re in your head and would know.
But. To go from “I have consented to this” to “everyone always has consented to this, and anyone who doesn’t consent to it is an irrational hysteric and deserves contempt” — that’s not very thoughtful reasoning. You might as well say, “well, I consented to sex once, therefore, rape doesn’t exist.” Which is as silly as arguing that if people are raped, then consensual sex doesn’t exist, it seems to me.
The scene with WW is pretty clearly presented as nonconsensual, humiliating, and unpleasant. Saying that she should have consented, or that you have had people slap your butt without finding it humiliating or unpleasant, are both beside the point. The issue is her consent as the issue for you is your consent. And the issue is why Azzarello thinks it’s funny/clever/cute/interesting/exciting to have his female protagonist humiliated in this way as a joke.
It does seem…overdetermined, shall we say, that the gay character’s powers are all purply?
And…disagreeing with the post is fine, but I’d rather nix the name-calling if we can, please.
Noah, thank you so much for publishing this piece. You are truly a gentleman and a scholar. :)
Regarding Bunker: It’s almost like a color-by-number portrayal of diversity. Purple just in case you didn’t know he was gay. And brick-layer just in case you didn’t know he was Mexican.
Pallas, I actually understand your viewpoint completely: that I shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, to use an old cliche. But understand that this essay is coming from the point of view of someone who has collected mainstream comic books for nearly 40 years and who has, for nearly all of that time, been psychically assaulted by the overt and covert messaging therein. It’s been frustrating and made doubly so by the institutional denial by many creators and many members of the audience.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve reached my limit. And not only have I reached my limit, but the exceptions, those books that have something of a critical consciousness and semiotic, inclusive viewpoint, come too few and far between. I try to support those when I can, but most of them end up cancelled anyway. I’m simply tired of giving the mainstream industry (and I want to be clear that I’m, in the main, talking about mainstream comic companies) the benefit of the doubt when they’ve given me little in regard to evidence to support it.
Others may have more patience. Mine has honestly run out.
Amazing article. I’ve collected/ read comic books for 33 of my 36 years but have sadly stopped … sure I will pick up the odd back issue or new book, but overall, sadly, my passion has ended. The incredible amounts of misogyny and sexism, especially among DC’s New 52 (especially) sicken me, and it makes me see how much of this, among the other points you mention, exist in the industry. With DC’s decision to hire and promote a known and active member of hate speech/ anti-gay sentiment, my heart is crushed. The industry and many of its fans today cause me to wish I had never picked up a comic book, and that truly saddens me. Granted, there are comic books striving to subvert this, and succeed at it, and I may purchase those to subvert it, but overall, as I look on the face of DC today, and view the listings in a Previews catalogue, I’m too sickened and disillusioned to be able to actively read or collect comics anymore.
Oops — the second time I typed “subvert”, I meant “support.”
I really enjoyed this article. I was never a big DC/Marvel reader, but my attempts to dip into their offerings hasn’t been very successful overall.
The purple brick layer honestly made me blink. Wow. I guess they could have made the bricks rainbows, but maybe the colorist objected.
Most recently, I’ve had better luck with self-pubbed comics. There’s some fun things being published in that realm (of course, plenty of it also sucks, but I’ve found some gems.)
For the most part, at the mainstream comic companies, the formula has been tokenism + stereotype = diversity. And that formula is deemed cogent at those places precisely because of the lack of diversity behind the scenes. Marvel has been a little better than DC, but not much.
Really appreciated this article. Thank you for posting it!
The thing about “heroic societies” may have confused/bemused Domingos– my point being that heroic narratives, on their own, are likely to yield some unfortunate displays of power through violence– i.e., immorality. Early Wonder Woman, Watchmen, various examples are self-conscious and subvert the paradigm, but straightforward heroic narratives will have valor and sacrifice, but maybe not healthy interpersonal relationships.
Robert Jones, Jr.: “Others may have more patience. Mine has honestly run out.”
After only 40 years? Wow!
Since “white”, “male” and “straight” are clearly terms of abuse to this writer, it’s asking rather a lot not to reply in kind.
I’m white, male, and straight. I don’t see his use of any of those terms as abusive. But maybe I’m just especially thick-skinned or something, I dunno.
Bert: I was far from confused. I agreed without even knowing the author’s thesis. I wasn’t being ironic.
Which is to say, love comics, stand up for misogyny. Like– why do Nazis keep denying the Holocaust? Why aren’t they proud?
To just show you I don’t mean this entirely in bad faith– recently a member of the neo-NWOBHM metal band High on Fire issued a public condemnation of Aerosmith’s “Dude Looks Like A Lady.” I don’t really like Aerosmith all that much, I don’t like transphobia, I don’t really like the song that much, but that High on Fire guy needs to shut up. Your fake poser swagger does not hold a candle to Joe Perry’s perhaps mediocre but workmanlike and reliable wankery.
So, you know, read a Jack Kirby Thor now and then (yes, I know Kirby was both a liberal and a genius), but don’t be surprised or offended if someone points out that there’s something intensely sadistic going on.
I was about to ask Mike and Charles to please tell us how each and every one of these kinds of reactions are overreactions, blah blah I was sexually harrassed every day for thirty-seven years but you don’t see me crying about it blah blah,
but Charles beat me to it. Hopefully we can get some superhero fans up in here to tell us how the men’s bodies are stylized, too. Context is for chumps.
Incidentally, Alex, I noticed the scope ambiguity of that sentence too, but that kind of thing is very common in ordinary language, especially this kind of case where “not” is put in front of the verb rather than in front of the whole sentence (e.g. “every comic isn’t a superhero comic”, where the meaning is “some comics are not superhero comics” rather than “there are no superhero comics”). But it seems to me that the most natural interpretation most people would take is the one intended, so there’s no serious threat of ambiguity here, unless you’re just being contrary. (Which, because I’m trained in formal logic, I am, too)
Bert: of one thing you may be sure: I will never read a Thor comic in my life, but you know, whatever… The moment the “discussion” slides into ad hominem attacks I’m out of here faster than a speeding bullet…
Slapping a demigod on the ass doesn’t even constitute sexual harassment, much less rape. This would be an overreaction. Actual (fictional) rape (cf. Irreversible) is a good example of a non-overreaction.
And, yep, Noah, I’ve been slapped on the ass in a working environment. No, I didn’t find it oppressive, since the person was a (work) friend. If I had to accept someone doing it that I didn’t like, then I wouldn’t appreciate that very much. Wouldn’t be rape, though.
I don’t know that it’ll serve much of any good to argue about whether ass slapping is rape. I’ll just agree to disagree if anyone really wants to continue with that. My view: it really dismisses rape victims to suggest something like that, though. It’s another version of “why can’t they just get over it, just like I can get over being slapped on the ass?” I’m sure there’s good intentions involved in trying to make this equation, but see another recent thread about good intentions …
He didn’t say it was rape. He said it was rapey. i.e., it’s sexualized aggression. I really don’t understand why the fact that she’s a demi-god makes that any different? Your contention is that physically strong people can’t experience harassment? That seems really deeply confused.
Yeah, it’s part of “rape culture” — whatever that is. It’s one of those terms used to make a stance impossible to refute because it means everything and nothing.
My contention is that a person/god in a much more powerful position/possessing much greater superpowers can’t be sexually harassed by a person/god in a less powerful position/with less superpowers. That’s why the scene can be played for laughs — he’s lucky WW doesn’t tear his arm off. Yuck, yuck. If it were some frail little girl, then it would be a different story.
The “less powerful” thing– I really don’t think you have Robert lynching a black man for winking at a white woman. The logic that someone has less imaginary “power” (in an explicitly fantasy context) really doesn’t change the real-world history of men treating women like communal property. Which is the whole reason men can enjoy viewing that panel.
Yeah; Bert’s right. But in addition to that, from purely geek standpoint, Orion isn’t supposed to be less powerful than her. I’m not sure where you’re getting that. He’s superpowered; she’s superpowered. He’s harassing her and it’s funny because harassment is funny. If it were funny because she could beat him up, she’s beat him up. That’s not the way it works though, as Bert says because the panel is for people who find harassment funny in real life, not for those who find women kicking the shit out of their harassers funny.
In addition, the idea that only the frail and weak can get harassed is…really odd, Charles.
“Rape culture” is a pretty specific thing. It refer to the cultural and social norms which allow men to treat women as things who are there for male amusement. It’s a way to think about sexual harassment on the job, and domestic abuse, and rape, as part of a single system, the goal of which is to oppress women — just as segregation and lynching were part of a single system the goal of which was to oppress black people.
You could find out these things with a very minimal effort, if you were interested in doing so. The wikipedia article looks like a good introduction.
The wikipedia article suggests that rape culture can be defined as a culture where “sexual violence is both made to be invisible and inevitable.” I would say that applies quite well to the Wonder Woman panel, and to your reading of it, which I believe is the reading Azzarello was aiming for. Orion’s sexual harassment is cute and funny and even a little shocking (which is why it’s included) — but at the same time it’s normalized and invisible as sexual harassment. If it’s okay and funny to do that to WW, who has superpowers, who isn’t it okay to do it to? If WW can expect sexual harassment at work, then who can’t? It’s using a feminist and female icon to say that women and feminists have no recourse and should have no recourse when they’re harassed. Because other things are more important and it’s just kind of funny anyway and why should strong woman worry about their coworkers sexualizing them anyway?
So it would play the same way with a frail little girl? Isn’t the whole notion of harassment based on a power deferential?
As for the geeky question: I thought WW was just under Superman in the power department.
Thus, here’s another take on that panel: Orion is a bit of a pig. He might’ve just behaved like a pig around the wrong gal. Insert giggles. Note that this still works with Bert’s “real-world history of men treating women like communal property” and, look, you don’t have to think harassment is funny in real life to find the joke funny.
And what about “context”? We have none for this panel: what happens after or before it? We don’t know. Maybe WW is stripped and assaulted, or maybe she punches Orion or lectures him or goes “tee hee.” The panel could mean anything, really.
And clearly there’s no hyperbole in ‘rape culture’ at all. It very specifically applies to any potentially sexist act whatsoever. Just as Clarence Thomas was lynched in a “high-tech” way.
I would expect Orion (the New God of war) to be at least as powerful as Wonder Woman, if not more so since he’s a full God while she’s only a demi-God, so his actions are definitely threatening. Furthermore if he is a representative of new Genesis she might need to put up with harassment to maintain a treaty with his faction. (I haven’t read the book, just reacting to that one panel.)
Clarence Thomas got lynched? He appears to have recovered pretty well.
WW’s been somewhat depowered. And Orion was always near Superman levels of power himself anyway.
Harassment is based on power differentials…but those differentials can be complicated. And, as Bert points out, this is a fantasy, which means that you’re not simply dealing with the diegetic power relationship.
And we do know what happens afterwards. WW gets upset, but just lets it go because more important things intervene. You can find summaries of it online; again, it’s not hard to do. So there isn’t any comeuppance for Orion, which I think pretty much vitiates your reading. So I don’t know how you’d find it funny unless you think harassment is funny.
Rape culture does suggest that sexism and rape are linked. I don’t really see you critiquing that; just sort of stating over and over that it must clearly be impossible. Again, it seems analogous to saying that racism and lynching don’t have anything to do with each other, and that if you point out the connection between segregated drinking fountains and lynching, you are therefore minimizing lynching. That’s not an argument that makes any sense…nor one that exactly suggests good faith.
Clarence Thomas is obviously a problematic figure…not least because he systematically sexually harassed his coworkers, and then the charges were brushed away by folks using arguments not dissimilar to yours.
Such as claiming Anita Hill was a demigod? Good gravy, dial it back some.
You can look upon the animal kingdom as lesser than humans — is that indicative that you wish to rape fish? Does it lead implicitly to the raping of fish? It certainly could lead to a lack of caring about how fish are treated. (“So women are nothing but fish!?!” — please no one do that as it would be a really stupid inference.) The problem with “rape culture” is that it turns the whole sexist cultural edifice upside down, making it seem like everything is teleologically leading to widespread raping of women. Instead, why not, say, “sexist culture”? There, you have dismissals of rape, instances of rape, etc., based on sexism, but not all of sexism for the purpose of raping. The latter is clearly fucking nutty (both as a possible ideology to which someone out there might be committed and as a belief about how culture operates).
Now, at this point, Bert, if he’s consistent, should come along and complain about your belief in false consciousness: that most of us men don’t think we support rape, but really, way down inside our Freudian manufactured unconscious, we secretly do. We’re just too stupid to realize that until someone at the HU spells it out for us.
If you and your friends/neighbours/whoever have an understanding that people can just take your car whenever you want, then great! Or, if you are okay with people walking into your house and taking whatever they want and leaving, that’s great too. You don’t have to charge anybody with theft. You don’t have to be upset. You don’t have to consider yourself a victim of theft. You’re not obligated to consider something a crime or violation even if by definition it is one, or could be one in another context. That doesn’t mean that others have to feel as you do, or that you are the baseline for the law.
And I’m disappointed by how a discussion about sexism in comics and the way women are depicted in comics has turned into another geek argument about “is XYZ stronger than ZYX, who would win in a fight? What continuity are we using?” as if that’s really the issue. Wonder Woman isn’t real, the issue isn’t whether she as a real woman is okay with a slap to the butt, the issue is the writing, it’s the choices creators make, it’s why that scene existed, and the culture of comics which it exists in. This is the stuff that the article and Robert Jones Jr. is writing about, not whether Wonder Woman is stronger than Orion (and the implication in this entire argument that it’s physical strength that determines whether something is harassment/assault/etc).
(And as a rape survivor, please stop saying that caring about sexual harassment demeans “real” rape survivors. What’s demeaning is using us as a rhetorical device to try to demean victims of harassment and assault.)
I can completely understand your frustration with comics, however, I don’t think that the big 2 are getting everything wrong. Kelly Sue Deconnick’s run on Captain Marvel has been a breathe of fresh air. The first issue is perfect. Also, Greg Rucka and J.H. William’s reimagining of Batwoman has been great. Pick up Elegy. It’s beautifully written and illustrated.
“You can find summaries of it online; again, it’s not hard to do. So there isn’t any comeuppance for Orion, which I think pretty much vitiates your reading. So I don’t know how you’d find it funny unless you think harassment is funny.”
I looked, but couldn’t find a summary. You could find it funny in the way I described above … even if Orion doesn’t get his comeuppance … unless you wish to offer a reason why this matters. Just because a guy doesn’t get punished doesn’t mean that his actions are therefore okay. But maybe Azzarello’s whole point here is that sexually harassing WW is okay and everyone who laughed did so because they agree with him.
People dismissed Anita Hill’s claims in part because she was powerful and successful, and therefore couldn’t actually be harassed. It seems like a parallel with your claim that powerful people can’t experience harassment.
The point isn’t that rape culture means that all sexism is designed to organize rape. The point is that it’s all designed to treat women as things — which is what rape is about as well. The willingness to treat women as things means that harassment is erased…which is what makes rape possible.
I’m sure Bert can speak for himself…but until he gets here, it’s worth noting that the desire to rape or participate in rape culture doesn’t have anything to do with Freud or the unconscious. It’s simply about power and the desire for power. Are you claiming that most people don’t desire power? Or that men in particular don’t?
And…when you’ve wandered into the place where you’re comparing humans to animals, and suggesting that male desires around fish are similar to male desires around women, I think you’ve really moved into self-parody, not to mention self-refutation. Your rather desperate parenthetical effort to deny the workings of your analogy notwithstanding.
“That doesn’t mean that others have to feel as you do, or that you are the baseline for the law.”
So that applies to this situation with WW, too, right? Just because it’s horrible for you doesn’t mean it has to be horrible for her.
Except WW looks horrified in that image we have. And later she’s angry. So diegetically she finds it upsetting and unpleasant…which again, really seems like it’s supposed to be the joke.
Oh, and Bert; Clarence Thomas famously referred to the hearings and Anita Hill’s charges as “a high-tech lynching.”
I sided with the people who needed evidence for Hill’s claims, but that’s just me.
Hohum, the fish analogy was to point out that power differentials, denying full humanity to something, etc. don’t necessarily lead to — is not inherently about — rape, which is what you’re suggesting with “rape culture” (e.g., “It’s simply about power and the desire for power” — I can’t even caricature that). If it did, then Christians would’ve been raping fish for centuries. Yes, the term is just that goofy. It would be like saying all of racism is really about lynching black men. That, too, is a ridiculously simplistic way of viewing bigotry. “Are you claiming that most people don’t desire power?” No, I was claiming that everyone who desires power don’t want to rape something. And that’s as much time as I’ll spend on that stupid inference I tried to nip in the bud.
Yeah…you still somehow think that you can map relationships between people onto relationships between people and animals in some sort of straightforward way.
But…what people do to animals when they want to use them is generally they kill them. We even have a fairly complicated system of justifying torturing them and killing them in hideous ways, now. It isn’t rape, because people don’t have much interest in raping animals — but it’s not necessarily better or less about power than rape. And it’s certainly about treating other living creatures as things. I don’t think it would be insane to suggest that we have a vivisection culture, and that that has something to do with rape culture. You treat people (or animals) as means rather than ends — and the end then is always about power. It’s Kant whose relevant here, I think, not Freud.
And no one is shocked by your take on Anita Hill, I don’t think.
“Kelly Sue Deconnick’s run on Captain Marvel has been a breathe of fresh air. The first issue is perfect”
I thought it was kind of crap, personally. The first trade reads like a parody of a superhero comic. The woman who flies around the earth in two seconds with her cosmic power lectures the reader on how the real heroes are women who get in planes and fly around the world real slowly, it’s more like a corny punchline for a webcomic than a viable premise for a trade.
I realize I’m by far in the minority in this one. What’s the appeal in issue 1, sub- Bendis banter, a corny random encounter fight scene where Captain Marvel lectures the villain how a WOMAN can FIGHT VILLAINY LIKE A MAN and a boxing match with Spider-man where if I recall correctly she keeps threatening to kill him which is supposed to be bantery and “funny”, where the main appeal seems to be I RECOGNIZE THOSE CROSSOVER CHARACTERS.
It’s cool that you like it though, most bloggers seem to… it certainly lacks any obvious sexism, politically it seems fine, though the writer seems to think the way to write female characters in a superhero book is have them be as macho as possible including having female characters talks about “their balls” which is one strategy I guess…..
I’m way out of touch with what direct market superhero readers consider “perfect” obviously.
Um, Charles? Since we’re dealing with a fictional character, the best way to resolve problems of “what if she likes this?” “What if she likes that?” etc. is probably plausibility. Like, is that consistent with the original conception and history of the character?
I mean, what if Superman likes spitting on the American Flag and taking a shit on Honest Abe’s lap at the Lincoln Memorial? What if they faked the moon landing? What if JFK is still really living in a sub-sub-sub-basement bunker in Ft. Meade?
Ooh! Oooh! Here’s one: YOU may not like kryptonite, but what if Superman does? No, wait…
I agree with that, Kevin.
Yes, Noah, we have as many cultures as English nouns. I prefer adverbs: people who believe in rape culture see culture rapish-ly.
I think I’ll bow out of this, since these discussions never lead to anywhere good. And disagreeing with the character assassination of Thomas as a leftist: I know how that discussion goes, too …
Another thing, Charles: When you think of something or someone as inferior, it means you view them entirely as a means to your ends, and liable to be used in whatever way suits your needs, without regard to their agency. So you don’t want to rape them? That’s great. But there’s no reason in principle you can’t, should your subjective whim change. If you don’t view other people as equals, whose own ends and happiness are just as valuable as yours, you’ve left the door open to abusing them in whatever way you later find convenient. Your failure to murder, rob or rape them is entirely a concession of grace on your part rather than a matter of right.
Charles: But I was making essentially the same argument as Ami made earlier. So you must agree with her, as well?
I don’t disagree but factually, men are raped more often than women.
http://nplusonemag.com/raise-the-crime-rate
“When you think of something or someone as inferior, it means you view them entirely as a means to your ends, and liable to be used in whatever way suits your needs, ”
hilarious considering this blog is called hooded Utilitarian and utilitarians believe we are all only means to an end.
“comic book message boards are merely echo chambers in which people who are, by and large, sycophants gather to reinforce each other’s narrow-mindedness and reflect each other’s images at twice their actual size (to paraphrase Virginia Woolf). ”
So like the rest of the internet. I haven’t found a single blog, forum, subreddit, or comment section that wasn’t this. That’s how we interact with people on the internet. Sad, but a simple fact. Just look above.
——————–
Noah Berlatsky says:
It’s interesting to compare that…with the scene in Arkham Asylum where the Joker gooses Batman. When the Joker does it, he’s (a) clearly evil, and (b) the sexualization of the hero is diegetically part of a deliberate effort by the sexualizer to humiliate and destroy him. When it happens to a man, in other words, its an aggressive act of violence and violation…
———————
The scene in question: http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/tdomf/83938/loosenup.jpg
The HORROR! “clearly evil…part of a deliberate effort by the sexualizer to humiliate and destroy him…an aggressive act of violence and violation…”
(And anticipating the predictable appalled “this is a new low for you” outrage, no, I’m not saying “goosing” or any other form of sexual harassment is OK; it’s noxious, contemptible.)
——————–
Joe S. Walker says:
Since “white”, “male” and “straight” are clearly terms of abuse to this writer, it’s asking rather a lot not to reply in kind.
———————
———————
Noah Berlatsky says:
I’m white, male, and straight. I don’t see his use of any of those terms as abusive. But maybe I’m just especially thick-skinned or something, I dunno.
———————
Consider the context, dude!
———————
Robert Jones, Jr. says:
It took me a very long time to realize that mainstream comic book industry isn’t at all interested in me, isn’t at all talking to me; that it is, in fact, talking over my shoulder to the straight white man-boy (and people who identify with the straight white man-boy) reading his comic book behind me.
———————-
RJJ then goes on to expound how loathsome in every way those mainstream comics are: “macho-friendly, anti-feminist”; “misogynist propaganda”; treating “rape-y” sexual harrassment as “harmless slap and tickle”; “products of rape culture”; “reinforc[ing] the idea that there are no limits on men’s behavior, particularly in relation to women’s bodies”…
…and that’s just the first few paragraphs!
That he equates such noxiousness as stuff to be gobbled up with delight by “straight white man-boy[s]” says it all.
Oh, but there’s more; to pick another tidbit:
———————
It has everything to do with a group of frightened individuals…trying desperately to fortify their tower of straight white male hegemony in a world where that hegemony is becoming decidedly less tenable.
And you don’t only see this happening in the comic book industry. You see it in mainstream politics as well with organizations like the GOP trying to decide if they should jettison some of their more outrageous, overt bigotries in order to court enough Latinos, women, and gays to win elections. It reads to me as a sort of panic, a sort of regrouping of the straight white guard as they try to figure out what it means to be straight, white, and male in a world where queer people are demanding civil rights, a black man is the leader of democracy, and women are asserting control over their own bodies.
———————-
Because regarding the embodied Triumvirate of Evil that are straight white males, RJJ takes it for granted that of course that group of scumbags is going to be opposed to the rights of any other group; want to keep trampling women, gays, Latinos, all the usual victims, underfoot.
If objecting to this writer’s attitude to straight white males makes you thin-skinned, producing 2000 words of foam-flecked polemic over a fictional character’s ass getting slapped in a comic book makes you…?
Joe; I don’t think it was particularly foam flecked. And it wasn’t all about one incident.
Reggie, utilitarians don’t believe that…but in fact the name of the blog is a joke (I’m the editor, and I am not a utilitarian…though I wrote my masters thesis about William Paley, who was a utilitarian, and a pretty interesting one….though that’s sort of off topic.)
The “men raped more often than women” thing is actually really tendentious, is my understanding (and I have looked into this a bit.) Don’t immediately accept everything you read on the internet, and all that.
Charles, you’re really objecting to the idea that there can be overlapping or multiple cultures within a culture, and/or that those can reinforce each other? Or that you could characterize one culture in numerous ways? I guess you’ve left the building, but those all seem like odd things to maintain.
Also…a lot of your resistance to the term rape culture seems to come from your concern with/rejection of the idea that you might be implicated personally — that is, the issue isn’t so much that you’re defending real rape victims as that you’re defending yourself, on the grounds that you don’t want to rape people, therefore you can’t be involved in rape culture.
To which I’d say — if you don’t want to be involved in rape culture, the best way seems like it would be to reject rape culture, and spend your energy doing that, rather than acting as if the term “rape culture” is somehow more offensive, or more damaging, than the cultural standard which says that harassment short of rape, or up to rape, is funny and entertaining and no big deal.
Or to sum up; if your shoes aren’t untied, don’t even trip.
Kevin, that’s a great explanation.
Or, if you start seeing culture “rape-ish-ly” don’t worry– the human body has ways of shutting that while thing down.
Yeah, false consciousness, right?
No, Noah, I’m objecting that slapping ‘culture’ after any noun you don’t like is easy and says little about anything other than your own blinkered ideological take on life.
Not to demand that you read carefully, Charles, I know I frequently don’t, but, since you’re bringing up old conversations spitefully, I will remind you that “false consciousness” is Adorno’s albatross, perhaps yours, not mine.
Kevin,
I was agreeing with this: “Since we’re dealing with a fictional character, the best way to resolve problems of ‘what if she likes this?’ ‘What if she likes that?’ etc. is probably plausibility. Like, is that consistent with the original conception and history of the character?”
Which isn’t saying the same as: “That doesn’t mean that others have to feel as you do, or that you are the baseline for the law.”
Not with spite, so I hope it doesn’t come across as that. Just showing you how you and Noah use the concept. I’m just having fun with you, really. Sorry if it actually pissed you off. That wasn’t my intention. (No sarcasm, being serious.)
Or maybe I should’ve been offended by having been compared to some right wing nitwit dismissing the seriousness of rape …
I wasn’t, though.
Anyway, this is how these discussions go. I know that, but chose to participate anyway. People have a tough time keeping their anger down, which isn’t one of my many issues.
I do in fact think that rape (and vivisection for that matter) are pretty important cultural phenomena, and that they can tell us a lot about how our culture works. That’s ideological, sure. It’s also ideological to deny that, and certainly ideological to pop up during any discussion of rape or harassment to insist that said rape and harassment do not exist.
I know you’re not right wing, and I don’t think you’re a nitwit at all, but if you don’t want to be compared to people dismissing the seriousness of rape and harassment, it seems like the easiest way to do that would be to stop going out of your way to dismiss the seriousness of rape and harassment.
Not angry– just correcting your consciousness. Emoticon!
We’re talking about a WW comic book where her ass is slapped — that’s what I’ve been dismissive of. And, to you, that’s dismissing rape? I’d suggest that such conflations are de facto dismissive.
So many of the comments here amount to just what I indicated in the essay:
“My feelings are more important than your struggles.”
It never fails. It always comes to pass.
It’s like what this person said on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/adamkotsko/status/261506203165806592
#SoOverIt
Wasn’t just talking about this thread, Charles.
But yeah, as Ami noted up thread, using rape to dismiss other instances of harassment (such as workplace harassment) is pretty noxious. And that is in fact what you’re doing.
Women are taught to think of their bodies as public domain from the moment they’re old enough to step onto a playground. They are taught to know consciously that all forms of violence against their body will be freely dismissed and are not important. Men will gleefully split hairs about how much of this violence “isn’t a big deal”, or split hairs trying to insist it’s the woman’s fault for not expecting that she’ll be accosted by men for existing, who apparently can’t control their lust or whatever. That is all bullshit. All of it is violence. All of it. Slapping a woman’s ass without her consent is violence. Grabbing a woman’s arms, menacing her sexually, it all reinforces that. Trying to put them on a scale of acceptability is nothing but hand-wringing bullshit. Nobody’s going to give you a cookie for assuring them you’ll never rape women and you’re not part of the problem. This is bigger than you. These ideas are bigger than you. Read about the experiences of other women before you decide you’re the authority here.
Violence, especially sexualized, against the bodies of women is so accepted in fiction that it’s used as a “character development” trope as though it’s an expected part of having a female body. Fridging, raping, molesting, ass-slaps, as plot points. When even Wonder Woman, a woman superhero and ostensibly a hero to women, can’t get through a whole story without some leering beardo hack writing her receiving an ass slap. Not even women fictionalized as being respectable get to have the same bodily safety and autonomy as their male counterparts.
Do some reading and come back. If you dismiss the experiences of real women then I guarantee you think you’re smarter than women, full stop. If you don’t understand their hostility then you aren’t looking close enough.
I’ve not said anything about workplace harassment not existing. No one’s brought up an instance of it that I remember. Anita Hill, I guess, but I make no claims about whether she was harassed. Have you ever discussed real rape on this site? I agree that harassment is bad, rape is bad (going out on a limb here). But what you talk about are fictional conceptualizations unless I’m forgetting something. It’s a conceptual tool for you. So it’s a chintzy piece of sophistry to try and switch it on me as if I’m denying that rape or harassment exists in the real world. If you’re going to women’s shelters and helping out, then that’s great. You won’t hear me poopooing that. But get some perspective if you think protecting the sanctity of WW’s butt does much of anything regarding the actual abuse of women.
I have to agree that comics for kids shouldn’t portray unwanted ass-touching as harmless or funny. When I was a kid in the 80s, Mad Magazine did some jokes implying that it was at least semi-normal for guys to touch women’s butts without permission. (Specifically, I seem to remember an Al Jaffee-illustrated joke about a 12-step program for “Cop-a-Free-Feel” addiction and a Star Trek spoof where a psychic woman said she can “Feel things that no one else can feel–especially in crowded elevators!”) Saying that kind of thing to adolescent boys can have some bad real-life consequences.
But speaking of kids–I can understand adults objecting to sexism, racism, etc. in contemporary superhero comics from a parent’s/concerned citizen’s perspective, but objecting from a reader’s perspective seems weird. Robert Jones is over 40 and just realized, because of a Wonder Woman ass-slapping scene, that novels might be more rewarding than DC Comics? The hell? I used to have the same reaction to the “fangirl” site Sequential Tart’s frequent complaints about sexism in comics–their apparently horrible taste cancelled out whatever sympathy I felt for their political critique. Overall, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that I’m smarter than everyone.
That last comment was to Noah.
And because of all the layers of horseshit sediment by now. I’ll remind anyone who cares that what I objected to was seeing an ass slap as part of the nebulously undefined “rape culture.” I no where disagreed that a boss slapping his secretary could be harassment. It most likely will be (unless they have some agreement).
I read RARS’s comment after adding mine… Maybe my snotty second paragraph was uncalled for. I agree that it’s very fucked-up for comic books to portray obsensible heroines as fair game for unwanted groping; I should have left it at that.
Are you kidding me? ‘Could’ be harassment?
Charles, anything people do involves their brains and their imaginations. That definitely includes rape. That’s why Todd Akin’s comments mattered; he’s able to excuse banning abortion in cases of rape because he has a vision of rape that says that women are lying when they say they’ve been raped. Stories about rape and harassment affect policies about rape and harassment, because people think in stories. If the only stories we tell ourselves are ones in which women’s bodies are fair game for men, and/or in which women mean yes when they say no, then it becomes hard to (for example) keep someone off the Supreme Court even when multiple women are willing to testify that he harassed them, or to prosecute men who rape.
Obviously one sexist moment in a comic book isn’t going to cause the world to end. But Robert’s not saying it causes the world to end. He’s saying it’s a pattern in comics that suggests that the comics are a lot more interested in enjoying/joking about harassment than in trying to speak to people who might find jokes about harassment offensive or upsetting. As a result, he doesn’t want to read them anymore.
And it seems that (a) you actually are getting angry, and (b) there’s some cognitive dissonance for you? If critiquing the comic isn’t important and is nothing to get self-righteous about, then why do you think that critiquing a critique of the comic and getting self-righteous about that makes any sense? You’re all up in arms and accusing people of minimizing rape and spending hours on the comment thread, last I checked. Either you think these discussion matter or you don’t. You’re in the room or you’re not. Pick one.
And I should probably say…obviously, I really, really, really strongly disagree with Charles on this, and think his argument is kind of evil. But I don’t think Charles is evil, and appreciate the time he takes to comment here and his civility. So thanks Charles…and thanks to everyone else who has commented as well.
Hmm, that sounds familiar …
What I was saying is that arguing over fiction doesn’t entail arguing over a real world scenario. I don’t have a problem with arguing over fiction, which should be obvious.
What do you want, RARS, that, regardless of whether they’re friends, have sexual relations or any other agreement, it’s harassment? “It most likely will be” just isn’t absolute enough for you? Sorry, I’m not an “all sex is abuse” type.
All sex ISN’T abuse, but all sexual violations ARE.
I love this piece and I think it’s a fantastic summation of the continuous, off-putting flaws that make mainstream superhero comic books so difficult for me to enjoy.
In particular, I think it’s something that a lot of my friends and acquaintances could certainly benefit from reading — even if they disagree with the analysis — because it clearly points out the constant and never-ending bigoted bullshit in mainstream comics.
The only thing I disagree with is that the end solution is a complete opt-out. In my opinion, I prefer to praise and share the few examples of mainstream superhero comics that don’t reinforce the bigoted norms of the business.
I’m not saying that I go out of my way to hunt them down and hold them up, because I think that would be futile activity. But when I do find something that presents a positive and balanced representation of characters, I do my best to enjoy the reading experience and share that enjoyment with other people.
True.
argh. previous comment.
No one thinks all sex is abuse, no one -said- all sex is abuse. It is important to be critical of sex because sex can be used as a weapon to destroy and control the bodies of others. It’s not inherently good or inherently bad. And it is especially important to be inclusive of people typically disempowered by the way society approaches sex, such as women.
EVERYTHING RARS has said. EVERYTHING.
A question for any of you:
Does any of this analysis change if, in a subsequent issue, Diana slugs Orion if he tries it again? Or, he genuinely apologizes? Or both?
Seems to me that what’s coming is that Orion undergoes the standard hero hubris thing, he’s a pompous ass who is going to be humbled like Heracles (isn’t he Diana’s father in this retcon?) or Theseus or Daedalus or Jason, or the Kirby/Lee Thor?
It’s been awhile, but as I recall, Kirby’s Orion was a man trying to overcome his baser instincts (which were a product of his parentage) seems to fit right in with a redemption story.
Even if he isn’t redeemed, seems to me that Orion would just be that “everyone knows one” sort of ass. Doesn’t make the behavior right, but what’s the problem with a loathsome character in fiction?
Re: my earlier Aerosmith/Thor comment– Neil Pollack had a moment in one of his books, where the protagonist put on a Van Halen cassette in front of Michael Stipe. Stipe said “This is rape music,” and the protagonist said, “Good.”
I do think that’s kind of funny– not because there’s anything funny about rape, unless it’s in a thoroughly tasteless cancer-humor, genocide-humor sort of vein– but because Michael Stipe is a sanctimonious prick, and, I submit, classic Van Halen is a better band than R.E.M. (though R.E.M. far surpasses Van Hagar). And Van Halen sings about strippers and probably have treated women poorly in real life.
But part of my argument would be that images of sexual harassment matter, which is Robert’s point, even though aesthetics also matter, which might sort of be Charles’ point, or at least the point I would be making in his shoes.
But if we agree that the Orion scene is both morally gross and aesthetically stupid, why are we even bothering to defend it? Or, Charles might asking me, why am I bothering to attack it?
The reason is that the argument should be about what comics are actually worth arguing about, I suppose. But, the issue is that, if there is any agreed-upon “good” comic, what do you do if its politics are repellent? Or what if a comic has good politics and crappy art and storytelling? How do politics and aesthetics relate?
Hey Dean. That’s an interesting question.
I think the answer is it would depend very much on what happens. I don’t think that the trajectory you’ve outlined would work for me. That is, if his slapping WW ends up being a kind of plot fillip in a story focused on Orion’s redemption, and that’s the extent of it, then I’d say what you’ve got there is a book that is focused on male redemption and psychodrama, and uses harassment of women simply as a supplement to that psychodrama. That is, the book doesn’t care about the harassment (except perhaps to the extent that it finds it funny/amusing), but about the psychodrama. Which doesn’t seem especially impressive.
If you’re asking, on the other hand, if harassment of women or abuse of women can ever be shown in a way that is not siding with the harasser, or minimizing the harassment — then my answer would be, yes, of course. I think Moore and Gibbons manage this in Watchmen. I think Jack Hill manages it in a number of his films. Marston and Peter, the original Wonder Woman creators, actually do this as well; they’ve got an entire comic about rape and abuse, which I think is the best thing they ever did, and which I talk about at length in my book, which will be published someday. So I don’t think it’s hard to do, if you care. I don’t see any indication that Azzarello does, though.
“It’s been awhile, but as I recall, Kirby’s Orion was a man trying to overcome his baser instincts (which were a product of his parentage) seems to fit right in with a redemption story.”
It’s been a long time since I read New Gods, but I’m pretty sure Kirby’s version of Orion has no interest in pursuing women at all. I think he has a line, if I recall correctly, when someone asks him about love, he says “I find all the love I need in the battlefield” And no, decadent fanboy writers of the world, he was not talking about rape.
I also think he tries to control the beast within (and conceal it, his parentage is kept a secret) rather than going around slapping women for the fun of it, so I do’t really see this being in character with the Kirby version. Remember he was raised in the heavenly realm of New Genesis.
On a team book, when he isn’t the main character like in New Gods, it’s possible DC writers have been more inclined to just make him the two dimensional jerk or whatever, or make him an a-hole so Superman can look cool in comparison, but that’s not the Kirby version, from what I recall.
The assault on Diana isn’t used as an example of how not to treat another’s person – there’s no moral or lesson here – this is simply used as a device for “humor”. If they wanted to illustrate Orion’s character, they could have had him either start to comment on Diana’s form, or about to reach out, only to have her quickly turn around and stop him, telling him how unacceptable his actions were, for example. The writer and artist here display a sad ideal that exists in this society, that assault of this nature is something to be laughed at and not to be taken very seriously.
” Doesn’t make the behavior right, but what’s the problem with a loathsome character in fiction?”
I think the writer needs to decide what sort of material is appropriate for the book. I mean, there’s a reason the bad guys don’t just use nerve gas to kill Batman, or Joker doesn’t rape Batman or whatever, the writer or editor says “whooooaa, that isn’t cool to do on this book”. It’s all just lines on paper, but it’s the responsibility of the creative team to decide what lines on paper is appropriate for the book.
I think similarly you could say the ass slapping misadventures of Wonder Woman isn’t cool to do, that even though you could write a story where Wonder Woman is molested by a fellow superhero, maybe that isn’t actually aesthetically or politically a good idea?
Maybe the empowered female characters shouldn’t be targeted for molestation? Maybe gross sex stuff shouldn’t be part of a mainstream superhero book with a character still marketed to little girls on Saturday morning cartoons or Halloween stores?
Certainly if I was writing Wonder Woman I’d tend to think that molestation material doesn’t really fit what the book should be about. But I’m not really into the superhero decadence stuff. It’s as much just my aesthetic reaction as anything else.
Granted, the original material in Wonder Woman was quite fetishy, so I can see how you might take a different approach to what is or is not appropriate for the book. But my main point is you can’t give the book a pass just because we agree what a character did is wrong, the question is was it wrong to include that plotline in the book.
Undoubtedly Wonder Woman could deliver any number of appropriate and devastating responses to harassment. But apparently this book does not deliver on that scenario.
The original comic was fetishy…but it was also really explicitly feminist. Orion’s action would make him almost certainly a villain in Marston’s world…and his villainy would probably be connected quite explicitly to ideological oppression of women. Marston very much made saw individual gender interactions a part of cultural and social issues — to women in the workforce, for example. He also linked patriarchal control of women to rape…and male ressentiment and entitlement to rape as well. That’s why Charles doesn’t like him, in large part, I think.
Basically, the original book’s gender politics, aimed at 8 year olds, were significantly more sophisticated and thoughtful than the current ones, aimed at 20 and 30 year olds. That’s progress, I guess.
Thanks Noah.
I haven’t read the book, I like generally like Cliff Chiang’s art (although content aside, that panel is terrible) and the New Gods so I figured I’d get to it someday, but I agree it doesn’t seem very impressive, for a lot of reasons.
I see two things in your last post
1. An evaluative criterion for art that says: any are that portrays “harassment of women or abuse of women” that is “siding with the harasser, or minimizing the harassment” is bad art.
and
2. “if you care” I realize you’re speaking specifically about an artist, but where the whole thing breaks down for me, is the implication that not having the above criterion makes you part of, or even a supporter of a rape culture.
“if you don’t want to be involved in rape culture, the best way seems like it would be to reject rape culture, and spend your energy doing that, rather than acting as if the term “rape culture” is somehow more offensive, or more damaging, than the cultural standard which says that harassment short of rape, or up to rape, is funny and entertaining and no big deal.”
Seems to me, to whatever extent we live in a rape culture, the best response is to reject rape. And rapists. And harassment and harassers.
Re: Watchmen – Don’t Moore and Gibbons minimize the rape of Sally Jupiter? Sally later has consensual sex with Blake (resulting in the birth of Laurie). In the epilog it’s implied that Laurie is going to adopt her father’s costume. Dr. Manhattan decides to re-engage with humanity, because it’s so damn beautiful that Sally could forgive her rapist. Manhattan stands by and watches while Blake kills his pregnant lover, whom Blake was clearly using strictly for sex, because it makes no difference whether she’s dead or alive, her value is the same as that of her component molecules.
And that’s just Blake – Manhattan starts dating Laurie when she’s 16, and involves her in a threesome without her consent (while at the same time ignoring her). Manhattan dumps Janie just because she’s aging noticeably.
Even poor Dan Drieberg has to see Laurie in terms of his fetish before he can have sex with her.
Right, so that’s an example of depicting rape culture, as opposed to endorsing it. Or at least that would be a reasonable reading, I think.
Pallas – Agree re: Kirby’s Orion, I was talking more generally of how the character arc has been one of redemption before, and that it’s not inconceivable Azzarello would take a similar, not identical tack. I’d agree that this version of Orion has much more to do with his Justice League appearances (Giffen DeMatteis and Morrison) than it does with Kirby, or even Simonson.
Re: appropriateness to character – I would tend to agree, I was speaking more of a general case.
“Undoubtedly Wonder Woman could deliver any number of appropriate and devastating responses to harassment. But apparently this book does not deliver on that scenario.”
Yet. Having read these things for 35 years or so, I’d bet a fair amount that Diana slugging Orion is coming. It will also be played for laughs. Pig gets his ass handed to him by a woman. Cliche for sure. One thing to keep in mind here, is that this periodical is just a chapter in a larger story.
Noah –
“Orion’s action would make him almost certainly a villain in Marston’s world”
Agreed. Orion is a god of war. Wasn’t Ares a Marston WW villain? Orion was also Morrison’s analog for Ares in his Pantheon view. I never could figure out if Diana was supposed to be Athena or Hera. The Huntress was Artemis, so go figure.
I’ve got a link to my piece on Watchmen there, which you could read if you’d like. I don’t think that Moore and Gibbons minimize the rape. It’s presented as brutal and horrible and traumatic. Sally never forgives Blake for it — that’s absolutely a misreading. She loves him, but she wants nothing to do with him for herself or her daughter.
Watchmen very clearly says that Laurie is no more miraculous than anyone else as well.
There’s room to criticize Moore and Gibbons, but I think they’re pretty careful about this stuff, and they clearly care about it. Sally’s rape is not a joke; it’s not a plot point in Blake’s psychodrama; it’s never treated as anything other than horrible, and both of them live with it for the rest of their lives. I see nothing in Azzarello that suggests he even has any conception of how to come near to vaguely wanting to do something like that.
In terms of Laurie…Manhattan’s treatment of her is seen as fairly repulsive. He’s shown to be profoundly fucked up. His treatment of Janie is crappy too. Again, merely showing women being treated in less than ideal ways is not the problem here.
Art is complicated, and I like a lot of misogynist art, for reasons which can range from “there are good things about this art despite its misogyny” (like Dickens), to “this misogynist art is really insightful about how gender relations work, and can therefore be read against itself to some extent” (D. H. Lawrence) But Azzarello/Chiang’s Wonder Woman is basically a piece of pulp dreck which uses misogyny to pretend that it’s edgy because its defecating on the feminist work of other, much more talented artists. It is an absolute and complete piece of shit, both aesthetically and ideologically. In my opinion.
Diana is the Roman name for Artemis.
have to agree with you on the issue of wonder woman being a little mysogist for the original version of diana would not only turn around and proably break orions hand but also throw him into a wall. though her own creator was kind of mysitogist and sexist too by all his stories of having her in bondage. though hopefuly bryan has plans for wonder woman to get some payback on orion for touching her butt like that.
Or, you know, maybe “Family Guy” is funny sometimes, but maybe Seth McFarlane on the Oscars was a douche. Misogyny runs deep.
Demoncat, I don’t think fetish equals misogyny…and William Marston, the original writer of WW, certainly didn’t think it did. He was a committed feminist. I’ve written tons and tons on the site about it if you’re interested; a good place to start is maybe with the roundtable here.
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Noah Berlatsky says:
I do in fact think that rape (and vivisection for that matter) are pretty important cultural phenomena, and that they can tell us a lot about how our culture works.
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Yes; but isn’t stitching relatively-rare phenomena onto an entire culture a grotesquely insulting — at the very least absurd — attack?
Why don’t we call African-American culture “misogynist culture”? There’s a helluva lot more outspoken woman-hating there than there is among whites…
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That’s ideological, sure. It’s also ideological to deny that….
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And so, if some old-time Christian says the Earth is the center of the universe, because we’re so prized by God, then anyone who maintains an astronomically-correct situation is also just an ideologue. Right.
And, if some ideologue says the world is run by a covert elite of evil Jewish bankers, then “It’s also ideological to deny that.” To maintain that an actual, physical reality exists aside from distorted mental constructs and paranoid fantasies is the same thing as what it rejects.
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…and certainly ideological to pop up during any discussion of rape or harassment to insist that said rape and harassment do not exist.
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Ah, the classic “accuse somebody of making some outrageous/absurd statement which they in fact did not make, then attack them for making an outrageous/absurd statement” tactic!
Yes, if someone argues that in some particular fictional situation(The Pamuk/Mary Crawley scene in “Downton Abbey,” James Bond and Pussy Galore in “Goldfinger,” the violent case of Comedian and Sally Jupiter in “Watchmen”) the signs point that a rape did not happen…
…that means you “insist that said rape and harassment do not exist.” Tactics worthy of Fox News…
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The point isn’t that rape culture means that all sexism is designed to organize rape. The point is that it’s all designed to treat women as things — which is what rape is about as well. The willingness to treat women as things means that harassment is erased…which is what makes rape possible.
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Well guess what? This culture is set up to treat everyone and everything that isn’t rich and powerful as things; including nature, animals, and even most of those nasty ol’ heterosexual white males.
The term in its original usage didn’t catch on, but for a while in psychological circles “thinging”was used as the phenomenon of viewing other people — say, the cashier at the supermarket — as things.
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[Addressing Charles] Rape culture does suggest that sexism and rape are linked. I don’t really see you critiquing that; just sort of stating over and over that it must clearly be impossible.
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Certainly there’s a link between sexism and rape, just as there is between anti-Semitism and Buchenwald. What is noxious is the lack of perspective (the equivalent of the arguments maintained by the More-P.C.-Than-Thou Crowd here would be that an old lady who’s suspicious that Jewish businessmen would rip her off is the equivalent of a Storm Trooper.
Moreover, we get countless distortions:
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The wikipedia article suggests that rape culture can be defined as a culture where “sexual violence is both made to be invisible and inevitable.” I would say that applies quite well to the Wonder Woman panel…
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Gee, I seem to recall hearing of news stories and court cases about women getting raped. Tons of guys are in prison for…rape. Not so invisible, is it?
And — crass and noxious though it is — we are to refer to Wonder Woman’s getting slapped on the butt as “sexual violence“? Sexual harassment, definitely; but, talk about “devaluing the currency”…
But then, if we must keep constantly up the frothing frenzy among the Righteous at fever pitch, hyperbole is a necessity! (“Obama not only wants to take your guns away…his Death Panels will kill your granny!”
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Robert Jones, Jr. says:
Don’t let the members of the “men’s rights” movement (yes, that’s an actual thing) hear you say this, though. Ruling every major institution on Earth apparently isn’t enough; men have to be considered innocent and absolved of every crime, too. Patriarchy is a helluva drug…
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Yes, because all males are forever wallowing in wealth and privilege; so that the very idea that there might be some areas in which many would get the “dirty end of the stick”…
-Routinely being given harsher sentences by juries than women accused of the same crime ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/men-women-prison-sentence-length-gender-gap_n_1874742.html )
-Hardly ever being awarded custody of the children in a divorce, even though the woman might have been an atrocious parent ( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-t-pisarra/the-y-factor-gender-bias-_b_838631.html )
-“Not only do women have better chances of being awarded child support …. they are more likely to actually receive payments.” ( http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/statbriefs/chldsupp.html )
-Being drafted into the military, while women are not
-Male lives being considered “disposable” in combat as opposed to women’s; women soldiers routinely kept far from the action. (Ah, a change! This recent story reports, “Women could assume combat roles in the US army for the first time as early as this year, following a landmark decision by defense secretary Leon Panetta to lift a military ban on women serving on the frontline.” [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/23/pentagon-overturn-ban-women-combat ])
…but, to RJJ, the very idea that men (Boo! Hiss!) should need any “rights” is as ludicrous as a “king’s rights” movement.
Back on subject:
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Charles Reece says:
…what about “context”? We have none for this panel: what happens after or before it? We don’t know. Maybe WW is stripped and assaulted, or maybe she punches Orion or lectures him or goes “tee hee.” The panel could mean anything, really.
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That’s a great suggestion! I’m not about to buy the comic, but a quick search shows:
http://media.tumblr.com/5a780c65c1df978b31de20b56ceda3b0/tumblr_inline_mil23dIguW1qz4rgp.png
Apparently there’s some child that could turn out to be the AntiChrist or something similarly horrendous, evil and destructive (like, say, a heterosexual white male). And Orion (how have Kirby’s heroes fallen!), in clueless jock fashion, gives her a “go get ’em”slap on the butt, as one football player would another as they break up from a huddle. (Or whatever that “crowded together to plan strategy” thing is called.)
Someone else got the meaning:
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If you read my review of Wonder Woman #17, you know that I didn’t particularly care for the issue. In the midst of critiquing all of the problematic writing and art decisions, I mentioned a panel that really got on my nerves only in passing. It was this slap of encouragement from Orion:
Not classy.
But while Wonder Woman was busy getting her ass slapped and then not doing much of anything else in her own book (except talking and walking), she also appeared in several other titles in a suitably kick ass fashion with some other great DC heroines…
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Emphasis added; from http://thanley.wordpress.com/tag/zatanna/
Cluelessly jock-y, but this slap wasn’t intended as demeaning (even if WW was not favorably impressed), much less “rape-y.”
Moreover, WW was furious; she was about to set Orion straight..
…but was interrupted by another woman, with a substantial objection: “It’s my baby…and you act like I’m not even here!”
And, who’s to say Wonder Woman’s reaction to the butt-slap will be forever deferred? Writers don’t necessarily resolve character conflicts the instant they appear.
(Still, as I’d stated a while ago, I find this current “reimagining” — how can that term be so widely used, when there’s so little imagination involved? — of Wonder Woman atrocious, abominable; an insult to the character’s history and identity.)
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Noah Berlatsky says:
…Dean…If you’re asking, on the other hand, if harassment of women or abuse of women can ever be shown in a way that is not siding with the harasser, or minimizing the harassment — then my answer would be, yes, of course. I think Moore and Gibbons manage this in Watchmen…
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Indeed! Not that it stopped Moore from being attacked for various “misogynistic” comics, at HU and elsewhere. The very idea that Sally Jupiter, clearly shown as somewhat messed-up, could still have “feelings” for a creep who’d brutalized her, attempted to rape her, was attacked as “crimethink.”
Whenever I see someone who states they are quitting comics as a result of the actions of DC or Marvel, I always feel compelled to ask if that person has ever considered looking at any indie comic series or publishers. Honestly, I feel like quitting comics entirely because superhero comics are the crappy male power fantasies that they are would be like quitting all movies because you don’t like Michael Bay. I speak as a still-avid comic reader, who ended up gradually quitting mainstream superhero comics and looking at the other half of the store’s stock.
In some cases you will probably find a lot of the similar instances of white-privilege-affirming actions (much as you are likely to find them in any form of media, really), but you’re more likely to find something that’s better suited for you.
Mike,
First:
Can you quantify your claim that there’s more “outspoken woman hating” among African-Americans than among whites? If not, you might want to consider taking it back.
Second:
We have a perfectly good word for treating others as things. It’s called objectification.
“Diana is the Roman name for Artemis.”
Right, but there was also a member of the JLA called the Huntress who had no other analog in the Greek pantheon than Artemis.
Wonder Woman isn’t supposed to be a Greek god, in Marston’s version. His interest in the Greek pantheon was real, but subordinate to his interest in feminism and matriarchy, I think. The most important God in the original WW comics was not Zeus (who never appeared), but Aphrodite, who was the patron of the Amazons, and often appeared as a character.
Art that promotes “a culture where sexual violence is both made to be invisible and inevitable.” is okay as long as the art is aesthetically pleasing or insightful. Got it now.
No. Like I said, it’s complicated. Misogyny in art pretty much always makes me — viscerally — like the art less. Dickens’ female characters are really miserable,and mar my enjoyment of his work. But there are other things in Dickens I like. D. H. Lawrence really cares about women in a way that few male writers do; a lot of that caring comes because he hates women and is afraid of them, but the result is still interesting and worth thinking about, to me.
I mean, I don’t think what I’m saying is particularly confusing. Misogyny and sexism are never “okay”. If they show up in a work of art, they’re something that you (or at least I) pretty much always think about and react to. That doesn’t mean that I always hate art that has those things in it — but it means that if they’re there, the creator had better be doing something pretty interesting with them.
So…it’s not that misogyny is okay if the art is aesthetically pleasing or insightful. It’s that misogyny itself is generally aesthetically displeasing — or at the very least strongly affects whether I think a work is aesthetically pleasing or insightful.
Not to go throwing around the other “r” word, but Mike’s rather off-the-cuff comment about black culture being more misogynist than white culture (apparently the history of brave and educated and talented black women doesn’t speak for itself), it does bring up hip-hop culture, which is an interesting example. If you dismiss all misogynist art, you are dismissing a very large swath of hip-hop. Which doesn’t mean that that music should have its misogyny tolerated, overlooked, etc., but also not that we write it off solely on that basis.
Noah – I think I have been conflating Robert’s views with yours on the portrayal of misogyny in art.
There is a HUGE amount of distance between
“misogyny itself is generally aesthetically displeasing — or at the very least strongly affects whether I think a work is aesthetically pleasing or insightful.”
and
“I propose that this action isn’t harmless, not even when it happens in the funny pages. I believe depictions like these reinforce the idea that there are no limits on men’s behavior, particularly in relation to women’s bodies.”
I think under Robert’s formulation, Dickens would be a much more troubling work of art than Azzarello’s Wonder Woman, because, due to Dickens’ superior aesthetics, it would be much more effective and pervasive in its real world impact in affirming the rape culture. It’s a rare kid in the US who doesn’t get out of high school without reading at least two Dickens works. Particularly since “most men don’t see the harm because men rarely have to be on the receiving end of these sorts of violations, which are products of rape culture”
Under Robert’s formulation, portrayal misogyny is first and foremost a political consideration, and, because he links artistic portrayal so closely to real world impact, I think it’s a consideration that would necessarily trump any aesthetic considerations.
In your formulation, portrayal of misogyny appears to be one of many aesthetic considerations (a really important one) in evaluating a work of art. It’s possible that another evaluator would have a completely different ranking of considerations or even different considerations regarding misogyny.
I did go back to your Watchmen essay, and while I think Watchmen is a bit more muddled than you think on the topic, reading it did bring up something interesting for me. My baseline assumption is that because Sally loved Blake, that she believed he was worthy of that love. I realize now, that’s not necessarily the case. So thank you for that.
“Why don’t we call African-American culture “misogynist culture”? There’s a helluva lot more outspoken woman-hating there than there is among whites…”
I’d like to see some receipts for that shit cuz it’s racist as fuck and not even true.
Also, “misogyny in hip hop culture”:
– White people love to bring it up because it makes them less uncomfortable than bringing up the way white subjectivity destroys black families and creates more problems than anything.
– How about woman beating woman raping white rock dudes? There’s a shitload more of them than there is of anything. Even the average twee druidic pork pie hat fucker slaps around women more than most rappers.
Well, evidently, blacks have more of rape culture than whites, as do other non-whites. The only rape culture smaller than whites is found in Asians. Have fun with this identity reductionists!
But, I believe Mike was making a bit of joke, considering the pop music made primarily by blacks: rap, for example. Clearly, a homophobe culture there, but also a rape culture (see stats above).
And what about Native Americans? Manohman.
Noah: “[Marston] also linked patriarchal control of women to rape…and male ressentiment and entitlement to rape as well. That’s why Charles doesn’t like him, in large part, I think.”
Yep, that’s definitely part of it. The propaganda to surrender one’s will to the control of the state and general totalitarian outlook is the main reason, though. It’s definitely one of the most evil comics I’ve read. Azzarello corrects some of that, at least.
“How about woman beating woman raping white rock dudes?”
I mentioned Aerosmith and Van Halen initially, and wouldn’t have mentioned hip-hop except insofar as the “joke” about black rape culture brings up the intersections of other forms of prejudice (and just plain fear).
I hope we aren’t going to get into a discussion of whether rap by men is frequently misogynist– but there’s anti-misogynist rap (and R&B), and plenty of complicated in-between statements as well.
So if I’m correctly reading the statistic to which Charles linked, then regardless of race a man or a woman has a not insignificant chance of being raped, and once you factor race in it becomes clear that the further to the margins of white society you are then the more likely you are to be raped. Explain to me how this in any way refutes arguments about rape culture? Actually, don’t please, because it doesn’t.
But if you want to make an argument that it supports Mike’s claim (which was not about hip-hop but was a comparison between black culture and white culture) then go ahead and make it. But if you want to use that statistic then you also have to explain why you’re assuming: 1) that all these folks were raped by people of the same race (I can see you scrambling for statistics about stranger rape vs. acquaintance rape and then hitching them to another study on in-group heterogeneity… feel free to use those keyword when you Google); 2) why it is you think that rape culture can’t be exacerbated by a variety of other socio/cultural/economic factors. That is, why is that if a factor other than rape culture is at work, can’t factors other than race be at work?
Finally, if you want to say that your link was just a joke, and I’m taking it too seriously, please drive to the nearest Native American rape victim you can find and ask him or her to read through it. Then ask him or her how funny it is.
So having some anti-rape rap means it’s not a rape culture?
Charles, unless I’m reading that discussion wrong, you seem to be a bit confused? The graph shows victims by ethnicity, not perpetrators. It also doesn’t seem to adjust for income levels, that I can see.
Be that as it may…I think black women and minority women and marginalized women in general do tend to be more thoroughly objectified and sexualized than white women do. Why you present that as some sort of personal triumph of your own contrarianism, I’m not really sure.
I can definitely see the value in adjusting these sort of stats for income levels, but in the context of a rape culture, defined as :
the cultural and social norms which allow men to treat women as things who are there for male amusement. It’s a way to think about sexual harassment on the job, and domestic abuse, and rape, as part of a single system, the goal of which is to oppress women — just as segregation and lynching were part of a single system the goal of which was to oppress black people.
Why is there a need to adjust for income? Why would a single system with the goal of oppressing women be sensitive to income?
Nate, that percentage is of people who were raped, I believe, not of people in the overall population who were raped. Why it appears to add up to over 100% and why men appear to be only a segment of the women’s stats (i.e., they don’t come close to adding up to 100) is anybody’s guess.
That’s a fair point, Noah. And maybe it was white men who raped them all, so rape ideologues don’t have to worry about the racial implications of what they’re saying. I’ll spend more than a minute of research time to see what I can find …
Maybe Dean can figure that graph out.
“Why would a single system with the goal of oppressing women be sensitive to income?”
Well, because any system is going to be multiple and complicated…and because people with more resources are pretty much always going to be in a better position to defend themselves.
Similarly…histories of oppression affect people in various ways. People who have experienced imperialism and discrimination often react poorly, just as people placed in prison or tortured tend to not necessarily react optimally. Mostly this just tells you that, yep, those groups are still oppressed, which presumably most folks knew. Again, Charles’ conviction that this presents some sort of thoroughgoing epistemological challenge to something or other seems kind of confused.
Yeah, the graphs are showing the percentage of women in each race that have been raped. Roughly 1 in 3 Native American women have been raped.
Looks like this was an independent survey of folks, rather than picking up off reported crimes (a statistic that, for rape is always suspect).
Here we go, based on earlier stats that still break down the same (only minus graphs, which always kind of fuck me up). The percentages are from the ethnic populations. A little over 1 in 6 white women were raped, even though white women are the victims in somewhere around 80% of all rape cases.
Noah, it’s really quite simple: if rape culture exists — i.e., the “culture” (what might’ve once been called subculture, but that’s not as rhetorically powerful) is geared towards producing rape — then the ethnic culture that has the highest rate of rape would be the primary example of rape culture. So, if you agree with using the term, and Native Americans rape their women more than any other group … I mean culture, then Native Americans are more of a rape culture than the goto villain in these identity battles. But for a really lockdown case, I’ll need an ethnic breakdown of rapists, not the victims — I agree with you there. (But, if it’s true that rape occurs more often among acquaintances than strangers, it’s not too hard to see what the most reasonable hypothesis is here about the ethnic breakdown of the rapists themselves.)
Thanks, Dean, just figured that out while posting the above.
In other words, I’m asking what is it about white culture that makes it less a rape culture than non-white culture(s)?
Or you could just admit that ‘rape culture’ is a really stupid term.
Hey Charles –
Based on the stats I’ve perusued something like 2/3 to 3/4 of rapists are known to their victims.
I haven’t yet found a good national breakdown of rape incidence by race by income. Victims of rape, like pretty much all crime, are disproportionately represented in the lower income levels. Something like half of all victims are in the bottom third of incomes.
I’m sure accounting for income would have some leveling effect, how much, I’m not sure.
Isn’t this starting to sound like Charles Murray? Poor culture is the immoral culture. Or just any old bigoted view of race: Native Americans have a rape tradition, so it’s a good thing whites came along.
Pretty sure there isn’t a single monolithic “white culture” and undoubtedly the same could be said for “black culture”.
Or rape culture.
mmhmm.
Charles,
I stand corrected on the stats’ reference to population total, the the stat that says 1 in 6 white women have been raped suggests that rape is, indeed, prevalent.
That said, you haven’t answered my questions except to insinuate that the rapists are likely of the same race as the victims, though you didn’t even go to the trouble of backing it up.
This leads to my second question.You argue that it’s “quite simple” that if the culture “is geared towards producing rape — then the ethnic culture that has the highest rate of rape would be the primary example of rape culture,” but it isn’t that simple. It could be that we have a rape culture in which other factors, (political and economic disenfranchisement, for example) compound an already bad (1 in 6 women) situation.
Charles, none of your reasoning here makes sense to me. American culture at large is described as a rape culture. As Nate points out, the idea that marginal groups are more targeted for violence or harassment in various ways, and/or that discrimination and oppression can result in people behaving more violently, isn’t a refutation of that in any way that I can see.
Basically, you’re just doing what people who don’t want to talk about sexism often do…which is pointing to divisions along racial lines or class lines, and saying, well, see, those are more important and relevant. Stop whining about your problems, women.
I mean, do you really feel oppressed by the possibility that people might want to take rape seriously as a component of sexism? Is it really outrageous to consider that rape has a political component, and is linked to social mores short of rape? What’s at stake for you here that makes it important to jovially present statistics about minority rape in a triumphant fashion? And…don’t you see how maybe it undermines your point that the opposition to the term “rape culture” ends with you all-but-gleefully crowing over the fact that minorities have been the victims of rape?
Pallas…that’s right, and “rape culture” doesn’t mean, “everything that happens in the US or worldwide is an example of rape culture.” Otherwise feminism would be part of rape culture, which obviously is not what the people who use the term are saying.
Rape culture refers to mores and actions and beliefs which see women as objects for men, which treat sexual harasment as both natural and invisible. I don’t see why that analysis is threatening to men. On the contrary, making sexual harassment visible is in the interest of men too, since men, like women, can, and often are, victims of sexual violence.
The concept of “rape culture” is pseudoscience, or a rhetorical bludgeon. As a proposition it’s not falsifiable. Deny it, and you’re either okay with the rape culture, or are so ingrained in the rape culture you don’t realize there is a rape culture.
The idea that there is some sort of emergent, self organizing system of lechery, objectification, sexism, misogyny and rape, all meant to hold an entire gender down trivializes each of those issues as independent problems with independent solutions.
“It could be that we have a rape culture in which other factors, (political and economic disenfranchisement, for example) compound an already bad (1 in 6 women) situation.”
Or we could have a culture where rape is one of many factors. Political and economic disenfranchisement might be correlated or even causal to rape, but I don’t think the definitions of rape culture provided make a lot of sense.
“Basically, you’re just doing what people who don’t want to talk about sexism often do…which is pointing to divisions along racial lines or class lines, and saying, well, see, those are more important and relevant. Stop whining about your problems, women.”
And out comes the rhetorical bludgeon!
For fuck’s sake, man, I’m not crowing over minorities being raped, but mocking your position that leads to viewing minorities as having a tradition of rape. My general point here is that trying to figure out the causes of some regularly occurring crime isn’t served by simplistically reducing it to “culture.” Yep, rape and the love of ice cream all come from the same place. Yep, our culture exists to justify rape and ice cream.
And stop trying to switch your point: what I’m disagreeing with is that all sexism exists to or will produce rape, that rape is the telos of patriarchy. I don’t disagree that rape is an indication of sexism. Note closely: that’s not saying the same thing as sexism is an indication of rape. The latter is dumb and the same kind of rationale used by Murray and other conservative analysts of social problems.
“Otherwise feminism would be part of rape culture, which obviously is not what the people who use the term are saying.”
Of course, what’s really meant is rape is the purpose of white straight men. But to say that would sound too ideologically biased (as if the feminists who use the term are akin to their caricature on talk radio), so we get “rape culture.” But once one attempts to use the term in any rationally coherent way, it becomes pretty clear.
“Of course, what’s really meant is ”
No we really meant BLUE ROSES LIVE ON THE MOON, CATCH THE NEXT SHUTTLE AND PICK SOME UP FOR ME.
It was a coded message, you see?
Nate, I hope it’s clear by now that I’m not saying rape is not an important problem, but that I’m disagreeing with what I see as a rhetorically simplistic analysis. “Rape culture” is akin to “things fall downwards when dropped because that is what they’re supposed to do.” And it leads to some pretty heinous rationalizations if one takes it seriously, which most of its advocates don’t really do.
“rape is the purpose of white straight men. ”
the fuck?
Feminists criticize hip hop and rape culture in minority communities all the time. Which rock are you living under?
And I know what you meant to do with citing the rape statistics. And I’m telling you it did not necessarily come out sounding as objective and sober as you hoped it would.
Rape culture sees rape as a normative act under patriarchy. You’re doing a lot of hand flapping, but it’s still really not clear to me why you see that as a problem. You’re objections mostly seem to depend upon irrelevancies built upon factual errors (i.e., feminists aren’t willing to criticize rape in minority communities…which is really, really not true.) So…yeah. Maybe you are just confused, I don’t know.
It’s as Dean said: “Deny it, and you’re either okay with the rape culture, or are so ingrained in the rape culture you don’t realize there is a rape culture.”
Or as Jones said a couple weeks ago about pan-ideologists.
This is pretty much our typical argument, isn’t it?
I’m curious to read a feminist talking about hiphop as the music of rape culture and how whites are less a rape culture than many minorities based on the stats.
I mean one that doesn’t do the sleight of hand about “income levels” or “history of oppression” or whatever — which is just another way of saying white straight men are the cause. (However, that is, at least, a more nuanced view than “rape culture.” By trying to stop your slide on the slippery slope, you have to add in more details about causative third factors to keep the ideological villain in the crosshairs. Unfortunately, such nuance stops once you get to the synonyms for the term: whiteness, maleness, etc..)
Okay….this conversation has actually been way more civil than it had any right to be considering the topic, but I think it’s best to quit while the quitting is good, so I’m going to close the thread. Thanks to Robert for his piece, and to everybody for their comments.
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