Written by Caroline Potoclicchio
After reading Steinem’s “Supremacy Crimes” and Chapter 5 in Enloe’s “The Curious Feminist Reader” I seemed a bit unsettled with the material. Steinem’s piece felt like it was a persuasion essay. Although I thought her argument that middle class white men are power hungry and are looking to seek power through crime, such as murder, I felt as if she didn’t provide enough evidence. I wish that she had found out more information concerning the kids who killed so many others at Columbine High School. Maybe she could have done research by talking to a school psychologist. She tries to provide another analysis of the argument by presenting the question what if it was women who were the power hungry seekers and killing off others? She continues asking questions and never really gives her point of view or offers an idea to support her argument. I understand how she is standing up for women in the sense that they are being raped and murdered by white middle class men, but I wish she had gone into more detail about how she feels the society would act if it was just the opposite, because I do not understand her article otherwise.
I felt kind of lost reading Enloe’s chapter 5, but I did get some of the main points out of it. She introduces the chapter by talking about being a teacher, and the issue of how to get students to talk in class. This topic of being silenced leads into how women are silenced and the history behind it. Enloe talks about how women who worked in factories in the Asia-Pacific in the 90’s had to silence themselves from reporting any sexual harassment. They rather be considered “respectable” and deal with the harassment then tell anyone. Just from hearing others stories, I know that this still goes on today. Women in the United States still accept harassment, and brush it off. Just from being apart of the Colgate community, I have talked to girls who don’t want to lose friends or power by reporting an unconsented sexual encounter. This type of sexual experience usually involves alcohol, where if they hadn’t been drinking, they would have been able to say no. In this generation, young women are pressured all over the country to seek popularity and maintain their respectable status, and to be a respectable women involves being silenced in such circumstances, especially if the people who are hurting you are supposed friends or acquaintances. I enjoyed Enloe’s chapter and thought it was more enriching than Steinem’s article.
Caroline, I agree with the points you bring up in this response about Steinem's article. Steinem seems to be oversimplifying the forces compelling white, heterosexual men to commit serial crimes. She writes that "this is not about blame. This is about causation" (Steinem 1), but the article seems to avoid the complexities surrounding causation (there are numerous reasons why men commit these crimes; it does not make sense to isolate one potential cause and claim that it is, as Steinem puts it, "the deepest and most ignored" root cause).
ReplyDeleteI also agree with you that the questions at the end do not help to identify Steinem's stance. Once again, citing "gender-conditioning" as a significant cause of violence seems like an extreme stance to me that would not be upheld with psychological data, which is why Steinem doesn't include any. It seems clear that not all white, heterosexual men commit serial crimes, so other factors must compel some men to commit these horrific crimes.