Editor:
Is Rape the Third Rail? Is Linda Stansberry going to stop writing stupid articles so I can stop writing letters to the editor? Nobody likes perverts, Linda. Crazy people who threaten women that talk about rape are a merely a vocal minority. But your presumption that feminism can control male behavior is ANNOYING! And also completely against common sense. Men of honor who are willing to resort to violence in defense of their womenfolk is the only solution to rape.
You can get miffed about women “belonging” to men, but the truth is that in family groups men and women belong to each other and owe one another loyalty. Men belong to us just as much as we belong to them, and they know it. Maybe the problem is that we don’t live in family groups anymore because civilized society destroyed our tribal bonds, and now we don’t have a loving family clan to protect us. All primates existed in these family clans until about 3,000 years ago, when humans decided to separate from nature and become “civilized.” Now we live among strangers and our bonds are weak.
Feminism is a very poor substitute for the true loyalty of family because it’s a product of civilized thinking. To quote an earlier Linda Stansberry article, it’s like fixing broken with broken.
Janelle Andersen, Eureka
This article appears in Goodnight, Korbel.
I missed the “annoying” passage in which Linda Stansberry asserted a “presumption that feminism can control male behavior.” The rest of Ms. Andersen’s letter is even more extravagantly obtuse, but I suppose that she can get away with her claims about the loving families and tribal bonds of prehistory — there’s no evidence to support it, but it it might be difficult to disprove.
Although I read the article in question and agree with some points and disagree with others, this comment is only in response to this particular letter to the editor.
Janelle, you seem to be a bit misinformed about feminism. Generally speaking, it does not seek to assert itself as a substitute for the “true loyalty of family.” Indeed, feminism seeks to strengthen that family bond by empowering all members of the family to speak their minds to each other in a respectful manner.
While you say “Men of honor who are willing to resort to violence in defense of their womenfolk is the only solution to rape,” there are women out there, some of whom may be following this discussion, who are being raped and beaten by their husbands or boyfriends. Should they just sit down and shut up? When a woman, e.g. Ms. Stansberry, is threatened for speaking out about the violence and fear that is being perpetrated against women in our communities, should she really just be quiet and hope they go away? Or maybe she should “lighten up” and “learn how to take a joke?” Women need to be speaking up and speaking out. We must become more empowered members of society, so that we can influence and have some agency in the social codes and laws which have huge impacts on our lives.
Janelle may think feminism is a poor substitute for family but 28% of rapes are by husbands raping their wives. The US has the worlds highest rape rate and I doubt that all of those 293,000 women who are raped annually are without a supportive family. Women need to be empowered and learn to help each other, women need to stand up with one loud voice against sexual abuse. Molly Severdia said it well. Janelle is living in a dream world. Her “men of honor” are not speaking up and the rest of the guys are telling rape jokes and sharing rape stories.Meanwhile almost half of rape victims are under 18, where were their families?
Violence against women is perpetrated by men. Perhaps men are as much victim as women in the sense that these acts are conditioned by culture. The fact remains and statistics prove, that in this country and almost every other on earth, men are the perpetrators of violence against women. The stat that really shocks is that the leading cause of death in pregnant women is murder…here, in this country.