When the story of Harvey
Weinstein broke, the floodgates opened. All over social media, women were
talking about their experiences with sexual harassment, with the #MeToo hashtag
making the rounds. Years (decades) of stories and outrage were expressed. After
a few days of that, some men began to be very uncomfortable. They began by
getting defensive. Some moved on to make accusations that some of the women
were surely lying. This is why women don’t come forward. They aren’t
believed.
Every woman has a story of
harassment, often beginning in childhood. A family friend or a relative might
have groped her as a child. She might have been a teenager who was groped by
the father of the children she was babysitting for. It might be the story of a
boss with a hands problem, or a violent story of date rape. It might be an
experience she had while working in a restaurant. In a business where customers
directly pay a worker’s salary, the worker is forced to put up with a great
deal of foolishness in order to get their pay, also known as the tip.
Hot on the heels of
revelation after revelation of bad behavior by wealthy, powerful, men came the
shooting in Texas. A man went into a church in a small town in Texas and killed
26 people. Devin Kelley’s past was filled with stories of violence and abusive
behavior. If anyone had taken any one of the events seriously, he wouldn’t have
been able to legally own a gun. He probably wouldn’t have been able to
perpetuate a massacre.
There are a few things that
mass shooters have in common. Since 1982, all but three of them have been men.
Most of them had a history of domestic violence. It’s one of the best
predictors of a potential mass shooter, but we don’t really take domestic
violence all that seriously here. After all, it’s only women.
Here in NH, in 2014, three state legislators voted against Joshua’s Law, which made domestic violence a specific crime. JR Hoell was worried about “unintended consequences.” The other two were Frank Sapareto and Michael Sylvia. Rep. Sapareto was charged with assaulting his girlfriend’s two children in 2012. In 2017, he’s the Vice Chair of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. As for Sylvia, during discussion of a Belknap County deputy who was accused of raping a woman in custody whom he was transporting, Rep. Sylvia commented, “You know what that tells me, that tells me he had time on his hands.” The real worry shared by all three was that domestic abusers would lose their guns. Because, of course, that “unintended consequence” would be a real tragedy.
Here in NH, in 2014, three state legislators voted against Joshua’s Law, which made domestic violence a specific crime. JR Hoell was worried about “unintended consequences.” The other two were Frank Sapareto and Michael Sylvia. Rep. Sapareto was charged with assaulting his girlfriend’s two children in 2012. In 2017, he’s the Vice Chair of the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. As for Sylvia, during discussion of a Belknap County deputy who was accused of raping a woman in custody whom he was transporting, Rep. Sylvia commented, “You know what that tells me, that tells me he had time on his hands.” The real worry shared by all three was that domestic abusers would lose their guns. Because, of course, that “unintended consequence” would be a real tragedy.
By now we all know the
tropes: when a man who has skin color of a somewhat duskier hue starts
shooting, he’s a terrorist. When it’s a white guy, he’s a lone wolf with mental
health problems. We often discover that that the shooter has anger issues, and
even more often that he has a history of domestic violence. The Las Vegas
shooter was never charged with domestic violence, but he had been heard in
shops being cruel and demeaning to his female partner.
One of the great mythologies of our country is the nuclear family, where mom stayed home and baked cookies for the kids while dad went off to work and brought home the paycheck. The single paycheck family went off the rails a long time ago. It takes both partners working at least one job apiece to keep a family financially afloat. That collides with the other mythology: the macho man. The myth of the hyper masculine man has been growing exponentially, and married into the gun culture family. Now the pervasive myth is that of the gun totin’ patriot with a gun who is going to save the nation (by himself, for he is a rugged individualist!) from gubmint tyranny with his gun.
Gun culture is all around us.
In NH, our new governor’s very first order of business was a gun bill. In a
state with crumbling infrastructure – his biggest concern was passing a law to
allow any halfwit with a gun to carry it concealed. There are too many guns,
and too many halfwits – and the halfwits are increasingly armed and angry. Too
many of them regard women and children as their property. A woman trying to
protect herself and her children by removing them from a violent situation is
perceived as taking what is theirs.
We need to change our violent, sexist culture. We need to change our societal definition of manhood and masculinity. Given that so many men can’t even handle listening to the stories of women’s lives, I am not hopeful.
