Yes, Patriarchy Is Dead; the Feminists Prove It

[thucythucy]

32. I wanted to add something else.

For whatever reasons, there seems to be some hostility, even on a progressive Democratic website, toward the Violence Against Women Act. This is pretty depressing, actually. You'd think a law providing services to rape and incest and domestic violence victims would be a no-brainer for Democrats, but evidently that's not the case.

It's almost as if something has been handed out to women for nothing, and at the expense of men, and thus there is this resentment. But even setting aside provisions that also, I think, benefit men and boys, the fact is that the VAWA took an incredible amount of hard work to get passed. Meaningful legislation of any sort always does. It takes probably thousands of people devoting tens of thousands of hours, most of them as volunteers, calling, e-mailing, tromping the halls of legislators, doing media, raising money--legislative grunt work, all of it. Even with some national organizations in place, it was still a long, uphill battle against all kinds of opposition. And yes, I think it was mostly women, and mostly feminists, who fought this fight.

If you want an entirely separate piece of federal legislation that would do more for males affected by violence, I would say: go for it. Certainly there's a need. For instance, I've long thought that there should be rape crisis services explicitly designed for survivors of rape in prison. (And maybe there are, on various local levels--but there's certainly nothing that I know of on a national level). Now, every rape crisis center with which I've been familiar absolutely talks to men and offers services to men, but I think crisis counseling works best when it's peer to peer support. So, if you want to draft a bill that funds peer counseling services designed specifically for people who have been raped in prison, I say right on brother. The fact that, since the majority of people in prison are men, and that therefore it's statisically likely that the majority of beneficiaries of such services will be men, doesn't bother me in the least.

But it requires work. And maybe somebody is already working on this (and if so I'd appreciate a link). I know there's been a National Commission on the issue (and not one complaint from any feminist that I know of about that fact)--but that, from my understanding, is just a "study" with a bunch of non-binding recommendations. And there's Just Detention International--which does a lot of good work in the US, but again it seems mostly to be trying to call attention to the issue, just as Human Rights Watch might highlight this or that government abuse. Not to denigrate any of that work, but I think much more needs to be done in terms of direct services. But for there to be specific services targeted at a specific issue, people have to step up to the plate.

It's really easy to grouse about this or that piece of legislation if you haven't ever gotten your hands dirty trying to work the system. Without getting into too many personal details, I know a little bit about this. And it's ALWAYS hard work, unless you're a billionaire. Sometimes people even have to die for things to happen. Getting the Civil Rights Restoration Act passed over two vetoes by Reagan took YEARS. Getting the ADA passed took YEARS.

I was hoping, when I came to the Men's Forum, that I'd see more details about specific activism related to issues that affect men. Militarism for instance, or male on male violence, of which prison rape is usually an example. Instead what I've seen, to a great extent, is grousing about how good women have it under "chivalry 2.0." But this ignores entirely the decades of struggle that have led to where we are today. It's as if you think all these changes, changes for the better for many, if not all, women, just dropped out of the sky. Or that they aren't being threatened every single day.

Anyway, I had to get that off my chest. Not that I don't wail and moan about things from time to time, I mean I badmouthed the lack of a public option in the ACA as much as anyone, but I like to think I have an appreciation, in my advanced old age, for how difficult social change is. And so I try to temper my criticism of people actually engaged in the struggle, unless they totally fuck up, in which case all bets are off.

That's it for now. Sorry to give your eyes (or your screen reader) such a workout. And if I've missed a national effort to provide services to survivors of prison rape, I'd hugely appreciate a link. And if you're interested, here's a link to Just Detention.

http://www.justdetention.org/index.aspx

Best wishes.

edited to add: here's another link along the lines of what I've been talking about:

http://www.rapeis.org/activism/prison/prison.html