My whole childhood in New England, I grew up believing that "we aren't racist here", that only those "misguided Southerners" are racist. This while I was looking at my parents' college yearbook Cakewalk pictures, this while the only black family in town was quietly but firmly driven out, this while we oh so liberally took in an exchange student from Harlem, had a wonderful time, and then accused him (wrongfully) of stealing a bunch of stuff when he left.
Since then I've travelled the US a bit. In California, kids of all colors sat at cafeteria tables together and interacted, with racism only at the fringes. In New Mexico, I got to experience being a numerical and cultural minority for the first time. Here in Missouri, I got to see unspoken segregation and clearly spoken bigotry. I finally visited the deep south last year, and in Alabama, everyone knows the rules of the game and their roles within it. Deeply segregated, yet very knowledgeable of each others' ways, unlike the segregation in Missouri.
My point is that only the once, in California on the central coast near an army base, did I find a place where racism at that time and place really had receded so that people could treat each other as individual human beings on a regular basis as a cultural norm rather than a form of defiance.
I have never seen an equivalent case with regard to sexism. Whether overt or covert, expressed or implied, sexism has existed and been rampant in every corner and every culture I have ever taken part in. Some of the sexisms of US Hispanic culture, for instance, are horrifying to observe. Even though I, as a professional social worker, am in a position of nominal power over my clients, I am subjected to sexual harassment on a daily -- closer to hourly -- basis. The difference between what happened to the girl in Iran and a girl here, is that the girl in Iran is more likely to know that she will be treated that way by the legal system. As a former rape crisis advocate, again and again and again I watched women be absolutely stunned at the incredible hostility of the US "justice" system, particularly when the accused was white, middle class or above, or athletic. Especially if the woman was young, poor, and of color. Women who defend themselves from sexual violence, from domestic violence, who attempt to protect their children from violent men, often after repeated attempts to seek help from law enforcement, often end up imprisoned for their efforts. The sentence you mention differs from those imposed on some women in similar circumstances in the US only by method of capital punishment, or by commutation to a life sentence.
I can't recall the name of it, but there is a documentary that makes its way around DV shelters pretty regularly, made in the early 1990's, I think, that is a qualitative study of several young women imprisoned for extended periods of time for killing men who beat them, raped them, beat their children, and forced them to have sex with other men. There isn't any real difference between east and west in this regard, other than the overt vs. covert nature of the discrimination.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-28 08:46 pm (UTC)Since then I've travelled the US a bit. In California, kids of all colors sat at cafeteria tables together and interacted, with racism only at the fringes. In New Mexico, I got to experience being a numerical and cultural minority for the first time. Here in Missouri, I got to see unspoken segregation and clearly spoken bigotry. I finally visited the deep south last year, and in Alabama, everyone knows the rules of the game and their roles within it. Deeply segregated, yet very knowledgeable of each others' ways, unlike the segregation in Missouri.
My point is that only the once, in California on the central coast near an army base, did I find a place where racism at that time and place really had receded so that people could treat each other as individual human beings on a regular basis as a cultural norm rather than a form of defiance.
I have never seen an equivalent case with regard to sexism. Whether overt or covert, expressed or implied, sexism has existed and been rampant in every corner and every culture I have ever taken part in. Some of the sexisms of US Hispanic culture, for instance, are horrifying to observe. Even though I, as a professional social worker, am in a position of nominal power over my clients, I am subjected to sexual harassment on a daily -- closer to hourly -- basis. The difference between what happened to the girl in Iran and a girl here, is that the girl in Iran is more likely to know that she will be treated that way by the legal system. As a former rape crisis advocate, again and again and again I watched women be absolutely stunned at the incredible hostility of the US "justice" system, particularly when the accused was white, middle class or above, or athletic. Especially if the woman was young, poor, and of color. Women who defend themselves from sexual violence, from domestic violence, who attempt to protect their children from violent men, often after repeated attempts to seek help from law enforcement, often end up imprisoned for their efforts. The sentence you mention differs from those imposed on some women in similar circumstances in the US only by method of capital punishment, or by commutation to a life sentence.
I can't recall the name of it, but there is a documentary that makes its way around DV shelters pretty regularly, made in the early 1990's, I think, that is a qualitative study of several young women imprisoned for extended periods of time for killing men who beat them, raped them, beat their children, and forced them to have sex with other men. There isn't any real difference between east and west in this regard, other than the overt vs. covert nature of the discrimination.