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pope_guilty, I found this blog entry, in which the author writes about his past arguments against enacting hate-crime legislation, and how he has now found convincing counterarguments which have put him squarely in the "yes, enact these laws" camp. It's a great read, and heartening to see: it's not every day someone will publically admit that they were wrong, and change their minds, AND provide the reasoning behind doing so. Good stuff.
One thing he wrote (which I agreed with) was that, under the definition of hate crime that he was using, rape was thus a hate crime. This is a good realization.
But...one of his commenters did not understand it, and replied thus:
I disagree with your construction of rape as a hate crime, because it happens regardless of gender (male-male, female-female, female-male.) It's a crime of power and domination, not hate. Perhaps self-hate... but I kind of get your point.
Umm...yeah. Where to start with this? The "it's a crime of power and domination, not hate" bit? Or the "it happens" bit, as if rape were some sort of natural event that just...oh...happens, like the weather? I had to respond.
So, in the interest of A) preserving my writings on the subject where I'll be able to find them, and B) sharing my wisdom and brilliance (yeah right) with you all, I have reproduced my response below, under the horizontal rule.
I disagree with your construction of rape as a hate crime, because it happens regardless of gender (male-male, female-female, female-male.) It's a crime of power and domination, not hate. Perhaps self-hate... but I kind of get your point.
Ah, but, since 95% of rapes reported are male perpetrator, female victim, AND rape constitutes an attack on the woman because she is a woman, I would say it definitely qualifies as a hate crime.
Men who are raped are almost always raped by other men, such as in prison settings. The lingo for this is "making him my bitch", which is a term that misogynists also use to refer to women. So...the rape of the male serves to devalue him by making him "play the woman". The viewpoint here is that women are less important, less valuable, and thus things to be used.
It is true that men can be raped outside of prison, and sometimes even by women. I myself know two men who were raped by women. However, I know hundreds of women who were raped by men. This is anecdotal, but it is borne out by the actual crime statistics: men can be raped, but they need not fear it the way women are forced to. Rape is thus a crime overwhelmingly directed at women, as a group, and qualifies as a hate crime.
Historically, and today, women have been the group of people most hated, most reviled, most oppressed, and most devalued in the world. This occurs across cultures, religions, and ethnic groups. Even minorities who have been oppressed themselves often oppress the women in their group (ask Sandra Cisneros, for instance, about how Latina women are treated by Latino men). If this doesn't make violence against women a hate crime...there is no meaning to the term.
pope_guilty, I found this blog entry, in which the author writes about his past arguments against enacting hate-crime legislation, and how he has now found convincing counterarguments which have put him squarely in the "yes, enact these laws" camp. It's a great read, and heartening to see: it's not every day someone will publically admit that they were wrong, and change their minds, AND provide the reasoning behind doing so. Good stuff.One thing he wrote (which I agreed with) was that, under the definition of hate crime that he was using, rape was thus a hate crime. This is a good realization.
But...one of his commenters did not understand it, and replied thus:
I disagree with your construction of rape as a hate crime, because it happens regardless of gender (male-male, female-female, female-male.) It's a crime of power and domination, not hate. Perhaps self-hate... but I kind of get your point.
Umm...yeah. Where to start with this? The "it's a crime of power and domination, not hate" bit? Or the "it happens" bit, as if rape were some sort of natural event that just...oh...happens, like the weather? I had to respond.
So, in the interest of A) preserving my writings on the subject where I'll be able to find them, and B) sharing my wisdom and brilliance (yeah right) with you all, I have reproduced my response below, under the horizontal rule.
I disagree with your construction of rape as a hate crime, because it happens regardless of gender (male-male, female-female, female-male.) It's a crime of power and domination, not hate. Perhaps self-hate... but I kind of get your point.
Ah, but, since 95% of rapes reported are male perpetrator, female victim, AND rape constitutes an attack on the woman because she is a woman, I would say it definitely qualifies as a hate crime.
Men who are raped are almost always raped by other men, such as in prison settings. The lingo for this is "making him my bitch", which is a term that misogynists also use to refer to women. So...the rape of the male serves to devalue him by making him "play the woman". The viewpoint here is that women are less important, less valuable, and thus things to be used.
It is true that men can be raped outside of prison, and sometimes even by women. I myself know two men who were raped by women. However, I know hundreds of women who were raped by men. This is anecdotal, but it is borne out by the actual crime statistics: men can be raped, but they need not fear it the way women are forced to. Rape is thus a crime overwhelmingly directed at women, as a group, and qualifies as a hate crime.
Historically, and today, women have been the group of people most hated, most reviled, most oppressed, and most devalued in the world. This occurs across cultures, religions, and ethnic groups. Even minorities who have been oppressed themselves often oppress the women in their group (ask Sandra Cisneros, for instance, about how Latina women are treated by Latino men). If this doesn't make violence against women a hate crime...there is no meaning to the term.
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Re: oh, and also...
Date: 2006-02-07 04:25 am (UTC)Please bear in mind that I do *not* know of any earlier discussions you would have been part of on the subject, so without that context I cannot guess your point from a fairly general reply; however, your additional explanations clarify your point; had I known it was your position, then my own reply would have been completely off the mark and I wouldn't have made it.
Lack of context and my choice of a different premise from yours explains my error, but does not excuse it. Again, I apologize for misinterpreting your intent.
Re: oh, and also...
Date: 2006-02-07 04:54 am (UTC)A side note, I'm still in the against penalty enhancement for hate crimes boat, although the argument of intent is compelling (to me, anyway). I just think that if we're supposed to all be equal, then all crimes should be equal. Nobody is less murdered because they were killed by a white supremacist or a gay-basher.
I guess I just feel that by adding special punishment to a race or "hate" crime, we're separating out that section, making them something different than human, when the only real crimes are what one human perpetrates upon another...?
Re: oh, and also...
Date: 2006-02-07 05:59 am (UTC)The fact that this scenario doesn't happen often (or, as far as I know, at all) doesn't mean that, should it happen, it would not be eligible for hate crime prosecution. It's just that certain groups happen to be tartgeted a lot more than others...so we declare that targeting by "group" is off-limits no matter what, we get all those by default.
Re: oh, and also...
Date: 2006-02-07 12:21 pm (UTC)If I believe in anything, it's human rights, but the logical end-point of human tradition is not supportive of human rights. We as a species have a nasty tendancy toward tribalism. And it is a difficult beast to kill, this tendancy, because it is at least half way up Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Social needs, belonging, acceptance.
It is of course wrong to target by group, but it is resultant from the human tendancy to clump into groups wherever possible. Find a way in which humans can get the same benefit from being nodes ephemerally connected into a dynamic network, and the problem goes away.
Politics would be a whole lot more fun in that world, I do know that. Righteous indignation would become a thing of the past. Everything would become a whole lot more personal. It'll never happen, of course. We'll just treat the symptoms of our own inadequacy until Yellowstone goes off and we all choke to death :-)