The Evil That Women Are...

...gets more pub than The Evil That Men Do. We the people just find it the more palatable concept.

OK, Ladies, yes, I see the stares and the crossed arms and the tapping toes, so I'll get to 'splainin'.

This resurfaced into my mental radar when I saw mention in Salon of the Joss Whedon post to Whedonesqe (a blog about, but not generally written by, Whedon) that has been making the rounds - Let's Watch a Girl Get Beaten to Death.

I'm not a huge Whedon fan, but I respect him, and admire the strength he brings to his female characters (the very fact that is admirable is part of the point to which I'll be getting). This post was a reaction to cellphone video of the "honor killing" of Dua Khalil, juxtaposed with the trailer for the upcoming film "Captivity.*

Whedon asks mid-rant "What is wrong with women?" And the question isn't directed at women, isn't "what the hell is your problem?" It is a question asked of us all, what do we find wrong in women that makes us hate them so? For how can we not hate them if death by torture is a reality for them and an entertainment for us?

Still, this is Joss Whedon. For all the godhead bestowed on him by his cult of fans, he's just a writer, and one given, at least in my aesthetic judgement, to a bit of hyperbole. I took my usual "Yeah, this is a sign of the sick and twisted nature of our culture, but this is news to you how?"

But, that essential question took up residence in my head.

Let me back up for just a moment and say that in college, I publicly identified myself as a feminist. I was first media relations chair and then president of a sexual assault education and advocacy group, and used the term "rape culture" almost reflexively in presentations. And even with all of that, I resisted the idea of an inherent hatred of women, classified the hatred as "Other" and, in a sense, marginalized.

So here I am, over a decade later, and some comic book writer whose name is most closely-associated with the word "buffy" gets me thinking.

And, over the weekend I catch some NPR discussion on the issues and discourse around the approval of Lybrel, the pill that eliminates the menstrual cycle. One guest astutely side-stepped that argument of whether this was "natural" or not, and keyed in on the mentality behind the marketing of the drug, in which the period is cast as a barrier to a better life. The guest (I wish I could remember which, but I was in the middle of marathon dirty dishes) said, and I hope I'm being faithful to her here, that aspect of the message is true, men's perception of the menstrual cycle has in fact been a driving force behind keeping women out of power.

This caught some fire with me, because it is so obviously, dumbfoundingly true. Regardless of the exceptions, the cycle, not childbirth and mothering and such, but the cycle itself and its attendants is what men are most uncomfortable about with women. We see it as a source of weakness and object of ridicule, almost instinctively, and its centrality to conceptions of women brings them down with it.

The joke. Maybe even Joke. "I don't trust anything that bleeds for three days and doesn't die."

But, even the more subtle examples. The period has essentially been the crudest and most base criticism of a woman president, the idea that she won't be able to maintain her composure in the face of cramps and blood and tampons and hormones, and will fuck up world events.

(Though they have something in that last, as Bush's hormonal codpiece catwalk across the carrier deck attests.)

The same idea behind that joke and that criticism is behind the marketing of Lybrel.

And then I read about labial reductions. Cosmetic procedures on perfectly functional vaginas, side-effects of which include reduced sexual sensation. What in the name of all that is good and holy would lead women to make this choice?

Ever hear this punchline to a joke? "Let's see. You look terrible, but you feel great. Ah, it's right here. You're a pussy!"

Or, how about the profusion of the term "camel toe," along with whole online galleries of examples, as a way to demean the vagina? Again. Already.

After all of this, I was primed to come across the pre-Christian translation of God's curse upon Eve before banishing her from the Garden, the pains of childbirth, the curse of blood, and an unquenchable lust for male seed, and to compare that last to the many modern translations' "your desire and craving shall be for your husband," wondering whether we liked women more as slut or domestic slave.

I'm less concerned than Whedon with knowing the specific answer to his question. He goes for "womb envy," but I've never been a big believer that inverting a flawed paradigm yields much truth. The reason is whatever it is, and it's likely varied, but it boils down to some notion of women and womanhood as evil.

Here's the facts: We hate women. And unless your "we" is a big group of politically-active lesbians, you do, too. And I know that is like racism, where you want to wiggle out from under, talk about your individual love for a rainbow of people, but in both cases I'm talking about a cultural hatred, one which is essentially inescapable. For every advance women might make, we'll find a new way to hate. It has been around too long to go away. Love-hate between woman and man may well be the essential struggle, tension, balance.

Language creates culture. Some argue that the formation of language is the basis for human development. It is the code with which we create our world.

And when I call a woman a "bitch," it carries the weight of cultural enmity, brings to bear a hatred ratified by centuries. And she has no equivalent response.

And that's not a coincidence.

And I wish I had an answer.


*- For similarly disturbing resonance, try and get your hands on Sut Jhally's editing of music videos into the rape scene from The Accused. Particularly compelling as it was originally done in the '80's, looooong before the term mash-up entered the parlance.