I have not written a blog in several months but with last week’s hearing of Brett Kavanaugh I had to put my thoughts into more than just a long Facebook status. This was carefully written, to be thoughtfully read, digested and never forgotten. I will be limiting my scope to just a discussion of male assaults on females. The 1 and 4 statistics is frighteningly a reality—yet not everyone should be labeled a “survivor”. The cases range from minor (the teacher slapped my butt in high school!) to very extreme (human trafficking) to anything and everything in between. Based on that spectrum, the same can be said for the list of actions one can take against their perpetrator, which can be anywhere from personal forgiveness to justifiably pressing charges.
The #metoo movement has empowered many women of severe cases to come forward to be vocal about how they have lived in shame and silence—I applaud those women. Even if its decades later—you have every right to come forward. But motive? Facts? I want the equality of men and women to extend to the field of justice. There is a certain amount of subjectivity regarding sexual assault cases—and #metoo heightens this—but we must put on our objective lenses when it comes to the raw facts. I will not applaud weaponizing our newfound empowerment to publicly slander or press charges in over-zealous claims against a man. Ladies, take someone down for justice and preventing serial assaults on future women—not for self interest, slander and revenge on the patriarchy. I know this might be harsh to hear but take responsibility for your own actions. The reason why I am so incensed about the feminist movement over the past several years is that it has made women feel like they are not at fault with anything because feminists have levied victimhood on them combined with empowerment in order to be independent of man and dependent on the system. It’s a vicious cycle started half a century ago. The level of narcissism today is at an all-time high. Like supersize rims on a sedan, this look is not right for us, ladies. Someone bring us down to earth with the facts:
Feminism today is like that friend that complains all the time about why she can’t lose weight when really she is sleep walking to the refrigerator eating a pint of Breyers every night. Once she awakens to the problem she will be more aware and set up boundaries to prevent her from doing that and become healthier.
I’m not talking about being in the wrong place at the wrong time or wearing something provoctive that gives leeway for a man to take advantage of you--I am talking about the scenarios that take place when you are a willing participant from the start. For instance, the #metoo movement went off the rocker when public accusations of what boiled down to a bad date came out about Aziz Ansari back in early 2018. I also saw an article in Jezebel about journalist Jack Smith IV for coercing women left and right but the women were willing participants (Stephan Molnyeux does a great video analysis of the article if you want to check it out). When I start seeing cases like that I no longer want to stroke the backs of my sisters out there and empathize with them. Rather, I want to recall the whole notion of empowerment that is blasted everywhere we look. Feminists live in a virtual reality that contends with the values and objectivity of the real world. So, whether credible or not, a woman can and WILL shatter an otherwise good man’s reputation because of one hiccup she had with him. And all a society can do is be too afraid to say anything other than “oops”? All I can say is good riddance to dating and marriage in this “cry wolf” society!
This big cloud of goto victimhood surrounding women does men and women a disservice: disintegrating male culture at the expense of female empowerment has made males the silent victims in all of this breeding animosity in relationships both in public and private spheres. So, before Aziz Ansari and Kavanugh, when did we give accusory women the benefit of a doubt at the expense of ruining innocent men’s reputations ? Lean in…
LE$$ON$ (still to be learned) FROM DUKE:
The perfect storm of Greed. Race. Class. Gender.
Since men have the infamous reputation of just possessing the ability to overpower a woman makes faulty accusations against them even easier. Combine that with greed, race, class and politics and you have the 2006 Duke Lacrosse Case. I attended Duke 2005-2009, so I was barely 19, a freshman and Blue Devil xc/track athlete at the time, running by the lax house when it occurred.
My sentiments shifted a number of times as the case was drawn out. I remember being frustrated with the guys hiring a stripper for their party, casting shade on my great university to later that year being frustrated with their accuser Crystal Magnum always changing her story to finally getting behind the case to the leach stopping at nothing for greed and power: attorney Mike Nifong.
The academy has become obsessed with race, class and gender over the past several decades. So, the fact that this happened at a primarily rich white college in the heart of high-populated black town with Crystal Magnum on the grand stand (looking more like a female pinnochio by the day) and her attorney who was just interested in winning the case so he could become the Durham County District Attorney was all but the perfect storm for injustice. “Nifong was guilty of self-deception born out of self-interest” -Lane Neilson argued at the bar hearing
But it was not just Nifong’s greed and need for power involved. It was race, gender and social justice as well that hindered the prosecution of this case. If some of you were listening in on the case years ago you may have read about the “Group of 88” which was a signed declaration of the lax team’s guilt from 88 Duke Professors.
Professor KC Johnson of Brooklyn College who in 2007 co-authored a book, Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustice of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, talks in depth about the Group of 88.
The stated aim of the 88 was to combat racial and gender bias in the declaration, outlined in KC Johnson’s book, which no doubt revealed their own bias due to their respective fields of study:
-80% of the professors in the African studies department signed this statement
-72% of the professors* in the women’s study department signed the statement
* one of the women’s study professors Cathy Rudy published an essay in the early 90s basically saying she had initially entered higher education because it gave her an opportunity to explore “the idea that women were superior and that anew world could be built on that superiority.”
-60% of the professors in the cultural anthropology department signed this statement
-Several English and history professors
-Only one law professor (who was part time) in the Law studies department signed the statement
-Most came from the humanities professors
-only three came from the math/science professors)
The shock of the Group of 88, was the irony of the professors being so utterly close minded in the realm of what should have otherwise been the hallmark of having an open-minded approach to things.
Very few professors challenged the Group of 88. Accounts of professors speaking out against the 88 were scolded and silenced. There were even public threats towards these and in the Duke Chronicle, our daily campus newspaper, that sympathized with the lax team’s accuser during the early buildup of the case..
One of the history professors, Susan Thorne had taught me and many of the lax players over the past 10yrs of her professorship so it was a bit of a shock to Dan Flannery, who considered Thorne a mentor, when he found out she was part of the 88. When the case closed, Flannery reached out to her in an email requesting an apology for what she and the professors put his team through in a rush to judgement. When asked by Flannery to apologize in a public news column in the Duke Chronicle she said yes initially but then recanted ultimately telling the cold truth to Flannery in an email exchange “if I did apologize, my voice won’t count for much in my world.” Thorne wanted to do the right thing but she went back on her word like a coward, publicly betraying her students not once but twice. She didn’t want to lose her “standing” in academia.
Feeling ostracized and betrayed by their own school, some of the Duke lax guys transferred.
No fewer than 7 books were written on this case in its aftermath.
The 2006 Duke Lacrosse Case might have fell through for the accusor and her attorney but it laid the bedrock in the revolution against men in this country, sending uncanny parallels to what we saw last week in the case of Kavanaugh.
A SIN AGAINST YOU THAT JUST NEVER GOES AWAY
The reason why sexual assaults stay cemented with people so long rather than other acts of wrong against us can be found in this small yet powerful verse in the Bible:
“Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body.” -1 Corinthians 6:18
The Bible is referring to the immoral placement of sex outside anything other than marriage between a man and a woman. It is not saying it is a woman’s sin to bear in cases completely against her will, yet our bodies are made misfortunate accomplices in the act because they were used to satisfy the sin of someone else’s sexual perversion or misplaced desire. That’s where the guilt comes in and the yearning to bring justice to the perpetrators. Whether we put ourselves in that vulnerable position or not, it is WRONG for a man to overpower a woman without her consent. The question to ask is if she consented him to do so and then later felt guilty/ mad/ashamed and defined it as “assault” such as in the case of the two former Ottowa Hockey players charged and later aquitted. I have to admit that the repercussions of condoning premarital sex in the mainstream media has had an unprecedented effect on our society and have made sexual assault cases today hazier than ever.
The murky claims of sexual assault are many unfortunately because the woman initially put herself in an unwittingly vulnerable position with a man and things did not go as she planned. The false claims of rape cases alone are according to different research studies 2-10%, with a higher percentage when speaking of false sexual assault allegations all together. In either event, high profile cases rivet a nation in fear, rage and a litany of other emotions as we can see in the case against Brett Kavanaugh. That’s why so many people including myself take sexual assault seriously. I would not, however, apply the blanket term “survivor” to every case like the media seems to be doing alot of right now because I think that waters down the meaning of the word. Nonetheless, if it is sexual assault or rape, you’re going to remember one or more key things—concrete facts—when you bring your perpetrator to justice. That was not the case with Christine Blasey Ford.
IF YOU STAND FOR NOTHING YOU’LL FALL FOR ANYTHING
Being a conservative in one of the most liberal cities in the United States is like being stuck in a 747—you are all breathing the same circulated air and coming down with the same virus (mentality in this case). Being a conservative in this stifled environment, I feel like I have to take my oxygen mask out prematurely because I can’t breathe the air any longer without succumbing to the virus.
Having said that, I need to get something off my chest: “Believe women” is the crass slogan of 2018. The “Future is Female” is right up there. People need to get a reality check and watch an episode of “Snapped” which feature women committing murders; an affair is usually involved with a combination of greed and playing the poor female victim when the cases were brought to court. By making these gross proclamations years ago and circulating tee shirts that celebs have flaunted sets a sinister agenda against the males in this society. Ladies, without a healthy outlook on males and masculinity you will never have healthy marriages and relationships. You can’t show dominance over a man and still want to come off as feminine. That’s not equality.
I write this bog today to defend my future husband, and my future son when they face sophomoric allegations that can’t hold their own —not in the public, not even making it to the court of law. These are unfounded, uncorroborated. Yet, they will destroy our lives because some woman decided to “cry wolf.” Now everytime a woman comes forward with false accusations (and she is used as a pawn in a much larger scheme as in Brett Kavanaugh’s case) she is diminishing the future witness testimony of legitimate sexual assault victims. The Bible says that in the last days good will be called evil and evil will be called good. Lady Liberty seems misused and abused. The perfect storm that made in this case so prominent (which has taken many years to brew) is glorifying female victimhood and political self interest. I will not stand for the injustice of a man who’s good name has been raked into soil, for the seed implantation of extreme feminist propaganda to be grown in and watered with the tears of their manipulative outcries.
It’s cliche but true that God only gives you so much that you can handle. I truly believe no one could have handled this more defiently with class and stoicism than Brett Kavanaugh. Books will be written on you, Sir.
