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Syndicate
One more generalization, just to contradict myself. Men are more emotinally fragile than women. In a patriarchal culture, when men lose their power, they also lose honour, hope, discipline, accountability - everything.
So what can be done?
It's impossible to put the First Nations back the way they were before colonization. (And, of course, they were not perfect, even then.)
Is it possible to build up Native communities to a sustainable level of economic self-sufficiency and self-esteem? Is it possible to retain tradition and also keep Native communities in touch with the modern world? Money would help, but it needs to be applied to a long-term goal.
What about the short-term?
Can we rescue the children who are suffering right now? Is it possible to empower the women, without further eroding the men's pride? Is it possible to give both boys and girls an equal chance at successful adulthood?
I think so - but it will be very difficult.
You made mention of correlating the genitals/race mentioning is bigotry is a bad thing.
I am a man, so I am allowed to say men are pigs. Not all, of course (there is always an exception to the rule) but most.
Sisyphus,
The point of men in devastated communities committing more aggression is moot. The reason why men do this is simple - men are physically stronger and more aggressive then women (before anyone gets their bloomers in a twist, please see my 'exception to the rule' comment above).
As far leaders being women, emerging from the ashes, that makes sense. The men are usually incapacitated (i.e drunk, jail, dead, rehab whatever).
The Wizard Of Socialism
I would hardly call this article a demonization of the aboriginal. It was written (I 'm assuming, of course) by a native and published in newspaper of a native community.
You can say whatever you want. That doesn't make it right, or true. I think you need to associate with more men. There's plenty of nice ones. I would say even more than there are bad ones. The piggies just tend to stand out, make themselves appear to be more prominent.
It is entirely not moot. At all. If there is a higher rate of violent sex crimes in this community, then it is an indicator that there is a bigger problem at work. To ignore it is to completely ignore the pain these people are suffering. I'm sorry to dispel your illusions, MWNN, but men for the most part are not just overly-aggressive. It is NOT a genetic trait that is dominant in our gender, whether or not we may have recessed genes that make us aggressive. And I am aware of your "exception" clause. When things like this happen en masse, we need to look for cause and try and repair it. Claiming the "men being men" arguement is totally counter-productive.
I'm very sorry that your view of men is so skewed. I shudder to think of the type of men you must be surrounded by to make it so. I can't think of a single male I know who behaves in this manner. I know they're out there, but I think it's very sad when they are portrayed as the majority, rather than the minority.
LOL don't feel bad, you didn't do anything. FWIW, I come from a family with many boys. Our parents raised us right. Which let's me identify the losers and deadbeats in society. Most of them are men.
There are plenty of useless women out there also.
You need to get out more. [img]tongue.gif" border="0[/img]
It's a bit problematic to suggest that just because you, personally, don't know of men who "act this way", that they're rare. What is that study--please someone, help me out with it--that found something horrible like more than 50% of men would rape if they knew they'd never be caught?
The prevalence of rape, in society in general as well as in smaller segments of it, is not going to diminish as long as people approach the problem as something that 'other people do' or 'other people suffer'.
We live in a cultural environment that devalues women's bodies and women's right to choose what happens to them. Everywhere there are images of women as nothing but sexual objects, women's stories and experiences are ignored, belittled and discredited by the media, the judicial system, and by the very law-enforcers who are meant to protect us and help us find justice. It is a systemic, endemic problem throughout society. And clearly, in communities where people are generally powerless, poverty-stricken, and desperate, the problem is worse--as in the example provided by the letter that opens this thread.
But to say "not me, not my friends" is simply an attempt to evade the responsibility that is all of ours, collectively.
[ 20 February 2003: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]
What I don't understand, MWNN, is why you want to characterize and generalize. Certainly some men are "pigs" (which we haven't really defined or made meaningful), but so are some women. More importantly, many others aren't.
Other than being provocative, what's your point?
As far as that study is concerned, I have heard it before too. I have serious problems with it because a) how can you expect someone to be able to answer something like that with any appreciation for the situation being presented and b) statistical reports are just not accurate.
This is all off topic though. I just wanted to say that I'm not trying to de-value the real problem of rape and exploitation here. I was only trying to bring to light that the problem is not "men are pigs" but a much bigger, social problem.
[ 20 February 2003: Message edited by: dale cooper ]
So if we were to take responsibility and tackle the problem head-on, we'd say "It IS me, it IS my friends" -- when it's not? [img]confused.gif" border="0[/img]
Even MWNN, the champion of the "men are pigs" theory, took this approach. He claimed membership in a group, in order to give his slur some credibility ("I am a man, so I am allowed to say men are pigs."), then he excused himself from that group ("I'm not. I'm a nice guy"), then, lest he suffer an awkward Thanksgiving, he excused his family as well ("Our parents raised us right.") and left the rest of us to swing in the sheets.
Finally, LB sez:
But you don't find it problematic that just because someone else does know of men who act this way, that we're supposed to assume that it's an epidemic? With all due respect to the author of the original letter, it's one person's anecdote. And within one response, it's been turned into an unqualified "men are pigs".
Would this... no could this have happened if one of us claimed that "blacks are lazy"?? [img]rolleyes.gif" border="0[/img]
[ 20 February 2003: Message edited by: Mr. Magoo ]
And what if they come down to Toronto? I hear they are good with disguises. We must stop the Inuit men from infiltrating our cities.
To reiterate:
While I'm happy to see men talking about this issue, I'm beginning to regret the title I gave it. It (the title) seems to be taking away the importance of the issue of incest and rape but at the same time, maybe it's a blessing in disguise. Maybe it will cast shame on the Inuit men that do this and motivate the decent ones to speak out against it?
Maybe this thread should be closed and start a new one- I don't know. It's up to you Audra.
Dale, as for other programs other than crime prevention, I have no idea. I know there are some 'safe' places that women can go to in some communities but that's all I know at this point.
I have in the past tried to find out what the models the health and social services use to help people on welfare get motivated to do things and and what they are reinforced with. I have tried to encourage certain community sectors to net-work but I am often met with, "We're looking after it" or "That's previlaged information" and it tends to get quite discouraging.
It's not that the people don't want change because I know a lot of women who are decent and work hard but when there is institutional prejudice the process for change is very slow.
Here is what i think the govenrment ought to do:
Send the army north. ("Sorry, Georgie, all our peacekeeping forces are busy peacekeeping.")
Take every child-molester, wife-beater and rapist over 14 out of every community, right now. Fly them 1000 km from anywhere, and put them down. With the clothes on their backs, a pair of snowshoes, a spear, a knife and a backpack of rations. No booze, no drugs, no snowmobiles or gasoline and no dogsleds. (If they're mean to their families, they'll be mean to their dogs.) Let them make their own way back home. Let them earn the right to be accepted again. The ones who make it will be clean and sober; stronger, healthier - and in possession of more self-respect than when they left.
Meanwhile, the army will build decent houses, clinics, libraries and schools in each settlement, and guard the women and kids against predators. Each settlement will establish a new council and decide what rules they want to live by, what kind of economy they want, what enterprises they want to try. The government will provide start-up money in the form of interest-free loans.
When every man who is capable of getting home and reformed enough to be accepted there is repatriated; when the community functions well; when everyone is safe and satisfied, withdraw the army and let the people get on with it.
Nonesuch, what a great idea! You know, when I talked with an elder before and asked him how they used to serve justice in the past- he told me that a group of men used to talk with the offender to try and correct the behaviour. Sometimes it worked. When it didn't the person would parished out-on-the land.
Bellows, I must say I agree with darkhorse. There are circumstances that bring out this kind of behaviour in people and we need to look at those circumstances and improve them.
I must say though in the meantime, the men who oppose this in the North, need to speak loudly and be supported by their community.
2. Regardless of why, there still remains the question of what are you going to do about it? In the NWT (Inuit, Dogrib, Dene, cross selection from around the country and world), our anti-violence organizations are losing funding, cutting staff and cutting programs. A group of us have grown annoyed with lobbying government officials more concerned with diamond profits and pleasing DIAND. In collaberation with the V-Day Organization (vday.org) we have organized fundraising for our local Women's Centre, Centre for Northern Families and the Native Women's Association's Victim Services. Last year, we made around $14,000. With that money, healthy baby classes occured, anger management sessions took place, a shelter for abused or poor families stayed open, etc. And the anti-violence, pro-women message presented by a showing of "The Vagina Monologues" stayed in the community. It's just a start, but at least we're moving towards a healthier violence-free community.
-------------------------------------------------- No Inuits are not born rapists. I had a uncle by marrage. He was born in Newfoundland. He had six daughters and raped each one when they reached ten. He got caught and as a punishment got to spend two years in prison learning to become a farmer. This is the point I am trying to make, the punishment don't fit the crime. Look to other countries and see what the punishment is for rape.Of course you will have people say, oh! that punishment is cruel. How about raping a eight year old, isn't that cruel?
Effective Punishment for Rape !!!
Posted By: FARAKH MALIK
Date: Friday, 23 August 2002, at 10:05 a.m.
The following punishment is suggested for rape.
1. The convicted rapist or rapists, be Castrated, his / their Erectile Organs be surgically removed.
2. The convicted rapists who have been administered the above punishment, should be set free thereafter.
3. This mode of punishment will minimise the rape crimes if not eliminate completely. In future the would-be rapist will think twice before raping some poor helpless child, a girl or a woman.
4. It may seem a harsh mode of punishment, but, if we want to eradicate this curse on mankind, let us do it, NOW, the world over.
5. The International Court Of Justice, should have jurisdiction in all countries of the world including the USA, and have speedy trials (7 days)for such heinous crimes against women, a very special gift of God to Man.
Farakh Malik
In BC recently the Indo-Canadian community had a forum where some of the prominent leaders in their community were taking about the problems with spousal abuse and violence generally. Like in Inuit communities it is higher than in the larger Cnadian society but that makes it a cultural problem not a racial problem.
People commit crimes of violence because they have lost their moral compass. Some cultures have a higher incident of this so it is proper in my opinion to look at what in those cultures is causing this. Some of it is colonialism some is patriarchy and some is poverty etc. A child when born is not born a rapist they develop that way the question to me is how to raise children to love their neighbours.
I suspect like all cultural change it comes slowly but surely when people openly discuss the inherent evil it perpetrates in communities.
and
bellows, I think your conception of how to deter rape demonstrates a poor understanding (or wilfull ignorance) of the characteristics of sexual assault.
The United States has brutal punishments for many things; drugs, rape and so on but these acts still occur frequently. The largely predatorial nature of rape means that often rapists aren't thinking about the consequences, not because they aren't harsh, but because they conceive that what they're doing isn't wrong.
So instead of a massive transfer of funds to social spending to head these problems off at the pass, the money goes straight to the jails; building and maintaining them. I think this reflects the Canadian experience. First Nations people comprise less than 8% of the population and make up a majority of the prison populations.
Ills, like rape, alcoholism, and such are symptomatic of societal disenfranchisement.
A question for those in the know: is rape reported in the North? Do larger centres like Iqaluit have higher rates of sexual assault than do smaller more remote areas?
--> I'm off to find the Kendall-Tackett et al article.
However repressive violence by the state is part of the problem not the answer. My favourite argument against the deterent effect of capital punishment is from British history. Pickpocketing was at one time a capital offence and one of the favourite venues for thieves was public hangings. People who committ crimes don't think of the consequences first. The US incarcerates more people per capita than any other modern state and they still have the highest crime rate.
Love and understanding and education of the perpatrators is required and yes incarceration but not only incarceration. For the offenders that reoffend dispite the opportunites to chance then we have the dangerous offender laws that will lock them up and the key will be thrown away. Like many women the men involved have themselves been abused as children. This is not an excuse for their behaviour but must be a factor in arriving at a solution
The question is whether thinking of an 30 or 40 yearold having sex when they were 15,16, 17, or 18 is different than thinking of an actual 15, 16, 17, or 18 year old having sex. It feels different, thinking of the former seems OK but thinking of the latter seems gross.
Is this just my mixed up morality here or is this normal? Michelle? Anybody?
Or maybe the 40 year old thought about having sex at 15 but didn't?