If isn’t “just music”, it’s a symbol of how females are regarded in society.

I agree. Not just that, but it’s become so much of a part of society, that it is completely invisible and people fight tooth and nail anyone who tries to point it out.

I read blogs by young boys, that show clearly they are buying into stereotypes about female as bitch. There is nothing funny about woman being killed by abusive spouses and boyfriends. “We don’t know what went on” was said, about a young man that shot his ex and killed her. What went on was he went to her apartment with a gun and killed her.

If isn’t “just music”, it’s a symbol of how females are regarded in society.

Thank you. I’m willing to accept the miscommunication as well, and want to continue the dialogue. No, I don’t think that abuse is cut and dry. Yes, I’ve read White Privilege (a long time ago).

Darth Sidhe’s point is well-taken: the danger is in the rationalization of behavior. Misogynist or misandrist, it doesn’t matter; society permits a sort of rationalization that, to me, is bordering beyond reason. Perhaps this is because of the rise of psychology, and its growing acceptance as a form of finding “true causes” of behavior. It has been taken too far, in my opinion, as to provide a “rational connection” between two otherwise unconnected events.

I disagree, however, with the statement that uncritical participation in the media that spreads the message amounts to accepting the message. If I overheard someone talking about committing an act of violence, but I do nothing about it, that does not mean that I condone the violence nor accept the message. If someone tells me to go and commit an act of violence, and I neither perform that act nor speak against it, I do not accept the message by silence. Supporting the cause, perhaps by buying a CD, may be considered an act of acceptance in my book, but not silence. It simply isn’t logical.

I would take offense, however, if anyone were to suggest that I condone or promote any form of abuse of any kind. I certainly take offense if I were accused of not giving the subject its fair time of consideration, and have simply dismissed it because music does not affect me as it affects others. I understand that media messages can be accepted as experience; MacKinnon wrote such in Only Words (1993). And yes, I recognize that media can create a construct which people substitute for identity. I recognize that media such as pornography can create a set of experiences that a person can assume as how to treat a woman. I do not agree with MacKinnon, however, in the absolute dictum that this is the case, and that this provides for reasonable grounds to suppress pornographic expression by law.

I assure you that I have not dismissed your argument; I merely disagree with certain parts of it. It may be a matter of opinion, experience, or privilege.

To everyone who defends the music with “I listen to it and don’t hurt women as a result” –

Why do you enjoy it if it doesn’t speak to you on some level?

And I don’t mean to judge. I really can’t, being a fan of several violence forms of entertainment myself. But everyone’s talking about violence in entertainment as a symptom of a greater societal ill while they completely dismiss the idea that enjoying the entertainment could be a symptom of a personal ill.

Me, I’m well aware that I’m a violent person. I think about it, I write about it, I read it; but I don’t act on it. Neither does most of the population. Most of us have self-control, and would like to distance ourselves form the few who don’t. So, we condone when we can, we dismiss when we can, and when we condemn we do our damnedest to seperate ourselves from what we condemn.

We don’t want to look at the Abuser and see ourselves. We want to see a monster, an aberration — nothing like us. So, any similarities we cshow must be purely coincidental. Even the same taste in art and entertainment — the most personal tastes we have — can’t possibly mean anything. Because if we do admit, even just a bit, that this could possibly be an indicator of an abusive personality, we have to take a long hard look at ourselves that we don’t want to take. Because, you know the only difference between me and the woman who hits her child until he’s black and blue? I have control over my temper. It’s a huge difference, it keeps people out of jail, but it’s still the only difference. The capacity for this violence is in each and every human being, but the majority of us don’t want to admit it exists.

Andrea’s Family defended that boy because they could relate to him. They were basically defending themselves. As a result of people defending their own inappropriate impulses, instead of laying down the law between correct and incorrect behavior, we get “Boys will be boys” and a chuckle. What should be happening is their accepting that they’d feel like behaving that way, that msot people ahve moments where they’d like to blow off their girlfriends, party irresponsibly, and hit someone who is ticking them off — but a responsible member of society would not behave that way, and they would condemn impulsive, reckless behavior like they should.

Andrea’s friend is rightr about the man personally, but wrong about the art itself. Of course Eminem is a showman. But he’s a showman speaking to the darkest parts of humanity. He can’t blame society for his music. He must have somthing violent inside of him to express such violence. His fans can’t just write it off as joking either, because in order to enjoy such expression, they must have a similar piece of violence in themselves. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be pleased, they wouldn’t be disgusted, they would be indifferent. They wouldn’t even consider it worthy of calling “crap” because it wouldn’t have enough emotional resonance to them.

I’m often the first person to dismiss a complaint that “violent entertainment is influencing others to be violent.” That’s not because it’s true, or that I even thought about it long enough to have an opinion either way. It’s because I want to continue enjoying violent entertainment without feeling guilty about it. I want to enjoy that entertainment without examing myself, or the people who make it. Because when I examine myself I find a sadistic, vicious young woman at the worst part of me. To be brutally honest, the only difference between myself and the lady on the news going to prison for child abuse is the ability to control my temper. Not everybody has that.

It doesn’t usually make me stop enjoying the entertainment, and I’ll probably be back to the same music, movies and comics when I’m done with this post, but there’s no denying what these tastes say. Even if I go through my entire life and never get into a fight, the capacity for great violence exists within me. And anyone who likes the same art, and enjoys the same entertainment likely has the same capacity within them — with varyigg degrees of self-control.

Having had that realization, I find it extremely hard to dismiss Andrea’s arguments.

I sure as hell think that the misogynistic culture helped him to rationalize his own pathology. And, more importantly, helped to pass him off as “normal”.

This, in a nutshell, is exactly what frightens, depresses and enrages me more than just about anything tied in to abuse does — apart from my realizing that about half of the women I know have been raped or abused. Everyone else thinks that kind of thinking is okay, therefore it is okay, to the point where a victim will even accept it as what should happen.

You heard about Paul Martin moving to ban handguns? I should likely learn to shoot sometime soon…

You seem to be addressing what Moby rather than what I said, which was slightly different. If you’re making the argument that Moby is coming from the extreme position (ie. media = full responsibility), then I can’t really say either way. But my post isn’t parroting Moby’s or even agreeing with everything he said, as I think he missed the bigger picture of the more subtle ways that misogynistic lyrics cause harm. I was trying to illustrate that with my post.

And, if you were addressing Moby’s points rather than mine, can you read the part I quoted in my reply to you and try to see why I thought your argument was dismissive? I read your response, and since you didn’t elaborate on Moby beyond one mention, I took it as a reply to my post and what I was saying about how dismissing popular culture as a factor that influences us creates real, tangible harm (and not just the “beating your girlfriend” kind, but the dismissing-your-friend’s-experience kind).

I would like to try to make one point on the media, though. You seem to be seeing popular culture as an either/or dichotomy (the kind I addressed in the quoted Shrub.com article). It isn’t that simple. This is where it stops being about larger issues like violence as control and starts being about smaller issues. Which is where a fundamental understanding about privilege is necessary. I urge you to read White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, as it talks specifically about the harm that isn’t as cut-and-dried as smacking someone around.

It is the very act of accepting the message that is a real problem, and probably a symptom of a greater “evil.”

Which is exactly my point. But, I believe that uncritical participation in the media that spreads the message is accepting that message.

Like you, I don’t buy that your abuser thought Eminem was funny.

You misunderstood what I was saying about my abuser. I do think he thought Eminem was funny; he and his brother thought singing about raping and killing women was fucking hilarious. No, I don’t think Eminem caused the problem, but I sure as hell think that the misogynistic culture helped him to rationalize his own pathology. And, more importantly, helped to pass him off as “normal”. Even after getting into some fairly heavy detail with an old “friend” of mine about what my abuser did to me (to the point that I was in tears), I heard from a mutual friend of ours that he (the “friend”) thought that I was just a “bitter ex” and that what my abuser had done to me wasn’t “that bad”.

Aaaaaaaand, I just wrote a novel. Readers Digest Version: In order to fully understand personal responsibility, we must put into the greater social context that we live in.

With all due respect, if I were dismissing your argument entirely, it would hardly serve my motivations to reply to your blog. I will admit that might point is buried in a prelude to ensure that readers do not think I /side/ with the casually-dismissive, complicitous dullards that would not give the time of day (or night) to such an argument, but let me present my opinion in a clearer light. I assure you that I do not, and have not, dismissed your argument.

Also, with all due respect, declaring that I have dismissed an argument or that I am in a position of privilege neither the truth nor the cognizable as a truth given the entirety of my statement. On what grounds do you base this conclusion? Is it simply because of what I have said? Is it because I /seem/ to be from privilege? I am not one that so easily points to human flaws or coincidences as grounds to dismiss an otherwise valid counter-position, but when I do, I usually try to bring up one or two facts that may be verified.

I’m going to decline the offer to trade blows with regards to “privilege,” but I’d like to point out the poignant fact that you obviously do not know much about me at all, if anything. Just because I listen to Guns ‘N’ Roses and don’t hit my girlfriend does not put me into that oh-so-easily-cast-aside group of men that speak out of a lack of experience with abuse, child or spousal, or that I have any less outrage with misogyny that still exists. Your dismissal is inasmuch a “conversation ender” as my apparent dismissal was.

In response to your accusation that I have dismissed your entry, I point to the following statements as being the crux of my argument. Aside from the noted concurrence with your opinion in the last paragraph, the following statements neither dismiss nor disregard your argument. They do, if anything, attempt to elaborate on them:

1. “The responsibility of identifying with any cultural media is on the person seeking the identity, not on the media that provides the image or the persona.”

I stand by this statement. If one were to place the blame for the abuse of women on men, let us take a look at the state of “man-hood” that exists in America. Just as we deplore the condition of female role-models, the condition for men is equally as deplorable. You couldn’t even consider Jack McCoy a role-model. Men come from boys, and the shocking state of boyhood is … well, shocking. Ask any boy what their role-model is, and you’ll probably get: 1) a sports star; 2) an anime character; or 3) George W. Bush. Heaven forfend.

My point is that men are vulnerable to fall into the role of abusers because abusers are all that men have left to cling to. Making the assumption, as Moby does, that a majority of men emulate the media personas that are found on television or in the newspapers. A well-intentioned but indicative expression describing how men form their morality can be summed up as “What Would Jesus Do?” Since religion is on the decline, you may insert any number of characters in for Jesus.

If the media is sending a misogynistic message, and men are following that message, the quickest conclusion is that the media is responsible. This diminishes the responsibility on the men, and that is, in my opinion, wrong. I’m not saying that media is /not/ misogynistic, and I’m not saying that this is /not/ a problem. This simplistic syllogism, however, requires a choice: affect the media or affect the man. Given that the United States hinges on the concept of freedom of the press, of speech and of ideas, no matter how reprehensible they might be, the more likely subject for change would be the men. That is why I place the blame there.

How you could see my comment as a dismissal of the problem is beyond me.

2. “I do not think, however, that the social disease of ‘personifying with media figures’ is enough to warrant an attack on cultural media, legal or otherwise.”

My reluctance to attack the media is not only because it is protected by the Constitution but also because of the inherent strength that a marketplace of ideas creates. Perhaps I have spent too much time arguing about the scope of the First Amendment to objectively approach this outside of myself, but bear with me as I admittedly stumble through a poorly-formed construct.

There is a deeper issue than the music, as Monkey! has stated. In my opinion, Moby is attacking the surface problem. This is not to say that it is not valid to criticize misogynistic messages in the media; I am simply stating that said action only attacks the surface problem. The real problem, in my opinion, is the subsuming of the media message as some form of creed or belief that would lead an otherwise reasonable person to believe that the behavior is acceptable. It is the very act of accepting the message that is a real problem, and probably a symptom of a greater “evil.”

I see it when people claim that they committed murder after seeing “Natural Born Killers.” I see it when courts accept the possibility of an “irresistible impulse” that is not the product of a recognized mental disease. I see it when courts condone any violent behavior where an individual elects to premeditate the killing of their spouse, both male and female, where they could easily contact the authorities. In short, I see it when people attempt to justify their behavior by pointing to something else which may or may not have influenced them.

Like you, I don’t buy that your abuser thought Eminem was funny. I don’t buy that any abuser becomes so influenced by music or television or video games that they cannot resist the urge to commit an act of violence. Instead, I believe that these people have been and will always be violent. And, somehow, society accepts media as a possible trigger for violence without recognizing that the violence was simply waiting to happen. That’s the great problem: people accept justification where justifications are not due.

“I hit my wife, but I didn’t mean it because I was stressed from work.”

“I hit my wife, but I didn’t mean it because I had a couple of drinks too many.”

I do not buy it.

“I hit my wife because I got it in my head that I was Eminem, and he wouldn’t take shit.”

I do not buy it.

Yes, media provides a stage for misogyny to play itself out. Yes, media should tone down the misogynistic message. But, as I stated before, we must place the ultimate responsibility where it belongs: on the abuser. Any less than that is unjust.

I don’t think I can make my point any clearer than that.

I’ve seen it used so often to END open, honest dialogue

And I found Ganymede’s argument to be the self-same one that is so often used to END open, honest dialogue about a very real issue. And, whether or not he is privy to all forms of male privilege, he was excercising his privileged right of dismissing an argument because it doesn’t affect him.

Recognizing one’s privilege shouldn’t be an END to something, it should be the BEGINNING of recognizing that, just because something doesn’t affect us, it doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate to dismiss it as an unimportant issue. And he was being dismissive of the larger issue by flat out saying that we shouldn’t “attack” (ie. critique or speak out against) cultural media.

Not being afraid of using word “privilege” is a way for us to recognize that we have power over other people. It is a way of talking about oppression without using words like “oppressor class” that imply an active participation in the oppression of others. Most men (whites, rich people, etc) don’t actively oppress people, but (and I was trying to make this point in my post) by not actively working against oppression they (we) are passively being part of it. Bottom line: we are all privileged in some form, which makes it doubly important for us to be able to call each other out on expressions of privilege when discussing oppression. And until we can be comfortable with the idea of privilege – on being called out on it and calling out others – then we can’t ever truly have an honest discussion on oppression.