I found the articles from this week to be slightly disturbing but also very significant. They discuss difficult topics such as rape, sexual harassment, and murder, but these are things that are very much a part of life and need to be talked about. I think that the New York Times article, “A Peril in War Zones: Sexual Abuse by Fellow G.I.’s”, which discusses rape in the army today in Iraq, is extremely relevant to our discussions of rape on Monday in class. Gloria Steinem’s article, “Supremacy Crimes”, while on a slightly different topic, murder, shares a substantial foundation with the other article. Both see women as targets for the male gaze, domination, and violence.
Steven Lee Myers’ article was not shocking to me after reading those personal stories for Monday’s class, but it definitely opened my eyes as to what goes on in military barracks behind the scenes. I do not pay enough attention to current events but I definitely had never heard about any of the issues that were mentioned in this article. The fact that a woman was raped and “had no confidence her case would be taken seriously” is a tragedy (Myers, 1). Rape more often than not causes serious psychological harm to the victim, and it is a tragedy that the military is only first altering the way they deal with sexual violations of any sort. Just because these men and women are out there fighting for our country does not mean that they should not receive the same type of care and treatment, physical or mental, that the average human being can receive in the comfort of their community. I think it is really sad that many times the victim does not alert anyone of what happened because she/he fears getting into trouble or negatively impacting their career.
Gloria Steinem’s article, “Supremacy Crimes”, was most interesting to me. I never really understood the reasons behind the typical stereotype of the serial killer or sadistic murder. The statistics are there but it just seems odd, although its sickening and insane to murder anyone, no matter who is committing the crime. The white, middle-class male is virtually responsible for all the “serial, sexually motivated, sadistic killings” (Steinem, 1). Why? They are addicted to the “drug of superiority”, or the idea that the pressures of being of this status in society forces these men to become addicted to their success and domination over others. When they do not dominate, they kill. It is absolutely ridiculous and incomprehensible to me that “the ability to dominate someone is so important that even a mere insult can justify lethal revenge” (Steinem, 3). Steinem proposes that we need to challenge the foundation that masculinity is based upon, but I honestly do not see how that will alter the mindsets of those stereotypical male serial killers.
Steinem’s article made me think of the movie, American Psycho, with Christian Bale. He is a white, male, upper class part time serial killer part time businessman. He constantly needs to be in control, and since nobody can ever be the best at everything, or dominate in all aspects of life, he simply kills people. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it is a satirical thriller, poking fun at many aspects of upper-class society in the 80’s, but it really gets to the point of Steinem’s article. Patrick Bateman, the main character, wants to fit in and is envious of everyone else and what they have that is better than what he has. Clearly, this is no reason to murder someone, yet there are plenty of people out there, as we have read, that are “addicted to supremacy”, that will “kill even when it worsens their condition or ends in suicide” (Steinem, 2). I wanted to show one of the better scenes of the movie, which displays Bateman’s psycho killer persona best, but it was a little too graphic for this setting. So, here is a clip that provides some insight into the mad mind of Patrick Bateman.
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