This past week the clothing company J. Crew sent out an advertisement featuring a mother (who happens to be a J. Crew executive) playing with her young son. Both are having an uproariously good time. When you look closer, you realize that the mother has been painting her son’s toenails. Neon pink. “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink,” reads the caption. “Toenail painting is so much more fun in neon.”
A boy with pink toenails! Oh the horror! Could anything be worse than that?
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I have recently had the opportunity to supervise several dances at both the high school and middle school levels. And at both levels I have seen pretty much the same thing: while most of the girls are out there dancing and having a great time, most of the boys are standing around with their hands in their pockets looking not quite sure what to do with themselves. Acting goofy. Acting superior. Acting cool.
Today a man walked into a shopping mall in Holland and went on a shooting spree. At this moment there are 7 people dead and 15 others injured. More of the wounded may well die. The gunman was described as being a male about 25 years old and wearing a leather jacket and camouflage pants. And just yesterday another man walked into an elementary school in Brazil and shot dead 11 children and wounded 13 others.
The horror of these events simply chills me…. And then it makes me want to weep.
Deep breath….
A few years ago I was taking some classes at a university. One day the athletic department moved in across the hall. From that day forward the men’s washroom was a cesspool. Literally. Some days I wished that I had worn boots in there because the floor in there was so wet and disgusting!
Chris Brown – the singer perhaps best known for brutally beating the singer Rihanna on the night of the Grammys in 2009 – is again in the headlines due to his violent behavior. This week Mr. Brown, who was recently praised by a judge for having successfully completed a batterer intervention program that he had been sentenced to, appeared on the ABC television show “Good Morning America.” When he was asked about his domestic violence assault against Rihanna, he replied: “I think I’m past that in my life.”
In the past few years increasing numbers of men have begun publicly disclosing that they were sexually abused as children. I admire the bravery of these men who are coming forward – just as I have long admired all the brave women who have come forward with disclosures of their own. Four weeks ago U.S. Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts revealed in a book and in televised interviews that at 10 years old he himself was molested by a camp counselor.
A few weeks ago a lawsuit was filed on behalf of fifteen women and two men who state that they were sexually assaulted by their fellow comrades while serving in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard of the United States of America, and that their reports of these assaults were ignored by the chain of command. The lawsuit states that people at the top levels – even up to the U.S. Secretary of Defense – were aware of the immense problem of sexual assault within the ranks, and yet did nothing to stop it.
March 8 is International Women’s Day. It occurred to me that perhaps the best way I could honor women on this holiday would be to offer to women something that has been missing for far, far too long: an apology from us men. For our violence. For our abuse. For our sexism. For our continued promotion of patriarchal structures and practices.
(Special thanks to Julie Reynolds for posting a link to the NPR story discussed below.)
This past week the brutal issue of men raping women has featured prominently in the news. First, there was the horrific gang rape of an internationally prominent female journalist in Cairo’s Tahir square during the “celebrations” over the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Then there was the report that several current and former members of the U.S. military are suing the U.S. government over its continual failure to address the epidemic of the rape of military personnel by their brothers-in-arms.