Breaking the Cycle

There is little doubt that violence occupies a great deal of the North American’s consciousness. We are a culture that simultaneously adores and abhors violence, packing movie theatres during epic superhero and adventure movies and telling and retelling the stories of our wars and battles as a nation. Violence has become almost second nature in the media, in our politics, and our social stratification. In light of this, it is little wonder that violence has enjoyed a long and comfortable presence in how North Americans interact with each other, particularly in our most personal relationships. In our readings for this week, the unfortunate reality of violence in North American society, particularly in conjunction with constructions of patriarchy, were highlighted, revealing the epidemic of violence so deeply infecting our cultural conscious.

Though there were many voices and viewpoints highlighted in the readings for this week, there seems to be an overarching theme: violence and masculinity are intertwined. This does not exclude women from entering the realms of physical violence, however. As illustrated in Enloe’s article examining the situation in Abu Ghraib, women, when placed in a realm where only social constructions of masculinity are valued—namely the Armed Forces, particularly overseas—are just as likely to adopt behaviors toward captives that are otherwise illegal, both within the United States Constitution and otherwise. But, as Enloe poignantly indicates, the issue with Abu Ghraib wasn’t so much the fact that violent, humiliating actions had been taken against Iraqi soldiers by American military personnel as much as the fact that these personnel were women.

This public outrage reflects the gendering North American culture does to violence. The female officers who so cruelly humiliated the Iraqi prisoners were committing a great social faux pas, taking part in activities typically relegated to men. This concept is reflected in other articles as well, where women have often been victims of violence at the hands of their husbands, boyfriends, and other significant males in their lives. Nonetheless, female batterers (though they do exist), are far outnumbered by their male counterparts, and all have bought into the concept of masculinity’s association with violence, which ultimately translates into domination and control.

The association of masculinity with domination and control is often reinforced by social structure as well. Many of the personal accounts of women who have left their abusers note that there were few outlets for them to turn to. While it must be noted that some of these accounts were outdated (mid 1980’s) and that women’s shelters are now (thankfully) available to many women who would have had no other way out, the very necessity of battered women’s shelters reveals that the association and reinforcement of masculinity, power, domination, and control is far from erased from the North American consciousness.

Amidst all of the accounts of violence, there did exist one moment of empowerment and suggestion at hope. In her poem, Mitsuye Yamada describes a very painful and dangerous process: leaving her home, and her abusive husband, behind. She describes the “club” her husband used to beat her: a statue of a Japanese geisha with sharply curved hemlines on her kimono. Against all expectation, Yamada connects with the “woman” whom her husband uses to beat her. She talks with the statue, forming something of a friendship with the inanimate object her husband uses to brutalize her. Yet, it seems that Yamada connects with this statue because she, too, is a woman being abused with each of Yamada’s husband’s blows. Finally, Yamada packs the statuette tenderly into her bag amongst her other belongings, simultaneously reclaiming the statue—and her independence—as her own and disarming her husband. She acknowledges the grip violence has taken on their relationship and abandons that violence, taking her porcelain sister with her. I feel like this is a process that all victims of abuse must eventually face and complete, regardless of its manifestation. While it doubtlessly takes a great deal of strength and courage, recognizing and putting a stop to the violence in one’s own life is the first step to eradicating the violence in society at large.