Violence Against Women—Why is This No Longer News?
School has barely started and already three shootings have occurred around the country. In Bailey, CO, an adult gunman entered a high school, barricaded himself in with several girls, and then proceeded to abuse and kill them before taking his own life. Less then a week later on the other side of the country, another adult male entered an Amish classroom, dismissed the boys, and tied up and killed several of the young girls. Both of these acts of violence specifically targeted young girls.
One thing noticeably lacking in all the discussion on school shootings is an analysis on why these shootings targeted women specifically. Most newspapers featured articles about the safety of schools and shock that such violence could happen in the Amish community. Recently the New York Times columnist Bob Herbert wrote an article in which he addressed the Amish shooting as an attack based on gender, as opposed to random violence. Herbert argues that the media glossed over the obvious separation of gender in the last several shootings because we have become desensitized to violence against women. Rape, murder, and molestation are reported nightly on the news and are often included in the plots of TV dramas. Herbert blames video games that reward violence against women, themes of violence in popular music, the sexualization of children and internet porn.
Herbert states:
“Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews. There would have been thunderous outrage. The country would have first recoiled in horror, and then mobilized in an effort to eradicate that kind of murderous bigotry. There would have been calls for action and reflection. And the attack would have been seen for what it really was: a hate crime.”
That did not happen. The fact that females were specifically targeted to be both molested and killed was not addressed in the media. Herbert concludes his article by addressing the American public and stating that we, as a society, are all guilty for the culture we have created.
We’re all implicated in this carnage because the relentless violence against women and girls is linked at its core to the wider society’s casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls, to see them first and foremost as sexual vessels—objects—and never, ever as the equals of men.
I believe that a redemptive understanding of both women and men is central to healing our society from this casual willingness to dehumanize women and girls. Until we view both women and men as intrinsically worthy and able, our culture will continue to foster a view of women as objects of pleasure and men as sexual animals. The Christian community is in no way isolated from this erroneous conceptualization of women. Books like Captivating are so destructive for exactly this reason—they teach young girls that their beauty is what is ravishing, and not any other aspect of the self. As Christians, we need to heal the broken relationship between women and men by redeeming the personhood of each. Women and men can relate to each in holistic ways that affirm God-given giftedness and worth. Hierarchy based on gender, race, class, or ethnicity will always view one party as unequal in worth.
