John Phillips & The Problems With Representing Rapists as “Other”

POTENTIAL TRIGGER WARNING

Gender Violence: Reflections On Jackson Katz’s Lecture

So, I just went to an powerful lecture by this guy named Jackson Katz entitled More Than a Few Good Men: A Lecture on American Manhood and Violence Against Women. Until tonight, I’m sad to say that I’d never heard of Jackson Katz. After tonight, I want to run out and buy all of his movies and books, because if he’s half as good at making movies or writing books as he is at speaking, it’ll be worth the money. The lecture was very, very good, but there was a LOT there to try to process. So, I’m going totry to give some of the major impressions I’m left with and engage with some of the content right now, with the idea that I’ll engage with it in more detail in the future.

Sex As A Social Construct

So, years ago, during the summer between eleventh and twelvth grade, I was introduced to an idea that seemed a little silly to me at the time. During a discussion about racism and colonialism, somebody claimed that race was an artificial social construct. My immediate response was something along the lines of placing my arm next to hers and asking what was socially constructed about that. I was darker skinned than her, with coarser, curlier hair. My facial features were different and my likelihood of developing certain diseases were different. I was black and she was white. In my view, there was nothing artificial about this division, and nothing that was said at the time convinced me otherwise. As I grew up and more seriously studied historical and sociological views of race, I began to rethink my view on the subject. Essentially, what I learned was that my response had been completely true, but irrelevant to the discussion she was trying to have. Yes, my physical features were different from hers, but that’s not what she was talking about. Rather, she was talking about why my features made me “black” and hers made her “white” (especially since I’m actually biracial). It’s these discrete categories we group the physical differences into that are artificially drawn. Sometimes they’re drawn by legislation (the infamous one-drop laws). Sometimes they’re drawn by the scientific community. More often, they’re simply drawn by the current dominant culture.

I plan to get more into race as a social construct at a later time, especially what this means for the dismantling of systems of racial oppression. For now, I want to use it as a springboard for discussing a different socially constructed category I was discussing a couple nights ago, sex. And no, I don’t mean gender identity. I’m talking about sex.