film called tough guys 2. jackson katz in that film does a really great job talking about this crisis of white masculinity and this whole notion that these white men are trying to reclaim their masculinity, right, by exerting violence against girls and women as a result of demographic shifts? demographic shifts, gains in rights that women have acquired over the years from the 1960s and 1970s and beyond. and it also speaks to how white masculinity and white violent masculinity and abusive masculinity gets a pass because of white privilege. the benefits that white men share in being white and male and, therefore, no one has to really pay attention to their violent behavior or attribute individual acts of violence or acts of rape against white men because no one sees this as a collective a collective action of violence.
in prison and the judge was later defended by delaware attorney general beau biden, son of vice president joe biden because it, quote, was not a strong case. but this month a judge in indiana sentenced a man convicted of repeatedly drugging and raping his wife to house arrest. at the sentencing, the judge reportedly told the victim she needed to forgive her attacker. all the women at the table are like, oh. deep sigh. when it s that institutionalized, when women judges see survivors as somehow complicit in their own victimization. so we have classes of women within our society upon whom we think that we can and should inflict violence. one of the most disturbing portions of this case for me in terms of santa barbara has been the number of people weighing in saying, well, if he had only visited a prostitute. all of those other girls, those pretty blonde girls, those sorority girls would have been
until this crime looked and said that s not sexist, that s not part of it, that is part of why the police, as you said, the family tried to get help for elliot rodger and they walked away saying he s courteous, he s polite. part of it is because of this white masculinity and white privilege. entitlement. exactly. and part of it is because media have not given the warning signs to know. we need to change the systemic and the other the only one other thing i want to add in here is so i am in agreement with you around the ways in which race privilege, gender privilege and class privilege operate for this particular shooter. when we think about the problem, for example, of black male violence, we almost exclusively think about that violence as it is enacted on other black men, primarily through kind of urban street violence. we almost never talk about black male violence vis-a-vis black women s bodies. what we know is all races of people except for native american women are most
not ascribe to traditional notions of manhood, traditional notions of masculinity that makes these associations with maleness and violence. and i think a lot of men don t really have that space to speak out against that traditional notion of manhood because there s a tremendous risk when men speak out against it. okay. so i want to push and ask a little bit here. i wonder if part of the reason that men have a difficulty in hearing about the vulnerability, the sexual and physical vulnerability of women is because it actually does challenge the notion of their capacity to protect their beloveds, their wives and daughters and friends, so that often we as women do not report our experiences of vulnerability because we fear. and in a week in which we lost dr. maya angelou, who wrote about this how telling it was because when she said her uncles went and killed her assailant
motivating it that moves this act of violence into the category of terrorism. terrorism never has the immediate victims as the soul target. terrorism subjects whole categories of people to the fear that they could be targeted solely for their identity. subjected to brutality and even murder. that was this killer s goal. honestly since last week, many women have felt more afraid. now, we know we re not actually any more vulnerable today than we were last friday afternoon before this happened. and yet many are wondering if the stakes are higher than we ve ever imagined. if you could be risking your life by turning down a potential suitor or simply ignoring a catcall on the street. joining me are jen posner and jonathan metzel professor of psychiatry at vanderbilt university. thanks for being here, both of you. jonathan, here s my question. we talked briefly last week but have had an opportunity to read and see so much more. is masogny a mental illness?