In the film “Tough Guise” Jackson Katz examines the supposed connection between pop culture and the issues that ail our society. Katz believes that this ‘tough guise’ has been largely responsible for the abuse and subjugation of women in the Western world , and that men, because of this ‘tough guise’ perpetrate a vast majority of violent crimes. This is simply not true.
A very common path to success is strength(this is especially evident in business, not physical strength, but strength of character). Katz tries to challenge this by stating many examples where ‘strength’ is a bad thing, and can lead to things such as depression and the desire to become violent towards those around you. What Katz fails to realize, is that strength, and the mark of a man, is knowing when you are incapable of dealing with something yourself. This is shown throughout contemporary pop culture, and is a sentiment echoed by many important and ‘strong’ men, the likes of which include multiple fortune 500 CEO’s. Katz’s definition of masculinity is misinformed, and seems to be created by a hatred of masculinity, more so than a realization that modern western masculinity is something that needs to be changed. He goes on to state that male dominated culture has subjugated woman and led to a villianizing of women.
This is an erroneous belief for a number of reasons. Women have been able to fly under the radar so to speak when it comes to violent crimes, and able to get away with horrible violent acts, simply by blaming it on men. The case of Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, and Waltraud Wagner is a perfect example . During the spring of 1983 Maria Gruber was asked by an elderly patient in the nursing home she worked in to help “end her misery”. Maria found that when she ended the patients life, she felt an overwhelming sense of power . She then continued to kill people, with the help of 3 of her friends, for the next 6 years. Finally in 1989 after killing their last patient, they were found out by a doctor who overheard their conversation. He then called the police, and they were arrested and convicted. Gruber herself was sentenced to 17 counts of murder, but it is estimated that the quartet killed upwards of 100 patients. Another example is that of Lila and William Young . The couple(Lila controlled William) opened a maternity house, and then Lila would instruct William to kill or starve the infants that resided there. These cases may seem like outliers, but in the book When She Was Bad by Patricia Pearson, she uses an example of a study taken in Winnipeg about spousal abuse. “In a citywide survey, Winnipeg social scientist Reena Sommer found that 39.1% of women had committed acts of violence against their partners, with 16.2% admitting to severe violence. Following up on these surprising findings, Sommer called 737 respondents and found that an overwhelming majority hadn’t acted in self-defense. Rather, they had struck out as a result of anger, jealousy, frustration, or intoxication, and 14% of their male victims had been so severely injured that they required hospital treatment.” . Men can be victimized just like women, but in cases of abuse actually have a great disadvantage(see study of spousal abuse), because it is not widely believed that woman abuse their husbands, many battered husbands will not call the police because they don’t believe that justice will be served , and this will only serve to exacerbate the issue.
Katz fudges the statistics in his attempt to prove his thesis, most importantly the statistic about violent crimes, in which he references a study of 100 serial killers. The study found that 85 percent of murderers are male. Though Katz generally gets it right(the actual amount of male serial killers is between 80-82 percent) he neglects to show that even though female serial killers, who can be just as violent, if not more, receive almost no press . This is evident in the case of Jane Toppan who killed nearly 100 nursing home patients 3 years after Jack the Ripper murdered 5 prostitutes in London . Though Toppan was much more prolific , Jack the Ripper got all the publicity, this trend has continued since Elizabeth Bathory murdered and bathed in the blood of more than 600 young girls in the 15th century . Though throughout the ages women have been subjected to unspeakable horrors, and have been subjugated more so than any other group, that should not detract from one’s ability to critically view them. Though these statistics are eye opening it is important to note that they are not an excuse for misogyny. In the modern era men and women are becoming more and more equal as time goes by, in every regard. This unfortunately does include violent crimes. As the crime rate in America has decreased, violent crimes perpetrated by women has astonishingly risen 200 percent . A number of people have stepped forward to weigh in on the issue of female violence increasing. Bonnie Erbe in her article for politics daily presents some chilling statistics. “Women commit the majority of child homicides in the United States; more than 80 percent of neonaticides; an equal or greater share of severe physical child abuse; an equal rate of spousal assault; about a quarter of child sexual molestations; and a large proportion of elder abuse . . . The rate at which infants are murdered by women . . . is higher than the rate at which women are murdered by men.” . Erbe goes on to state that depictions of violence against female teens have risen by 400 percent in the past 5 years. She says if we see violence against women in the media, why would young women not become violent as well. Patricia Pearsons said the most profound thing about comparing men and women’s violence. “To separate one sex from the other as virtuous or blameworthy is to follow a false trail in understanding the causes of violence”. There is no good or bad side when it comes to violence; both genders are responsible for a certain amount, though at the present time it is not equal(men do account for more violence) the amount of press they receive is most certainly biased towards men(not the amount of crimes, but the coverage of the crimes). Blaming men but not women, or blaming women but not man lacks equality. Equality is what makes any successful civilization great , and in order to move forward and become a truly great civilization, we need to realize that aside from gender, we are all human.
He gave me a zero for my thesis. OUT OF 20, HE GAVE ME A ZERO.
