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Volume 27, Issue 5, September 9, 2004

Opinion

Nice guys just aren’t good enough

mug
Zoë Williams
Guest Columnist

Several days ago at a newsstand in Kansas, I learned the news I had been expecting and dreading to hear for months. The Kobe Bryant case has been dropped at the woman’s request after the court and the media butchered her.

Kobe Bryant more or less confessed.

After being hunted down by tabloid media vampires and being dubbed America’s official “Looney McSlutty” (to quote so-called liberal television star Bill Maher), I cannot blame the woman for finally bowing out. I put no blame on her, and believe her more than ever. I place my blame on Kobe Bryant, (I’m sure his apology for her not being aware his rape was “consensual” healed a lot of wounds). I blame the legal system that places women on trial and jeopardizes their welfare. I blame the strongly supported system of patriarchy, and those who refuse to fight it.

Women have been protesting and mobilizing for months, specifically in Colorado, to end rape. I’m beginning to notice something rather curious, though. The only men I have seen with us are the usual activist suspects having to double their energies to compensate for the rest of their apathetic sex.

Listen up, boys. Rape is not just violence against women: it is, as Jackson Katz says, men’s violence against women. We are seeing gender persecution in this nation, and the masses are sickeningly comfortable sitting by and watching, siding with celebrity scumbags from their overstuffed couches.

Rape is a crime against humanity and an all-out assault against women’s autonomy. This needs to be crystal clear. It is time the “nice guys” of the country quit confining their feminism to internal righteousness and start acting.

Violation against women does not just start with rape. It is fostered when men get away with disgusting remarks and sexual harassment. It starts when the fluffy side of the feminist movement sits idly by while the fashion and sex industries destruct women at their profit.

It begins when America is too busy clinging to People Magazine’s special report of the Kobe Bryant case rather than realizing that we are dealing with a human being who has been violated and dehumanized.

Apologies no longer suffice. Personal purity is not enough. We women have to tread water every day of our lives, and it is time men quit riding their male privilege and join in.

Let this be a wake-up call, men.

Sex is becoming a weapon against women. If you want relationships with us, be it sexual, social, romantic, or otherwise, you must fight with us. If you are not taking action now, you are not a feminist. You are fueling and appeasing the systematic subjugation of women, allowing for another generation to tremble in the fear and pain of rape. The time is now, boys.

Which side are you on?