By Ben Atherton-Zeman, December 20, 2006



“Problem Solved,” reads the T-shirt. The cartoon above features stick figure drawings of a male and a female. In the first frame, the female is talking excitedly to the male – in the second, he has pushed her through the wall of the frame. She is falling to her doom – he is smiling. “Problem solved.”



Worse yet, the T-shirt is a children’s shirt. According to the Kennebec Journal, shopper Kristin Aiello told the Augusta, Maine K-Mart store manager that the message on the shirt was offensive (http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/3429020.html - the article has a photo of the shirt). The manager promptly removed the T-shirts last Tuesday.



Surely, this should have ended the matter. Every twelve seconds in the United States, a man abuses the woman he has promised to love. Every two minutes, a man rapes a woman – usually a woman he knows. Men’s violence against women is supported by societal attitudes that reduce women’s voices to objects of irritation. Silencing women is very much a part of committing violence against them. Violence against women is not funny – least of all to those millions of women who experience it.



In an abrupt reversal, however, K-Mart’s corporate offices changed the store manager’s decision. The Journal article quotes Kimberly Freely, manager of corporate relations for Sears Holdings Corporation. Freely said the Augusta K-mart was putting the shirts back on the shelves - Sears Holdings Corporation believes “these attitude Ts are meant to be light-hearted in nature.”



Light-hearted? No matter what the intent of the shirt, the effect is to minimize and condone men’s violence. K-Mart’s reversal of the store manager’s decision deliberately undermines their history of philanthropy and commitment to agencies dedicated to preventing violence against women. Their decision undermines all who work to stop such violence.



Many men (myself included) find it difficult to seriously listen to women. We tend to become defensive. After all, we are socialized to be the “top dog,” the one in charge of the relationship. If we listen to women, our authority might be undermined, whether in our personal relationship or in the world. If we listen to women, we might have to acknowledge the sexism and violence that women suffer – that our gender perpetrates. If we listen to women, we may have to be accountable for our own actions, for our own sexism, for our own privilege – for our own violence.



It’s so much easier to just make women the butt of the joke.



I use humor to educate about violence against women. Humor can be used to reduce an audience’s defensiveness when it comes to learning and accepting difficult material.



Humor can also be used as a club. It can be used to avoid responsibility – “Can’t you take a joke?” Humor can be used to silence targets of oppression: women, people of color, Jews, GLBTQ folks, etc. And it can allow men, whites, Gentiles, heterosexuals and others to continue to ignore our privilege, and ignore the violence that our group perpetrates.



The “problem” in this T-shirt is defined as the woman speaking – the “solution” is to commit violence against her until she “shuts up.”



What about the real problems of violence? Of sexism? Of woman-hating? Of homophobia and racism? If only a simple, tasteless joke would cause these real problems to “just shut up.”



I have one idea towards “solving”: vote with our holiday spending dollars. Don’t shop at K-Mart these last few days of the holiday shopping season.



Instead, support businesses that work to end men’s violence against women. Buy their products, whether it be New Moon Publishing http://www.newmooncatalog.com/, Donnelly/Colt http://www.donnellycolt.com/catalog/core.shtml or the Syracuse Cultural Workers http://www.syrculturalworkers.com/. There are many progressive companies that support these issues.



My calls to Sears Holdings Company have gone unreturned. My call to my local K-Mart was much more illuminating – they had previously stocked the offensive T-shirt, but were not doing so at present. I asked if this was because the shirt was so offensive – “Oh, God, no!” the worker replied. “We just ran out. We’ll be getting more.”



I’m not spending a penny at any K-Mart or any Sears until they remove their shirts and apologize for their mistake.



Problem solved.



Ben Atherton-Zeman performs a one-man play, “Voices of Men,” which uses humor to educate about men’s violence against women. He can be reached at benazeman@hotmail.com, or http://www.voicesofmen.org.



If you’d like to reach K-Mart, go to their website http://www.K-Mart.com/custserv/contact_us.jsp and fill out their Customer Comment form.


Until the violence stops, Ben.



Ben Atherton-Zeman, Acton MA USA
Actor, Comedian, Feminist and Husband
Presenting a One-Man Play: "Voices of Men," www.voicesofmen.org (video clips take a second to load)
Booking information: 978-263-3254



]

While reading Gavin De Becker’s book Gift of Fear I came across a section that helps people understand why someone being battered doesn’t leave. Here it is:

“How could someone feel that being beaten does not justify leaving? Being struck and forced not to resist is a particularly damaging form of abuse because it trains out of the victim the instinctive reaction to protect the self. To override that most natural and central instinct, a person must come to believe that he or she is not worth protecting. Being beaten by a “loved one” sets up a conflict between two instincts that should never compete: the instinct to stay in a secure environment (the family) and the instinct to flee a dangerous environment. As if on a seesaw, the instinct to stay prevails in the absence of concrete options on the other side. Getting that lopsided seesaw off the ground takes more energy than many victims have.

No amount of logic can usually move a battered woman, so persuasion requires emotional leverage, not statistics or moral arguments. In may many efforts to convince women to leave violent relationships, I have see their fear and resistance firsthand. I recall a long talk with Janine, a thirty-three-year-old mother of two who showed me photos the police had taken of her injuries after one of the frequent beatings she received. She was eager to tell me about her husband’s abuse but just as eager to make excuses for him. Though the most recent beating had left her with three broken ribs, she was going back to him again. I asked her what she would do if her teenage daughter was beaten up by a boyfriend. “Well, I’d probably kill the guy, but one thing’s for sure: I’d tell her she could never see him again.”

“What is the difference between you and your daughter?” I asked. Janine, who had a fast explanation for every aspect of her husband’s behavior, had no answer for her own, so I offered her one: “The difference is that your daughter has you—and you don’t have you. If you don’t get out soon, your daughter won’t have you either.” This was resonant to Janine because of its truth: She really didn’t have a part of herself, the self-protective part. She had come out of her own childhood with it already shaken, and her husband had beaten it out completely. She did, however, retain the instinct to protect her children, and it was for them that she was finally able to leave.

He also states later on – I believe it is critical for a woman to view staying as a choice, for only then can leaving be viewed as a choice and an option.

If you haven’t read The Gift of Fear – I highly recommend it to you. It addresses many dangerous situations besides domestic violence, such as child molesters, stranger violence, work place violence, etc.

I was just online doing some research on how women are portrayed in the media and I was stunned by what I found. Not only are there centerfolds of half naked young women all over the place but there are half naked young men all over the place too! By the way I was checking out mainstream magazines that you can get at the grocery store—nothing more. Back to my point:
Is objectifying men and portraying the male body as a sexual object doing any good for the feminist cause? I’ll admit I watched Sex in the City when it aired on HBO... back when I actually had cable...and I liked the show at first. But after a while the novelty wore off and I was left with the question: Why can’t we be more creative than merely turning the tables? Don’t get me wrong, the human anatomy can be extremely sexy and I welcome fresh approaches to sexuality in the media. It’s just that there seems to be a trend of characterizing successful, savvy business women as men hungry and shallow. Does there always have to be a trade off? Can’t a woman independently achieve wealth and status without becoming a macho sleaze ball? What is feminism these days anyway? Do we really want our sons, brothers, nephews...having eating disorders, feeling humiliated by their appearance, and being treated like sex objects?
I don’t come from that point of view. My feminism doesn’t really have anything to do with men at all. My feminism incorporates equality with integrity. I guess that’s a little on the boring side and wouldn’t make for a great TV show but hey some of us are still smart enough to appreciate intelligence in the media.

Oh what a night!
Women Are Safe, Inc. celebrated another Domestic Violence Awareness Month with our fifth annual Dinner to Remember. We had 58 guests, a fabulous meal, a song written just for the occasion, gave 3 awards, and heard from a child witness to dv who has been making a difference in the lives of victims as a law enforcement officer. Check out our website for photos and details – soon to be updated on the About Women Are Safe page.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…. Since it’s beginning, the program has sheltered over 550 families. That is a number that does not include children. It also only counts a woman once, not the multiple times she may have been sheltered. It does not reflect the times she called the hotline, went to court, attended support group, or talked with an advocate. It does not tell us how many nights she spent at shelter – or the times she left without contacting our program. It does not count clients who were accompanied to court, called the hotline, or received other services, but never entered the shelter.
550 families sheltered. What would have happened to these families if Women Are Safe, Inc. did not exist? Most of our shelter clients see coming to shelter as a last resort. They simply have no other place to go. They either have been so isolated from their families they feel they cannot turn to them, or they have angered or disappointed them and have been told not to ask for help again. Some are unwilling to risk the danger they would impose on their loved ones if their batterer knew they had offered help. Some simply have no one. Many of our clients are products of our foster care system that may leave them with nothing once they are discharged.
So where would they have gone? Or would they have left at all? When a woman makes that decision to leave, she must have an option – a place to go, a place to take her children when home is no longer safe. For 550 families, Women Are Safe, Inc. was that place to go.

So blogging is like venting or journaling - and has spell check on the computer stumped!
I guess something I would really like to get out there about victims of domestic violence is that children who experience domestic violence in their home growing up become adults who have learned or not yet learned to deal with what they experienced in childhood.

Imagine watching helplessly as one of the most important people in your life gets beaten by the other most important person in your life! What confusing emotions for a little person to ever experience and deal with.

It’s hard enough for adults to deal with – how in the world can we expect children to process all this confusion? And yet we assume they “don’t see” it or “are asleep” and “don’t hear” it. Come on!! Children are little sponges for emotions and they can feel the tension even when adults aren’t aware of it themselves.

I think we need to hear more from children of domestic violence – the long term and short term effects they’ve dealt with and perhaps are still dealing with today.

If you are an adult or a child who has/is experiencing domestic violence in your family – tell your community about it maybe in the letters to the editor section of your local newspaper. Society needs to realize that domestic violence has lasting effects in the people who experience it. When these angry, helpless emotions intensify as these children become adults – we as a society are forced to deal with the results – whether it is homicides, suicides, alcoholism, drug addiction, senseless violence, etc. Confused emotions create confused people and a confused society.