-----Original Message----- From: kelley <d-m-c at worldnet.att.net> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Saturday, June 19, 1999 4:22 AM Subject: Re: katie roiphe
>men who i've known [i've excluded acquaintances] who were abusive or
>violent or a sexual harasser:
>
>1. my first boyfriend's father abused his wife and children
>2. my second boyfriend's father beat his children when he got too drunk
>3. childhood best friend's father
>4. high school bud's father
>5. my grandfather regularly locked my grandmother in the attic for not
>mopping the floor well enough.
>6. a man taking me home from a stint babysitting refused to do so and
>molested me in a car at 50mph. cops finally stopped him b/c he was drunk.
>they didn't do anything about it and i was scared to say a thing. b/c they
>didn't seem to care that we were far frm my home, that he was drunk, i was
>scared to say anything and almost let them go without peeping. but
>fortunately i finally got in the cruiser. they dropped me off but didn't
>think it important to talk to my folks. big whoop that the guy was pawing
>me. a couple of years later he asked my mother for a dance at a disco, she
>agreed and then kicked him in the balls. yeah mom!!
>8. a boy during high school tried to molest me when i was passed out drunk
>at my 16th birthday party. fortunately, his my buds intervened and let him
>know what they thought of him. [thank j.n. and j.m wherever you are]
>9. the leader of a band that i used to hire for the local holiday inn beat
>up his wife--who i'd become friends with--in the parking lot about 4 weeks
>after she delivered their third child.
>10. i was sexually harassed as a frosh. prof would invite me to his
>office telling me how smart i was blah blah blah. one day he just kissed
>me. i quickly left. rec'd a c in a course where i clearly deserved an A.
>i worked in his dept part time, the dept sec'y told me she was very
>relieved that i hadn't put out for him. everyone knew about his antics, he
>chose a girl each semester. he's no longer teaching because a few women
>filed a sex h. suit against him.
>
>it wasn't til i encountered a marxist feminist years later that i realized
>it wasn't my fault and that he was wrong. for years i thought it was my
>fault, largely because the entire dept. didn't seem to care.
>
>11. 3 men in a neighborhood [13 homes on the street] where i lived from
>1984-1994 sexually molested their daughters. one shot himself after
>getting his daughter pregnant. she had the baby. the other family split
>up after it came out. the other family is intact, all of them are in
therapy.
>12. a college chum was abducted in a parking garage, thrown in the drunk.
>the man raped and beat her several times. he finally let her go and
>dropped her off, bloodies and beaten, in one of the poorer sections of
>chicago. she was scared to approach the first people she came upon but
>finally figured that she had to. fortunately they were off duty cops. her
>husband told her not to wear such sexy workout clothes when she went to the
>gym.
>13. my former husband beat me up as we were going through separation.
>
>by this point i was in grad school, i finally started becoming a feminist
>
>14. the former husband of a good friend in grad school was beaten by her
>husband.
>15 another grad school friend was sexually molested by a church deacon.
>16. the most recent ex-beau became abusive after abusing drugs. he was
>molested by his great uncle [father's side] --police officer and a member
>of a once very wealthy family of the robber baron sort. his grandfather on
>his mother's side regularly beat his wife.
>17. in the last town i lived in, three neighbors were abused by their
>former husbands, one current boyfriend, though i hear she dumped him
finally.
>
>and guess what i still like men! i still don't think men are inherently
>violent. it's clearly something that is learned and connected to power
>dynamics that take place in the family, at work, in academe. no i'm not a
>cultural determinist...did i say all men were violent? that men raised in
>violent families inevitably became violent themselves, etc?
>
>
>
>
>“touch yourself and you will know that i exist.”
>~luce irigaray
>