Showing posts with label fathers and daughters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fathers and daughters. Show all posts

Friday, December 16, 2011

Rape Culture, Gun Culture


Let's discuss the original image.
Guns Don't Kill People. Dad's With Good Looking Daughters Do.
It's a play on the NRA slogan that guns don't kill people, people kill people.  In this particular example, it's very specific people threatening to kill people: the fathers of sexually available, "good looking" daughters. This quote makes some assumptions about the way the world works.
  1. It's right and  normal for a father to control a young woman's sexual agency, both on her behalf (as a threatening figure/excuse against being pressured into sex she doesn't want) and against her will (as a threatening figure who punishes her for dating/having sex).
  2. It's right and normal for an adult male to threaten to murder someone his child cares about.
  3. It's right and normal to consider a pubescent or post pubescent woman as under threat.
  4. It's right and normal to consider women's sexuality as a threatening thing.
  5. Young women run the constant risk of sexual assault/rape and need adult men to control their behavior/take charge of their romantic/sexual lives on their behalf.
  6. Fatherless women can't depend on anyone to protect them from sexual assault, as that's a father's job.
  7. Women who aren't conventionally attractive ("good looking") don't deserve to be protected from sexual assault.
  8. Women who aren't conventionally attractive ("good looking") can't be sexually assaulted because who'd want them/they want it anyway/they should be grateful for whatever attention they get.
This kind of quote says a lot about the way our dominant society views women, fathers, gender roles, and sexuality. The misplaced apostrophe is the ignorant cherry on the misogynist sundae.