What Monster Dd This to My Little Girl?

Scan page 7

(left) Promotional advert for one of the films capitalising on violence against women; (above) hypocritical "concern" and blatant titillation from two pages of one issue of The Sun, (November 17); (below) woman as object and as victim in Sun strip cartoon; (below, right) possibly the most obscene PLEASE, BUT YOU'RE JUST A ROBOT MARK...IKNOW •WITH A KINK IN YOUR 'S RIGHT, MARK!

U DON'T NEED TO ртест ME FROM M! HE LOVES ME! towards the labour movement, we woula turn this process raising the questions in the teaching unions.

This brings us to the central task of Trotskyists in tackling the question of violence against women.

Like the battering of women in the home, rape is primarily a ocial, problem, rooted in 'enturies of male dominance md in the links capitalist lociety has fostered between property, sex and violence.

Social conditions

The problem of rape cannot se tackled effectively unless we hange the social conditions hat encourage violence towards vomen and keep them in an nferior position.

Rape and the battering of vomen are not-contrary • to opular belief-carried out by nen who are sick or deranged s this quote from Dr Judy "Very few rapists are eferred for psychiatric treatnent, because attempts to find omething to treat have been ingularly unsuccessful. Many apists have normal' scores on ests for aggression and attitudes Dwards women. Prison governrs are often quoted as saying hat rapists form the most ormal section of the prison ommunity."

New Society, June 1974 : In rape, the emotions of egression, hatred and pntempt, and the desire to onquer, break or violate a ersonality take a form which nough illegal, is actively enpuraged by capitalist society trough every aspect of our conitioning.

Object Inherent in all extreme orms of the way men are couraged to relate to women ¡the way the female is turned ito an object-a man's object in man's world.

The image of women in Ivertising reflects capitalism's incepts of men's fantasies of aw they would like women to i-empty headed consumers 'dicated to serving men.

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exploitation of the woman as a sexual object and the objectification of the female as a piece of property to be owned and ruled by men.

Reflected in the pin-up is the ideal that is continuously perpetuated of woman as passive-an object to be pinned up-and masochistic-existing for men's pleasure, whatever form it might take.

The image of woman as a sexual object emphasises the physical attractiveness of the femaie body and denigrates other qualities of women such as intelligence, courage, creativity, inventiveness.

Rape is an act that subdues the female by crushing her will, violating her person.

Women do not as a rule have fantasies of dominating men or humiliating them.

There is no comparable ideologicalbarrage perpetuating fantasies of women dominating or humiliating men.

Fantasy

If women participate in masochistic behaviour with men it is in many cases because the men have been conditioned to demand it and women have been conditioned to want to please the men.

Underlying much literature and openly expressed in many other forms including psychoanalytic theory, is the male fantasy that women desire to be dominated (raped) by men.

For instance, Anthony Storr wrote in 'Human Aggression' in 1968:

"The idea of being seized and borne off by a ruthless male who will wreak his sexual will upon his helpless victim has a universal appeal to the female sex."

The capitalist system links feelings of cruelty with sexuality, the latter often equated both with evil and with power.

This is apparent in sexual fantasy reported by psychoanalysis and that revealed by pornography.

The rule here associates sadism with the male (the masculine role) and victimisation with the female (the female role).

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Raymond Durgnant states in a chapter entitled I love you so much I could kill you' that:

"erotic violence is the kingpin of the horror film ... the full moon lifts the tides of instinct, the man becomes a werewolfslavering ripping, ravishing the fair sex, which constitutes his rightful prey".

Every time it is the female's role to be the victim from King Kong through Dracula to virtually every horror film you can name.

The most disturbing, blatant examples of this are a current series ot mass murder filmsThe Beast, Prom Night, Don't Answer the Phone and He Knows You're Alone.

These are obviously being produced to coincide with mass murder cases in the United States and the 'Ripper' case here.

Mass murderers, e.g. Bluebeard, 10 Rillington Place and Jack the Ripper-are greeted at one level with a certain scandalised, possibly hypocritical indignation but on another are used to induce a mass response of titillation.

In view of the sadistic character of such public fantasy the mass publicity (adverts several times every night on TV), the producers are obviously encouraging a certain element of identification in the general response.

They give a free rein to man in the perpetration of a variety of cruelties, barbarity and humiliation to women.

For women, they whip up a paranoia designed to ensure she never feels safe and confident and should never be alone or independent.

Back-up job

They are thus doing a backup job to the press coverage of the 'Ripper' case-terrorising women to stay in family safety. in the home.

But as the Leeds feminists correctly pointed out, women are not even safer in the home!

The Maws/Coles cases themselves are clear examples of this.

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We must look at those elements in our culture that promote and propagandise these attitudes and which provide the ideological and psychological encouragement to commit these acts of aggression.

The theory of aggressive male domination over women as some kind of "natural right" is so deeply embedded in our culture that recent attempts to expose the way it operates-in songs, films, television, adverts, children's textbooks ("I'm scared", says Janet. "Girls are always afraid" , says John") have barely managed to scratch the surface.

It is very important for socialists not only to be part of the fight to expose that conditioning, as deeply and as widely as we can but also to specific oppression of women.

In fighting a factory closure, or school meal redundancies we are challenging the concept that "a woman's place is in the home" , in fighting for full free state childcare provision, we are challenging that it is "a mother's job to bring up children"; in defending geriatric hospitals we at home and look after her elderly dependants.

The fight for workers and consumers control of the media is necessary to make a concrete start to challenging the perpetuation of sexist attitudes. • We should fight to establish committees of workers in, for example, the entertainment industry, including Equity, camera/technical staff and committees of consumers.

These should examine films and consider whether they consider them to be an active threat to women-and if so, what is the necessary course of action to take.

This would, of course, not take the form of demanding Sun picture exclu

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Up!J.R. keeps a royal secret

take action to actively challenge fight and ultimately transform those ideologies that uphold the

are challenging the concept that it is "a daughter's job" to stay