"Moreover, had this mortality rate remained flat between 2000 and 2021, nearly 40 000 young women would still be alive...Who, then, is rising up in protest because of the needless, unjust deaths of girls and women? Who is declaring a crisis, let alone an epidemic?"
And meanwhile, men get to have a loneliness epidemic that makes all the headlines.
I find the work you are doing so inspiring and powerful. I admire your courage and thank you for validating so much of what so many of us absolutely know exists but is denied every time we bring it up because we are “too emotional .”
As if males aren't "too emotional" when they start wars...because anger and aggression aren't classified as "emotions" by patriarchy. Only the caring ones are. This is because at the root of patriarchy is a desperate fear of anything "Yin" in the Taoist sense. The whole program of patriarchy is about Yang-dominance over everything. This is why IMHO it will burn itself out eventually; it will end in destruction, which ironically is the ultimate triumph of Yin (in the most negative sense however) and the very thing is it afraid of.
“Misogyny. . . encompasses the institutional betrayals and anti-woman policies that make the world a hostile place for us to navigate. And it certainly includes violence that is inflicted on us in the spirit of jealousy, revenge and resentment.”
Boy I think you just encapsulated my life story at work and in my family of origin from childhood on up to the present. . .
Wow this a fascinating story. As an eldest daughter myself who was gaslit around my mother’s declining health and memorial I could see so many parallels including all the enablers of discrimination.
As Rebecca Mandeville writes about scapegoat abuse it can become a form of family mobbing and often females who step out of line become the target.
I think gaslighting is so central to the perpetuation of sexism in both personal and work life.
Thank you! I'm sorry to hear about your experience. What was so devastating to me was that for me it was a betrayal of my mother's legacy, in the automatic cancelling of her essential feminist contributions. The casualness of it all was particularly galling, and then of course the 'walking back' via gaslighting. Few are willing to face the truth of our marination in misogyny.
There has to be another term we can use for "boy"---I'm not trying to be hyper-critical here---just need to see us take up more space. "Gee" doesn't work. "Gosh" doesn't. "Girl" doesn't...maybe "damn"? Or "crap'? Sorry for this detour.
Today LinkedIn showed me a story that Japanese researchers found that time spent in the forest can improve some specific measure of health (sorry, lost it immediately and can’t remember), even 30 days later, and then on Substack the first thing I saw were conversations about women whose forest walks were ruined or cut short by being accosted by men.
Such a small thing in light of all the things discussed here, but we’re lifting a ton of feathers aren’t we.
'Who is declaring a crisis, let alone an epidemic? Only feminists are doing so at the margins, and at the expense of our own mainstream palatability and reach, much of the time. We are perceived, when we protest, as caterwauling and hysterical—or even crazy.'
Speaking up can seen as impertinent and disruptive. Sara Ahmed explains in her book Complaint! that when you bring attention to a problem - when you complain - you become the problem.
Thank you for this brave essay. For speaking out. For telling the truth Connecting the dots: recognizing that misogyny is about policing and enforcing patriarchal norms and expectations. It's the system. The dominant/subordinate caste system that we have lived under forever. The entire structure favors white men. White wealthy men. Your statistics bear this out. The whole world may be filled with men dominating women but our country---our country---seems to have an inside track.
Old, old, old, I say. Older than this country. Older than the hills? A caste system that goes back at least 2000 years? It may be resurgent but it's been around a very long time.
As a nurses practitioner in a highly regarded medical system I can report that misogyny is endemic. Also, healthcare delivery at all levels is under severe duress which will compound this exponentially with no real solutions in sight.
You’ll be pleased to read this short CBC article then — where police & medical assessment AND reporting are increased …
“During the pilot project, 60 per cent of victims were referred to medical services compared to 35 per cent before …
The protocol hopes to improve 🔻judicial and 🔻medical support for victims and entails specific 🔹training to help police officers identify when choking, suffocation or strangling has occurred.”
Thank you for this brilliant and insightful article! We are told, as women, that we have made so much progress; that we should be “grateful” and stop complaining. Progress…compared to when we were property? Okay, sure. But women, not men are the ones who should be speaking about whether or not the degree of this progress feels adequate. You have identified areas that have a profound, and unequal, impact on women. I’m also thinking of the language prohibitions for scientific research that this regime instituted, in which grant applications can be tossed out simply because they indicate that they want to study issues that are particular to women. So, for instance, how in the hell can we study ovarian cancer if the study cannot specifically use subjects that have ovaries? This description is an oversimplification, I realize, but this trend will cause more unnecessary female deaths.
Thank you Kate. Very informative - I had not seen this information anywhere else. As a retired healthcare professional - (not a practitioner, but a government administrator of health care) I usually had ample information of health trends and new advocacy initiatives). I also have additional thoughts regarding the trend of higher death rates among the younger cohort of women in recent years: the rate of women seeking drug treatment is almost as high as men now and the trend has accelerated in the past twenty years. It would be interesting to see if drug-related deaths (including partner homicide) has shown a matching statistic to the increased deaths of women in the past twenty to thirty years.
It’s distressing how little health professionals care about women’s health (obviously not all, but too many). Many don’t understand science firmly believing studying only men is sufficient and telling me “I’ve only seen concerns in men” omitting if the medication has been studied on women or given outright wrong information. Raising issues in a medical setting can compromise your healthcare for years if the physician views you as too angry and describes you as a difficult patient. I’ve had HCWs laugh at male violence against women (I personally do not find femicide funny).
Thank you for writing this and for doing this important work. I don’t know if you’ve considered adapting this piece for a peer-reviewed science journal— I think it would be great addition to the literature.
"Moreover, had this mortality rate remained flat between 2000 and 2021, nearly 40 000 young women would still be alive...Who, then, is rising up in protest because of the needless, unjust deaths of girls and women? Who is declaring a crisis, let alone an epidemic?"
And meanwhile, men get to have a loneliness epidemic that makes all the headlines.
I find the work you are doing so inspiring and powerful. I admire your courage and thank you for validating so much of what so many of us absolutely know exists but is denied every time we bring it up because we are “too emotional .”
As if males aren't "too emotional" when they start wars...because anger and aggression aren't classified as "emotions" by patriarchy. Only the caring ones are. This is because at the root of patriarchy is a desperate fear of anything "Yin" in the Taoist sense. The whole program of patriarchy is about Yang-dominance over everything. This is why IMHO it will burn itself out eventually; it will end in destruction, which ironically is the ultimate triumph of Yin (in the most negative sense however) and the very thing is it afraid of.
“Misogyny. . . encompasses the institutional betrayals and anti-woman policies that make the world a hostile place for us to navigate. And it certainly includes violence that is inflicted on us in the spirit of jealousy, revenge and resentment.”
Boy I think you just encapsulated my life story at work and in my family of origin from childhood on up to the present. . .
Indeed. I write about just one of these betrayals here:
https://ruthkastner154905.substack.com/p/the-persistence-of-sexism-in-families
(Hint: "Brianna" is me)
Wow this a fascinating story. As an eldest daughter myself who was gaslit around my mother’s declining health and memorial I could see so many parallels including all the enablers of discrimination.
As Rebecca Mandeville writes about scapegoat abuse it can become a form of family mobbing and often females who step out of line become the target.
I think gaslighting is so central to the perpetuation of sexism in both personal and work life.
Thank you! I'm sorry to hear about your experience. What was so devastating to me was that for me it was a betrayal of my mother's legacy, in the automatic cancelling of her essential feminist contributions. The casualness of it all was particularly galling, and then of course the 'walking back' via gaslighting. Few are willing to face the truth of our marination in misogyny.
There has to be another term we can use for "boy"---I'm not trying to be hyper-critical here---just need to see us take up more space. "Gee" doesn't work. "Gosh" doesn't. "Girl" doesn't...maybe "damn"? Or "crap'? Sorry for this detour.
Today LinkedIn showed me a story that Japanese researchers found that time spent in the forest can improve some specific measure of health (sorry, lost it immediately and can’t remember), even 30 days later, and then on Substack the first thing I saw were conversations about women whose forest walks were ruined or cut short by being accosted by men.
Such a small thing in light of all the things discussed here, but we’re lifting a ton of feathers aren’t we.
We choose the bear.
'Who is declaring a crisis, let alone an epidemic? Only feminists are doing so at the margins, and at the expense of our own mainstream palatability and reach, much of the time. We are perceived, when we protest, as caterwauling and hysterical—or even crazy.'
Speaking up can seen as impertinent and disruptive. Sara Ahmed explains in her book Complaint! that when you bring attention to a problem - when you complain - you become the problem.
Thank you for this brave essay. For speaking out. For telling the truth Connecting the dots: recognizing that misogyny is about policing and enforcing patriarchal norms and expectations. It's the system. The dominant/subordinate caste system that we have lived under forever. The entire structure favors white men. White wealthy men. Your statistics bear this out. The whole world may be filled with men dominating women but our country---our country---seems to have an inside track.
We currently are being subjected to a resurgent caste system wherein women are the new chattel, as Kate has documented here.
Old, old, old, I say. Older than this country. Older than the hills? A caste system that goes back at least 2000 years? It may be resurgent but it's been around a very long time.
As a nurses practitioner in a highly regarded medical system I can report that misogyny is endemic. Also, healthcare delivery at all levels is under severe duress which will compound this exponentially with no real solutions in sight.
You’ll be pleased to read this short CBC article then — where police & medical assessment AND reporting are increased …
“During the pilot project, 60 per cent of victims were referred to medical services compared to 35 per cent before …
The protocol hopes to improve 🔻judicial and 🔻medical support for victims and entails specific 🔹training to help police officers identify when choking, suffocation or strangling has occurred.”
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/spvm-pilot-project-strangulation-9.6971190
Meanwhile, idiots & sadists are ‘training’ young women to believe/ accept that strangulation is just a nice, niche sex act. (Screeeam!)
So are some sex positive therapists. I met two, and one who specifically counsels women to think of force as sexy.
Anything to make a buck, eh? 💰
🙄 And to feel neat & niche.
Thank you for this brilliant and insightful article! We are told, as women, that we have made so much progress; that we should be “grateful” and stop complaining. Progress…compared to when we were property? Okay, sure. But women, not men are the ones who should be speaking about whether or not the degree of this progress feels adequate. You have identified areas that have a profound, and unequal, impact on women. I’m also thinking of the language prohibitions for scientific research that this regime instituted, in which grant applications can be tossed out simply because they indicate that they want to study issues that are particular to women. So, for instance, how in the hell can we study ovarian cancer if the study cannot specifically use subjects that have ovaries? This description is an oversimplification, I realize, but this trend will cause more unnecessary female deaths.
Thank you Kate. Very informative - I had not seen this information anywhere else. As a retired healthcare professional - (not a practitioner, but a government administrator of health care) I usually had ample information of health trends and new advocacy initiatives). I also have additional thoughts regarding the trend of higher death rates among the younger cohort of women in recent years: the rate of women seeking drug treatment is almost as high as men now and the trend has accelerated in the past twenty years. It would be interesting to see if drug-related deaths (including partner homicide) has shown a matching statistic to the increased deaths of women in the past twenty to thirty years.
It’s distressing how little health professionals care about women’s health (obviously not all, but too many). Many don’t understand science firmly believing studying only men is sufficient and telling me “I’ve only seen concerns in men” omitting if the medication has been studied on women or given outright wrong information. Raising issues in a medical setting can compromise your healthcare for years if the physician views you as too angry and describes you as a difficult patient. I’ve had HCWs laugh at male violence against women (I personally do not find femicide funny).
Thank you so much for your research and your work.
Thank you for writing this and for doing this important work. I don’t know if you’ve considered adapting this piece for a peer-reviewed science journal— I think it would be great addition to the literature.
Who is speaking of these issues indeed! Thank you for your voice.