I first heard about this New York Times article over on Suzanne’s site and it was later covered by Sarah over on BlogHer. I’ve held off on commenting, partly because I haven’t had the time to give the attention I think it deserves, and partly because I wanted to get an idea about what the people around me thought.
The gist of the article is this: When the New York Jets play a home game, halftime finds the male fans lining up at Gate D, yelling obscenities at and encouraging women passing by to flash their breasts. If the women don’t comply, they’re taunted, spit upon or even have plastic bottles thrown at them.
On Sarah’s BlogHer post, a commenter referred to the case in Saudi Arabia where a young woman who was sexually assaulted is herself facing punishment. The commenter was making the point that there are bigger atrocities in the world than what’s taking place at Jets games. She wasn’t dismissing it, just pointing out the difference in severity. At least that’s the way I read it. And I can’t disagree. When I read about the case in Saudi Arabia for the first time, my jaw dropped in disbelief. When I read about the Jets’ fans, I didn’t like what I saw but it didn’t surprise me.
And it’s that point that’s really bothering me. At one point, in discussing this with The Boyfriend and our friend M, I realized that of the many men I know, several of them could probably be caught up in the moment of yelling for a woman to flash them. I can’t see any of my male friends spitting on or throwing things at someone for not doing it, but they would definitely enjoy the outcome if one did.
There’s the heart of the problem. They wouldn’t see the woman as a person they knew: their sisters, their daughters, their wives or girlfriends. They would a see her as a whore. And whores deserve what they get, don’t they? How many times have we heard that argument in a rape case? “Why was she at that club?” “Did you see how she was dressed?”
Sometime last year, there was a report in one of our weekly papers about a female attorney who was out having a drink after work with friends, and someone drugged her drink. She woke up in a strange house in a strange neighborhood, fortunately before anything had occurred. I never heard any more about the story and it concerned me because there was apparently suspicion that the bartender had been paid to put the drug in her drink. But what bothered me even more was one of the first comments made when the link was posted on a local forum. A female asked (and I’m paraphrasing), “What’s a 32-year old mother of two doing out clubbing in the first place?”
Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who took offense. It shouldn’t make a difference who and where she was. All that matters is that someone decided they had the right to take advantage of someone else. It’s a crime to do that in almost every case you can come up with. Scamming the elderly? That’s a crime. Breaking into someone’s house when they’re not home? Crime. Beating a child? Crime. Killing someone? Crime.
Raping someone? Oh, she must have asked for it. Yes, rape is a crime, and some might make the argument that we’ve made progress in treating it as such. And yet, you can always find examples on far we’ve yet to go.
I hate sounding negative on this topic, but when I see examples here such as the Jets’ fans, I wonder how we can even being to hope for change in countries such as Saudi Arabia anytime soon.
I love how security feels no obligation to stop bottle throwing and spitting but are somehow compelled to threaten the woman who obliged the men with indecent exposure. There is no earthly reason why this “tradition” should be allowed to continue. If Monday Night Football or the networks told the stadium owners to put a stop to it or else they won’t broadcast Jet’s home games anymore, you’d be amazed at how fast the issue would be addressed.