Follow Up 4/14

I was intrigued by our readings for Thursday.  I thought Enloe’s thoughts on trivialization in particular were very interesting, but I was surprised more by Steinmen’s article titled “Supremacy Crimes”.  Throughout the semester we have talked about the white, male dominance in our society, but I never really connected it like Steinmen did.  I guess I can’t really say I’m surprised by these conclusions, but they are a bit jarring.  In class today (Tuesday) we talked about how the rape myths usually include some aspect of racial stereotyping (that black men are, by nature, more aggressive) and Steinmen’s piece shows a completely opposite side.  That “white males—usually intelligent, middle class, and heterosexual…account for virtually all the serial, sexually motivated, sadistic killings” (Steinmen pg. 1, paragraph 5) is proof that we need to put an end to the many stereotypes.  There are many reasons behind a killer’s motivation, and often, as Steinmen proves, has to do with the supposed “supremacy” that white males are “entitled” to.  I do not know what we can do to help fix/ease this.  Steinmen gives one suggestion in her closing thoughts:  “…just as we as a society have begun to raise our daughters more like sons—more like whole people—we must begin to raise our sons more like our daughters—that is, to value empathy as well as hierarchy; to measure success by other people’s welfare as well as their own” (pg. 3, 2^nd to last paragraph).  However, I do not know how exactly Steinmen hopes that we go about actually carrying this out.  Sure, it is easy to say that we need to do this but it took our society a long time to allow a girl to be raised more like a boy (get to work outside of the home, etc.) and do not know how, in practice, we would be able to do this.