Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Mary Winkler and the Price of Patriarchy

This story happened a while ago but ever since I learned about it I couldn't stop thinking about how detrimental patriarchy is for men and women alike. And how, at the same time, it benefits both men and women in strange ways. 

In 2006, Mary Winkler shot Matthew Winkler, her husband and the father of her children, in the back with a shotgun as he lay sleeping. He could have still been saved but Mary Winkler simply turned around, took her children and left as her husband lay dying. She lied to her daughter and told her that help for Daddy was on its way and just left. It was later revealed that Mary Winkler had invested all her family savings into a Nigerian money scam. To cover for her money losses she started writing bad checks, which got her further into debt. The bank had threatened to contact her husband for clarifications. So the night before the bank was due to contact her husband, Mary Winkler shot him with a shotgun. There was never any question that she was the killer.

So how much time in jail do you think she got for this murder? A murder aimed at concealing her financial machinations, no less? A murder of a sleeping, helpless individual? A week. That's it. Just one week for the murder of her husband, a preacher, a man deeply respected in their community. At trial, Mary Winkler alleged abuse at the hands of her husband and suggested that he had wanted her to engage in "unnatural" sex. There was absolutely no proof of any abuse. Except, that is, for a pair of stripper shoes that Winkler's lawyer brought into the courtroom from God knows where. The stripper shoes that her husband allegedly asked her to wear gave the jury an excuse to let the murderer go free. Well, not completely free. There was that week in jail.

There is hardly any need to point out that if a man shot his wife and the mother of his children in the back while she lay sleeping in bed and then left her to die, he could have brought every pair of freaky shoes under the sun into the courtroom only to get laughed right into a prison cell where he'd spend the rest of his life. 

Patriarchy damages women in a multitude of ways. It strives to push them into marriage and motherhood, which many women neither need nor want. It traps women in lifestyles that do not fulfill them and that leave them angry, miserable, and depressed. It makes it so much more difficult for women to succeed professionally and financially. However, patriarchy doesn't treat men all that much better. Men's lives are always valued a lot less than women's lives. In every developed country in the world, men have shorter lifespans than women. Men are expected to wear themselves out prematurely while keeping not only their children but often also a wife. Who can shoot them in the back and get off with a week-long sentence.

Ain't patriarchy just grand, people?

22 comments:

KT said...

I found out on Wikipedia just now that the "Nigerian money scam" is also known as the "Russian/Ukrainian scam" though "far less popular than the former."

Aint that awesome? :)

Clarissa said...

I always knew you and I had a lot in common. :-)

Still, I don't think my people would mess with a poor family from such a backwards place. They normally think that only really big money is worth the effort.

David said...

I like this post. I like this post because most "Patriarchy hurts men too" pieces fail to acknowledge any meaningful ways in which men are disadvantaged.

I think we can all agree that patriarchy sucks. It hurts women immeasurably, for the reasons you've mentioned and more. (Forcing women into careers and lives that they don't want, forcing them out of careers they might otherwise consider... The list could take up pages) But strangely, when it comes to the way in which it hurts men a lot of feminists like to hem and haw and never mention specifics. When a man brings up incarceration and crime, or life span and morbidity, the all-too-common reaction is a knee-jerk response to deny anything that man has brought up.

This post is cool because it goes beyond the juvenile impulse to deny a group of people's experiences simply because they are "the other". For that, I respect you. I also respect you, because I feel that saying "Men's lives are always valued a lot less than women's lives" would get you flamed alive on other parts of the internet.

Thank god for personal blogs. For every thread that I disagree with you, there's a thread that makes me want to pump my fist in the air and shout "YESSSS!!!!"

[/end of kumbaya moment]

fairykarma said...

With or without patriarchy (still not exactly sure what it is), men will still live shorter lives.

I don't think it has anything to do with value, men just choose more dangerous things and they do so in greater proportion.

I work with machines that could potentially damage my hands, I have to handle heavy loads that could damage my back, and sometimes spend time in a very cold freezer for 15 minutes or longer. To be honest, I'd rather do that than the boring cashier, secretarial and managerial jobs that go to the women.

I'm not saying men are this, and women are that. I'm just saying men choose this, and women choose that, thus women's choices gives them a few more years or decades in this world.

Men are very high value in that they get that oil from the ground and into my car. People take infrastructure for granted to such an amazing extent. We operate what essentially are moving boxes along prebuilt tracks to get to our destinations in reasonable time compared to any other alternatives. The medium we're communicating with right now is mostly man-made and man-maintained.

Men may be worth less biologically speaking, but they more than make up for their "shortcomings" through the products of their work (well... most them). I don't want to be construed as anti-woman here simply because I don't think men and women play the same game. Women should be free to play on the same field, but I always get the feeling maybe both genders are playing different games. I don't know for sure. Just a silly conjecture.

Rimi said...

Finally, Clarissa, one post I can agree unequivocally with. My father always did say that he believes in equal rights within and outside the home, not because he's an angel with pearly wings, but because he wanted a better and more fulfilling family life *for himself*. The pity, he used to tell us, was that most of his male peers simply didn't get how having a fulfilled, independent, assertive and supportive partner made their own lives better.

I will say this, though: patriarchy does raise every mother almost to the level of the Madonna. Fetishising motherhood and the purity of female sexuality usually has two results, the first of which I see in India too:
1. Women pick 'eligible men' to 'settle down' with and vice versa. Sure, there is a period of courting and much show of love, but there is a dominant element of social suitability. In India we are explicit about this, but in the west I notice people largely pretend it doesn't happen. It's all 'love' all the time.

2. Because there is pressure to become the perfect wife and mother and because women draw social power from embodying these roles, they also become excellent weapons of social subversion should a woman feel the need to use them. Which is exactly what the murderer here did.

I'm not sure this woman's aggressive manipulation would not have existed if she had a profession (as opposed to a career), but had she been, for example, a lawyer, this aggression would actually have paid dividends, and had her made partner ;-)

Clarissa said...

Thank you for the support, guys! I've been inflamed by this case for years, reading about it, watching documentaries, and not finding much support for my outrage.

"I feel that saying "Men's lives are always valued a lot less than women's lives" would get you flamed alive on other parts of the internet"

-Not only on the Internet. When I try to publish parts of my research that women are 100% victimized by bad, horrible men, that makes my research unpublishable. The most annoying part is that nobody even tries to suggest that my evidence is insufficient or argue with the findings. It's just "oh, no, you can't say that." Why not, I ask, if I have mountains of evidence supporting my views?

"I'm just saying men choose this, and women choose that, thus women's choices gives them a few more years or decades in this world."

-The question is to which extent such choices are motivated and inspired by the ruling ideology?

"had she been, for example, a lawyer, this aggression would actually have paid dividends, and had her made partner"

-That's an important observation. We are supposed to pretend that female rage and female abusiveness do not exist. But, of course, they do.

el said...

When I try to publish parts of my research that women are 100% victimized by bad, horrible men, that makes my research unpublishable.

Did you mean "aren't 100% victimized"?

Clarissa said...

Yes, of course. THANKS for catching it! I got no sleep tonight, waking every 15 minutes to see if the classes were going to be cancelled. So here is the result.

Need more coffee now!! :-)

fairykarma said...

What is the ruling ideology exactly? What are its main specific tenets?

I don't like jumping into discussions about intangible things without at least having some common ground.

When a kid is failing a class, you wouldn't necessarily say his actions were influenced by some intangible ideology that caused him to pursue choices that eventually resulted in failure. One would simply assume he made a conscious choice to not do assigned work, given of course we're addressing your typical party college student. That's the simplest choice.

When I say men and women make certain choices assuming these people understand cause and effect (If I take this riskier job, I get paid more at the risk of my health; or.... science doesn't pay much for the work required so I'll do finance, law or management...and so on), I'm simply trying to avoid the murky undefined ground of ideology.

I just find it easier to postulate that men and women are born with certain default settings. Some of these settings can be changed, some can't. Some can be changed to an extent. These settings of course encompass physical makeup, behavior, adaptation and thought.

Clarissa said...

"I just find it easier to postulate that men and women are born with certain default settings."

-Science does not agree. Absolutely no scientific evidence has been discovered supporting this idea of innate gender differences. There is quite a lot of research quoted about that on this blog. Every scientific study on the subject has demonstrated that any gender differences are statistically negligible.

The dominant ideology, however, is the one that has us believe - against all science and all reason - that such gender-based default settings do exist.

Patrick said...

"Absolutely no scientific evidence has been discovered supporting this idea of innate gender differences."

This statement confuses me. I've always operated under the assumption that men and women are equal, but different. Equality doesn't equate to the same. Where you quote that there are no innate gender differences, is that in a broad psychological sense, or in a physiological reality?

Clarissa said...

There are obvious physiological differences which, of course, nobody disputes. These differences, however, do not translate into any real "men are from Mars, women are form Venus" that we are constantly told actually exist. In the way men and women feel, learn, react, form thoughts and emotions, etc there are no observable gender differences.

fairykarma said...

I'll bite.

Given no evidence of any innate differences, what explains the relatively historically low number of women in all kinds of fields (math, literature, science, engineering, government) throughout history? I personally think women chose not to, given like you said both genders are the same.

I'll gladly excuse the lower classes because division of labor was paramount for both genders just to get by. It's hard to make advances of any kind when you can't even find food to eat.

But among the leisure class, I would certainly expect more females conquering equal spaces of the abstract intellectual frontiers. I like to believe Émilie du Châtelet made a choice to dedicate her life solely to math and physics. The same for Elizabeth I to government. Apparently she kept a copy of The Prince in her bedroom under lock and key, which is just a fun fact.

Were du Châtelet, Elizabeth and the handful other exceptions just too cool for ideology? How come they escaped?

Which brings us to today where one would expect 50:50 on nearly everything. There is no closed gateway to information these days. Amazon.com, library, and the Internet. It's really hard for an ideology to take hold when information of all types floats freely awaiting consumption. The knowledge traditionally hidden from the masses is widely available. I don't even know how FOX does it.

Still not 50:50 everywhere. Given there are no innate differences, I just find it extremely puzzling that 50% of the population has been consistently kept away from certain fields for THOUSANDS of years.

All types of political entities have risen, expanded, fallen in this time. All types of civilizations have come and gone. And not much evidence of women saying, "ahhh, fuck this, we're taking over for a couple centuries. We're not much different."

We've seen all kinds of revolutions and movements that have been life or death issues for people. People dying for causes like religion, which is rather silly to me.

I just assumed women would've taken over by now, or at least gotten their fair share if their freedom was a life or death issue. It has to be if husbands and children are being killed because mom's going a little crazy from being stuck at home all day. Thousands of years though. That's a little long for any ideology to be hanging around.

If du Châtelet could make a firm choice to study what she wanted despite ideological resistance, I think it's reasonable to state many a woman had the same opportunities to pursue a lot of male-dominated things but consciously chose not to.

There's plenty of examples of women influencing their ruler husbands or sons, or even indirectly ruling through them. So why the inequality? I don't think ideology is plausible. We're talking about a relatively consistent ideology that kept 50% of the population down for thousands of years and still apparently continues to do so to some extent... shouldn't we all just shoot ourselves in the head right now if ideology is truly that powerful an influence? Why even bother trusting any notion of freedom at that point with such a powerful ideology hanging around for so long?

Clarissa said...

"what explains the relatively historically low number of women in all kinds of fields (math, literature, science, engineering, government) throughout history?"

-???? When do you think women were first given access to higher education?

As for women choosing not to have an education, is it possible that you do not know how long and hard women battled for access to education?

Clarissa said...

"I just assumed women would've taken over by now, or at least gotten their fair share if their freedom was a life or death issue."

-As I said in the post, the patriarchal ideology both deprives and rewards both men and women.

"Thousands of years though. That's a little long for any ideology to be hanging around. ""

-Tell that to the Christians. :-)

" We're talking about a relatively consistent ideology that kept 50% of the population down for thousands of years and still apparently continues to do so to some extent."

-It kept them down in some ways and propped them up in others. That's why it's so powerful.

Clarissa said...

"Why even bother trusting any notion of freedom at that point with such a powerful ideology hanging around for so long?"

-Freedom from what?

Sorry for many short comments. The Blogger seems to be acting up today. Again.

Rimi said...

I keep hoping I'd stop encountering arguments which focus n "choice" as if it exists outside ad free of cultural counselling. Like, at a time when the church/shariah interpreters/brahminical authority admonished, excommunicated, and sometimes even burned or stoned women who attempted to get an education, when no one would allocate means or resources to educating their daughters because it was such a freakishly unnatural concept, and when marriage plus motherhood were not optional but inevitable before teenage ended... we're still positing that women remained outside the sphere of education and extr-domestic professions out of choice, or even imagining that their life wasn't a linear inevitability but they actually HAD a choice, is, well. I think I'll go look up a word in the dictionary that matches my utter exasperation and disappointment.

What happend to rational contextual analysis? That thing, you know, that women are STILL believed incapable of?

Of course, part of why women are believed incapable of it is because when a woman provides such an analysis, her interlocuters immediately go on the, "OMG she's gone hysterical, she's on her period" line of defence. Some things are not about to change.

fairykarma said...

"-???? When do you think women were first given access to higher education?"

I don't know. Possibly sometime after 1700. My entire argument goes beyond education though. I'm talking about power and equality. 50:50 on everything. It should not take thousands of years for women, being as equally capable as men to advance themselves.

Regrettably, a lot of progress has been made through bloodshed. But one never hears of groups of women starting up an armory, deftly persuading men to join their cause (I would've gladly joined), and demolishing cities, looting libraries and stores of knowledge, that kind of exciting stuff. Men have been playing that kind of game for ages, why didn't women join in?

Men have broken through all kinds of boundaries. They truly have managed to dominate this planet in a way that they can actually destroy the planet many times over.

Yet we're all still trapped by ideology? Why would such an ideology bring about dish washers, washing machines and other devices that made women's work easier, pretty much freeing them to do other things, like challenge the ideology (something I personally think should've happened long time ago in Ancient Egypt)?

"As I said in the post, the patriarchal ideology both deprives and rewards both men and women."

I take issue with this because life keeps getting more and more comfortable due to the labor of men in building the infrastructure and technological advances of men throughout history that automate or at least make easier a lot of tasks. Sure men live a little shorter, but life expectancies have been increasing as a whole to the point that a lot of us are dying from sitting too much and having too much food. I'm really not sure who's being deprived nowadays in the West, especially if you're in the middle class or higher. These days it seems more so that one's personal efforts are most important determinant of their destination.

Rimi said...

Oh, and another reason why so few women are in maths and the sciences is:
A. Quite a few of them don't get much recognition. Remind me again, who was the first computer programmer? Just one casually tossed out example.

B. The cultural incentive given to girls against maths and science (or general smartness) is huge. They're told they'll be labelled unfeminine, sexless, unattractive aberrations to nature. Enormousy appealing incentive to hormonal young teens to take up the maths and sciences, of course.

C. In societies where this applies (ex colonies for example), most girls' colleges don't offer Economics, Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and their specialised variants. Because of B, the women in mixed-gender departments are outnumber by a large ratio. In my country at least, where gender segregation is big, these women are harrassed, teased, and sometimes sexually assaulted by their male peers. Three young women from my street have quit programmes in Electronic Engineering, Physics with honours, and Mechanical Engineering.

I've noticed the whole, "your femininity and attractiveness is under fire!" works more in western countries, whereas overt sexual harrassment happens more in the rest of the world, but that's just a matter of degrees.

David said...

I think when we're talking about sexual dimorphism in humans we have to separate physical capacity from mental capacity.

As far as I see it, there are some areas where men can outcompete women (physically). The concrete thing I'll point to here is upper body strength and how it is easier (generally speaking, not in all cases) for men to gain muscle than it is for women. So, I might have an easier time of beating my girlfriend in an arm wrestling match.

Aside from that though, it's basically all a wash. Nobody has put up any scientific evidence to suggest that women and men differ in thought or mental capacity. Physical differences do exist, but they don't really matter unless you want to be a bodybuilder or a football player.

Clarissa said...

"Why would such an ideology bring about dish washers, washing machines and other devices that made women's work easier"

-That's another ideology. It's called capitalism. It's an ideology that's often in fierce competition with the patriarchal ideology.Which is what the article I'm writing right now is about.

I agree completely with Rimi and David on this subject.

Danny said...

Many thanks for this post. Its good to see that there are people out there that can acknowledge that the life of a man is not a cakewalk without having to throw in constant reminders that "...women have it worse".

About Winkler specifically its amazing how many people know" that she killed him in self defense when the ONLY proof of her abuse is her word. Honestly I feel sorry for those kids. Chances are they will never know exactly what kind of man their father was but instead will be raised to believe that he was a terrible abuser (oh you do know that after pretty much killing Matthew in cold blood she kept custody right?).

Another example of this was back when the story on Tiger Woods' adultery broke out. The story broke on Tuesday and by Saturday the folks at Saturday Night Live had worked up a skit that basically condoned DV against men. About two weeks later I got an email with a photoshopped picture of Tiger after getting beat up by his wife....being passed around as a joke (I go further into it here). I don't recall any such things happening after Chris Brown attacked Rihanna.

Fact of the matter is there are a lot of people in this world that simply refuse to acknowledge the ways The System harms men. Thanks again for knowing better.