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Men are men

Who killed Kaitlin Gerber last month? It’s a simple question with anything but a simple answer.

Was it Jashua Perz, the ex-boyfriend who refused to let go after the relationship went south, eventually going to jail for alleged threats made against her and then apparently breaking a restraining order by repeatedly contacting her while he was incarcerated, finally chasing her down on the streets after his release and executing her when her car crashed in South Toledo?

Was it the justice system, which released Perz on his own recognizance after being alerted that he had broken the restraining order, while also seemingly unaware that he had an additional restraining order stemming from threats made against his stepmother in Michigan, thus taking insufficient care to protect the victim?

Or was it something deeper and more insidious, something embedded in the fabric of daily life which erases women as independent actors and instead treats them as objects to be manipulated and exploited by men?

Certainly the short answer is most likely Perz, who can’t be absolved from the blame regardless of the other two possibilities. And certainly the individuals who didn’t piece together the obvious fact that Perz was a continued threat might also be accountable. But if we address the perpetrator and the justice system while failing to recognize the complicity of the culture we will do little to stem the tide of violence against women.

“I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being black. Men are men.”  —Shirley Chisholm, first African American woman elected to US Congress

Consider a culture that systematically erases the very names of women. While we wrote the above we intended to denote the alleged perpetrator as “Perz” and his alleged victim as “Gerber” but that didn’t sound right, since both seemed to automatically be men. So we checked through reports of the tragic incident. Consistently the alleged victim is referred to as “Miss” Gerber, or even “Kaitlin,” as if her marriage status is essential or that she was a child. And the discomfort with simply denoting her by her last name is symptomatic of a culture in which women are born with their father’s name until the father “gives them away” at a wedding to a husband, when they are expected to change to his name. So “Gerber” would denote her father or brother, but not her mother and certainly not her. If she was married she would of course be “Mrs.” Gerber, while “Gerber” would be her husband.

Further consider a culture in which women are systematically erased from the language, where “man” refers to people of all genders but “woman” only one. Where we have “policemen” and “firemen” who aren’t all men and “manhole covers” which allow access to underground tunnels to men and women alike and where women “man” information tables. Where “college sports” means men’s college sports while women’s college sports have to be specially noted as such.  

Does all this mumbo jumbo about naming and agency really matter? Consider that women aren’t just erased symbolically but have been erased from participation in the very institutions of the culture. We have religions that refuse to allow the participation of women, where all leaders up to and including the godhead are male. Women couldn’t vote until long after the franchise was granted to all other citizens, and nearly a century later a mere fraction of elected offices are held by women. In the workforce, women make three quarters of the pay men make for the same work, and there are certain jobs which are effectively closed to women.

Of course there are some jobs that are primarily open to women. Like stripping off clothes and dancing for the sexual arousal of men at places like Déjà Vu Showgirls on Byrne Road, where Angila Bigelow worked when her boyfriend Tomas Olmo, Jr. was ejected from the club last January, waited for her outside until she got off work, then allegedly stabbed her in the leg after an altercation in his car.
The strip scene itself could take up more space than we are allotted, but consider the sexualization of women’s breasts, the source of mother’s milk and thus of all human life. When working to cure breast cancer, which kills because of the proximity of the lymph nodes, this culture tends to ignore the cancer part and instead flippantly admonishes that we must “save the boobies,” as if they are somehow disembodied and disconnected from women’s lives. Is it any wonder that in this context accused killer James Millard Day, Sr., didn’t just stab his alleged victim Joan Watson repeatedly last January and leave her naked on the floor, he went the additional step of mutilating her by cutting off one of her breasts?

Perhaps we are making connections where none exist. Perhaps it’s the missing piece of the twenty third chromosome that produces men with unbalanced hormones who can’t see past the skirt and the breasts into the humanity of women. Perhaps it’s that fact that has produced the truncated culture that continues to produce killers like Perz and Day in a vicious cycle. Regardless, Chisholm’s maxim above rings chillingly true, and in its light we wonder why women haven’t risen up in revolution against it.

Until men aren’t men, but human.

Who killed Kaitlin Gerber last month? It’s a simple question with anything but a simple answer.

Was it Jashua Perz, the ex-boyfriend who refused to let go after the relationship went south, eventually going to jail for alleged threats made against her and then apparently breaking a restraining order by repeatedly contacting her while he was incarcerated, finally chasing her down on the streets after his release and executing her when her car crashed in South Toledo?

Was it the justice system, which released Perz on his own recognizance after being alerted that he had broken the restraining order, while also seemingly unaware that he had an additional restraining order stemming from threats made against his stepmother in Michigan, thus taking insufficient care to protect the victim?

Or was it something deeper and more insidious, something embedded in the fabric of daily life which erases women as independent actors and instead treats them as objects to be manipulated and exploited by men?

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Certainly the short answer is most likely Perz, who can’t be absolved from the blame regardless of the other two possibilities. And certainly the individuals who didn’t piece together the obvious fact that Perz was a continued threat might also be accountable. But if we address the perpetrator and the justice system while failing to recognize the complicity of the culture we will do little to stem the tide of violence against women.

“I’ve always met more discrimination being a woman than being black. Men are men.”  —Shirley Chisholm, first African American woman elected to US Congress

Consider a culture that systematically erases the very names of women. While we wrote the above we intended to denote the alleged perpetrator as “Perz” and his alleged victim as “Gerber” but that didn’t sound right, since both seemed to automatically be men. So we checked through reports of the tragic incident. Consistently the alleged victim is referred to as “Miss” Gerber, or even “Kaitlin,” as if her marriage status is essential or that she was a child. And the discomfort with simply denoting her by her last name is symptomatic of a culture in which women are born with their father’s name until the father “gives them away” at a wedding to a husband, when they are expected to change to his name. So “Gerber” would denote her father or brother, but not her mother and certainly not her. If she was married she would of course be “Mrs.” Gerber, while “Gerber” would be her husband.

Further consider a culture in which women are systematically erased from the language, where “man” refers to people of all genders but “woman” only one. Where we have “policemen” and “firemen” who aren’t all men and “manhole covers” which allow access to underground tunnels to men and women alike and where women “man” information tables. Where “college sports” means men’s college sports while women’s college sports have to be specially noted as such.  

Does all this mumbo jumbo about naming and agency really matter? Consider that women aren’t just erased symbolically but have been erased from participation in the very institutions of the culture. We have religions that refuse to allow the participation of women, where all leaders up to and including the godhead are male. Women couldn’t vote until long after the franchise was granted to all other citizens, and nearly a century later a mere fraction of elected offices are held by women. In the workforce, women make three quarters of the pay men make for the same work, and there are certain jobs which are effectively closed to women.

Of course there are some jobs that are primarily open to women. Like stripping off clothes and dancing for the sexual arousal of men at places like Déjà Vu Showgirls on Byrne Road, where Angila Bigelow worked when her boyfriend Tomas Olmo, Jr. was ejected from the club last January, waited for her outside until she got off work, then allegedly stabbed her in the leg after an altercation in his car.
The strip scene itself could take up more space than we are allotted, but consider the sexualization of women’s breasts, the source of mother’s milk and thus of all human life. When working to cure breast cancer, which kills because of the proximity of the lymph nodes, this culture tends to ignore the cancer part and instead flippantly admonishes that we must “save the boobies,” as if they are somehow disembodied and disconnected from women’s lives. Is it any wonder that in this context accused killer James Millard Day, Sr., didn’t just stab his alleged victim Joan Watson repeatedly last January and leave her naked on the floor, he went the additional step of mutilating her by cutting off one of her breasts?

Perhaps we are making connections where none exist. Perhaps it’s the missing piece of the twenty third chromosome that produces men with unbalanced hormones who can’t see past the skirt and the breasts into the humanity of women. Perhaps it’s that fact that has produced the truncated culture that continues to produce killers like Perz and Day in a vicious cycle. Regardless, Chisholm’s maxim above rings chillingly true, and in its light we wonder why women haven’t risen up in revolution against it.

Until men aren’t men, but human.

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