On the night of Saturday, Nov. 2, I was in Milwaukee at a friend's wedding. When I returned Sunday afternoon, I got a call from a friend filling me in:
Friend: Did you hear about the riot?
Me: Oh, no. What riot?
Friend: Apparently it was really bad. Worse than Mifflin Street in '96. Rocks and broken glass everywhere.
Me: Man, give people enough to drink...
Friend: No, according to the news the riots were caused by some girls flashing.
Uh, excuse me? $83,000 worth of damage, broken windows, looting, riot gear, CS gas and 11 arrests, all because of some boobs?
But sure enough, when news reports started coming in, the flashing women were named more than once as the cause of the melee. On Channel 15's morning news, footage of some young women, faces (and breasts) blurred out, were shown while the anchor named them as the \cause"" of the riots. Channel 3's online news for Nov. 6 agreed: ""Police believe they've identified the trigger that sparked the scenes of chaos and beer bottles sailing through State Street taverns' windows. Police said Monday that young women put young men, who police say were very drunk, into a 'frenzy.'""
Ahh. Glad to see that we know whom to blame. Not a culture in which anger and violence are common'even encouraged. Not the few idiots who spoiled the early morning for everyone else. And certainly not the alcohol. Nope, it was the boobs that caused the riot. You know, come to think of it, maybe it was the rocks' fault, for just sitting there on the ground, available to throw.
I kid but little. The implication that flashing women were at the root of Saturday's riots is harmful, to both women and men. It's harmful to women because it sends the message that women's bodies are dangerous'simply by being naked, they can single-handedly ruin what was supposed to be a celebration. The implication is that women are to remain under wraps, at any cost to their freedom. What a disservice.
But this is harmful to men, too. Think about it: At the sight of a pair of breasts, men are driven into such a state that they can no longer control themselves. Just looking at breasts (or having them taken away) causes men to completely lose all sense of right and wrong. It is implied here than men will always think with their dicks if given the chance. And this is absurd and insulting.
What is most interesting about the coverage of these riots is the fact that any one gender is singled out at all.
In fact, when riots and such are talked about, most of the time the violence is ""degendered,"" despite the fact that men are overwhelmingly at the helm. This is when you see experts come out and say that ""mob mentality"" was the cause of violence. The attacks in Central Park after the Puerto Rican Day parade in 2000, Woodstock '99, the Mifflin Street Block Party of '96 and when the Lakers won the championships a few years back are all examples of this supposedly generic ""mob mentality.""
But imagine this: What if men had been flashing and women started throwing bottles and breaking things? Would we have seen stories explaining that it was men who caused the riot because they showed their penises and whipped women into such a lather that the women could not contain themselves? Not bloody likely. In our culture, women are portrayed as the instigators, men as the perpetrators. This is so groundless, so archaic, and so dangerous'for all of us, men and women.
