Thursday afternoon, a women turned her car into a weapon and drove full force through the barriers to the white house on capitol hill. She stopped at nothing, not even with the possibility of killing someone. A police officer got in her way to try and stop her but she just kept going. “After she ran him down, she gunned it, and she just went screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue,” says Mr. Campbell in New York Times article "Car Chase, White House to Capitol, Has Fatal End". This women identified as Miriam Carey was a dental hygienest with a toddler. Simpily looking at her life, she seems like the last person to do such a thing. Honestly, when I first heard about the chase this morning on the radio, I was very surprised that it was a women. When thinking about why I was surprised it was for multiple reasons. One being that when tragedies like this occur, they are most often committed by men. I think of tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing, or 9/11. Both were committed by men. I also realized that I was so surprised because she is a mother. Mom's always seem to be nurturing and gentle. Not one to ram their car with their child into the white house barriers. Although this may be a generalization, it was the reasoning for my shock.
While thinking about it more on my drive to school, I started to think about whether women are less likely to commit to such actions compared to men. With so many other qualities being engraved into our minds at such a young age, I thought that this one would go along with it. From all the stories we read and movies we see, the majority of the time the bad guy seems to be a man. As I started to look into it more, I realized that this actually is not true. There are many villains that are women especially in children's stories. For example, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, The Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, and The White Witch from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. The ratio of women villains to men I found was pretty even. So that ruined my theory as to why I was so surprised it was a women who drove through the White House barricades and left me wondering where the surprise came from. Are men more likely to commit crime than women? How are different behaviors and values engraved into us as kids?
4 comments:
I agree with you Isabel, and I think that most people don't automatically think of a woman when they think of a "villain". It has been imbedded in our minds that women have a weaker, softer image. Some believe that violence is beyond their capacity, but from this crazy stunt, Americans should realize that both men and women can do wrong. I would say that most villains in society are men because of the power that they hold. Great power can lead to chaos. So many villains in society have been men because of the power and confidence that they hold.
I gotta disagree a little bit with ya Audrey. I think that at a young age, boys in America are taught that to express compassion or empathy is to show weakness. I think we've all heard the phrase "Be a man" or "man up" and it seems to me that boys constantly have to prove their masculinity. This I think has lead to the violence we see in America, which IS dominated by males.
I think that many of the men who are committing crimes are not confident in themselves, but with a gun feel that they finally have power, that they're finally able to "be a man".
I remember talking about a shooting in 8th grade where a young man went to a high school and killed many kids. News reports claimed that he had been bullied in high school. Maybe he wasn't very confident, strong, or considered "manly" in high school. But with a gun he felt strong, and by killing maybe he felt "manly".
Isabel, Fine job blogging this term, overall, on this arts-centered blog. This post offers some promise, but leaps from your presupposition that men are more violent (an idea that IS borne out by stats) to your speculation that this has something to do with the gender of dramatic villains. What's missing is the conversation you are joining. Consider how the news story treats gender, for example? I'd make this one two posts.
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