I'll tear you apart!
Okay, let me tone down on the violence, but really! What is going on? I learned today about the arrest of yet another middle school female teacher, Kelsey Peterson, a 25 year old who sexually abused (because we need to call it what it is: CHILD ABUSE) a 13-year-old student. Not long ago, in my home town, we're dealing with a similar situation of a female teacher arrested for sexually abusing a young boy of the same age.
Incidentally, in both cases, the teachers are white females, the underage students are boys of color. I'm getting tired of news reports using words like "love" and "intimate relationships," as if the two involved are consenting adults. I reference my 13 year-old nephew in the title of this post because he seems so innocent, and he is definitely immature. Yeah, like many young black boys growing up in urban environments, he's learning to front that "cool pose," that hip-hop code of masculinity, he's learning to look "hard," but he so isn't. In fact, my nephew is pretty much on the nerdy side. Apart from constantly playing video games, he loves to read, he's getting into a lot of scientific projects, and he loves to assemble those toy train and roller coaster type building block thingeys, and back when he was 12, he was still sleeping with a teddy bear (he of course would be mortified that I would write this on my blog).
But all this is to say: I can't imagine my 13-year-old nephew having any kind of sense or maturity to get involved with a 25-year-old woman! It is beyond sickening! And, yes, I would go ballistic if I learned that some beeyotch, who wasn't properly screened out of the education system, got her predatory claws into him.
Yes, I realize this post does not capture much of my feminist sensibilities, but this issue is getting out of hand. I mean, can you imagine if the predators who were preying on these middle-schoolers were men? Can you imagine if these teachers were males preying on underage male students? We'd have this huge scandal the way we saw with the response to the Catholic church scandals. We'd be having congressional hearings about sexual abuse in schools, we' d have protests and lawsuits, we'd be having emergency townhall meetings about protecting school children from pedophiles. We'd never hear the end of it.
But, these predators are women. And we're talking like these women are "in love." What?! If we reverse the races involved, what repercussions would a female teacher of color face if she "seduced" (or, let's be real hear: RAPED) a 13-year-old white male student? She'd be tarred and feathered! Because, of course, their mothers would be drawing blood.
The fact that we could be so cavalier about all this is proof that feminists have not done enough to question these gender roles and gender relations. Because we have framed sexual abuse in such a gendered narrative (the female as victim, the male as predator), we are missing opportunities to address other aspects of power, including age, class, race, and sexual orientation.
It's time to get outraged, folks! And, I'm really disturbed to think that my nephew could become prey to some female predator teaching in his school and still not get taken seriously as a victim of child abuse.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
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13 comments:
ABW...*standing ovation*...THANK YOU so much for saying something about this. I've been so sick and tired of ignorant men and women pussyfooting around, giving those female predators (YES, I said it, 'cause that's what they are) benefit of the doubt because they're females and their victims happen to be males. If the tables were turned, and some male teacher was caught with a female (or male) child, he would never see daylight.
That's all I can say right now.
Don't forget that there is the old stereotypical view that young men are to be sex machines, and that older women might be the ones to "initiate them," and don't forget the idea that young men of color are "sex fiends," and you have a recipe for what you are describing here.
Exactly. And yes, PVW, I'm very aware of that view. Which is a very sick way for society to measure one's manhood. A man could be a doctor or a junkie, a cop or a robber, gay or straight...but if he's not having sex, or not thinking about sex, then something is really wrong with him.
It's like society either expect young boys to become men that are labeled "sex fiends," or they encourage it. Or they make laws to easily entrap young males to be labeled as such, whether they want to be or not. Case in point: Genarlow Wilson and his ordeal that he went through the past two years, to the day that he was freed.
I realize there is this tacit acceptance of young men's "initiation" into sex by an older woman. But, it's because of this why I'm arguing for new definitions so that we can begin to view these female teachers' actions as reprehensible. I don't care about gender expectations. A 13 year old boy is ridiculously immature for any 25 year old to want to get involved in. And, yes, on a "mental age" level, it's akin to a 30 year old man getting involved with a 10 year old girl. We wouldn't hesitate to call one adult a pedophile. Why do we have the same problem labeling the adult woman the same thing?
Perhaps the reason is that it's difficult in this day and post-feminist age to condemn or perceive women as criminals, especially as a sex offender...unless she's a woman of color. Women are seen, known and/or perceived as nurturers from the dawn of time, and society has a problem seeing a nurturer as a predator. Also, since women are measured by their beauty, the more pretty the female suspect is, the more lenient the law enforces her punishment to her crime.
For example, schoolteacher Ms. Letourneau who was "in love" with her 13-year-old male student/victim, was found guilty and spent seven years in prison. A mere 7 years. She gets out after serving her time and she marries her victim. Furthermore, Lifetime decides to make a made-for-TV chick flick of her ordeal.
What's wrong with this picture? I'm pretty sure no one on this blog has ever heard of a guy who married his rape victim (unless the guy is a character from a daytime soap *ahem* Luke and Laura Spencer from "General Hospital").
I once had a crush one of my female teachers, but as much as my horny 14-year-old self back then wanted my hot busty 8th grade art teacher to deflower me, it STILL would've been wrong for us to do the act, had she acted on it, just for the fact that she was the adult. I know it's strange, if not unorthodox, for a guy to admit that about an older woman that he used to have a crush on, but "wrong is wrong," right?
I had plenty of female friends in middle school who had crushes on their male teachers (like the schoolgirl in Raiders of the Lost Ark who wrote "Love You" on her eyelids and slowly batted them to get Professor Indiana Jones's [Harrison Ford] attention).
There was a math teacher back in middle school who the girls were crazy about because he looked like a young Mel Gibson from Mad Max. I overheard those girls in several conversations that they wanted him to do some crazy sexual activities with him. Luckily for the Mad Max look-alike, he didn't fall for it, because even he knew that whether the girl wears daisy dukes, a tube top, clear heels and a thong, Professor Pretty Boy will go to jail, no matter what she's wearing. Even if she gets a signed permission slip from her parents, giving her consent to him. He will be on lock-down regardless of what she says...and you better believe Lifetime won't make a made-for-TV movie about him.
This issue crosses so many lines. It should be more publicized.
Many people, particularly those in the men's movement, have been criticizing how female predators have been portrayed in the media for quite some time. Unfortunately, when they do so they are attacked by feminists who typically do not consider the acts wrong, let alone rape. So it is refreshing to see some feminists considering an adult woman having sex with a minor boy rape and not a negligible sexual experience.
Speaking as someone with those experiences and who advocates for male victims, I do hope that the sentiment is genuine.
toy soldier, my sentiments are genuine in the sense of being appalled at both Kelsey Peterson's actions and the lack of seriousness with which this case is being treated. However, I'm not sure that I see eye to eye with the men's movement, which tends to completely ignore or downplay the many aspects of male privilege that men in general tend to have.
Male privilege, in this instance, might operate in the sense that, although the young boy who was perpetrated against is victimized, he is oftentimes made to feel like he's been "initiated" into the rights of patriarchal ownership of a woman's body, so that, in adulthood, he learns to perpetuate the cycle of power and ownership in his sexual relations. However, being that Fernando Rodriguez is underage and a person of color AND an undocumented Mexican, he is clearly powerless to assert any male dominance over the American female predatory teacher in this case.
The problem with both men's movements and mainstream feminist movements is the way that they don't complicate these different power dynamics. Mainstream feminists assume that men have power all the time, while it seems that the men's movement wants to simply reverse this sentiment by advocating that men can be victims too.
I'm saying that we need to complicate these worldviews and recognize, at the least, that, as an adult, as a white woman, and as an American, Kelsey Peterson perpetrated and asserted her authority over this 13-year-old and should be punished and condemned for pertuating, at the least, her ageist oppression against the young boy.
Another MRA & male survivor referred here from Toy Soldiers:
Thank You. Well done.
While you and I do not appear to see eye to eye on power issues (1), I do agree with you on this issue.
1: I use the power-block model, which --to me-- is more accurate and less likely to make serious errors.
I don't believe this is a race issue.
Some women have been punished for sexually assaulting children, but the difference between them and the ones that go unpunished is not the colour of their skin. The ones that are punished are ugly.
When people hear that a sexy woman has been doing sexual things with a young boy, they think things like "Where were these teachers when I was a kid?" or "She's just in love."
But when they hear that an ugly woman has been doing sexual things with a young boy, they think things like "Eaugh! Pervert!" or "That poor boy!"
although the young boy who was perpetrated against is victimized, he is oftentimes made to feel like he's been "initiated" into the rights of patriarchal ownership of a woman's body, so that, in adulthood, he learns to perpetuate the cycle of power and ownership in his sexual relations.
As someone who speaks with male victims quite frequently, I have never encountered the notion that you asserted. Many victims of female rapists fear women, distrust them and even dislike them. However, I know of no professionals, studies or research that demonstrates that being raped turns boys into rapists.
That kind of sentiment is one of the many reasons boys do not come forward, and it is tantamount to denying they were victimized at all. It is most unfortunate that one holds that view, as it is only perpetuates the myth that sexually abused boys are dangerous and essentially rapists in wait.
Toysoldier, I didn't say that that's what the young male victims think, I was referring to society, because that is the prevailing view: that boys are not "raped" or "perpetrated againts" but are just being "initiated."
And, yes, this is a sentiment that is unfortunate, which is why I challenge that we rethink the way we respond to such cases.
I agree with your position on this subject. I taught for 31 years in the public schools and I have never heard of such atrocious behavior on the part of so called professional female teachers. I myself am female and black.
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