“My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “It’s bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It’s crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things.”
That the institutional face of feminism has just declared “rape” to no longer be a feminist issue–that the institutional face of feminism is sympathizing with and siding with a child rapist–that feminists are thinking about protesting “rape rape” (black) Whoopi Golberg even as ONE major feminist site has had a damn thing to say about the institutional face of feminism declaring that the government could find better things to spend its money on than rape…
I believe now is a good time to just pause and really let that shit set in.
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October 3rd, 2009 at 8:16 pm #
I read that a few days ago and I, initially, could not believe it.
And then I remembered some dusty lessons I learned about “professional” feminists; feminists who have turned their “feminism” into careers, who are on the frontlines of media, who get quoted, who are considered the go-to speakers whenever issues affected women come up.
I remember why leading a life of quiet purpose is my choose and why I have come to detest so many “feminist” organizations and “pioneers” of feminist movements.
It’s because of statements like that…the kind of statements that make excuses, that minimize pain and suffering of women, that prioritize WHEN something happened and use that as a measurement of wrong instead of the actual act of violence. These statements remind me, painfully, that even founding the Feminist Majority Foundation means nothing, is nothing, counts for nothing if you fail to recognize the naked violence and horror of drugging, raping, and sodomizing a 13 year old child.
It matters not in how many books you might write, or how many lectures you give, or how many people see you as a warrior…what I think matters, in the end, is whether or not you see what rape is, what exactly was horrifically stolen from this child 30 years ago.
Statements like this brutally remind me that the camouflage of rape – its victim blaming, victim ignoring, rape apologetic culture – festers in the MAJORITY of people, including “feminists.”
October 4th, 2009 at 6:17 am #
Peg Yorkin used to be married to Bud Yorkin, and is the mother of Nicole Yorkin…all heavily connected to Hollywood. Why did anyone expect her to break out of the okeydoke/boilerplate on this issue?
When you make common cause with Big Business, ANY PART of Big Business (Hollywood is about BUSINESS AND MONEY, not just ART) then eventually the bills come due and you are expected to fall into line. (pardon mixed metaphors) I never liked the Hollywood-money connection to the Feminist Majority… and this is a good example of why I never liked it.
As my grandmother woulda said: He who pays the piper calls the tune. And we see who has been paying Peg.