About a week ago, the Danish orgnaization ‘Children Exposed to Violence at Home’ launched a website and web campaign against violence called ‘Hit the Bitch.’ The interactive website features a woman standing in front of a male hand. The website then prompts you to decide whether you will hit the woman via mouse or webcam. You are then asked to slap the woman repeatedly. With each slap you give her, she becomes bloodied and weak, eventually lapsing to the ground. This simulation of domestic abuse and/or violence against women was supposedly launched in an attempt to combat violence against women.
The Danish organization claims that the website is part of an anti-violence and anti-misogyny campaign. Their final bolstering fact: if you continue to hit the woman till the very end of the simulation, you will be told that you are not a “Gangsta” but that you are, in fact, an idiot.
I’m positive that I’m not alone in my shock and awe at the stupidity and hypocrisy of this web campaign. A supposedly anti-violence campaign built on the premise of allowing people the perverse pleasure of enacting violence without facing the reality and the actual ramifications of that violence? Right….very effective indeed.
The website has been limited now to residents of Denmark, for reasons of site traffic (supposedly). But for those who can tolerate it, you can see enactments on youtube. Be careful though, this is intense imagery.
We need to fight images like this in the media and more importantly, we need to fight to end gender violence. Check out this cite to get involved in the 16 days of activism against gender violence:
http://www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/16days/home.html
I can’t embed this video but you have got to check this out. This is quite probably one of the most ridiculous vidlogs I’ve come across in quite some time. It’s from the We TV feature, Amy vs. John, in which a husband & wife duo take to the camera to problem solve and open up dialogue (though how good it is, or isn’t, is pretty clear).
http://www.wetv.com/video/1906795702/female-stereotypes
A sexy school girl witch? Are you fucking kidding me? So, what? Now we’re just mashing our heterosexual male fantasies together? Maybe I’ll dress as a slave princess kitten pirate. With wings. (sexgenderbody)
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“We also have to offer men a vision of the world that gives them a way out of the masculinity trap. Many men feel distress over the way in which patriarchy undermines our humanity. I emphasize this not to elevate men’s pain, but to argue that if we don’t take account of men’s pain we may not be able to change the world to end men’s violence against women.” —
Robert Jensen, Voice Male Spring ‘07
(This quote encapsulates why I do the work that I do.)