“Supremacy Crimes” by Gloria Steinem was a very accurate article. I think all the points she made were right on target. The crimes she describes in this article are all performed by men that are white, middle-class, and heterosexual and are done for no economic or rational gain except for their belief that they are superior, so they can kill (Steinem 1). My dad, who is black, always jokes around with me and family when we see stuff like this on the news, he says, “Uh-Oh crazy rich white boy not getting enough attention from mommy and daddy so he’s gotta go on a killing rampage.” We all laugh, but it’s actually true, certain white males in this country are out of control. I don’t know why they think it’s all right to kill when life gets hard, if everyone did that we would have a very small population. My favorite line of the article was, “…the drug of superiority. It’s a drug pushed by a male-dominant culture that presents dominance as a natural right; a racist hierarchy that falsely elevates whiteness; a materialist society that equates superiority with possessions, and a homophobic one that empowers only on form of sexuality (1).” The problem with this is that this is obvious, it’s obvious that white heterosexuals males with a lot of possessions are preferred, but how do we change this standard. Because this is a type of problem that can’t be fixed overnight with a one step solution by a single person. It’s going to involve everyone committing to multi-step solution; I just don’t see this happening.
The letter to her students about how to stop rape by Claire Potter was very informative, I think that most people actually do know to do these things; it’s the actual doing that is hard. It’s easy to think you would go to the police or hospital if something like this happened to you, but being actually in this situation is a totally different story. The fact of the matter is that most girls think of this as a private matter and are scared of being blamed or not believed if they report it. The most important thing I think this article offers is it’s advice to women to not be ashamed and for men and women to talk to each other so they understand what is acceptable and what is not.
As a person who finds it difficult to speak in class, I actually enjoyed reading the different reasons that Cynthia Enloe offers for why people (women) don’t talk in class. She says that women don’t speak up sometimes because they feel that their comments won’t be taken as serious as the males in subjects like politics or world affairs. I think today that is not that true, at least for me. In most of my class girls are the ones that talk the most and the reason I don’t talk is because I’m scared of saying something stupid, wrong, or something that doesn’t make sense. It’s a very intimidating environment, Colgate has a lot of smart people and sometimes I feel stupid, but I’m learning to swallow that fear and just say what’s on my mind. Speaking publicly with a group is one of the most important things we experience in college and in life and hopefully women are starting to become taken more seriously.
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