Yelling at Tornados

Nothing personal, but I'm a girl, and I tend to see things in girl terms. So that's my full disclosure. No other hidden events or agendas. No bad experiences in my past. I just don't want to see things in a gender-neutral manner, when it's clear to me what the problem is. And there's already plenty of that. (Like when you see a high-speed chase on tv, and the anchors are often trying to be gender-neutral when referring to the suspect: c'mon. It's a guy. How many women do you know who would put that many people in danger? Even under the influence? There are whole shows dedicated to exultation of this dangerous male behavior.) I'm gonna rant, and I make no apologies. So that's Caveat 1.

For centuries, this has happened. It will continue to happen, regardless of extreme punishments, public opinions, or societal pressure. So, Caveat 2: I realize I'm yelling into a tornado. I'm going to yell, anyway.

I'm talking about male aggression. And particularly against women. I really don't care if all men maim each other, or rape each other, or kill each other. Really, don't care. They can go ahead. Argument 1: Yes, there are decent males on the planet who don't deserve this, but where are these guys when the bad ones wreak havoc? Hmm? (Unless it's your daughter, are you out looking? Are you speaking out? Are you even squelching the bad locker room jokes about rape and woman-centered hatred? Really?)

What brings this up in me, like vomit, is seeing, time after time, girls and women disappear, only to be found dead in a creek, dead in a ditch, dead in the trash. Argument 2: Sometimes it's a woman perp. Rarely, but sometimes. Come on, though. That is such a low percent as to be a ridiculous argument. It ain't us, girls. It's them. And we get it from them.

So today's headlines include 2 dead little girls, and 1 missing young woman. That's just for today, Oct. 23, 2009, and only what we're hearing about on the national cable channels. There's 7 year-old Somer Thompson, who was walking home after school in Florida, and was found in a landfill. Elizabeth Olten, a 9 year-old girl, who went missing Wednesday on a walk home from a friend's house in St. Martins, Missouri. Her body was found in the woods. Morgan Harrington, a 20 year-old college student, went missing at a concert, and the case is now a criminal investigation. (We haven't heard yet about the sexual abuse the girls may have gone through.) That's just a few of the many girls and women that go missing or are found dead or are put in the hospital every every every minute of every day. All the time.

Finally, I come to the point. I'm calling for this: every male who touches, in anger, any female of any age must face the possibility (or probability, if I was in charge) of chemical castration, surgical castration, or penectomy (surgical removal of the penis). Period. How long would it take, do ya think, for them to take this problem seriously? If you hit a woman, if you rape a girl, if you harm an elderly woman, you would be charged with "violence against the female gender" call it a hate crime, full penalty under the law. Or prison for life, of you prefer. That's it. For any culture, any religion (Are you listening, Afghanistan?), any place on the planet earth. International law. How long? A year? A week? 20 minutes?

And while I'm at it, full reproductive rights for women. Everywhere. So that the killing of baby girls is punishable by death, or maybe we'll just abort the girl-killer's brain. And if the decisions for such things are made by women, always, I think it wouldn't take long for things to change. So here's my plan:

If we just

1. take BACK our reproductive power, making having girls even more socially important than having boys;
   
2. if we put pressure on the violators, from the courts and from society, as mothers and as wives and as judges;
   
3. and if we put the pressure on the good males to use that innate power and desire to "hit, hurt, maim, rape and kill" on their fellow males, we will begin to see real equality in the world.

And dare I say it, maybe we'd even begin to feel real Peace on Earth.