Anonymous Women

[noamnety]

The last time I attended CPR training, I walked out partway through the session and didn’t return.

We were told ahead of time that we’d be training on Resusci Anne, the type of CPR dummy that is wiped down with alcohol between uses, and whose chest, the instructor said, makes a loud popping noise to signify a breaking rib if we use too much pressure in our compressions. As one person practiced, the rest of the class stood in a circle, watching. I watched as the first man enthusiastically practiced his compressions, oblivious to the pop pop pop of the ribs he was breaking with each thrust of his hands on her chest.

I realized I wouldn’t be completing the training when the instructor asked one of the participants to lie down on the floor face down, arms stretched above their head, while everyone else stood in a circle around them. Another student practiced rolling them over, one hand cradling the neck, the other pulling them over as dead weight. Two men practiced on each other, and the requisite homophobic jokes were made. At some point the tension was broken with a joke about date rape. The woman next to me was staring at the floor. Her legs were crossed, the foot that was in the air was shaking uncontrollably.

I knew that I wasn’t going to be lying on the floor while my colleagues stood in a circle looking at my ass, and I wasn’t going to pretend to be unconscious as a coworker manhandled me into the proper face-up position and then bent over me, my stomach (or worse) exposed as my too-short baggy sweater crept upwards toward my extended arms, while my fellow staff members gathered above me making jokes about rape.

I was the third person to leave; by the end of the morning, a quarter of the class had walked out. The woman next to me left shortly before I did – the last time I looked over at her, she was covered in hives.

(snip)

more: http://www.insurgentamerican.net/2007/03/19/anonymous-women/

[niyad]

1. how utterly awful for all of you--that instructor needs to be smacked REALLY hard.

[noamnety]

2. I know you don't mean that literally

but I'm not convinced more violence - even figurative violence - is the solution to violence against women.

[niyad]

3. you are correct, I didn't mean it literally--but WHAT is it going to take to wake these idiots up?

I used to think education would take care of it, but that is clearly not the case. public disdain--there isn't enough of it. decades of fighting this kind of garbage, and there still don't seem to be a lot of answers.

[noamnety]

4. If you look at what Spain is doing

They've enacted laws to address the causes, rather than just the symptoms. One of the causes is sexism in advertising, and they are on the forefront of addressing that - the first to ban that Dolce and Gabanna ad.

That's obviously a huge step that our own government wouldn't take - no matter whether liberals or conservatives are in power - because corporate profits are more important here than changing the culture of rape, and corporations here have so much status that they are treated as if they are people - the rights of a corporation to have free speech are valued higher than women's rights.

[femrap]

9. Who is behind all of this progressiveness

in Spain? I am so very impressed by what I hear about Spain's feminist work.

[SemperEadem]

5. where didy ou attend this class?

I would write a letter of complaint to the organization which sponsored the class and ask that they instruct their instructors on how to put the kabosh on those who make inappropriate jokes. There was no place at all for a date rape joke in a learning circumstance--and it isn't a matter of needing to loosen up or chill out--it's an issue of propriety and having some modicum of freakin' home training when let out of the house to attend a class.

[noamnety]

6. I'm not going to give the details on the training

for a number of reasons, one of which is that I think that brings the focus to an individual issue, rather than a systemic one - promoting the "few bad apples" meme.

I'd rather see the discussion aimed more at the larger issues - is it a reasonable assumption that such things will trigger PTSD responses in a portion of participants, and if those jokes are deemed clearly inappropriate for that reason, do we feel the same or differently when we see the dolce and gabbana ad?

Some women in the CPR training were okay, some clearly were not - does that justify the rape jokes as being okay?
Some women view those ads as being okay, some do not ... is that substantially different?

I'm still very unsettled about the backstory of Anne's face, also. I am not sure if anyone else sees in that what I see. I know that it's not how I would want to achieve immortality.

[SemperEadem]

8. Ok, I see that you didn't write the article...

however, referring to the article: I don't know one woman who thinks jokes about date rape--or any rape--are funny... it would trigger anger in me that these two goons made jokes about something that serious to every woman and I don't know if it was intimidation at work or fear of being considered 'not nice' if any of the women spoke up and said "date rape is not a joke and I would appreciate you not taking up our collective time as a class by making a joke out of something that serious". That guy should have been called off the first time Anne's rib went 'pop'--he should not have been allowed to continue as if it was a joke because he is a danger to anyone suffering a heart attack--he will kill them instead of help them and they're not in the class to learn how to hasten death.

The reason why I say along with walking out of the class, a letter needs to be written to the organization sponsoring this class because the instructor allowed these guys to not take what they all were doing seriously, and in doing so, is performing more of a disservice than a service to the unknown general population who may suffer a heart attack in the proximity of these knuckleheads.

To your larger issue: I don't see the Dolce and Gabbana ads as appropriate nor do I buy into the mindset that it's just advertising and it means nothing. Remember when Calvin Klein had to yank some ads a few years back because they looked like 70's child porn shot in someone's basement, replete with icky shag carpeting and plywood panelled walls (just as bad as Fiona Apple's video, "Criminal")? It's crossing the line and a hue and cry should always be brought down when the knuckleheads on Madison Avenue come up with offensive ways to market clothes to young people.

The sexual subjugation of women (and to some extent children) has for far too long been viewed as sport. The problem is that many woman do not want to be singled for ridicule because they spoke out against it, so they remain silent out of intimidation by the party who is wrong when right is on their side.

[noamnety]

10. Actually, I did write the article

(I know that's not clear from my posts here.)

The rib breaking guy wasn't breaking ribs as a joke, I think he just didn't realize his own strength or what he was doing. I should have said something, I know that, but honestly I went dumb - I was right back to date one with my ex, when he reached back to undo my hair clip, and instead of unclasping it, he crunched it into a bunch of pieces in his fist. Sometimes when I should be speaking, I'm just watching, transfixed, from the other side of a big wall of not understanding.

[HockeyMom]

7. I've been re certified twice at work

NEVER, did I have to perform any maneuvers on a live subject; only the dummy, who was never referred to as female.

Yes, we had to get down on the floor with the dummy. My last re cert we had a transvestite coworker dressed in a mini skirt (honest I couldn't make this up). She didn't want to get down on the floor in her skirt to do the compressions. The instructor (female)let her go by the wall and place the dummy in front of her so nobody would be looking directly at her skirted backside.

Obviously, you need to go to a different CPR class.

[noamnety]

11. I'm not going to take another class.

I've done a number of them in the past, sometimes on live people even (in the army). I was looking forward to this one.

I wouldn't walk into the same situation again, though.