Response for 11/23

All three of these readings focuses on different types of violence. The victims of these types of violence are not always women, but the majority of the time they are. It was really interesting reading "Supremacy Crimes," which talked about serial killers. There seems to be a trend that a majority of serial killers are white males, usually intelligent, middle class, and heterosexual. It seems as if the intentions of their crimes are to demonstrate their superiority against not only women, but also those who the view as weaker and lesser than themselves. The one problem I had with this article was when the author seemed to justify crimes committed by people who do not classify by the aforementioned characteristics. It just appeared that the author was trying to say that these types of killers were more justified in their actions because they were trying to improve their own conditions. In my eyes murder is murder, anyway you look at it regards of a person's class, gender, or intelligence level.

Then in the "Letter to My Students," it talked about the steps that students should take to prevent rape or deal with it. This article reminded me a lot of the atmosphere on campus last year. It seemed like Colgate's students have a similar experience to the student body at Wesleyan. After reading these tips, I realized that I already knew the majority of them based on the information we learned during the training provided as a result of the Campus Climate Survey. I guess it just goes to show that the information session was semi successful even if some of the people in the audience took it as joke.

The third piece that we read talked about the silencing of women and how it could be seen as a type of violence against women. To me, the article seemed a little outdated. It seems like in today's society, women have a lot more access to voice their opinions. Women are not looked down upon for speaking up like they used to. The one thing in particular, that was mentioned in the piece, that still needs greater attention is probably about sexual harassment against women. It seems like rape and sexual violence still remains a very taboo topic of discussion. It is essential that not only women, but also men work together to make this a more prominent topic of discussion to see what can be done to prevent it.