A week without violence

This week, the Sr. Thea Bowman Women’s Center from Siena College held a Week without Violence. This week had several events and there was a lot of information on display. The days included Love your Body Day, International Conflict Zones Day, Domestic Violence Day, Sexual Violence and Personal Safety Day, and tomorrow, Friday October 26, 2007 will be Peace Day. The Women’s Center uses this week to try and make people aware of what happens outside the little, nice, safe community of Siena College. On Love Your Body Day, there were pictures of models everywhere. When one was standing at the table helping support the day, mumbles and groans by passer-bys could be heard. A lot of people on the Siena campus do not appreciate the Women’s Center. They think it is a group of annoying, bra-burning feminists who hate men. This is not true, I know several of the students and the advisor and some of them have boyfriends and I have never heard one of them say they hated men, unless they got into a fight with their boyfriend, which any girl will say. The pictures of the models were actually frightening. Tyra Banks, who apparently is all about the empowerment of women, allowed a segment of America’s Next Top Model to be on girls modeling as dead or near death. The way these girls were portrayed is not at all empowering to women. An advertisement for jeans had a girl with the jeans on, but unbuttoned, with no shirt, and a man kneeling next to her. They say that sex sells, but this is just plain degrading. The deviance here is advertisers that believe it is ok to portray women this way. More deviance is ignoring the fact that girls think they need to be like these models.
International Conflict Zones Day was based on the Congo and the oppression of the people. There was a speaker that came to speak about sweatshops. People in these areas are treated horrible. They work very long days for extremely low wages. Americans support this because we buy companies products. Is it not deviant to make someone work for long hours, who are treated poorly and underpaid? Americans would never allow this to happen in the United States, but they allow it in third world countries. The situation in Darfur is not getting better either. In Darfur there is mass genocide. Who helps these people? Michael Walzer, who is a philosopher and human’s rights activist, said countries who are able to, need to help those in trouble and those whose rights are put in danger. It is wrong and deviant to not protect others, especially when they do not deserve to die. It seems like powerful countries such as the United States tend to pick and choose, which countries they help. We are “helping” Iraqis, but we just show some sympathy for Darfur and allow sweatshops in third world countries.
One final huge deviant act is domestic violence. Martha Warner, the mother of Liza Warner who was killed by her husband, came to speak. Every day, three women are killed by their partner, whether he is a husband or boyfriend. Violence is deviant. One cannot always see signs of domestic violence either. There are several different types of abuse and usually they are noticed before it is too late. It is extremely important to become aware of the things that go on in relationships.
The Women’s Center does and excellent job of giving out information and informing people of different kinds of violence and different things that are going on in the world. This week they showed that deviance can be found anywhere, in third world countries, in the United States, and in families.