Pussy Riot and the Threat to Women in the U.S. Today

My town, Santa Fe, New Mexico, was electrified this week—or some portion of it was—by the appearance of Pussy Riot, the feminist art protest collective from Russia; two of the co-founders were performing at the Greer Garson Theatre, and there was not a ticket to be had.

These are the women who were censored by Russian authorities after their performance of a punk rock musical at Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior, including a brief mention of President Vladimir Putin with the devout wish that the Mother of God remove him from office.

As a result, the Pussy Riot women served two years in a Russian prison.

Of course we were all outraged. But we are perhaps naïve if we believe that women in the U. S. are free of danger, especially young women who are expected to belong to young men.

Recent news stories about women harassed on college campuses—many of those considered the most “prestigious”—and the failure of the administrations to deal justly and quickly with these offenses remind me of the dangers we court if we are outspoken; here in Santa Fe, I almost never meet a woman who calls herself a feminist, especially remarkable in a town with a history of distinguished women and with the highest percentage, per capita, in this country of women-owned businesses: 32 percent.

There is a reason for this reticence.

Now, on the same day as the Pussy Riot performance, a story in The New York Times addressed the murder in April of Grace Rebecca Mann, who was attending the Mary Washington University in Virginia (perhaps she found something appealing in the name?). The police immediately found the suspect, who was living in Mann’s off-campus house; her hospitality may have been misplaced since he had been a member of the rugby club that exploded with violent online threats:”Gonna tie these feminists to the radiator and rape them in the mouth”—after the club was suspended because of a song that created a furor. The Times article doesn’t mention the content of the song but it seems more than likely that it was another violent attack on women.

Before she was murdered, Mann and other students who belonged to Feminists United on Campus had repeatedly met with the university’s president to express their fears for their safety. Nothing was done, although after the murder, the university claimed that its number one priority is to create a safe atmosphere “where all students can learn and grow.” For Mann, it is too late.

Perhaps this is why so many of us are reluctant to call ourselves feminists.

I am reminded of the special danger young women face, even in situations where they are not linked to the women’s movement, by the grave in the woods at my Kentucky Farm of a young soccer player murdered at her mid-western university.

Interestingly, it is the threat to their Title Nine federal funding which is finally causing some universities to re-examine their failed policies toward sexual harassment; failure to do so might result in the loss of federal dollars.

And it may be that Title Nine, by opening sports to girls, is producing feminine examples of bodily strength that inflame violent reactions. Grace Rebecca Mann’s pretty kitten face does not disguise the fact that her courage represents another form of power.

Perhaps we are still trapped in a society where Alexander Graham Bell’s talking dolls, created in the 1880’s with his voice shouting “Little Jack Horner” (it sounded more like “Little Jack Murder”) are a more acceptable form of the feminine than the warriors and athletes who are not facing jail here but may face murder.

Before I knew what to call myself, in the dim years of the 1950’s, I saw a small example of what is happening in a much larger way now to women on college campuses: a Harvard student I had turned down for a date hid in the bushes near my off-campus house and knocked me down. I went to the authorities and he was perhaps “spoken to” but certainly not suspended or dismissed.

A small incident, although it frightened me, proving what I had not wanted to know, all along: that we are in danger.

[For more on Jena Marie Cooper, buried at Wolf Pen Mill Farm, please read my post “Just A Girl From Kentucky“. For a short story based on my college experience, please read “Winter Term,” available on this website and as a .pdf download courtesy of Sarabande Books.]

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