Die, Women, Die!

For a clear statement on why feminism is SO MUCH MORE than merely a political movement, check out this article in the Washington Post entitled "Female Characters, Made to Suffer for our 'Art.'"

The article makes the point that gruesome shows such CSI--or rather, imitating CSI--almost always feature crimes in which the victims are young white women, who are often not only murdered but tortured and raped. These shows are made to appeal to an audience of 18 to 34-year-old men, who don't watch much television, but the shows they do like are Desperate Housewives and CSI--as the article puts it, "we conclude, young men like their older women in teddies having sex with teenagers who cut their grass (or, in the case of Teri Hatcher, naked and in the bushes), but they like their younger women -- well, dead."

In case you're skeptical about real-life crimes against women, check out this story about hundreds of murders of Mexican women in Juarez and along the border, or this story about the systematic rape of women by the Burmese army as part of a military strategy.