Re: Where To Begin

Lauren, Re:

On "Dr. Jimmy":

>My Now Response:
>Clearly we were sitting in different parts of the crowd.  The women I saw
>were for the most part quiet and uncomfortable.  I guess both of our
>experiences were real.  As for your apologies...  Thank you, but I don't feel
>an apology is appropriate or necessary.  It's not that I think anyone is
>"trying to hurt my feelings," Bernd.
>
>Rather, it's that the song is assaultive and violating.  It hurts everytime
>that The Who sing it. It is a too close to home example of the many
>assaultive/violating expressions towards women that are tacitly and
>explicitly endorsed in our culture and immediate surrounding every day. I
>have even sometimes observed it in this Who forum.  I guess it hurts in every
>single one of those places, and it especially hurts when it comes through The
>Who.  Without going into a long discourse that has no business on a Who list
>(IMO), I guess all that I am saying is that I would ask for acknowledgement,
>respect, and compassion around all of these issues.

        When Pete Townshend wrote the lyrics to "Dr. Jimmy", he was
building up a character for the story of Quadrophenia.  I'm sure a man who
has a wife and two daughters would not encourage rape and other violence
against women.  Sure, there are rapists who when married raped scores of
women, but Townshend's no rapist.  Moreover, if Ted Bundy ever wrote a song
about this subject, any negative reactions to it would be totally
understandable, because it's clear where Bundy is coming from;  a modest
narrative derived from his own experience.  You can't listen to that line
from "Dr. Jimmy", and cover your ears because it's ugly.  This is exactly
the point of Townshend writing it.  If this is supposedly Jimmy saying,
"Who is she, I'll rape it," then it's simply for the sake of building up
the CHARACTER of Jimmy.  Jimmy's just a character.  He's a young,
obnoxious, inmature, and sexually frustrated adolescent with a bunch of
other problems at this point in the story;  that line is a perfect thing
for him to say to illustrate this.  Could you imagine Townshend at the time
thinking, "I better not mention the word 'rape' because a lot of women
might find that offensive"?  That's completely absurd.  I'm just saying for
the sake of your piece of mind, you shouldn't let that line of the song
hurt you.  Use some intelligence, which I suspect you do have, when you
consider whether something is offensive or not.
        As for the disrespect for women in "this Who forum", I think
everyone on this list should treat each other with the utmost respect that
a human being could muster up for another human being.  I don't recall any
instance on this list where anyone has disrespected women on any grand
scale, and I can be quite sensitive about this subject as well.  In fact, I
wouldn't want any male on this list to hold back anything, simply because a
female on the list might get pissed.  I would rather it come out and let it
piss me off, so I can deal with it personally, than have it remain in his
head, and stay muted, for the sake of sparing my "feelings".  This is a
harsh analogy, but I'd rather have a man I can discuss even these kind of
matters with in an intelligent, respectful way, than to have a man who
holds doors open for me, picks up the tab at restaurants all the time, but
only to beat me up once we get home.  What does this have to do with The
Who?  Nada!  What does this have to do with this mailing list?  You decide,
but I really can't stand people who like to tell others what they do not
appreciate about what they write about, particularly because it is
"off-topic."  Now Lauren, I see that not only do you still insist that, but
you are also urging people to treat us girly girls nice, just because we're
girls.  That's okay for you, but leave me out of it.  I think it's wrong.
                                                                        Stacey.