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No Room for Misogyny on Murrieta's School Board
By Kelly A. Bennett, Esq., Murrieta City Council member, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem Emeritus
Have you cast your vote for two of the three candidates for
Murrieta's school board yet? While City Council Candidates get all the
attention, of large importance is the leadership of our school board.
Education is the backbone of our community. The quality of our
schools is a key component of your city's economic development - it's what
CEO's look to when determining how qualified the local workforce will be and
where to send their kids to school. Poor school districts mean reduced
opportunities for would-be companies to expand into our community and provide
new job opportunities. Misogyny is a direct threat to the quality of our
school board leadership, that's a significant reason why I will be voting for Kris Thomasian and Robin Crist this election season, and vote a resounding
"NO!" for the third challenger, who we'll call "the
Candidate."
Revelation of Local Misogyny
So what does this word “misogyny” have to do with the November
school board election? Everything, dear friends. We have three candidates
- two women incumbents who have done a stellar job, and one newcomer misogynist.
We don't have room for misogyny in our school board leaders - there's
enough of that to go around in other current "community leaders" so
let's pay attention Murrieta.
Quite some time ago I received a Face Book "friend
request" from the fellow who now seeks a place on the Board of the
Murrieta Valley Unified School District. I've met this "Candidate”
at several community and social events, and he is a likeable, affable person.
He is active in a local community service group has done good work with
the Murrieta Field of Honor program. But imagine my surprise as I perused
his Face Book account, and found these posts by the Candidate:
Are you kidding me? How embarrassing...again, I asked
myself..."are you KIDDING ME? ?????"
I have two brilliant daughters who came up through the Murrieta school system
and my blood pressure rose at the thought of others' daughters coming up in a
system with the kind of "leadership" at the helm that would find such
denigrating posts somehow..."funny..."
Misogyny has deep philosophical and cultural roots dating back to
the thought movements of Aristotle's time, and woven throughout the fabric of
world religions. Broadly defined as "the hatred or dislike of women or
girls," misogyny manifests itself in numerous ways: Violence against
women, sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, and the most prevalent in
modern society: Denigration and sexual objectification of women.
The denigration and objectification of women has been supercharged
by social media. Social media is a new powerful tool for would-be politicians
and local leaders and we ought to pay very close attention to how and what they
post. A very public diary of often private thoughts, outlets such as Face
Book offer many a revelation about a person and their values.
Denigration and Objectification Through Our Use of Media
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, director and producer of the powerful
2011documentary, "Miss Representation" asserts, "[i]n a society
where media is a most persuasive force shaping cultural norms, the collective
message that our young women and men overwhelmingly receive is that a woman's
value and power lie in her youth, beauty, and sexuality, and not in her
capacity as a leader. While women have made great strides in leadership of
the past few decades, the United States is still 90th in the world for women in
national legislatures, women hold only 3% of clout positions in mainstream
media, and 65% of women and girls have disordered eating behaviors."
Ms. Newsom's film is indeed thought provoking. "Miss
Representation" exposes how mainstream media contribute to the
under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America.
The film challenges the media's limited and often disparaging
portrayals of women and girls, which make it difficult for women to achieve
leadership positions, and for the average woman to feel powerful herself.
(To see the 2-minute "Miss Representation" trailer, click
here: http://youtu.be/W2UZZV3xU6Q.)
So where am I going with this little lesson on cultural character
flaws? What does that have to do with local politics and in particular,
an election for School Board members? With 48.6% of Murrieta's student
population being female, the issue of positive leadership and modeling gender
respect and advocacy is of utmost importance.
But is this "much ado about nothing..."? Oh, to the
contrary friends, this is much ado about a very important something. That
something is this insidious cultural disease of humor-laced misogyny. It
happens right here, in our own community and to our own female leadership.
It's happened to me.
As Murrieta's first City Council Woman, while serving in elected
office I was physically groped in a brazen "power play" by another
elected official, (sweaty man-hands feeling up my back side) while we all stood
close together, smiling for a group portrait at City Hall. Oh yes, it
happened, and there is a public record email from me, advising Mr. Misogynist
that his acts were sexual harassment, created a hostile environment and if it
ever happened again, he would be invited to come play on my turf (it's called a
court house). Several other scenarios occurred during my 7.5 year tenure
as councilwoman, with two other "good old boys" (another local,
another on a regional level). Quite frankly, I was surprised. Perhaps
naively, I assumed we were well past such anti-feminist behaviors. During those
incidents, I was no wallflower and did not let them pass without comment.
When pushed, members of the GOB (good ole' boys') club unenthusiastically
agreed to some moderate policy changes to prevent such actions from happening
in the future. In one instance, the nearly all-male regional leadership
group sat back, in deafening silence and failed to address the injustice and
discriminatory acts. Guess Riverside County hasn't progressed as much as
I had hoped. Wow.
This post will no doubt be poorly received by many.
Unfortunately, the truth is often uncomfortable, or
"inconvenient" as a past U.S. Vice President might say. I'm sure we
will hear many protests from the school board Candidate's friends and family to
the statements made in this article. And that's well and good - such
protests will be rooted in "intent", namely that the Candidate didn't
"intend" to play the misogynist role when he posted the
discriminatory, denigrating and sexually objectifying posts about women...he
was just trying to be "funny." The intent argument misses the
point: If there was no such misogynistic intent, the repeated faux pas
spotlights the fact that there was no judgment exercised, no recognition
of how such insensitive behavior under the heading of "humor"
endorses and perpetuates the misogynistic culture and attitudes in the
community. The lack of judgment is astounding. And that lack of
judgment is exactly what we must protect against when it comes to leadership
and decision making for our educational system, which directly affects our
young women and young men.
One final point...red flags should be going up for all who peruse
this Candidate's Face Book page on another level: A plethora of skewed,
hate-spewing politically motivated posts, reposts and comments. Right
wing, left wing, wing nut, whatever you are, being a Candidate for a
non-partisan position requires making good judgment calls for our
local education. The messaging in such posts is not the example I want
for our community's youth. Calling the President of the United States a
Marxist, well, that may be your opinion but it certainly does not engender the
respect for the office I would expect our local leaders to display. Watch
out for this in the posts of other local candidates too. If a candidate
would go so far as to denigrate women and other esteemed office holders, will
we be seeing such comments during School Board and City Council meetings...name
calling, etc., of colleagues with whom we disagree?
The ability of leaders and the public to engage in respectful,
intelligent discourse has been on the rapid decline for the last decade.
I don't know about you, but I want our newest generations to see what it
means to band together in common purpose, while enjoying and opening our minds
to what can be learned from those who hold very different beliefs from our own.
That's how we grow, progress and create.
Vote informed Murrieta, and vote smart. The future of our
youth depends on it.
