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Around this time of year, I often expect to see spooky decorations for Halloween. Hanged figures are not cool in general but what is never acceptable is hanged figures that represent political candidates. While hanging an effigy is technically protected political speech, it is also marred by the very ugly history of violence perpetrated against people of color and women who transgressed against prescribed social roles and were maimed and killed for it. The outcry over hanged effigies of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin is loud, appropriate, and necessary.
From a feminism and gender perspective, the hanged effigy of Sarah Palin represents a troubling new road advocating violence against women. Chad Michael Morrisette, a man in West Hollywood, CA, made the extremely poor decision to voice his opposition to the Republican presidential ticket by hanging an effigy of Gov. Palin from the roof of his home.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and here we have men hanging Palin from the roof of their home. Nijma at Camel's Nose wrote, "Whatever you think of Sarah Palin’s politics, there is no excuse for the hate speech that has been unleashed against her," and reported that the last person to die in a lynching assualt in the US was a six year old girl who had been raped, then hung in her family's garage. Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization of Women, told the Los Angeles Times:
It is a shock to the senses for those of us who work to stop violence against women to see such a public depiction of violence... This has no place in a civilized dialogue. If you oppose Sarah Palin's policies, say why you oppose them.
Keith Josef Adkins at On the Dig wrote:
Now I come from the long Cincinnati tradition of carving faces into pumpkins, eating candy corn like a fiend, and hanging paper Jack-O-Laterns from the front door [and occasionally being ridiculed by relatives for participating in a Satan-endorsed pagan holiday], but politicians strung up by a noose was way out of my childhood understanding.
Although Americans have the right to freedom of speech, I often get a bit weird when it comes to people's misuse of the noose. It seems to be used quite often lately in acts of protest and to teach lessons to ungrateful blacks. And I guess many of the protestors mean well, but they seem to forget, no so long ago, many of our grandparents, parents, were threatened with hangings and at times, hung.
Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, which has been tracking hate speech directed at Palin, noted that the Los Angeles County sheriff's department did not believe that the depiction of Palin met the standard of a hate crime "because it was part of a Halloween display." She called feminists to action:
Pack up your teaspoons, feminists! Turns out the institutionalized misogyny we've been busily combating is imaginary! What a relief.
Well, he's right about one thing, anyway—the "social, historical hate" toward women quite evidently isn't "embedded in the consciousness the country." Increasingly, I'm beginning to wonder if misogyny and the national consciousness have even been properly introduced yet.
Even though Morisette was not legally obligated to remove the effigy, Tennessee Guerrilla Women report that the mannequin was dismantled after a counter-protester appeared at the home and hung an effigy of Mr. Morrisette. Then, today, two men were arrested for hanging an effigy of Obama on the Univ. of Kentucky campus to retaliate against the Palin effigy, according the AP. Is this really what our society has come down to? That when one person depicts violence against another the only way to respond is to do the same?
Does no one bother thinking about the history behind these images or has the election so rallied people's basest impulses that they just don't care? Earlier this year, Professor Kim wrote about a cartoon depicting Michelle Obama being strung up by the KKK. Why anyone thought that depicting a woman as the victim of a hanging is an acceptable way to support or protest a candidate is beyond logic.
Women have been persecuted for overstepping prescribed gender roles for centuries. These women were often accused of being witches, and were burned alive at the stake, drowned, or stoned to death. In some countries, women today are scheduled to be hanged, stoned, or beaten to death for their transgressions. Hanging an effigy of
