Women in the crosshairs
By Leslie Feinberg
Does anyone think it's hyperbole to demand an
end to the war on the domestic front? News about hunting women
in Nevada ought to clear up that misconception.
Men with $10,000 can track down naked women, who are allowed
to wear only sneakers, in undisclosed locations in southern
Nevada. They use paintball rifles that fire projectiles at an
estimated 200 miles an hour and draw blood.
Feminist groups and their supporters, enraged by these
degrading and violent hunts, are exerting pressure on local and
federal government agencies to shut down this anti-woman
"sport," organized by Real Men Outdoor Productions, Inc.
The media empire in the United States has helped Michael
Burdick, the founder of "HuntingForBambi.com," to create a
tempest of publicity that has focused international attention
on this burgeoning industry and its brutal entrepreneurial web
site.
Susan Cooper, executive director of the Rape Crisis Center
in Las Vegas, condemned the "hunts" as promoting violence
against women. She stressed that only three states have a
higher rate of violence against women than Nevada.
(reviewjournal.com, July 17)
Jodi Tyson, director of the Nevada Coalition Against Sexual
Violence, characterized it as "a human rights violation." And
the group sent an "action item" e-mail to mobilize its members
statewide to send protests to elected officials and to
Burdick.
Even Brass Eagle Inc., the world's largest paintball
products manufacturer, denounced the hunts, warning that the
women run the danger of injury.
You can't buy publicity like this
Much debate initially raged in the media as to whether this
"game" was a hoax to market a $20 video of combat-dressed
hunters chasing nude women in the woods. But after the storm of
publicity, Burdick claims his business is booming. And this
"game" is reportedly being offered at cut-rate prices in other
parts of the world for those wealthy enough to afford it.
After KLAS-TV Eyewitness News of Las Vegas ran a feature
story in mid-July, interviews with Burdick and video clips from
an actual "hunt" have appeared on major media features,
including "The O'Reilly Factor" and MSNBC. Burdick was
interviewed by ABC's Diane Sawyer and other journalists.
Major media reports have also given airtime to Marv
Glovinsky, a clinical psychologist who says a "game" that mixes
violence with sexuality can be dangerous for men who cannot
distinguish fantasy from reality. But they feature his
assertion that "Hunting for Bambi is every man's fantasy come
true."
Burdick: oink
The fury that women feel about this misogynistic crime has
been paid lip service in some news reports.
But Burdick has been given ample time to promote his
business under the guise of equal time for his woman-hating
line.
He has aired his refusal to allow women to wear any
protective gear at all, although not all "hunters" followed the
rule of not shooting any woman above the chest. "The main goal
is to be as true to nature as possible. I don't go deer hunting
and see a deer with a football helmet on so I don't want to see
one on my girl either." (KLAS-TV, July 21)
The web site boasts: "Women are being hunted down like
animals . ..." After being shot with the projectiles, the woman
is captured, demeaned and "mounted" as prey on a wall. This is
all videotaped. It is an aping of snuff films in which women
actors are actually murdered.
In fact, the company website offers a video it says is
actual footage of one of the women fleeing her stalkers and
being killed by a semi-truck on the highway. The video is used
to promote sale of the "game."
One of the women pictured being dragged by the hair by men
in combat fatigues is transsexual. Among the prominent women
the owners "invite" to take part in the hunt are Oprah Winfrey
and Rosie O'Donnell, an African American and a lesbian woman,
respectively.
It would do further injury to women to repeat the violently
vulgar, anti-woman details so graphically spelled out on
Burdick's company website.
It would be easy to label Burdick a chauvinist pig--but that
would insult an intelligent species. The truth is, Burdick is a
capitalist.
Casualties of class warfare
Many of the women exploited by this company have worked in
the euphemistically named adult entertainment business. They
are driven to try to earn $1,000 to $2,500 for what is
portrayed as "sport."
This "woman-hunting" is part and parcel of the
multi-billion-dollar sex-for-profit industry that often employs
violence against women and other sex- and gender-oppressed
people.
The Nevada "hunts" take place on private land owned by
capital investors in the company. (reviewjournal.com)
They are an integral part of the ongoing war on women in
this capitalist divide-and-conquer economic system.
None of the media coverage has dealt with the relationship
between this Rambo mentality and the U.S. war to re-colonize
Iraq. But the video clips of men in combat fatigues hunting
down women follow closely on news footage of Pentagon troops
bursting into Iraqi homes in the middle of the night, pointing
their high-tech weapons at women in night clothes.
Spin doctors here hyped the wars against Yugoslavia and
Afghanistan as helping to "liberate" women in those countries.
And Washington claims to be bringing human rights to the
countries it aims to conquer--on the tips of bayonets.
But the reality of the class war is starkly clear. Rich men
can don military garb and hunt women for pleasure.
Working-class and poor men--and women--are ordered to hunt down
other working and oppressed people in an army of conquest that
only profits the wealthy elite.
Reprinted from the July 31, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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