Looking out: Stereotyping

Imagine being arrested for no other reason than the fact that you are a woman. That sums up what happened to Debra Di Censo. The 29-year old amateur bodybuilder was placed under arrest because she wanted to do her work-out in the men's weight room at a city-owned gym in Boston, Massachusetts.
A spokesperson for the police said that she was arrested for refusing to leave the men's side of the gym. Di Censo was charged with trespassing because she wanted to use 65-pound dumbbells instead of the 30-pound dumbbells that are available on the women's side of the gym. In fact, most of the equipment on the women's side of the establishment leaves much to be desired.
Di Censo is a political science major at Northeastern University. She plans eventually to be a lawyer. The young woman was taken away to jail and held for two hours before being released on a $25 bail bond. She can get as much as 60 days in jail and/or be forced to pay a $1000 fine if she is convicted.
According to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution's June 3 issue, "The gym, which is open to anyone who pays a $20-a-year membership fee, has about 6,000 male and 2,000 female members. A printed copy of the rules does not forbid men from entering the women's weight room [or] vice versa."
Most of us know that it is wrong to discriminate against one another. It is my opinion that in every area of society we all need to change the way we view, not only each other, but also ourselves.
Proof of that need can be found in young people such as Bobbie Winter, of St Denys, Southampton, England. She is a martial arts enthusiast who has won an orange sash in kung fu. The following essay is by Winter:
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We are men and women. We are human beings. We can inflict pain and receive it equally regardless of gender. Despite the past and many false stories, some men can and do suffer at the hands of women; they can be victims, too.
Today there are many images about what a man is or should be, and the pressure is always on. There is the image of the "macho man". Boys and men are supposed to be good at sport, good fighters and capable of enduring pain without showing any emotion. Men supposedly don't cry. In reality, however, probably only a few men are naturally all of these things.
This conditioning and pressure begin in childhood. What goes on in a boy's life will dictate how he will behave and his attitudes in adulthood. There is great pressure today for boys to grow into strong men. For boys who have skinny legs, or who prefer cooking to football, it can be hard.
More often than not, boys are made to feel ashamed to be sensitive or emotional. They are generally not encouraged to be open and express their true feelings. "Effeminate" men are often targets for cruel taunts because they fail to conform to that stereotype and ideology of men as macho. All the time these images are strengthened by the media.
Our once patriarchal society is rapidly changing, but there is still this idea of masculinity as being dominate. Cases of domestic violence where men are the victims are rarely publicised yet they go on.
Even men's health care is sometimes poor. Breast cancer kills about 15,000 women a year and gets L8 million for research, while prostate cancer — which kills about 10,000 men a year — gets a mere L400,000.
Inside every single one of us (more than we realise) we have the potential to be as evil as somebody like Hitler or to make a significant change for the better like Dr Martin Luther King Jr. When it comes down to it, it is not so much our biology or gender that matters but our ideology. Anybody — male or female — can be a victim. Anybody.
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I hope that you , as do I, think that Winter raised some valid points worth pondering here. I am of the opinion that if more men would talk openly about the sexist attitudes that we consciously and unconsciously entertain about women, and women in turn do likewise, we would all be just that much closer to ending those attitudes.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]