#MuteRKelly: Why Do Black Women Throw Sexually Abused Black Girls Under the Bus?
Jealousy, mostly. Evolutionary Psych? And the cishetero-patriarchal narrative that we are always in competition, for men, with younger women.
Somewhere between playing with Barbie dolls, training bras and 80, women have been socialized to believe that our “stock” is highest when we are younger, and dramatically decreases as we age. Whether or not one chooses to believe the questionable “evidence” in the fuckboy-body-of-literature called “evolutionary psychology” (which essentially reduces human interpersonal interactions to greek letters, “sexual market value”, “hip-waist-ratio”, “spreading seeds”, procreation, et al.), there IS some validity, at least anecdotally, that younger women are preferred as sexual and mating partners over their older, more seasoned peers. For many reasons. Most of them not good. And yes, there are countless examples of beautiful women in their 40s and beyond (who are actually peers of these men), so there is no denying that as an absolute, younger women being more beautiful is a logical fallacy. Yet, the social dogma remains: You are always at risk for a younger woman taking your man. So, what do you do with competition?
Annihilate it. (or allow it to be cannibalized, raped, molested and abused) by the same “men” you are in competition for.
Let that sink in…
Women — at least the population taking off work, to get their tracks tightened, just to see R Kelly “bump and grind” — tend to be highly socialized to view men as mates through the lens of scarcity. This also tends to be the population of women who place HEAVY significance on being married, or committed to a man. In addition, these women tend to have less than favorable views about any woman who threatens this norm for her.
Including young women and girls who are getting attention by being raped!
And within the convergence of evo-psych and male scarcity, comes the back-hand-slap of giving less-than-a-fuck about the sexual abuse of young women, by grown ass men. Because after all, that’s what she gets, being so damn grown and messing with another woman’s man!
Yeah, let that sink in too.
Without question, there tends to be a culture of misogynoir among this population of women: Often resorting to victim-blaming, deflection, or frequently calling young women “little tramps”, “hot asses”, “fass asses”, et al.
On my FaceBook page The Legislative Empress, I posted about the planned protest for the Atlanta August 25th concert only to be met with some of the most distasteful comments about the alleged victims. In addition, the most disgusting, was when the petition was shared on Black Women for Wellness; and devolved into a virtual slut-shaming of young girls BY BLACK WOMEN! And while there were many who stood their ground to hold him accountable, they were quickly muted by the “apologists” who quickly jumped to the defense of “fass ass girls”…(Real talk, I refuse to give any of those hateful heffas the airtime on my forum, but you are free to read the comments, if you can stomach it.)
And what’s sad: Giving that over 60% of Black women experienced some form of sexual assault by an adult male, it is HIGHLY PROBABLE that many of the same women dragging young girls, were themselves VICTIMS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AS A TEEN.
Yes, folks the cognitive dissonance runs D.E.E.P.:
The empathy for a younger woman who has experienced sexual assault does not mute the overwhelming disdain for them as societal and evolutionary competition for men. Despite if the “attention” they receive, is predatory.
So really, why would you look out for the competition?
And in a sick twisted way, a younger woman’s risk of exploitation actually levels the playing field. Sure, she will get more men (even YOUR man), but he will also more likely fuck her over.
Good.
There, now you know.
#MuteRKelly #ATL 8.25.17
