A Woman's Greatest Fear

In a recent survey when women were asked what their greatest fear of men was, the most common response was: "To be raped or killed."

When men were asked what their greatest fear of women was, their most common answer was: "To be laughed at."

Putting these two results on the scale, I pose the question: who bears the greater burden?

This series is a response to the results of the survey.

A Woman's Greatest Fear
by L. Chase

"You look like an angel/ Walk like an angel/ Talk like an angel/ But I got wise/ Youíre the devil in disguise." -Elvis Presley

A recent poll suggests that the worst fear men have of women is that they will laugh at them, humiliate them, and reject them.

Yet, ironically-- women's worst fears of men are revealed to be the complete contrary-- revolving around her *inability* to reject them-- to be overcome by a violent assault, to be maimed, tortured, or even killed by a man wanting to force and impose his will upon her person.

Women everywhere are socialized to react with the "flight response" to the pervasive and realistic fear of mundane male violence. They adapt and restrict their daily lives, impose limits and take cautions with their behaviors, and yet still must attempt to be free-- as much as they dare. Yet there is no real compromise that can be made, because women are still too often held to account for recklessly provoking the passions of men.

The manifestation of fear in men, meanwhile, is sometimes such that they take the overt route, of aggression-- which seems to compel them to seek women out, and to pursue opportunities where they will be rejected, so that they can satisfy a need for retaliation as an emotional outlet.

The classic example of this tendency is exhibited by the strange man who sidles up to a beautiful woman, only to sneer at her, "I betcha think you're too good for me, don't you?" This, of course, invites rejection-- which becomes the rationale for him venting abuse at her-- which is what he wanted to do all along.

In Florida, Joseph Smith is begging for the mercy of the court after having been convicted of first degree murder. When he was given an opportunity to explain his reasons for kidnapping, raping, and murdering eleven year old Carla Brucia, Joseph Smith, a long-time heroin addict, said that he was was unable to control himself due to desperate feelings he had after his wife-- an alleged prostitute-- rejected him.

It is interesting, and revealing, that Joseph Smith would attempt to appeal for society's sympathy by invoking the phenomenon of rejection-fear. The implication of his excuse is, ultimately, that it was his wife was the one who "caused" Carla Bruci's death. He is casting Mrs. Smith in to the role of the "devil" that made him do it. And the logic that he seeks to make us understand, is that because his masculine pride and feelings were wounded, because she excluded him from her life while callously servicing other men, he naturally had the desire to retaliate-- but not on her.

The someone he chose wasn't just anyone. To punish his wife for refusing his marital ownership of her, and to express his rage of sexual intimidation and inadequacy triggered by her promiscuity-- he re-enacts against a pre-pubescent child. A girl who has not yet come into the full bloom of her sexual power-- who cannot awe or dominate him. This is the only version of "woman" he feels capable of completely controlling-- but particularly because he intends to ensure she will never live long enough to defeat his masculinity.

Indeed, it is as if some men today persist in some primitive belief that, in the absence of a sole competing male presence, or in this case-- because of her acceptance of multiple male rivals, that a woman has no right to refuse his advances. They do not see a woman *owning* her own body and desires. They feel that once they have possessed her, that they always will-- or at least until another man steps up to affirm ownership. If no man owns her, then she apparently does not have the right to refuse any one manís access.

So, should she reject him, it is not seen as being for any reason of her own.  It is perceived as a petty meanness, an affront, an attack, justifying a counter-attack involving the worst kinds of force and brutality. This sort of barbarism might be understandable, perhaps, if we were mallard ducks or wild monkeys or mountain goats-- but to contemplate that thousands of years of socializing has yet to successfully civilize this sort of thinking out of the contemporary male psyche is distressing, indeed.

And I wish it was possible to say that this sort of skewed reasoning occurs only within drug-addled deviants-- but it does not. Many men, from all walks of life, who violate women, attempt to blame their rage on a prior rejection-- by a cold mother, an ex-wife, or some other unwilling object of his idealization.

And this is the social-sexual milieu in which we consider Chehalis Hegnerís series of photographs, entitled "A Woman's Greatest Fear." Female sexual receptivity is expressed, in part, by the adornments we associate with fashion and beauty-- her blonde hair signaling her youth and fertility; and her fur coat, a dual symbol of her status-- connecting desirability with a hint at sexual commerce. Fur also alludes to well-worn mythologies surrounding women's primal, voracious, insatiable appetites. She is the embodiment of female sexual provocation and it's hazards-- her apparent desirableness functioning as an incitement, a challenge, and an insult to the dangerously fractious pride of the random men whose interest she conceivably attracts.

These photos depict the experience of woman as one who is threatened, hunted, pursued-- perhaps for some outrage of attitude, or simply because of what she represents; maybe because had the nerve to be beautiful, or maybe just because she was at liberty and out alone. The setting of the public park, the refinements of marble and tapestries and columns of public buildings, function as a stage or a facade, not a sanctuary or refuge from the wilderness of sexual predation.

In every instance, the threat of her sexual power has been contained, subdued, captured, and conquered. Her body is mashed against a "cage" of grid fencing; she is suspended, helplessly, on the metallic web of a play-structure; she is boxed in and splayed like a sacrifice under an armless stone goddess-- signifying the vanquished female energy of woman in body and spirit. In every photo, her eyes are closed-- in pain, in submission, or unconsciousness-- her body repetitively cast aside, limp, and discarded. Her bare feet and disarray containing the implication, of course, that she has been unexpectedly, and forcefully, ravished.

Her attacker is unseen. He is invisible and unknown. He is nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. "He" could, literally, be anyone, anywhere.

In one instance, her face is covered with hair, showing that her identity and uniqueness has been subsumed by the signifiers of desirability. We have the opportunity to see her as an attacker might-- unable to comprehend her humanity, her individuality-- she is only a "type", a generalization, a faceless proxy, upon which rage can vent it's humiliated frustrations.

Chehalis Hegner © 2006 All Rights Reserved.

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