Friday, March 17, 2006

We Exist

There are Intelligent Women in Kansas. While that claim might surprise many, I will endeavor to explain what I mean by Intelligent.

Intelligence is the capacity to think independentally, even creatively, but most of all critically about information put before us. I believe that everyone has the ability to think critically, but many in America believe women, especially, are incapable of thinking critically about their own lives, and are seeking to restrict our abilities to make our own decisions.

As a college professor, I have met many women who feel they lack the ability to think creatively, but were surprised when they were able to think through problem-solution exercises. What surprises them most is the fact that they can bring their own experiences to the critical thinking process, and that those experiences actually help them process information--creates usually unconscious ideas that create prejudices most have no idea they hold. By helping my students become more conscious of those subconscious prejudices, I am able to show them that, once they recognize what makes them feel what they believe, they can become more conscious of whether or not those beliefs are logical (i.e. critical thoughts) or programmed thoughts--programmed by their experiences, including the programming that happens when they embrace, without thought, what they are told to believe.

Take Toby Young, for example, who now claims she had no idea that helping John Manard escape from a Lansing prison would involve being captured and tried for the crime. Manard claims she was influenced by him, and that he is fully responsible for the escape. He makes impossible claim that he bought their getaway vehicle, even though everyone knows that Young took care of all the outside details of the escape. The notion that this middle aged woman was seduced by a younger man appeals to the romantics of Leavenworth County, who only want to remember Young's positive contributions to the prison systems with her SafeHarbor Prison Dogs program--the same program that brought her into frequent contact with Manard.

Young's entire case rests on being able to prove she is innocent because of a lack of ability to judge the consequences of her actions--whether blinded by lust for Manard or ensorcelled by him--the reason she was so easily influenced is not important. Her case won't appeal to jurors unless she appears to be a woman whose lack of judgment put her in an inescapable situation.

She's hoping, she says, to "get back" to her old life, including the family (husband and children) she abandoned. Young, then, is relying on the fact that most people think Kansas women are incapable of making such tough decisions for themselves.

I think Young knew what the consequences for her actions would be, but she found the attraction of a Bonnie-and-Clyde like life with a man who promised to spice up her sex life for a few weeks too tantalizing to pass up.

Everytime a woman like Young is treated as a poor, innocent woman--which she clearly is not--men and women in Kansas will continue to view all women as too stupid to make their own decisions.