Which "Mary" are you?

Recent coverage of the Elizabeth Smart case (as well as the holidays) has me thinking about the Virgin/Whore dichotomy that women are forced to choose. To briefly explain, we as women have to play the role of the Virgin Mary or Mary Magdalene (wrongly believed by many to be a whore from the Bible)depending on who's watching/who desires us to be what. For example, you're taught as a child to be Virgin Mary and that there is a difference between "good" and "bad" girls. However, society tells you to be Mary Magdalene (the whore) to attract men while at the same time remaining Virgin Mary so that a man will actually marry you. Confused? Me too. Guess which one the church pressures you to be?

When watching this coverage of the Smart case, I've heard words like "courage", "innocence", and other vomit worthy phrases. You see, Elizabeth Smart is a PERSON. She was not kidnapped and raped to provide inspiration. To imply so is THE most condescending thing to do to a survivor. She is a human being who was raped because a rapist assaulted her.

Furthermore, these descriptive words give us the notion of the Virgin Mary in the Smart case. In other words, we agree as a society that it wasn't her fault because she is a "good girl". Elizabeth wasn't dancing, drinking, out late, a woman of color, or poor. She was all the right things so we won't blame her.

In other cases of women of color, lower socioeconomic status, drinking, and (gasp) women actually having fun, we "Magdalene" them and blame them. If you're the Virgin Mary, we put you on a pedestal and if you're Magdalene, we feed you to the wolves. So, either way you're screwed. Either way your voice is lost. Pissed off? Me too.

And it's not just religious people doing this. This is EVERYWHERE! If you get drunk and take your clothes off for Girls Gone Wild, then you're Magdalene no matter what. No mercy. If you wore a skirt the night you were raped...Magdalene. No mercy. The list goes on and on.

So what can we do about it? Call bullshit. Explain to friends and family (even ourselves) that the Elizabeth Smart case should be a reminder that rape terrorizes women and many women never make it to the court system! And NEVER NEVER blame a rape victim. In countries where women are COMPLETELY covered and sometimes barely seen outdoors, they are STILL raped! So this whole bullshit theory about women being to blame at all for rape is proven wrong.

And for the record, this was a way to criticize the media representation of Smart's case, NOT SMART HERSELF. I wish her case could instead be a reminder that the judicial system is awful for rape survivors and we need to change that!