Representative Akin and graduate school in a high crime area

At first I dismissed Representative Todd Akin‘s weak statement about rape and conception as more political cant like that about abortion.  Another statement about women that sidetracked the real issue of violence in our society.  The candidate had supplied no statistics and yet he gained international attention.

Just a month before, I looked up the statistics of violence against women in Minnesota, thinking of a move.  I had been told that the crime rate was better in Minneapolis.  In 2009, Duluth boasted a zero rate of rape while the rate in Minneapolis was about five times per capita that in New York City.  I lived in South Minneapolis in the 1980s while attending graduate school and, although many women were from outstate Minnesota (towns or small cities), we didn’t know how quickly the crime was rising.

According to this chart, rape and assault increased 20 times in Minnesota from 1960 to 1995.  

Minnesota Law Enforcement Agency Uniform Crime Reports 1980 to 2005 Minnesota Crime Rates 1960 - 2010 Forcible Aggravated Year Population Index Violent Property Murder Rape Robbery assault Burglary 1960 3,413,864 50,049 1,435 48,614 42 81 950 362 12,645 1961 3,470,000 50,370 1,505 48,865 34 94 951 426 13,225 1962 3,475,000 53,762 1,674 52,088 33 124 1,028 489 13,312 1963 3,500,000 59,392 1,983 57,409 41 91 1,186 665 14,160 1964 3,521,000 70,398 2,601 67,797 51 157 1,285 1,108 18,833 1965 3,554,000 71,485 3,074 68,411 50 186 1,433 1,405 18,853 1966 3,576,000 79,893 3,691 76,202 79 261 1,765 1,586 20,713 1967 3,582,000 92,887 4,727 88,160 58 309 2,402 1,958 25,233 1968 3,646,000 108,041 5,111 102,930 81 398 2,959 1,673 29,232 1969 3,700,000 113,836 5,253 108,583 69 424 3,016 1,744 28,836 1970 3,805,069 121,796 5,782 116,014 75 369 3,389 1,949 30,507 1971 3,881,000 137,267 5,993 131,274 95 468 2,987 2,443 34,219 1972 3,896,000 130,674 6,798 123,876 95 571 3,290 2,842 36,124 1973 3,897,000 137,781 6,926 130,855 107 579 3,455 2,785 39,610 1974 3,917,000 153,976 8,119 145,857 118 692 4,079 3,230 43,939 1975 3,926,000 168,766 8,125 160,641 129 730 4,069 3,197 46,842 1976 3,965,000 171,727 7,492 164,235 92 726 3,189 3,485 44,493 1977 3,975,000 168,176 7,705 160,471 106 774 3,413 3,412 45,103 1978 4,008,000 166,096 7,601 158,495 81 797 3,411 3,312 43,837 1979 4,060,000 178,349 8,973 169,376 93 871 3,754 4,255 45,183 1980 4,061,235 194,918 9,250 185,668 106 942 4,025 4,177 50,602 1981 4,090,000 193,731 9,344 184,387 85 1,056 4,266 3,937 52,253 1982 4,133,000 184,110 9,062 175,048 95 938 4,188 3,841 48,855 1983 4,144,000 167,177 7,909 159,268 69 927 3,298 3,615 44,571 1984 4,162,000 159,884 8,802 151,082 74 1,051 2,960 4,717 41,242 1985 4,193,000 173,348 10,751 162,597 88 1,242 3,598 5,823 42,663 1986 4,214,000 183,823 11,991 171,832 105 1,338 4,299 6,249 42,319 1987 4,246,000 195,986 12,118 183,868 112 1,439 4,354 6,213 45,384 1988 4,306,000 185,792 12,490 173,302 124 1,337 4,079 6,950 39,167 1989 4,353,000 190,801 12,549 178,252 111 1,363 4,128 6,947 39,042 1990 4,375,099 198,577 13,392 185,185 117 1,487 4,057 7,731 39,691 1991 4,432,000 199,274 14,006 185,268 131 1,762 4,345 7,768 37,832 1992 4,480,000 205,664 15,144 190,520 150 1,840 4,906 8,248 39,859 *1993 4,517,000 198,125 14,778 183,347 155 1,588 5,092 7,943 38,147 1994 4,567,000 198,253 16,397 181,856 147 2,725 5,370 8,155 36,157 1995 4,610,000 207,327 16,416 190,911 182 2,593 5,702 7,939 36,756 1996  4,658,000  207,891  15,782  192,109  167  2,327  5,385  7,903  35,515  1997  4,686,000  206,833  15,827  191,006  129  2,446  5,373  7,879  35,265  1998  4,725,000  191,197  14,656  176,541  121  2,358  4,371  7,806  32,486  1999  4,775,508 171,802  13,085  158,717 134  2,038  3,917  6,996  27,706  *2000 4,919,479  171,611  13,813  157,798  151  2,240  3,713 7,709  26,116  2001  4,984,535  178,191  13,145  165,046  119 2,236  3,758  7,032  25,496  2002  5,024,791  177,454  13,428  164,026  112  2,273  3,937  7,106  28,034  2003  5,064,172  170,979  13,316  157,663  127  2,092  3,906  7,191  27,698  2004  5,096,546 168,770  13,751  155,019 113  2,123  4,070  7,445  28,048  2005 5,126,739  173,544  15,243  158,301  115  2,258  4,724 8,146  29,711  2006 5,167,101   175,534 16,425  159,119  125  1,947  5,433 8,920  30,173  2007 5,197,621   172,832  15,003  157,829  116  1,873  4,770 8,244  29,670  2008 5,230,567   162,976  13,771  149,205  109  1,805  4,179 7,678  26,483  2009 5,266,214   152,160  12,874  139,286  74  1,789  3,619 7,392  25,580  2010 5,303,925 148,946 12,515 136,431 96 1,798 3,388 7,233 24,415
Note:  The complete chart also includes statistics for Larceny Theft and Vehicle Theft.

Candidate Todd Akin did refer to studies that documented a woman’s physical response to sexual violence.  For what reason?  To diminish the impact of rape?  This, to me, was like heightening the abortion issue after the birth control pill was available.  Control of violence against women is the issue at hand just as abortion should shadow the control of pregnancies for women in unstable relationships.  The first issue improved upon, the second issue is not as critical.  Women living in high crime districts talk of crime, discuss it, and they live very differently from women in safer areas.  Many in 1980s Minneapolis became conservative with men, even reactionary, and not matching the attitudes about them.  Often I discovered that neighbor women left a relationship for school or a career and that they were hardly ready to respond to anything hazardous. The police had less time for complaints that weren’t life-threatening.  Relationship violence could be heard sometimes in apartment buildings, what probably added an invisible statistic.  Violations that would usually deserve a patrol car were neglected and made women vulnerable to the men they knew and to men in general.  After work one day, I made a call to the police about a man exposing himself in an alley.  The police didn't want to spend time chasing him down because such cases were not deemed as harmful as others.  There was so much major crime that the lesser crimes were a part of the environment. When I moved to Duluth, I owned only one pair of shorts.  I didn't show my legs except when wearing skirts, usually below the knee, and now I wonder if women in that high crime area would dare to wear a scoop-necked blouse.  I would say not often while it is the fashion for many women in America.  I kept strange hours and a nightlight on then.  My tastes in literature changed and I didn’t even watch BBC “Mystery” much, my craving for excitement was so much lowered.  I began watching home improvement and nature shows on PBS.  Though I lived in an old building with nice carpeting and light fixtures, cocaine raids were often going on down the street.  I went from reading Anais Nin to reading the early works of Virginia Woolf, an author who hardly ever relied on violence.  Her diaries tell how the bombs during two world wars were dropping on London when she wrote.   It was like learning that Doctor Dolittle began in Hugh Lofting's letters to his children while he fought in World War I. I read nonfiction, Jacques Cousteau and other mellowing influences.  Many tenants were living within their own interior current and in apartments decorated for that.  I read magic, folklore and children’s literature.  At the same time, re-reading  Shakespeare, I developed an interest in the Roman Empire.  The portrayal of violence was fine if it happened and especially if it was in a distant past.  I found graphic violence unsatisfactory.  If it didn’t have the sensitivity to feel for the victim and give the victim pages, it lacked conscience.  My building was broken into twice.  The first time, the window at the back door was smashed and a woman tenant found the burglar in the laundry room after which both ran.  When the police came, they said to appalled women in the hallway, “Maybe he was cold.”  I moved.   There were nights of vigilance held at neighborhood parking lots but as I now see from the chart, the improvement is not great.  I would say that the threat of violence is enough to lower birth rates.  But if Representative Akin took buses in Minneapolis, he might see many young women with children and without a wedding ring.  The city is a place of extremes.  Some of my experiences were sublime but when it was bad there, it was very bad.  I resented the difficulties of living in a large city a hundred miles from my birthplace when the work I did wasn’t so available in smaller cities.  And there were so many advantages there.  Recently I saw that my short collection, Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories, was ordered into the Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis.  That thrilled me, its being the central downtown library and a place where I spent many hours.

The Bronte's and the psychology of passion

Interest in Jane Austen has revived these days but, although she was a favorite, I had an enduring fascination with the Bronte's.  In my older sister’s bedroom were Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre in the woodcut editions.  I was fascinated by these illustrations and, seeing the name Kathy in Wuthering Heights, my nickname, I resolved to read these books as soon as I could.

As a used book dealer, I obtained the editions, and again found Fritz Eichenberg’s woodcuts delirious while they encompassed both the 19^th century and modern art.  The books usually sold within months, and then I’d find another.  The Random House editions aren’t terribly collectible, large numbers of them having been published, but they are apparently THE bookshelf editions of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff

These books made such an impression on me that I didn’t re-read Wuthering Heights as an adult until ten years ago.  At that time, I was stunned at Emily Bronte’s portrayal of domestic violence.  Heathcliffe was brought into a well-to-do family where aggression and disorder prevailed.  When he died after holding up those traditions, I laughed at what I felt was morbid comedy.  Emily Bronte then painted a horizon with words, that of the young couple, Heathcliff’s daughter and her fiancé, the hope of a new future if they could break the pattern.  Although it isn’t depicted in the romantic productions of the book, I felt the ending was a triumph of fiction.

At the time, I lived in a Victorian house cornering a women’s shelter.  Old lady sisters in the nearby gingerbread-shingled house used to tell me about the people on the other side of their fence.  At the end of my yard was a mini-woods, and sometimes I found evidence of night vigils across from the shelter house, cigarette butts and even the remains of a campfire.

I remember taking the woodcut edition of Jane Eyre to an old lady’s house when I was sick and my mother was working.  Off from school that day, I was already enmeshed in the awful Lowood school.  Jane’s relationship with Mr. Rochester made quite an impression on me when I was young.   Somehow it seemed heroic that she could get along with such a difficult man.  Reading the book again, I can hardly believe I tolerated Charlotte Bronte’s style at so young an age, yet I remembered the story well.  I don’t think I saw a movie of it until the 2006 BBC production, which inspired me to read the novel again.

One of the great things about the 20^th century to me is the awareness of domestic distress.  The patterns were mysterious in Jane Eyre, Jane being locked into a room at the beginning and later, falling in love with a man who locked up his wife.  Charlotte and Emily Bronte were first-rate psychologists. 

I read everything I could about the Bronte’s and all of their novels.  Even though I majored in English as an undergraduate, it wasn’t until I worked in a bookstore that I learned that the Bronte family was Irish.  While Ireland starved, the Bronte authors died – so that the Lowood school Jane Eyre attended had force.  I read that Emily, while Charlotte was in Europe teaching, regularly fetched her brother from the local pub.  Their brother was wild.  But if he was that dissipated, perhaps a man like Heathcliff helped Emily bring her brother home.  I imagine him tapping at her window. 

Their father was a rare Irishman to be schooled at Oxford.  He brought home clergymen for his daughters to meet but these small and supremely intelligent girls made fun of them. They refused to consider them as future husbands.

If I went for a PhD., I might have delved into all of this further.  Yet I read Jane Eyre correctly, somewhat, as a girl.  Jane did have an unusual relationship with Mr. Rochester.  Despite that, the author put much store in a horrible dream Jane had, the pattern thing about Mr. Rochester’s treatment of women.  Part of the dream came true when Jane eventually found his manor destroyed by fire.  She married him happily, but in the dream, she was wandering with an infant and Mr. Rochester was gone traveling again.  I found their relationship convincing after their reunion yet the last lines are about St. John, the clergyman who proposed to Jane, and they allude to death.  Charlotte, the only Bronte author to marry, was said to have had an affair with a married man when she taught in Belgium.  She married a clergyman a year before she died.

I guess the two woodcut Bronte editions, books I apparently waded through, became iconic to me throughout all my reading.  The author visions of psychological development were sophisticated for their time and, although Charlotte wrote that she wasn’t sure it was right to imagine a man like Heathcliff, she and Emily were forecasting 20^th century literature.  Theirs may have been termed Gothic but the subtle interior development made them feel realistic.

Three of my short stories in Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories confront abuse in the marriage or pre-marital relationship.  Attempting to take characters beyond the relationship, the patterns became plot hurdles.

Soon my poem “Bruised exhibit” will be published in Blood Lotus, an online literary journal.  I wrote the poem after seeing a strange sunset.