It is no coincidence that Vandana Shiva’s essay, “Our Violent Economy is Hurting Women,” and Dave Zirin’s article, “The Verdict: Steubenville Shows the Bond between Jock Culture and Rape Culture” both open with cases of brutalized women. It is such a norm that this act is the central focus of the popular television show Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, but that comparison only draws to mind how not “special” violence against women is, and begs the question why it is so entertaining that SVU can have marathons simultaneously on several different channels. The answer perhaps can be found in the system that markets SVU as entertainment, the neoliberal capitalist economic system that commodifies this violence against women, women as a whole,
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Shiva contends that “society and economy are not insulated from each other,” (Shiva 34.) The fundamental misunderstanding of this concept is what leads to the commodification of everything, men and especially women. There is no way to separate neoliberal capitalism and the society that lives within it when everyone is counted by how much they produce. Zirin shines sinister light on that misunderstanding when he recounts, “We learned at the Steubenville trial that not only did a small group of football players commit a crime, but fifty of their peers, men and women, saw what was happening and chose to do nothing, effectively not seeing a crime at all,” (Zirin 2.) Never is that ignorance and compliance with neoliberal capitalist commodification more clear than in the fact that this group of fifty individuals against a mere two offenders “chose to do nothing, effectively not seeing a crime at all.” The men’s sports world that the two Steubenville rapist football players belonged to as a microcosm for the neoliberal capitalist world is terrifying for that revelation alone, that people chose to be complicit in the rape of a young girl and that the rape was seen as inconsequential, “not…a crime at all.” That action cannot be separated from neoliberal capitalism, its GDP method of calculation, and its commodification of everything. It cannot be separated from the dehumanization of men and women and their transformation into resources. Steubenville’s rapists may have just been high school football players, but the culture that allowed this was still mired within one of revenue production, a culture deeply entrenched in the neoliberal capitalist system where women are worthless and men are resources. Zirin succinctly broke down the economics of amateur
Shiva contends that “society and economy are not insulated from each other,” (Shiva 34.) The fundamental misunderstanding of this concept is what leads to the commodification of everything, men and especially women. There is no way to separate neoliberal capitalism and the society that lives within it when everyone is counted by how much they produce. Zirin shines sinister light on that misunderstanding when he recounts, “We learned at the Steubenville trial that not only did a small group of football players commit a crime, but fifty of their peers, men and women, saw what was happening and chose to do nothing, effectively not seeing a crime at all,” (Zirin 2.) Never is that ignorance and compliance with neoliberal capitalist commodification more clear than in the fact that this group of fifty individuals against a mere two offenders “chose to do nothing, effectively not seeing a crime at all.” The men’s sports world that the two Steubenville rapist football players belonged to as a microcosm for the neoliberal capitalist world is terrifying for that revelation alone, that people chose to be complicit in the rape of a young girl and that the rape was seen as inconsequential, “not…a crime at all.” That action cannot be separated from neoliberal capitalism, its GDP method of calculation, and its commodification of everything. It cannot be separated from the dehumanization of men and women and their transformation into resources. Steubenville’s rapists may have just been high school football players, but the culture that allowed this was still mired within one of revenue production, a culture deeply entrenched in the neoliberal capitalist system where women are worthless and men are resources. Zirin succinctly broke down the economics of amateur