Maybe Spring Will Be Worse

I was waiting for the end of the ice and snow because I thought things would begin to look up by then. That we’d be able to get out of the driveway and that the basement disaster we had in January would finally be cleaned up and life could move on. Well, things aren’t really working out that way. That partial thaw has led to a discovery of ground water in our already torn-apart basement. Through my despair, I am trying to remind myself that luckily there is no floor to get destroyed, but that seems like cold comfort right about now when what I most want is for our house to go back to normal.

It feels so unfair and so insurmountable and I don’t know what will happen and it’s hard to take that slowly. It’s hard to not look at the future with just some dread and not much else. I was hoping that the change of seasons would mean some kind of change of luck, but that’s definitely not happening thus far.

A Word on Kate Millett

Kate Millett is a name that has mostly faded from memory, but she was an important feminist writer, activist, educator that not only fought for women’s rights but also reforms to the mental health system. In The Basement: Meditations on a Human Sacrifice, Millett uses the murder of Sylvia Likens to examine the reality of being a lower-middle-class housewife and when some take that reality and act out with violence. This isn’t just a book about a crime nor is it a fictionalization of that crime. Millett spends time with victim and perpetrator and with her own reactions to the case. What emerges is a portrait of a horrific event that should not have happened and a look into why it was allowed to happen by neighbours, society, law enforcement, and social services. She is taking apart every person and every system that failed Sylvia Likens. She spares no one.

What Happened in the Basement

I’m going to start with a warning before I even get into a summary of the case and that should tell you something. This book is not an easy read. It is a factual account of one of the most disturbing cases of child abuse in American (and probably general) history. Sylvia Likens was a teenager that was mutilated, starved, beaten, imprisoned, assaulted, and eventually killed by her caretaker with the help of a band of neighbourhood minors. There were many opportunities for her to be helped. Many different people and agencies saw the signs of abuse yet did nothing to stop it. So many failed, and Likens paid the price for it.

Millett takes apart the crime, but does not sensationalize it. Instead, she treats it carefully, always sensitive to the victim’s suffering. More importantly when she details the lead perpetrator, Gertrude Baniszewski, she doesn’t make excuses for the violence she committed, even while examining how difficult life was for Baniszewski and how she was poorly treated. A victim of abuse and poverty, Baniszewski used her oppression to fuel her rage towards Likens and, instead of seeking help, committed a horrible crime.

Where True Crime Meets Feminism

There has long been a bias present in examination of crimes and violence committed by female offenders. Namely, many seek to blame oppression, abuse, or malignant gender politics for women acting out violently. In this way, women are often excused for murder, abuse, assault, and nearly every offence. They are portrayed as victims of their circumstances and the blame is squarely assigned to those that perpetrated abuse against them. Millett, rightly, does not do this. Because this kind of thinking robs women of their agency, is a form of infantilization, and does not see female offenders as the dangers that they are.

Millett does not excuse Baniszewski and begs us as readers not to excuse her either. She wants us to see the factors that led her to act this way, but she wants us to see them so that we can save other Sylvia Likenses from other Gertrude Baniszewskis — not so that we have sympathy for the woman that killed her. She wants us to see that violence against women breeds more violence against women, and not just violence perpetrated by men.

Gratitude

Yesterday was indeed a very, very, very bad day. A day so bad that it was hard to see the morning coming afterward. But even on days like yesterday I am grateful because I have my lovely spouse there. To hold me and tell me that even if it doesn’t seem like it right now, things will be okay. We will get through it. Our house isn’t falling down or rotting away and we can fix things. Maybe not easily or cheaply, but we can fix things.

And through the worse of it all, she’ll still be there to hold my hand in hers.