North Country

“From the first years to which my memory stretches, I have been a disappointed woman. In education, in marriage, in religion, in everything, disappointment is the lot of woman. It shall be the business of my life to deepen this disappointment in every woman’s heart until she bows down to it no longer.” – Lucy Stone, Women’s rights activist.

The film, North Country, typifies the problems of unequal genders. Women who are being harassed, abused, discriminated upon as sexual objects, and who are forced to endure the most disgusting ill-treatment from idiotic men.

Josie’s entire life encapsulates this inequality; from being raped by a teacher, to the entire town – and her own father – being indifferent to her being beaten by her estranged husband, to being demonized as a failure by society because she cannot fit its standards despite society’s brutality upon her, and the fact that she had to fight on her own just to accomplish equality for the longest time.

The tyranny of the majority is clearly shown and the discrimination against women – by cultural standards in a time that existed right before some of us were born – is not only celebrated but the suffering of women is ignored. The vulgar actions done to the women from having cum littered on their clothes, to poop being strewn on their walls, to the CEO ignoring complaints, to the town vilifying any women who speak-up, and so many more horrid affairs; to the extent that her own son trusted the town’s gossip over his own mother for a lengthy amount of time.

This society, brought up by Abrahamic precepts, is culpable of the worst wrongdoing. Yet, the realistic depiction shows just how morality truly works. Morality is almost wholly synonymous with popular opinion in everyday life; it is not an absolute rule that is ever followed. It was moral in 1989 within Josie’s town to shun women who wanted a voice, who wanted equal treatment, and who were suffering from rape threats in their workplace.

The blatant misogyny due to Josie’s initial testimony being ignored until a man verified, the laughter at her words with arbitrary 3-minute rules made-up on the spot and then the respectful air once her father began speaking during the union meeting, and the willful ignorance towards Josie’s unhappy marriage in which her husband beat her paint an unsettling picture. Yet it should be clear to anyone without a bias: this morality came from the Abrahamic faiths and its blatant misogyny. The very person who saw the rape decided to attack Josie in the workplace and looked ready to rape her too. And yet, these actions were all conducted by what would be considered normal men and ignored by normal women who became inculcated in the male-dominated culture.

This film also shows the tyranny of the majority, because Josie would have failed had at least 3 others not rose up to support the class-action lawsuit. Yet, through it all, Josie proved that she was simply better as a human being compared to them all. The majority of people can be wholly wrong on a critical issue. They can be wrong about their closest held beliefs. Which is why the Abrahamic morality that has so pervasively engendered sexual harassment against women, rape against women, death upon women, and hatred for women must be thoroughly annihilated to its totality; it is fundamental to recognize that this was all caused by Abrahamic precepts about men, women, marriage, tolerance, and what constituted equality.

To break away, like Josie, proves that one is not only superior but above the herd of ignorance and bigotry. There are those intelligent enough to make their own choices and try to change circumstances within their societies but overwhelmingly there is the herd of people who simply stay in obedience to the culture. Josie simply proved that she was better than them.

“Hast thou ever known the word “disdain”?

And the anguish of thy justice in being just to those that disdain thee?

Thou forcest many to think differently about thee; that, charge they heavily to thine account.

Thou camest nigh unto them, and yet wentest past: for that they never forgive thee.

Thou goest beyond them: but the higher thou risest, the smaller doth the eye of envy see thee.

Most of all, however, is the flying one hated.

“How could ye be just unto me!”—must thou say—”I choose your injustice as my allotted portion.”

Injustice and filth cast they at the lonesome one: but if thou wouldst be a star, thou must shine for them none the less on that account!” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus;Spake Zarathustra. Page 67.