The Reel Deal: Women, Policy, and Autonomy

Part I of V

“Why do men feel threatened by women?” I asked a male friend of mine. – – So this male friend of mine, who does by the way exist, conveniently entered into the following dialogue. “I mean,” I said, “men are bigger, most of the time, they can run faster, strangle better, and they have on the average a lot more money and power.” “They are afraid women will laugh at them,” he said. “Undercut their world view.” Then I asked some women students in a quickie poetry seminar I was giving, “Why do women feel threatened by men?” “They’re afraid of being killed,” they said.

Source: ‘Writing The Male Character’ (1982), p. 413 in “Second Words – Selected Critical Prose 1960-1982” (2018)”

― Margaret Atwood

AKA: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.

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   We have to acknowledge that climbing has a harassment and sexual violence problem, particularly toward women. Content warning for this entire article: sexual harassment, sexual abuse, abuse, and bullying. And I have touched on this issue before in my article/podcast Hidden Figures: The Villain Arc.¹

   This will be one of the heavier subjects due to the extreme case that ended in a conviction of a serial woman abuser as well as the call out of an online harasser. The ripple effect of that behavior is something that will be felt in the community for a long time. But most specifically the affected subject of today is Reel Rock, specifically having to do with the films The Cobra and the Heart and Death of Villains.²

   I want to fully recognize that this type of harassment, violence, and sexual criminal behavior from men also span to the LGBTQIA2S+ community³ as well. However, due to the cis gender and straight individuals involved in both examples here, the lens will be mostly focused on cis gender, straight women.

   In order to analyze current events, we must understand the culture in which Reel Rock is born from both internally and society at large. We will take a look at the history and origin story of Reel Rock, analyze the rhetoric around the controversial films, US policies that have controlled women’s lives, and how it all intersects with the view of women being property and therefore more at risk to physical and sexual violence and harassment due to this outdated view which still haunts us through attitudes which become harmful action.

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   Let’s take a look at the big picture: it is a well known fact worldwide women have often been placed in a second class citizen situation and have even gone as far as to be persecuted. Especially in colonial and colonized places. This is indisputable. In the United States there have been numerous policies that have placed women in compromising quality of life situations that so often end in death. Before we dive into anything climbing community specific, we have to understand the climate in which we have been operating. This is by no means an all encompassing history of women’s rights, however, there are a few points needing to be illustrated for the sake of fully understanding violent and sexual abuse motivated behavior.

   One note: these sources all almost exclusively use the term “women” and “married”, but it is not an all encompassing term due to straight cis gender white women having a very different experience than women of color and queer people. Therefore, to be very clear I have inserted the word “white” before the term “women” and “straight” before the term “married” where it has not been specified. This further does not account for marriage situations that queer people survived in such as straight presenting marriages. But for all intended purposes, only the word straight is used because by surviving in those marriages, a certain amount of privilege was invoked even if the marriages were extremely difficult situations.

• 1841
  • “To be truly equal in an ever more capitalist United States, you needed control over your money. You needed access to a bank.”⁴ White women could not have bank accounts and Black women definitely could not due to being enslaved
  • “…Mississippi became the first state to allow [white] women to own property outright in their own names. Any perceived patina of progressiveness here is illusory; the property Mississippi allowed [white] women to own was restricted to slaves.”⁵ Truly any perceived patina of progressiveness is that only white women were allowed to not be enslaved like Black women
• 1848
  • “In 1848, the same year as the first [white] women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York state took the lead again by granting [straight] married [white] women the right to collect rent, own their own property, and enter contracts. Importantly, it also removed their liability from their husband’s debts in certain situations. It took another 52 years [1900] for every state to adopt similar laws. The deeply sexist arguments against these laws often overlapped significantly with those against [white] women’s suffrage: [white] women were unable to perform the regular duties of men in the economy, and that allowing them to do so would upend civilization itself, plunging the nation into chaos.”⁶ Enslaved Black people were still very much an institution at this point and Indigenous people were not afforded any “citizenship” rights so this conversation is only centered around white women. Enslaved women were participating in the economy, however, in a one sided interaction where none of the wealth, power, or privilege was awarded to them for their hard work. A very different conversation for sure.
• 1862
  • “The passage of the Homestead Act in 1862 signaled one of the most important advancements in the economic rights of [white] women. Infamous for encouraging the seizure of land in the American West from native tribes in the service of pioneer settlement and for exposing indigenous people to colonial violence, the legislation offered many [white] women their first opportunity to own property. Under the terms of this law, any [white] woman—single, widowed, divorced, or abandoned—could claim up to 160 acres of land for herself and in her own name. In some territories, up to 20 percent of land claims were made by [white] women. Yet for [white] women who were unwilling or unable to move West, there remained few options for building wealth.”⁷ A reminder that Black people and women were not able to legally own any property, especially land. And that this land for sale, was actually violently displacing Indigenous peoples: a morally terrible way to start off building wealth for any gender
• 1865
  • Slavery was abolished in the United States⁸
  • Segregation started⁹

“…Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) providing for the allocation of “unoccupied land” to freedmen (not to exceed 40 acres) – rather than 40 acres as requested, Congress allowed the Freedmen’s Bureau to sell only 5 to 10 acre tracts of land to freed slaves.”¹⁰ A reminder that Black women were still technically not legally able to make contracts, own property, sue in court, or enjoy the full protection of federal law. Owning property that white people had violently displaced Indigenous peoples again, is a morally terrible way to start building wealth for any race

• 1866
  • “During Reconstruction, Congress passed several statutes aimed at protecting the rights of the formerly enslaved, many of them over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. One such law was the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which declared that all people born in the United States were U.S. citizens and had certain inalienable rights, including the right to make contracts, to own property, to sue in court, and to enjoy the full protection of federal law.”¹¹ This means Black women in particular were awarded this right approximately 18 years after white women. And even though it may have been law does not mean everyone would abide by it
• 1899
  • The National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWAL) was created.¹² It is almost guaranteed no Black women were admitted at the time and their website makes no mention of the first one to be admitted to their club. Segregation still in effect: white and colored signs appeared about this time.¹³ The NAWAL did a lot of work for white women’s liberation

• 1924
  • Indigenous people are granted US citizenship.¹⁴ An oxymoron really
• 1964
  • Segregation ended.¹⁵ Everything from here on theoretically extended to Black women as well
• 1969
  • “During that time, divorces were also “fault-based,” meaning there needed to be abuse, infidelity, or some other reason to justify a split.”¹⁶ Women could not leave their husbands easily, if at all
  • “Since 1969, studies have shown no-fault divorce correlates with a reduction in female suicides and a reduction in intimate partner violence.”¹⁷ Marital rape was legal and therefore not an eligible reason to file for divorce, leaving women open to being victims of mistreatment
• Pre 1970’s
  • “It’s also the foundation for why, prior to the 1970s in the U.S., marital rape was still legal, and a woman could not obtain a driver’s license, get a passport, or register to vote unless she took her husband’s last name.”¹⁸
  • “Married women owned nothing—not even the clothes on their backs. They had no rights to their children, and no rights to their bodies, so men could send their wives out to labor, and [the men] could collect the wages. He also had an absolute right to sexual access. Within marriage, a woman’s consent was implied, so rape was legitimate.”¹⁹ Translation: your husband could rape you and it would not be a legitimate fault for a divorce
  • “Coverture is a legal formation that held that no female person had a legal identity,” explains Allgor. “A female baby was covered by her father’s identity, and then, when she was married, by her husband’s.” Under coverture, a husband and wife became “one” under marriage. “It sounds romantic, but the ‘one’ was the husband,” Allgor continues. “She becomes, and this is the phrase, ‘legally dead.’ So it’s not that women take the last names of their husbands, which is how we think of it—it’s that they become part of [the husband’s] body. She does not exist in law, only the husband does.”²⁰ A common practice, even today
• 1974
  • “The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 gave every American woman, married or not, the right to open her own bank or credit account. It outlawed discrimination by both sex and race in banking. It is easy to forget today that this right has existed nationally for fewer than fifty years.”²¹ So although all women were legally allowed to make contracts, own property, sue in court, and enjoy the full protection of federal law since 1866: a bank had every right to deny a woman a bank account in which to hold her funds or do business from. A major roadblock for sure in so many ways
• 1983
  • “…most state criminal codes had rape definitions that explicitly excluded spouses…By 1983, when TIME devoted an issue to “private violence,”²² 17 states had gotten rid of the rules that made spousal rape impossible to prosecute… the vast majority of cases brought in the first years after 1979 led to a conviction…Today, spousal rape is illegal throughout the U.S.”²³
• 1986
  • Crystal Hudelson (hello, it’s me!) was born. I am 39 years old
    • Approximately 3 years after most states agreed marital rape is a crime
    • 12 years after it was mandatory to let every race and gender have their own bank account regardless of marriage status
    • 17 years after no fault divorce was law
    • 22 years after segregation ended
    • 8 years before the Violence Against Women Act was in effect
• 1994
  • “The Violence Against Women Act, signed by President Bill Clinton on Sept. 13, 1994, was the first federal legislative package to designate domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes and require a community-coordinated response to violence against women.”²⁴
  • “…crimes that “thrive in silence,” like domestic violence and sex trafficking, out from behind closed doors and turned sexual violence into a societal and cultural issue rather than just a private one… It became more difficult for perpetrators to operate with complete impunity as the criminal justice system began to take sexual violence crimes more seriously.”²⁵
• 2004
  • “A 2004 paper by economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolvers²⁶ found an 8 to 16% decrease in female suicides after states enacted no-fault divorce laws. They also noted a roughly 30% decrease in intimate partner violence among both women and men, and a 10% drop in women murdered by their partners.”²⁷
• 2010
  • California was the first state to adopt no fault divorce in 1969, and the last, New York, in 2010²⁸
  • “During that time, divorces were also “fault-based,” meaning there needed to be abuse, infidelity, or some other reason to justify a split.”²⁹ And remember: before the 1970’s marital rape was not a justifiable reason to divorce
• 2015
  • Same sex marriage legalized in all 50 states. “gay marriage had already been made legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia — by either legislative or voter action or by federal courts that overturned state’ bans.”³⁰ Up until now (depending on the state), the only access to power for married couples was to be in a straight appearing relationship in the eyes of the law
• 2025
  • Married people, most often women, take their husband’s last name in accordance with the tradition of couverture. “An estimated 69 million American women and 4 million men do not have a birth certificate that matches their current legal name” including name change due to marriage. “Several voting rights groups warn the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act³¹ — which purportedly aims to block non-citizens from voting, something that is already illegal — will pose a barrier for millions of American women and others who have changed their legal name because of marriage, assimilation or to better align with their gender identity.”³² In a calculated twist of policy: an age old tradition of couverture used to control in legalities is now a different way to shut out millions of people from voting

   After viewing such a grim history of how women have been able to operate in US society, it is clear that we have come a long way. I was born in 1986 and only 12 years earlier (in my mother’s lifetime) it was legal for a banking institution to deny her a bank account without a husband. Also, I was born only 22 years after the abolishment of segregation: that was not that long ago. I was personally awestruck by this.

  A few things I would like to highlight would be specifically around marriage. And the first thing to tackle would be the inability of women to own property, acquire a bank account, and/or vote. I have seen a lot of people talk about how they want a marriage like their grandparents had: 50 or more years together. Well, in light of these policies that encouraged women to attach themselves to men aka power, was it truly love or was it survival? How much will a woman put up with in order to survive and try to adhere to societal expectations? And here is where we open the door to abuse. The person in power is the one society has deemed worthy of opening a bank account, voting, and owning property, etc: cis gender men. And specifically for a long time, white cis gender men.

   The numbers speak for themselves: once fault based divorce was dissolved, women experienced less abuse and suicide because we were able to leave and see a way for us to operate in society of our own volition. A woman trapped in a marriage having the knowledge that leaving meant a whole other host of problems would be a difficult decision to make; especially if your mental health was tested constantly in the abusive relationship.

   And before anyone says “well not all men”, that is true. However, we never truly know a person’s true character until they have a taste of power. A taste of control over someone else financially and emotionally because society has emboldened them to do so. For those of you who are saying “not all men”, it seems you are more interested in defending the status quo than truly scrutinizing the systems that have empowered ill men to spiral into abusive behaviors. The conversation should not be about “not all men”, it should be about the women and how we can empower ourselves to have choices to leave the men who are actually abusive. The fact that policy had deemed for a very long time that marital rape was legal (which is another type of abuse), shows that ill men have been in charge for a very long time. The Violence Against Women Act in 1994 “was the first federal legislative package to designate domestic violence and sexual assault as crimes and require a community-coordinated response to violence against women.” It appeared it was up to the states to make provisions for people to prosecute marital rape, which came about slowly since the 1970’s. However, that was not that long ago.

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Works Cited

1. Hudelson, Crystal. “Hidden Figures: The Villain Arc.” https://rockrose.blog/2024/12/16/hidden-figures-the-villain-arc/ 03/27/2025
2.  Reel Rock. https://reelrocktour.com/pages/rr19-films 03/27/2025
3. The Trevor Project. “Sexual Violence and Suicide Risk among LGBTQ+ Young People”https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/sexual-violence-and-suicide-risk-among-lgbtq-young-people/ 03/27/2025
4.  Rose, Ian. “A Bank of Her Own.” https://daily.jstor.org/a-bank-of-her-own/ 03/22/2025
5.  Rose, Ian. “A Bank of Her Own.” https://daily.jstor.org/a-bank-of-her-own/ 03/22/2025
6.  Rose, Ian. “A Bank of Her Own.” https://daily.jstor.org/a-bank-of-her-own/ 03/22/2025
7.  Rose, Ian. “A Bank of Her Own.” https://daily.jstor.org/a-bank-of-her-own/ 03/22/2025
8.  Historic Article. “Dec 18, 1865 CE: Slavery is Abolished.”https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/slavery-abolished/ 04/01/2025
9.  History.com Ediors. “Segregation in the United States.”https://www.history.com/articles/segregation-united-states 04/01/2025
10. Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund with additions from Teaching for Change. “Significant Dates on Black Land Loss and Land Acquisition.” https://www.civilrightsteaching.org/resource/timeline-black-land 04/01/2025
11.   Federal Judicial Center. “Civil Rights Act of 1866.”https://www.fjc.gov/history/timeline/civil-rights-act-1866 04/01/2025
12.  NAWL. “Who We Are.” https://www.nawl.org/who-we-are 04/01/2025
13.  Jim Crow Museum. “Jim Crow and the 1890s.”https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/links/misclink/1980s.htm 04/01/2025
14. Native American Rights Fund. “Native Americans and Immigration Enforcement — Know Your Rights.”https://narf.org/citizenship-immigration-2025/ 04/01/2025
15.  History.com Ediors. “Segregation in the United States.”https://www.history.com/articles/segregation-united-states 04/01/2025
16. Jackson, Ashawnta. “The Lost History of No-Fault Divorces.” https://daily.jstor.org/the-lost-history-of-no-fault-divorces/ 04/03/2025
17. Willingham, AJ. “ What is no-fault divorce, and why do some conservatives want to get rid of it?”https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html 04/03/2025
18. Zlotnick, Sarah. “Why Women Traditionally Took Their Husband’s Last Names.”https://www.brides.com/why-do-women-take-husband-last-name-5116974 04/03/2025
19. Zlotnick, Sarah. “Why Women Traditionally Took Their Husband’s Last Names.”https://www.brides.com/why-do-women-take-husband-last-name-5116974 04/03/2025
20. Zlotnick, Sarah. “Why Women Traditionally Took Their Husband’s Last Names.”https://www.brides.com/why-do-women-take-husband-last-name-5116974 04/03/2025
21. Rose, Ian. “A Bank of Her Own.” https://daily.jstor.org/a-bank-of-her-own/ 03/22/2025
22. Rothman, Lily. “When Spousal Rape First Became a Crime in the U.S.” https://time.com/3975175/spousal-rape-case-history/ 04/03/2025
23. Rothman, Lily. “When Spousal Rape First Became a Crime in the U.S.”https://time.com/3975175/spousal-rape-case-history/ 04/03/2025
24. Hoang, Vivian. “What to know about the Violence Against Women Act as the landmark law turns 30.”https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-to-know-about-the-violence-against-women-act-as-the-landmark-law-turns-30 04/03/2025
25. Hoang, Vivian. “What to know about the Violence Against Women Act as the landmark law turns 30.”https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-to-know-about-the-violence-against-women-act-as-the-landmark-law-turns-30 04/03/2025
26. Betsey Stevenson, Betsey and Justin Wolvershttps, Justin. “Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law.” https://users.nber.org/~jwolfers/papers/bargaining_in_the_shadow_of_the_law.pdf 04/04/2025
27. Willingham, AJ. “ What is no-fault divorce, and why do some conservatives want to get rid of it?”https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/27/us/no-fault-divorce-explained-history-wellness-cec/index.html 04/03/2025
28. Jackson, Ashawnta. “The Lost History of No-Fault Divorces.”https://daily.jstor.org/the-lost-history-of-no-fault-divorces/ 04/03/2025
29. Jackson, Ashawnta. “The Lost History of No-Fault Divorces.”https://daily.jstor.org/the-lost-history-of-no-fault-divorces/ 04/03/2025
30. Chappell, Bill. “Supreme Court Declares Same-Sex Marriage Legal In All 50 States.”https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/06/26/417717613/supreme-court-rules-all-states-must-allow-same-sex-marriages 04/03/2025
31. Congress.gov. “H.R.22 – SAVE Act.”https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/22 04/04/2025
32. Panetta, Grace and Rodriguez, Barbara. “An effort to block non-citizens from voting could impact married women, too.”https://19thnews.org/2025/03/save-act-voting-married-women/ 04/04/2025