SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: A WORLD OF INDIFFERENCE

I just can’t understand why this is considered a non issue…an afterthought…a nuisance to most……

I am happy that the world has stopped turning and CNN has short circuited due to some high profile cases of police brutality…..that is a problem….and though there are no statistics available that I know of….I think it is fair to say that the great majority of black males have not been the victim of police brutality. I will define brutality the way it is defined on some cursory research:

Police brutality is the use of excessive and/or unnecessary force by police when dealing with civilians. “Excessive use of force” means a force well beyond what would be necessary in order to handle a situation.

How many males have experienced police brutality?, black or white males…? I don’t mean being pulled over and questioned, I mean “brutality”. The number has to be small, and a high percentage of those who are being brutalized are being detained due to criminal activity and possibly trying to elude law enforcement….

Now, before I go any further…let me make it clear that police brutality is a crime…it should be dealt with in earnest…hopefully recently publicized events will bring about change in this threatening behavior…hint: behavior that affects men much more than it does women….

But here is the part that shocks me…it is the biggest dinosaur in any room….why are we being sensitized to this….when the most common and chronic and long standing (since before caveman invented fire) acts of violence are perpetrated against women and girls? Where are the trumpets and riots and protests and calls to action and speeches, and torches in the streets over that….? It is amazing….the physically weakest group among us is epidemically the victim of sexual assault…it is like a cloud that lingers, and lingers….I’m not even talking about domestic violence unrelated to sex…

Here are some statistics (that we should all be informed of by our civic leaders, etc.)

“That one in five American women will have been raped in their lifetime is very striking and, I think, will be surprising to a lot of people,” said Linda C. Degutis, director of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which conducted the survey.Dec 14, 2011. That means if you are sitting in a room with 100 women….20 of them will have been the victims of rape (statistically speaking). They have done studies that demonstrate that PTSD is greater among rape victims than it is for returning combat veterans…..imagine a more horrific occurrence than another person entering your body against your will…and then leaving you in a heap…possibly impregnated, and possibly infected by a STD.

How come this doesn’t get any traction in the media, in Congress, among our clergy, etc.? Heck, the #1 pick in the NFL draft is a guy who has been accused of rape by a woman he had just met who was under the influence and who was brought to his room and the sex was recorded on his roommates cell phone. The video was later deleted before it could be reviewed by authorities….nothing happened to this football player whose behavior was not even hinted at by those on ESPN who reported today’s NFL draft with much pomp and circumstance…..

Here are some statistics: It is estimated that only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police. Of those 16%, only 25% of those will result in an arrest. Only about 5% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail. My friend spent a day in jail for throwing a soft drink in the face of someone (a man) who almost ran him over.

Can you imagine knowing that if you rob a bank only 16% of the time it will be reported, and only 25% of those times will you risk being arrested…and only 5% of the time will you spend any time in jail?

Rape is one of the most violent and degrading and objectifying acts in the human vocabulary….it is totally dehumanizing…but very, very, few people care…when I watched the NFL draft for a moment with some male counterparts there was not a whisper of discomfort that Jameis Winston, the #1 pick, and soon to be a multi-millionaire, has been accused of rape, has been suspended for (1) football for crude sexual comments made in the school cafeteria while standing on a table for all to hear. One man said, “he was never convicted”, “there is no proof”. O.K., I guess that is all I needed to hear…..O.J. Simpson was never convicted, neither was Bill Cosby, or Joseph Stalin for that matter…..

If he had beaten a boy in the streets or perpetrated violence against a gay individual I think people might have cared a little bit more….it wasn’t even a footnote. He has apparently moved past that incident, and so have we….

You can hear a pin drop when I bring this up with male counterparts….total indifference. It is not on their radar.…it reminds me of when I watched “To Kill a Mockingbird” as a child and I watched the jury stand up and convict Tom Robinson. These men knew he was innocent but they didn’t care….black people in that time and place in 1930’s Georgia weren’t considered to be equal or deserving of human rights….well, women are still living like second class citizens….and make not mistake, there is NO end in sight!!

1 in 5 women will be the victim of sexual assault..and there is no societal plan, no community outreach, not even a “neighborhood watch” to combat this extremely ubiquitous act of violence against our mothers, our sisters, our daughters, our girlfriends, our neighbors, etc….

The government declared war on cigarettes and now smoking is just a flicker of what it once was. We are now speaking out against greenhouse gases, water shortages, the non labeling of GMO foods…..where is the outrage over violence against women….? In a country where every President has been male, and until very recently, over 95% of all members of Congress have been men, why should we be surprised…? It is not their problem, right?…..

Here are some devastating statistics from countries other than the United States..

The UN reported results in 2013 from a study that they did in six Asia-Pacific countries about violence against women. 20.4% of Cambodian men said that they had raped a woman in their lifetime. 45% answered that sexual entitlement was their motive for raping a woman and 42% said they raped to punish a woman. 11.7% of rapists had raped 4 or more women. 52% first perpetrated rape as teenagers and 15.8% first did so under the age of 15.

The United Nations multi-country Study on Men and Violence in Asia and the Pacific asked men in urban and rural areas of China if they had ever forced a female to have sex. 22.2% said yes. 9.3% had done so in the past year. 55% of the men who had raped had done so more than once and 9% had raped four or more women. 86% cited sexual entitlement as the main reason for raping.

Rape is a very serious problem in Ethiopia, [90]and the country is infamous for the practice of marriage by abduction, with the prevalence of this practice in Ethiopia being one of the highest in the world. [91] [92] [93] [94]In many parts of Ethiopia, it is common for a man, working in co-ordination with his friends, to kidnap a girl or woman, sometimes using a horse to ease the escape. [95]The abductor will then hide his intended bride and rape her until she becomes pregnant. As the father of the woman’s child, the man can claim her as his wife. [96]Subsequently, the kidnapper may try to negotiate a bride price with the village elders to legitimize the marriage. [96]Girls as young as eleven years old are reported to have been kidnapped for the purpose of marriage. [97]

“In South Africa, rape is so common it barely makes the news. The rapes of elderly women and babies are outlined in four-line stories on the inside pages of local newspapers, but most sexual assaults get no public attention.

In the U.S. military the incidence of sexual assault is incredibly common and disturbing. It has only recently received ANY attention from the our nations politicians, only in the last 2 years. The Rand survey found that 62 percent of women who experienced a sexual assault and reported it endured some type of retribution or retaliation —

Sexual activity in marriage is, in many parts of the world, considered an absolute right of the husband that can be taken with or without the consent of his wife; the very act of a woman refusing to have sex with her husband may be considered unthinkable: in one survey, 74% of women in Mali said that a husband is justified to beat his wife if she refuses to have sex with him.

According to a 2014 study published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, approximately 47% of women surveyed in Finland were said to have suffered physical and/or sexual abuse.

In Germany the age of consent is 14, Are you kidding me? You can legally have sex with a 14 year old girl. Germany was the last European country to criminalize marital rape. Before 1997 a man could rape his wife at any time without any fear of being criminally prosecuted.

In Italy, traditional attitudes towards rape have been slow to change, although in recent years there have been many advances. During the first half of the 20th century, in Italy, like in many other places, rape victims were often expected and forced to marry their rapist.

Sexual Violence against women in Guatemala is considered “the worst of all the banana republics”. Violence against women has deep roots in Guatemalan society. Throughout the conservative society, women have little protection. Under the domestic abuse law, for example, charges can only be brought if a woman’s bruises are visible 10 days after the incident.

“Women have never been equal partners in this society,” Costantino said. They have always been looked on as property, he added. “This is a culture that has never wanted to confront its legacy of violence against women.”

And, let’s not forget one of the most disturbing narratives of all….the second largest religion in the world, one that is responsible for 24% of the world’s population, 1.6 billion people, is based on the subjectification and total control of women…..and, this religion is reproducing like rabbits…a new misogynist is born every second in that culture…..and, our own President dances around this…calls them “good muslim folk”. Don’t’ confuse the “good” muslims with the “bad muslims”., he says. I can’t believe what I am hearing…..I conveniently left muslim countries off the list of atrocities towards women….it was too much to bare….WE ARE CONDITOINED TO NOT CARE ABOUT WOMEN….it is the greatest Truth in the human race. How many men have you heard of in your lifetime are champions for women’s equality…? How many celebrities or elected officials who are male put their weight behind this? I can’t think of a single one……not one. YOU CAN HEAR A PIN DROP: Strange, because if you remove the female vagina from planet earth you will see men jumping off the nearest bridge, faster than you can say “Bill Cosby”.

Well, there you have just a taste of what it is like to be a women in this country, and across the world. It is nice to know that men in this country take this so very seriously…..it’s a yawn issue…. If you want to get their attention tell them they have erectile dysfunction…..I have (3) friends, that I know of, who have been raped. These are just people who have shared their rape incident with me….

It is ASTOUNDING …and I don’t expect things to change any century soon….I can assure you that almost every public ailment, from police brutality to cruelty against shellfish, will get higher priority and more political action than will violence against women and girls……

“all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Winston Churchill

Indifference, thy name is the American male…