I have been spending a lot of time looking at materials on rape because of the recent California gang rape that I posted about a couple of days ago. Today I read this amazing piece (I am honestly not sure who the author is) about the nature of approaching a woman in public that is less heavy handed than the list of "DON'T BE A RAPIST/how to prevent sexual assault" tips I posted previously. I think every person should read this or be required to read this at some point in their lives. The most astounding statistic to take from the piece is that 1 in 6 women will be raped in their lifetimes, which creates some scary statistics about how many men are rapists.
One commentor had an amazingly astute response, which I've linked here, but I'm also copying for the sake of simplicity:
"You know, it never occurred to me before now, but I’ve never seen that “one in six” (or however many) statistic turned around that way, and I think that’s probably the other side of the “how not to get raped” coin. Or… I guess… the same side, but a different part of the etching. I don’t know, metaphor, not my strong suit.
MY POINT IS:
When we talk about rape as something that happens to 1 in 6 women, it is something that happens to women. Oh no, women! You have a problem! A women’s problem! That has to do with women! What are women going to do to solve this problem?
Perhaps if we rephrased that as “one in sixty (or however many) men will commit rape in his lifetime,” the problem might start to look a little different to certain people."
The point I feel like I'm coming back to, again and again, is that all materials on the nature of rape should not be PHRASED AROUND WOMEN or PHRASED AROUND THE SURVIVOR. I believe ardently that saying that 1 in 6 WOMEN will SUFFER from rape in their lifetime still somehow makes them implicit in the act. Rape isn't something that naturally happens without a perpetrator--somebody MAKES it happen, i.e. the RAPIST--and THIS PERSON is the one who should have statistics. Like "1 in 30 men will rape in his lifetime and 50% of these men will rape more than once." Doesn't that sound more truthful?
I acknowledge the fact that not all rapists are men, but still, hear me out: the RAPISTS are responsible for RAPE!!!!!!! MY CAPITAL LETTERS CAN NOT EXPRESS MY EXTREME OUTRAGE ENOUGH!!!
The bottom line is that rape is not the victim's problem to solve, ergo it is not a "woman's problem." Rape and sexual assaults are humanity's problems, period. End of story.
Kelly, I really liked that blog post you linked to. Reading the things you've posted have made me angrier and angrier, we need completely overhaul the rhetoric we use when we talk about rape. Why should I have to be in charge of preventing abuse against MYSELF? That is an insurmountable and probably impossible task.
ReplyDeleteYes, there is a lot to be said for common sense and not putting yourself in dangerous situations (and knowing how to defend yourself!). But the bottom line is that none of that is FAIR.
What infuriates me most about the California gang rape is that there were all these people around, they were basically ON SCHOOL PROPERTY, given that it was a school dance in RICHMOND, there were definitely officers THERE. None of that protected this girl from getting beaten and raped. It's so messed up.