The world has heard of the young woman who was raped by 6 men on a bus in Delhi in December, sexually brutalised with an iron bar and thrown off the bus, discarded like a MacDonalds burger wrapper. Following her death last weekend, some posts I have read on different blogs show just how far we still have to go to understand the reasons behind rape. One blog has focussed on women's dress and whether or not women should be out alone.
That young woman was not alone - she was with her boyfriend. And nothing has been said about her clothing, other than her attackers ripped it off her before attacking her and then throwing her and her boyfriend off the bus. There is nothing at all to suggest that anything more than a gang mentality of brutality was what caused this atrocity.
The simple fact of the matter is that rape is a brutal and violent means of control, of stronger against weaker, or gang against one. Nothing more. It has nothing whatsoever to do with desire, dress, safety in numbers, or any of the other bullshit excuses that people so tiredly trot out. If they can't explain it and don't want to accept it, well hey, why not blame the victim?
The excusists don't explain why the majority of rapes are carried out by someone the victim knows.
The excusists don't explain why it's okay for a guy to wear pretty much nothing, but if a woman does she's "asking for it".
The excusists don't explain why if dress and location really had anything to do with it, children, and the elderly are getting raped - in their own homes.
The excusists don't explain why rapists aren't content simply with the sexual act but often have to brutalise their victims even further with inanimate objects.
The excusists don't explain why a gang of youths would rape a wheelchair-bound intellectually disabled woman.
The excusists don't explain why a man finds it necessary to slip a drug into a woman's drink in order to incapacitate her before raping her. Perhaps because he knows if she is sober she will say no?
But hey, let's blame the victim!
Time to GET REAL guys and gals. Rape is NEVER okay. NEVER, EVER, EVER. Doesn't matter if the lady is drunk. Doesn't matter if the young girl is wearing a skimpy skirt. Doesn't matter if you think that woman looks like a slut (by whose standards?).
Rape is NEVER okay.
Rape is uninvited, non-consensual sex. There is NO excuse, NO justification, NO redeeming argument.
Rape is NEVER okay. If there is only one thing you learn in the whole of 2013, learn that!
No means no
Monday, 31 December 2012
Sunday, 30 December 2012
To be (angry) or not to be (angry)....
Anger can be a debilitating emotion. It can also be a very motivating and inspiring emotion. The challenge is to know whether your anger is destructive or constructive.
Most anger management instruction I have read tells me to "forgive". Well I can't forgive the action that made me angry. It was a violation of the very essence of my identity. I've had to live with it my entire adult life. Why shouldn't I be angry? Why should I forgive?
I read that "repressed memory" was a load of crap, but I know different - I suppressed memories of what happened to me for 19 years before they flooded back to haunt me. Now I can't get rid of them, no matter how I try.
I often wondered why there were so many books and articles written by women who had been violated in the most horrific ways. I realised that it was cathartic - the healing was in the writing, reliving the experience in words that could explain the emotions: the hurt, the shock, the distrust, the recoil, the disbelief, the self-doubt. The anger.
I decided it's okay to be angry.
I want to reach women who can't express their anger, who still feel that they are the guilty ones. I want them to know that being angry is okay, that they shouldn't feel - or be made to feel - bad because they are angry. Violation of mind and body is life changing. I know there are men who are violated as well, and it is not in any way my intention to marginalise them. But I can't speak from their experience, only from the perspective of a woman's anatomy.
So welcome to my journey, and if it becomes "our" journey may we use our anger constructively to help each other.
Because it's okay to be angry.
Most anger management instruction I have read tells me to "forgive". Well I can't forgive the action that made me angry. It was a violation of the very essence of my identity. I've had to live with it my entire adult life. Why shouldn't I be angry? Why should I forgive?
I read that "repressed memory" was a load of crap, but I know different - I suppressed memories of what happened to me for 19 years before they flooded back to haunt me. Now I can't get rid of them, no matter how I try.
I often wondered why there were so many books and articles written by women who had been violated in the most horrific ways. I realised that it was cathartic - the healing was in the writing, reliving the experience in words that could explain the emotions: the hurt, the shock, the distrust, the recoil, the disbelief, the self-doubt. The anger.
I decided it's okay to be angry.
I want to reach women who can't express their anger, who still feel that they are the guilty ones. I want them to know that being angry is okay, that they shouldn't feel - or be made to feel - bad because they are angry. Violation of mind and body is life changing. I know there are men who are violated as well, and it is not in any way my intention to marginalise them. But I can't speak from their experience, only from the perspective of a woman's anatomy.
So welcome to my journey, and if it becomes "our" journey may we use our anger constructively to help each other.
Because it's okay to be angry.
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