The trouble with talking about sensitive topics is that it makes people squirm. WOMEN, as much as men, need to be educated about sexual violence. In recognizing rape as a crime, and taking it out of the shame category, women can become empowered to act out against it.
They’d rather not.
That’s why almost the entire male leadership of India has come out against the BBC documentary “India’s Daughter,” which tells of the violent gang rape and subsequent death of a young Indian woman back in 2012.
Rape means it’s against a woman or man’s volition.
But according to the Indian men, women ask for it.
How?
In this case, the woman was riding a public bus after sunset.
“A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night,” one of the attackers said in his defense. “A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy.”
The woman, then 23 and a medical student, was on her way home from seeing a movie.
India’s government has banned the film, which makes the young woman’s death all the more tragic.
FEMICIDE is a new word in the world’s lexicon and means the killing of a woman because of her gender.
The definition helps make femicide a distinct and legally defined crime.
The biggest challenge, however, is changing a culture that turns a blind eye to violence against women.
Many feel that if a woman stays in an abusive relationship then it mustn’t be all that bad, or, perversely, that she somehow enjoys being beaten.
That’s a goal of Kathy Redmond who as a student attending the University of Nebraska was raped — twice — by a Nebraska football player.
Redmond recently addressed members of the Kansas City Royals about how athletes, especially, feel entitled to rewards, including sex, which puts women in the category of objects.
This is a journey where men and women must walk together, side by side, hand in hand.
We are each other’s equals, but until we treat each other accordingly, women will continue to live in fear.
— Susan Lynn
If women are men’s equal, then why is rape rampant?
