No More

I have said for a long time that I have feminist leanings.  This isn’t exactly true.  I’m a feminist, but how could I not be?  Especially after having a daughter.  While I grew up with the status quo, it doesn’t mean that she has to accept that this is just how things are and will be.

One of the issues that ignite my anger the most is rape.  How can the idea of rape not make people furious?  It shouldn’t be possible to accept that someone can be forced to have their body violated.  It is so completely unacceptable.  This is something that there shouldn’t be excuses for; something that should enrage anyone.  The incredibly crazy part is it doesn’t.  Excuses are made, the victims are blamed.  Even though the term date rape is part of our awareness, it’s still just ignored.  On fictional cop shows the rapist goes to prison, reality is a report probably won’t be taken seriously.

I have, unfortunately, had several friends that have been raped.  This is just the friends that have admitted that it has happened; who knows how many people I know that won’t admit it because of fear of being judged.  Consider that the U.S. Department of Justice states that in America a woman is raped every 2 minutes, the estimates of 37%, possibly as low as 26%, of rapes are even reported, and 92% of rapes the victim knows the attacker.  Yet we have politicians that classify between rape and “real rape”.  They aren’t the only ones, that’s the really sad part!

As I’ve said, I’ve had several friends that have experienced this problem.  None of them would qualify as “real rape”.  I had a friend go on a date, and while she was willing to kiss him she didn’t agree to sex, but he decided that she was going to anyway.  I have another friend that made the poor choice of drinking underage while on Spring Break; a guy drugged her drink.  She had some fuzzy memories, but knew something happened by her lack of clothing.  She didn’t feel comfortable reporting that she had been raped by two guys she didn’t know while she’d been drinking underage.  Really, they would have put zero effort into finding the guys but she would have been charged for underage drinking.  A friend that had an ex decide that even though she was saying no she really meant yes.  These are typical situations.  Honestly, I have a few women that I’ve known that were raped (they said no, they absolutely did not wish to have sex, but out of fear of being injured didn’t fight, but instead just “laid there and took it”), but they would insist that they weren’t really raped because they accepted the sex that was forced onto them.  THIS is also rape!  If you say no, you don’t want it, but are afraid of how severely he will hurt you if you don’t just lay there, possibly cry silently during it, then that is rape.  Yet all of these things are not what some lawmakers, prosecutors, and even police officers would call “real rape”.  For “real rape” you can’t know the man that attacks you (which statistically she’s more likely to know him) and you must fight using every ounce of strength that you have (because if he has not properly beaten you into submission you must have wanted it, but don’t let him beat you into unconsciousness because then it can be questioned if you consented by not continuing to fight.)  This is still the reality of what women face after being violated. 

We live in a society that cares more about analyzing how much the victim might have wanted it than protecting us.  What the woman was wearing still matters.  If she had ever had sex with him in the past still matters.  If she let him in her car or home (or has done so in the past) still matters.  Realistically, if I were to answer my door in the summer in short shorts and my ex was standing at the door asking to use the phone because his car broke down outside and he decided to rape me, odds are if I reported it there would be little done about it.  The culture of “what did the victim do?” still wins.  It shouldn’t matter if she was wearing a sundress that shows (gasp) her legs and shoulders, if she’s had sex before (and hence, would be willing to do it again), or is a virgin (and hence, just wants to claim it was rape so people won’t think badly of her), or any of the other excuses that are used.  I’d like to believe that in 2014 these things wouldn’t matter, but they do.

There have been improvements, don’t get me wrong.  Date rape is now part of our vocabulary, even if it is highly unlikely for it to actually be taken seriously legally.  Back in high school (many moons ago) I had a teacher (ironically, I believe, for sociology) and we had an interesting class discussion about his belief that girls shouldn’t have premarital sex, his belief that if you did it was a sign that you’d have sex with anyone, and how there were certain signs (like how you dress or if you smoke) that you were “easy”.  Mind you, I went to high school in the 1990’s, not the 1950’s.  For him, this wasn’t just his belief, but this was reality.  Unless you completely behaved a certain way it was a neon sign of being ready and willing.  His attitude isn’t completely aligning with mainstream thought at this point, but we are still too close to his views.

We like to think that we are more evolved.  I have seen articles about women, primarily in the Middle East, that are killed for being victims.  We think we are beyond punishing the victim.  We ARE NOT.  If a woman has the courage to go to the police she will face some very difficult moments.  There will be the hospital rape kit, which is humiliating in itself even though it is necessary to collect the evidence needed.  The having to repeat over and over what happened to you.  The woman has will be asked questions about her life, such as how many sexual partners she’s had and her sexual habits.  If, by chance, the police take it seriously and the prosecutor is willing to pursue the charges, any possible aspect of her life will be brought up as defense.  She once had a one night stand with a guy?  Well, then why should anyone believe that the man that raped her had to?  Rape allegations are the case where the victim has to try to prove that they’re not lying about the crime. 

This is part of why I am a feminist.  My daughter should not grow up thinking that by wearing something that a man finds intriguing (which literally could be anything), walking anywhere alone, being alone with someone that she thinks she can trust, or just not fighting as hard as she could have because of fear makes being violated alright.  It’s never alright, ever.  Right now though, she lives in a world where that’s how it works, but it shouldn’t have to stay that way.