Read Online Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters by Jessica Valenti - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jessica Valenti
Ads: Link
culture of rape we live in keeps on trucking. This is one of the reasons feminism is so important. This isn’t about random acts of violence. This is about young men being brought up to look at women as less than human. Seriously, dehumanization is what makes people able to commit violence against each other.
That California rape case? Thankfully, guilty verdicts were handed down eventually. But the damage done to the young woman was irrevocable; she was completely dehumanized by the rape and by the legal system. Check out her statement to the judge.
❂ I cannot and don’t think I will ever be able to describe what I felt while watching that video. I remember asking myself, When did I become a piece of meat and not a human being to these men? They did things not even savage animals would do. They violated me in every way possible. . . . I was like a lifeless and feelingless doll that these men thought they could use and abuse in any way they wished. 8
It’s easy to get angry; this is some horrible stuff. But we need to look past the anger and ask some tough questions. The young men who raped this woman were people she thought were her friends. They were teenagers. What kind of culture are we living in that breeds guys who think this is reasonable, even cool, behavior?
What to Do, What to Do?
A term that’s used by a lot of feminists and other folks to describe this fucked-upness is “rape culture.” We live in a culture that essentially condones rape. Yeah, it’s illegal, but social and political conditions implicitly “allow for” rape. Like, how many men actually go to jail for rape? How many women are still blamed? Besides, you can’t tell me this isn’t a cultural problem when at least one in six women will be the
victim of an attempted or completed rape! Those aren’t small numbers—this is a huge problem, and it’s time we started treating it as such.
The problem is, too many “solutions” put the impetus for change on women—like safety measures. A woman in South Africa, for example, invented an anti-rape device for women in response to the high rates of sexual assault in her country. The device, which is kind of like a female condom (you have to wear it inside your vagina), will fold around the perpetrator’s penis and attach itself with microscopic hooks. 9 It’s impossible to remove without medical help. Now, sounds like justice for a rapist asshole, I know. But the problem is this: It’s up to the woman to protect herself against a rapist. It’s our job to make sure that we don’t get raped, not men’s responsibility to make sure that they don’t attack women. (And, of course, the device is problematic because women can be raped orally and anally, and I’m guessing putting hooks in a guy’s dick will probably make him pretty violent.) Women across the United States will take self-defense classes or carry safety whistles. They’ll put pepper spray in their purses and walk fast through parking lots. All good things, I guess. But we can’t keep running away. We should be able to walk the streets—or stay at home, for that matter—without fearing violence.
The South Carolina House Judiciary Committee voted in in 2005 to make cockfighting a felony, but tabled abill that would have done same for domestic violence.
Intimate Partner Violence
Most people are familiar with the term domestic violence, but intimate partner violence (IPV) is a newer term. When people think of domestic violence, they generally think of a boyfriend and girlfriend or a husband and wife. But violence can happen in any kind of relationship. IPV broadens the definition. It’s physical or emotional abuse by a partner, wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, an ex, or a date.
IPV affects both men and women, but women are disproportionately the victims of violence in relationships. Women make up 85 percent of the victims of IPV, and one-third of American women report being physically or sexually assaulted by a
That California rape case? Thankfully, guilty verdicts were handed down eventually. But the damage done to the young woman was irrevocable; she was completely dehumanized by the rape and by the legal system. Check out her statement to the judge.
❂ I cannot and don’t think I will ever be able to describe what I felt while watching that video. I remember asking myself, When did I become a piece of meat and not a human being to these men? They did things not even savage animals would do. They violated me in every way possible. . . . I was like a lifeless and feelingless doll that these men thought they could use and abuse in any way they wished. 8
It’s easy to get angry; this is some horrible stuff. But we need to look past the anger and ask some tough questions. The young men who raped this woman were people she thought were her friends. They were teenagers. What kind of culture are we living in that breeds guys who think this is reasonable, even cool, behavior?
What to Do, What to Do?
A term that’s used by a lot of feminists and other folks to describe this fucked-upness is “rape culture.” We live in a culture that essentially condones rape. Yeah, it’s illegal, but social and political conditions implicitly “allow for” rape. Like, how many men actually go to jail for rape? How many women are still blamed? Besides, you can’t tell me this isn’t a cultural problem when at least one in six women will be the
victim of an attempted or completed rape! Those aren’t small numbers—this is a huge problem, and it’s time we started treating it as such.
The problem is, too many “solutions” put the impetus for change on women—like safety measures. A woman in South Africa, for example, invented an anti-rape device for women in response to the high rates of sexual assault in her country. The device, which is kind of like a female condom (you have to wear it inside your vagina), will fold around the perpetrator’s penis and attach itself with microscopic hooks. 9 It’s impossible to remove without medical help. Now, sounds like justice for a rapist asshole, I know. But the problem is this: It’s up to the woman to protect herself against a rapist. It’s our job to make sure that we don’t get raped, not men’s responsibility to make sure that they don’t attack women. (And, of course, the device is problematic because women can be raped orally and anally, and I’m guessing putting hooks in a guy’s dick will probably make him pretty violent.) Women across the United States will take self-defense classes or carry safety whistles. They’ll put pepper spray in their purses and walk fast through parking lots. All good things, I guess. But we can’t keep running away. We should be able to walk the streets—or stay at home, for that matter—without fearing violence.
The South Carolina House Judiciary Committee voted in in 2005 to make cockfighting a felony, but tabled abill that would have done same for domestic violence.
Intimate Partner Violence
Most people are familiar with the term domestic violence, but intimate partner violence (IPV) is a newer term. When people think of domestic violence, they generally think of a boyfriend and girlfriend or a husband and wife. But violence can happen in any kind of relationship. IPV broadens the definition. It’s physical or emotional abuse by a partner, wife, husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, an ex, or a date.
IPV affects both men and women, but women are disproportionately the victims of violence in relationships. Women make up 85 percent of the victims of IPV, and one-third of American women report being physically or sexually assaulted by a
Similar Books
