justaman said:
I love people on soap-boxes
I do not make such comments because I am racist, you
git, I make them because I have been quite affected by some off the horrific attrocities that occur in some third world countries. Sierra Leone is, arguably, one of the worst examples.
http://www.phrusa.org/research/sierra_leone/report_pr.html
It seems clear to me that you are intimately familiar with soap boxes. You are also familiar with tactics that advocate insulting the messenger when you are unable to provide a legitimate argument against the message. I am assuming that "you git" is not a compliment.
I am, sincerely, sorry for any pain that the sexual violence that is a part of the tribal and civil wars in Africa has caused you. My point simply is that this activity is not limited to Africa. Rape is a tool of war, full stop. And as war is not limited to third world countries, it has been found throughout Europe as well. The most recent example being the conflict in Bosnia-Hercegovina, where women were horded into "rape-camps." Rape was a tool of the Germans in both World Wars, it was a tool of the Russians to retaliate against the Nazis. Rape was used by the Japanese and by Pakistan in their wars against the Chinese and the India, respectively. And rape was a tool of America in the war in Vietnam. While the situation in Africa is in the forefront right now, it is not the only example of huge numbers of rapes and other violence against women that occur in some geographical and/or cultural locus.
This is not the case in the US, Australia, or any other western country. That is the truth. If you are still offended, I would suggest you get over it, as you have completely misconstrued what I've said.
You are right, currently situations like the one you refer to in Sierra Leone are not occuring in any western country. Would you have considered the former Yugoslavia a western country before the war? Germany is a western country. And while this activity has never happened on American soil, the sons of this Western society had no trouble exporting sexual violence to the soils of its enemies.
Very well, the US. Female population is approx 140 million. 6 million is approx 1 in 25.
As for 'finding my own facts', a quick search came up with this. Here is 1 in 6 completed
and attempted rapes throughout their lifetime. So the actual number of rapes would be significantly less than 1 in 6 (of course the higher percentage is shown because they are wanting the impact, which is completely understandable.) Since there is no ratio given between completed and attempted, it is difficult to know for sure what the true statistic is, and this is made worse by the lack of definition for what
constitutes an attempted rape. Regardless, your 1 in 3 stat fails again.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/svfacts.htm
I've no doubt. But I think those figures are not 1 in 3 for the US and 1 in 6 for Australia.
Just a few sentences later on the webpage you highlight the numbers say 1 in 4 college aged women are victimized during a four to six year period of their lives. As to completed or attempted rape, if a woman is forced to ground but her perp can't get it up and so get it in, does that lesson the impact on the victim. Where do you cross the line between an attempted mugging and a completed one. Is the man who is pushed to the ground and kicked any less a victim because somebody yells at his assailant and scares him away before he can get the wallet.
Further, as I pointed out earlier, the legal definition of rape differs from state to state in the US. Statistics say that one in seven women are the victims of marital rape. Marital rape often occurs with other types of domestic violence. These statistics are often not reported because only 17 states (USA) as of 2000, define rape by a spouse as a crime. Other situation, fondling instead of penetration, penetration with an object, oral penetration are not tracked as felony crimes. The detrimental impact on the victim is similar, but the impact on the law and reporting is not.
The heck are you talking about? I told you I had trouble believing them because they sounded waaay off. I believe that because I know lots of women and would not say one in three of them have been raped. Nor one in 6. In fact of all the women I have met personally in my life to date, I know of only one who has. This is why I don't believe your statistic.
Most women never tell anyone that they have been raped. And in my experience, eight years working with survivors, they rarely tell male friends and family memberrs. I have worked with married women who did not tell their spouses. I have heard two primary explanations for this -- one, they fear that their male friends/family would adopt vigilante justice and end up in jail, or two, they feel so dirty and so shameful that they assume that their male associates would blame them for the assualt. I have had reports of both those senarios playing out. Have you asked your female friends if they have been the victims of sexual violence? I am pretty certain that you would find that there is more than one of your female friends that has suffered sexual violence if you did.
Dont' believe the women, listen to the men:
8% of men admit committing acts that meet the legal definition of rape or attempted rape. Of these men who committed rape, 84% said that what they did was definitely not rape.
4.5% of men report forcing a woman to have sex.
More than one in five men report becoming so sexually aroused that they could not stop themselves from having sex, even though the woman did not consent.
35% of men report at least some degree of likelihood of raping if they could be assured they wouldn't be caught or punished.
Rapists commit approximately 14 rapes for each time the are caught.
Would you have as much trouble believing that 1 in 3 men are mugged in their lifetime?
That seems more reasonable [than 1 in 3 women being assaulted sexually]. But I'm unclear as to what you think you're highlighting here. Obviously you think I'm biased in some way. Care to illuminate me as to what regard?
So let me see -- 1 in 500 seems reasonable. But 1 in 25 also sounds reasonable. Hey, you can live with 1 in 6. But it absolutely could not be 1 in 3.
My guess is that you are a man who likes women and probably has male friends with similar values, and you can't comprehend that there are that there are many "civilized" men out there who hurt women sexually. It's odd, when we provided legal advocacy to women we usually prefered juries with more men than women (older women were the kiss of death.) We wanted men because men, as a general rule, more easily believe that men are capable of this kind of assault. Women don't want to believe that the handsome man, in the nice suit sitting so quietly and respectfully (who looks just like their nephew Charlie) could possibly do this bad thing.
There's nothing I respect more than individuals on this board reading one of my posts and thinking they instantly know all of my prejudices.
I have actually read several of your posts and I usually think that you make good sense. What do I know about your prejudices, nothing except that you have some. How do I know that? Because we all have some, none of us were raised in a vaccum.
If you took offense to my statement, and clearly you did, please believe me that none was intended. I said that I felt that you made a racist ( read, prejudiced) statement. That, for me at least, is not the same as being racist. I have made racist statements without thinking (maybe even one or two after thought,) but I would certainly not call myself a racist.
I think my statistics are pretty on the mark based on my experiences. You disagree based on yours. I hope we can agree that one rape is one too many.
Pax Christi,
Nyc