As you may have noticed, I do more tweeting then blogging now. Much quicker on getting out my thoughts. Yesterday I tweeted this link : The FBI’s Restrictive Definition Of Rape and stated that this needs to be changed.
I received a comment back asking “have you something to talk about you are pretty hardcore on abuse of woman?” I responded back “Nope, just a feminist and every single of one of my close friends have suffered abuse.” The more I think about it, the more insulting and sexist their question was.
Why do I need to have “something” to talk about to address the issue about the abuse of women? If they actually read the article, it addresses the fact that rape of men are so, so poorly under reported and not even included. These are issues that effect MEN and WOMEN, not just women. It is a cycle that we must always work to break.
But then, their comment really had nothing to do with the article, since they didn’t read it, they really don’t see that comments/links I make are not just about women, they are about SOCIETY as a whole. Why do so many think that women issues are not HUMAN issues, that it does not effect them?
Why can I not talk about it for the simple fact that I am a human and I care about the human condition and ridding the world of violence? Why must I have story to give a damn? I actually have had a very good life, especially compared to my friends. But just because I had a good life doesn’t mean I shouldn’t care about others. Doesn’t mean that I don’t want others to have what I had, every one deserves to have a good life.
My question to them should’ve been, why don’t you care about these issues? If more people cared and was aware the issues, the violence will go down as we develop programs to address it.
Education and awareness is always the key to changing things. Which is why slaves where not allowed to learn how to read, it was illegal, why women weren’t allowed to be educated. An educated person is someone to be reckoned with, you can not just use them, fool them and abuse them.
They also made this comment “They should report any abuse to the authorities or their brothers .I have 0.0 respect for men who abuse woman.”
Ok….good on the zero respect for the abusers and for people who have no actual experience dealing with DV situations….a common comment. Sexist on the brother comment, why must a female always need to get a family man’s protection? Goes back to the history that women are nothing but property and chattel (which the GOP loves to treat us as).
But it really shows that they do not have any idea what an abuse victim goes through. All the complex issues that they face, child care, job safety, having a job, lack of family support, the fact that they are re-victimized by the system and it fails them on a continuous basis. Whether is from failure to enforcing a protective order, to not giving them, to abusers not giving a fig about a piece of paper, to blaming it on the victim.
After volunteering at a women’s shelter for many years, that simple statement that they made, doesn’t work.
More women, men and children are raped or killed by someone they know, not by the hyped up “strange danger”
How are these issues are just about women, when they effect all of us? And why don’t you care about them?