Thursday, May 29, 2008
Caught a few minutes of the Montel show this morning. Montel isn't looking good. It really does look like the pain is getting to him.
Anyway, the topic was child molestation, and his guests were women who had been molested by fathers or step-fathers. He said that 1 in 4 women will have been raped at some time in their lives. I don't know where he got that figure, but it seems to me like it should be higher. Much higher.
Of all the women friends I've talked with at an intimate level, about half say they were were molested to some degree as a child by a family member or close friend of the family. Of my four closest female family members and myself, all five of us were molested as children, by family members or neighbors. And by the time we realized it was wrong, or that we wouldn't be punished for telling, it's too late and there's no objective proof.
Almost all the women I know intimately have at one time or another as an adult been coerced into sex, to the point where it IS rape, but we didn't press charges because it wasn't stranger rape, it was date rape, and maybe we could have avoided it but it was safer and easier to acquiesce, because we felt guilty for things getting to that point, and therefore we know that there's no point in reporting it, because the only person who will be punished is ourselves. So instead, we believe the men who tell us it was our own fault, that we were "asking for it" (simply by existing, I guess), and we blame ourselves. Especially if we're young.
By the time I was in my mid-20s, they had beaten me down. I'd been forced and emotionally coerced and told it was my fault for "leading them on" so many times I was afraid of men, and I had no self-respect left. I thought it really was my fault. And back then, women and women's magazines didn't talk about it. It was a shameful topic. None of us knew that it was happening to anyone else. So we thought "It must be me. I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I AM bad, and they see that."
I think Montel's number, 1 in 4, is too low. That's probably what "they" know about. I think a lot more children are molested than anyone will ever know.
What the hell is it with men?
Things may be better now for adult women than they were when I was a young woman. Back then, men seemed to think they could get away with anything as far as women were concerned. Not so very long ago, wives were chattel. Men were literally allowed to beat their wives and children. I'm not blowing smoke. Through the late '50s and early '60s my brother and I tried everything to stop our father's abuse - we told police, teachers, doctors, neighbors, everyone - and they all just shrugged and told us to obey him and keep out of his way. The workers in the hospitals had to know where the injuries came from, but they never said or did anything. The term "domestic violence" hasn't been in common usage for very long. "Women's liberation" was REAL. Young women today have no idea what was accomplished, and it distresses me when I see them throwing it away.
Oh, well.
Re an Ex -
Q: Why on earth did you marry the guy knowing he was completely impotent?
A: I didn't know he was impotent. I thought he was the only man I'd ever met who respected me.
.
4 comments:
It's odd - I was thinking about this just the other day. I have been in this situation with two men, thinking it was easier to just go ahead and get it done with than say no. I was afraid if I said no, the consequences would be far worse. One was a guy in college. The other was my husband.
As a guy I was amazed at how high that 1 in 4 figure was. I'd be interested in knowing how many men have committed those offenses, I'd like to think less than 1 in 4 considering serial and repeat offenders.
I was molested at 6 years of age but I can't imagine that for men it's anywhere close to that figure because it's a different situation.
Oh - as for men beating their wives. Sometimes they weren't allowed to get away with it. Long ago, in the backwoods of Georgia, my great-aunt's husband beat her. She complained to family members who took the husband for a long walk in the woods. He did not come back and was never seen again.
I've heard the one in four number. Some co-workers were doubting it, and I said, "Well, let's say it's sexual assault. Who hasn't had a date, or a stranger, grab your breast without asking?" Everyone had had a stranger grab them. EVERYONE. Six women.
Becs- when he was 24, my great-uncle came back and whaled on the foster father who had beat him growing up. My great-uncle was arrested, then the sherrif deliberately left the jail door wide open overnight.
Post a Comment