1870 Rape Redux

Saturday, June 21, 2008

A few posts back I wrote that I thought the statistic that one in four women will have been sexually assaulted is much too low (here, and here). The following quote is from a woman who teaches women's self defense classes, the post it's from is at http://rhienelleth.livejournal.com/407377.html. She quoted the number she'd heard as one in six. A mere detail. She and I agree either way it's way too low.

"I once went out for a girl's night out with seven of my best girlfriends at the time. We drank, and stayed up late in our hotel room like an adult version of slumber party, and the subject of rape and molestation came up. There were eight of us in that room. With the dark, and the alcohol, and the friendship, it was the sort of time and place where you confessed things to one another that you never would in the light of day. Every single one of us had been assaulted at some time in her life, some more than once (by this I mean different perpetrators, different circumstances.) Out of eight women from different backgrounds, different lives, from roughly the same age bracket. And you know what? I can only think of one of us that ever pursued her attacker through the legal system, and that was two years after this occasion. One out of eight that ever legally reported the crime against her."

This has been my experience, too. About half the women with whom I have discussed the topic have been sexually violated in some way (and that's only the ones who were comfortable with admitting it). I don't mean groping, or harassment, or being hassled. I mean violation through some kind of physical or emotional coercion. I know sweet little old ladies who met and married their childhood sweethearts and stayed married to the man for 40 or 50 or 60 years, who have stories of the father, grandfather, uncle, neighbor, or boss who seemed to feel entitled to her body, and she didn't know she could say no, or didn't know how.
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