Violence against women is a scourge on the planet. When I’m asked what is the greatest human rights violation in the world today, I respond, violence against women. Female genital mutilation, honour killings, dowry deaths, forced marriage, sexual slavery, trafficking to serve the demands of prostitution and pornography, female foeticide and infanticide….the list goes on. Women and girls are ground down, reduced to nothing, in so many parts of the world.
Yet so far this International Women’s Day, I’ve heard a lot about lack of female representation in corporate board rooms (I’m not saying this isn’t important) but little about this barbarity which seems to go unabated.
So I was pleased just now to come across this piece about the global pandemic of sexual violence against women and girls.
It’s written by Kate Ravenscroft from Victoria , a blogger at www.16impacts.wordpress.com and a survivor of sexual assault. She also tells us she’s handy at making crumpets from scratch, likes to take photos and is a sometime specialist in contemporary French cinema. She also understands the global horror of sexual violence, affecting one in five women in the world. Here’s Kate’s piece reprinted with permission.
In honour of the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, I wanted to share this with you:
10 Reasons We All Need to Care About Preventing Sexual Violence
Perhaps you think sexual assault is an individual problem? One that affects the victim, and those close to her and, of course, the police and the Office of Public Prosecutions but, beyond that? Why should anyone else care? Why is it any business of mine if some bad man commits rape? Sure, it’s terrible but that’s not my problem, right?
Wrong. Sexual assault is not an individual problem. It does not concern only those affected, only those victimised and their loved ones. It is not merely the concern of the law enforcement and legal systems. It is an urgent social problem, a global health crisis, and an international pandemic, that affects all of us.
On the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day, here are 10 reasons why YOU, too, need to care about preventing sexual violence:
1. We all know someone who has been the victim of sexual violence.
One in five women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.* One in five women, globally – it bears repeating. In fact, it beggars belief. That’s roughly 10% of the global population and yet, that is a conservative estimate.
Statistics can be pretty meaningless, pretty hard to make sense of, but this is one that is so significant it’s hard not to translate into reality. How many families contain at least five women? How many workplaces and friendship groups and clubs? How many times a day do you stand in a room with at least five women? Statistically, every time you gather with at least five women, at least one of those women will have been the victim of sexual assault. Whether or not we are aware of it, we all know a victim of sexual violence.
2. Sexual violence is a global pandemic.
Sexual violence knows no geographic, cultural, religious or socio-economic barriers – it occurs in all cultures, all countries, everywhere. Across the world women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria. In 2002 alone, the UN estimated that 150 million girls under 18 suffered some form of sexual violence. Seventy percent of women will suffer some form of violence, sexual or otherwise, in their lifetime.* Statistics such as these could be reported ad infinitum, so common is sexual violence in our communities. Violence against women is so rampant and pervasive that it is globally the most frequent human rights abuse occurring.
3. Sexual violence is a devastating crime with extensive, long term consequences.
The impacts of sexual assault are almost impossible to quantify or qualify. Not only are they devastating and intensely destructive but they are also personal and unique to each victim. Physical, psychological, emotional, social, sexual, financial, professional – the consequences of sexual violence extend to every aspect of life. Self-esteem and self-worth are often destroyed. Physical and mental health complications arise and can continue throughout the victim’s life. Trust and confidence in society and other people are savaged. The capacity to hold down a job, support oneself and contribute productively to society are all undermined. Quality of life, health and happiness, autonomy and security are all damaged by sexual violence.*
The entire course of a life is derailed and in many ways the task of recovering from sexual violence is the task of rebuilding a life anew. Only it’s not really anew. Rather, the knowledge of what could have been, had violence not intervened, will always be there. At the very least, for the rest of their life, the victim will carry the horrifying knowledge of violence with them. At the very worst, the specific, individual consequences of the crime will continue to burden and determine the course of their life, for the rest of their life.
4. Sexual violence doesn’t just devastate individuals.
It devastates families and communities, too. Around each victim is a network of people who will be affected to varying degrees by the consequences of sexual violence. Supporting someone you know and care about through a traumatic, violent and criminal, experience can be deeply distressing, stressful and costly for family members, friends and others close to the victim. The consequences of providing this support can include physical, psychological, emotional, social and financial costs. These are costs that the supporter, like the victim herself, may have to bear for the rest of their life.
The impacts of violence are insidious and extensive, complex and subtle. Sexual violence savages the victim’s relationships to others and to society. It destroys their trust in people and their confidence in ordinary situations. This is of vital significance to all of us. When distrust and fear permeate our communities and define the way members of our society live amongst each other, we create a lesser community, a lesser society for all of us to live in.
5. Sexual violence is a human rights abuse.
“Inherent dignity”, “equal and inalienable rights”, “freedom from fear”, “the right to security of person” and protection from “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” are all enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If these really were the standards we set for human behaviour, then every incidence of sexual violence, all sexual violence, would be not just a tragedy but a travesty. It would be irrefutably criminal and clearly prosecutable. It is impossible to wholeheartedly believe in the inherent dignity of all human beings and their fundamental and inalienable right to security of person and rape them. Without the inferred right to bodily integrity and bodily autonomy, “security of person” means little. Sexual violence, and violence against women, is rarely framed in human rights terms, but once we take seriously women’s full and equal rights, it can hardly be framed otherwise.
6. Sexual violence is a clear indicator of gender inequality.
The single greatest risk factor for becoming a victim of sexual assault is being a woman.* Violence against women is a systemic, and literally deadly, expression of a fundamental gender inequity at the heart of every human society. Sexual violence, and all violence against women, not only reflects this fundamental inequality but moreover perpetuates it. Truly egalitarian attitudes and beliefs are simply incompatible with sexual violence, with forcing or coercing a sexual partner or with any kind of violent behaviour. What any form of sexual violence against women shows is an essential lack of respect for women. It fails to see that women have full and equal rights and that any sexual activity needs to take those rights into account. To put it bluntly, it refuses women the right to not only choose, accept and initiate sexual activity as they see fit, but equally to refuse any sexual activity at any time, under any conditions, according to their own desires. A culture that doesn’t value a woman’s voice, that does not listen to women, will have trouble respecting a woman’s right to choose when, where, how and with whom she engages in sexual activity. Such a culture perpetrates violence against women at alarming levels.
7. Sexual violence costs all of us dearly.
In 2009, violence against women cost the Australian public an estimated $AUD 13.6 billion. If nothing changes, ie. if things stay as they are now, this is set to rise to $AUD15.6 billion by 2021.* Quite simply this is a phenomenal, and burdensome, waste of money. Recent Australian research has identified that even a modest reduction in the perpetration levels of violence against women could save the Australian economy over $AUD300 million in lost productivity alone. It has to be asked, has anyone pointed this out to Canberra?
8. Sexual violence is the least successfully prosecuted crime.
Not only is sexual violence less likely to be reported than other crimes, but, when it is reported, it is less likely to result in charges being laid, less likely to be prosecuted and less likely to lead to conviction than other crimes.* In fact, overwhelmingly, both the law enforcement and legal systems, in Australia and internationally, are highly ineffectual and unsuccessful in their response to sexual violence. A crime which cannot be successfully prosecuted is, in effect, a ‘no-crime’ crime – a crime which society tacitly condones, a crime with no punishment. The failure to successfully prosecute sexual violence (along with the inability to hear women’s voices and testimony and to respond to it), is yet another way that we fail as a society to protect, and take seriously, women’s human rights.
9. Sexual violence is a form of terrorism.
Sexual violence is undoubtedly the most pervasive form of terrorism in the world today (and has been for a very long time). It is a violent act intended to create fear which deliberately targets civilians. The ideological aim of sexual violence is to create, and perpetuate, women’s vulnerability and therefore their inferiority. The perpetrator enforces his victim’s submission with the aim of not just subjugating this one woman for the duration of the assault but, with the expectation of creating and enforcing gendered roles that the rapist sees as ‘correct’: male dominance and female submission, especially in regards to sexual behaviour.* The aim of sexual assault is to effect permanent change in the victim and to cause lasting psychological damage. What is phenomenal about this is that, in a world that spends so much time, energy and money discussing terrorism and creating counter-terrorist measures, we are still so complicit, and have so resoundingly failed to extricate ourselves, from the everyday, ongoing terrorism that sexual violence continues to perpetrate against women everywhere.
10. We can end sexual violence.
Unlike most traumatic events – disease, natural disasters, accidents – sexual violence is a human behaviour which is completely under our control. We can end sexual violence. That ever increasing body of statistics could start declining today. It is both possible and imminently achievable. All it takes is a commitment to respectful relationships, a decision to refuse violence as a way of getting what you want and a willingness to only engage in sexual activity that is genuinely, whole-heartedly, joyfully (ie. non-coercively) consensual for each and every party involved. All it takes is a decision not to rape. Rape is not accidental, it is not inevitable, it is not justifiable behaviour. So, what are we waiting for? A real commitment to women’s full and equal rights, real education about respectful relationships, real consequences for criminal behaviour – this is what it will take. Let’s end sexual violence, now.
Notes and Resources and more information on violence against women can be found at the end of Kate’s post on her site.
7 Responses
Thanks for sharing this, Melinda.
The next time some nuff-nuff says that you need to lighten up and get a sense of humour, point them to this post. This is why we are here. This is what we are trying to prevent, one attitude adjustment at a time. It’s real, it is deadly (literally) serious and we should not be put off by people who prefer not to know, or who suggest that t-shirts and music and sports people have nothing to do with the world that allows this horror to happen. It’s all part of the same world, people.
As one of my favourite quotes says:
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for the good to do nothing.
Let’s keep doing something.
Dear Melinda, thank you for posting Kate’s story and response to WID. I concur with her sentiments entirely. This should be sent to UN women and have these 10 statements printed on a full page in every daily newspaper in the world. The world needs to “Get Real” and deal with this fundamental gender inequality.
Thanks for posting this. It’s shocking, and yet barely shocking at all because violence against women is so ingrained it’s become virtually unremarkable. We have become conditioned to live with not just a fear of violence but an expectation that violence against women WILL happen.
Violence against women needs to be something that appalls us (‘us’ being ALL of society). It needs to be something that has us glued to the television in horror and disbelief, instead of changing the channel because it’s another boring story that we’ve heard before. It needs to STOP being a ‘filler’ item at the end of the news, or an occasional story on a current affairs program. It needs to OUTRAGE us, and unite us to act.
When violence against women ceases to be seen as a human rights violation it strips us of our humanity.
‘To put it bluntly, it refuses women the right to not only choose, accept and initiate sexual activity as they see fit, but equally to refuse any sexual activity at any time, under any conditions, according to their own desires. A culture that doesn’t value a woman’s voice, that does not listen to women, will have trouble respecting a woman’s right to choose when, where, how and with whom she engages in sexual activity. Such a culture perpetrates violence against women at alarming levels.’
And what exactly is ‘that culture’- why it is our male supremacist system wherein male violence against women is condoned/justified and commonly excused because always women are blamed and the male perpetrators’ accountability is invisibilised and/or excused.
Male violence against women exists in all cultures and societies because it is the most effective way of maintaining male domination and male power over women.
Until such time as men as a group accept and recognise that women like men have the right of ownership of their bodies; the right to refuse unwanted/coerced sexual contact; the right to decide for themselves when, if and how they will engage in egalitarian sexual activity wherein dominance/subordination is not deemed to be ‘real human sexuality’ – then finally women will have achieved their human status and human rights.
However, we continue to use passive language wherein the perpetrators’ identities remain hidden and invisibilised and only the female victims/survivors are named. Why is that? Is it because putting the spotlight on men means we are in effect subjecting men as a group to critical analysis and refusing to accept the lie that ‘inequality’ supposedly affects women and men equally. Men as a group are not the ones being oppressed or subjected routinely to sexual violence, because male supremacy is a system set up by men for men’s benefit and one of their benefits is their pseudo right of male domination and male control over all women.
So we must consistently use active language wherein we refuse to hide male accountability and instead name the sex of the perpetrators and demand an end to male domination over women. We must also name the primary reason why male sexual violence against women continues to exist and that is because it is a very effective method of maintaining male power over women. Not all men need to commit sexual violence against women in order to maintain male supremacy but too many men continue to commit sexual violence against women because these men and their apologists refuse to accept that women were not placed on this earth to serve men’s needs, men’s interests and men’s pseudo rights.
Lastly male sexual violence primarily affects individual women and to a lesser extent communities. The issue is about women’s rights and women’s right to own their bodies, their minds and their sexualities and this goes right to the heart of male oppression of women. That is why male supremacy must be eliminated – if we believe women like men are human and women like men have certain inalienable human rights. One of which is male domination over women is a violation of all women’s human rights.
Thanks Kate for this brilliant piece, and Melinda for directing us to it.
I too have wondered what’s been going on with much of the mainstream media coverage of IWD. Like you said, it’s not that female representation in the boardroom is unimportant; it’s more that it just feels like a fairly superficial measure of ‘equality’. I mean, for goodness’ sake – all it takes is a trip to the nearest newsagent to see how the very humanity of women is completely disregarded and devalued by our society and culture. Serious action to prevent violence against and objectification of women would break through the glass ceiling far more powerfully than any backslapping corporate girlpower newspaper liftout could even begin to imagine.
See now this is what I’m talking about (see my comments on the Brian McFadden story). This is a very useful, no-nonsense, responsible dissertation on why it is important to keep up our faith in the women’s movement, but also an example of how not to misuse it to advance personal or unsubstantiated prejudices.
In order to get through to men, you need to explain why violence against women is a problem for us all, and why it is intrinsically linked with gender inequality, without insulting us by claiming that men are somehow intrinsically capable of sexual violence. There are pockets of equality, and I feel as though I live in one most of the time. However I only need to walk past the queue outside a strip club and see the homogenous, furtive-looking young men standing in line to see that inequality is still alive and well.
But inequality is an empirical phenomenon – not an essentialist one (if it were, then there would be no point trying to change it would there?). Men are not a “group”, as Jennifer Drew would have it, any more than women are a “group”. Again, I personally don’t know any men for whom Kate Ravenscroft’s article wouldn’t form part of their personally-programmed Common Sense 101 course. But inequality does allow some men to live in ignorance or denial of the damage they cause when they imagine that going to a strip club is a harmless thing to do. However in order to talk to these men you need to realise that they are probably just as confused and emotionally vulnerable as the girls they are ogling. You need to speak their language – which is where non-violent men come in, since we have an equal interest and responsibility to ensure this message gets out (and I don’t mean xyonline-style or the white ribbon campaign, because these are simply a perpetuation of a universalist vilification of men, created by men who are so overwhelmed by their guilt that they can’t think straight – oh and that’s not meant to be a pun by the way;). As soon as you try to tell a man that you know better than he does what goes on inside his head, he will stop listening, write you off as crazy or misguided, and feel all the more entitled to take whatever he wants from you. Validation, empathy, mentoring, is what’s required, just like for any other “victim”.
So, good article Kate, and respect Melinda for posting it.
Kate this is a very good article. It goes beyond mere statistics to reflect those who are really affected. Most times when we go through documents there is the possibility of just glossing over the figures but this goes way beyond the figures into the translation. I must say this is a very wonderful article