This essay was published last September but I’ve only just come across it. I keep thinking of Audrie and her body defaced and graffitied, the images shared and consumed. Her waking in horror to discover the markings all over her body and trying frantically to scrub them off. And the ultimate horror outcome, where she can no longer face the mocking, bullying and shaming. But I must say, it’s not only in the U.S that boys take the view that if a girl is under the influence of alcohol, she deserves whatever happens (some girls take this attitude also).
I have asked boys in the schools I address: “If a girl is drunk how many of you think she’s asking for it?” In many classes, the majority of boys would raise their hands. It is a common view. There is a terrible lack of understanding about consent and the face that if she is under the influence of drugs or alcohol, she can’t exercise it and a crime has been committed if she is taken advantage of. Audrie’s tragic story shows us where that view can lead. My sympathy to her devastated family.
Rape stats may be no higher than in years past, but the numbers are as shocking as ever. Every two minutes, a sexual assault happens in the U.S., and nearly 50 percent of the victims are under the age of 18, according to Katherine Hull, a spokeswoman for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network: “The demographic of high school- and college-age women is at highest risk for sexual assault.” More than half of the incidents go unreported, advocates say. The ability to record and communicate gang-sex assaults has added a new enhancement to an old and ugly crime against women. From Instagram to Snapchat to texting, young people with raging hormones and low impulse control are passing around what amounts to child pornography. And the bodies most frequently watched and passed around are female.
“It’s a perfect storm of technology and hormones,” says lawyer Lori Andrews, director of the Institute for Science, Law and Technology in Chicago. “Teen sexting is all a way of magnifying girls’ fantasies of being a star of their own movies, and boys locked in a room bragging about sexual conquest.”
But as of yet the law provides little protection to the rights of those violated. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act effectively means that no Internet provider can be forced to take down content for invading a person’s privacy or even defaming them. “I could sue The New York Times for invading my privacy or Rolling Stone for defaming me,” Andrews says. “But I couldn’t sue and get my picture off a website called sluttyseventhgraders.com.” Read full article here
Dr Michael Flood March 5, 2014
Sexual violence is a serious social problem in Australia. According to a recent national survey, about one in six women in Australia – just under 1.5 million – has experienced sexual assault. In the past year alone, 87,800 women experienced sexual assault. Younger women are at greater risk. These are the victims, but what about perpetrators? Various studies show anywhere from 15 to 25 per cent of males have forced or pressured a girl or woman into sex or tried to do so…
Boys and young men are more likely to force or pressure a girl into sex if they have sexist and sexually hostile attitudes – they see girls as sexual objects, as less important or less valuable than males, and they feel entitled to see how far they can push things. The 2001 Australian National Crime Prevention Survey of young people aged 12 to 20 found about one in seven guys agreed that, “it’s okay for a boy to make a girl have sex with him if she has flirted with him or led him on.”
Some of the media consumed by boys and men is implicated in violence. TV, movies, music and computer games often portray women as sexual objects only, put men’s voices and lives at centre stage, and condone or even celebrate violence as entertaining and legitimate. Pornography use is increasingly common among young men, and here callous and hostile images of women are routine. In a wide range of media, boys learn that real men are tough, dominant, and aggressive. Read full article here
6 Responses
Melinda, this is horrifying.
Isn’t it. The way they defaced and desecrated her body. Something so unspeakably dark in that yet to those who did it it was almost banal, a bit of light entertainment.
The blacking out of the face was the bit that most disturbed me. The breast doodling seemed more infantile, somehow. But the blacking out of the face spoke of a significantly more malignant energy.
It is horrifying what these boys did to a teenage girl and these boys committed their vile women-hating acts because they like innumerable adult males believe women and girls are dehumanised disposable sexual service stations.
These boys made the choice to subject a female to sadistic male sexual violence and these boys have already learned the Male Supremacist misogynistic lies that females because they are female are not human.
Where do boys learn these male created women-hating messages? Primarily via malestream popular media and culture because this is the most effective propaganda tool men are using to promote and justify their women-hating dogmas. Not forgetting mens’ mainstreaming of their pornography industry which promotes mens’ lies that women and girls are males’ dehumanised disposable sexual service stations.
Even worse is the fact what these boys subjected this young woman to is not ‘an isolated incident’ but is a pandemic wherein male sexual harassment/males sexually preying on women and girls is now so common it is invisible.
Men’s Male Supremacist System together with their Male Supremacist Legal System and malestream media have successfully promoted mens’ lies that male violence against women and girls is a non-issue because women and girls have ‘magically’ achieved human status!
What can be done? Speak out and hold the men and boys accountable – do not accept their lies/excuses that ‘holding males to account is man-hating.’ Remember male hatred/male contempt for women and girls is pandemic and yet it must not be named for what it is – vile male hatred/male contempt for women and girls whereby males can subject any female to whatever violence they wish because females are not supposedly human.
Hold males to account and tell them they have no pseudo male sex right to female bodies – women and girls have the fundamental right of sexual autonomy and ownership of their bodies. This means males are responsible for their sexual behaviour/attitude towards women and girls.
Males know they have sexual autonomy and sexual rights which includes male pseudo sex right to female bodies and this pseudo male sex right to is one of the central tenants which upholds and maintains male domination/oppression over all women and girls of whatever ethnicity; race or class.
Eliminating male pseudo sex right to female bodies is a huge challenge but it has to be undertaken by women – because men will not give up their male pseudo sex right willingly.
Entitlement and survival of the fittest have replaced concepts of sin, virtue and responsibility. This is what you get (not only in attitudes toward women but also the disabled and anyone with lower social power). My boys are being raised with respect toward women and others, and it’s amazing how counter-cultural it is. This is a society of dumbed down, anarchistic animals.
This is horrifying but a common experience in Europe where gang rapes by Muslim men are increasing at an alarming level where they also groom young girls to have sex with dozens of Muslim males. One girl in the UK was raped by 100 Muslim men over the course of two days.