ONE in every three boys believes it is acceptable to hit girls and many children are routinely exposed to domestic violence, according to a disturbing survey.
The unprecedented survey of violence and attitudes shows one third of boys believe "it's not a big deal to hit a girl". One in seven thought "it's OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting".
My God. I have no brain space for intelligent comment right now, but I do want to ask what "unwanted sex" is and how it is different to rape and why the word rape could not be used instead.
Update: Fuck Politeness has said everything I would say if I was smarter, more succinct and not horribly hung over. Also, has a cool blog name. Go there immediately.
12 spiteful snarks:
Because in the small minds of those surveyed there is a huge difference between unwanted sex and rape. They may be stupid but we have to be fair to their stupid.
Women should be taught self defence early on in life. Lord knows I love a woman who could possibly, maybe kick my ass.
Had an ex who was into self defense and would bait me for a beating all the time..all she needed to do was grab two of my fingers to bring me to my knees..Ihad to TELL her that the idea of that was incredibly flawed considered men clench their fists to punch the crap out of something..so she kicked me in the nads instead.
Fun times.
Woozie, we don't know if that's the respondents' words or the ones the people doing the survey chose. But it even if it is the phrase that the respondent feels more comfortable with, it is symptomatic of there being a certain amount of acceptance of rape. Like date-rape is not really rape, it's "unwanted sex". Which is wrong. It manages to make rape something that just happens. There isn't a perpetrator of it, like it's some kind of an accident. You can have an "unwanted car accident" but if someone intentionally mows you down while you're crossing the street, that's a whole different thing.
There could be a valid reason for that phrase being chosen, I just don't know it and I can't find a link to the research to find out.
Orhan,
While I agree - protective behaviours are important - I think there's a great deal of significance that kids are both exposed to violence at home and think nothing of violence. Stopping that cycle and getting out the message that violence is NOT okay is a better long term solution than instructing women to be fearful their entire lives.
Yes and no. I was exposed to a great deal of violence as a child. Saw my father kill two people, one during a fight and another in a car accident. He was an abusive drunk toward my mother and myself and the very first movie I ever saw was full of violence. And with all of this around me I still knew that I had to learn to defend myself when the time came to it.
I understand your point of view, I really do, but I think the only solution is to teach young women how to kick ass, when to kick ass and when to report a dangerous environment to the proper authourites. I still hear of women in their 20's getting sexually assualted and doing nothing about it and in fact still remaining associated with the offenders. That is insanity.
I'm not disputing that Orhan but saying these women are insane is saying it's their fault there are fuckheads who do bad things. It isn't their fault, people shouldn't be running around fearful of violence.
And in relation to your first post, I was talking about the correlation between experiencing violence in the home, and becoming perpetrators of violence. Not defending oneself. [Not to say you are a violent person, just I'm not sure I was clear] It strikes me as the two points: large numbers of kids witness violence, and large numbers of kids say it's okay to hit someone, are linked. Stop violence in the home, stop people becoming violent. Might not be the case, and there's no way it's that simple, but I don't think it's fair to blame victims because they didn't learn self defence.
"in relation to your first POINT" is what that should say.
I hear you loud and clear :)
Unwanted sex is rape in my book. The results of this study are beyond my comprehension, really - how did we as a society get to this stage?
I agree Steve, with both points.
The worst part about the "unwelcome sex" thing is that it completely dimishes rape. I would consider junk mail "unwelcome".
I would say the way we got to this stage is because we've allowed it. As depressing as it sounds, if you read any of the comments on the news.com you'll see what I mean. Violence against women (or even just plain violence) is seen as a fact of life, rather than a crime.
People have been brutes for as long as people have existed. I would be curious to see the results of such a survey if it had been done 50 or 100 years ago, to see where we are now comparitively. Whatever we have been doing to stop violence is not working nearly well enough. Perhaps we need a fresh way of looking at things. And yes, I believe violence is a learned behavior. If children grow up thinking that is the way things are done, only the exceptional children will have enough awareness to rise above it.
The other thing that comes to mind is that far too many girls are still taught to be powerless, delicate little dolls. They know all about fashion, but could not change a tire or even stand up for themselves. So sad.
Hm, ok, I'm delirious with tiredness and I think I just called your post madness, possibly twice, in my woozy attempt to comment.
Not madness! And I am in no way smarter (and the other things you said which I forget now on account of the tiredness) than you. Maybe the tiredness is making me extra grumpy or maybe I'm just regularly this grumpy living in this dumbass world, but I don't feel all that inclined to be fair to the type of stupid that ends up resulting in rape, or condoning it, or calling it friendlier names.
I also kinda get that self defence is crucial, but it's not an end in itself, as even if you train women in self defence, there will still be men who are stronger/more violent/stoop to lower lows and women will still get hurt/raped because of the ideas men have about women. Those need to be changed. And kinda by men.
I think you're right about the cycles of violence and the examples we set in the home. And I do get anxious that we blame women for not being better prepared, when HEY! This is not something women started.
@ Anne: "far too many girls are still taught to be powerless, delicate little dolls". I agree. And the women who don't grow up to manifest that behaviour are considered problematic by society, purely because they'd prefer to take matters into their own hands.
@ FP: Self defence is important but not at the expense of other generational changes in mindset. Ultimately I see self defence as treating a symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. There wouldn't be victims of violence if there weren't violent people. Telling the victims to just be tougher is fucked. But the amount of time society does that illustrates exactly how much women are valued - that is to say, not a lot.
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