SHAMING US INTO SILENCE

In this article I would like to take a look at response of society to sexual abuse and how it influences the victim’s reaction to their experience.

It’s always neat to start up with some stats, like “every two minutes woman in USA will be sexually assaulted”, but the fact is – I wouldn't give a penny for rape, molestation or child molestation statistics. Why? According to RAINN 60% of rapes are not reported. I know way too many people who were sexually assaulted and never reported it and I would go for more than 60% unreported cases, way more than that. This underreporting can actually be a landslide number, so yes, I don’t pay attention to rape statistics. 

RAINN statistics 

I would like to discuss rape and molestation from perspective of European and American societies, not even going into arguments of why in countries like Egypt or Saudi Arabia rape is statistically nonexistent. (In fact, following statistics can make you believe, that Egypt is a country with one of the least number of rapes. Whom are we kidding? Women were being gang raped during protests in Tahrir Square, so do you think this is how safe country for women looks like?)

As many brutal cases of rape proved it, we have collective problem in judging sexual crimes. I am not going to discus court rulings here, I would like to look at reactions to rape of news recipients, people watching TV and reading newspaper articles. Every now and then some story makes its way into mainstream media and that gives us an update of what people really think about sexual abuse victims.

People tend to talk about the victim, not the rapist. 

Orange County gang rape  is a good example of how sexual assault polarizes the society. In this case, video showing an unconscious teenager being brutally raped (meaning: penetrated without consent, she was unconscious for God’s sake!) by 3 jolly boys is not enough to prove that this girl is a victim and deserves our support and sympathy.  Victim of rape was publicly proclaimed a slut and has to live around people who believe she ruined lives of 3 nice boys, by sending them to prison for 7 years (yes, in the eyes of law this brutal act deserved punishment of 7 years only). 

"She was drunk, she got horny", "she wanted it, but she's ashamed of it now, so she calls it rape", "what was she doing in a party anyway??" - That's what we call slut shaming, honey. 

Her friends were happy to testify in favor of rapists, and even today they go on Internet to spread lies about her. Long story short, thanks to people's sympathy to the rapist, this girl is constantly shamed and scrutinized, because living with the pain of being rape survivor is not enough. And maybe case is old, it happened in 2004, but these comments about it are fairly recent, which only shows what victim of this crime has to put up with even 10 years after rape happened. 

More about ex-friends here

Court trial is hard enough for any sexual assault victim, but public prosecution is nastier and it can go on forever. Guilty verdict for rapist doesn't mean anything for people who already decided the girl is a slut and most probably, they will never change their minds. 

Another brilliant example of how rape victims are perceived by a society and are depicted in media, was the statement of George Will claiming that young women in college report rape, because of the future priviledges they will receive as rape survivor. The statement is ridiculous in itself, not to mention that it's unworthy of educated successful person. We hear so little stories from rape survivors and all of them are gruesome and heartbreaking. I cannot imagine what kind of privileges could possibly await the rape victim. 

In response to this outrageous statement, sexual violence survivors are sharing their experience on Twitter with hashtag #SurvivorPriviledge. It's worth reading for anybody, who even considers that being a rape survivor is an awesome thing and puts you in exclusively privileged group of people. 

Another interesting statistic is the number of false rape accusations. Because that's what drives the disbelief for EVERY rape and sexual violence victim, because there is soooo many women and girls who "cry wolf". Well, it couldn't be further from the truth. Official statistics in countries such as USA or many countries in EU indicate that false reports constitute between 2-10% of all rape reports. Not cases - reports. So if we take the official statistics and we take into consideration real life rape cases that hasn't been reported, false accusations make up for really really really tiny part of all rape instances. So why we as a society persist to question the truthfulness of rape survivors, when more than 90% of them reported a crime that really happened?

Even though that most of the legal definition of rape it is stated that absence of yes is a presence of no, but absence of no is not the presence of yes. Consent is stated and defined clearly, but somehow people are still ready justify rape and rapists if the victim didn't yell with all her power "no, don't do this, noooooo!"


Reporting rape is like going through hell for the assaulted. And I didn't even talk about treatment by police and doctors who can be just as judgmental as all rape apologists writing comments on Internet!!!! Living with a stigma of a slut is nothing that any person dreams of, so many just chose to stay quiet. Many women and men know that it will be too hard to prove their innocence, so they don’t even try and live with sense of injustice ever after.

If we have such problem sympathizing with a girl who was drugged and had juice cans pushed into her vagina, how can we ever sympathize with a victim of molestation or child molestation where there are no screams, no blood, no bruises, no witnesses, only victim’s feeling of violation, feeling of being raped? 

Molesters are most often people we trust. Fathers, mothers, uncles, family friends, teachers. We are taught since we are little not to talk to strangers, not to trust outsiders, so when we are out on the streets we have our guards up, we are careful. If we are assaulted by a stranger we know what to call it, after all we didn't have anything to do with this person. But how to react when person who hurts us is our father or other trusted person? They wouldn't do anything to hurt us, would they? Whom to turn to when it is our parent/friend of a parent/family member who is hurting us? Saying that they hurt us would make them feel bad and we shouldn't hurt family. Isn't that correct? 

Fear and inability to define what kind of wrong had been done is another reason for victims to stay quiet and not to report the crime to anyone.

Perhaps, accepting that a little girl molested by an adult is a victim is not that difficult. After all, she’s just like 5 or 8 years old, she couldn't possibly know what was being done to her. With boys it’s a little harder. We tend to feel less sympathetic for them; it’s again our broken perceptions about gender in action. Sexual abuse is something that happens mostly to women, we think. But this opinion is based on statistics and you already know what I think about them. Men are not likely to report sexual abuse, because it’s a shame for a man not to enjoy sex or let women be dominant, take control of his body; it would prove he’s not strong enough, not manly enough.

What about teenagers and adults who were molested, especially when victims are male? Again, there was no penetration, no blood to show in a shocking movie or TV series, but somebody forced victim to touch him/her, forced victim to watch sexual action like masturbation, stimulated victim’s genitals or forced him/her to oral sex.

Are we able to feel bad for them? Are we able to believe when they say “I was molested, I didn't enjoy it, and I didn't want it. I wish I could forget what happened to me.”?

If we can call victim of rape a slut, what do we call a victim of molestation? A liar? Storyteller? Even the word “molestation” doesn't represent the true weight of this crime. Rape is scary, molestation is something, well, it can be anything. Who cares about a boy who saw old priest masturbating if we don’t care about a gang raped girl?

There are families where generations of girls are subjected to molestation and they can’t open their mouths to stop their perpetrator, because they don’t have soft cushion of support around them. All they have is dark mass of people waiting to call someone a WHORE.

I’m sorry for writing “we don’t care”, but as long as we don’t challenge rape apologists, both online and offline, we are complicit to slut shaming and perpetuation of rape culture.

To make things even more cheerful, there is no agreement on a simple thing as what (instinctively) is meant by sexual violence and rape. Well, the boy hasn't been touched, he was just forced to watch, so it wasn't sexual abuse, was it? Or the girl didn't had anything put in her vagina, so it wasn't rape. Or the tearing and burns and bleeding around victims intimate parts could just as well be a result of consensual sex, isn't that right? Well, we have a proof of intercourse, but it's her word against his and his reputation. Of course we won't believe her.

Can you imagine the situation that you have a drunk driver who hits a woman on a crossing, but instead at looking what happened you are justifying the driver, because he is such a good man, but he had just too many drinks. And anyway what was she doing on that crossing? You wouldn't blame the victim (woman) for getting hit by a drunk driver, because he shouldn't have done that, especially if he is a decent guy! So why suddenly the same drunk man is excused when he forces himself on a girl and rapes her? Why those situations strengthen the perception of decency of the perpetrators and weakens the reliability of the victim? After watching/hearing/reading about what those boys from Orange County did to that girl, how can anybody believe that they are decent boys? The act in itself was repulsive and they did that with the smile on their faces! What kind of decent person does that?

All of us, encouraging survivors to tell their stories would help society to open their eyes and ears to crimes that can take place only when we are not looking, only when we are not listening, only when we choose not to talk about them. Molestation and rape continue to happen because we, as the society, prefer to scrutinize morals of the victim, not morals of the perpetrator.

I personally don’t think that during my life time people will understand that victim doesn't have to be bruised up and covered in blood to be a victim. There are crimes that leave only mental scars  and we should be civilized enough to acknowledge them and their harmfulness. There is no other crime like rape where evidence don't matter - what matters is a proved "decency" of a perpetrator and alleged "slutness" of a victim. 

Victim shaming works in favor of the criminals, it creates an atmosphere of impunity. We can stop rape culture, you can stop rape culture. Don't judge other people when you don't know their story, don't call other women "sluts" or "whores". Understand, that dress is not a reason for rape. Make up, drinking and even flirting is not a "yes". 

Talk about rapists, not the victims.

If you are survivor of sexual abuse, talk about it, write about. Your story is important and it can help saving other people from experiencing the same hell you had to go through.

Written by Inanna and Vespertilio

P.S. If you are a victim of sexual violence and you struggle to come to terms with what happened to you, have a look at our section "Food for Thought" and have a look at the materials written by Dr Nina Burrowes. She found a simple way to show the victims of this crimes that you are not alone and that you can be helped with whatever you are going through.

Let's Keep Fighting! My Body - My Rights!

Maybe we live in 21^st century, but Poland refuses to progress from Middle Ages. And many Polish people are proud of it.

Another day of Polish women struggle for their reproductive rights. Inanna and I are actively monitoring and reading new words that has been produced either for or against abortion in Poland.

After reading it all, it was really comforting to see that some doctors still abide the law and do the procedure when a women has a legal ground to ask for it.

It warms my heart to see all of those women sharing their stories, their strength and hopes for a better future. It’s amazing how many of them get support from their partners, who decided that the well-being of their woman is the most important thing in the world.

At the same time, it’s extremely depressing to see how many people spread hate and are first ones to insult other people. And it’s even more daunting how many people put the blame on women. For fighting for their rights. For wanting a better life. For wanting to be heard. For having needs. For having desires. For having dreams.

I really don’t get it how somebody, who claims to believe in a God, the merciful and almighty God, can have so much resentment toward another human being. How can somebody judge another person without knowing the whole story? Judging only based on partial information about sex life and choices. Didn’t Jesus said that “he who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (when defending an adulterous woman)? How can somebody, who claims to be a man/woman of faith can have so much hatred in their hearts?

Over the past few days I’ve read tens of articles about the situation in Poland, opinion essays, comments. I encountered billions of comments insulting women’s conscience and almost calling them monsters, if they even considered having an abortion.

Where did all of those people get the idea that somebody’s body and life is a public matter? Since when woman’s body is a public property? Since when anybody’s body is a public property?

I am a religious person, I believe in God, but right now I wouldn’t step into the church in Poland. I’ve heard to many sermons with too much judgement in it, too much hatred, too much negative messages. I’ve listened to priests who though that as they are so self-righteously pious they word is above the word of God. God can be your salvation, but a church will bring you down on your knees and be your judge. I couldn’t stand it. I believe that a God is love, he gives us strength and teaches us to show sympathy to other people and try to understand them, regardless of how different our situation is from theirs. And if we can’t, then we should stop criticizing. It’s not our place.

That case of an 11-year old girl still haunts me. How can people be so cruel and judgmental? She is a child, for crying out loud! She should be protected at all costs, her welfare should be a priority to all of us: her parents, family, neighbours, doctors, government! But we’ve heard so much bullshit from priests and politicians. About an abortion being another rape, about a girl’s maternal instincts waiting to be awaken.

"11-year-old girl should be under the care of psychologist and other doctors
and she should give birth to this child. This child we'll be on high demand
for adoption or maybe there will be a case, when the maternal instincts
will awaken in girl" Czesław Hoc

Yeah, sure, force her to be a mother. When the kid gets older, they can play together in hide and seek, help with homework and steal toys from each other. Instead of spending her allowance on sweets, she will be worrying about diapers and baby milk. Yeeeey! Who wouldn’t want that? Kids at that age should be learning about responsibility by having a puppy or kitten. Not a baby. And whoever claims that it’s the way it should be, tell it to your kid. Have them have a child right now. Is he 13? He will be a brilliant father! Is she 12? Who cares about her dreams and aspirations! Let her have babies!

Many people say that she should have the baby, but no one ask whether it’s good for her. She went through so much and all we can do is still disallow her desire to have a normal life. Or anybody else’s desires. Politicians say what she should or shouldn’t do, but can anybody guarantee their help throughout her life? She will go through some tough times, are you, Mr. Politician ready to pay for her therapy? For a babysitter when she will want to go back to school? For all the expenses that she will need for her education and for the child’s welfare?

We are spinning like crazy towards the pit, we can’t find a way out from our own hypocrisy and ignorance.

Few years ago there was a high profile case in Yemen, where 12-year-old girl died  after she had given birth to her child. She wasn’t raped, she was a child bride, whose husband couldn’t wait with sex until she gets older. There was an uproar all over the world, there were countless quotations of doctors who said that girls at this age should not have children. That it’s dangerous to their health and life. Their bodies are not ready for pregnancy.

I can’t even count the amount of comments condemning the situation in Yemen. How could parents be so heartless and marry off their child? How can a grown up man have sex with a child? It’s paedophilia, abomination, backward culture. But all of this happened in a faraway country, in another reality and we were so quick to decry them. There were so many voices saying how we are different from THEM. How we are more civilised. How we are better. How our religion is better.

I think this whole circus shows us that Polish society is no different than an orthodox Muslim societies that we are so eager to criticize.

"If you knew anything about women, you would know,
that you always slightly rape a woman" Janusz Korwin-Mikke

Maybe I am looking at this all wrong. Maybe we should follow different examples. Maybe we should marry off young girls as soon as they can menstruate, because if she is bleeding, then she can have babies and there is no time to waste. And we should cover all women! We have to prevent these few-years-old seductresses from leading astray those God fearing, virtuous boys! And we should marry off raped girls to their perpetrators! The problem of “unwanted” babies will be solved, child won’t be fatherless, and basically the rape will cease to exist, because everybody knows that you can’t rape your wife. Wouldn’t life be sooooo much easier?

Okay, sorry for that. Jokes aside.

We want women (and girls) to take responsibility for their sexual acts, but we don’t educate them. We won’t provide them with an opportunity to choose, have easy choice and their fully conscious choice. Doctors and politicians make an access to contraception so difficult at a times and so expensive that it’s impossible to make an informed decision about your own reproductive health. And after stripping women from the power to determine their own fate, everyone is so eager to judge their lack of responsibility for their actions.

What is worse we don’t educate boys to acknowledge that they also have to take responsibility for their actions. Heck, the society is ready to take the blame of their hands at any time, when things get tough for them. Because it’s woman’s responsibility to not have sex with a man. Because if she had control over her own desire, there wouldn’t be any problem.

Are you all freaking serious?

"We have such a low birth rate caused by feminist culture,so each child, even from rape,
is worth a fortune! If we have 200 rapes a day, it doesn't mean that as many
women conceived. They have been raped, usually because of their stupidity,
and sometimes they were asking for it" Krzystof Oksiuta

Our government wants people to have more children, but they are not ready provide a dignifying life conditions for those who want to have children. Those who could provide Poland with “more hands to work”. Wouldn’t it be easier to provide better care for mothers and their children? Wouldn’t it be better to take better care of single mothers? Wouldn’t it be better if all children were wanted? There are some people in this world who would love to have loads of children, but simply can’t afford it. So maybe instead of forcing women who don’t want to have children to breed and breed and breed, maybe it would be wiser to provide better incentives? Like, better “back to work” initiatives, more available upskilling courses, paternity leaves.

When will government and clergy realise that Poland is not a good place to live for many of its citizens and it’s time to do something about it? We have so many countries around us who have successes in areas that we are failing miserably, but in our arogance we are refusing to follow their example. When will they understand that social development is as important as economic development? That without improving social sphere, we will not be able to improve any other sphere?

The struggle in Poland is not over and is far from over. We’ve raised our voices, but we can’t be silenced! Not now.

Stay strong, sisters! Keep fighting!

Spread the word! If you haven’t done it yet, SIGN THE PETITION!

Written by Vespertilio

Sexual violence in conflict has to stop!

Yesterday was the last day of Summit in London to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. For the past few days various influencers spoke about the issues concerning atrocities during conflict and were trying to attract more attention to ending sexual violence during conflict. Speakers included famous persons such as Angelina Jolie, John Kerry and William Hague. The summit was supported by other events all over the world.

Sexual violence during conflict is somehow omitted problem by many politicians, treated as a “spoils of war” and inevitable part of warfare. There has been many misconceptions regarding conflict-related sexual violence both in the political sphere, social sphere as well as in the academic research.

The main problem is that media and influencers bring attention to the greatest atrocities that involve sexual violence during conflict. They share the terrifying stories of women raped, violated, abused and mutilated. We hear the dreadful stories and we feel horror for the victims. But such attention brought to the high profile cases has one unforeseen consequence… We’ve learned to think that sexual violence is an inseparable part of the conflict, because it happens everywhere.

WRONG!

Conflict-related sexual violence is neither inevitable nor common. It is not a widely used weapon of war. In fact, there are number of groups that do not use sexual violence against civilians. For example, in all of Africa’s conflicts from 1989 – 2009, only 29% of conflict actors perpetrated sexual violence. More, there are few groups that forbid the use of sexual violence. Research shows (Wood, 2004; 2006; 2009) that actually more strategic to the war advances is not to use sexual violence against civilians, especially when a particular group rely on supplies or support from civilians.

It is not to say that wartime sexual violence is not a serious issue. It is. And it need to be prevented. It has to stop. My argument is that if it isn’t common and evidence suggests that many conflict do not witness terrible atrocities and sexual violence perpetration, then it can be prevented. We can learn from a more positive stories and try to apply them in other contexts.

When I was writing my thesis on conflict-related sexual violence, I had many awkward conversations with people who were trying to show me that my research is pointless, because everything is already known about this subject. The major misconception I encountered is that rape committed by armed groups is a psychological response to trauma, release of stress and uncontrolled biological response. I remember one friend of mine cited her teacher, who said that soldiers rape, because during fighting the part of their brain responsible for procreation gets activated and they feel compelled to rape. It’s pure biology. And for her that response was sufficient enough.

There is much we don’t know about reasons for committing wartime rape, but for sure we know it’s not biology. If it really was biology, then EVERYBODY would rape. Everybody. All soldiers would rape anything that resembles a women and no soldier would be blameless. However the fact that majority of soldiers are able to refrain from committing rape and in fact many groups do not rape and condemn sexual violence, speaks for itself.

Also if it was a biological response, only women in the height of their reproductive time would get raped. The logic would suggest that desire and willingness to extend ones species should take part. It couldn’t be further from the truth. For example, in conflict in Sierra Leone the age of rape victims varied from 7 years of age up until 70. No women could feel safe. Majority of girls aged 12-15 were taken as brides. Many instances of sexual violence involved use of force, mutilation, humiliation and sadism.

Furthermore, it isn’t a psychological response to trauma connected to the battle and tough life of during a conflict that pushes men to rape the women. Sexual violence happened in many conflicts during periods of relative tranquillity, when there is no regular battle and the soldiers are mostly inactive. Research by Nordas and Cohen (2012) states that “sexual violence is relatively less common in the most-lethal conflicts than in conflicts with fewer annual casualties”.

It also isn’t a weapon of war directed against opposing side/culture/enemy group. Unfortunately, many conflicts see indiscriminate violence against all of the representatives of female group, regardless of their ethnicity or affiliations.

Feminists also had their say about conflict related sexual violence. Gender inequality theory says that sexual violence is not about sexual desire, but a desire of men to “exert dominance” over the female population (Gottschall, 2004). The soldiers perpetrating sexual violence “vent their contempt for women” and in the same time they enforce and perpetuate “patriarchal gender arrangements” that are beneficial to all men (Gottschall, 2004).

I can’t agree with feminists on this issue as their claims are not supported by evidence. Current warfare has seen the emergence of most gruesome ways of inflicting terror on the people. Sexual violence is no longer committed only by men on women. There are instances of men raping men, women raping men and women raping women. Also the use of rape is not consistent across conflicts, even in the settings with similar cultural backgrounds. Even in the countries with a widespread use of sexual violence not all areas are affected. For example, in DRC sexual violence was rarely committed in areas supervised by UN Peacekeepers. However other areas were not as safe.

What we do know about conflict-related sexual violence is more appalling than previous claims, but it also shows that sexual violence can be prevented. In most African conflicts, sexual violence has been perpetrated mainly by government forces. Only 30% of unorganised or semi-organised militias committed acts of sexual violence, mainly when they were supporting pro-government forces which allowed or even encouraged perpetration of rape. Most of those militias, who engaged in acts of sexual violence, widely recruited child soldiers.

Research conducted by E. J. Wood shows that the group organisation and belief system has a great impact on perpetration of sexual violence by this group. If the members of the group believe that they cannot rape (for any reason) and commanders condemn and punish perpetration of rape, the group will rarely perpetrate rape in fear of being punished. However, if a group shares a belief that rape is acceptable and commanders do allow or even encourage soldiers to rape, sexual violence will be prevalent and almost unavoidable.

We cannot forget about foreign forces and their involvement in this crime. In few conflicts where foreign security forces where involved and there was little or no control of their action outside of official manoeuvres, soldier raped and engaged in other violations, as they knew that no punishment will be imposed. For example, a high profile case from former Yugoslavia shows that UN Peacekeepers where involved in prostitution and human trafficking. In Sierra Leone, foreign forces were responsible for more rape cases than government forces.

Finally, there are armed groups who do not allow to rape. For example, Tamil Tigers, despite their wide spectrum of human rights violations, they never allowed to rape in the areas which they controlled. There has been reports stating that Tigers, who did rape a women, were severely punished in most of the cases. Evidence suggest that clear condemnation of perpetrating sexual violence and widespread group belief that sexual violence is unacceptable did have a positive impact on soldiers behaviour.

The conclusion is clear: sexual violence during conflict is not determined by “outside” forces beyond one’s control. It is deliberate and conscious decision made by individuals. No perpetrator can be excused. And as in many cases perpetration of sexual violence is granted by governments and perpetrated by their security forces, international spectators are able to put a pressure and prevent it from happening. Wartime sexual violence CAN be stopped and HAVE TO be stopped.

It is up to us whether we will allow for it to happen.

Written by Vespertilio

References:

• Gottschall, J. (2004) ‘Explaining Wartime Rape’ The Journal of Sex Research 41(2): 129-136.
• Nordas, R., Cohen, D. K. (2012a) ‘Sexual Violence by Militias in African Conflicts’ CSCW Policy Brief 01-2012.
• Nordas, R., Cohen, D. K. (2012b) ‘Sexual Violence in African Conflicts, 1989 – 2009’ CSCW Policy Brief 02-2012.
• Wood, E. J. (2004) ‘Sexual Violence During War: Explaining Variation’, Order, Conflict and Violence, Yale University, 30^th April – 1^st May. New York: Santa Fe Institute.
• Wood, E. J. (2006) ‘Variations in Sexual Violence During War’ Politics Society 34: 307-341.
•  Wood, E. J. (2009) ‘Armed Groups and Sexual Violence: When is Wartime Rape Rare?’ Politics Society 39: 131-161.