(Untitled)

[blackplayground]

i'm lucky. i haven't been the victim of sexual abuse/violence. the fact that so many have enrages me. 1 in 5 women will experience sexual violence. 1 in 3 physical violence. walking down the street in mid-afternoon men in cars will yell out to me. every week i have at least five men yell something crude or, preferably, undecipherable out their car

Comments

[blackplayground]

don't be sorry for rambling, but i do think you should re-examine your views. not in that they are wrong but rather.... i'll try and be delicate and i don't want to seem as though i am... attacking or undermining your experiences, particularly those as a victim of abuse. but i do disagree with... where you are coming from.

violence doesn't necessarily have to show bruises and cuts. when i was growing up i was inflicted with years and years of emotional abuse that still has scars that smart and show. words and attitudes can be violent and be felt deeply, whether by an individual or as a group. when men yell at me to 'show them my cunt' out of their car window they intend this comment in a sexual way and it has a violent intention - they're not saying that because they respect women and know that their behaviour will hurt and that this is unacceptable. it might not be physically sexually violent and i'm quite certain that the 1 in 5 figure comes from sexual abuse and attack, not sexist comments. however this type of behaviour is a form of sexual violence. i can't know, no one can, but perhaps i'm the lucky one for whom they don't stop the car, get out and rape. who knows what happened to someone two hours later?

the 'petty issues' statement is a i think a fairly common one and it bothers me. where is the line drawn for non petty and or petty. by cracking down and opposing all sexually violent behaviour it shows 'society' as a whole that that kind of attitude is unacceptable and that people better get their act together and not allow this and not engage in this. imagine if four hoons in a car drove past a woman, yelled obscene things at her and then stopped and beat her up. would it be fair to say - oh the yelling okay but the violence wasn't? i think the two are definitively linked in that one lead to the other.

i don't think that it would detract from the issues. i think a male dominated society that still hasn't fully grasped the full evil, extent or terror of rape or violence against women says that to further undermine and demean the things women suffer. by saying "oh yes bad things happen to women but only sometimes and not always and everything else is fine and dandy" is a way of not fully appreciating the prevalance of negative attitudes towards women. particularly in australia it's this attitude of 'get over it' or 'deal with it'. but we shouldn't have to deal with it. by bringing attention to the 'petty' level behaviours we show how constant the attacks against women are and how widespread this hatred or anger or disrespect is. by narrowing crimes and violence against women to only the truly drastic things we narrow the ability for society to realise the full extent. and by shielding them from this we prevent change and awareness.

in my personal experience telling people i know, particularly males, about my experiences with wolf whistlers and men in the street that i walk past has truly opened their eyes. so many have no idea that such behaviour occurs or that their close female friends have to endure it. they are aware of rape and aware of how terrible it is but they are unaware of the extent of abuse handed out to women, in public, and letting them know about it is a fairly effective way to raise awareness of violence against women and then unrelenting presence of it.