Sexual Assault, Feminism, and Agency

[fierceawakening]

Total brilliance:
My sexual assaults (yes, it's now happened twice) are not a political peg for other women to hang their hats on, and I should not and will not apologize to anyone for making decisions that were best for me. My body is mine - it doesn't belong to Feminism anymore than it belongs to the men who sexually assaulted me - and what I

Comments

[shiva_dan]

Absolutely agreed. (I'm also really... happy not quite the right word, but something positive... to read snarkhunting's comments in that thread, since she says several things very eloquently that i've always *thought*, but not quite dared to say for fear of really bad misinterpretation.)

It always amazes me that feminists, especially "radical" feminists, have any faith in the state "justice" system whatsoever. The infinitesimally low rape conviction rates really ought to speak for themselves, but somehow... don't, and the "ALWAYS report a rape" mantra gets repeated, as if in some kind of collective denial that reporting very rarely gets anyone anywhere (perhaps because to "admit" that fact would be somehow "giving up hope"?).

Shit like this is probably more likely to be the consequence of reporting a sexual assault than getting the rapist convicted is. Why that seems to be taboo to say among radical feminists, i don't know. It's always seemed to me to be a really glaring inconsistency in their ideology - the State is Patriarchal and

[sushis]

Oh, yes. I so agree with that post at Jezebel. The implication that the *victim* has an *absolute duty* no matter what the likely additional damage it will do to her, to report her rape, is one I've always found stunningly horrible. No one has an absolute duty to heroism, *especially not* if they have every reason to believe that their efforts *won't* in fact, make the world better for others. *Even if* there's a reasonable chance that some good might come of it, though, a person whose been victimized violently has *every right* to think first of what's best for *themself.*