Heart over at Women’s Space has some important stories, particularly two on rape:
Jamie Leigh Jones, raped by Halliburton and the Bush Administration.
Her testimony to Congress is horrifying. Halliburton contractors are immune from American and Iraqi prosecution by Cheney’s decree, so they’ve basically been given a free pass to rape whomever they like, and have most definitely been raping locals and female American employees without any consequences. Heart has posted the video of her testimony. Transcript here.
And The Padlocked Vagina. Rapes in the Congo.
As one commenter says, though, it’s almost insulting to call this “rape.” It’s disabling torture. There is nothing remotely sexual about it — it’s pure torture and maiming (and killing through torture).
Again, horrifying. It’s when I read stories like these that I start gravitating towards the radfem belief that men really do hate women. It’s hard to understand this sort of torture and mutilation of women for being women, aimed at their genitals. I honestly don’t understand it, nor can I pretend it doesn’t exist. Susan Brownmiller can be mocked by “sex positive” feminists (if she’s a feminist) like Wendy McElroy, but she had a point: There is something about rape that is uniquely terrible, revealing a level of depravity and hatred that is similar to cold-blooded medieval tortures.
Most men are unable to take it seriously because hey, it’s just sex. Read these stories; it’s important.
Filed under: Feminism
It’s when I read stories like these that I start gravitating towards the radfem belief that men really do hate women.
Shit, they’re on to us!
Most men are unable to take it seriously because hey, it’s just sex.
I think that’s a tad unfair. That said, it is absolutely right that men simply cannot understand the violence and violation of rape. Perhaps it is in part due to the cultural bullshit that privileges male sexuality and degrades women’s status as sexual beings. With that kind of day-in, day-out hammering of one’s “sexual role,”
I can’t imagine what additional damage that does, on top of the powerlessness, violence, and violation. A woman I know, having been gang-raped as an adolescent, noted how — given the prize her virginity was in her religious upbringing — her body became a worthless thing to her, and sex no special thing. It broke my heart.
Woah, weird break there… there shouldn’t be a line between the comma and “I.”
Well…the glimmer of hope is that there is some economic leverage Westerners can use to lessen the rape in the Congo.
A lot of it’s over minerals and such. Western companies paying generals, but not their soldiers, to guard an area and make it so one one wants to live there, telling their generals to just have their soldiers take whatever they can and consider that their pay. :-(
But we can make sure we don’t buy things like niobium-enhanced stuff and are careful about our coffee and such. :-\
I think this is one case in which there really is something in addition to awareness-raising that can help, fortunately.
Hi Apostate,
May I recommend Dr. Robert Minor’s book, ‘Scared Straight’?
Its a good breakdown of western cultural ideas (I don’t know about other cultures) that pressure mens’ behavior. I’m offering this by no means as an excuse for brutal behavior, but perhaps as a way to understand it.
I don’t think straight men hate women, but definitely are often crippled in how they expect to interact with them or anyone else (gay men, transgendered, etc.) they see as ‘lesser’.
Thanks for writing a great blog,
Jack
I am starting to think that rape is inextricably linked to war. I remember reading “the rape of Nanking” several years ago- hundreds of thousands of women were raped, violated with bayonets and then forced to watch their children being impaled on those bayonets. Widespread rape as part of warfare is still one of military history’s best kept secrets.
Its a good breakdown of western cultural ideas (I don’t know about other cultures) that pressure mens’ behavior.
Hey, Jack — thanks for the kind words and the book recommendation. I’ll check it out.
I don’t know that western men are any different from men in other cultures in terms of the brutal violence they inflict on women. It seems to be something deeper than culture — or something that would be common across cultures. I used to think it was fear of the unknown. It has to be more complicated than that — and fear of the unknown or the unconquerable shouldn’t engender such cruelty.
I really don’t understand it.
I don’t understand it either – but I kind of agree with gigi: only bigger. Rape is inextricably linked with war – it’s a tool used by men to defeat other men but, over and above that – it’s a tool often used by men in their attempt to deafeat women.
It seems to me that, just as men will use sexual violence against women to demonstrate their power over other men, they’ll use it to demonstrate their power over women and children too.
It’s not “sex” – it’s sexual violence; and why would a man do something like that to a woman or a child?