Stop Violence Against Women

The “Slut-Walk” protests, the global demonstrations against rape and the outrage at the needless death of Savita Halappanavar because of lack of access to abortion, demonstrate the increasing confidence, determination and willingness of women to challenge sexual and gender oppression.

Rage against Rape!

The horrific gang rape and murder in India of a 23 year old medical student on 17th of December 2012 provoked outrage and anger both in India and around the world. It brought into sharp focus not just the personal horror that rape inflicts on women but also the abject failure of governments and society as a whole to take the issue of rape and sexual violence seriously!

In Scotland rape and sexual violence remains common place. Three women report incidents of rape to the police every week and one in five women will experience at least one form of “serious sexual assault” from the age of 16.

As we know most women don’t report their abuse to the police. This is for many reasons; shame, fear, guilt, fear of not being believed, knowledge that a tiny minority of abusers get convicted and also the amount of victim blaming that exists in society particularly in cases of rape and sexual assault. There is a wide spread misconception that rape happens in a dark street by a stranger, however, 80% rape and sexual assaults are committed by someone the woman knows and in more than half of all rapes/sexual assaults are at the hands of their partner in her own home.

The ignorant and dangerous views expressed by the likes of George Galloway and Naomi Klein in response to the rape allegations made against Julian Assange reflect the widespread attitudes towards rape and sexual violence.

“Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep you’re already in the sex game with them. It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said: ‘Do you mind if I do it again?’ It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.” George Galloway in his radio broadcast.

It’s hard to put into words just how damaging such statements are, particularly to the majority of women who have been raped or sexually assaulted by a partner. Forget the fact that if you happen to be married, or in a relationship, then you are fair game to be raped whenever your husband/partner feels like it, because, well your already in’ the sex game’! Now if you have met a guy on a night out and one thing leads to another, again….

But Galloway isn’t alone in having such views. Amnesty International UK in a sexual attitudes survey found that:

• 34% of people thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she behaved in a flirtatious manner
• 30% of people thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she was drunk
• 26% of people thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she was wearing ‘sexy or revealing’ clothing
• 22% of people thought that a woman was fully or partially responsible for being raped if she has had several sexual partners

Rape and sexual violence is not a ‘crime of passion’, an inability to control sexual urges, because he had too much to drink, because he thought she was up for it. Rape and sexual violence is not a sexual act, it is an act of premeditated violence. It is a grotesque abuse of power with the aim of humiliating, hurting and denigrating the victim of this horrendous crime.

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.” ― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery

The effects of being raped or sexually assaulted are devastating and long lasting. Women can experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties, sleep deprivation, eating disorders, physical illness, panic attacks, sexually transmitted disease, low self-esteem, lacking confidence, to name but a few. A report, Rape and Justice in Ireland found that in the longer term, women who have been raped are twice as likely to be unemployed.   Many women require to take time off work or leave their course to give them time to recover. This is made worse now, particularly in the public sector with attacks on the amount of time you can have off sick before you are sacked.

“I did leave college because…I couldn’t go in because I was worried in case people started asking me questions….I didn’t want tutors asking me where I was and then start me bursting into tears and having to run away….and it has affected me because anytime I go looking for a job – “how come you were only in college for two years, blah, blah, blah”. And you can’t say that to them”. Survivor in Rape and Justice in Ireland

However, there is a growing willingness to take action on the issues challenging rape and ‘rape culture’. The slut walk movement has been an important step in allowing women to demonstrate across the world to challenge the reactionary ideas that because of how we behave or dress that we are to blame for being raped!