I surprised Net.flix with my 1 out of 4 post. In case anyone is wondering, 1 out of 4 was the statistic last I heard, of women will be raped in their lifetime. 1 out of 4. Let that marinate for a second. How many women do you have in your family? How many sisters? How many daughters? How many aunties? How many friends? 1 out of 4.
How many women have you dated in your lifetime? If it's more than 4, then likely one of them has been raped.
There was an interesting article in the NYTimes Online shortly after I wrote my post. Here is a link and a excerpt that moved me:
Click for original article by Nicholas D. Kristof
“The criminal justice system is still ill equipped to deal with rape and not that good at moving rape cases forward,” notes Sarah Tofte, who just wrote a devastating report for Human Rights Watch about the rape-kit backlog. The report found that in Los Angeles County, there were at last count 12,669 rape kits sitting in police storage facilities. More than 450 of these kits had sat around for more than 10 years, and in many cases, the statute of limitations had expired.
There are no good national figures, and one measure of the indifference is that no one even bothers to count the number of rape kits sitting around untested.
Why don’t police departments treat rape kits with urgency? One reason is probably expense — each kit can cost up to $1,500 to test — but there also seems to be a broad distaste for rape cases as murky, ambiguous and difficult to prosecute, particularly when they involve (as they often do) alcohol or acquaintance rape.
“They talk about the victims’ credibility in a way that they don’t talk about the credibility of victims of other crimes,” Ms. Tofte said.
Net.flix and I were talking today and he said that he never knew this story. In the 8 years he has known me, he never knew that I had been raped. It certainly wasn't a secret, I have told people in my life, just never with this amount of detail, never with the admission of the guilt that I felt. Only that it happened, and I moved on. It got me to thinking about the people that read my blog, the men that read, the women that read. We have all been touched by shame or guilt in one form or another in our lives. You just might not know it. Hug the women in your life and let them know that they are loved unconditionally.
I can't even being to explain the relief that I felt in my heart after I got this story out of my body. Have you ever noticed that when you really go after something, things start to fall into place almost effortlessly? "For every action there is an equal reaction" but without action, there is nothing.
I heard Dr. Maya Angelou speaking on the radio the other day. She said that she doesn't allow words of hate to be spoken in her home. She doesn't allow people to disparage the character of others in her home. Dr. Angelou believes that words are physical. When you speak hate in your home or allow hate to be spoken in your home the words land on the table. The more hate, the more words accumulate... on the walls... in your clothes.... in your bed... pretty soon the hate begins to stick to your skin and get into your bones. Then it gets into your heart.
I want my heart to be free to love instead of fear. I want Net.flix to know how much I appreciate him as my friend, even though I know that he thinks he isn't deserving. True friends love without judgement, speak without malice, share without fear, trust without wavering.
7 comments:
Wow, I had no idea it was 1 out of 4, I feel the urge to ask women I know about that but i am afraid they might answer me.
I am glad you didnt let it hold your spirit down.
That statistic is near and dear to my heart. My freshman year in college, my roommate, two female friends and I were chit-chatting and I brought it up. I looked around at the three girls sitting in that room and said "I was watching Oprah one day and it was about sexual abuse. They said one out of the four of us will be raped before we even graduate." It sounded so far fetched, well beyond the scope of reality in my 18 year old mind.
Little did I know it had already happened. My roommate was raped by a guy she met at a party just a few weeks prior.
A real good friend of mine is a judge on a circuit court and also a victim of child abuse and rape coincidentally (Very open about it). According to her the problem is that rape is extremely hard to distinguish. Once you get past the "He said, she said" you still have to deal with hard evidence or lack there of, sometimes its about a person changing their mind whilst in the act, sometimes its about the person too afraid to say no before or during the act, sometimes its about the "victim" saving face when caught in the act... Rape is just a hard thing to deal with on the legal front and usually comes down to a confession to find a guilty verdict (whether the accused is guilty or not) But if the "aggressor" knows how to keep their mouth shut, the aggressor will never be found guilty because rape usually always comes down to what the accuser and the accused say due to lack of witnesses.
Judges are very reluctant to make rulings in such sketchy events, sad but true.
1 out of 4 is no joke. I do believe that words are physical thing. if you speak stuff enough it over takes your life.
Mike: If you can help someone release a hurt, you help the world become a better place.
D/D: I'm sorry to hear about your friend. I hope she has found peace in her life.
Casper: While I know that what this guy did to me was wrong, it is so not on the same level as a violent rape or gang-bang, or the abuse of a child. He didn't hold a gun to my head or a knife to my throat. I wasn't an innocent victim, I was with him willingly. I can understand where a judge would have a hard time deciding a case like mine. Who's to say the girl isn't just jealous or revengeful or insane. Beyond a shadow of a doubt becomes so far-fetched, and there just isn't any way to prove it.
SuperDave: Protect your daughter, teach her the wicked ways of men before she is 13! lol my dad didn't talk to me as much as he should have. I left his house a naive little girl even though I thought I was grown. You make sure your daughter isn't the 1.
(I can't even comment on this.
I HATE rapists, people who eff with kids and anyone who FORCES their desires on others)
The majority of my family consist of female members, so this article really hits home. Some attempted to sexual assault my oldest sister when i was in high school and one of my nieces when i was on the police force. Her dumb butt when into the park, with some guy she barely new, at 3 o'clock in the morning. I was hot!
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