IF THIS RAPE VICTIM WERE A MAN IT WOULD BE WAAAY MORE HORRIBLE AND SHAMEFUL
Secretary Clinton to Travel to Goma to Speak Out Against War Rape
From the New York Times:
“On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton will fly to Goma, in the heart of the battle zone. The city was nearly overrun by rebels last year and is situated in a bowl of beautiful but treacherous green mountains, making it difficult for aircraft to land and resulting in several fatal air crashes in the recent years.
But Mrs. Clinton said the importance of the visit outweighed the risks of going there.
“Lots of concerns were raised and objections,” she said. “But I said, ‘this is something I want to do and we’re going.’”
In Goma, Mrs. Clinton plans to meet several women who have been raped, the human consequences of this unending war. The United Nations calls eastern Congo the rape capital of the world because hundreds of thousands of women have been sexually assaulted by the various militias haunting the hills. Recently, there has been a spike in cases of men raping men as well.
“Women are being turned into weapons of war,” Mrs. Clinton said on the plane from Angola to Congo, the fourth stop on her seven-nation African tour.
The Congo visit has a sharper point to it than many of the other stops. Mrs. Clinton has cast herself as an advocate for women — and in many ways she is a role model across the world — and eastern Congo desperately needs something to lift it out of its morass of violence, which seems increasingly unsolvable.”
Imagine if she were president. An inspiring and courageous leader for sure.
But don’t be distracted. I was first troubled by the reporter’s line: “. . .women who have been raped, the human consequences of this unending war.”What the hell is THAT supposed to mean? Bomb craters, dead soldiers, ruined infrastructure, destroyed economy, accidental/on-purpose civilian deaths: THOSE are the human consequences of war. When the hell did the rape of women become a human consequence of war? No, I’m not being obtuse. Of course I know that men raping women in the name and under the cover of war is as old as war itself.What I didn’t know is that in a civilized, supposedly egalitarian society like ours we had become so immune and blind to misogyny that we consider the rape of women to be as expected and inevitable as a power outage during war.
The comment from Violet Sox’s place has been buzzing around in my head since I read it this morning:
“I remember reading a comment elsewhere saying that to this guy [the aerobics class murderer], as to others (though not all), women existed as a “form of consumption”. They aren’t real people with their own dreams, interests, strengths and flaws, hobbies and jobs, families and friends… they exist to “be consumed by men”.
– Esther”
Women exist to be consumed by men. Now THAT is a thought to stop me in my tracks. As I said in comments earlier, it makes me think differently about the Mary Jo Kopechne drowning. That young woman was Kennedy’s Object to Consume. Just like Chandra Levy. Just like Mark Sanford’s Argentinian girlfriend (just like his wife too!); Just like Sarah Palin for the rabid men of the left. Women exist to be consumed by men. As wives to take care of their homes and their personal lives; as mothers to raise their children; As cheerleaders to support their dreams; As sex objects to satisfy their physical needs; As cooks to provide them with food. As rage receptacles when shame and insecurity gives them permission to torture and kill their girlfriends, wives, daughters, or complete strangers.
But that’s nothing compared to what I found in the embedded link to the article about the rise of men being raped by men:
“The male rape cases are still just a fraction of those against women. But for the men involved, aid workers say, it is even harder to bounce back.
“Men’s identity is so connected to power and control,” Ms. Walker said.
And in a place where homosexuality is so taboo, the rapes carry an extra dose of shame.”
Less than one-tenth of one percent as many rapes of men as there are of women in Goma. Several hundred thousand women have been raped — perhaps a few hundred men, but it is WORSE FOR THE MEN!
“Men’s identity is so connected to power and control.” Uh, yeah, what the hell do you think women’s identity is tied to? Folding laundry? Baking the best f*cking cherry pie in the neighborhood? Can anyone plausibly argue that women don’t link our sense of selves, our identities, to our own power and control over our daily lives and destinies? Or did the aid worker mean that men’s identities are so connected to power and control OVER OTHER PEOPLE? Or does the reporter, the editor, AND the aid worker not know what the hell they are talking about?
“The [homosexual] rapes carry an extra dose of shame.” Oh really? We now can quantify shame down to the teaspoon-dose level and KNOW that for men, the shame is much worse?
Obviously, the aid worker is an idiot. But the reporter, Jeffrey Gettleman, is worse than an idiot. Why didn’t he frame the comments in their obvious context: That, as Bob Hebert says in the very same newspaper, “We have become so accustomed to living in a society saturated with misogyny that the barbaric treatment of women and girls has come to be more or less expected” ?? Why didn’t Gettleman’s editor call for an immediate re-write and blast the reporter for allowing his unconscionable bias into the article?
Oh, that’s right, because there are NO EDITORS at the New York Times who know how to spot misogyny. Four out of 18 editors at the NYT are women. Only one of them, Jill Abramson, serves in the newsroom, assigning and overseeing news stories .There ARE NO EDITORS in the mainstream media in the United States who recognize the atmosphere in which we all swim for what it is: toxically damaging to women and girls.
Because I live to serve, though not to be consumed, I will provide, FOR FREE, a rewrite of Gettleman’s atrocious passage:
Women are second-class citizens in Goma, as in many other parts of Africa and the developing world. This pervasive misogyny means that both victims and those who respond to the rape crisis in war-torn areas believe the rape of men is somehow worse, or more shameful, for the male victims. The male rape cases are still just a fraction of those against women. But for the men involved, aid workers say, it is even harder to bounce back. “Men’s identity is so connected to power and control,” Ms. Walker said. And in a place where homosexuality is so taboo homophobia is rampant, the rapes carry an extra dose of shame.”
Pay attention professional, serious journalists and editors. If you hired someone like me to edit the rampant misogyny out of your publications and broadcasts you could end up with a product that’s as popular as, say, HILLARY CLINTON!
