“People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute” – Rebecca West
I am a woman who cannot tolerate being held back, caged in, cornered or abused by anyone or anything in any format. So my skin crawled and my fists clenched this past week as news reports in Cleveland, Ohio, announced that three young women, kidnapped and held captive by a sadistic, skeezy, sexual predator for more than a decade, were finally found and saved. And it all happened in the house next door in the neighborhood where anyone could live, and no one caught on for those ten long years.
I cannot even begin to dive into the psychological factors of how a person, male or female, can succumb to any form of sadistic physical and psychological domination and imprisonment over any period of time, and what it does to your mind. But, sadly, it happens, and there are countless books and articles on how it happens. My heart goes out to these women and my hope is that they will receive all the necessary love and professional care they need to repair and rebuild their lives
Here is what bothers me in the big picture:
The women’s movement has fought long and hard to “liberate” us from discrimination and to empower us to take charge of our lives, careers, rights and bodies. Yet, the United Nations Development Fund For Women (UNIFEM) reports that “between 15 and 76 percent of women are targeted for physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetime, according to the available country data. Most of this violence takes place within intimate relationships, with many women (ranging from 9 to 70 percent) reporting their husbands or partners as the perpetrator.”
The women’s movement and the birth control pill liberated us sexually to express ourselves in however way we want. Yet, while Viagra and Cialis are covered by health insurance to help men with erectile disfunction, women still have to pay out of pocket for the birth control pill to protect themselves from an unwanted pregnancy. And as for women’s right to choose to end any unwanted pregnancy, I believe that is a private decision and not a political platform.
We may be sexually liberated,but intimate femicide is one of the leading causes of violent death among women in the United States and in many other countries. I just finished reading Mark Seal’s article in the June issue of Vanity Fair magazine on the murder of Reeva Steenkamp at the hands of “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius. Seal notes that in South Africa intimate femicide is the leading cause of violent deaths among women with a death “happening every eight hours.”
According to The Facts: Violence Against Women & Millennium Development Goals (compiled by UNIFEM, 2010).
- In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.
- In India, 8,093 cases of dowry-related death were reported in 2007; an unknown number of murders of women and young girls were falsely labeled ‘suicides’ or ‘accidents’.
- In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, between 40 and 70 percent of female murder victims were killed by their intimate partners.
- In the State of Chihuahua, Mexico, 66 percent of murders of women were committed by husbands, boyfriends or other family members
In March 2013 President Obama signed a bill that strengthened and reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) to help victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking get access to resources in their communities to help them repair their lives.
Yet, magazines perpetually promote how women can better identify and project their sexual selves to be femme fatales, and we buy them.
Yet, the best selling book “Fifty Shades of Gray,” (and its sequels) is about a young woman who signs a contract with a man that binds her to be “sexual submissive” to his “sexual dominant,” and we buy it.
Yet, we continue to stay in relationships with men who suck us dry emotionally and financially because it is better than nothing. We learn that the trying to break the bondage of a relationship-gone-sour is often harder that the effort we went through to find the guy in the first place.
Yet, I don’t think young women today are any smarter about the choices they are going to make about their lives. Otherwise, we would hear fewer stupid stories about sexting and sexual surfing online and fewer stories about women bullies. And we wouldn’t see shows like “Teen Mom” on MTV or view Housewives behaving badly in every section of the country and becoming celebrities for acting up and making convenient or poor choices in men on air to build their platforms. a.k.a. ratings.
A movie about Jody Arias’ cold blood murder of boyfriend, Travis Alexander, was already being shot even before the jury handed down its “guilty” verdict this past week. There is no doubt that money is being raised, and book deals are in the works on the Cleveland kidnappings. These are sensational stories. And we are going to buy it all. It’s just too bad that the money that will be made will not go toward helping funds ways to educate women and to find ways to fight domestic abuse and help victims.
As long as media and publishing feed the fascination and serve an inaccurate image of how girls/women should behave, dress and project, and as long as we continue to support and buy these images and products, we will continue to fuel the problem.
References:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/07/no-one-should-have-live-fear-violence
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