War on Women – Yeah, It’s Real

Okay, so I’m not normally quite this rabid, but this is one of those times when I have to get all frothing and foamy.  (In a bad way.)

Opposing Views, which I follow on FB and read sometimes, had an article that I pulled up about a girl in India who got revenge on her rapist.  It was her uncle, and he was a religious doctor (called a tantrik) who claimed he could heal her but instead raped her.  He wanted her to come back for more “treatment.”  She came prepared – she brought a cell phone and a knife.  She recorded their conversation using the cell phone, and then she castrated him with the knife.  Nice and simple, right?

There’s even a nice picture of people standing around holding a sign that says “Stop Crimes on Women.”

But the rest of the page seems to give a totally different message.  There are five different images across the top that are meant to drag the viewer on.  Of these, four of them are of women: one of an attractive woman crying, mascara smeared; one of two women kissing, labeled “Celebrities That Swing Both Ways!”; one of a woman in very tight, very small clothing with a police officer looking on; the last one of a woman in lingerie and heels in a provocative pose, labeled “The 10 Best Butts in Hollywood!”

Seriously, Opposing Views?  Seriously?  This is the shit that you chose to pair with a story about rape?  Four different stories with images (and probably “stories” – if you can call a list of “best butts” a story) that clearly treat women as objects.  The photo of the woman in small, tight clothing doesn’t even show her face – clearly, that’s not an important part of a woman – and the headline is “New Rule in Seabrook, TX,” although I bet that, whatever was the closest town to the viewer would be reflected there.  It’s click bait.  Meaningless crap that shows women off as, well, meaningless crap.

So I’m no longer following them on FB.  And I’m posting up this blog.  Maybe if they lose enough click-thrus and followers, they might learn that women don’t appreciate being treated this way.  Maybe they’re learn that women should be treated with respect and…oh, who am I kidding?  They’ll never learn.  But at least we can stop giving them their clicks.

Hey, as long as it’s in the family…

Open your eyes
(image by LukeDavison via morgueFile)

Outrage! Shock! Horror!  And totally dismissal.  Because while a now 52-year-old man kept a developmentally disabled woman captive for 14 years in his back yard, using her as a sex slave and abusing her, it’s all cool because, you know, she’s family.

Yeah, that’s right.  Not a problem.  Not a big deal.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  The total and complete waste of human life is going to serve 22 years in prison.  (Will he really, though?  Or will he get out early for “good behavior”?) 

The big deal here, the truly horrific part, is that the woman escaped in 2012.  Yes, two years ago.  Two years!  But the authorities never said anything to the public because, well, according to the chief of police, “…we did not release any information up to this point about the case because the crime was perpetrated within the family by a very close family member…there was no reason to believe there were any non-family members who had been victimized…”   

So, yeah, he did horrible horrible things to a woman who couldn’t fight back for over a decade, but since she was family, it’s not worth mentioning.  Now, the chief did also say that the victim was “…very fragile and we did not want to jeopardize her welfare or the case in any way.” 

The woman was 13 when her relative took her in 1998.  For all that time, he kept her in a shed in the backyard.  She did not attend school, and he did landscaping work with her in the backyard.  A neighbor said that she thought something wasn’t right, but apparently, she didn’t bother mentioning it.  And the other relatives also apparently didn’t notice something wrong with her vanishing, but, the article mentions, one of them picked her up.  So how did she contact this relative?  Did this relative know and not do anything about it?  Or did they suspect but not act?

The plea deal that is getting him 22 years, by the way?  Yeah, he’s pleading guilty to “one count of forced lewd acts on a child and two counts of forcible rape.”  Yes, three counts of crimes that spanned fourteen years of this woman’s life.

This article reminds me of something I read many years ago by a wonderful crusader and author named Andrew Vacchs.  Back in 2005, he published an op-ed about how easy it was for family members to get away with incest.  At that time, sex with a child under age 11 was up to 25 years in prison.  Unless, of course, it was a family member.  Because then it’s just a class E felony, one that is considered “an offense affecting the marital relationship” and the person who commits the crime (yes, raping a child falls into this), they can just get probation.  Because incest, you see, is considered a “nonviolent crime.”  I shit you not.  A non-violent crime.

Why is it that we are so quick to forgive people who commit atrocious acts on their own relatives?  Their children?  Their nieces and nephews?  Their grandchildren?  Why do we think this is okay?  Because, really, if we didn’t think it was okay, then these crimes wouldn’t be so easily hidden and swept under the rug.  These rulings wouldn’t happen. 

We need to know about these things, and we need to do something about them.  Me?  I’ve applied to be a child advocate. 

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi