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Nezua's 'Born Under A Blood Red Moon'

By Alexa

You know, I have often asked here: "What is wrong with women?" I ask this question as a woman who deplores our cultural bias against women, which is often exploited and glorified by the media in films. In last year's Captivity (which is, after the first 30 minutes, torture porn, plain and simple), we saw the beautiful female actress kidnapped, raped, beaten, tortured so horrifically I couldn't finish watching, and what did she say? What were the first words she spoke after being brutalized?

"I'm sorry."

Today I read a post by Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican that made me cry. Someone gets it. A man gets it. This redeems my hope in all of us, my men and my women. Someone who isn't female has the strength and compassion to see the struggle women have and have always had. Please go read Nezua's Born Under A Blood Red Moon.

I'll wait.
I want to be very open and very honest in this discussion. The crimes committed against these women -- and yes, these are criminal acts, let's be clear on that -- are not atypical or infrequent. If you're female, you know this. The details are agonizing in reading, and you realize you've read of many instances of stalking, beating, rape, harassment, threats, physical intimidation and you know in your heart that women are by and large conditioned by society that while this is not acceptable behavior, it's definitely not viewed by most as the unacceptable, inexcusable, intolerable behavior it really is.

Violence against women is rampant in our society. I want to know why this is so. I want to know what kind of society we live in, in which a man is free to beat down a woman, have it argued in court to nada, a wrist tap, yet the exact same act of violence perpetrated on another man would be a felony offense? I'm deeply ashamed that women attorneys and judges argue on behalf of the perpetrator. Moreover, how many perpetrators of "domestic violence" are never reported or charged with a crime at all?

Want to talk about torture? This is NION. Why not? Torture happens every day of every week in this country behind closed doors, in college dorms, in back rooms at the workplace, in public laundrettes and late-night library cartels. Torture is knowing you've been marked by a man who wanted you and you didn't reciprocate, and he took it to the lowest possible denominator, his physical strength being greater than yours, and his strength and size allowing him to toy with you like a cat with a mouse. Sneaky, sinister reminders, surprises to keep you scared and defeated and powerless. And yes, ashamed. You don't want to tell the cops about this. You don't want to tell your family some loco is harassing you. You bear your shame and watch your shadow and front to your friends that everything is just fine.

Why? Dios mio, there are dozens of answers to that, just off the top of my head. The police won't help you until after the fact. Your friends? Believe me, you'll find out who they are PDQ when you're at your lowest, most frightened point. Your family might have warned you away from this vato in the first place and if so, you think all they'll remember is that you defended him once. Anything you say or do could be the catalyst that pushes him over the edge and in your mind, he's all-powerful now, all-knowing, and you can't trust a soul not to meddle/try to help and interfere/push him over the edge.

Into that mix of toxic helplessness, let's also consider that we rationalize like fools. He'll stop. He'll leave me alone now. He'll get interested in someone else. He wouldn't dare do anything like what he said. He went too far and he knows it. He didn't mean it. He was drunk, he was high, oh and he was abused as a child so that explains everything.

More rationalization:

I'll lose my job my dorm room my roommate my house my kids my

Your life, mujer?

In the United States, a woman is raped every 6 minutes; a woman is battered every 15 seconds. (Amnesty International)

I wish I could say I'm shocked by these numbers, but that wouldn't be honest. I'm not even surprised. In the 20 minutes it takes me to write this, more than 3 women have been raped in the United States, and more than 80 have been battered. This is an appalling indictment on the way we live and interact with one another, what we see, what we look away from, what we know, what we think and don't speak on.

I'm going to quote Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. here, and yes, I realize he was talking about war in this context.

"Somehow, this madness must stop." Yes. It starts with you and I. We must stop it. We must make this world a safer place for our women and our girls. No one is excused or exempt. You and I have to actively work to stop violence against women. After all, when we speak of "society," that's you and I and a lot of other individuals, so yes, together, we must address this injustice in our daily interactions with others and strive to make our sisters, our daughters, our friends more secure, less vulnerable, less likely to become a statistic who was raped or battered or killed.

Help a Loved One

There are many ways that you can help a friend or family member who has been raped or sexually assaulted:

• Listen. Be there. Don't be judgmental.
• Be patient. Remember, it will take your loved on some time to deal with the crime.
• Help to empower your loved one. Rape and sexual assault are crimes that take away an individual's power, it is important not to compound this experience by putting pressure on your loved one to do things that he or she is not ready to do yet.
• If you are dealing with an issue involving your child, create a safe place by talking directly to them.
• If you are the non-abusing parent in a case of incest, it is important to support your child and help them through this situation without blaming them. This is also true if you are not a parent but still an observer of incest.
• If your loved one is considering suicide, follow-up with them on a regular basis.
• Encourage your loved one to report the rape or sexual assault to law enforcement (call 911 in most areas). If your loved one has questions about the criminal justice process, talking with someone on the National Sexual Assault Hotline, 1.800.656.HOPE, can help.
• Let your loved one know that professional help is available through the National Sexual Assault Hotline, 1.800.656.HOPE, and the National Sexual Assault Online Hotline.
• If your loved one is willing to seek medical attention or report the assault, offer to accompany him or her wherever s/he needs to go (hospital, police station, campus security, etc.)
• Encourage him or her to contact one of the hotlines, but realize that only your loved one can make the decision to get help.
• It is also important to note that having a friend or family member who is raped or assaulted can be a very upsetting experience.
• For this reason it is also important that you take care of yourself. Even if your friend and family member isn't ready to talk to a hotline specialist, you can get support for yourself. You can also get ideas about ways to help your friend or family member through the recovery process.

These are all good suggestions, but they're a start and we need to do much more, especially in the prevention area, and identification of risk behaviors and having the knowledge and resources to listen, to act, to work toward better legislation, to secure more support from our communities.

This is a human rights issue and I'm going to spend some time finding information that we can all use.

For today, though, I want to focus on listening, the first bullet point on our list from RAINN. It's fear of not being heard or not being understood that condemns many women to keeping their terrifying secrets to themselves.

We need to learn to listen in a nonjudgmental way. I'm not talking about just your loved ones. When you see a woman in a checkout line with bruises on her arm (and let's be honest, doors and cabinets don't have fingertips, do they?) what, if anything, do you say?

When you see a young woman running or walking away, with her head down, sneaking glances behind her, is it okay to approach her and ask if she needs help?

When you see a man slap a woman in public, do you just silently observe and "stay out of it" as is our (pathetic) custom?

When you know the police have been to your neighbor's home, and you've heard screaming in the night, do you dare to close your window and tell yourself it's not your business?

It's time to change the way we think about violence, and I hope you'll join me and discuss your own ideas of when and how to help.

Full post as published by Never In Our Names on October 04, 2008 (boomark / email).