(cross posted from Dkos)
The news out of South Dakota about a ban on abortion, even in cases of rape, has hit a lot of women hard, ripping away the protective coating covering very painful memories. The outpouring of women’s stories at BoomanTribune, and many other sites I have visited, is up front evidence of the lifelong impact of rape and sexual abuse, as well as the other ways in which male dominated cultures tends to devalue and disempower women.
Women are over half of the population. The facts on the ground are that over half of the population of this country lives every day knowing we are not truly safe anywhere there might be a rapist: a man who uses power and control as a weapon to take what he wants.
Facts on the ground are that while most men are appalled by rape and would never commit one themselves, men have not stopped it from happening every few seconds of every day, all over America.
Men charged with making and enforcing the law have not stopped it. The good and decent men who love and respect women have not stopped it. Women clearly cannot stop it on their own. And why are so many men shocked to learn of how many women they know and respect have been raped, many more than once? How did this all go underground again? How does a culture get like this?
The last time I was raped was long ago, and I share this short version only to try to answer that question.
I was in my 40’s then, and nearly dead from end stage alcoholism, when I joined the small town sobriety support group that consisted of mostly men. It was all there was there. It was not easy for me to trust men, but I slowly came to trust these men, especially one of them, a leader of the group with 25 years of sobriety. His name was Ben.
Ben offered to be my sponsor. I was honored and I accepted. He was a damned good one too. Until the night when I fell off the wagon and was sitting two thirds smashed on a bar stool, choking on shame and wanting to kill myself. I called Ben instead.
My last lucid memory is the wonderful sense of safety I felt as I laid my head on his strong, safe shoulder when he climbed onto the stool beside me, and told me I might as well have another; get it all out of my system now that he was there to take care of me.
The next thing I knew, it was morning. I was naked in a bed in a sleazy hotel room, aching from head to foot, watching Ben walk out of the bathroom in his shorts.
But even worse was learning later that every man in that group knew how Ben was, and had been looking the other way for many years. Even worse than that was finding four other women who had also been “sponsored” by Ben, but who still could not come forward, and wondering how many more there were we couldn’t locate.
This came about as a result of a culture that had devalued and objectified women for so long that it had become a societal norm. The men in that group who knew and had remain silent all those years were as guilty of the exploitation and rape of many very vulnerable women as Ben was.
I wish I could say it’s not still like this today. It may not be, in some settings, at least not as overtly. But the plain, unarguable fact is that rape and violence against women is just as prevalent, if not more so now as it was then.
How can this be seen as anything less that substantiated proof that what needs to change at the foundations of the male dominated American culture has not changed at all? Now even more proof is all around us, in the form of headlines such as just came out of South Dakota. All of the powerful men in control at all levels of this male dominated government, have allowed religious fanatics to buy their way into enough power to take away the women’s basic civil right to control of our own bodies.
For those who just could not understand why so many of us objected to the pie ads, this is why. Not because we’re prudes with no sense of humor or are behind the times. We objected because we know that this kind of ongoing (more sophisticated now) cultural objectification of women is one of the major factors that gave the kinds of men who raped us permission and justification to do so. And we know these are the kinds of men we still have to walk amidst in today’s American culture.
What I can’t figure out is did the women of my generation, and the ones before us, who fought this war before win, or did we lose? All I know for sure is this: I have two granddaughters: one 24 years old and the other ten months old.
When I held my first granddaughter in my arms, I was so proud of the world I was going to leave her and so excited about her wide open future.
When I hold little Ivy Rose, I can only say I am so sorry to leave her this one, and I feel genuine fear for her future.
I honestly believed women could set all of this right on our own, via our own sheer power and deteminition.
I no longer believe this is possible, not within a long established, male dominated, hierarchal structure as entrenched as this one is. Not without vast numbers of men also genuinely wanting it to change. Men with the courage to make those changes happen within themselves, then within their brother, and then to demand it of the men with power at the top of this pyramid.
Women, well, we will never stop fighting this war on the front lines. If you are very still, you will hear the vibrations of the vast underground network gearing up once again, to make sure we have systems in place to take care of women who desperately need abortions and emergency birth control or protection from domestic violence as the male dominated political pyramid grinds up our access to these things.
It is impossible for many of us to believe that spending more of our vital energy fighting within the current political system, as it operates now, is the solution, when it is that very system that has led us back to this. I understand what many of you are trying to do, and applaud your intent and wish you success. But personally, I have lost all faith in the power of politics to protect women.
What energies I have left to offer need to go directly where they are needed the most: to help protect the bodies and minds of other woman.
