In a culture of sexual violence against women, it’s sometimes difficult to remember the change we want to see in the world, and in our leaders.
Todd Akin’s recent comments give us an important opportunity to consider what a true leader for our communities should be saying about sexual assault.
Leadership means sometimes saying things that challenge the social norm. And let’s be clear—in a country where one in three women experience sexual assault, accepting rape as a tragic yet inevitable part of life for women is the norm.
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In an unhealthy society, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what health looks like.
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True leaders would denounce rape unequivocally and state clearly that the blame always lies with the rapist and never the victim. True leaders would acknowledge that there are few consequences for rapists today. They would acknowledge that when 1 in 3 women experience sexual assault, as a society we are doing something to create rapists. They would understand this requires committing to deep cultural changes and invest time and energy into making this happen in our schools and in our media.
True leaders would also acknowledge the power and bravery that women and girls do possess—not in their vaginas’ magical abilities to avoid unwanted conception, but in their abilities to learn to speak out about what’s happened to them, advocate for themselves
and others, and defend themselves in a culture that is otherwise not supporting them and keeping them safe.
Creating change with sexual assault requires a full systems approach. Preventing a sexual assault for one woman is not enough. Even sending one man to prison is not enough. If we truly want our sisters, our mothers, our daughters, our wives and our friends to be safe, we need to create change on a much larger level. Our nation’s dialogue about rape deserves more attention than a footnote in a conversation about contraception. It’s up to our leaders to initiate and support these changes.
In an unhealthy society, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what health looks like. Let’s take this opportunity to re-focus on what we want to see in our leaders and our society, not just what we don’t want.
Read more:
In Rape Culture, All Men Are Guilty Until Proven Innocent
About Alena Schaim
OH BOY! OH BOY! OH BOY! Where Do You Start!
Whilst I have absolutely no objection to questioning the words and language of leaders – and holding such people with media access and public opinion shifting power to account (with a cattle prod if necessary), I do have to wonder at the sudden change of statistics that have made an advent in this OPed!
They would acknowledge that when 1 in 3 women experience sexual assault, as a society we are doing something to create rapists.
There have been long hard and contentious debates and comments concerning the long standing claims of 1 in 6 (and especially just how matters were defined by researchers ), and how those most questionable figures have then been propagated through the ill educated under grad community of The US University system. Slap dash seems to be a growing habit and issue!
So exactly when did the incidence of sexual assault – which may be rape – suddenly jump by 200% – from 1 in 6 to 1 in 3?
When did the definition of sexual assault come to mean rape? For the record they are not the same! A basic point that does need to be pointed out. Any professional in the field would know that.
….as a society we are doing something to create rapists.?
Well constantly redefining the operational definition of rape does conflate figures and lead to conflated stats. It would be the same as redefining racism to include having English as a first language, which would automatically both conflate stats and also make some 198,000,000 US citizens Bigots!
Could such claims please be explained – and verified? Sources are required!
Do we really need to revisit the fudges and and gerrymandering of the Stats from last year issued by the CDC?
… and thank heavens the Overwhelming Trope did not feature – well at least the word overwhelming did not get used! The Whiff of trope is present!
…. and if there were true leaders they would also acknowledge that male rape exists – so I have to conclude that the author of this piece is “NO” leader in any relevant field!
Creating change with sexual assault requires a full systems approach. Preventing a sexual assault for one woman is not enough.
Oh I agree with full systems approach – but it would be better and even more Humane – Practical and even less Gender Biased if it read “Preventing a sexual assault for one PERSON is not enough.” using correct and valid language would show some leadership!
Those old gender biases, stereotypes and deeply embedded tropes are not just for leaders to address! If those who preach at leaders are preaching bias, I do hope that some of the leaders hold such Preachers to account – and they need no religion to be preaching!
In an unhealthy society, it’s sometimes difficult to remember what health looks like
How Ironic – even if that was not the intent! Male Rape Survivors don’t even get mentioned – except under the possible euphemism of Friends.
How Unfriendly, even Unuser-friendly, can you get?
While statistics vary, the stats that we use are that 1 in 3 women experience sexual assault, while 1 in 6 experience rape in their lifetime. You are right to distinguish sexual assault from rape. I do as well, and I tend to discuss sexual assault more than rape in order to address the issue more fully. However, I did use the words “rapist” in the same sentence, and I can see how that could appear to confuse things. It would have been more accurate to say “sexual assailants.”
I wrote this article about women because it was in response to a comment/discussion about women’s bodies. I do discuss violence against men in other arenas and pieces I’ve written. Unfortunately, many of my men students and partners have experienced sexual assault and/or domestic violence. It is an issue I care about deeply. I should have at least mentioned the reason I was focusing on women in this piece & acknowledged the violence men experience in order to be more inclusive and demonstrate the systems approach I advocate. Unfortunately, when I write, I always battle conciseness with fullness of thought. An intrinsic issue with blogs/articles as opposed to books, indeed.
I’m sorry if this article seemed more hurtful to you than supportive of issues we all care about. That certainly was not my intention.