Stop Talking About Gender Violence, Sexual Assault, and Domestic Violence

Before you write a hateful comment or stop reading this article, please allow me to explain my point. First of all, I’m not against those who advocate for women, social equality, anti-racism, or stop violence in any way or form.

On the contrary, the issues of domestic violence, relationship abuse, sexual abuse of children, sexual assault, and sexual harassment are frequently referred to as gender violence issues” or women’s issues are important, and we must denounce them and work towards ending them.

That is why they will never disappear until we address the real problem. These are not women’s issues only; they are primarily men’s, and as long as we exclude them from the issue, all our efforts will be in vain.

Some time ago, while researching an article, I came across several TED talks and articles which explained that to change our society, we must shift our perspective paradigm and include the real problem into the equation.

Since the 1970s, with the Equal Rights Amendment, designed to guarantee protection against sexual discrimination for women under the law, Americans have sought equality and a 50–50 representation. Yet, after over 50 years, the numbers are 25% in Congress and 29% in the Senate.

So, here is my standpoint on analyzing and solving these issues, including the common denominator: White heterosexual-aggressive men.

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Domestic Violence

Jackson Katz, an educator, author, and cultural theorist, uses in his TED talk the work of American linguist, author, and philosopher Julia Penelope, to explain how our language conspires to keep our attention off of men.

Let’s start with the sentence, “John beat Mary.” Where John is the subject, beat is the verb, and Mary is the object.

To remove the focus from John to Mary, the sentence transforms into “Mary was beaten by John.” The next step is to remove John entirely from the problem with “Mary was Beaten.” Then instead of using beaten, let’s use its synonym battered and change the sentence to “Mary was battered.”

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The last step is to switch to “Mary is a battered woman,” where John is out of the equation, and the action transforms Mary’s whole identity. Hence, no John or any other man is mentioned.

With this, Julia Penelope explains how a few grammatical changes created a “blaming the passive victim voice” — for example, “John beat Mary” becomes “Mary is a battered woman,” and effectively removes the perpetrator from the equation by simply removing the active voice.

RAINN

The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. Its National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE, online.rainn.org y rainn.org/es) operates the DoD Safe Helpline for the Department of Defense. It also partners with over 1,000 local sexual assault service providers nationwide and runs programs to prevent sexual violence, assist survivors, and bring perpetrators to justice.

On its victims of sexual violence statistics page, the numbers are astounding:

On average, 463,634 victims (age 12 or older) suffer rape and sexual assault yearly in the United States.
As of 1998, an estimated 17.7 million American women had been victims of attempted or completed rape. 82% of all juvenile and 90% of adult rape victims are female.
Females aged 12–34 are at the highest risk. Those 16–19 are four times more likely than others to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault, and female college students ages 18–24 are three times more likely.
Not only females are at risk. As of 1998, 2.78 million men in the U.S. This is 3% or 1 in 33 — men who have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime.
Sexually assaulted victims are more likely to use drugs:
3.4 times more likely to use marijuana
6 times more likely to use cocaine
10 times more likely to use other major drugs.

Sexual violence also affects victims’ relationships with family, friends, work, school, bosses, coworkers, and peers. They are also at high risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

All of the above, without mentioning the risks for the 21% of transgender students, 5,900 American Indians ages 12 and older, 80,600 prison inmates and prison staff members, plus the 6,053 military members who reported experiencing sexual assault during military service in 2018.

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The root of the problem

We all must report and fight to end the shocking numbers mentioned before. But first, we must start including the perpetrator in the equation.

Stop talking about the number of women raped last year and denounce “how many men raped women.”

Don’t talk about how many girls were harassed in your school district; mention “how many boys harassed girls in your school district.”

Stop mentioning how many teenage girls got pregnant in your city or state, and instead protest about “how many boys and men impregnated teenage girls.”

Stop blaming the girls and women, and include who is to blame. Don’t let a few grammatical changes remove the perpetrator from the equation.

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Take Away

As long as we use selective language to exclude men from these issues, our politicians and law enforcement agencies won’t do anything to stop the problem.

Talking about “violence against women,” “gender discrimination,” “racist remarks,” “religious slurs,” “misogynist talk,” or other kinds of evil actions against a specific group won’t point to the perpetrator, is like if it’s just something that happens to females, the LGBTQQIP2SA community, people of color, Muslim, Judes, or women, And Men aren’t even a part of it.

Don’t allow teachers, lawmakers, and semantic professionals to use general terms such as “gender,” “race,” “religion,” or “sex” in the law to keep our attention off of problematic men.

Let’s join our efforts and write to our politicians to include White heterosexual-aggressive guilty men into the equation and punish them accordingly.

“To solve a problem, you have to include all the variables into the equation”

— Jose Luis Ontanon

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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