Category: Freedom of women

Op- Ed : Culture of Silence: Why Minority Victims of Sex Abuse Don’t Report

Why Minority Victims of Sex Abuse Don’t Report

Nashara Turrentine

 

As a black woman, I grew up in a household that values and cherishes family and holds the family name to a high standard. Things that bring the family shame were never to be discussed with the public or with friends, and anything that happened amongst the family was to be resolved and never spoken on again. I place a strong emphasis on “never spoken on again,” and less emphasis on “resolved,” because many minority women, they are the ones shamed, and forced to move forward. This is especially true for women whose perpetrators are their older, male family members. Sometimes, the issue is simply brushed to the side, and their abusers are allowed to continue coming around. The reasoning behind this is not as simple as saying that families just don’t want to deal with the assaults. The importance of upholding the family name is incredibly prevalent amongst most minority families, and family shame, honor, and stigma are listed as some of the cultural reasons that there are barriers to women and children reporting their sexual abuse and abusers. The reputation of one’s family or that community is nine times out of ten placed at the forefront of the issue as opposed to bringing shame to the abuser, which seems like it would have the opposite effect in my opinion. I would much rather be slightly embarrassed that there is one single abuser in my family and be known for excommunicating them from the family than let people find out that not only did we enable the abuse, but we kept the abuser around after finding out they did anything to harm someone that I loved. I personally think your family name is soiled once people find out you are enabling something as disgusting as sexual assault or any kind of abuse. There are also many deeply ingrained stigmas and stereotypes pushed onto minority communities that hold plenty of women back from reporting their abuse. For example, black women are stereotyped as “fast,” and are apparently more likely to consent to sexual activity at a young age than others. First of all, you cannot consent to anything as a child. Secondly, I believe a lot of the black community is responsible for enabling and continuing on this idea that young black girls are “fast,” or “too grown.” Black mothers are very quick to tell their sons to “stay away from them fast little girls.” Why are you, as a black woman, helping perpetuate the idea that black women need less protection from predators and are more sexually advanced than their white peers? I can’t write this without bringing up the ever so famous “go cover-up, family is coming over.” When has it ever been okay to feel like your child needs to cover up their legs or midsection because their own male family is on the way to spend time with them? It’s not okay, but it is genuinely ingrained in the black community. If I move away from the black household and focus on the Middle Eastern or Asian household, especially the more traditional families, many women are deemed unworthy of marriage after sexual assault, as virginity is a virtue and sometimes, a requirement of marriage for these cultures.

 

Moving away from the subject household and into the issue of legal power being no help, many minorities are reluctant to report because they fear a lack of response, belief, or help. Many minority women, especially black women, already struggle with the criminal justice system as is. To report something as traumatizing as sexual assault or abuse takes a large dose of courage, and minorities historically already do not trust the legal system because truthfully, it was not built to protect or help them, and can sometimes work against them. 44% of white sexual abuse victims report their abuse while only 17% of black victims report the same abuse. Not only is there the lack of concern for black and minority victims, there’s also the issue of women of color being more likely to have their children taken away due to lack of protection if their child reports sexual abuse than white parents.

 

There is very little addressed as ways to create a solution to the problems we as minority women face when it comes to sexual abuse, and it seems to me like we have to work our way from the inside out. We need to address our internal issues and understand them. I won’t say we need to do that before the issues can be resolved on the outside but there are a lot of issues we have within our cultures that genuinely need to be addressed and fixed so that we do not perpetuate these issues any further.

 

Culture of Silence: Why Minority Victims of Sex Abuse Don’t Report

 

 

A woman’s risk for going to college.

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Today, there is a lot of talk about sexual harassment but on a college campus, but surprisingly there is more of a risk for college aged students that don’t attend college. This article goes into the statistics-based parts explaining that “female college-aged students (18-24) are 20% less likely than non-students of the same age to be a victim of rape or sexual assault.” That sentence threw me for a loop because all my life I’ve been taught that college is the most dangerous place for a young girl, but along with the danger of being taken advantage of, there’s the danger of being robbed. College women are twice as likely to be sexually assaulted than robbed, but non college women experience 5 robberies for every 4 sexual assaults. The saddest fact is that only 20% of women that are students report to law enforcement. Some of these assaults stem from stalking which 5.8% of students have experienced since going to college. There need to be more done for women and not just students so that we can live in a safe place and not fear that a man is going to come out of the dark and attack us in anyway. Women deserve to be safe and not afraid to go out in fear of being taken advantage of or robbed, hopefully things will change in the world, and it will become safe for us.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/campus-sexual-violence

Pronatalism Strips Autonomy from Women

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By Chelsea Silvia

In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, shadowy female figures glide silently through the streets and the bedrooms. In the Republic of Gilead, their destinies were defined by their reproductive parts, with the handmaids’ only task being to bear children for the wives of the Commanders. Handmaids endure a violent re-education process for women who are both fertile and reject the laws of mandatory pronatalism. Running this process are infertile Aunts who constantly remind them of the serious threat of exile to the environmental apocalypse known as the Colonies or to employment as forced sex workers known as Jezebels if they don’t conform.

While it is highly unlikely that this fictious society will become a reality, there is always a possibility of some aspects of it lie in our future as the US moves toward restricting women’s autonomy in making reproductive health decisions by valuing pronatalism. I call for feminist researchers to take a stand today by increasing the amount of research and public awareness of the harmful effects of this agenda and ideology.

Pronatalism is define narrowly as the policy or practice of encouraging the bearing of children, especially government support of a higher birthrate. Rulers and legislators can pass policies that incentivize birth and prohibit attempts to engage in family planning or that limit access to contraceptives and abortions. In other cases, governments may not enact policies, but the society as a whole is swayed by an overall ideology of natalism, defined as a belief that promotes the reproduction of human life. Natalism promotes child-bearing and parenthood as desirable for social reasons and to ensure the continuance of humanity. This set of persuasive cultural norms forces women into reproductive and childbearing roles. These roles are harmful towards both women and their families who do not conform to the expected norms. Motherhood varies from woman to woman, which is why society should not force certain roles on all women.

It is my personal choice to abstain from having children in the future. While the United States is not a particularly dominant society regarding pronatalism, I have still directly felt the effects of natalist ideas directed toward women.  “You’ll change your mind one day,” people tell me. “You’re too young to make that decision.” But in fact, I am not too young. I am a strong independent woman, who doesn’t particularly care for children. I am an advocate and user of assisted reproductive technology services, or ART services, which aid with family planning – including a wide range of services from various birth control methods to in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.

Pronatalist societies, such as the Buddhist community in Ladakh, India, experience extreme religious opposition to contraceptive methods, making family planning seen as a sinful practice. Inthe rural areas, the number of children is the highest, mainly caused by the lack of access to ART services.  This directly increases the intensity of pronatalism in Ladakh. Buddhists often point to the authority of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, who happens to support the increase in population. Because Buddhists equate contraception with abortion, contraception is immediately categorized as a sin by Dalai Lama’s comments and practices. Preventing pregnancy is synonymous with preventing rebirth since from a Buddhist perspective, family planning interrupts Bardo, the internal liminal time between death and rebirth. In order to allow women proper choices when family planning, she must break some harmful social norms.

Ponatalist bias perpetuates harmful social norms while undermining a woman’s reproductive autonomy. While the goal of pronatalism is to increase population in declining societies, the effects of the ideology and policies are often harmful. In order to combat these flaws, both men and women must work together to begin to redefine pronatalism to mean pro-birth for those who choose it, keeping the notion of choice at the center of reproductive freedom.

Chelsea Silvia is a Junior at East Carolina University. She currently studies German language and culture and cultural anthropology. Chelsea has been a part of the largest student organization on campus for her entire college career, where she plays mellophone for the Marching Pirates. Chelsea is also the German Ambassador for the Foreign Language and Literatures Organization. In her free time, she loves to hike.

Systematic Rape: Weapon of Choice

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By Kyli Lepine

Have you ever wondered exactly how realistic video games are? Warlike video games such as Call of Duty have become increasingly popular in modern society, typically with a rifle as the weapon of choice. The game is based on the events of World War II and includes a variety of explosions, enemy bases to overthrow and plenty of victims to destroy.

However, games like this neglect to highlight the true weapon of choice during war, systematic rape.

Sexual violence against women has been a vital weapon of war since the beginning of humanity with reported accounts during armed conflicts in Rwanda, Germany, Bosnia, Cambodia, Uganda, and Vietnam. The relationship between sexual violence and war is defined through Skjelsbæk’s Three Conceptualizations:

  1. Essentialism- any and all women are potential victims; This is used in order to establish a sense of militaristic masculinity.
  2. Structuralism- women are targeted based on membership to a specific ethnic, religious, or political group; This is used as form of “ethnic cleansing” to punish a specific group.
  3. Social Constructionism- both men and women are targeted. This is used to establish dominance and masculinity in the attacker and submission and femininity in the victim.

The true events of World War II resulted in over one million mothers, sisters, and daughters being gang raped in Germany alone. Some reports of up to 20 men in uniform at a time. The Soviet Red army participated in a form of Essentialism when they raped any and every woman no matter their age. The goal was to show militaristic power over Germany in every possible way.

The Rwandan Genocide is the clearest example of Structuralism in reference to wartime sexual violence. The Hutu militias are responsible for the systematic rape of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi women and girls. The targeted gang rapes were often preformed in public town squares so the girls would be humiliated, afterwards they would be mutilated by a machete or deliberately infected with HIV. The ultimate objective for the Hutu was the systematic ethnic cleansing of Tutsi minorities from the population of Rwanda.

A few consequences of wartime sexual violence can be death, disease, and mental subversion. If these women were not killed immediately after the attack, she was at risk of committing suicide or contracting a purposed disease (HIV, AIDS). Survivors of wartime rape typically experience higher levels of Post-traumatic stress and anxiety than non-sexual survivors of war.

The consequences did not stop with the survivor, they often extended to the child conceived as a result. Some women would commit infanticide or abandon the babies at birth. Malicious terms were created to describe these children, such as “War Child” or “Fruit of Hate”. They were isolated, discriminated against, and often disowned by family members.

Attention needs to be brought to the fact that systematic rape during war is a grievous act of inhumanity. This can be achieved by:

  • Informing and Encouraging others to share their story and demand to be heard. Ignoring rape harms women by reinforcing the belief that “female” is synonymous with “victim”.
  • Forcing informative sexual education on both girls and boys. Girls are often taught to avoid the dangers of men, all within the age old saying “Boys will be boys”. Girls are taught that we must accept the advances from men because “they don’t know any better” Ideas of hyper masculinity encourage aggressive behavior in men which endangers women under the promise of sexual rewards.
  • Removing the stigma that sexual violence is a result of sending men to war. Wartime rape is not performed for the pleasure of the attacker, but to humiliate the victim under a vicious attack.
  • Petitioning for United Nations to enforce militaristic reform on systematic rape as a tool of war.

To act against this injustice, considering supporting many of the organizations who are working to end the use of systematic rape on women during war, such as:

These organizations provide firsthand opportunities to assist these women through emergency shelters, hotlines, and escape routes as well as initiatives towards the prevention of wartime rape. They enforce women’s voices in governmental institutions to ensure they are complying with their commitments to end systematic wartime rape.

Within the manifestation of the next war, may it in your backyard or across the globe, it is our responsibility to ensure that a woman’s body is no longer considered a continuation of the battlefield.

 

Kyli Lepine is senior at East Carolina University who will graduate in December 2020 with a double major in Anthropology and International Studies and a minor in Ethnic Studies. After graduation, Kyli hopes to pursue a career in international human rights or cultural diversity reform. In her spare time, Kyli enjoys playing with her dog, Azkaban.

The Talk and Unplanned Pregnancies: Unsafe Abortion in Latin America

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By Salma Zoe Diaz Diaz

 

We all know what the talk is, that excruciating moment when your parent sits down next to you and says, “we need to talk.” You hold your breath as they stumble over their words “when you decide to have sex, one day…”. You feel yourself going a deep crimson in heated embarrassment as they stammer on “… just remember to be careful.” You both heave a huge sigh of relief that it’s over and you can get on with life again but in truth, we need much more from our parents. We need ‘the talk’ to be far more honest and open than that. It’s the responsibility of each parent to try to give their child the space to talk about anything. That environment needs to be created from the moment a child is born. Whenever a child enters puberty, they feel embarrassed about their sexual feelings, especially admitting to them in front of their parents. However, that’s the parents’ job; they should suck up the embarrassment and do what needs to be done anyway. Ensuring your child is safe is far more important than feeling uncomfortable.

Each year there are thousands of unsafe abortions performed in Latin America, including in my country of Peru. According to the Guttmacher Institute, during 2010–2014, an estimated 6.5 million induced abortions occurred each year in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the proportion of all pregnancies in Latin America and the Caribbean ending in abortion increased between 1990–1994 and 2010–2014, from 23% to 32% Yet, they point out that more than 97% of women of reproductive age in Latin America and the Caribbean live in countries with restrictive abortion laws. Abortion is not permitted for any reason in six countries. Nine others allow it almost exclusively to save the woman’s life, with only some offering limited exceptions for rape (Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Panama) and grave fetal anomaly (Chile, Panama and almost half of the states of Mexico).  Fewer than 3% of the region’s women live in countries where abortion is broadly legal—that is, permitted either without restriction as to reason or on socioeconomic grounds. Therefore, women, especially young women who experience unplanned pregnancies are likely to resort to illegal and often unsafe abortions that will have major health consequences for them.

 

In my case, I got pregnant in the summer of 2019. I felt alone and embarrassed with myself. I considered getting an abortion but before I could even make that decision, I had a miscarriage. I was heartbroken and still lonely, as the father of my baby decided to ignore me and block me without even knowing that I was expecting a baby from him. I tried and tried to find a way to tell him, but when I finally found a way, it was too late. I decided then, that I didn’t want to tell him anymore. I kept it away from everyone and it made me feel lonelier and sadder. I wanted to forget about what happened. Neglecting a problem is never the answer as it keeps consuming you from the inside. When you’re the only one that knows, you tend to feel hopeless.

Recently, one week ago, I decided to tell my mother what had happened. I saw the pain in her eyes as she realized that she had failed at gaining my complete trust. I couldn’t tell her because I felt like she was going to be disappointed but when we are parents, that’s what we need to be. Parents. No matter how bad the situation is. I now know that and I wouldn’t be able to keep that big of a secret to my mother or my father ever again. This might be different for a lot of people as their parents may not know how to be a good parent. However, this is not only for our present parents but for our future parents.

When young adults don’t have the proper information given to them sometimes, this can lead to unplanned pregnancies. This, in turn, can cause someone to go through a difficult decision such as picking whether to have an abortion or keep the baby. This is where parents should take the initiative to make their child feel safe about this issue they are facing. If the parents are not supportive of their child, this can lead to unsafe abortion. Unsafe abortions have a very high risk of health issues later on in life, such as infertility. This can also cause mental trauma in patients that go through unsafe and safe abortions.

The governments in Latin America need to provide safe places for women who conceive and would like to have abortions as well as therapy places that can provide counseling for their trauma. Abortion is the taking of human life in a horrific fashion – the baby is ripped apart. We also have to realize that a lot of countries don’t have the privilege of providing safe abortion methods. Especially in Latin America, where I’m from, as it is viewed as an inhuman thing to do. This is why it was very hard for me to come to my parents when I found out I was pregnant. In Latin culture, abortion is a very delicate topic and a lot of my family members are against it.

As a country and world, we should all be more open to these delicate topics such as “the talk,”  and unplanned pregnancies. Abortion rates run high in the world, and unsafe abortion is a common factor. In order to steer clear of unsafe abortion, parents should face the embarrassments that they may feel and put it to the side when it comes to their children. This will help with keeping young adults safe if they choose to have an abortion with an unplanned pregnancy. Young adults are just looking for support when it comes to these types of issues. Having support from their parents and loved ones in times like these are very important to one’s mental health, and physical health. This is why parents should know better and not just make decisions that are not going to make the situation any better, like kick them out of the house or yell at them for being stupid. First, they need to take care of the current “problem” and after they come up with a solution, they can talk about it. At the end of the day, we all make mistakes and as a parent, you have to be supportive and help your kids learn from these mistakes.

However, the burden to solve the issue of unplanned pregnancies should not just be on the parents. Governments that refuse to liberalize laws restricting abortion should have to provide better sex education in the schools along with free access to contraception. Governments could also institute classes for parents about how to talk frankly with their children about sex and birth control. Without that, young people will continue to get pregnant and then choose the more horrifying option of unsafe abortion, risking their physical and mental health in the process. We owe them better than this.

 

Salma Zoe Diaz Diaz is a junior at East Carolina University. She is set to graduate in December 2021 with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in Ethnic Studies. After graduating, she plans to continue her education and complete a Master’s Degree.

The Struggle for Knowledge: Women of Sub-Saharan Africa and Their Journey to Equality

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By Mikayla Goode

The sound of an alarm rings as the sun is dressing the sky to signify another day of classes. As you prep and get ready to start the day, a feeling of dread washes over you. “Why must classes be so early?” “I’m tired of school.” These thoughts can run through any university student’s mind on the daily. Let’s picture something for a minute. Imagine finishing fifth grade and never returning school. Sound exciting? This means you can enjoy being home and playing all day, right? When the new school year comes around, you watch as all of your brothers and male friends start middle school while you sit at home tending and helping with all chores. The further you watch your brothers succeed and be praised, the more trapped you feel in your own skin. A couple years go by and as you turn fourteen, and you are married off to a boy of your parent’s choosing to then take care of his home and bear his children, forever suffering from lost opportunities.

The underlying reality is that education is one of human’s overlooked luxuries. While here in the U.S., we view school as a prison sometimes, we take for granted the hard work and immense payoff education provides us. Currently, with the constant growth of the population, more girls lose the opportunity to receive a thorough education. Sub-Saharan Africa currently holds the largest population of children in general and females in particular out of primary school. In numerous developing countries access to education is limited due to its availability and affordability. Women persuing higher education struggle with the ability to stay safe from the numerous citizens who believe that what they are doing is wrong. Many of these women face discrimination and harassment not only out in public but in their own homes, caused by the deep ideology set in Africa. These attitudes often create an unsafe school environment.

Denying the women of sub-Saharan Africa the opportunity to better their education affects the economy in many ways. An important reason for Africa’s gender bias against the education of women is due to its extreme poverty level. In 2019, seventy percent of the world’s poor lived in Africa; a steady increase from fifty percent in 2014. According to the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, as of 2018, women that worked full-time, year-round made only eighty-two cents for every dollar earned by men, a gender wage gap of eighteen percent.

Why is this important? A large percentage of females living in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from not only the inability to be educated financially, but also from a nation’s outdated ideology. They are discriminated and harassed because of disrespecting the rules place for their gender. While the entire world suffers from the industry monopolized by men, we all as the female gender are suppressed. If the government would support these women and allow access to further their education whether that be primary level to tertiary level, not only will that allow them to succeed and support themselves and their country’s economy, but also aid in the encouragement to prove that women deserve equality in education.

How can we help? Aid for America’s “EFAC: Education for All Children” is a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships based on merit and need for the brightest and most vulnerable youth in Kenya to pursue secondary and post-secondary education. Their message explains that money isn’t the only thing that can help these children to getting an efficient education and rise from extreme poverty. This organization provides an education-to-employment program that will prepare students for careers by developing their leadership and life skills.

To find more information or to donate, please follow the link https://www.aidforafrica.org/member-charities/education-children/

 

Mikayla Goode is a junior at East Carolina University who is set to graduate May 2021 with a BA degree in psychology and a minor in anthropology. Her future plans are to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and work on helping others struggling under the stigma of mental illness. In her free time, she enjoys reading and journaling.

 

Aftermath of abuse: When is it okay to share another’s story?

This particular article posted in the Guest column by News24, is about the aftermath of abuse. The headline asks, “when is it okay to share another’s story?” This is an interesting article to read because we always try to encourage the victims of abuse to speak out, but we never concern ourselves about it being okay to share someone else’s story.

For those victims who are lucky enough to escape their situation or even for those who were not it is important that everyone come together to we lead lives of those who bare a substantive amount of fear. Because as women, we never know whether we are even safe from being taken under the raft of an abuser or a rapist, we must stand together. For those who cannot speak, someone has to speak for them because we cannot continue to hide if we want to see a change.

So, my question to you guys is, when is it okay to speak out? When will enough be enough?

City Press. News24. Aftermath of abuse: When is it okay to share another’s story?. May 27, 2018. <https://www.news24.com/Columnists/GuestColumn/aftermath-of-abuse-when-is-it-okay-to-share-anothers-story-20180527>. June 14, 2018.

Valedictorian asked to not speak of sexual assault

Lulabel Seitz said that she was told by her administrators to not speak about her or other students sexual assault experiences in high school. Almost scared away she decided to still speak on sexual assault during her valedictorian speech. Her microphone was then cut off because the school said that her speech, “wouldn’t help”. When her sexual assault happened the school did nothing and would not comment on cutting off her microphone.

Article: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/10/us/california-valedictorian-speech-cut-off/index.html

 

What do you think was the school’s motive for not wanting her to talk about sexual assault in her speech?

Incel: Movement to promote violence against women

https://thinkprogress.org/inside-the-incel-movement-inspiring-mass-violence-against-women-99e192a61ae9/

 

For the past couple of years, there has been a hate group called incel that promotes violence against women. The incel group started on various forms such as 4chan, reddit, etc. to increase awareness that women should give them sex. This group can be of any age range, as long as their males and have the same “issue”.These other issues would include rape, assault, and femicide. As stated before, this group’s main goal is to harm women because women are depriving these men of sex. There have been various attacks towards women, by this group, for years. The most recent was in Toronto in April.  Fortunately, Reddit eventually banned this group because of what it stood for. However, this movement is still out and is spreading due to the rise of feminists and other women right’s movements.

Let me just point out that this is the entire reason why women activists groups exist. Enough is enough with violence. It makes no sense that women have to be in danger because of sexists. This is also why the debate against women and violence still exists, because of men like this. Women and men will get nowhere as long as senseless groups like Incel exist. Just for an update, I also read that this group is now on the “darknet” and have had members successfully carry out their hatred towards women.

 

Population and forcible birthcontrol

In 2013 it was reported that Israel’s African female refugee population was given no option but to take the depo shot as a form of birth control. The idea was to forcibly keep the population in control. The article in from 2018 brings up the murmurings that from the U.S. recent involvement with Israel the refugee’s may be forced to leave the country.

This article brought up a long argument that I have had with my doctor and my friends have had with theirs, how in control are we as women over reproduction? Either through lack of education, lack of resources, or my favorite argument “you’ll change your mind and want kids later.” These women had their control taken from them and it is unclear if they even understood all the ramifications of taking that particular form of birth control.

My question is do you believe they should have given the refugees an educated choice to take the birth control(which is every 12weeks and can take up to a year to fully exit the system) or brought up safe sex practices to let women have the choice to have a family when they want?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/eliseknutsen/2013/01/28/israel-foribly-injected-african-immigrant-women-with-birth-control/#4b5f6ca967b8

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/01/israels-treatment-of-african-refugees-should-be-an-international-scandal