Gelsey HughesED2 -- Kamonyi District, Southern Province
I’m currently reading Half the Sky by NicholasKristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Part expose,part call-to-arms, Half the Sky is a book about the oppression of womenin the developing world and the ways in which aid organizations can helpalleviate some of that oppression. Itcontains many harrowing accounts of sexual violence against women, from gangrape to forced prostitution. These storiesare gruesome and heartbreaking but sadly, they’re nothing unusual. Just the other week on VOA I heard a storyabout a prison in Africa where female refugees, detained for illegalimmigration, are being routinely subjected to sexual abuse by prison guards.Cases like these pop up in the news periodically: women, made vulnerable bypolitical upheaval or war or by factors like socioeconomic class, are sexuallyassaulted by the authorities, by local men, even by male family members.
On the rare occasion that outsiders hear about thesethings, we’re horrified. Naturally ourhearts go out to the victims. But whatabout the perpetrators?
This is a problem I keep coming back to. More often than not, stories of sexualviolence or SGBV are stories with a female victim and one or several malevillains, with maybe a few female accomplices. In Half the Sky, Kristof and WuDunn concede that “in talkingabout misogyny and gender-based violence, it would be easy to slip into theconceit that men are the villains, but it’s not true.” Then they go on to say that in fact, womenare sometimes the “villains” in these stories, since it is often women whomanage brothels, inflict female genital mutilation, or feed their sons beforetheir daughters. Well, alright. That’s true too. But the thing that bothers me most aboutthese stories isn’t that women are sometimes in league with theperpetrators. It bothers me that sexualviolence, especially rape, could be considered normal or logical for anyone,perpetrator or victim.
Take for example the story of Woineshet Zebene, astold in Half the Sky. Woineshetis a young Ethiopian woman from a rural village where, as Kristof and WuDunnput it, “kidnapping and raping girls is a time-honored tradition.” InWoineshet’s village, if a young man wants to marry a girl but has little chanceof being accepted, he captures and rapes her to improve his bargaining position(since a “ruined” girl is less likely to find another suitor). Woineshet was abducted, beaten and rapedrepeatedly by a man named Aberew. She caused an upset in her community when sheflouted tradition by refusing to marry her abductor. In Half the Sky, this story is toldwith a spotlight on Woineshet’s courage and singular strength. It ends on a hopeful note, since Woineshet isable to move to the city and escape Aberew. But what about Aberew? Wouldn’the rather marry a woman who loved him, or at least one who didn’t have cause todespise him? Wouldn’t he rather have awife who respects him, rather than one who only married him because he beat herinto submission and “ruined” her?
In the discourse surrounding the sexual abuse ofwomen, the misogyny of the abusers is taken for granted. The focus is on how to discourage, sanctionor penalize rape and SGBV. But rape isnot simply a matter of opportunism, like stealing money from an unlockedcashbox or cheating on an exam. MaybeI’m going out on a limb, but I don’t think rape is a normal behavior, and Idon’t think saying so is cultural imperialism. Sexual violence, especiallyrape, is one of the worst atrocities one human being can commit againstanother. Surely no sane, healthy manwould choose to become a rapist. Yet mendo, by the thousands.
When we hear about instancesof sexual violence it should give us pause, and not just because of thevictims’ suffering. In a culture of violentmisogyny, men are victims, too.
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