International Women's Day

I’m one of very few men who, in their lifetime, have worked in a sexual assault crisis centre. That was many years ago. Whenever International Women’s Day comes around, I do a lot of reflecting about what social attitudes there were back then about the crime of sexual assault, and how far we have come along in changing them.  

It dismays me to say that I feel the progress hasn’t come that far after close to twenty years ago since I worked in such a place. Yes, with the growth and expansion of the access to the Internet, we gradually became better at communicating the subject of sexuality better, or at least more openly, but we’re not any better at dealing with gender targeted aggression, we are just better at exposing more of it now that there is more global transparency.

It’s shameful that in this age where the ability to access information has multiplied so greatly, that there are forces out there, mostly radical/ultra-orthodox religious* based ones, who are supporting and out rightly condoning the violation of women and their rights with social sanctions, physical and even sexual violence.  We have exposed the barbaric treatment of women in Afghanistan and Pakistan with acid attacks and other torturous mutilations inflicted upon them for daring to explore  social circles beyond their own home and family, or taking on non-traditional roles. Sadly, it took full scale invasions of involving other political issues before the news media ever brought this stuff to light. Women in some parts of this world are still sentenced to stoning and legally sanctioned ‘shame-rapes’ for things like adultery. Access to education, or even basic literacy, is not reality for some girls and women on this globe. Here in Canada, we recently closed the Shafia affair in court, but it’s sickening to know that there is still yet a community of supporters out there who sympathize and even condone his action for the “honour killing” of the female members of his own family.

Stories still appear about immigrant families from Africa, and South/Central Asia living in Western nations are still sometimes caught performing clitorectomies and other forms of genital mutilation on their female children. One can imagine that it’s happening much more commonly in their original homelands.

From a year ago, but still very much valid. Thanks again to Dame Judy Dench and Daniel Craig.

It’s not much better in Western/industrialized countries. If you have ever read the Stieg Larrson series of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, there was exposed just about every issue of abuse, power and control over women in what one would think is a very civilized country with a more secular society. Of course that was fiction**, but there were lots of corellates and congruencies that showed up in those books that matched up well with the dynamics exposed through the real life statistics I processed, and files and reports that landed on my desk back then (minus the murders thankfully). The use of physical force, sexual aggression, financial control, and isolation/alienation*** from society are still very much at play against women here in Canada.

If there are going to be any misogynist assholes out there who are going to pooh-pooh my words about this matter, I think the best lesson they should have is the shock of being woken in the middle of the night to get to a hospital to witness the aftermath of a violent sexual assault, like I’ve dealt with back in the day. I’d have them witness such a thing happening to their own family member just to make the point hit home. Unfortunately, that would necessitate having yet another victim, and it might be just a moot point anyway for guys who are that indifferent, insensitive and uncaring, since most violence towards women is committed by someone known to them, like spouses and family members.

I’m sorry ladies and friends that the subject material was such a downer of a posting on your special day. I hope it’s a better day for you than this picture I’ve painted here.

*- Another reason why I can’t delude myself into thinking that I’ll find any promise of “salvation” in any religion.
**- I drew a general example from fiction mostly to avoid specifics of cases that I know about. I'm relegated to uphold confidentiality up to this very day.
***-I think more specifically of what I’ve seen as incidents that happen rurally, and on the First Nations’ reserves.