Violence against women, a tragedy that we mourn and ... well, that’s about all that many of us do. Each year close to 4.8 million women experience domestic violence that results in rape or other physical injury.
Along with the psychological and emotional trauma that violent encounters cause victims, the lasting effects of domestic violence are inestimable.
And that number is based just on the incidents that go reported. Since violence against women and rape are the most underreported crimes in the country, it is hard to say exactly how many women become victims each year.
Overall, 11 percent of high school girls reported forced sexual encounters, 25 percent of women in college reported the same, and 1 in 6 women in the country verified they had been attacked or raped at least once in their lives.
In other countries, especially conflict countries like Democratic Republic of the Congo, the rape statistics, if you can imagine, are much worse. In places like DRC, violence against women and rape are instruments of war, and therefore far more frequent, and brutal. Victims of violence or sexual assault are not just numbers, though.
We hear those numbers all the time, we are numb to them by now. Unless we see the violence for ourselves, the pain and desolation that violence against women creates is perpetuated.
Even as the country and the Virginia Tech community mourn the loss of Morgan Harrington, how many of us fail to see the problem in our society that gives women cause to fear being alone after dark?
So, I’ve rambled on about women’s issues, and I’m sure you’re wondering what any of this has to do with Women’s Month. Let me remind you of the generalizations I mentioned earlier.
I hope I have given you a clearer picture of why they are absolutely wrong, and gotten you to think about how they can be dangerous to women. The truth is that women’s issues, and really any gender issues (but that is another topic), are not things of the past. As long as women continue to struggle for equality in patriarchal and modern societies, do not have access to the methods and tools to ensure their reproductive health, and have reason to fear their own communities and societies, we must not be ignorant or critical of women’s issues. They affect all of us in innumerable ways.
As you read this, I hope you will have thought about your mother, your sister, your grandmother, whomever the influential women in your life are. Surely you must realize, and maybe appreciate more, how central they are to our society despite the obstacles they face.
Whether you talk to them, avoid them, love them, or think they are subordinates, women in your community, state, country, and world desperately need you to care about them, their suffering, rights, and opportunities. Take Women’s Month seriously; check out all of the neat events planned this year, accept The Challenge sponsored by the Women’s Center, mark your calendars for the annual Take Back the Night Rally and March on the 25th in honor of Morgan Harrington, and find out how you can join the women of the world in solidarity in making the world a better place for all of us!
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A version of this article appeared in the Mar 4 issue of the Collegiate Times.
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Where to begin... How about the whole salary issue. It is already illegal to discriminate against women for doing the same job as a man. The problem is that the statistics that womyn use to claim wage disparities are based on "like" work, based on the level of education needed to do a job with no regard to working conditions. As an example, beauticians are considered equavalent to plumbers for the purposes of such calculations and womyn are appalled that plumbers make more. News flash. Plumbers make what they do not because of the level of training required to do the job, but because people are more willing to pay someone a lot more to crawl around under the house dealing with feces encrusted pipes than they are the person who cuts their hair.
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The other issue with regard to wages, especially over the course of a lifetime, is motherhood. Womyn believe they should be able to take years off to rear children with the expectation that they come back to the same job as if they had never left, to include getting promotions. Sorry, if you are gone from your employer for years at a time, you are not going to get the promotions (and raises) ahead of, or even at the same rate as, the person (regardless of gender) who contiunued to work at the firm. If you want to be a career woman, good on you. If you want to raise your children, again, good on you. But you can't have it both ways. The man or woman who sacrificed time away from his or her kids to keep working gets higher wages. You simply cannot expect to go to your employer and say, "I'm going to raise my kids but I expect to be a vice president when I get back with 6 annual raises along the way. See you in 2016."
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Lastly, you say, "Due to our anatomy, women are more susceptible to STIs than men." You're right. But there's nothing that can be done about that. Womyn are also the ones who bear the majority of the responsibility for unwanted pregnancies. It may take two to tango, but the guy is done with his dancing in minutes, while the girl is stuck baking for nine months. Knowing that womyn suffer the greater consequences more than men, if you have unprotected consensual sex and you get knocked up or catch a desease, you should probably be attending community college, not Virginia Tech.
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Please learn how to spell "women" if you're going to rant about their rights.
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Brady,
He wrote "womyn" because it's what a lot of men's-rights activists do to write "women". Many feminists use "womyn" because it has no "men" as part of the word, so people for men's rights use it sometimes, too.
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Indeed -- most studies that show a high salary disparity between the genders simply fail to take into account all applicable variables. Did you know that this generation is the first in which more women are attending college than men? However, the supposed salary discrepancy is due to a number of other factors, such that men tend to have more experience and they dominate in high-paying jobs. Comparing salaries by level of education alone is misleading because, for example, a degree in Engineering will command a much higher salary than a degree in English at the same level, and men dominate in the former field while women dominate in the latter. Taking such variables into account, the salary discrepancy between genders all but disappears. http://tinyurl.com/ye7vdu3
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How about men's issues? Unfair child custody hearings, false sexual assault and rape accusations, declining percentage enrollments in undergraduate programs, I could go on.
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Uh, because it's Women's Month. Did you even read the article?
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Do I believe on average that Women make less then men, yes. Why? Because there are many stay-at-home moms that are considered voluntarily unemployed and a generation of CEO's left over from a time of lesser equality.
What I do not believe however is that women are paid less for the same jobs. I would like one, just one, report of a male say accountant and a female accountant (Same job same duties same company) where the female is paid 78% of what the male is. I don't believe that exists and have to this day never seen proof of that.
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What a horrible, horrible article. Way to recite the same old invalid statistics to push your misandrist agenda.
*Domestic violence: Men and women are both EQUALLY abused in relationships. Men are not committing any more abuse than women are.
*Wages: This doesn't even make sense. If women were able to perform the same job as men, then why the hell would a company not hire only women? If the women can do the same job for cheaper, then it's more economical to ONLY hire women. This statistic is proof more women need to take an economics course. The reason "women get paid less" is because of how "full-time" is calculated. It is NOT only 40 hours a week. It is often calculated at 35+ hours a week (sometimes less). So a woman who works 35-40 hours a week will of course make less than a man who works 50-60 hours a week.
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Domestic violence disproportionately affects women: 85% of victims are female. Read some statistics and facts here: http://www.dvrc-or.org/domestic/violence/resources/C61/
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Wrong. Domestic violence occurs about equally for both men and women. http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
Look up any study by Straus, this guy, or others. It all confirms that women are just as bad (if not worse) than men when it comes to domestic violence. Men just don't report it as much: "Early studies that merely asked "have you been a victim of domestic violence" did find far lower levels of male victims; but when they asked about specific behaviors ("have you been slapped, punched,...), the numbers evened out. Justice Department studies show that men are 32 percent less likely than women to report any form of violent victimization."
Women also abuse their children more than men do: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/pubs/cm06/chapter5.htm
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cont'd...
*"Glass ceiling"? How about "glass floor"? Women don't ever have to do the worst jobs in society. It's men who collect trash, men who go to war and die, and men who have to die in construction/manufacturing accidents. Not women!
*Reproductive rights? How about the fact that there's no male contraception? How about the fact that if a woman lies to a man about birth control and has his kid, he is financially raped for 18 years, losing 50% of his salary? Even in cases when it was PROVEN that the kid was not his? (because he signed a paternity form stating the kid is his because he trusted the woman to not cheat on him)
How about a look at the other side for once? "Feminism" is outdated. How about some "egalitarianism"?
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Also, she cites Morgan Harrington as proof that the night is extra-dangerous for women. I'm pretty sure that men are killed far more than women are (excluding war, etc.), so women don't need to "take back the night". After all, stranger-rape is the rarest form of rape. EVERYONE can benefit from "not being stupid and going out at night all by yourself and hitch hiking with a random person". Not just women.
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If March is Womens Month, why don't you march into the kitchen and make me a sandwich?
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If a tree falls in the forest and kills a woman, what was the forest doing in the kitchen??!?!?
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So...when's Men's Month? Or White History Month for that matter?
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I don't need a month to know how awesome I am!
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every single day. you don't need what you've always had...by hook or crook!
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This article is so full of inaccuracies and stupidity I think I'm just going to take a nap.
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Well this is for a sensible person..today's women is a parallel to the men..please stop making discrimination of women.
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