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rain_and_snow) wrote2009-10-24 01:39 am
"Reclaim the Night"
In Australia currently at least one of every three wom*n are sexually assaulted in their lifetime.
I couldn't find anything to give this statistic, what I found was:
"The best indicators available are from the ABS Personal Safety Survey 2005 which updates information about women’s experiences of violence collected in the 1996 ABS Women’s Safety Survey. The 2005 survey also includes information on men’s experience of violence but unfortunately does not include all the level of detail on women as published in 1996.
From the 2005 survey the ABS estimated that in the previous 12 months:
· 363 000 women (4.7 per cent of all women) experienced physical violence; and
· 126 100 women (1.6 per cent) experienced sexual violence.
The ABS further estimated that:
· 2.56 million (33 per cent of all women) have experienced physical violence since the age of 15; and
· 1.47 million (19 per cent) have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15."
From this it is possible to estimate that approximately one in five women (19 per cent) have experienced sexual violence at some stage in their lives since the age of 15 and one in three women (33 per cent) have experienced physical violence at some stage in their lives since the age of 15. (from the Parliamentary Library, last reviewed 24/11/2008)
And this is what was published in 1996, as referenced above
"An estimated 1.2 million women in Australia aged 18 and over had experienced sexual violence or its threat since the age of 15. More specifically, one in six adult women in Australia had experienced sexual assault since the age of 15 years." - ABS 1996 (from the Women's Saftey Survey, 1995)
So, it would seem that 1 in 3 is not representative - with around 1 in 6 having experienced sexual violence since the age of 15. This clearly does not include those who experienced sexual violence only when under the age of 15. Perhaps the "Reclaim" people have different definitions of sexual assault, and sexual violence. But this still seems like an overblown, unsupported statistic. I would like to be shown wrong, just so I can regain some respect for them.
To date, none of the traditional power institutions have effectively tackled this issue. Not the Government of the day, not the police, not the patriarchy.
This could be because they have no idea *how*. They're certainly trying to do something, although I agree that the "Violence Against Women, Australia Says No" campaign hasn't done anything for me.
Reclaim the Night is your opportunity to take to the streets and take action. It is your chance to share your experiences and thoughts during open mic opportunities; to listen to, respect and suppport survivors; to tell everyone you know that this is the current state of affairs, but that you will stand to make the change.
Reclaim is an interesting word to use. I'm not sure of a time when women have ever laid claim to the night. I'm not sure that it would be fair for one gender/sex to lay claim to a time of day. Am I missing the point? I can't tell. According to the Victorian Government's Better Health Channel, around half of sexual assaults occur in the victim's home. However this protest seems to me to be about reclaiming the streets at night. So that would be 1 in 12? I don't want to downplay the nature of sexual assault, but ... somehow this hits the wrong nerve. Also, anyone noticed the lack of mention that anyone who is not a woman can still be (and have been) sexually assaulted? WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT.
Details:
Gather at 6pm for a 6:30 start @ the State Library, Swanston St (near Melbourne Central and QV building) - men, wom*n, and all the brilliant in between (and outside) welcome to listen and learn from the speakers.
I do find it difficult to take anything containing the word wom*n seriously - or with the 'y' spelling. It doesn't show singular or plural, and seems to be missing some of the old language base of the words.
7:45 march through the city. A more accessible route for those with difficulties is also planned. Wom*n identified and young children only.
Nice. Real nice. How else can you say males may not take part unless they are very, very dependent upon their parent who is marching? And why? One explanation I've read is that it's because some of these women are survivors and having men around is painful for them. This is a fair enough explanation, but I'm not sure why you couldn't have women and children at the front, and men bringing up the rear. And as a "various shade of grey in between" (see below) where would this leave me if I theoretically wanted to take part? What about the male and non-female survivors who would also like to take part? They can do so at a different time? I'm sure you'd not take that from the patriarchy lying down.
8:30 Trades Hall. All welcome for the celebration of survivors and strength that comes from community action. Music. Spoken word. Thanks.
This is a chance for everyone to take action - wom*n, men, various [beautiful] shades of grey in between. The march is wom*n and young children only, but everyone is welcome before and after. Take the opportunity to create the community you want to be part of!
Yeah, fuck you.
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I'll possibly regret this in the morning. Oh well.
I am completely disheartened with the womens' movement action-things I've seen recently. They seem to be forgetting that in all their "for women"ness they're just like the "for men"ness that they're against.
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With 'Reclaim the Night' it might be a reference to the anti-capitalist 'Reclaim the Streets'? Also I totally understand this title, particularly when I've seen statistics on people thinking she is at least partially to blame if she gets raped while walking at night. *bitter*
Also with regards to your thing about it being about women... yes anyone can be sexually assaulted but the point is that it's a heavily gendered crime. I don't really see a problem with bringing attention to this fact...
(All this said I think bourgeois women's movements are inadequate. ^^)
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It *seems* to me to be about safety on the streets at night. Sexual assault is not the only type of assault that happens on the streets at
night. I feel like a campaign to make the streets safer at night would be more useful than saying "women are sexually assaulted on the streets at night".
I think part of it for me is that I can't see how bringing attention to a fact that the government is already trying to address can help.
(meds kicking in now, everything's fluffy! I'd say more, otherwise)
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-- I support ending violence, when you limit something to one gender only, you are being sexist.
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Totally disagree. When you're talking about the oppressed group, it's perfectly valid to bring up an issue that is quite prevalent amongst said group. This is why it's okay to legislate in favour of the oppressed groups (eg. affirmative action). Discrimination =/= bad in and of itself, only when it is discrimination tied to oppression. (See: Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference)
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I think it's particularly sexist to only focus on the issue as it only appears to women. (by letting only them march) I'd support something that is against the crime, something that allows people to march out in favour of raising the issue. I'm not sure I understand why we need to focus on sex as an issue here - I find it incredibly sexist that they are not permitting men to march.
My take on sexist means they an action/idea is being swayed to favour only one gender. I understand the need for affirmative action, but I do not think that this should come at the cost of weakening any individual party involved.
I find this idea unbelievably sexist, as it only focuses on the one gender, and unfairly so given the cause.
(I hope that doesn't miss the point.)
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Meh, I don't agree that only women should march though. I wouldn't call it 'sexist' though because I don't think it is. My definition of sexist is a lot like racist, in that it is (and should be) much more difficult to accuse someone of sexism against the privileged group.
Anyhoo, I don't think it's a 'sexual assault' victims march anyway. If it was, that's what it would be about. It's actually a feminist march as far as I can tell, focussing on that particular issue. Which is a valid one. (I also don't think it invalidates the pain an individual feels, but I don't think that's the point anyway. The point is that it's group action... I realise this can sort of be a difficult concept in a liberal society that is so used to framing things in terms of individuals).
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I take issue to sexual abuse being framed as a gendered crime, because I believe that is one of the reasons men who are sexually abused feel so stigmatised. They've been 'de-bloked' (or whatever) and are then faced with "sexual abuse happens to women and it's bad". Rather than "sexual abuse is bad".
I'm not sure what they hope to achieve with the group action - I think people who know about it at the moment aren't going to learn much more, and people who don't care are likely to continue not to care - it's been brought to our attention fairly frequently. I feel "awareness" campaigns (and I think this is one) need to be bringing something that the majority are unaware of to be of any real effect.
Final thought I got from this is that I do find it difficult to understand sexual-assault-with-female-victims as a crime that does not happen to individuals, but to a group. Even the 1/3 (which I can't find sources for) states that it does not occur to the majority of women. I'm not saying it's not an over-large amount, but it's not a vast majority.
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It's because there is a higher criteria for being sexist/racist towards a privileged group. For example, I can discriminate against men by enforcing a certain quota and that isn't sexist, but I can't discriminate against women because it is. (If you don't accept this... I can do my best to explain.)
I don't know if you intentionally did this but:
"I take issue to sexual abuse being framed as a gendered crime", then "they've been 'de-bloked' (or whatever)." Doesn't that prove that there ARE gender issues there? That a man is emasculated (and sometimes 'feminised') by sexual abuse? O_O
And lastly, if you want to talk statistics, I think you're looking at the wrong ones. It's not that the majority of women are abused (and the statistic that exists is quite horrific). What you SHOULD be looking at is the fact that the vast vast majority of sexual abuse victims are female. If it wasn't a gender issue, this would not be the case. To say that it isn't is to say something like the vast majority of people in parliament being men is not a gender issue but rather just the result of individual choices (in other words, it fails to dig deeper into social causes).
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I'm used to the word 'gendered' being used to say that something is an issue for(or relevant to) only one gender. I think the emasculation comes more from the perspective that society holds of homosexual men. And that being sodomised makes you gay, and therefore emasculated. (It's appalling logic that male rape = homosexuality, but )some) people seem to have that idea)
My main issue with their statistic was that there was no source provided, and everything else I could find related to it showed closer to 1/6-1/5.
I have thought about why the majority of victims are female. I think it's because more people are hetrosexual, or bi-sexual, than homosexual. Women seem more likely to abuse with words, while men more likely to use their bodies. I've been told that there is some biological basis for this, in that girls develop language skills better/earlier than boys, because of the connection/lack of of the two brain hemispheres. And also the muscle/fat ratio differences. I'm happy to attribute the use of words vs force to social conditioning too. But this protest doesn't really seem to get to social conditioning.
I think the "men in parliament" thing can be linked to the "lower income" thing. Women are more likely to enter the helping (medical, teaching, child-related) professions, or the service professions, than men. Just as men are more likely to enter the finance, IT, trade sector professions. Could be social conditioning at work, could be biological - I'd say some of both.
My issue with "sexual abuse happens to women and it's bad" is that by ignoring everyone else it happens to by placing the focus only on women, it says "sexual abuse is more important when it happens to women" - we care when women get raped, but couldn't give a stuff about anyone else.
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Okay, with the emasculated thing... that isn't exactly a counter-example. The thing you need to ask is 'why are sodomised men not masculine?' (gender-studies answer: being penetrated is a feminine thing).
You must understand that SOCIOBIOLOGY IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. In my view, most of it is conservatism passing for science - conservatism that is ahistorical and seems to have no knowledge of anthropology. *ahem*
Well, you said you'd be happy to attribute those things to social conditioning, so I'll go with that. This protest doesn't mention it either way, but it's generally accepted in feminism that people are socialised into these things, so I'm guessing that'd probably be their stance.
The men in parliament thing... I am 100% NON-essentialist on this matter. It is not biological. I am willing to bet FAR more women would like to be politicians than actually make it (but it's actually very hard to make it high enough in the major parties due to the entrenched male hierarchies... heh, I wrote an essay on this.) IF it's the case that not many women want to be politicians, it's because 'politician' is seen as a male job. Also... what a coincidence that 'women's jobs' are paid less and have less power?
The last comment I think misses the point I'm trying to get at. That point is this: society has problems, it is sick, and part of this sickness is that a there is an institutionalised oppression of women and a large part of this is sexual oppression.
If you want to talk about another issue... start a group/protest for it yourself! It makes no sense to me to say 'Well, this group that is tackling a specific issue makes me angry because it's not tackling a peripheral issue that is important to me!'. I hope I've made a good case for why this specific issue is important. Sexual abuse in general is a different issue from this.
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I'm not so sure I agree that more women would want to be in politics. I've somehow got the impression that women tend to do more activism-type things, protest and advocate, sort of change the system from outside the system. But I've got no facts whatsoever, so I'm happy enough to go with you on that one.
"Also... what a coincidence that 'women's jobs' are paid less and have less power?" Secretary, still predominantly female - possibly socialised to have less grand ambitions than someone who'd need a secretary. Nurse? Aided doctors in the times before it was acceptable for women to do much. I do think this is a bit of a gender one, given men who nurse are usually judged as 'soft' (feminine trait). "Modern" (post 1700s) social work? Women started, because they weren't working, and religion said it was a good thing to do. And child-related stuff is pretty self evident. The only two I've got that show a different trend (initially male dominated, now female dominated) are psychology and teaching. So I'll go with 'women's jobs' having less pay. I'm not sure I'll agree about 'less power' though.
"...society has problems, it is sick, and part of this sickness is that a there is an institutionalised oppression of women and a large part of this is sexual oppression." This I am not disagreeing with. I, however, cannot see how 'sexual abuse' is different to 'sexual abuse against women', unless we're using different definitions of sexual abuse in each case.
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And not, well, giving up.
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THIS.
Thank-you.
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I think the "Australian Says No" campaign was more directed to men (rather than us) to let them know that even relatively minor acts of physical/verbal abuse can be considered sexual assault and they shouldn't kid themselves otherwise. I actually think more of these campaigns would be helpful than a march like this (which is primarily directed towards women, not the male offenders).
But you know, I dislike these sorts of "awareness" campaigns in general. If you really want to help victims of abuse then volunteer at a women's shelter or a hotline or something. Take up a self-defence class and encourage other women to do so as well - hell, run a free one at the community centre.
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I'd like that self defense classes wouldn't have to come into it at all, but the world isn't perfect. Unless it's just the idea that self defense = empowering.
"Awareness" campaigns, when we're already aware of something - poverty, violence... kinda fail. Oppression of a particular minority group we may have never heard of at all? Seems that raising awareness may indeed raise some support, because no-one knew they (whatever issue it is) existed.
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Can't say I know the episode, I've hardly seen any.
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