HAPPY VDAY: HOW CAN YOU STAND AGAINST THE VIOLENCE?

 

Hi all!!

Happy Valentine’s Day or as some view it Happy Single’s Awareness Day!

I know I didn’t update last week but unfortunately I do have a huge course load this semester that is putting me through the ringer. That post last semester about procrastination yeah…that can’t work anymore. Also I came down with what my friends and I have named THE PLAGUE this weekend so I was unable to update let alone leave my bed for more than it took to heat up Campbell’s Soup At Hand.

HOWEVER, I am finally back with the living wearing actual clothes and eating solid food. HOORAY!!

So today’s post is going to be a reaction just to warn you all, and anyone is able to disagree with my opinion and I invite them to have a dialogue with me about it because you only learn from conversation. So let’s hit it.

 

Today is what we in the women’s activist circle call VDAY, a day to bring awareness about women’s issues and violence against women. The reaction I’m writing today is going to voice that view point and I think it is a message we all need to think about.

Recently in my classes and other conversations there has been this trend in referring to other countries when discussing the atrocities of rape/sexual assault. Newspapers and online blogs seem to be brimming with opinion pieces on violence against women in other countries. Examples being the incident in New Delhi and an incident of gang rape in South Africa I recently heard about during a current events presentation in a class yesterday. While I do agree that these are horrible cases and ones that should be discussed, what has struck me is the American response. When individuals come to class having seen these stories in the news they sound horrified by how terrible the violence was against these women which they should be. However, what seems to commonly follow is the idea that “oh that was so far away” and “well I never would’ve thought they acted like that in that country.” I’m here today to tell you that yes violence happens in other countries and that there is no such thing as a place where women are not harmed. In stating this though I want to also say that when hearing this violence our reaction should not be that the horrible acts against women are only in FOREIGN countries.

I see that individuals seem to be sanctioning off violent acts towards women to only these “foreign” nations but there has to be a rude awakening. There is violence HERE, in THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in a “civilized nation” there is violence. THAT should be headline news. People want to discuss New Dehli and South Africa as if the men there are more barbaric because of the acts they have committed which I will admit are atrocious. Yet, there are stories that are similar to them, with men who are just as brutal, who commit acts of violence against women right here in the USA. Only these stories Don’t make the headlines. THAT IS ATROCIOUS.

I am sorry for my obvious aggravation but what will it take for people to see that violence against women happens EVERYWHERE! Not just in India not just in South Africa but here at UNH, here in New Hampshire, HERE IN OUR COUNTRY. And yes, in other parts of the world.

I’m going to attach an article below where a woman, Rebecca Solnit, discusses these acts and others that occur in all parts of our country and the world drawing on the idea that we shouldn’t only be astounded by acts in other countries but the silence around the acts occurring in our country. It is worse that the horrible acts of violence against women are not discussed as largely in our own country as they are in others.

As I mentioned previously it is VDay and a group that is very vocal on this day is called One Billion Rising. They are here to remind us of some astounding facts. Did you know that one in every three women in THE WORLD will experience violence in their lifetime sexual or physical? That is ONE BILLION WOMEN. One billion. Not just the ones that you hear on the news but many many more.

I know people will try and write me off by bringing up these facts. Thinking: I must be a “crazy feminist” or a “man hater” but I am not. I am a feminist because I believe in equal rights for men and women, anywhere in the world, and I am not a man hater I am a “rapist hater” “a women beating hater.” I am against anyone who feels it is appropriate for a woman to be harmed in any way whether that is to be beaten, assaulted or abused sexually.

That is what is happening to these one billion women. They are being beaten, mutilated, raped, assaulted. This should be headline news! I should be reading about how our government is vocal in their attempts to stop these assaults, not only having people hear about acts committed in other countries and silencing acts here in the US. The article brought to my class yesterday discussed a woman who was gang raped and murdered by men in South Africa and I found it amazing that there were women’s advocacy members there to poster to show their support for survivors of assault. Now why is it, that here in America our advocates are hushed and our issues are not brought to the forefront. I am here today to say let’s take a stand. Let’s break the taboo. Don’t sit back and watch the cycle of silence keep crossing over this country and this campus. Today on VDay there are movements all around the world where women are standing against the violence by dancing, drumming, singing. I ask you all to go to the website below and view how you can rise with them. Stand up. Educate. Rise Against.

HAPPY VDAY EVERYONE

 

Link to One Billion Rising

http://onebillionrising.org/

 

Link to Rebecca Solnit’s article:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/violence-against-women_b_2541940.html?utm_hp_ref=daily-brief%3Futm_source%3DDailyBrief&utm_campaign=012413&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry&utm_term=Daily+Brief