Just one more thought

Just one more thought.

No, I don't believe that rape is a natural part of human life or animal life. I just heard of another gang-rape in India this past weekend, the victim was 10 years old. We are worse than animals.

But it is a byproduct of our cultural norms and expectations. Men have to prove themselves powerful and viril. Men have been hurt when they were most vulnerable and in turn hurt those more vulnerable than them. It is an outright lie that men cannot control their libido. It is also an outright lie that women deserve to be raped because of their clothing, breast size, degree of intoxication, previous sexual history, or location.

Last evening I sat at a meeting at the domestic violence shelter. One of the woman, a lawyer and a pastor, got a text. She nonchalantly said she would deal with it later it was about a suicide earlier in the day. I expressed to her how sorry I was that someone had committed suicide and she laughed and said, "He was a perpetrator, so I guess he got what he deserved." My heart sank. No one deserves to be in such self-agony that they resort to suicide. Every person has a story and each deserves to be heard. Each has the potential to heal.

I don't know what the right answer is to any of this. But our current punitive attitudes don't heal anyone, they only increase the pain and isolation on all sides.
-Maggie