predators

Be in your heart...Be a trusting Friend...way will open.  The trick is not to miss it!  Yeah - that's probably advice for me. But trust.

I hope you enjoy your guest. I really appreciate being able to spend time with people from other cultures.  It helps me broaden my mind and my opinions.

I have been thinking about the rape culture a lot.  Three more women have come forward and said they were raped by Bill Cosby...all with the same basic story:  being drugged, waking up nude and sometimes being accosted in some way.  It's almost getting boring now, the same story over and over. Yet it remains so painful.  I wonder how many other powerful men are also serial rapists...my mind goes back to Dominique Strauss-Kahn. He was powerful, and so he had the freedom to serially rape whoever he could get his hands on.  Many people knew, many people kept their women away from him. But no one exposed him. He was allowed to hurt one woman after another...

I think I have stated this here before, but rape, at it's essence, is a weaker person being told/shown/taught that our bodies, our beings are not ours. Our bodies belong to the strongest.  It is all about dominance and ownership and power.  Fuck you means Disempower you.

The dominant, therefore have raped the planet, the plants, the livestock, the wildlife, the water, the air, most children, most women, and even a lot of men.

I am beginning to think less about rape and more about the predator/prey scenario.  Certain men are predators, preying on everything else.    Men who want to move up within this system, have to become predators...they become rapists.  They bond through gang rape.  They gain power, but lose their souls.  They lose their humanity.

I am thinking about the fraternities, especially -- rapist internships, it seems sometimes. And there are lots of fraternities - many types of brotherhoods. There are sports teams, clubs, gangs, social fraternities, secret organizations - all fraternities of men coming to protect each other.

We all succumb to peer pressure. If we do, we are accepted.  Even if we damage someone else at the expense of our being accepted - well, they probably deserved it.

I wish we could winnow out the predators. 

I wonder what would change...Then we could teach the others not to be rapists.

One of the most important messages I have seen in the past year is that we should not have to educate women how not to get raped. We should educate our young men not to be rapists...I don't know - maybe we should give them something basic...If you don't want some guy doing this to your daughter/mother/sister/wife - don't do it to any woman. Don't allow it to happen to any woman. Let's just assume that all women are valuable, even the ones you don't personally know...Ok?

I am going to have to think about predators.  Maybe we can come up with a watch list to help us identify them before they draw their weapons and ruins more lives...

Sorry I wasn't here yesterday. My youngest was sick, and I had her baby, and my whole day just went awry. Nothing happened quite as planned.  Today sort went the same - but now that we have gotten through the end of the year rush at work, I don't have to get up at 5 am tomorrow. Yes!!!


I love you,

Clare