January 24, 2013<\/span><\/em> \u00a0| \u00a0<\/p>\n Like this article?<\/p>\n Join our email list:<\/p>\n Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder<\/a>\u00a0of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren\u2019t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped<\/a>\u00a0an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape<\/a>\u00a0of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped<\/a>\u00a0a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped<\/a>\u00a0a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they\u2019re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.<\/p>\n There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that\u2019s broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving<\/a>\u00a0a\u00a0celebrity<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0lurid details<\/a>\u00a0in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica<\/a>, constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.<\/p>\n If you\u2019d rather talk about bus rapes than gang rapes, there\u2019s the rape<\/a>\u00a0of a developmentally disabled woman on a Los Angeles bus in November and the kidnapping<\/a>\u00a0of an autistic 16-year-old on the regional transit train system in Oakland, California — she was raped repeatedly by her abductor over two days this winter — and there was a gang rape<\/a>\u00a0of multiple women on a bus in Mexico City recently, too. \u00a0While I was writing this, I read that another female bus-rider<\/a>\u00a0was kidnapped in India and gang-raped all night by the bus driver and five of his friends who must have thought what happened in New Delhi was awesome.<\/p>\n We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it\u2019s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn\u2019t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.<\/p>\n Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn\u2019t mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence. \u00a0<\/p>\n What We Don\u2019t Talk About When We Don\u2019t Talk About Gender<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s so much of it. We could talk about the assault and rape of a 73-year-old<\/a>\u00a0in Manhattan\u2019s Central Park last September, or the recent rape of a four-year-old<\/a>\u00a0and an 83-year-old<\/a>\u00a0in Louisiana, or the New York City policeman who was arrested<\/a>\u00a0in October for what appeared to be serious plans to kidnap, rape, cook, and eat a woman, any woman, because the hate wasn\u2019t personal (though maybe it was for the San Diego man<\/a>\u00a0who actually killed and cooked his wife in November and the man from New Orleans<\/a>\u00a0who killed, dismembered, and cooked his girlfriend in 2005).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n There’ a pattern of violence against women that’s broad and deep and incessantly overlooked.<\/p>\n January 24, 2013<\/span><\/em> | <\/p>\n Like this article?<\/p>\n Join our email list:<\/p>\n Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder<\/a> of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped<\/a> an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape<\/a> of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped<\/a> a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped<\/a> a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large. Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern.<\/p>\n There is, however, a pattern of violence against women that’s broad and deep and horrific and incessantly overlooked. Occasionally, a case involving<\/a> a celebrity<\/a> or lurid details<\/a> in a particular case get a lot of attention in the media, but such cases are treated as anomalies, while the abundance of incidental news items about violence against women in this country, in other countries, on every continent including Antarctica<\/a>, constitute a kind of background wallpaper for the news.<\/p>\n If you’d rather talk about bus rapes than gang rapes, there’s the rape<\/a> of a developmentally disabled woman on a Los Angeles bus in November and the kidnapping<\/a> of an autistic 16-year-old on the regional transit train system in Oakland, California — she was raped repeatedly by her abductor over two days this winter — and there was a gang rape<\/a> of multiple women on a bus in Mexico City recently, too. While I was writing this, I read that another female bus-rider<\/a> was kidnapped in India and gang-raped all night by the bus driver and five of his friends who must have thought what happened in New Delhi was awesome.<\/p>\n We have an abundance of rape and violence against women in this country and on this Earth, though it’s almost never treated as a civil rights or human rights issue, or a crisis, or even a pattern. Violence doesn’t have a race, a class, a religion, or a nationality, but it does have a gender.<\/p>\n Here I want to say one thing: though virtually all the perpetrators of such crimes are men, that doesn’t mean all men are violent. Most are not. In addition, men obviously also suffer violence, largely at the hands of other men, and every violent death, every assault is terrible. But the subject here is the pandemic of violence by men against women, both intimate violence and stranger violence. <\/p>\n What We Don’t Talk About When We Don’t Talk About Gender<\/strong><\/p>\n There’s so much of it. We could talk about the assault and rape of a 73-year-old<\/a> in Manhattan’s Central Park last September, or the recent rape of a four-year-old<\/a> and an 83-year-old<\/a> in Louisiana, or the New York City policeman who was arrested<\/a> in October for what appeared to be serious plans to kidnap, rape, cook, and eat a woman, any woman, because the hate wasn’t personal (though maybe it was for the San Diego man<\/a> who actually killed and cooked his wife in November and the man from New Orleans<\/a> who killed, dismembered, and cooked his girlfriend in 2005).<\/p>\n<\/div>\nStay up to date with the latest headlines via email.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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