Cultures that foster and encourage female obedience set women up for sexual abuse while simultaneously denying them the ability to seek justice.
The problems arise from the patriarchal expectation of unilateral female obedience in all areas of life - except when it comes to sex. Suddenly, patriarchy holds women responsible for the consequences of the missteps of men. The same women, who are expected to obey men without question, are also expected to keep the men who waver in check by actively disobeying them. But how is a woman, who has no right to command a man, supposed to command a man to leave her alone?
We see this in the current rash of acid attacks in India. Indian men are raised from boyhood to consider themselves superior to women. How does such a man respond to a rejection from a woman, who (in his mind) has no right to say no? With an acid attack that leaves the woman disfigured for life. It is a steep price, and one that women must pay in a patriarchal society that insists women must remain pure, while also ensuring the purity of the men who have no interest in remaining pure.
The blatant hypocrisy explains also why dress codes and modesty regulations target women and not men. Because patriarchy insists women must take responsibility for the sexual conduct of men in general, patriarchy portrays the woman's body as something shameful, something that must be covered, hidden away. The assumption is that if men never see a woman's body, they won't waver. But the burka doesn't cover children, who then become the object of male attention - which may explain the prevalence of child brides in countries that cover their adult women.
Finally, unilateral female obedience doesn't protect women from becoming sex slaves, for if men see women as the guardians of their sexuality, why should they feel guilty for soliciting sex from a victim of trafficking? Isn't the fact that she allowed herself to be captured enough to excuse the men who use her?
While many people and many organizations work tirelessly to end sexual assault, trafficking, and to outlaw child brides, they will get nowhere until we change our attitudes.
Feminism is this radical idea that women are human too.
Let's make it global.
I've heard it explained that men respond to visual stimuli while women respond to touch. So women protect men by covering up, and men protect women by being very careful how they touch them- if at all. I don't remember where I heard this, but it probably came second-hand through Bill Gothard.
ReplyDeleteThere is one huge flaw in this logic: if women responded to touch, rape wouldn't exist, for every touched woman would lose control in the same way a man does when he sees an attractive woman. This is, however, not the case; men do not lose control when they see a woman, nor do women respond to touch with wild abandon; that's how pornography depicts women. Hence, this whole "scientific explanation" is pseudo science and should be rejected most decidedly.
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