It’s time to talk about men and sexual violence — and ask how we raise our sons
It doesn’t take a panel of experts to find a deep correlation between war, civil unrest and poverty with violence against women. Even in non war-torn countries, like our own, there is no respite from a global crisis of violence and sexual assault.
But we can still be surprised by who suffers and who inflicts such violence. Experts on women’s issues were asked by the Thomson Reuters Foundation where women were most at risk of sexual violence, harassment and being coerced into sex. The United States ranked jointthird out of 195 sovereign nations.
As an American, I find this shameful. But as I dug into the facts, I realized that my ignorance was shameful too. I did not realize, as the CDC points out, that over half of women and almost 1 in 3 men in our country have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact in their lifetimes.
I knew the numbers were big, don’t get me wrong. But in our culture — despite the fact that we binge watch “Law & Order: SVU” — we don’t really talk about sexual assault. Not in a normalized, public way. So yes, while I knew that many women had suffered a sexual assault of some sort (including myself), I did not realize that it was over half of women, and how high the statistics were for men.
The numbers only get higher for the most marginalized — one in two of transgender people have experienced sexual abuse or sexual assault, according to the U.S. Office of Justice Programs.
Much has been done to protect women. The Reuters survey found that India is the most dangerous country for women, citing the high risk of sexual violence and slave trafficking. (The next four were Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia and Saudi Arabia.) There, as the BBC pointed out, self- identified women are carrying safety pins, something that is both a quick weapon and easy to hide in an everyday garment. Women across the world have been told to prevent sexual assault through modesty and chastity. It’s time to talk about men. According to the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Violence Against Women Report from 2002, “an estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male.”
These numbers hold up internationally. There is no culture or country where men are not the primary perpetrators of sexual assault.
We spend so much time blaming women, and so little time educating our men. “Boys will be boys” has led to a culture of violent assaults we can actually prevent. This is not an impossible task: Concerted parenting, educational efforts, and strong social messaging could have an extremely positive impact on sexual assault numbers.
Throughout history, sexual assault has been presented as a problem of those assaulted. I cannot even utter the question of fault without getting shivers down my spine — no one, ever, deserves to be sexually assaulted. Period. I will repeat: No one is deserving of such a thing.
But as long as we frame the discussion around the victim, we continue to let perpetrators off the hook.
Yes, false accusations exist. Yes, every effort should be made to unearth the truth. But even in cases where the truth is unequivocal, often the rhetoric is about whether or not the victim deserved to be assaulted, which pretty much sums up why we remain so highly ranked in sexual violence worldwide.
We need to reframe the discussion. We need to proactively raise our sons to not sexually assault as much as we teach our daughters to avoid it. It’s time for sex-ed classes and parents to discuss active consent. “Yes means yes” prevents more violence than “no means no.”
I cannot imagine any parent who wants to raise a rapist. How can I teach my son to be a good man, even as I teach my daughter where to best hide her safety pin? We have to answer these questions — no matter how much we get things wrong, and no matter how impossible it might seem to try.
As someone who has dedicated way too much of her life to engaging with poetry, I could not help but look there for the language to describe my feelings about all this. There’s a poem by Andrea Gibson I think about often, “Blue Blanket,” about the sisterhood of surviving violence. Its ending — and I strongly urge you to watch Mx. Gibson’s performance on YouTube — speaks to my quandary.
Tonight
She’s not asking what you’re gonna tell your daughter,
She’s asking what you’re going to teach your son