Jun 4, 2013

Rape and the Courage to Love

We are 13 years into the 21st century, and what defines us as a human species? Launching spaceships to chart our solar system? Mapping the human genome? Electronic libraries with the potential to educate millions? What progress have we really made when we have yet to learn basic respect for the integrity of another? There were four stories about rape in The New York Times today:
  • Neha Thirani Bagri and Vishnu Varma's American Tourist Gang-Raped in Manali, Police Say --A 30-year-old American woman was raped by three men in the northern resort town of Manali, Himachal Pradesh, India.
  • Sally Armstrong's In Kenya, a Victory for Girls and Rights --160 girls (3 to 17 years old) sued the Kenyan government for failing to protect them from being raped. They won and changed the future for 10 million girls in Kenya.
  • Shelly Burgoyne's Why Haven't the Marines Shown Stronger Support for Women ...--Burgoyne challenges the U.S. Marine's to take action on Congresswoman Jackie Speier's complaints about Facebook pages promoting sexual violence, rape and degradation of female Marines. Burgoyne found that the sites had more than 50,000 Marine “likes.”
  • Kirby Dick's Don't Trust the Pentagon to End Rape --On the day of senate hearings on rape in the military, Dick shares insights from his 100s of hours of interviews for his documentary film on rape in the military titled The Invisible War. 
First, with regard to the current conversation on rape in the U.S. military, any effort to create change on this issue is a good one. I'm grateful to the women senators who got the issue some serious traction this time--many have tried before without success because their numbers were too small. This is a great example of why we need more women in leadership positions in all professions.
It's not that men can't or don't care. I profoundly appreciate those who do. It's that one in four women in the U.S. (a number that's likely way too low due to underreporting) know about rape personally because they've survived it. Most have survived it at the hands of a man to whom they've given their trust--their coworker, their boss, their date, their boyfriend, their husband, their cousin, their uncle, their priest, their brother, or their father.
Me at 25
Every woman handles rape differently. For me, uncertain of my path at 25, it was the ultimate testament of my worthlessness as a person other than as the object of someone else's will. Not even earning my Ph.D. could erase the valuelessness instilled in me that night. Many things were taken from me in that ultimate act of violation--things I've found difficult to restore. Although I moved on, that experience changed me in ways I'm still unraveling 33 years later.
However, as we all must do to survive the trials of this material existence, I ultimately turned inward toward a deeper truth. The lessons from that night, along with many others, have led me to understand what really matters.
Violence (of which rape is only one example) will not end as long as we construct a world around power and who holds it; as long as we hierarchically rank human beings according to gender, race and other traits that have nothing to do with character; and as long as our human relations are about fear and control.
We are capable of so much more as a human species. We are capable of donating a kidney to someone we've never met, as many are doing daily in the U.S. We are capable of jumping off a bridge into a roiling river to save a complete stranger, as a man in my town did on July 4th a few years ago. We are capable of forgiving the man who murdered our son, as one woman did recently.
We are capable of creating the beloved human community that we all seek. But, first, we must believe that is possible. This is NOT just "the way things are." Riane Eisler and others have demonstrated that before we created our current domination social system (only prevalent for the past 5,000 years), we lived in partnership with each other. For tens of thousands of years, human beings lived in a climate of care, respect, and empathy--a climate in which rape would be inconceivable.
But, how do we get there from here? It starts right where you are. Instead of making your human relations about power, fear and control, make them about love, trust and respect.
There's no question that in a world that revolves around power, it takes courage to shift the paradigm. It takes courage to extend respect, even when it's not given to you. It takes courage to trust, even when your trust was violated. It takes courage to love, especially those who hate. But, I've come to understand that that is the only work worth doing in this life.
To the man who raped me in my own bed that beautiful San Diego night: You may have controlled my body, but you couldn't diminish my spirit. You may have scared me, but I haven't lived in fear. You may have exerted power over me, but you didn't extinguish my capacity for love. I am still learning to love, and will continue to do so. I hope you have found the courage to do the same.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

do not judge all men by the actions of a few