Report: Many girls view sexual assault as normal behavior

[redqueen]

"But it’s okay ... I never think (harassment is) a big thing because they do it to everyone," said one interviewee

This is why we have to talk about rape culture. This has to change.

Many victims of sexual assault do not report these crimes to family, school officials or police, and a new report on the normalization of sexual violence among young girls and women offers several insights into why this is; it also functions as a pretty harrowing primer on rape culture and its consequences.

Researchers at Marquette University analyzed forensic interviews with 100 young people between the ages of 3 and 17, many of whom spoke candidly about their daily experiences of sexual violence and harassment.

According to sociologist Heather Hlavka, many of the young people she interviewed viewed these incidents as a normal part of life. One interview subject told researchers, “They grab you, touch your butt and try to, like, touch you in the front, and run away, but it’s okay, I mean … I never think it’s a big thing because they do it to everyone.”

According to a release on the report,there are several of the reasons why young women do not come forward about the abuse they experience, including a belief that men “can’t help it” and a fear of being labeled a “whore”:

...

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/14/report_many_girls_view_sexual_assault_as_normal_behavior/

[CFLDem]

1. Wow

Shocking any of that is seen as acceptable.

But this is why we endure.

We will make great strides in our lifetimes!

[redqueen]

2. It is shocking and aslo sadly unsurprising.

But thankfully many, many people are very motivated to change it.

[redqueen]

3. one self kick

[yuiyoshida]

13. I see your one self kick and raise it to two

[leftstreet]

4. "Girls believe the myth that men can’t help it."

Ugh

What a depressing article

DURec

[redqueen]

6. Depressing indeed.

And somehow less compelling than a piece on grumpy old men.

[Solly Mack]

5. K&R

[laundry_queen]

7. Not surprising at all.

As a child and teen I was totally socialized to believe this behavior was okay. Whenever I would complain about being harassed by a boy, my parents would tell me that it must mean he liked me and then they would tease me about having a boyfriend. I thought that was just how males showed their affection. And as I got older, I took that to mean grabbing and touching was an extension of their affections. I totally put up with it. Even in the workplace.

You are right - this has to change, this is why we have to talk about it. Those poor teens just don't know any different, like I didn't.

ugh.

[redqueen]

9. Same here,

sexual harassment was equated with affection and considered a compliment.

I tell my girls that disrespectful behavior means he doesn't respect you. Full stop.

I wonder just how many girls get the 'Aw he just likes you' crap and stop bothering to complain.

In middle school, when the harassment got really bad, I even had a female gym teacher get angry with me for fighting back and telling this one creep off. Great lesson there, coach.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

8. Yep. Nobody told girls when we were young to NOT ACCEPT IT and stand up for ourselves.

Nobody told me to ditch negative boyfriends, assert myself, and such.

You were supposed to "coddle their fragile egos", don't beat them in sports, and so on.

Disgusting. The people who told me to coddle mens' egos were WOMEN, not men. My mother and grandmother, to be exact.

Perpetuating sexism. They acted like anything a man said, must be the truth. And I grew up in a supposedly liberal family.

[redqueen]

10. This stuff is still practically invisible to most people.

If you try to explain why it's not 'cute' or 'playful', it's sexual harassment, most people will roll their eyes at you. They just don't see it, and most actively do not want to. It is painful to admit you've accepted such treatment and rationalized it, or that you encouraged others to tolerate and accept it. It's hard to face up to what we've conditioned ourselves to believe.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

11. I tried to ignore it.

I had an Assistant District Attorney commit indecent exposure at me one time at the courthouse when I worked there as a court reporter. We were in my office working late on a jury instruction. I was just petrified.

He was kinda like a 3 year old that was really proud.

And when I was working at the courthouse and single, lots of married men propositioned me but the single ones didn't seem to notice.
There seem to be a lot of married men who have affairs under a "don't ask, don't tell" arrangement.
I find that disgusting. They think because they are men they have a right to have affairs and wifey just has to put up with it.
Disgusting.

[redqueen]

12. I had a sales guy do the same at one of my first jobs.

Wish I had been more experienced and reacted as he deserved, instead of being rendered so shocked that I could hardly believe what he had done. So slimy.

And yes, of course this guy was also married.

[raccoon]

28. I have it when married men hit on me. They seem to have this feeling of entitlement. :puke: nt

[JoeyT]

14. K&R

Ugh. Just...ugh.

[LeftyMom]

15. The first time I had to deal with harassment at school was in eighth grade.

Our math class was set up where the desks were in groups of four so we could help each other. Because I was a good student I'd been set near three boys who were troublemakers and not good students. What happened instead is that the ringleader of the little group spent the next few weeks saying increasingly graphic sexual things to me under his breath. I was mortified.

Finally I got up the nerve to tell my teacher what was going on and ask him if he could please move my desk. He told me that he was planning on rearranging the classroom in a week or two and he'd be sure not to put me next to that boy then. When our desks were moved I was moved one group over in our crowded classroom. Still so close our desks nearly touched. Still within reach, still within earshot. The poking and whispering or walking by and saying something continued. The bumping into me in the doorway started. Getting to class and leaving became something that required planning and strategy.

At the time I was hurt by the lack of help from a teacher I liked, and wondered if I was being overly demanding. In retrospect I'm furious that not only was nothing done to give me a safe learning environment, nothing was said or done to the boy doing the harassing. His behavior toward me continued through the eighth grade, after a while his little clique of followers (a friend and a cousin) sometimes joined in as his amen corner, though not enthusiastically. Clearly they were willing to degrade me to impress him, perhaps to avoid the bulling turning on them? I don't know. His heart was in it, theirs weren't. I was terrified that it was going to continue to escalate, especially since we were all slated to go to the same high school and his patter was becoming increasingly graphic.

It probably would have, except that he was hit by a car over summer break.

[KitSileya]

19. Oooh, that sounds familiar.

In 7th or 8th grade, we got a new student in class that had been in reform school previously. They put him next to me (we sat in pairs) because they thought I would "calm" him. When I refused to just give him answers to math problems and such, - I was willing to help him work out the answers, he wanted to copy mine - he started harassing me - both non-sexually (deflating my bike tires) and sexually (petting my hair and making lewd comments.)

At one point, when my head teacher was in the teacher's lounge to get/do something, I had had enough,and I simply marched through school, into the teacher's lounge without knocking (we weren't supposed to go there) and shouted that I refused to sit next to him ever again, and that I wouldn't go back to class until they moved my desk. They moved me, and he wasn't in class the next year, probably because he had led most of the boys in class to gamble and try drugs.

Part of his melt-down, though, came from me refusing to acknowledge him afterwards. I had read Jean Auel's The Clan of the Cave Bear, and I employed the you are dead to me-punishment on him. I looked right through him, didn't "hear" him when he spoke, ignored him in class and out of class. Drove him over the edge, I think, because it was probably the worst thing anyone could do to him. Most likely he had a family history of neglect, and a lot of what he was doing was acting out to get attention, and me refusing to give him attention must have seemed like the deliberate poking of a wound. In retrospect, I am not triumphant at what I achieved, but neither am I remorseful. I managed to take control of what happened to me, when so many times prior, with other boys, I had been told they harassed me because they liked me, and all the other bull girls get told to be conditioned into patriarchy.

[Ohio Joe]

16. Well...

The police discourage reports... They hide them... They do not process rape kits... They don't investigate reports... All to 'make the numbers better'.

Time after time after time, rapists are protected by communities as happened in Steubenville... The victim being re-assaulted in the most vile of ways just for reporting the crime.

Even if a woman does something as innocuous as talk about the tropes in video games, she is threatened with rape, murder and more as happened to Anita Sarkeesian.

Even here on DU, a Democratic web site, some pretty horrifying things are left to stand by Juries because it's just 'part of the gender wars' when it is no such thing. Admins only ban when an offense goes so far over the top that other MRA's are shocked (see RC's pizza thread).

The examples go on and on and on... Nobody should be surprised by the OP... All of us should be very sad about it.

[redqueen]

25. "Nobody should be surprised by the OP...

All of us should be very sad about it."

This. And we should be spurred to action.

Actions like talking to our children about appropriate behavior. Challenging people who regurgitate the traditional excuses for sexual harassment.

And speaking up when people claim that rape culture is nonsense, nonexistent, etc.

[Arugula Latte]

17. I'm going to talk to my young teen daughter tonight and explicitly restate

the message that it is NOT okay for boys/men to do this shit and she should NEVER just put up with it.

Like the vast majority of women on DU I have a boatload of harassment stories from the past. I don't remember any adult ever talking to me about the subject, ever.

[redqueen]

27. That's so important to do.

And of course we get lots of opportunities for teachable moments during our day-to-day lives, as well.

[one_voice]

18. This..

"But it’s okay ... I never think (harassment is) a big thing because they do it to everyone," said one interviewee

When I was barely a teenager my dad decided to move us from the city to the burbs...and this is why..

We would walk to the store a few blocks from home to pick up things for my mom. The store owner had our phone number--we'd buy cigarettes for my mom and he always made sure they were for her--any way I developed quicker than most girls my age and looked much older than I was.

When I'd leave the store guys in cars would follow me home while yelling nasty things at me. One day the store owner saw it happening and he yelled at the guys, they just circled the block and caught up to me. In the meantime the store owner called my house and told my parents what was going on.

I was almost home at that point and found my dad with his gun and bricks waiting for those guys. (no he shouldn't have had the gun but because of things that had happened to me he wanted to make sure they knew never to come near me again).

After that I never walked to the store alone--always one of my brothers or one of the older boys in the neighborhood (that were trustworthy) went with me.

I do think it's something that girls see even when young--but I was encouraged by the men in my life that wouldn't stand for that. Not just family, but other dads and the guys that lived there.

But still my dad wanted me in a safer area. His exact words were I need to move my daughter some where that's safe for her and I won't go to jail for murder.

Anyway, that's a brief glimpse into the 'street harassment' I went through.

I have no problem with a man complimenting me as long as it's done with respect. Don't yell obscenities at me.

What the men/boys need to understand is that it doesn't make us feel sexy (at least the women I know) and it doesn't make us feel wanted. It's very uncomfortable and can be scary in some situations--being followed home....insisting that we know we like it...etc.

Think of it this way, if you wouldn't want someone saying those things to your mom/sister/daughter then you shouldn't be saying it either.

[KitSileya]

20. I'm sorry that happened to you.

I think street harassment has nothing to do with complimenting women, or with trying to 'score.' Even Nigerian prince email scams must have a higher success rate than street harassment. No woman would turn to her street harasser and say, 'Ooh, that was so sexy, let's have sex'. No, street harassment is done for the express purpose of controlling women, to remind them that they aren't safe, that they are less than, and to make sure they always are aware of the dangers so that they don't get "too full of themselves." It's to keep women from reaching their full potential, to keep the playing field uneven and easier for men. Street harassment is done to teach women to be that little more afraid, that little more timid, to give them another factor to evaluate when they go about their daily lives, to stress them out, make them scared, make their minds function a little less efficiently on the task of their daily life because they are stressed/scared/uncomfortable, and men who don't have to take that into consideration, can go though their lives without that obstacle, and hence that little bit more easily. It's creating a privilege for men, and an extra obstacle for women. That is the purpose of street harassment.

[tblue37]

22. It is also to show us that we "have no right" to move freely in

public space. The harassers believe a woman belongs at home, not out in public, because they don't accept that a woman has any right to free agency in public space.

[KitSileya]

24. Exactly. It is a part of male privilege that men do to create an advantage for themselves.

They don't have to think about avoiding street harassment in their daily lives, and they don't have to deal with the trauma it creates. They are the default owners of public spaces, and by golly, they intend to show us that it is theirs. I'm pretty sure that most men who street harass don't think about it consciously, it is just part of their rights. They do not for one moment think about the impact of what they do on the women they do it to, they just want to make her uncomfortable, and assert their dominance. They use the women as objects to make themselves feel better, and at the same time they make it more difficult for women to threaten their privileged existence.

All men do not street harass, but all men benefit from street harassment. That is why so many of them refuse to listen to us when we tell them how we feel about it.

[raccoon]

29. You should consider making this an OP! nt

[KitSileya]

30. I admit that in this,

The reactionary men and women of DU have won. After so many outrageous posts, where rape victims have been called liars, accused of playing the victim card, and I myself have been called sick, and told I am to blame when I am sexually harassed, I concede the field. I participate some on DU still, but Skinner let the poster that told me street harassment was my own fault back on DU. I don't trust DU any longer, and I don't trust Skinner. I'll reply when I have the spoons, but that's all.

[TheFrenchRazor]

37. pretty much. nt

[Behind the Aegis]

21. I have been through similar.

I have not had women scream at me, well, at pride parades, so it was usually not a mean thing. However, I have had men and women scream anti-gay shit at me since I was 16. It is humiliating. To me, it is a hate crime. So, by my logic, if it is a hate crime to shout these things at gay men, why is not considered a hate crime when done to women? It should be treated as such, IMO. I know it sounds strange, but really it is similar and it isn't meant to be appreciative but rather to intimidate and isn't that part of the definition of a hate crime?!

I remember when I was younger and men would say shit to my mom. Here is a woman with 2 to 3 to 4 children (I am the oldest, so the numbers of brothers changed over the years) and some asshole is screaming about her "pussy." Seriously, what the FUCK?! My mom would hustle us into the car and lock us in, just in case. I hate that my mother had to feel like she was a "thing". I took my brother and his best friend to task when they shouted shit out the window of the car at female co-eds at my college. I ran through the "how would you feel if it was your mom, sister, girlfriend...", then shifted to, "how would you feel if it was a car load of men shouting at you!?"

Recently, there was a young woman (16) who was being harassed and when the man came over, the dad confronted him. The dad was killed when he was hit and suffered a heart attack. The man was charged with a hate crime because he screamed racist things as he hit the dad, but he should have also been charged with a hate crime for the original attack on the girl, as well. The story was posted here (I remember because I made a seriously badly worded post, that I thankfully got to clarify).

No woman should feel like she has to "endure" street harassment...ever!

[TheFrenchRazor]

36. you are correct; "cat calls" and such are meant to harass and intimidate, primarily. nt

[merrily]

26. I am surprised that this story surprises other posters.

Clarence Thomas survived his confirmation hearings and now sits on the Supreme Court, right? Nine top legal jobs in a nation of about 350 million people though less at that time) and he got one of them--after the Hill passed a lie detector test.

Anita Hill had not volunteered to testify. In the course of the government's doing diligence on Thomas, however, one of the women interviewed mentioned that anyone investigating Thomas should speak to Anita Hill, so they did.

Anita Hill had been a very credible witness. Other women corroborated her claims by tales of how Thomas had behaved toward then. Thomas made no attempt to refute a single one of her allegations, instead lashing out at the proceedings. Clarence Thomas was also evaluated as the second least qualified SCOTUS nominee in modern time. (The first was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was graduated from law school when women could only get jobs as legal secretaries--which she did, but before affirmative action. Thomas, on the other hand, had had the benefit of affirmative action throughout.)

Media goaded both Hill and Thomas about taking a lie detector test. Thomas, of course, did not take one. Hill did.

On Sunday, October 14, 1991, Anita Hill's representative announced that she had passed a lie detector test that week, given by a man who had worked with the FBI. The test included the subject matter of her allegations about Thomas. Those facts were immediate and widely reported by media--a media whose message is much less diluted than today's media. On Monday, October 15, 1991, the Senate confirmed.

Granted, the margin was narrow, but the vote was along party lines, so who knows what accounted for that. Bottom line, Thomas got to be one of nine humans in the U.S. with the final say over things like sexual harassment in the workplace.

[TheFrenchRazor]

35. yep; i remember how anita hill was skewered for daring to speak the truth. nt

[Rex]

31. At 42 I am still shocked at times.

Horrible, I wish these kind of things did not shock me anymore, but just...horrible. As a society we are failing our female youth at an astronomical rate. That should never be acceptable as normalcy and it is. That shocks me.

No doubt I will get laughed at for once again calling it a crisis in this country. Rape culture is a crisis in this country. This is about power and control. A lot of men will never give up either of those two things to a women. A lot of men look at women as nothing more than furniture.

Males have got to stop debasing females as if it is institutionalized in our brains to do so.

It is NOT.

[redqueen]

32. It's a crisis almost all over the world.

And finally people are noticing. Throughout history it has just been considered the way things are. We still have a very long way to go.

(Side note, so glad to see that troll is gone.)

[Rex]

33. I didn't really believe such opposition existed until I read all the links

about the MRA. I dunno what is worse, a gun nut troll or an MRA troll. I sure do notice when reading that most MRA sites have RWing leaning friends and guest posters. RWings sure do seem to be gun nuts as well, I think there is a correlation.

WE will one day evolve to a point imo, socially, were it will not be acceptable to show unwarranted aggression toward ANY other individual. I just don't think it will be in my lifetime, but I will stay optimistic.

I'm putting my faith in future generations being smarter than us...since it appears that is an undying trend. We shall see now that we've supposedly reached a 'civilized age'.

[TheFrenchRazor]

34. absolutely true. kids need to be taught from a young age that this stuff is unacceptable, and

and that there will be serious consequences for the ones who commit these acts.

[redqueen]

38. Serious consequences?

We could say that, but it would be better to hold off on making such statements until it is actually true.