‘For those still struggling with fear and defeat from sexual violation, words of survivors and activists bring support. I leave some of them with you now, in the hope that they might reassure those in pain that rape does not have the last word in their lives.

I survived this torture which left me paralysed for years. That’s what that night was all about, mutilation, more than violence through sex. I really do feel as though I was psychologically mutilated that night and now I’m trying to put the pieces back together again. Through love, not hatred. And through my music. My strength has been to open again, to life, and my victory is the fact that, despite it all, I kept alive my vulnerability.

Tori Amos

Refusing Hatred and Evil

And I have seen the ugly face of hatred
As it ripped my flesh and seared my soul
Mocking my refusal with malicious, brutal force.
But I am learning to erase that gaze
And seek instead the gentle face of love
Which stoops to soothe my fear with tender touch
And travels patiently in step with me
On the long journey towards peace.

Anon, Survivor’s workshop

Prophetic visions (Isaiah 61)

Darkness lifts, and light beckons us on.

They speak of binding for the broken-hearted
Freedom for captives
Release for prisoners in darkness and confusion.
A crown of beauty instead of ashes
Oil of gladness instead of mourning
A garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

I believe all this is true.
And I wait in trusting hope, ready to receive.’

Anon. Survivors’ Workshop

We are told to forgive and forget . . . But I couldn’t forgive and I couldn’t forget . . . Then I realized . . . I have a right to remember and I leave the forgiving to a higher being.  Rape survivor

In many societies, the passive silence about sex abuse can be compounded by the presence of an active rape culture which normalizes and excuses it. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, the glamorization of sexual violence and the entitlement given to men. Gender definitions themselves play a part in it. When ‘manhood’ is defined in terms of dominance and sexual aggression, then it is ‘hardly a man’s fault’ if he expresses this aggression towards a woman. The high level of rape carried out by soldiers in conditions of conflict is regularly justified this way. Defining ‘womanhood’ produces more ambiguous results. Women can be perceived as submissive, innocent and sexually passive, or as whores just waiting to be raped (‘she was asking for it’). Either way, they are at risk.

Other facets of rape culture are easily recognized: trivialising sexual assault, showing tolerance towards sexual harassment, inflating false rape report statistics, publicly scrutinising a victim’s dress, mental state, motives and history. One of the more alarming recent developments in many Western societies is the proliferation of ‘jokes’ about sexual violence. The growth of social media and the internet has brought a proliferation of sites specializing in sick rape jokes which go unmonitored and unregulated. ‘Jokes’ like ‘I had sex with a girl in public the other day, and I was amazing! So amazing in fact that she was screaming before we even started’ can clock up hundreds of endorsing comments within minutes of posting. Beyond the internet, the appalling rape-entertainment culture among the worst of the stand-up comedians has proved hard to combat. One brave woman in the audience of a Daniel Tosh comedy gig heckled ‘Rape jokes are never funny’ after he had told several in a row. His response was to insult her by suggesting it would be funny if she had been raped by five guys. He later had to apologise, but has continued his banal and empty patter, enjoy- ing the support of those who will always laugh.

Rape culture has been exposed, not simply by sociologists studying social mores, but by organizations committed to bringing change. The Rape Is No Joke (RINJ) campaign, a Canadian anti- sexual assault organization founded in 2011 in response to ‘rape joke’ and pro-rape content on Facebook, has pressured media and law-enforcement agencies. A Socialist Students initiative in the UK of the same name has also been active. It refuses to accept that attempts at humour are innocuous and in a different league from any actual violence. Its stance is that:

this ‘comedy’ is lazy and un-intelligent. But it also, combined with prolific violent pornography on the internet, ‘lads mags’ in every corner shop and aggressive sexual imagery in advertising, adds to a culture that accepts, and even glorifies rape and sexual assault.

Sexual exploitation eroticizes women’s inequality and is a vehicle for racism and ‘first world’ domination, disproportionately victimizing minority and ‘third world’ women. Women’s support project

We, the survivors of prostitution and trafficking gathered at this press conference today, declare that prostitution is violence against women. Manifesto, joint press conference for Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and the European Women’s Lobby (CATW–EWL), 2005

Former comfort women who served the Japanese Army as sexual slaves during World War II, shout a slogan in a rally before Korean Liberation Day of Aug. 15, which marks the end of Japanese colonial rule in 1945, in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009. They demanded from the Japanese government an official apology and financial compensation.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

‘In an article for the US magazine Glamour, editor-at-large Liz Brody tells a story familiar to people who work alongside survivors of domestic abuse. For readers who have been victims, the details may be sickeningly reminiscent.

Not long before sunrise on a Midwestern Friday, college student and part-time waitress Alexandra Briggs sat in her one-bedroom apartment, meticulously applying thick makeup all over her face, neck and arms. It took two coats to cover her boyfriend’s teeth marks and the cigarette burns he’d inflicted, along with her newly purpling bruises; her pants hid the spot on her thigh where he’d stabbed her with a fork. When she finished, he drove her to the Original Pancake House for her 7:00 a.m. shift. ‘I’m sick,’ she told her boss as she clocked in and headed to the restroom.

Alexandra Briggs was one of the fortunate ones. She had a sym- pathetic boss who had long suspected, and now recognized beyond doubt, that the student was the victim of intimate-partner violence. Her boyfriend would later admit in court that he had hit her repeatedly with a small bat that morning, and strangled her until she slumped, unconscious. A ruptured eardrum and broken nose were just two of the injuries she had suffered. This was no isolated attack but a form of relentless aggression which left deep scars on her body, mind and spirit………..

Read the whole chapter in Scars Across Humanity  (available very soon) and if you are a man, please join Restored’s ‘First man standing’ to take action.  

Whose ‘honour’? Killings and femicide as reprisals for shame

He told me that in his society, a man is like a piece of gold, a woman is like a piece of silk. If you drop gold in the mud, you can clean it. But a piece of silk is ruined.1

Killing in the name of preserving honour only brings dishonour to the family and largely, the country.   Kamna Arora, India

Pakistani human rights activist shout slogans against the ‘honor killings’ of five women shot and then buried alive in Balochistan province Pakistan after several insisted on marrying men of their own choosing. (EPA/REHAN KHAN)