Tuesday, July 28, 2015
"I Suggest You Shut Your Mouth"
Required reading:
The July 27 to August 9 issue of New York magazine features 35 of the 46 women who have accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault since the late 1960's on the cover, along with an empty chair representing the 11 women who did not want to be photographed or interviewed. It is a powerful article about the culture of shame and silence that victims of sexual violence endure and the cost of speaking out against their attackers.
As noted in the article, speaking up is the only thing to do. And more men need to speak out against sexual assault. Stay silent no more.
More on this to follow......
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Murder By Numbers
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not
everything that can be counted counts.”
William
Bruce Cameron
“Informal
Sociology: A Casual Introduction to Sociological Thinking”
Numbers.
We are a culture and a society built on numbers, statistics, and
data. That’s how we roll…..we cite
numbers to support arguments. Frame
conversations around relevant ratios and make salient points supported by
numbers. Reference numbers when necessary or
convenient, as long as they back up the facts we want them to support. Kids grow up with an encyclopedic knowledge
of batting averages, free throw percentages, and touchdown passes thrown by
quarterbacks in high school, college, and the NFL (at least kids from my
generation did). Our government is based
on numbers regarding population, Social Security numbers, GNP, CPI, etc.
It’s impossible to disregard numbers or their importance in every facet
of our lives.
Here are a few more relevant numbers:
·
-Number of American soldiers killed in
Afghanistan and Iraq from 2001 – 2012: 6,488
·
-Number of American women murdered by current or
former partners from 2001 - 2012: 11,766
· -Average number of women killed every day by domestic
violence in the US: 3
·
-Number of American women who experience (or will
experience) physical intimate partner violence in their lifetime: 38,028,000
·
-Number of women in physically abusive
relationships who are raped or assaulted during the relationship: 40 – 45%
· -
Number of American women who were victims of
domestic violence in 2013: 4,774,000
· -
Number of “legacy rapes” reported by law
enforcement in 2013: 79,770
So here’s today’s question:
How many women need to experience physical intimate partner violence
before we start to take domestic violence seriously?
I’m not sure what that number is, but we know for certain it’s not 38,028,000………. because if it was, somebody would have done something about it by now.
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