Over It

Eva Ensler

From: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eve-ensler/over-it_b_1089013.html

Posted: 11/11/11 04:37 PM ET

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don't have a sense of humor, and women don't have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don't think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called "comrades."

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I'm over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime -- the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters -- film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes -- while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It's been too long now, we have been too understanding.

We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine -- once and for all -- what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.

There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.

ONE BILLION WOMEN.

The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.

Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.

Because we are over it.

Follow Eve Ensler on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eveensler

Relationship Violence: The Secret That Kills 4 Women a Day

Check out the June issue of Glamour...

"Why is this still happening in 2011? After all, as women, we’re clearly no longer second-class citizens, so dependent on men’s earnings and support that we must put up with brutal relationships simply because we have no choices. We have more choices than ever—and men are surely more enlightened. So why are women more likely to be killed by their boyfriend than they were 35 years ago? And what can we do to reverse the trend?"

Read More http://www.glamour.com/tell-somebody/2011/05/relationship-violence-the-secret-that-kills-4-women-a-day#ixzz1LLU0ILrG

Date Rape is a Crime, not an "Incoherent Concept"

This guest post was written by GASA Advisory Board Member Joseph Vess.

Date Rape is a Crime, not an "Incoherent Concept"

American U. article and its media coverage distort, confuse the issue

The recent opinion column in the American University student newspaper and its ensuing media coverage fail to accurately represent the reality of sexual assault on college and university campuses. Rape is not an “incoherent concept” for the estimated one in four college women who will be raped by classmates, boyfriends, friends or dormmates during their college career. Many of the college and university men that Men Can Stop Rape works with in Men Creating Change chapters nationwide are engaged around the issue precisely because they have seen firsthand the devastating effects of sexual assault on women they care about.

Sexual assault is the fault of the perpetrator—no one else. A woman who drinks too much at a party, or goes to a certain party, or goes home with a certain guy is never to blame because that guy made the deliberate choice to rape. Rape is still a felony, and it is never the fault of the survivor. In nearly every state, someone who is intoxicated cannot even legally consent to sex. Blaming women for bringing it on themselves and overblown claims about women who “cry rape” the next morning are time-worn concepts, used the world over to legitimize rape by men who benefit from its impact on women. The line of consent is never blurry, except for those who distort it to condone sexual assault.

Sexual assault prevention efforts must focus on those who commit sexual assault, and the vast majority of those perpetrators are men. They are still a minority among men however, leaving many more men who are opposed to rape, who speak out against it, and who challenge other men to end violence against women. Rather than focus on the tiny percentage of false reports (estimated by credible studies to be between 2-8 percent, similar to other violent crimes), these men focus on the real problem—the millions of women who are our mothers, sisters and daughters; our wives, girlfriends and friends; our classmates, co-workers and fellow service members—who are sexually assaulted every year.

But clearly, not enough men are speaking up as lies, misrepresentations and victim-blaming continue to be the norm in popular coverage of sexual assault. Yesterday, April 1, marked the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. There is no better time for individuals, especially men, to learn how they can stand up, be strong and take action to prevent sexual violence.

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Men Can Stop Rape’s Men Creating Change program mobilizes college and university men across the United States to challenge sexual assault and other forms of violence against women on their campus and in their community. For more information, please contact Joseph Vess, Director of Training and Technical Assistance, at jvess@mencanstoprape.org or Joe Samalin, Campus Strength Coordinator, at jsamalin@mencanstoprape.org.