A Dosage of Common Sense

Elaine Riddick was 13 years old when she got pregnant after being raped by a neighbor in Winfall, N.C., in 1967.  The state ordered that immediately after giving birth, she should be sterilized.  Doctors cut and tied off her fallopian tubes.

The records label Riddick as “feebleminded” and “promiscuous.” They said her schoolwork was poor and that she “does not get along well with others.”

“I was raped by a perpetrator [who was never charged] and then I was raped by the state of North Carolina.  They took something from me both times,” she said.  “The state of North Carolina, they took something so dearly from me, something that was God given.”

Eugenics was a scientific theory that grew in popularity during the 1920s.  Eugenicists believed that poverty, promiscuity and alcoholism were traits that were inherited.  To eliminate those society ills and improve society’s gene pool, proponents of the theory argued that those that exhibited the traits should be sterilized.

It began as a way to control welfare spending on poor white women and men, but over time, North Carolina shifted focus, targeting more women and more blacks than whites.  A third of the sterilizations performed in North Carolina were done on girls under the age of 18.  Some were as young as nine years old.

Why would you, even for a second, think that women, especially those from minority groups, actually have any rights to their own bodies?! It’s a shame that instead of going any forward, the world just keeps going back.

Yolanda Dominguez gets real people in real life reproduce some of the ridiculous poses by female models in fashion.

This is just what I’ve been studying in my Psychology of Women class. Advertising and media have distorted the image and expectations of women: freewill and independence has been told to achieve through objectification and being a vamp.

Exposing just parts of a woman’s body instead of a whole person, turning her into the object they are selling (common with beer and liquor ads where the woman is the bottle itself), all of this results in our subconscious only looking at women as objects. Especially D&G advertisements put women in poses where they are about to be attacked, which is only helping promote violence towards them, only causing us to associate “sexy” with the idea of rape and battery. And assaulters to always defend themselves with “she was asking for it.”

As Yolanda explains: “I tried to express what many women feel about women’s magazines and the image of women in the media – absurd, artificial, a hanger to wear dresses and bags, only concerned about being skinny, beautiful… They seem dead, twisted, pulled. Why are men never put in these positions? They are always straight, successful, able and healthy?”

And even when men are posing naked in advertisements, they are always still portrayed as powerful, in control. It is what is expected of them now, isn’t it? And when high fashion does show women in leadership positions, research has shown majority of the population automatically associate “super bitch” with that image. As for men, the word is “successful”.

Women, we still have a long way to go. Those who have broken through the glass ceiling are respected and accepted by few, perceived to be real tough to work with (when male bosses being tough is only seen as his dedication to the organization), all because they are not resorting to their traditionally accepted role of “loving, nurturing, sacrificing”.

Too Controversial for even the U.N. to acknowledge, reports have confirmed that most countries do not even recognize sexual abuse towards men as a crime! 

Sexual abuse towards men is especially high during times of war, almost as high as female rape victims. 

SMH at how every crime involving some kind of sexual abuse takes so much time to be acknowledged. SMH at how sexual desires drive a person these days.

Why though? Why inflict pain? Why risk the trouble for 2 minutes of pleasure? It does not make sense. Are people that deprived of enjoyment that sex is the only thing that could make them happy? Are people that much of psychopaths that they thrive off of making people suffer?

There’s so much in the world, but SMH at how they degrade down to their basic animal instincts. 

There’s just so much wrong with the world. It’s a shame advances in science and math and technology just does not seem to add any civilization. It only seems to be killing it.

*Note: Video contains some disturbing graphics of abused victims in prisons.*

A person whose house is burgled can speak freely of the theft and expect to be believed. But women who are sexually assaulted are silenced by shame. If a victim of rape goes public, she’s seen as seeking publicity instead of retribution. If her story is inconsistent, we assume she is lying instead of suffering the aftereffects of trauma. If she is taller or bigger than her perpetrator, we assume she should have been able to shove the perpetrator off, even when doing so would mean losing her job, her freedom, possibly even her life. What we forget in drawing these conclusions is the impact of power and the impact of terror.

From personal experience: I was 10 when I told a school friend this male teacher inappropriately “touches” me. The next day, her mother comes and finds me, tells me to stay away from her daughter because I am an indecent girl with no morals. And even managed to tell some other girls in my class to stay from me, too. I was 10. I did not even know what was happening to me. And I only believed something was seriously wrong with me.

And yet, no matter how much we write about it, talk about it, things do not seem to get any better. The way the world started off, blaming women for their rape, remains the same.

I have watched these victims. From a series of victim experiences, I understand their silence. I know their fear. I know the feeling of regret many have to live with forever for not speaking up. Because of their silence, another innocent girl got hurt. If they would have spoken up, if they would have called the cops, they could have saved someone. Anyone.

If only they could rewind the time to go back and make a difference.. if only.

Coming from a closed society, I have witnessed many women termed promiscuous when they come clean before they could blame their rapist. It’s always the “she must have led him on.”

Hence, the suffering in silence.

After all, who wants to live feeling guilty anyways? Who wants to be looked down upon? Who wants to lose friends because something horrible and shameful has happened to them? They rather just stay silent, bury the pain, and move on. And, like me, reflect time to time on how those words have shaped us into the person we are today.