Society teaches "don't get raped" rather than "don't rape"

<sup>The heinous gang-rape by over 20 male individuals of an 11-year old girl in Texas has torn the community apart because "These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives," says Sheila Harrison, empathist for rapists, in Blaming an 11-year-old victim.

Coverage of this story in the New York Times reported quotes on the young girl dressing older than she was, wearing make up inappropriate for her age, and hanging out with older guys in a rough neighbourhood. While Nicole Colson, writer of Blaming an 11-year-old victim, addresses the astounding lack of empathy or concern for the victim by the community (and media), what the community, Colson, the New York Times all seem to have in common is a lack of speculation on the nature of the crime itself.

Colson writes that instances of "blaming the victim" are blatantly obvious in this case. It seems to have been implicitly suggested that the young girl appeared to be much older than she was.

"She looked and acted older than 11." Is that the defense of the 20 men who assaulted and raped her, while taking picture and videotaping the violation as if it were a sport? 

If she were 30 years old, would it still be okay that a woman was repeatedly assaulted and raped? 

It seems as though this is semantics to the community in question, as the parents of the victim have been urged to relocate due to harassing phone calls from community members, angry about charges against the perpetrators.</sup> 

http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/

Half of Canadian women (51%) have experienced at least one incident of physical or sexual violence since the age of 16.¹ 

Every minute of every day, a Canadian woman or child is being sexually assaulted.² 

One to two women are murdered by a current or former partner each week in Canada.³ 

Spousal violence makes up the single largest category of convictions involving violent offences ... in Canada over the five-year period 1997/98 to 2001/02. Over 90% of offenders were male.⁴ 

Thirty-six percent of female victims of spousal violence and less than 10% of victims of sexual assault reported these crimes to the police in 2004.⁵

 

Statistics Canada, The Violence Against Women Survey, The Daily, November 18, 1993
Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women, Fact sheet: extrapolated from Ontario Women’s Directorate, Dispelling the Myths about Sexual Assault. Fact sheet, Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 1998
Dauvergne, M., (2002), Homicide in Canada - 2001, Juristat 22(7), Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, Statistics Canada.
Statistics Canada, Measuring Violence Against Women, Statistical Trends 2006
Ibid