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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom Clarke who wrote (72888)	1/23/2000 12:08:00 AM
From: jbe	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

What debate, Charley? I must confess I pooped out before finishing that article. Problem is, I haven't read Brownmiller's book (or any other "feminist" book dealng with rape, for that matter), so I don't know whether the author's analysis of it is fair. If Brownmiller does indeed argue that "all men are rapists" (at least, at heart) she is of course wrong. And her critic is of course right to point out that societies, however constituted, normally attempt to protect women against rape; it is at times of societal breakdown (e.g., most notably, civil war) that rape runs rampant. BUT -- consider what happens in much of the world -- in peacetime -- to women who are raped, despite society's "protection." Take Pakistan, for example, with its practice of "honor killings". The following comes from a recent Amnesty International report on the practice: In a hideous twist, women victims of rape are also seen to have defiled their male relatives' honor. Sixteen-year-old Jamilla, for example, was repeatedly raped by a junior clerk of the local agriculture department in her province. Jamilla's uncle filed a complaint with the police, but the police arrested Jamilla and turned her over to her tribe. She was shot dead in March 1999 after a tribal council of elders decided that she had brought shame to her tribe and that honor could only be restored by her death. amnesty-usa.org That is only one example of many. Why do such things occur? From Amnesty's intro: The lives of millions of women in Pakistan are circumscribed by traditions that enforce extreme seclusion and submission to men. Traditional perceptions of honor severely limit some of the most basic rights of women in Pakistan. Every year in Pakistan hundreds of women, of all ages and in all parts of the country are reported killed in the name of honor. Many more cases go unreported. Almost all go unpunished. The number of such killings appears to be steadily increasing as the perception of what constitutes honor widens. The flimsiest of suspicions, such as a rumor spread in a village, or in one extreme case, a man's dream of his wife's adultery, is enough to elicit lethal violence. Women are not even given a chance to clear up possible misunderstandings. Tradition decrees only one method to restore honor - to kill the offending woman. Some awareness of rights has seeped into the secluded world of women in Pakistan. Tragically, women's tentative steps to assert these rights - by choosing a spouse or divorcing an abusive husband - are increasingly seen to undermine honor as well. The backlash has been both harsh and swift, resulting in an increase of honor killings in Pakistan. I don't think that the authors of the Amnesty report had read Susan Brownmiller. And in general, let me say that I think that in discusssing rape (like just about everything else), we tend to be far too Americo-centric. Our society is just not typical. Joan