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This, Too, is War


A SYTYCB Entry

Just today, I saw a statement online that tried to downplay the outrage that has come from the statements of Rep. Akin on “legitimate” rape by comparing this to a “real” problem – that of President Obama’s latest statement about a “red line” with Syria.  That, the statement I read online said, was a real problem.  A call to arms.  A threat of war.  In other words, a manly problem.  Who cares about women’s rights when we are talking about yet another war?!

It is easy to discount the importance of women.  Apparently.  After all, it has been going on for at least as long as we have history, in every culture, in every time, the whole world over.  But, in our modern age, with all of our advancements in political regimes, science, technology, and ideas, how can we still fail to see the interconnectedness of war and the way that we treat women?

On war, Virginia Woolf once said, “[A]s a woman, I have no country.  As a woman, I want no country.  As a woman, my country is the whole world.”  On the importance of women in the world, Hillary Rodham Clinton famously said, “Women’s rights are human rights.”

My illegitimate rape

A SYTYCB entry

I am the face of illegitimate rape.  I was the victim of a series of illegitimate rapes.  Many years ago.  As a child.  By an older, much larger, child.  Of the same sex.  It happened over a span of a few years.  It changed who I was.  It contributed largely to the woman I am today.  It altered the choices I made.  It transformed the way I look at the world.  And just yesterday, once again, I was reminded that it was not “legitimate rape.”

 

You see, legitimate rape is the kind that happens in a back alley, late at night.  The perpetrator is a man.  A big man.  He has a deadly weapon.  The victim is a ...

A SYTYCB entry

I am the face of illegitimate rape.  I was the victim of a series of illegitimate rapes.  Many years ago.  As a child.  By an older, much larger, child.  Of the same sex.  It ...