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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!masscomp!miche
From: miche@masscomp.UUCP (Harvey)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: \"Why not send the men home?\"
Message-ID: <685@masscomp.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-May-85 09:24:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: masscomp.685
Posted: Fri May  3 09:24:59 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 4-May-85 00:17:48 EDT
References: <1848@decwrl.UUCP> <322@rtech.ARPA> <142@kontron.UUCP>
Reply-To: miche@masscomp.UUCP (Miche Baker-Harvey)
Organization: Masscomp - Westford, MA
Lines: 40
Summary: 

> Nahhh, just arm all the women with firearms.  It might not do much for
> any violent crime besides rape (where it would be *real* effective), but
> it would certainly discourage petty harrassment.

> What?  That's a stupid idea?  Compared to a curfew for men?

4 out of 5 homocide victims are women.
Male murderers outnumber female murderers 16 to 1.
1 in 4 women is raped or sexually abused by the time she is 18 years old.
In 70% of rapes, the rapist is known to the victim.
More than 50% of rapes happen to a women in her own home, in her own bed.
These are crimes of power and aggression.  Maybe firearems in
the hands of women would lessen the imbalance of power.

You seem to think it's a joke to impose a curfew on men, but there is an
effective curfew put upon women, and I don't see you 'laughing' at
that.  "You were raped on the street at night?  What were you doing
on the street at night?"  "You were raped in a bar?  What were you
doing in a bar?"  We expect women to follow a self imposed curfew,
and if she doesn't, we blame HER for crimes of power and agression
to which she is the victim.

Our society is even unwilling to arm women with KNOWLEDGE:
that the rape is NOT the woman's fault;
that rape is NOT a crime of sex;
that it is NOT the stranger who commits the most child sexual abuse.

The up side, for those that I have depressed, is that more IS
becoming known about this.  Scaled-down warnings ARE getting into
(some) school systems.  Rape-prevention clinics ARE becoming more
available.  Incest survivors DO have some place to go where it is
OK to talk about the trauma.

My apologies for the flame-nature of this posting.

Miche Baker-Harvey
	{ihnp4|decvax}!masscomp!galaxy!miche

"Rape is as much a crime of sex as murder with a 
	frying pan is a crime of cooking."