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From: cramer@kontron.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: \"Why not send the men home?\"
Message-ID: <155@kontron.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-May-85 15:50:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: kontron.155
Posted: Tue May  7 15:50:36 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 8-May-85 06:20:22 EDT
References: <1848@decwrl.UUCP> <322@rtech.ARPA> <142@kontron.UUCP> <685@masscomp.UUCP>
Organization: Kontron Electronics, Irvine, CA
Lines: 62

> > 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."

I'm sorry you took my light-hearted remarks so seriously.  I agree completely
with you that the fear women feel when they go out at night is rational and
very sad.  (And I wasn't kidding about arming women, and anyone else.  I 
for one would love to see attempted rape be dealt with by the intended 
victim, and with great finality, since the courts don't take *any* violent
crime, *including* rape, very seriously.)  Considering that the remark about 
a curfew for men *couldn't* have been serious, my remark wasn't very serious 
either.

I completely agree you with you about the nature of rape.

Incidentally, I'm not sure where you get your statistics, but at *least*
one of them is wrong.  The majority of homicide victims are men, not women.

Also, from the experiences of the women with whom I have discussed the
percentage of molestation, I would say "1 in 4" may even be low.  (It would
be nice if you quoted the "1 in 7" figure that applies to men.  Viewing
molestation as a problem just for women is extremely chauvinistic.)

Finally, I'm sorry that you are so humorless that you fail to see a 
sarcastic and light-hearted response to what was certainly a flippant idea.