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From: sunny@sun.uucp (Sunny Kirsten)
Newsgroups: net.women,net.singles
Subject: Rape: The Unresolved Trauma
Message-ID: <1855@sun.uucp>
Date: Fri, 7-Dec-84 04:09:22 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.1855
Posted: Fri Dec  7 04:09:22 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 9-Dec-84 05:38:57 EST
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Patriarchy:	The Degradation of Women

	From the Sacramento Bee, Tuesday 11/13/84, By Ann Japenga, L.A. Times
..."most women who are raped never even enjoy [] 'the hollow victory' associated
with a conviction.  FBI esitmates say that anywhere from 3 to 10 times more
rapes occur than are ever reported.  Of those rapes that do go to trial, few
result in convictions.  Of 5,298 sexual assaults reported in L.A. County in
1982, for example, there were only 393 Superior Court convictions, according to
a criminal justice profile released by the attorney general's office."

	Taking the conservative figure of 3 rather than 10, we get a conviction
rate of 393/(5298*3) = .024726311816   which is less than  1 in 40 rapes.  Even
that should seem bad enough, ignoring the other extreme of 1 in 135 rapes.

	Obviously the criminal "due process" system, for I certainly could not
call it a system of justice, fails miserably to deal with these heinous crimes
by men against women.


Los Angeles (AP):
	"Jack Oscar King, 65, a maintenance worker at the housing project where
Cheryl [Bess] and her mother lived, was charged with kidnapping, attempted
murder, assault with a caustic chemical, assault with intent to commit rape and
mayhem."
	"Early on Oct 24, [he] kidnapped Cheryl as she walked to San Bernardino
High School, where she was a sophomore.  He tried to rape her, failed, then
poured a caustic chemical over her head and left her in the desert,
investigators said."  "For eight hours, she wandered around trying to rub off
the liquid."  "Cheryl Bess' face and parts of her arms and neck were burned to
the bone..."  "The 15-year-old's burns, which eroded her flesh to the bones of
her face, skull, shoulders, neck, hands and forearms, are 'the worst that I've
seen in an awful long time,' said Dr. Bruce Achauer, the plastic surgeon who is
trying to repair Cheryl's body at the University of California, Irvine."


Returning to the first article now:
	"...the content of a victim's statement in the courtroom is controlled
by attorneys and judges: [quoting Jan Shirchild, of the Santa Cruz
Women Against Rape]: 'It's clearly a case of the state against this man, and
she only gets to respond to questions asked her by other people.'"

According to the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women, the victim
knows her assailant in more than half of all reported rapes.

"[A] woman [who] had been raped by her therapist when she was 19 years old" was
assisted by the Santa Cruz group in a confrontation with her raper, and said:
"I have been carrying around a big burden of pain, confusion and guilt.  I want
to give that burden back to you.  It is for you to work out, not me."

"Public airing of the man's actions [] places pressure on him from peers and
the community, the group says.  []  'Some of us have worked at the rape-crisis
center and we've seen what a rape survivor's (survivor is the preferred term in
the anti-rape movement) options are.  The legal system doesn't serve her needs.
What she needs is to get back control of her life."

That is the point folks.  A rapist takes from a woman, her control of her life,
when he takes control of her body and uses it to his own ends.  The trauma HE
inflicts on HER is seldom resolved.

back to the article: "Over the last 10 years, the Santa Cruz group has
facilitated ("We help women plan confrontations; we don't do them," they
emphasize)  as many as 100 confrontations in restaurants, doctor's offices,
auto repair shops, retail stores and - though rarely - in private homes.
Confrontations are normally carried out in public, with as many as 30 support
people present, to ensure the protection of the women involved."

Let's see, that's 10 resolutions of rape per year.  Oh well, better 10 women
should *start* to mend their lives than none, but consider the untold,
unresolved trauma so many carry for the rest of their lives...
all so men can assert their dominance... their God given right to use women
as their slaves.  

excuse me, I think I'm going to puke...
-- 
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