The Young Victoria

Crime reports are written in the passive voice, with no mention of the perpetrator. The result is that the gender of the victim is clearly stated but the gender of the perpetrator is completely hidden: “A woman was raped” rather than “A man raped a woman” or “A man raped someone” or even “An unknown male assailant raped a person…”

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The focus on women as the victims of these crimes leaves us with no one but the women to deal with. So we tend to advise women how to avoid getting themselves raped instead of focusing on getting men to stop raping. It is the same across the board with all male violence against women. The focus is on the women and the perpetrators are hidden, ignored, and not even mentioned. 

What if we changed the way we talk about male violence toward women? What if we used the active voice with the male perpetrators in the active role? What if we named the gender of the perpetrator and left unmentioned the gender of the victim? What if we tried to estimate the numbers of perpetrators instead of toting up the numbers of victims?

What follows is a suggested re-write of an Amnesty International news release about violence against women, refocusing it as a news brief about violence committed by men.

In my women’s studies class, each week we’re given three articles to read and assess, and while this is by far the shortest one, it’s the most powerful to me and I’ve been waiting for it since class began. 

When I think of all the shit we need to stop putting up with, teaching women not to get raped instead of demanding that men stop raping us is always the first rage-inducing issue that pops into my mind.