Report: 1 in 5 women has been sexually assaulted

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45671216/ns/today-today_health/t/report-women-has-been-sexually-assaulted/

Comments?

Up in Canada the generally accepted statistic is that one in three women will be sexually assaulted in their lives. Mostly by people they know. Hospital staff start by treating the women as time wasting burdens, making it clear they cannot be bothered to run the rape kit, which would take precious hours away from "real work". Nothing like learning at the beginning that what happened to you is creating problems for other people; it would be better if you just shut up and slink off. Police actually are worse. The prosecutors care even less, spend most of the time talking about how difficult it is to prove, how time consuming, and that no matter what you go through, probably nothing will come of it, do you still want to proceed (hint, shut up, f*ck off, let us deal with real crimes).

You get the rare good professional who does care, but largely only in major urban centres with dedicated teams. Rural police and hospitals are firmly in the "sweep it under the rug, preferably someone elses" school.

There are reasons women have turned to me instead. They shouldn't have to turn to an off duty soldier to balance the scales. They should have the justice system their to support them, and seek to balance the scales. They should, and they don't.

And as crappy as our system is, it represents the best women have it in the whole world. Sometimes I really think the species could use a good genocide.

End rant.

It is a tragedy that this happens. I agree with John, but will add that it in rural areas, anything short of homicide is met with that attitude.

This is part of what informs my position. We really only have the illusion of protection. It is a form of naivety. Unless it happens to us, we think we are safe. If it happens to us, we can't get anyone to listen. No one else is going to stand up for us, we need to do it for ourselves.

Are we talking reported assaults, or are we including the ones that aren't reported?

Because if you throw in the unreported sexual assaults, the rate is even higher.

allthegoodnamesweretaken wrote:If it happens to us, we can't get anyone to listen.

I know this all too well. The pigs didn't listen until my ex assaulted three able-bodied people. Before that, they just went, "oh, you're a hysterical woman, you need to calm down."