Violence against women is never acceptable
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: November 03, 2009 5:11 PM
Editor:
RE: A vow it will never happen again, Crime Watch column, Observer, Oct. 28.
I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to participate in Take Back the Night.
I was ill and missed the march this year however by bringing your assumptions and biases to print, you have allowed me to bring to light the core of the problem that supports violence against women and allows those who perpetrate this violence not to take responsibility for it.
The ideas that as a woman I should have some specialized training to keep myself from becoming a victim of violent crime is offensive; especially when followed by your statement that violent males are violent males and that’s just the way it is.
You think I should accept that and it’s my responsibility to figure out how to live with it.
Women are not victims of crime because they are not “taking their personal safety seriously”.
I ask you if you have ever looked in the back seat of your car before getting in it?
If you hold your keys as a weapon when walking to your vehicle? If you have never walked alone?
Had to walk in threes?
Ever walked at night?
Been out in public without a weapon?
I wonder how many men take these steps to protect themselves. Assuming your article has any truth to it in the realm of crime prevention, I ask you why without taking all these steps are men not victims more?
You have demonstrated in your ignorance exactly what we march for every year at Take Back the Night.
Carrying a big stick is not going to solve violence against women.
Blaming women for being victims simply re-victimizes them and does nothing to prevent these crimes from happening.
What experience do you have working with survivors of sexual abuse to speak to their reality?
I do not disagree that there are additional measures that many women take to try to protect themselves. It’s unfortunate that as women we have to.
As long as we live in a society that blames women for the abuse they suffer at the hands of their abusers we will never see those crime rates going down.
Your comments are the exact reason that only 10 per cent of rapes ever go reported as women often feel that no one will believe them, they will be blamed or they blame themselves because of having read articles like yours.
Your comments were not just disrespectful to the organizers of this annual event, they were disrespectful to all women.
They were especially disrespectful to the families that march every year in memory of their daughters, mothers and sisters that have been taken from them at the hands of “violent males”.
To rectify your mistakes, I want to make this statement very clear: Violence against women is never acceptable and it is never their fault.
Shannon Croy
Quesnel
v2
