It is hard for me to write about the horrendous story coming out of California without shivering and retching. I had several other topics to write about, but in view of recent circumstances I think this one takes precedence.

Recently, there was a gang rape, brutal beating and robbery of a 15-year-old girl who is a Richmond High School student. She was supposedly a good student, church-going and wanted to be a police scout. But it doesn’t matter whether these girls/women who are violated are considered good girls or bad. We have to get at the very core of why this could conceivably occur in a civilized society.

This was not rape committed during war, which in itself is inexcusable, but by a bunch of boys sitting around drinking – also never, never an excuse for brutality. Drunk driving is a crime, and if a person maims or kills someone the perpetrator is still responsible and being inebriated is never considered a defense. 

In this rape case, it has been reported that perhaps as many as 10 boys viciously raped this child, penetrated her with foreign objects and beat her while a number of young men—estimated to be around 20 – stood watching. It’s reported that some of the perpetrators laughed and took photos during the assault. None of the onlookers reported or tried to stop it.

It’s chilling. The student body at the high school are reportedly not only upset by the horrific event but also that their reputation is tainted. They are asking the press to please report the good things about their high school as well as the bad.

I think that request is reasonable, and hopefully that will happen. But when rape is involved we must search hard for the underlying reasons. We can no longer look at rape with the idea that it’s a sometime crime committed by maniacs who are out of control sexually. In fact, most times, the sexual aspects are the least of it. 

As far as I’m concerned this kind of behavior cuts across economic, social and cultural classes. This occurrence is an outrageous example of how women are viewed as inhuman objects, but such an attitude infiltrates through society in ever more subtle ways.

Rape is not limited to a certain class of men. It occurs among the poor, college students, athletes, the wealthy and powerful men (the list is endless). It’s not confined to just male gangs or the culture of a brazen macho mentality. It is born and bred from a culture of male entitlement and the demeaning and dehumanizing of women is common whether it happens in domestic abuse, rape or jokes about bimbos.

Where better to see this at work than in pornography. Pornography among adults is practically an accepted part of our society. Most men find it a harmless pastime. Males of all ages and social standing view pornography where women are completely used as receptacles, treated like dirt or physically and verbally abused

In an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, Thursday, October 29, 2009 written by Henry K. Lee and Kevin Fagan, staff writers, said: “…Biology teacher Lorna McClellan said the problem of rape is not just confined to low-income cities with high crime rates, such as Richmond, and that she hoped community revulsion over the weekend attack will help spark societal change in the way some men view women.

“ ‘Women are portrayed on TV and in music as pieces of meat,’ she said. ‘When are we going to take the challenge and step up and change this?’ ”

This attitude prevails in our society to this day, no matter what the laws say. It’s wired into the male brain from infancy as I’ve previously mentioned in several other blogs. Maybe demeaning women is funny. Oh, yes, there are jokes about men as well, BUT women are the ones who are being beaten and raped. We see very little of that happening to men by women.

Even in music women are often portrayed as whores and need to be kept in their place even it if means physical violence. Even men who are thought to have some social standing might laugh off these lyrics and call it inconsequential. They are wrong because popular music and the media is very influential.

Either consciously or unconsciously, women accept the debasement and many males, whether spoken or unspoken, agree. It is like the attitude of most people in reference to the sex trade where women and children are kidnapped and forced into prostitution. The most common myth is that it doesn’t happen in this country. Well, the US is the biggest importer of sex slaves. All of these aspects, although seemingly unconnected, are in fact intrinsically interwoven to form an attitude that allows devastating rapes like the one mentioned above to occur.

In the upper reaches of society, the abuse is sometimes more subtle. It can range from put-downs (cloaked in humor) to job discrimination. Women with children or are in child-bearing years are less likely to be hired than men with families. Family men are considered to be more stable, yet the mothers are not. In other words, women are more dispensible than men.

We must change the attitudes starting at the earliest age possible. MUST!

The SexyG                                                                               franuc@aol.com