NewAfricanWoman Issue 35 - Flipbook - Page 41
“Over It, I am over rape. I am over rape
culture, rape mentality, rape pages on
Facebook. I am over the thousands of
people who signed those pages with
their real names without shame, I am
over people calling it freedom of speech
and justifying it as a joke.
I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am
over being told I don’t have a sense of
humour, and women don’t have a sense
of humour, when most women I know
(and I know a lot) are really f*** funny...
I am over how long it seems to take
anyone to ever respond to rape.
I am over the hundreds of thousands
of women in Congo still waiting for the
rapes to end and the rapists to be held
accountable.
I am over the thousands of women in
Bosnia, Burma, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan,
South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone,
Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a
place, still waiting for justice.
I am over rape happening in broad
daylight.
I am over a woman being gang raped
and murdered on a bus in Delhi or gang
raped and videoed in Steubenville, Ohio.
I am over one in three women in the
U.S military getting raped by their socalled “comrades”.
I am over the forces that deny women
who have been raped the right to have
an abortion.
I am over rape victims becoming reraped when they try to prosecute their
cases.
I am over women still being silent
about rape, because they are made to
believe it’s their fault or they did something to make it happen.
I am over violence against women
not being a #1 international priority
when one out of three women will be
raped or beaten in her lifetime – the
destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life
itself.
No women, no future, duh.
I am over this rape culture where the
privileged with political and physical
and economic might, take what and who
they want, when they want it, as much
as they want, any time they want it. I
am over the endless resurrection of the
careers of rapists and sexual exploiters –
film directors, world leaders, corporate
executives, movie stars, athletes – while
the lives of the women they violated are
permanently destroyed, often forcing
them to live in social and emotional
exile.
I am over the passivity of good men.
Where the hell are you? You live with us,
make love with us, father us, befriend
us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so
why aren’t you standing with us? Why
aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?
I am over years and years of being
over rape. And thinking about rape
every day of my life since I was five years
old. And getting sick from rape, and
depressed from rape, and enraged by
rape. And reading my insanely crowded
inbox of rape horror stories every hour
of every single day. I am over being
polite about rape. It’s been too long now,
we have been too understanding.
We need to END RAPE in every
school, park, radio, bus, TV station,
household, office, factory, refugee camp,
military base, back room, nightclub,
alleyway. We need people to truly try
and imagine – once and for all – what
it feels like to have your body invaded,
your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need you to let our rage and
our compassion connect us together so
we can change the paradigm of global
rape.
There are approximately one billion
women on the planet who have been
violated. One billion women! The time
is now. One billion women are rising to
end rape.
Because we are over it.”
ONE BILLION RISING
V-Day is a global movement
that champions the fight to
end violence against women
and girls – including rape,
battery, incest, female genital
mutilation (FGM) and sex
slavery. It promotes creative
events that increase awareness,
raise money, and revitalise the
spirit of existing anti-violence
organisations, promoting
the end to all these forms of
violence. Its most ambitious
campaign to date is the ONE
BILLION RISING – the biggest
ever mass action to end
violence against women and
girls. The campaign launched
on Valentine’s Day 2012.
Thandie Newton is a staunch
supporter of the Eve Ensler-led
initiative. A victim of sexual
assault herself as a teen, the
British/Zimbabwean actress
continues to be fearlessly vocal
about the plight of women
victims of sexual violence, and
often visits places such as the
City of Joy in DRCongo to give
comfort to those affected.
The City of Joy is a
transformational leadership
community for women survivors
of violence, in the eastern
Congo town of Bukavu.
Using therapy and life skills
programmes it was conceived,
is owned, and run by local
Congolese women, slowly
healing from their past traumas
of being raped and abused as
weapons of war.
F E B / M A R 2 0 16 N AW /
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