Revolution #235, June 12, 2011


Rape and a World of Violent Domination Over Women

In October 2010, pledges of the Yale University chapter of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon (DKE) marched through campus for an initiation ritual. They chanted, “No means yes, yes means anal.” Yale is one of the “elite” universities in the U.S., and past members of DKE include U.S. presidents, Supreme Court justices, and heads of major corporations.

Seven months later, university officials announced that DKE was banned from recruiting and holding events on campus. But the Yale campus paper reported that it is “unclear whether the University will have any sway over the future of the fraternity.” The executive director of DKE called the campus ban “excessive” and said they will appeal. And the fact remains that the October incident was a vicious and blatant message of hate and threat of violence against women, which went viral with over 170,000 views on YouTube. This typical story compelled Revolution to create this center spread.

Rape and a World of Violent Domination Over Women

Rape is a vicious, dehumanizing crime. It is an expression of the routinely oppressive and often violent subjugation of women by men that is part of the normal functioning of this society—codified into laws, the mass culture, the family, and all mainstream religion.

 

NO

MEANS

NO

“Women are not breeders. Women are not lesser beings. Women are not objects created for the sexual pleasure of men. Women are human beings capable of participating fully and equally in every realm of human endeavor. When women are held down, all of humanity is held back. Women must win liberation, and they can only be liberated through the revolutionary transformation of the world and the emancipation of all of humanity, and through being a powerful motive force in that revolution...

“When so few will dare, this declaration is calling for something unseen in generations: an uncompromising outpouring of women and men the world over who refuse to see women oppressed, beaten, imprisoned, insulted, raped, abused, harassed, exploited, murdered, spat upon, thrown acid at, groped, shamed and systematically diminished.”

Excerpt from “A Declaration: For Women’s Liberation
and the Emancipation of All Humanity
,”
Revolution #158, March 8, 2009

References (listed in order)

UN Commission on the Status of Women, February 28, 2000

“Profiting from Abuse,” UNICEF, New York, 2001

“Rape-silent war on SA women,” April 9, 2002 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1909220.stm)

Violence Against Women Information, Amnesty International (http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/women-s-rights/violence-against-women/violence-against-women-information)

Statistics from Coalition Educating About Sexual Endangerment (CEASE) at Ohio University (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ad361896/anne/cease/rapestatisticspage.html)

UN Study on the World's Women, 2000 (cited by Amnesty International at http://www.amnesty.org.au/svaw/comments/2370/)

“Homicide Trends in the  U.S.,”  Bureau of Justice Statistics (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/tables/intimatestab.cfm)

Ann Wright, “Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?” April 28, 2008 (http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/04/28)

Press release from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), June 27, 1996 (http://www.icty.org/sid/7334)

From interview with Robert Jensen, author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, by Sunsara Taylor, http://revcom.us/a/186/sunsara_jensen-en.html

“Hitmen charge $100 a victim as Basra honor killings rise,” The Observer, November 30, 2008 ( http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/iraq-honor-killings-women)

Statistics from Coalition Educating About Sexual Endangerment (CEASE) at Ohio University (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ad361896/anne/cease/rapestatisticspage.html)

National Crime Victimization Survey, 2007, U.S. Department of Justice (http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cvus07.pdf)

Statistics from Coalition Educating About Sexual Endangerment (CEASE) at Ohio University (http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~ad361896/anne/cease/rapestatisticspage.html)

 

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