Few things ignite more emotion and get Americans more worked up than animal abuse. Granted, nothing seems to hold Americans’ attention for long, but when folks hear about abused or neglected animals they usually respond. Every year Americans open their pocketbooks and donate more than $2 billion for shelters, humane clinics and other charitable services for the protection and welfare of animals. That’s quite a lot of money, even if it’s still not nearly enough.
Every six minutes a woman is raped in the United States, and every twelve seconds a woman is a victim of physical violence. To these horrifying statistics Americans respond with donations of only $400 million annually, less than a fourth of what they earmark for Fido and Chiggers. Women’s shelters, rape crisis centers and services for abused and homeless women take a back seat to animal shelters every time.
What’s going on here? I can only conclude that Americans don’t understand the scope of the problem. They don’t understand how many women are suffering from physical and psychological abuse, sexual exploitation, human trafficking and the host of other evils that flow from a social environment in which women are not honored. I want to believe that people just don’t know.
The donations of concerned and generous Americans fund 3600 shelters for animals, but only 1500 for abused, battered and homeless women. We organize animal rescue associations to liberate abused animals from their captors, but turn a blind eye toward the 50,000 women who are annually trafficked in this country for sexual exploitation or forced labor (Central Intelligence Agency, 2000). I do want to believe that people just don’t know.
So, what more is there to know? A lot. Consider these eye opening statistics for starters:
- 17.6% of women in the United States have survived a completed or attempted rape.
- 30% of women presenting with injuries to emergency rooms are victims of battering.
- 1 out of every 3 women serving in our military overseas will be a victim of sexual assault at some time during her tour of duty.
- 3.9 million women are physically abused by their partners, and 20.7 million are verbally or emotionally abused.
- Military wives are five times more likely to be battered than civilian wives.
- 18% of pregnant women suffer abuse during their pregnancies.
We are quick to point fingers when violence against women is seen overseas. We condemn the Taliban who keep women in burqas and girls out of classrooms. Then we turn on our televisions and entertain ourselves with the sexualization and objectification of American women and girls. It is hard to believe that we don’t know what we are doing. It is a sickness, a disease of the soul. It is epidemic, and it warrants our full attention.
We have no greater blessings than our daughters, our mothers and our wives. We have no more sacred charge than protecting and preserving their safety, dignity and well being. Our honor and worth as a people rest upon our performance of these duties and the condition of our hearts.
No honor won on the field of battle can mitigate the disgrace of victimizing women. No glory won in the arena of sport can erase the shame of sexual abuse. No public service, no celebrity, no charity nor good works can overshadow the disgrace of withholding from women the dignity and respect they are due. Where women are not honored there can be no honor at all.
Surely we are better people than the statistics suggest.
So, what can you do? Examine your heart. Resolve to help. Educate yourself. Take action. Educate others. The National Organization for Women (NOW) website is a good place to start.
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The video is frightening and sort of puts a sick feeling in my stomach. I have known so many women whose husbands, and even boyfriends, treated them like cheap prostitutes and showed them no respect as women. They degraded them in the way they talked to them and I am sure they were abusive when they were not in public. The number of women who are treated this way is undoubtedly in the millions. You are right that it is epidemic and I cannot help but think that MTV and Hollywood have a lot to do with it. It is serious and it needs to stop.
Music videos, television and movies certainly provide examples of how not to treat women.
This is a spiritual problem that cannot be solved with more money. The charitable programs just treat the visible symptoms of the disease and not the cause.
Boy Scouts & deMolay taught yours truly as a youngster to honor & respect women. Even after Gloria Steinem & NOW sought to abolish the “pedestalization” of women by us men, I still wanted to open the door, etc., as just one small expression of honoring & respecting women.
On the one hand I fault the Taliban & other worldwide followers of Mohammed for their devaluing of women. But at least they have a clear foundation for their misguided sex discrimination: Mohammed & his Quran allow a man to have up to four wives – & he violated his own rule by having eleven, including a child bride (thus, statutory rape). Islamic discrimination against women is reprehensible, but at least I see where the source is.
On the other hand, in Western Europe & the United States, which allegedly have a culture based on Christianity & the teachings of the Nazarene, we exploit women in manners equally reprehensible! With no foundational excuse! Jesus lifted women from the doormat where Jewish men had dumped them (based on a literal and even skewed interpretation of the Torah) and gave them their God-created equality. True, the Lord didn’t select a woman to be one of the Twelve, but who got the honor of being the very FIRST witnesses of His Resurrection? Who were COMMISSIONED (by the angel or by the risen Savior Himself) to go preach the Good News (Gospel) to all, on that Resurrection Sunday? Women!
And so. . . the exploitation of women in rap “music”, on television, in the movies, etc. continues a long history of denial by Western civilization of its true spiritual roots in the teachings & example of the Christ. Indeed, a long history of opposition (deliberate or unintended) to what the Lord intends for His human creatures, male AND female!
It’s high time to stop exploitation & discrimination against women. And let’s begin at home, here in these United States!