According to the Centers for Disease Control, one out of every four girls has been sexually molested by the time she turns 14. (Stop for a moment and let that sink in. One in four of our precious little girls.) One in six women has been a victim of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime, and approximately 7.8 million women have been raped by a boyfriend, husband, or significant other. According to estimates from the US Department of Justice, fewer than half of all rapes are reported to the police, and only one out of twenty rapists ever spends a day in jail for their crimes.Read it again. Read twice more. Stop for a moment and let this paragraph sink in. One in four girls have been sexually molested by the time she is 14. One in six women has been a victim of attempted or completed rape. St. Johns, MI has roughly 8,000 people. Call it 4,000 females. That means that 667 women in my town have been a victim of attempted or completed rape or some act of sexual molestation. This is fracked up and tragic.
I have no clue where to start or what to do to help women in St. Johns. Ideas?
That's appalling and disgusting! I don't know how to help that many women and girls that have had their innocence stolen from them.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I believe that we as men can begin by creating a culture around us that treats women as more than sex objects and ways to satisfy our wants. We as men need to respect every woman as the daughters of God that they are. If more people saw these women and girls as God's daughters we wouldn't mess with them for fear of God sitting on His porch with shotgun in hand.
Last night, the Victoria's Secret fashion show was on. It certainly doesn't help a sexually broken culture to offer "window shopping" like that. I appreciate beauty as much as the next person, but I can't watch that stuff. Even looking at scantily clad women changes the way I view women in general. A systemic problem like this very definitely contributes to the wide scale sexual issues we see today.
ReplyDeleteSo, specifically, what can we do? Day to day, special events, etc... What do we do that fosters a culture of loving women and girls as people not sex objects?