Wonderful Women Of The World
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 19th, 2013
Good morning!
Like many of you, I have followed Elizabeth Smart’s story. And as unique as it is, rape in general is not unique. Thankfully this is one strong girl who is taking her story and sharing it with other girls who have endured similar circumstances, and making an impact to put an end to “rape culture.”
Here’s the write from Think Progress:
How Elizabeth Smart Is Taking On Rape Culture
BY TARA CULP-RESSLER
ON OCTOBER 17, 2013 AT 12:19 PM
CREDIT: ABC NEWSElizabeth Smart, a kidnapping and sexual assault victim who has devoted her adult life to combating human trafficking, made national headlines earlier this year when she voiced a critique about abstinence-only education. Emphasizing purity ultimately makes rape victims feel worthless, Smart pointed out, and that’s why she felt “dirty and filthy” after she was sexually assaulted.
Smart’s statements were so newsworthy largely because of her background. Raised by a devout Mormon family in Salt Lake City, Smart grew up within a conservative religious community and was taught that sex should be reserved for marriage. And predictably, social conservatives were quick to go on the defensive after the news spread, claiming that her statements about sex ed were misconstrued by the liberal media.
Rather than retracting her point about abstinence education, however, Smart has taken steps to expand upon the issues at the heart of her statement about purity culture. In an interview in the upcoming issue of the New Yorker, Smart explains that abstinence-only education is one piece of a bigger puzzle. She notes that’s just one of the multiple factors that contribute to a society in which rape victims are shamed instead of supported:
Smart told me that she wanted to clarify her point. She had been lamenting that victims of sexual abuse often feel that they are “no longer as good as everybody else.” Nobody should have the power to take away another person’s self-worth, Smart told me. But abstinence education was hardly the only way that victims of sexual assault could be shamed. A girl could be humiliated through social media — Smart and I talked about the incident last year in Steubenville, Ohio, in which high-school students recorded an assault with cell-phone cameras and mocked the victim on Twitter. Smart told me, “I can’t tell you how many women I’ve met who say, ‘When I was your age, I was raped, but it was kind of my fault, because of X, Y, or Z.’ And I just want to pull my hair out.”
Ultimately, she’s describing rape culture — the term for a set of attitudes that assume rape is inevitable, consent is invisible, and victims are to blame for the crimes perpetrated against them because they “asked for it.” Thanks to high-profile rape cases like Steubenville andMaryville, rape culture is becoming a more mainstream concept. But it’s still constantly reinforced, particularly through the media.
Since Smart is currently speaking to the press to promote her upcoming book “My Story,” which details her journey from a victim to an advocate, she’s had a lot of recent opportunities to speak out about rape culture. When she talks about what motivated her to write a memoir, she typically brings up many of the deeply-ingrained societal issues that continue to plague survivors of sexual assault. She wants to help teach society to treat rape victims with compassion.
“After being raped, I felt completely worthless. I didn’t even feel like I was human anymore,” Smart told NPR in an interview earlier this week. “And it is just so important to let these survivors know that they are not any less of a person. You don’t love them any less. And that to pretend like it never happened, or to pretend like rape doesn’t exist or that it only happens in the wrong parts of town — you’re doing that survivor a disservice.”
The New Yorker article on Smart notes that “her goal as a public figure is to make ‘talking about rape and abuse not such a taboo.’” While that may seem like a typical low-impact public awareness effort, that type of education campaign around sexual assault is sorely needed. Research has found that the majority of Americans don’t talk about sexual violence, despite the fact that it’s a hugely widespread issue. Most adolescents grow up without learning anything about rape or consent. Many rapists report that they don’t believe they actually did anything wrong. College campuses have swept rape under the rug for years.
All of those dynamics are related to rape culture, too. Rape culture is all about downplaying, erasing, and stigmatizing sexual assault — after all, if victims assume it was all their fault, they’ll be dissuaded from coming forward. When Smart tells victims that it’s okay to talk about what happened to them, and they shouldn’t believe the messages telling them they’re worthless or they deserved it, she’s working to dismantle that.
At the end of the day, Smart knows that what she’s doing is important because she is constantly approached by survivors after she makes public appearances. “I don’t think I’ve ever spoken and not had someone come up to me and say, ‘I was raped and I’ve never been able to tell my story’ or ‘I’ve been through some kind of abuse,’” Smart explained to a local news affiliate this week. “Every time I speak that happens to me, and that really helped me decide to write my book and to include everything that I included in it.”
*****
Readers: Blog me your thoughts on this or anything that moves you.
LeTa0: Simply put and right on. Some MSM do bring up racism being the reason, but not enough to make an impact and drown out the rest of them that don’t…and as you stated “…takes up the particular blank of the day and debates it as if that were the real issue of this 30%.”
The media controls what information we receive, and has the power to withhold, sway opinions, lie and rewrite as it sees fit. And many people are either too lazy to fact check or they tune into the MSM that caters to their beliefs, regardless of whether it is the truth or not.
I wonder who will be the one in leadership to step up?
Happy Weekend everyone!
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 19th, 2013 at 10:10 am
I was raped by a very popular 17 year old boy when I was 13 and I was threatened to drop the case or else, by most of the town. I moved 11 years ago. It still haunts me.
October 19th, 2013 at 10:13 am
This is a much needed blog. No censorship is a rare thing on good blogs. Today I tried to post a simple response to someone advocating lowering the drinking age to 18. Huff censored that.
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cwoodphotos
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14 minutes ago (12:40 PM)
Most countries in the civilized world allow alcohol to be consumed before 21 years of age. Like many things in this country, we lag behind.
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LeTA0
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1 second ago ( 1:07 PM)
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This may not be one of them. Teenagers behind the wheel with alcohol is a deadly combination I do not wish my friends or loved ones to have to negotiate that during their time on the roads of this country.
October 19th, 2013 at 10:46 am
What Your Height Says About Your Health
Intriguing new research raises questions about risk for cancer, Alzheimer’s and more.
Common disease risk factors, such as family history, smoking, obesity and not getting enough exercise, are well-known. But researchers are now investigating another—and somewhat mysterious—risk factor that could be playing a role in a variety of chronic illnesses.
In both men and women, studies are increasingly linking stature to a number of very serious diseases. What scientists do not know is why.
To learn more, Bottom Line/Health spoke with Tim Byers, MD, MPH, a professor at the Colorado School of Public Health who has examined the relationship between height and disease.
What chronic illnesses are now being linked to height? Cancer is one. A number of studies have shown that tall people are more likely to get certain types of cancer, including malignancies of the colon, kidney and breast, than shorter people.
For example, when scientists recently analyzed data on more than 20,000 postmenopausal women, they discovered that for every four-inch increase in height above 5′ 1″, there was a 13% to 29% increased risk for 19 types of cancer.
Although this study involved only women, previous research has shown that height is associated with pancreatic and colorectal cancers among men.
Conversely, people of smaller stature are more likely to suffer from stroke and cardiovascular disease.
And with Alzheimer’s disease, one study found that men who were taller than 5′ 10″ were 59% less likely to develop the disease than men who were shorter than 5′ 6″.
How important is height believed to be in the development of these diseases? There is no question that height is somehow associated with risk for chronic diseases. Both the duration and degree, however, depend on the disease.
When researchers combined the data from previous scientific studies involving a total of more than 3 million people, they found that individuals of smaller stature (defined as 5′ 3″ or shorter) were 50% more likely to develop serious heart disease than taller people. This analysis was published in the European Heart Journal.
Stroke is another example. A study published in the journal Stroke, which looked at more than 10,000 men, discovered that those who were shorter (5′ 3″ or less) were 54% more likely to have a fatal stroke than those who were taller.
With regard to cancer, the risk for a tall person can be significant. For example, a woman who is 6′ tall has about a 16% higher risk of getting cancer (such as colorectal, breast or ovarian) than a woman who is four inches shorter, according to research published in The Lancet.
Does this mean that height (tall or short) causes disease? No, that has not been proven. In all previous research, height is associated with certain diseases.
It might be more accurate to say that height is a risk factor for disease. There could be other factors that influence both your height and your risk for certain diseases.
The scientific studies that have linked height and disease are primarily observational. In this type of study, scientists collect information—frequently from surveys or medical records—in order to identify common factors that influence health. Observational studies generate provocative ideas, but they cannot prove cause and effect.
So even though we know from these studies that a tall person is more likely to get cancer than someone who is short and that a short person has a higher risk for heart disease, we don’t know that height itself is the reason.
What factors are likely to influence both disease and height? Genetics is an obvious one. It’s possible that some of the same genetic factors that make you tall or short also could produce changes in the body that increase the risk for certain diseases.
It’s also likely that lifestyle factors, particularly those that occur early in life, are involved. Suppose that a child gets inadequate amounts of certain nutrients. He/she might not grow as tall as a child who eats greater amounts of nutritious foods. The same nutritional shortfalls could potentially lead to diseases later in life.
Meanwhile, high levels of insulin-like growth factor (a protein made by the body that stimulates the growth of many types of cells)—caused by such factors as diet, obesity and exercise habits—could trigger cell changes that eventually could lead to cancer.
Additionally, taller individuals tend to have larger organs and larger skin surface areas—this, of course, potentially increases the number of cells that could become malignant.
What should tall/short people do differently? You shouldn’t be particularly nervous about your disease risk if you’re tall or short. In either case, you should be following the same prevention and screening recommendations as everyone else.
Your doctor will continue to focus on the risk factors that are known to cause disease, such as high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol, smoking and so on.
It is important to keep this research in perspective. For now, it’s mainly of interest to scientists, who will use the association between height and health to gain a better understanding of the underlying causes of disease and the time in life when those causes might be acting.
In the future, doctors could potentially take height into consideration when assessing disease risk and giving health advice. The best advice, of course, is for everyone, tall or short, to do everything he/she can to stay healthy.
Source: Tim Byers, MD, MPH, a professor and associate dean for Public Health Practice at the Colorado School of Public Health in Aurora. In addition, he is the associate director for Cancer Prevention and Control at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, also in Aurora. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology, The Journal of Nutrition and other publications.
October 19th, 2013 at 11:09 am
This Article about height is interesting, even if there’s not a lot we can do about the findings noted. You never know what research like this might yield in the future. In the meantime, no matter how tall or short you are, you can get any of the diseases noted above. So, watch your numbers, and see your doctor (assuming you can get an appointment, anyway…).
October 19th, 2013 at 11:11 am
Fuck you Fred, That was a waste of reading time. Who cares. Continue to go in for preventative medicine visits and let your doctor tell you what your risks are.
Moreover, what a waste of time and money in graduate school.
October 19th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
I agree with everything you said Letao. My husband is one of those bigots who pretends that he isn’t but supports all the blanks as if he is really concerned about them.
Both my twin 18 year old daughters and my 16 20 year old boys say their father is full of shit. We don’t say anything to his face because like the rest of that teaparty he will lie as look at you.
But he is a very good provider and he eats good pussy. Unfortunately he can’t do anything else right in the sack. That’s why I allowed his two older brothers to father my children.
October 19th, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Zen Lill, I live in San Diego. I could love to come up to LA if I thought you would be amenable to seeing a 62 once married (I buried the bitch three years ago.) I have 6 grown children all of the lazy bastards are still living at home. Hence my desire to get away.
She left $36 million. 5 each to those lazy bums and 6 to me. And all the time I thought they were helping me get rid of the bitch because they were on my side. The thieving bums had knowledge of the will and were stroking me so they could quit school and live high off weed at home.
Not a one has an interest in anything but pussy, dick or drugs. I’m on my way to LA as soon as I get the nod from you. I’m 6’8″ 235lbs and fit as a fiddle. I can go all night without viagra or any other stimulus but a pretty face, and a wet pussy.
I don’t mess around in this area because the cops still suspect me of foul play, even though the children have assured them that it was an accident. So LA are you up for play?
October 19th, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Howie. I live in Japan. I know our government is polluting because they refuse to give up nuclear energy. I hope this doesn’t end badly for the citizens.