I have studied quite a bit about sexual abuse and rape. I have come across statistics time and again that state that one in three women have been raped or sexually abused. I am not inclined to argue with this statistic. I have know many women that have been sexually abused and it seems to (if I were to count) be very close to 33% of the women that I have known. Rape and sexual abuse is, and I can’t imagine anyone arguing it, a serious problem in our culture.
The problem of rape and sexual abuse exists, but the focus is largely on the victim--not the perpetrator. I’m not even referring to punishment, though important, but to those who would become rapists and abusers. Think about the statistic I mentioned earlier that 1 in 3 women will have been raped or sexually abused. If this is the case, then why are there no statistics on how many men ARE actually rapists and abusers?
Is the question not a valid one? Doesn’t it raise one’s awareness of the scope of rape and sexual abuse to look around and realize that one of every three women that you see has been a victim of rape or sexual abuse? Would it not raise awareness more still to be able to look around and realize that 1 out of(x) men is a rapist or abuser? There must be a way to determine this number.
I am not a statistician, but I have noticed that they seem to have a way of accounting for abuse victims that do not report the abuse. Can't they account for abusers and rapists that have not been caught yet? Doesn’t anyone else feel that this number is important? I think that if the number was known, those men that weren’t abusers would darn well want everyone to know it.
It would be a refreshing turn-around if men had to take special pains to make certain that everyone knew that they were definitely not rapists or abusers. Men would be on the defensive for a change if they knew what portion of their number were rapists. Wouldn’t they?
Why should all of the onus, after all, be on the victim?
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