That word... so scary just to mention. Inspires hatred; inspires anger. I've lived enough to hear testimonies, sad and horrible stories, involving this concept. But that leaves me to think: Why so many? Why now? It seems like the number of people having sex against other people's will is increasing. Or is it just my imagination? Maybe I think a lot, maybe don't. But the thing is... that the cases are getting worse every time I hear about the topic. The first time I was a teenager. My mom talked me about violation because I saw one represented in a soap opera (a non-real one, thank God). But the next cases I heard... were real. On the newspapers I had knowledge of women murdered after a little moment of pleasure (only for the male part, obviously), then I knew about pederasty, (religious people taking advantage of innocent chidren). And now... children violating other children. What's next? Incest?! (I forgot: I already heard about it). This is sick. But again, my mind is wandering for an answer and keeps asking: Why so many? Why now? *
When I think in human kind and how the things have been in thousands of years, I can't avoid the image of male ruling over female, where men were hunters, the guys taking decisions; but women... What about them? Well, they "just" took care of children and collected fruits and seeds. If there was no blood in the task, maybe it was inferior for the general thinking, it had no value. Anyway, when humans began to grow up as civilization, the trend of patriarchy kept going: pharaophs were mostly men, the only greeks considered as citizens were men, the Bible has tons of machist quotes, the rulers of Middle Age were also men... Even great phylosphers as Aristóteles, Platon and Saint Thomas Aquinas considered women as "imperfect" beings. So, just how many years have we been living looking each other as equals? How can we compare thousands of years against...200 (more or less) "breaking the rules"? Maybe it's too much to expect that human kind is mature enough to asume the freedom of equality, or maybe it's mentally ready, but emotionally it is not.
Why emotionally? Let's go now to the female part: when they started to protest for their rights, women gave ther first steps in the world of job, very far from where they had been confined for centuries. Women started to go voting, they became important little by little, but if papa is working and now mama, too... What happened with the kids? Yeah, this freedom is something we fought for and it's beautiful... but in the process we missed something important: we forgot our sons and daughters. So, if we spend a little time with kids now (both parents), how can we expect that they learn about love and compassion? That is something you master with practice and examples. Maybe some guys can say: What about schools? Well, unfortunately, sometimes those places are the houses of bullying (specially in American Continent, and in some countries more than others, depending on where we are ubicated), and that's because there are no parents guiding their children properly. Besides, teachers are not Flora, Fauna and Merryweather to take care of someone else's kid. Of course they teach values, but they are not nanas. And all this model has been replicated for decades. Besides, more hours of school, more hours of work, more hours of other activities... there is no time for the developement of human spirit.
So what are the results so far? A society lacking of love but full of indifference. And how are kids that now are adults? Empty. With unsteady relationships. Besides, many of them learned all they know from streets, where the preponderant law is "the strongest survives". That way of thinking... for generations... then, there's no such a suprise that violence is increasing, specially for women, "the weak sex". Should women go back to the past and stay at home? No. But we need to understand that family is the core of our society, that we need to take care of our children and keep them away from old belief systems that are rotten, fulling their minds with more lovely ways of thinking. We need to focus on human relationship and healthy emotions more than knowledge itself, which many of us are going to forget with the years soon or later. Sometimes, when parents work so hard trying to give their children the best of the best, they forget that material things and "good education" are not everything in life. Sometimes... we need to go beyond our own limited way of thinking and make a leap of love.
My heart tells me that the solution for all this violence and disdain of women is to spend more time with our kids. Rapists don't come from nowhere. Evil never comes from nowhere. Maybe some people would ask: "Who should do it? The mother? The father? Both?" I think it doesn't matter if both parts agree. Fortunately, my dear ones, in that consist the freedom of Equality.
Blessings to all of you.
*With this I'm not saying that rape cases are a modern time stuff. I'm perfectly aware that rapists exist since the begining of our civilitation. My question in this case is more related to the increasing amount of abused girls and children.