crime

Burglary. Kidnapping. Embezzlement. Arson. These and other crimes. What do they all have in common?

When people come forward to report them, those reports are believed until evidence suggests otherwise.

So why is it that rape or sexual assault and charges related to domestic abuse are so suspected regardless of the geographic area where they are reported? What is it that they have in common?

Women are by far the victims and reporters of these crimes. The distrust of women, the malevolence of the female, the demonization of femininity are motifs through out the world and through out history. Are these the traditions that cause women around the globe to be undervalued and untrusted? Is it the fear of the status quo (read: old men in their respective cultures) that these allegations will lead to their hierarchical unseating?

Women are, in general, more sympathetic and empathetic than men- while this is probably a completely enviornmental trait (girls taught to nurture, boys taught to fight), it is true in many cases. We watch the Lifetime movies and cheer for the heroin-addict-turned-Harvard-student. We feel the pain of the woman with five kids that was fired unfairly.

And because of this, women are easily exploited. By each other.

My mother told me a story about such an experience. She was in a grocery store parking lot, loading groceries into the car with an infant on her hip (me), and two more kids under the age of five loaded up in the car, ready to go. A woman approached her, crying and visably distressed. Mystery Woman said that her son had just died and asked if my mom would take her to the hospital. Mom, apprehensive at letting a stranger into her car, responded by telling her that there was a Metro station two blocks away, so why didn't she walk there? Mystery Woman insisted that she was far too upset to walk.