Tag: sexual abuse

Oracle, Optimist, Ostrich, or Obfuscator? Part 3.

Posted on by kathiemm
Dragging Guantanamo captive. Image by Shane T. McCoy and is in the public domain.
Dragging Guantanamo captive.
Image by Shane T. McCoy and is in the public domain.

Among the types of violence that Steven Pinker designates as “rare to non-existent in the west” is that chilling form  of inhumanity, torture. Yet the  western nation in which he lives and writes, the United States, seems up to its eyeballs in the perpetration of the dirty deeds.

Anyone remember what members of the U.S. military did in Abu Ghraib?

And how about Guantanamo Bay? Have you seen the Senate Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Detention and Interrogation Program that chillingly confirmed horrendous acts of torture at Guantanamo and various “black sites”?

Torture, including prolonged solitary confinement, is also flourishing in  penal institutions across the fifty states.

Immigrant children are physically and sexually abused while being held in detention until their fates can be resolved.

Both men’s and women’s prisons are hotbeds for rape and other forms of torture.

Sexual abuse is on the rise in juvenile correctional facilities;  according to one report, the majority of the abusers are women.

And who will deny that police torture people in the streets, in paddy wagons, and in their stations?

According to Pinker,  “The 18th century saw the widespread abolition of judicial torture, including the famous prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishment” in the eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added).” He praises our enlightened society for recognizing that torture is wrong. But really, should we smugly pat ourselves on our backs if today’s judicial system no longer makes explicit recommendations of torture as a punishment for people they decide are guilty of something (e.g., being the “wrong” color), when its decisions often spawn it?

Pinker’s reassurances do not leave me hopeful for the imminent demise of torture in our institutions.  The genuine optimists,  like Nancy Arvold, Maria Rotella, Stephen Soldz, Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, and Psychologists for Social Responsibility, work tirelessly to end torture, but resistance to reforms persist.  

Underplaying the problem as Pinker does seems itself to be cruel but not unusual, although we should celebrate the genuine good news when it comes.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

 

Women in a culture of violence

Posted on by kathiemm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp1-ncU2ilY

The roots of the current U.S. culture of violence extend back to the unprecedented violence unleashed on this continent by European settlers in the 17th century. With the impunity that came with access to guns, belief in a God who favored them over others, and readily available justifications for violence, the settlers undertook a genocide of the native peoples.

The heavy hand of this culture of violence has always descended more heavily on some victims than others—not just on the native peoples but always on whoever the more recent immigrants are, on people of color, on non-Christians, and on women and children.

Consider the following facts about violence against women from the “National intimate partner and sexual violence survey (2011): data on abuse by intimate partner”:

  • 32.9% of women reported physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime
  • 24.3% of women reported severe physical violence in their lifetime
  • 4% reported physical violence from an intimate partner within the past year
  • 40.3% reported psychological aggression
  • 10.4% reported psychological aggression in the past year

Growing up in a culture of violence, with its constant images of and justifications for violence and inhumanity, affects everyone. Children growing up in such a culture and women surviving in such a culture may respond to their experiences in ways that prolong their misery and make it easy for the more privileged segments of society to abuse them further.

Consider these facts about women in prison:

  • Over 90% have experienced violence in their lives
  • 33% report childhood sexual abuse
  • More than 50% of the abused women report rape or attempted rape

Efforts to stop violence against women, which now extend worldwide, will be considered in later posts, but for now join us in this inspiring anthem from One Billion Rising.

Join your voice with proponents of an end to violence against women, which in turn would strengthen the resistance to violence against children and other living things.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Dehumanized children in America: Brutalized, bullied, and bought

Posted on by kathiemm

All of the major religious texts in the world today stress the inherent value of children, but to many people throughout the world—including the United States—children are disposable. They are beaten, raped, and murdered by family members, bullied to death by peers, and enslaved.

Brutality in families:

In the United States, according to government documents:

  • In 2009, 1,770 children died as a result of child maltreatment
  • In over 75% of these cases, a parent was the perpetrator
  • In 2010, 63,527 children were sexually abused

Bullying:

Probably every reader of this post either was bullied as a child or knows someone who was bullied. If so, it is likely you remember the incident(s) well.

Bullying is another symptom of a culture of violence, a culture in which brutalizing children has too long been ignored. To learn more about bullying in the U.S. today, view this graphic. Better yet, print it, send it around, and use it as a basis for discussion.

To humanize the problem more fully,  see the reports on three recent cases in which children aged 10, 13, and 14 were bullied to death.

Slavery:

More people are slaves in the world today than at any previous time in history—and many of these slaves are children. Watch this video for more information.

What do you think are the effects on children of growing up in a culture of violence in which they can be exploited and brutalized? We will consider some of these effects in our next post.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology