wait, here's what I actually wanted: Every 2 minutes, someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.
Here's the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey -- the country's largest and most reliable crime study -- there were 248,300 sexual assaults in 2007 (the most recent data available).
There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. That makes 31,536,000 seconds/year. So, 31,536,000 divided by 248,300 comes out to 1 sexual assault every 127 seconds, or about 1 every 2 minutes.
The other thing I want to say (although I know this debate happened almost 4 months ago) is that because of sexual harassment in all of its forms, women have also learned to be afraid of men. There is a LOT of sexual harassment that is OK in society. Look anywhere around you and I can guarantee you'll find it, much like the prevalence of homophobia in current society. Furthermore, because of gender specific language, stereotypes, and other ideas, there is further reinforcement that women are objects, not people and therefore its OK to do what you want to and with them. It creates a climate where its not OK for women to do anything because then they "deserve it". Over 50% of rapes are perpetrated by people who know their victims personally, yet those are rarely ever prosecuted or talked about. Generally speaking (and if you want, I'll find the statistics cause I know I'm right on this, at least from what I've learned in a Women in American History class, and other classes, I'm sure), women are more likely to be raped by someone they trust. This adds to the distrust and discourse that you were seeing in the other post.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2009-10-08 04:00 am (UTC)Here's the math. According to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey -- the country's largest and most reliable crime study -- there were 248,300 sexual assaults in 2007 (the most recent data available).
There are 525,600 minutes in a non-leap year. That makes 31,536,000 seconds/year. So, 31,536,000 divided by 248,300 comes out to 1 sexual assault every 127 seconds, or about 1 every 2 minutes.
The webpage (http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/frequency-of-sexual-assault) goes on to say that rape in the US has declined by 60% since 1993, but that's still a hell of a lot of rape going on.
The other thing I want to say (although I know this debate happened almost 4 months ago) is that because of sexual harassment in all of its forms, women have also learned to be afraid of men. There is a LOT of sexual harassment that is OK in society. Look anywhere around you and I can guarantee you'll find it, much like the prevalence of homophobia in current society. Furthermore, because of gender specific language, stereotypes, and other ideas, there is further reinforcement that women are objects, not people and therefore its OK to do what you want to and with them. It creates a climate where its not OK for women to do anything because then they "deserve it". Over 50% of rapes are perpetrated by people who know their victims personally, yet those are rarely ever prosecuted or talked about. Generally speaking (and if you want, I'll find the statistics cause I know I'm right on this, at least from what I've learned in a Women in American History class, and other classes, I'm sure), women are more likely to be raped by someone they trust. This adds to the distrust and discourse that you were seeing in the other post.