There is a huge problem in this country that few of our leaders want to discuss or do anything about. We're good at creating problems to attack in America. Talk about protecting the flag, arresting honest and hard-working immigrants, denying rights to gays, filling our prisons with recreational drug users, or outlawing the speaking of Spanish, and people will flock to your banner -- just ask the "values" voters.
It doesn't matter that none of these so-called "problems" are really not problems at all. We could ignore all of them and do very little, if any, damage to our country. But you could still rack up a lot of votes by championing any of these phony causes.
But try talking about a real problem, like violence against women, and you'll be met with a lot of embarrassed silence. That problem hits too close to home. If it's not in your home, you're guaranteed to have a friend or relative experiencing it or doing it. It's a lot easier to attack people we don't know. But it's much harder to hold ourselves, our friends and our family members responsible for their actions.
However, this violence against women has reached epidemic status. If we are truly to be a great nation, it is time we do something about it. If we are to really have equality in this country, we must eradicate male dominance and violence against females. The crazy thing is we don't mind talking about how badly other countries treat women -- it's just our own shortcomings we don't want to deal with.
How bad has it become? The CDC says about one woman out of every four is a victim of domestic violence. Every year, 1200 women are killed and over 2,000,000 are injured. This violence should shame every one of us because we still allow it to happen in this country.
Every single one of us knows it is wrong to abuse a woman either verbally, sexually or physically. It's not a product of manliness, but cowardice and inhumanity.
It's time for all of us to get serious and put an end to this. We must make it totally unacceptable -- even among our friends and family.
No comments:
Post a Comment
ANONYMOUS COMMENTS WILL NOT BE PUBLISHED. And neither will racist,homophobic, or misogynistic comments. I do not mind if you disagree, but make your case in a decent manner.