I have just completed a course in physical geography in which one of the assignments was to explore a geographic phenomenon. The professor encouraged us to pursue these explorations in creative ways.
As I thought about what I wanted to explore, I got to thinking about how our relationship to the earth is so deeply intertwined with the ways that we treat women. As I was doing research on this project, I encountered a compelling quote from Eve Ensler. Ensler, who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,” and who has recently been doing amazing work with female survivors of sexual violence in the Congo, sees all of the various forms of exploitation as being tied together. She says:
“I think we just have to look at all the ways in which we are violating the Earth, each other, economic violence, racial violence, environmental violence - where we are dominating and not cooperating . It's the denial of global warming and the denial of ecological destruction and breaking out of that denial. But breaking out of that denial across the board - how we treat women, how we treat gay people, how we treat people of color…” (source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marianne-schnall/exclusive-interview-with… )
Ensler’s words reminded me of work by Peggy Sanday, who has done cross-cultural research on rape. What Sanday has found is that rape is not a universal human behavior, and that the rate of sexual assault actually varies immensely by culture. In fact, almost 50% of the distinct societies researched by anthropologists have no incidence of rape!
(On the list of “rape free” versus “rape prone” societies, the United States and Canada rank at about the midpoint. They have lower rates of sexual assault than many societies do, but rates that are far higher than many other cultures – including the 47% of societies that do not rape!)
What these numbers say to me is that rape is a not an inevitable male behaviour. It is a choice. And we men can choose not to rape!
Links to nature. Sanday has found that the prevalence of rape is directly linked to status of women within that society. In addition, she has found that societies that do not rape live much closer to nature than we do. They honour women, and they honour the natural cycle of life. Sanday writes:
“In ‘rape free’ societies women are treated with considerable respect... [and] a people's attitude regarding their natural environment is one of reverence rather than one of exploitation.”
“Where men are in harmony with their environment, rape is usually absent.”
“In societies where nature is held sacred, rape occurs only rarely."
Steal this poster! So it turns out that rates of rape vary immensely by culture, and the cultures that exploit the earth are also the worst toward women. I think this information is too important not to share further. So for my geographic exploration I decided to create this poster on these links between our treatment of the earth and a culture’s treatment of women. If you find it useful, please feel free to download it for free. I have also posted it to Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Honour_Women..._Honour_the_Earth….
Honour Women! Honour the Earth!
And I would also like to take a moment to honour the professor – Vince Zelazny – for believing that this sort of work has a legitimate place in the serious study of science.