Fear. What a powerful tool.
Recently the news has been filled with things that pray on fear.
In case you missed the news at the beginning of June, there is a very public rape case out there right now. One that has gotten every father ready to go to battle for their daughters. The victim, “unnamed intoxicated woman”, was assaulted. She was raped. Her body was violated and then in the aftermath, when she should have been healing, instead she was doing battle in court.
Her every move was being questioned and dissected until she appeared as emotionally broken as she was physically broken. And in the end, her attacker received a sentence that is laughable- 6 months in jail with the possibility of parole at 3 months.
The same morning, I read the letter the victim wrote to her attacker, as I had to attend a military mandated sexual assault brief. I have attended at least two of these a year, every year, since I enlisted.
Yet somehow the number of assaults in the military don’t seem to be diminishing enough to prove to me that these are effective. The female Sailors are taught to not put themselves in compromising situations. We are encouraged to buddy up when we go out and look out for our friends at any social event. We are taught to keep our keys between our fingers and not walk at night alone, because who knows what boogeymen are lurking out there. We aren’t just taught how not to attack each other, we are taught to fear what is out there and what might happen to us.
