Singapore’s Invisible Abused Women

I’ve heard it been said more than a few times. Women in Singapore have it good, maybe even better than men, what are they whining about for? What do you need AWARE for?

 

 

Fact:

• Out of 3 pregnancies, 2 babies are born, 1 is aborted
• ¾ of women aborting babies are MARRIED — 1/3 are homemakers
• ½ of  10,000 STI cases per year – patients are between 20 – 30yrs, 1/3 – between 30-40yrs old, 5% amongst teens
• PAVe found in 2003 that out of 2,200 secondary and junior college students polled, 15 to 30 per cent had encountered family or dating violence. 
  

Alot of women actually know if their husbands are fooling around outside and know if they are at risk for STIs (sexually transmitted infections). Doing something about it is something else altogether.

2 things you can do to protect yourself from STIs if your partner is straying(and in many cases, with paid-sex). You can abstain from sex with him, or you can use a condom. Both of these actions lead to conflict. In many cases, these conflicts are violent and abusive, if not physically, definately emotionally and mentally so.

 

Then we tell these women, go seek a court protection order, go to the police, leave him.

(And even then, it’s only possible if they’ve been physically abused. It’s hard to convince anyone when it’s psychological abuse, when the victim lives in constant fear/depression. It’s hard to convince anyone, when the victim is living under the threat of contracting HIV/STIs, and not under the threat of being beaten. Such women tend to be invisible, even to close friends, because of the ‘shame’)

 

Well, easy to say. We can help these women go to the court, go to the lawyers, go to the police, and even help them out beyond abit during the initial period.

 

For them, the nightmare is the rest of their lives. How are they ever going to survive on their own? Most of these women are poorly educated, and any job that they can do will pay them peanuts, definately not enough for their children, or even themselves. Welfare in singapore is too insignificant for such women. These women are usually above 40, do not have secondary school education or even primary school education, are functionally illiterate. Its very hard for us to identify with such women, and we think that they are very few in number. Fact is, they are invisible to us because Singapore is a very class-stratified society and we don’t get a chance to get to know these women as part of our common reality. If you are reading this, chances are, you’re part of the educated lot with access to internet and have enough time to read blogs. Way beyond their league.

 

So, we can help them get out of their situation, but who is willing to help them for the rest of their lives? Are you willing to support one such woman forever? Their only hope since they were young was to depend on a man. Now that man has turned nasty. They are no pretty young things anymore, capable of finding a new man. That nasty man is all they’ve got.

 

HIV, STIs, abuse, even suicide; for many, these are the lesser evils compared to being neglected and alone in a meritocracy that pities no one.

 

HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY HELP THEM???????

rape

I wrote this a while back in response to a feminist-bashing piece which claimed that women were irrationally angry about rape, irrationally demanding for unjustifiable severe punishments for rape. http://evilatheist.blogspot.com/2006/08/rape.html

In my opinion ( ie. didn’t bother to check if it’s supported, didn’t bother to do research), there are very (he argues, disproportionately) harsh penalties for male rapists, because it’s what MEN want, rather than what feminist crazy women want.

 

The most common instinct that men have when females under their “territory” (ie. mother, sister, wife, daughter, the like) are raped, is to kill or severely harm the rapists. Because laws are writen by people, and there are men amongst these law makers, the harsh laws for rape come about.

 

In contrast, when a man is raped by a woman (i’m not talking about homosexual sodomy type of rape here), most men go, Oh Lucky Bastard, even if they don’t say it out loud for being politically correct. But for equality and justice, this must be categorised as a crime too. However, that imbalance and double standards in reflected in the penalty.

 

Why do I not say its the WOMEN who are responsible for the harsh penalties for rape?

 

Before I go into that, I think that rape can be put into 2 categories.

 

One, where the rapist is a total stranger — ie, the rapist who jumps on the woman in the dark alleyway, park etc, or drugs a woman in the pub …… the like

 

Another category, where the rapist is NOT a stranger. In this category, the rapist is OFTEN, not always though, in a position of trust — the teacher, father, brother, uncle, boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, husband etc

 

 

In the first category, the rape is more likely to be reported, especially in “open societies” who do not think that a women should be cast out, married to the rapist, hung etc because she has been raped, no matter who the rapist was.

 

Penalties are harsh and ought to be so. My friend argues that penalties are so harsh because it involves the rape. Well, if someone pounces on you, whether you are male or female, and causes you grevious hurt, or if someone drugs you and drags you off somewhere and hurts you while you’re unconcious, that’s enough to call for the severest punishments.

 

 

It’s the second category of rape that i’m really more concerned with.

 

9 of 10 cases do NOT get reported.

 

Now, that certainly wouldn’t be the case if women were revenge and death-penalty crazy wouldn’t it?

 

Most WOMEN ie the victims, do not admit being raped to anyone at all — perhaps because it will be reported if they do and they do not want it reported.

 

In fact, its been suggested that it is the harsh penalties for rape that are working against these cases.

 

The women, out of sympathy for this person who is known and perhaps, loved by the women, do not want them to suffer the harsh punishment despite being raped.

 

For example, 18 year old girl, raped by 18 year old boyfriend when she went to his house when no one else was home. If she reports it, he’ll go to jail for 20years, and be caned 24 strokes. His future, everything, is gone. Why? All because he wanted sex, like any other hot-blooded male. So even though he forced her when she didn’t want to, she’ll let it go.

 

 

 

If women were really so influential in law-making, marital rape would be a crime — in singapore context, it’s not.

 

Why should it be? Isn’t it the DUTY of the wife???

 

At AWARE, we hear of such stories:

 

Wife KNOWS husband has multiple sex partners, wife KNOWS husband probably has diseases. Wife and husband do not have good relationship, husband is abusive.  Wife does NOT want to have sex with husband, husband abuses her and uses sex as a weapon of abuse.

 

Now, in reality, even if marital rape was criminal, wives would probably not report it. Still, that is not an excuse for not writing it into law.

 

By legally making it a crime, society is making the strongest of statements, acknowleging that such behavior is unacceptable and should be stopped and punished. That’s the function of law.

 

 

There are cases where women falsely cry rape.  But what’s the wrong done here? Is it the bad legislation that makes rape so severely punishable? Or is the wrong in the perjury? Perjury, no matter how severe or minor the accusation is , is a crime in itself, and the solution certainly should not be to do away with the law that someone is falsely being accused of.