Practice Listening to Women: An anti-rape strategy

In the last two months 4 women I know have been raped and told me about it. I don't know how many women I know have been raped and not told me. But 4 women in two months. And only one of them is reporting it. The other three don't want to ruin their lives. They don't want to be known as victims. They don't want their parents to find out. They don't want to make the rapist a central part of their lives. They don't want to be the center of attention for something like this. They don't want to be known as, 'the girl who was raped'.

The one consistent thing that makes all of these women wonder if they should report their rape is: will the men do it again to another girl? That is the only sticking point in their otherwise clear desire not to report.

One of the 4 rapes was a "stranger rape" where she was randomly attacked violently. The other three were "acquaintance rapes." All 4 rapes required the women to miss days of work to go get tested and to sit at home to be miserable. Loss of wages! Impact on the economy! Maybe that will cause some people to pay attention to this epidemic who haven't listened before.

We know the statistics on rape. If you are reading this you are probably the so-called-choir on this issue. But I have something new-ish to say on the topic of acquaintance rape. I think that there is an intervention that men can take on a day-to-day basis that may help with this epidemic.

Here is my theory on acquaintance rape: men get trained for it everyday, everywhere. They get trained to interrupt women, not listen to women, take credit for their thoughts, to find their talking and sharing of feelings annoying. They get trained by sitcoms and in classrooms and boardrooms. And so when a woman says, 'no' the man does not think to himself, 'this is an opinion that I should respect.' He is used to tuning it out. He honestly doesn't register it.

Obviously, this is a small minority of men who would take their socialization around women to this extreme. Most men are not rapists. But to be clear; all it takes is not hearing a woman once and having sex with her when she doesn't want to have sex to be a rapist. More men might be rapists than think they are.

So this post is a call to all men to practice listening to women when the stakes are low. Notice when you interrupt a woman. Retrain your ears so that you value the pitch of a woman's voice. Practice when it's easy. Tune in and try to hear. These practices will help when the situation is confusing and the hormones are rushing. Practice listening. ALL THE TIME. And then maybe fewer men will accidentally find themselves to be rapists.

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