Mass rape - how and why does this happen?

[gollygee]

I am horrified by this kind of thing. When people don't take the crime of rape seriously, this is what I think of - that there have been cases of systemic rape, where no one can say that just a few bad apples have raped women, but where mass numbers of men have raped huge numbers of women. How does this happen? Why?

I think it happens because we as a people minimize what rape is. But it's bigger than that even. It's about how women are viewed in our world. We're expendable, our most important function is considered to be sex, we're judged almost entirely by how desirable we are or aren't, etc. These kinds of judgments happen here all the time - such as where a woman is dismissed entirely on irrelevant speculation as to when she last "got laid".

http://www.religioustolerance.org/war_rape.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/07/30/congo.rape.reut/index.html
http://www.gendercide.org/case_nanking.html
http://www.barnsdle.demon.co.uk/bosnia/rapes.html
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engafr540762004

[shenmue]

1. It's a fundamental lack of respect...

a failure to see somebody as fully human.

[Warpy]

4. It's also a problem with the patriarchal male paradigm

that sees men as predators, women as their prey.

Until men are motivated to change that, horrors like these will continue.

[ismnotwasm]

8. Agreed

The predator/prey behavior is practically inherent in cultural and in language. It doesn't have to be that way.

[JeffR]

2. I agree with you

but I think another important factor is that war unleashes demons in the human spirit that we can barely begin to fathom. Rwanda is a recent case in point; a multi-tribal society with a history of relative tolerance suddenly descended into utter depravity. Not trying to change the subject on you, but if history has proved anything, it's that the horror of war unleashes horrors in "human" behavior almost beyond imagining.

[ben_meyers]

3. Sadly it's not new

or even all that unusual. Stories of the rape and torture of women go back to the dawn of history. As we know, rape is not about sex but the ultimate degrading of and power over populations.
For example;

RAPE OF NANJING
Those suffered most from the barbarity were women. They were not only raped by the Japanese, they were often brutally killed by the Japanese after the rape. "Sometimes (Japanese) cut off their breasts to reveal their white ribs; sometimes Japanese pierce through their lower body with bayonets, let them cry in pain! Sometimes they sticks wooden sticks, reed pipe or carrots into their lower body and stir, until they are dead, Japanese soldiers clap their hands and loudly laugh alongside" (Ref. The Record of the Brutal Acts of the Japanese Invaders, Political Department, KMT Military Commission, Published July 1938).
A Chinese who were taken by the Japanese to serve as a cook told the following story after he escaped:
"On December 16th, I went to the streets, smoke and fire flames had not yet been extinguished. The number of the dead bodies of my countrymen was terrifyingly large, especially there were many corpses of women... Eight of ten of them had their abdomens being cut open, intestines squeezed out. There were several mothers laid died together with their fetuses covered by blood... the breasts of these female bodies were either cut off or bayoneted into a mixture of flesh and blood ..."
(Ref. "Blood debt--- Eye witness of the brutal acts of the enemy in the Capital", DaGong paper, Feb. 7th, 1938 )

http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/njmassac/rape.htm

[thunder rising]

5. I think you might consider it the ultimate humiliation of a population

The most sacred things in a man's life are his mother, sisters, wives and even old girlfriends (somewhere down the list is "the land"). Nothing produces jealousy and rage more than desecrating the women of a society. It is done to absolutely humiliate and demoralize a population, since they cannot defend even their women. This is not done trivially. It is done to provoke that last of the forces into a fight and thus be defeated.

It is absolutely a crime, but we are no longer part of that society. BTW: is it equally as wrong to have pyramids of naked captive males? Or techniques of "Anal Intrusion" on males. No, it's the same. And we are now those people, the United States of Fucking America.

[gollygee]

9. So mass rape of women is really an attack against men?

It's funny how a man would see that as an attack against men.

The sexual torture that took place at Abu Ghraib is despicable, but it wasn't at the same level as the Rape of Nanjing or the current situation in Congo. Read the following article: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/073107dnintcongo.2d458db.html to give you an idea of just what's involved in these situations.

[lvx35]

6. Mass rape happens for he same reason paper currency has value.

Paper currency has value becase you believe it does, you believe it does because everybody else believes it does. The percieved value becomes real value, and effects the world. Similarly, in a war zone, (especially in war zone) ALL human life loses value, it is considered crap. Why do inviduals believe human life has no value? Because everybody around them does. So it spreads like a virus.

I think specific devaluing of women outside of the war context also works the same way. So when an individual women demands respect before others, or an individual man gives it so that other people can see, its always moving things forward and creating that sense of value for women that will make us healthy and whole as a society.

[stillcool]

7. I think that human beings...

of either sex, that have total control over others, are susceptible to this kind of behavior. It happens to foster-kids, prisoners, animals. Personally I think that the abusers suffer from a lack of power themselves, and the act restores their sense of having control. In the completely 'un-natural' environment of a war-zone...well...I have no idea. I'm surprised that so many only think of 'punishing' the abusers, without giving any thought at all to cause and effect. Throw them in jail, kill them...make it go away.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Breakdown of law and order.

There are always going to be a minority of men motivated to rape.

In normal times, you have a society that stops them doing so - through social pressure, and ultimately through law enforcement.

While you have war zones where that isn't the case, you're going to get atrocities like these.