Last month's gang rape at Richmond High School in California has been classified as "bound to happen".
An article at SFGate.com states the attack was, "Fueled by street-macho bravado and inspired by sexual initiations required to get into some local gangs". 10 people took part in the attack and 10 others watched, then took pictures. No one called for help. People were horrified and most would like to think this could not happen in their town. But couldn't it? Aren't the same messages about boys, girls and sex communicated to children in "nice" neighborhoods? How are young women portrayed in the media? What are the rules for young men and young women? Are they different? It may make some people feel better to think that gangs were involved and to pretend that this couldn't happen in their "nice" neighborhood. But it does. I've worked with the victims.
Though many sources are citing the economy, poverty and social unrest, gang rape is nothing new. I think it is more related to the way we define and think about women. Rape requires that the offender see the victim as a non-person. To mandate sexual initiations in order to be included in a gang requires that gang members setting these initiations perceive girls as mere objects to be used for sport. And to stand by and take pictures of a girl being gang-raped instead of trying to intervene or call for help suggests that the bystanders also regarded the girl as a mere object. We may like to think that only "gangs" participate in such things, but young men have a lot of pressure put on them to have sex with girls in order to be considered "a man". And what types of words are used to describe this conquest? "Bang her", "Nail her", "F*** her brains out". When we, as a society, combine sex and violence in the same sentence, we should not feign shock when gang rape occurs and no one calls for help.
We see this same mindset in war and genocide. It is very difficult to kill another person, unless you first remove their humanity. It's first necessary to draw a line between "us" and "them". Define them as something less than yourself. That's why Hitler engaged in propaganda before trying to exterminate vast numbers of the German population. He had to put Jews, gypsies, gays and lesbians, the mentally ill or the mentally retarded in a different category from the German people themselves. In war soldiers are encouraged to refer to their opponents as "Krauts", "Charlie", "Gooks" or "Towelheads" in order to remove their humanity and make them easier to kill.
This same mindset is present in some gender rules and relations. When women are consistently portrayed as "bitches" and "whores" for behaving in the same manner as males, they are dehumanized and objectified. Unfortunately, the gang rape does not surprise me. Nor do the actions of the bystanders. Sicken me? Yes. Horrify me? Yes. Surprise me? No. And what really bothers me, is that there are some (I said some, not all) men in this society who will still deny that women are discriminated against. And some will even maintain that males as a gender are being persecuted by women. Fortunately, there are also men out there who are as horrified and sickened by this behavior as women are.