By Degrees

Men all around Australia are clamouring for women to cease identifying them with other men. Women all around Australia are clamouring for women to cease identifying men with other men.  We may indeed be heading towards a post-gender society, but there is no sign that our communities are becoming less influenced and maintained by Patriarchal norms.

Let’s break that down a little. Perhaps not all men are those kinds of men. Perhaps not all women are those kinds of women. But we are all human beings. Not all human beings rape and murder other human beings, but all human beings who have been raped and murdered are (or rather WERE), nonetheless, human beings who were raped and murdered by other human beings. I don’t wish to be raped or murdered, and I wish no other human beings would be raped and murdered by other human beings. Implicit in those wishes, is the third wish, that human beings would cease raping and murdering other human beings. I’m not sure that expresses the issue in a succinct manner that is easily understood by all human beings. Yet how could I express it with more clarity?

It is possible to separate the two crimes – rape, from murder. I believe we have moved beyond the point where rape is tantamount to murder, where a raped human being can be said to be “better off dead”, than being condemned to live ever more under the stigma, shame and eternal isolation that signals a human being who has been removed from community, rendered useless and worthless because another human being raped that one and then discarded that one, like used up rubbish.

With regards to sentencing a human being who raped another human being, the Law and Justice system of Australia has probably not altered the legal view of rape as being “as serious as murder”, but I am content, for now, to sideline this issue, due to the paltry number of human beings who are ever sentenced and punished because they raped other human beings. Rape is commonplace. Many adult human beings routinely rape young human beings as part of their bedtime routine. Please note – this statement in no way condones the fact. Nor does this statement in any way accuse your husband, your step-father, your son, your brother, your uncle, your grandfather of being guilty of rape. It is simply a statement which in my experience as a human being is true.

This being the case, how does one define rape? The common definition of rape is to separate it from sexual intercourse between human beings, identifying the disparity of power between those human beings, as well as, of course, the issue of consent, and emotional terrorisation of the human being who is raped by other human beings. The concept of rape has also become broader, and flatter, incorporating a hierarchy of degrees of violation, determined not by the raped human being, nor necessarily even by the human being(s) who chose to rape another human being, but for the purpose of legally defining the extent to which one or more human beings raped the other human being, in order to place parameters around the severity of the punishment that might be meted out to the rapist human being(s), should it be proven that the alleged rape took place. Such parameters involve particular body parts and orifices, whether a rape was successful, or thwarted by the human being who tried to stop the other human being from raping them; the number of attempts made, whether objects were used to assist the rape, and to assist the rapist(s) in subduing the human being who was being raped, the location, time and circumstances around the rape. Suffice it to say that rape and murder are clearly not one and the same crime.

Those human beings gifted with the task of supporting raped human beings through their recovery and life reclamation will tell us there is little discernable difference in the effect of rape on the raped person, according to the various measures of severity as set out above.

After all, it is bad enough to be a human being who has been raped by another human being or – indeed by a group of other human beings, but the annual count of Dead Women (sic!) would be so much higher, if every rape that occurred, resulted not only in the loss of status, relationship, physical, mental and emotional health, power, employability, faith, safety, etc., but also death.

Does death require a definition? Does murder require a nuanced set of conditions? The result, for the dead human being, is the same, every time, isn’t it?

No, every rape does not end with death of the raped person. I am thankful for my life. Every such trauma and crime inflicted upon individuals and the community (for who is not affected by the media reports?) adds weight to the burden that more than half of all human beings carry, as a result of the prevalence of rape. What was done to me, shapes my life, pares down my potential, cuts me ever down to size, and that is in spite of my resilience and my determination not to play victim. I am not and never will be the human being I might have been. There is no self-determination for human beings who have been burdened with the effects of rape, and the possibility of being raped, except within those boundaries imposed by our own psyches in the context of our broader societies and civilisations. So if it is possible to nuance death by reference to those parts of oneself that were brutally removed, cast off, crushed and suffocated out of existence, a raped human being is partially dead.

When news reports about the murder and rape of Eurydice Dixon began appearing in my news feed, I began to feel more oppressed, more fearful and more outraged than ever. While it is true that involuntary silencing of story is toxic and dangerous, the manner in which these brutalities are related to the wider public continues to be sickeningly beside the point. Yes, the issues of language are vital, and need to be examined. There was one particular article that I can no longer find, which described how the human being Eurydice Dixon had been “left to die alone in the cold”. Bile rose from my normally cast iron stomach, when I read these words. I saw red. I needed to go outside and gasp for some fresh air. Really? Would it really have been more humane, if Eurydice Dixon’s rapist had sat, holding her hand, as she died? Is the fact that Jaymes Todd raped her, of more human interest, than the fact that he murdered her? It seems so. Nowhere, can I find any information of how Eurydice Dixon died. These details are suppressed. Why? Is it out of a sense of decency and to protect rapist and dead woman and their associates, from further distress?

Other than adding weight to the burden of fear and shame that more than half of human beings carry with us day and night, such nuanced silences surrounding atrocities change nothing. She is still dead.