Sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are a public health threat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A national survey using the most recent data on the subject found that 19.3 percent of women and 1.7 percent of men had been raped in their lifetimes. In all, 1.6 percent of women said they had been raped in the past year.

“Consistent with previous studies, the overall pattern of results suggest that women, in particular, are heavily impacted over their lifetime. However, the results also indicate that many men experience sexual violence, stalking, and, in particular, physical violence by an intimate partner,” CDC noted in their recent report. “Because of the broad range of short- and long-term consequences known to be associated with these forms of violence, the public health burden of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence is substantial.”

Additionally, CDC found that many women and men had experienced sexual violence at a young age. An estimated 78.7 percent of women who had reported being raped, experienced this sexual violence before age 25 and 40.4 percent were raped before age 18.

Women of all races and ethnicities experienced high levels of sexual violence and the sexual abuse was a two way street, meaning both men and women were impacted. Other forms of sexual violence were also prevalent in the study–an estimated 43.9 percent of women experienced some other form of sexual violence including sexual coercion, stalking, unwanted sexual contact, and non-contact unwanted sexual experiences.

It’s worth noting that Time.com found that the statistics were skewed because of the way the questions were asked:

“CDC survey respondents are not asked whether anyone has used physical force or threats to make them engage in a sexual activity, but ‘how many’ people have done this (in their lifetime and in the past year). This wording removes the extra hurdle of admitting that such a violation has happened, and thus encourages more reporting. But could it also create “false positives” by nudging people toward the assumption that the default answer is affirmative—especially when preceded by a battery of other questions and statements about sexually coercive behavior?”

However the questions were asked, the statistics are startling both for women and men. CDC points to a culture of sexual violence that starts young. Changing this culture is no easy task but the realization that so many young women and men are dealing with sexual violence is difficult to swallow.

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You’re an intentional, conscientious person, but that same song that gets your booty shakin’ contains elements of sexism, violence, racism, or other flavor of bigotry. How do you deal with this cognitive dissonance? Can you listen to sexist music and still be conscientious?

Admit it: before you gave a good hard listen to the lyrics of Earth’s favorite creeper Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” it kiiind of made you want to shake your rump. Or, in my case, more than kind of.

While the rapey-ness of “Blurred Lines” has been well documented, its infectiously catchy nature causes a difficult tug-of-war between your brain and booty. What do we even call this special kind of conscious confusion? Musicognitive Dissonance? Cognitive Disso-dance? I’ll get back to you when I finalize some new buzzword for this phenomenon.

Even if there are more questions than answers, try on these three perspectives when handling the cognitive dissonance of enjoying sexist music you know you shouldn’t like, but just “know you want it.”

Cultural Context

Human behavior is often merely a symptom of a deeper psychological or societal undercurrent dictating the thought processes behind our actions.

Let’s step away from Mr. Thicke for a moment and look at hip hop as an example. How much of hip hop’s misogyny can be traced back to decades of institutionalized racism, hatred, and poverty? And regardless of context, why would we ever make excuses to be anti-women? And as a U.S.-born white man, what in the world would I personally know about any of this?

Ultimately, where does cultural context end and personal accountability begin? If I had that answer, I’d be the world’s greatest judge, psychologist, or relationship columnist.

Saving vs. Savoring the World

A female entrepreneur friend of mine whom I deeply admire lives her life based on a sage piece of advice: “Balance how much you try to save the world with how much you savor it.”

This perspective on music boils down to how willing you are to compartmentalize your life. You donate money and volunteer time championing worthy social causes; you support local business by shopping in your community; you try to buy organic and local whenever possible. Can’t you have the social consciousness equivalent of a diet “cheat day?” None of us are perfect — we’re all figuring things out and trying our best.

If you’re adamant about liking certain music for the beat but not the message it promotes, you’ve simply got to own it as your guilty pleasure while remaining true to your conscience through your actions and energy in other aspects of life. This perspective, however, can turn into a slippery slope toward one of the must fundamentally flawed arguments commonly used against homosexuality: “Love the sinner, hate the sin.”

So, is it “Love the music, hate the message”? Now my brain’s really doing the cognitive dissonance two-step.

Conversation Fuel

Even though the message behind “Blurred Lines” is decidedly awful, at least it has gotten a worthwhile conversation going. The song provides context and platform for a global conversation, and pushback against it has increased universal awareness about the ills of misogyny and served as a rallying point for thought leaders and supporters.

Some lessons are difficult to teach without real world examples, and though it’s unfortunate the conversation even needed to happen, at least the world is participating.

Follow Garth on Twitter @garthinkingcap

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It’s the end of June already, and the earth’s half-spin around the sun has brought us ladies plenty to wring our delicate little hands about. From Iranian clerics blaming earthquakes on our breasts to oil spills wreaking havoc on our pregnancies, 2010 has made us reach for the smelling salts on numerous occasions. Here at EcoSalon, we’ve covered women and the environment with vim, bringing you celebratory communiques alongside melancholic missives. Below, you’ll find a roundup of the news in 2010 thus far. If the past six months are any indication, the rest of the year will be a doozy. Feeling faint yet?

• Is GINK the new DINK? It used to be that childfree couples were called DINKs – Double Income, No Kids. But the great American greenwash has influenced reproductive choices as well, with an increasing number of couples citing the environment as a reason to go kidless. A recent study by Oregon State University added fuel to the fire, revealing that not having kids is 20 times more environmentally friendly than any other day to day green task, like recycling. Lisa Hymas of Grist coined the term GINK – Green Inclinations, No Kids – to describe childfree tree huggers like herself.

• Condoms came under attack earlier this year, with women’s health writers and scientists bemoaning the prophylactic’s sorry environmental record of sullying our beaches and clogging up our landfills. While greensters wondered whether condoms are biodegradable (likely not – their decomposable latex is mixed with human-made chemicals), we asked another question: why have this conversation in the first place? Condoms, as a blogger at EcoGeek noted, are “the single most important environmental innovation” ever, curbing environmentally-catastrophic population growth.

• Congress attacked killer chemicals this spring when members of the House and Senate introduced versions of the Safe Chemicals Act, a bill meant to fortify a toothless, decades-old law against allowing dangerous chemicals in household products (we all know how well that one worked…hello bisphenol-a). Uteruses in America rejoiced at the news: the Safe Chemicals Act is a boon to women, whose reproductive systems have been under siege by infertility-causing chemicals in water bottles and other plastics.

• In April, an Iranian cleric asserted that women who don’t cover up cause earthquakes. His declaration–meant to dissuade Iranian women from unveiling–ignited a response in the U.S., when blogger Jennifer McCreight organized a Boobquake, a day in which women wore low-cut tops without tectonic incident to prove the cleric wrong. But what could have been a bold political stunt turned into a ho-hum protest, with men egging on their breast-baring peers while feminists complained that the plight of Iranian women became fodder for a Girls Gone Wild spectacle.

• As if the earthquake itself didn’t cause enough damage, sexual violence rates spiked in Haiti in the months after the disaster. According to an article in Women’s eNews, aid workers in a major Port-au-Prince refugee camp fielded daily reports of rape, prompting the United Nations to send a special unit of 130 female Bangladeshi soldiers to address the violence. Lamentably, the post-disaster rape crisis was not unique to Haiti alone; many Hurricane Katrina survivors were similarly re-victimized.

• On the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill, we noted that the pill’s invention by women’s rights crusader Margaret Sanger initiated the era of modern family planning, allowing women to choose the number and spacing of their children – a boon for their health and the health of their babies alike. But while the pill has done its part to keep our skyrocketing population in check (if you think things are bad, just imagine the world without it) its environmental record isn’t spotless – the hormones in the pill, excreted into waste water through urine, cause fatal mutations in fish populations.

• When a Houston tanning salon called upon the spirit of Coco Chanel to promote its new earth-friendly false tanning beet spray, we called foul. As legend has it, Chanel sparked the tanning craze in America when she stepped off a boat in Cannes with perfectly bronzed skin. Though Coco was a pioneering designer, breaching the boundary between menswear and womenswear, the tanning trendsetter didn’t galvanize women to leave the drudgery of housework in order to bask in the sunshine. Rather, Coco inadvertently created another unrealistic beauty standard.

• While much of the initial news surrounding the BP oil spill focused on the disaster’s effect on wildlife, we asked about its impact on human livelihoods. Coastal Women for Change, a community organization that sprung out of the post-Katrina haze to bring attention to the need for improved childcare in Biloxi, Mississippi, has stepped up after the spill by serving as a conduit for information from the Environmental Protection Agency to the local fishers. The biggest challenge? Getting fishers of different ethnic and economic backgrounds to rally together for their interests.

• Last year, journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn published their book Half the Sky, a groundbreaking tome arguing that international aid is more effective when directed toward women. While Kristof and WuDunn described women as the gatekeepers of health and well-being in their communities, they left out one green detail: the fact that women also hold the keys to conservation. In Indonesia, the Environmental Ministry has begun offering classes on water conservation to women in rural areas who are responsible for fetching and distributing water to their families.

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but we all care equally about the earth, right? Wrong. According to several articles this year, men and women display their green pride differently, with men working for big picture sustainability while women, ever the quibblers, take on recycling and composting projects. We pointed out the ludicrousy in this theory, noting that a handful of anecdotes don’t constitute a trend. With all this talk about men, women, and their green differences, we lose sight of the why we should go green at all.

• As if the oil spill wasn’t dangerous enough, the chemical dispersants used to clean it up could spell health risks for pregnant mothers and their unborn children. According to information recently released by the Environmental Protection Agency, chemicals that caused health problems in the cleanup workers on the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill are being used again today. Pregnant women have been advised to stay as far away from the contaminants as possible – a tall order for those women who actually live in the Gulf.

Image: xjyxjy

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When Hurricane Katrina clobbered the Gulf Coast in 2005, women bore the brunt of the chaos that ensued, facing sexual violence and abuse at the hands of relatives and strangers. It was out of that devastating period that Coastal Women for Change was formed, an organization devoted to bringing women’s voices to reconstruction efforts.

Founded in 2006 by a hairdresser and community activist named Sharon Hanshaw, CWC organized community forums, drawing attention to the need for childcare facilities in east and west Biloxi, and calling for an increased police presence in certain areas to protect the elderly living alone in trailers. “We believe there is value in coming together as a community, because some issues can seem insurmountable when considered alone, but when you get together with others, there is strength in those numbers,” reads the CWC web site’s About Us section.

Now, in the wake of the British Petroleum oil spill, CWC is contending with a new challenge: how to bring disaster relief to people who are already scarred by disaster. In an interview with American Prospect, Sharon Hanshaw describes the impact that the spill has had on the Gulf region’s collective psyche. “I can’t describe it. It’s like a death sentence or something,” she says. “When we think of any type of devastation, we think of Katrina automatically because people still live in the cottages. Others don’t fully understand what people who live in it feel; they think people should be over that. But if you don’t have a house, and you’re still paying for a mortgage, but it’s only a slab there…that gives you a sense of hopelessness.”

As the spill creeps closer to the coastline, Hanshaw’s biggest fear is that it will decimate the Gulf’s commercial fishing industry, leaving the 13,000 people employed by fisheries and restaurants out of work. “If it comes, you won’t have any jobs,” she says. “You would have to think about, what could we do besides clean up? What else can people do? They really want to know what their career is. They want work for a paycheck. If you can’t fish now, it’s like, OK, let’s clear the debris.”

But organizing the fishing community to prepare for a potential disaster isn’t as simple as it sounds. “A majority of fishermen are Vietnamese, but there are black and white fishermen. But they’re having their own meetings, and it’s like, ‘Oh, here we go.’ It’s redundant to be separate, and you got the same plight here. I see it all the time,” says Hanshaw. “All these different constituents are having meetings. They’re having meetings separately, and I’m like, do you know that you all have the same plight? But that’s our problem. We don’t know how to think that way.”

For now, CWC is acting as an information line from the Environmental Protection Agency and British Petroleum to local fisheries, keeping Gulf Coast fishers apprised of changes during the oil spill. “We’re just trying to not put fear in people. We’re trying to stay positive and hopeful, but we still know that we should be active in this.”

Image: Jay Fox Photos

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We’re all familiar with the human and environmental tolls that immediately follow natural disasters. But there’s one aftereffect of hurricanes and earthquakes that often goes overlooked: rape. In Haiti, the aftershocks of the January 12th earthquake continue in Internally Displaced Person camps as men rape women. According to a story in Women’s eNews, aid workers in the Champ-de-Mars camp in Port-au-Prince – home to 50,000 internal refugees and pictured above – field reports of rape on a daily basis. And United Nations workers say that sexual violence has increased in recent months.

There is no concrete data on the number of rapes that have occurred since the earthquake. Haiti’s formal tracking system, created by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, was destroyed with the quake. But the uptick in rapes is a typical phenomenon in the wake of a natural disaster.

After Hurricane Katrina, in 2005, aid workers cited an increase in the number of rapes. Exact statistics, however, are difficult to come by because police officers refused to document rapes that happened outside of their jurisdictions. This meant that women raped in New Orleans and then evacuated to Houston could not report their assaults with Houston police. While aid workers scrambled to piece together a picture of post-Katrina sexual assault, one high-profile rape brought national attention to the epidemic. Charmaine Neville, daughter of musician Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers, recounted her rape on Baton Rouge television, saying that she and several other women were assaulted after they sought refuge on the roof of a school.

“I found some police officers. I told them that a lot of us women had been raped down there by guys who had come (into)… the neighborhood where we were, that were helping us to save people. But other men, and they came and they started raping women and… and they started killing them,” Neville said. “And I don’t know who these people were. I’m not going to tell you I know who they were because I don’t. But what I want people to understand is that if we had not been left down there like the animals that they were treating us like, all of those things wouldn’t have happened.”

According to the New York City Alliance on Sexual Assault, rape following natural disasters can be explained by a number of reasons – some of them preventable. First there’s the fact that societal support mechanisms – social norms that stigmatize rape and crime, for instance – dissolve during crises. Then there’s the fact that psychological strain and deep-seated sexist attitudes lead some men to see unaccompanied women in refugee and IDP camps as public sexual property. But other causes may be more easily prevented. Refugee camps are often hastily constructed out of necessity. That means that large groups of unrelated people sleep in the same rooms, creating opportunities for sexual assault. Additionally, the lack of police officers in refugee camps means that crimes go unpunished.

In Haiti, the United Nations is addressing the rise in sexual violence by sending a unit of 130 female Bangladeshi soldiers to protect Haitian women and serve as their allies. While similar deployments have been successful in post-war Liberia, Haiti’s anti-rape workers remain skeptical that this will stem the tide of sexual assault. “What we need is security,” Marie Eramithe Delva, a co-coordinator at a Haitian grassroots female empowerment organization, told Women’s eNews. “Right now we have none and the rapes are happening not only at night, but in the daytime.”

Image: BBC World Service

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