Dear Editor, Reading the article entitled “Program addresses sexual violence” from the Nov. 19, 2009 edition made me realize just how drastically American ideology on sexual relationships between men and women and women’s view of freedom have changed.
Though personally I don’t agree with some of the philosophy behind the Men As Allies program, it is encouraging to see progress.
Prior to the 20th century, laws governing domestic relations gave husbands the right to full sexual access of their wives. Consent was implied by marriage.
Essentially, what today’s Americans would refer to as rape was legally and morally acceptable in the period leading up to the Civil War.
Beatings warranted by disobedience were not uncommon either, as men could also inflict corporal punishment upon spouses.
Court intervention in such private affairs was rare and only occurred in cases where physical abuse was determined to be excessive.
Abolitionist thought of the 1850s would influence women’s understanding of their own freedom.
Many women felt just as enslaved by their sex as the African-Americans whom they were fighting to emancipate.
Liberty would become more about self-ownership than the ownership of land, and as a result a movement of women from the private sphere to the public sphere would ensue.
Influential figures like Susan B. Anthony argued that without first obtaining “social freedom” women would continue to be slaves to the will of men.
Even though the law wouldn’t change until well after the emancipation of slavery, the radical drop in the birthrate during this period suggests that many women were already privately exercising the ideas of social freedom.
Programs like Men As Allies are of vital importance. Simply talking about sexual abuse, a topic many women were unwilling to discuss in 1850, is one of the biggest steps toward solving the problem.
Another factor that differs from the 19th century is that men and women are now working together to accomplish the same goal.
Perhaps someday we will.
-Jake Poole
No Comment