Alexander Walker Quotes
I think that the enormous emphasis on violence and sex, and in particular violent sex, may not make rapists of us all, but it predisposes us to accept a kind of world in which these things happen.
Walker, Alexander. The Celluloid Sacrifice: Aspects of Sex in the Movies. Michael Joseph, 1966.
There are over 600.000 reported rape cases in South Africa each year. Since most rape goes unreported the real total is much larger, making South Africa the worst country in the world on a sexual violence scale. There are many reasons suggested for the South African extreme. However, since apartheid was overthrown, all ANC Governments had had a reluctance to have heavy police action for anything and there is a general reluctance to imprison people as this was what the apartheid regimes did. So all criminal activity is relatively high in South Africa.
This proverb which actually has the force of de facto law in much of the Arab world, while detested by many sophisticated Westerners and Americans in particular, was actually a custom in America for many years. Under the principle, a rapist is not a rapist if he marries the girl. A seducer is not a seducer. In the Bedouin culture there is no difference between the rapist and the seducer. The reason that the practice is so hateful is that it assumes that when a woman is raped or seduced the damage is to the woman’s male relatives—to their honor. Therefore, the “crime” can be remedied by marrying the girl and satisfying the male relative’s sense of honor. Then no harm has been done, except of course to the woman who often becomes the double victim, first of the rape or seduction and then of a forced marriage. In modern America the honor of the male relatives has no standing in law, yet even today some judges and prosecutors will go easy on a statutory rapist or worse if he marries the girl and the girls family goes along with the arrangement. The term “shotgun wedding” stems from a time when family members would force the alternative on seducers.
See {623723} & {623724} for the origin of the demonstrations. Women demonstrated for the right to be safe from sexual assault regardless of how particular men perceived they were dressing.
This quote illustrates how ignorant some members of Congress are about basic science and human reproduction. There is absolutely no physiology whereby the trauma of rape can cause a contraceptive effect. Akin was in the midst of a Senate race, and his opponents and the press pilloried him for his ignorance. The previous year there were about 32,000 pregnancies resulting from rape in the United S tates. Worse for Akin, his use of “legitimate rape” got him into trouble with the voters also. His implication that there were some rapes that were NOT legitimate infuriated many voters. He lost the election in a state where the Republicans were predicted to win.
Alexander Walker was a British film critic who wrote for the London Evening Standard from 1960 to the end of his life. He wrote 20 books.
