I'm here to bear witness to the fact that there is no uniform group of women out there that gets a decent desirable response from the state after a beating or a rape. The threat or the experience of mens' sexist violence is the common experience for every women I have ever spoken to. The effects of this violence are pretty much the same no matter what our race, or class.
Women feel the same feelings and think the same things after an attack .
We feel guilty, embarassed, think about what we could have done to prevent the attack and wonder who will blame us for what happened. As well, every woman understands that there are implications to fighting back. As recently as 5 years ago the head of the North Vancouver RCMP told our workers that he did not believe there was any such thing as date or acquaintance rape. The following year we worked with a young white, employed and attractive middle class woman and that police detachment. Not only did the officers say they didn't believe her, they accused her of making the attack up and the investigation they did was so poor there was no way a crown counsel could prosecute.