Indiana gets a gold medal in Raping Teen Girls


My home state is number one in the nation for rape of young women, with 17.3% of Indiana girls in grade 9 through 12 having been raped. And Indiana also leads the nation in number of abortion restrictions. What a lovely combination! That’s what happens when misogyny runs rampant in a state.

And they wonder why we have a brain drain…

(Via Shakesville)

Comments

  1. baal says

    I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised and horrified but I am. The number is absurdly high.

  2. Jacob V says

    Sad bunch of information and a nasty cycle. Fewer good brains means poorer education means worse laws means more poverty means more dysfunction and risk to children.

  3. thewordofme says

    The abortion restrictions you will find are Republican led. Nationwide campaign by them to get rid of abortion and birth control as well as many other social reforms to protect the common person. They are truly ass-holes of the first order

  4. Leni says

    Why Indiana? That statistic is shockingly high. It’s not that I don’t believe it, I’m just completely baffled about why.

  5. says

    @Leni: Combination of factors. Indiana’s very conservative, so that’s a huge part of it – it’s an anti-woman environment. We also have an absolutely dismal family services and foster care system. Since most rape/sexual abuse is perpetrated by acquaintances or family members – especially for young girls – my guess is that the system is failing to remove them from abusive situations or placing them with untrustworthy foster parents. That said, there are doubtless other factors, cultural and otherwise.

  6. JoeBuddha says

    Words can’t even express… Is there another country in the world with numbers like that? Sounds like the US should invade and subdue. Thanks; I can’t even gloat about my own state. I’m totally bummed.

  7. carpenterman says

    17.3%?
    Did you say SEVENTEEN POINT THREE MOTHER-FUCKING PERCENT of HIGH SCHOOL GIRLS have been *RAPED*?!
    More than ONE IN SIX??!!
    What the almighty everlasting FUCK is going on?! How… who… WHAT THE FUCK???!!!
    I’m sorry… I’m so pissed off I can’t even form a coherent thought. I want to kill somebody. This is beyond a disgrace. I don’t even think there is a word for such a loathsome situation.
    I’m ashamed to be an American. I’m ashamed to be a man. I’m ashamed of the whole fucking human race.

  8. says

    17%???
    That’s like one in five. How is that even possible???
    I’m in complete shock.
    How can people raise children there??
    I would move here to Europe in a blink of an eye

  9. yoav says

    My reaction exactly, how the fuck isn’t that front page news everywhere? How come the first question to any Indiana politician is not, nearly 1 in 5 high school age girls in your state have been a victim of rape, what are you doing to correct that situation?
    ARGGGGH

  10. MartinM says

    The 17.3% figure is based on 2009 data, which is the latest the CDC has officially reported on. A report based on the 2011 data should be coming out in a few months. There’s no 2010 report; looks like the survey occurs every two years.

  11. Epinephrine says

    The question you linked to only addressing rapes in which physical force was used. It’s not counting rapes involving intoxication, etc. So even if that figure is correct, it would underestimate the number of rapes, at least based on definitions.

  12. says

    I am sorry, but the PDF I linked to is the 2011 survey, which is the most current one, and the one Jennifer’s blog entry referred to.

    If the 17.3% is based on data from 2009, then the rape percentage has *dropped* from 17.3% to 14.4%.

    .

    Another thing: The article Jennifer’s blog entry referred to specifically states that:

    “In Indiana, girls have a higher chance of becoming the victim of sexual assault than almost any other place in the country.”

    *almost* any other place in the country.

    This is confirmed in the story as covered by AP:

    “A new report showing that Indiana females in grades nine through 12 have the nation’s second-highest rate of forced sex is spurring calls for more education and prevention efforts.”
    http://www.courierpress.com/news/2012/apr/07/researchers-alarmed-indiana-high-school-rape-rates/

    *Second-highest* rate.

    But Jennifer described it like this:

    “Indiana gets a gold medal in Raping Teen Girls”

    and

    “My home state is number one in the nation for rape of young women”.

    That is not correct. Jennifer simply did not read the article she linked to.

    Never go with the headline. Always go with the source.

  13. says

    Dark Matter:

    @Leni: Combination of factors. Indiana’s very conservative, so that’s a huge part of it – it’s an anti-woman environment. We also have an absolutely dismal family services and foster care system. Since most rape/sexual abuse is perpetrated by acquaintances or family members – especially for young girls – my guess is that the system is failing to remove them from abusive situations or placing them with untrustworthy foster parents. That said, there are doubtless other factors, cultural and otherwise.

    I thought of these things too, but they are true of a number of states. So I’m still wondering what it is specifically about Indiana. Why not Texas or Mississippi? Maybe there are several states in close running and it was just Indiana’s turn this time around.

    I know Gary had some of the worst crime rates in the country for a while. Maybe that had something to do with it?

    ***

    14.4% is still really, really bad. Not that corrections aren’t good, they are. But I don’t feel anything like relief.

  14. carpenterman says

    Agreed. 14.4% is better than 17.3%, if only for the sake of the 2.9%.
    But great dog allmighty… that’s still *one in seven*! Something is terribly wrong in Indiana. And every where else, for that matter, that such a state of affairs is even possible, anywhere.

  15. interrobang says

    High rape rate for young women, lack of access to abortion, abstinence-only sex(lack of)-ed, misogynist social-welfare workers…feature, not bug, as far as the political culture goes there.

    Has anybody done a study to track whether rape rates are higher in abstinence-only states? My money is on “yes,” for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that states with anti-woman climates are likely to have abstinence-only requirements, and that the sex-role stereotyping taught in the vast majority of abstinence-only programmes encourages rape culture.

  16. Alex says

    I guess you’re right. Indiana clearly only gets a silver medal in raping young girls.

  17. says

    it’s likely quite a bit higher than that, given the large numbers of rapes that are not reported, esp among young women. 1/5, maybe even 1/3.

    visit IN and you’ll understand. there are some great towns in that state, but the hinterlands are scary. i remember being really impressed by a car i saw on the road there once, with two very large stickers. “jesus is myth” and “nothing fails like prayer.” i was amazed it hadn’t been keyed or bombed. i used to work with a guy who taught in IN for his grad school training, and every shift he complained about how incurious, unmotivated and narrow minded many of his students were. it was depressing.

  18. Pteryxx says

    Someone could try, and I’d bet there’s a correlation too, but it probably wouldn’t show up in the official rape stats. Anti-woman states don’t teach girls what rape or consent even are, don’t encourage them to report, and often have law enforcement who disbelieve and harass rape victims.

  19. says

    This is pretty much my feelings too. Why aren’t the politicians, the law makers, the police, and the child protection workers not being dragged into the streets and publicly flogged for utterly failing to even begin to do their jobs?

    Nearly 1 in 5 would be sickening enough for a third world nation, but to come from part of one that continually claims to be the best in the world beggars belief.

  20. smrnda says

    Isn’t Indiana the home of the Hephzibah House (spelling?) some horrible facility run by fundamentalist Baptists that abuses and degrades teenage girls?

    I think if you want to know why the numbers are high and why nobody is holding the politicians, cops and social workers responsible is that conservatives believe in conservatism. They believe in male authority and that the family is always good and that state interventions are always bad (except when the state is punishing minority parents for neglect = being por.) They don’t believe in science and they continue to believe in economic theories that have clearly not worked.

    Evidence doesn’t reach these people. If patriarchal attitudes are leading to this, their answer is that more male authority and less female autonomy will fix the problem. If it gets worse, then do the same thing.

    Einstein said that stupidity was doing the same thing, expecting different results.

    Plus, lots of conservative religions practically blame rape and sexual abuse victims. Most secular people base sexual ethics on consent, but religious folks think in terms of ‘purity’ which is going to lead to more victim blaming, along with the standard belief that ‘everybody is a sinner’ which ignores whose the victim and whose the perpetrator. You’ve got nutty preachers telling child sex abuse victims that they are sinning by not ‘moving on’ or forgiving the adults who molest them, and crocodile tears from any predator cleans the slate in their eyes. When you teach kids they are basically sinful and bad, and that sex is bad, they may end up blaming themselves when they are victimized.

  21. Ex Patriot says

    I did what you said you would like to do. I moved to a small country in Europe when I retiired in 99. I have not one regret of doing so. I am on the natiional health plan for $80 US a month. I live in a small village on an island in the Adriatic.
    I am a permanant resident here but still a U,S citizen and I do vote, but not for the misogynistic, homophobic, racist ass hat repugthugs that everyone in the states seems to love so much now.It is a shame to see a once great country fall into msuch squallar.

  22. Ex Patriot says

    I did leave a comment on a post, but I need to leave something here also. I am apalled at what was said here. This what comes from the idiots that are voted into office. and I am sure Ind is not he only state this is going on in. Women have to wake up and come together to stop this kind of thinking. I am a man but as far as I am concerned a women should have the right to decide what her role is to be.I applaud all women such as the one who has this blog, for rational thinking and doing what she wants to do.She is the type o women that this country needs

  23. says

    I actually live in Europe. In Portugal.
    We sure have lame politicians, but at least the religious problems don’t even reach the heels of the americans’s :/

    “I moved to a small country in Europe when I retired”
    Wow, good for you. It’s hard to find americans that aren’t in love (completely obsessed) with the US.

    I attribute that to the pledge of allegiance brainwash and the this-is-the-greatest-country-in-the-world culture. But I could be wrong

  24. lizdamnit says

    First of all, no matter the percent, WTF is going on “out there” in that state?! I agree with smrnda, that the root of this has to be the conservative mindset – keep up the old ways, even if they’re based on a fictional story or they’re actively hurting you because Tradition Says So!!…gah…

    Really quick, Ex Patriot, I thought the same thing for a long time, that women need to band together and stop this. In a way, this is right on! But the conversation (and the burden of stopping rape and sexual abuse) does not only rest on women “waking up” but men as well. It seems like you meant well, but I just wanted to add another gender to consideration :)

  25. Hoosier Guy says

    McCreight, you braindead little piece of shit!

    If you dont fuckin like Indiana, then never come back here. We don’t want your liberal asses over here anyway. In case you haven’t noticed: This is a CONSERVATIVE state!!!

  26. David Hart says

    Um… I don’t think she was saying that she wanted to come back there; it reads to me like she was saying that it’s a bad thing that so many teenage girls get raped there, and that’s the sort of thing you can legitimately express outrage about whether or not you live there – and the fact that it’s such a conservative state is itself a large part of the problem.

    Or am I biting on a Poe?

  27. says

    Do tell how you feel about your own baby sister being repeatedly raped by all the male members of your mech. eng. class? No doubt you believe that’s okay as long as only good Christian rapists do the deed. For the good of the rest of the world stay the fuck in Indiana and shut the fuck up.

  28. Aufwuch says

    The guy is either a really sick poe, or has the mental age of a 9 yr old boy. How n the hell is, “I study …at Purdue.” even relevant. If he wasn’t possibly dangerous (if for real), we should just ignore him. Poor douche has too many demons already.

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