When I pulled up CNN’s website on my computer last week, I noticed two things. First, a headline in big, bold letters describing the sale, rape and enslavement of females by the Islamic State. The second was the absence of a story of several Ohio women and their rape by police officers.
I heard the second by reading the blog of a young woman in Ohio who was pulled over by a police officer because of a traffic violation and then raped. When an officer in Ohio was asked about this, he said Ohio females could avoid rape of this nature by following all of the traffic laws.
Using sexual violence as a means to get citizens to follow laws? That sounds like something a terrorist organization would do.
The media has a tendency to sensationalize. I’ll admit that I’ve used tactics to get readers’ attention so I could talk about my perspective on an issue. But what I don’t understand is why the American website for CNN chooses to focus on an issue overseas but not on the rape that happens in our own country.
I don’t think the suffering of the American women and the Middle Eastern women is comparable, and we certainly don’t benefit from starting a battle of who has been the most oppressed. But we do need to start talking about how we view the plight of Middle Eastern women as tragic but glaze over the suffering of American women.
While CNN reported on the steps America has to disband the Islamic State group and return order to the Middle East, the personal narratives of the events taking place in Ohio and around our country are left for survivors of sexual assault to tell.
Perhaps the most tragic part of this is that, regardless of media coverage, neither America nor the countries of the Middle East are making much headway with these issues or others affecting the minority voices in their countries.
People love to boycott companies that use outsourced, underpaid child labor. But in America, while it’s not legal for children to work until the age of 16, we don’t do much to help the families who would benefit from sending their young children to work. I can’t even count the number of times I asked my mom for something, whether it be something I merely wanted to play with or something I needed for school, only to be told that if I wanted it, I would have to wait until I could pay for it.
But boycotting companies who underpay the parents of children who would be child laborers isn’t trendy, because it doesn’t make us look good as a nation. Our credibility would be lost if we gave more attention to the human rights violations in our own country, and admitted to our faults.
Think back to the classes you had in elementary and high school where the teacher had strict rules for the students, never allowing them to use the bathroom or eat in class. I’m sure there were a couple of times you saw your teacher step out to pee or snack on something at their desk. Did it take away from the seriousness of their rules?
Of course it did. This “do as I say, not as I do” method might help America keep its savior complex in check, but it’s not helping American women. It’s time to admit that we aren’t the top nation in the world when it comes to treatment of our citizens, especially the marginalized voices.
Jana King is a 20-year-old communication studies junior from Ponchatoula, Louisiana. You can reach her on Twitter @jking_TDR.