I had a friend who worked at Dillard's in Bartlesville. One night she came out after her work was done, carrying Christmas packages. A white van was parked next to her Cadillac and had she not been exhausted she would have caught the warning signs. It was parked so that once she opened her driver's door she created a trap on that side and the man pulled her into his van, held her for three days and raped her repeatedly. He let her go and she notified police. He was convicted and sentenced to prison. She went to a different kind of prison. She was trapped inside of her own fears of it happening again. She learned everything she could about protecting herself for the future but her life was never the same after that. I was our safety director. I set up a special meeting for her with just the women in my company unit and we invited wives, daughters, friends, all women. There were no men present. She sat and spoke softly, told them everything, answered any and all questions for the women. My boss's 17 year old daughter stopped by my office, still in horrified shock, and thanked me for inviting her. Her mother was in the meeting with her. Many women go to meetings like this after they have been assaulted. Few go before, possibly because they just don't believe it can or will happen to them. Men don't appear with big warning flags. There's no way you can tell which man might assault a woman. More rapes, to my knowledge, are committed by someone the woman knows, not by a stranger. Men are the problem. I told the story of my friend who was raped as she left work before Christmas eve. I did not state her age. Everyone forms their own mental picture of a story and the people in it. I know some saw a 20 year old attractive blonde. She was 50, a mother and grandmother. She was a woman who dressed well and she was attractive but certainly not a knock out like some of you pictured. She was not what many may think of as the woman men rape. He carefully planned it, observed her, knew her habits and her work schedule. Women and girls have to have a constant awareness of their surroundings to protect themselves from assault by men. Every man is a potential threat because we don't come with warning flags. No woman can tell just by looking at a man if he will assault her. Consider Brock Allen Turner, nice looking, well groomed, clean-cut Stanford swimming team athlete. How would anyone know that he would rape a woman? Every woman can't carry a Glock 19. When would she have used it on Brock Turner? At the party? In the alley behind the dumpster as he tore her clothing away? When is a woman supposed to defend herself from assault by a man?
This part is for the men. How many of you have a story you can share about how you had to look over your shoulder walking out to the parking lot at [insert shopping mall, store here] because you were afraid of being sexually assaulted? The event occurred in 1992. That it is an old story changes nothing. For every woman who tells her story there are more who have never told anyone and they suffer inside their silent prisons.
