Though reports of rape are still extremely high in America they have dipped to its lowest since 1989. USA Today reports that FBI data shows this dip and has released this diagram:
According to the FBI's other estimations 89, 000 women reported being raped in 2008, thats 29 women for every 100,000 people. Thats down from a high of 109,062 reported rapes in 1992-- thats 43 women for every 100,000 people. This is positive but we should celebrate cautiously as the data for 2009 has not been released. There is technology now that make things undeniably better like the fact that every hospital now carries rape kits which make it easier to collect an attackers DNA. Though some of the reasons that the USA today gave for this low rate of rape was a little questionable. For instance, these are only an estimation of reported rapes, we don't know how many that go unreported. They also claim that victim blaming doesn't occur anymore, so sooooo far from the truth. Michael Males, senior researcher for the Center on Juvenile & Criminal Justice in San Francisco tried to make the claim,"you don't see the nightmarish trials of the 1960s where a woman's reputation would be brought into question and people would conclude she deserved it." We do see victim-blaming almost every time a new case is reported. However, we cannot deny that any kind of data proving a decline in violence against women is a victory making a perfect and welcome addition to Feminist Fridays.
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