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February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month

Jill

And with all the coverage of Rihanna / Chris Brown (which I will write about later, but ugh, can we please stop blaming her for “being a bad role model” or whatever and maybe put the responsibility for beating another human being on the person who did the beating?), it’s a pertinent conversation. The stats are disturbing:

-One in ten teenagers in New York City schools reports experiencing physical or sexual violence in a dating relationship within the past year.
-1 in 3 teens report experiencing some kind of abuse in their romantic relationships, including verbal and emotional abuse.
-A high prevalence of dating relationships of young women between 15 and 24 in New York City are characterized by physical violence (22%), coercion (67%) and forced sexual experiences (37%).
-Nearly half of all female homicide victims in New York City are killed in intimate partner homicides.
-In a study of young women aged 14 to 23 who sought health services at the New York Mt. Sinai Adolescent Health Center, approximately 30% of young women reported experiencing sexual assault by a date or acquaintance in the past year.

Day One is doing amazing work to counteract these stats and end teen dating violence. There are many ways to help them raise awareness: on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube. Help them spread their message and end teen dating violence.

6 thoughts on February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month

  1. I am trying to get GI Bill benefits for women, like me, who were pushed out of the military after being raped and I need help. I have no one to turn to and I need the support of the feministe community. Please sign my petition at Change.org. It only takes a minute and you will forever be part of a movement for the rights of victims of rape.

    The petition is called: The US Dept. of Veterans Affairs: Provide VA benefits to soldiers discharged due to Rape or Sexual Assault

    Please, sign it and share it, email it to people who care about our rights. We can talk all day about how wrong it is, but the only way to make a change is to go and do something about it. DB

  2. Yes, absolutely. The responsibility not to beat other people is so much more basic than any (real or imagined) responsibility of role modeling that I think it’s a very instructive way of showing the insidious double standard applied to women and men. Men have to try not to hurt people, unless they’re mad or hurt or sad or maybe they had a hard day. Women should be superhuman, and look good doing it.

  3. Colorofchange is sponsoring a petition to dismiss a publisher of an African-American magazine, after the mag ran an article instructing young men on “turning out” teen women with violence and sexual coercion. Please take a moment to sign this.

  5. DragonBreath, if you Google “The US Dept. of Veterans Affairs: Provide VA benefits to soldiers discharged due to Rape or Sexual Assault” it should be the first result (that’s how I found it).

  6. Pingback: Sunday Reading List | Lightning Leslie

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