VOA标准英语2013--Better Coverage of Rape is Needed

 

Better Coverage¹ of Rape² is Needed

A recent editorial in the Journal for Public Health calls on the media to do a better job of reporting on sexual violence against women. It says, too often, the media focus on sensational³ crimes and fail to reveal the full scope of the problem.

Last December, a young woman in India was fatally gang raped⁴. In February, a teenage girl in South Africa was gang raped and mutilated. She also died of her injuries. In March, in India, a Swiss tourist was ganged raped in front of her husband and in April a four year old girl died from injuries after she was raped. These and other horrific sexual assaults received a lot of international media coverage.

The United Nations says hundreds of thousands of cases of male-female rape - or attempted rape - are reported to police every year. But experts believe that figure is far below the actual number of attacks because many go unreported out of fear of stigma⁵ or retaliation⁶.

Citing World Bank data, the U.N. says that women – aged⁷ 15 to 44 – are “more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria⁸.”

Dr. Janice Du Mont, a scientist at the Women’s College Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, and Dr. Deborah White of Trent University wrote an editorial about rape for the Journal of Public Health. It’s titled Sexual violence: what does it take for the world to care about women? Du Mont said that the media do not give an accurate picture of how pervasive⁹ the problem is.

“So much of the recent – and I guess past media coverage, as well – of sexual assaults seems so skewed. For example, the Western world – Canada, the United States, et cetera – there’s been this tendency to focus in on cases that occur in other countries, which is problematic. Rape is not just India’s shame. It occurs everywhere, you know, regardless of culture or socio-economic status.”

Du Mont said the media are drawn¹⁰ to particular types of rape cases.

“These are the more shocking cases. So cases in which women are gang raped or raped by more than one assailant, savagely¹¹ beaten. Or more recently in terms of coverage in the Western world, it’s cases in which women are sexually assaulted while unconscious, or near unconsciousness, and then the assaults photographed and further exploited on social media. You know, these cases are not really representative of the full sort of realities of sexual assault, especially in non-conflict settings,” she said.

It’s much more common, she said, for women to be sexually assaulted by a single male that they know – husbands, boyfriends, other family members, friends, neighbors and acquaintances. These attacks, she says, often occur in private settings. Du Mont says she understands that the media will choose to report what they deem “newsworthy.”

“I guess the point we would like to make is that these other more common forms of sexual assault that may not be deemed newsworthy have a huge toll¹² on the individual and society as a whole. You know, have immediate¹³ and lingering effects. They result in a lot of pain and suffering, unwanted pregnancies¹⁴, sexually transmitted infections. Women may become depressed¹⁵ or anxious, attempt suicide, miss school. There are costs to the medical and mental healthcare system, police and investigative costs. In some jurisdictions¹⁶, women are forced to marry the assailant or they’re killed in the name of honor.”

Women do not have to be killed or savagely beaten for rapes¹⁷ to take a toll. She said the problem is made worse by ignorance, myths and stigma.

“I think it’s these pervasive negative attitudes and stereotypes¹⁸ about women who are raped and rape, in general. This huge rape mythology¹⁹ that women ask to be raped. They deserve to be raped. Women lie about rape. And we need to challenge those attitudes, but also practices and policies that, first, excuse violence by men and, secondly²⁰, that disparage²¹ and denigrate²² women,” she said.

The Journal of Public Health editorial quotes former Canadian journalist Dr. Shannon Sampert of the University of Winnipeg. She said, “Journalists do not operate in a vacuum. They are subjected to the same myths and stereotypes to which the rest of society is exposed.” She added, “Journalists work in an environment that requires that stories are novel, contentious²³ and scandalous.”

In 2011, The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that nearly one in five women surveyed said they had been raped or were victims of attempted rape.

Du Mont said, “We know that sexual assault is really under reported. In Canada, for example, we haven’t had a really good national population-based survey for some time. But we did have one back in 1993 that was replicated²⁴ in many other different countries globally. And it was found that 39 percent of Canadian women had experienced a sexual assault since age 16. But when they asked these women about reporting those sexual assaults to the police only six percent of those sexual assaults had been reported.”

Du Mont and White write that “it is incumbent²⁵ upon those…in the field of women’s health to assist journalists in more accurately²⁶ reflecting the true nature and multitudinous psychological, physical, social and economic costs of all types of sexual violence.”

“It is about exerting power and control over somebody else. It’s not related to sex. It’s related to abuse of power and control,” said Du Mont.

Rape also has become a weapon of war. The U.N. says hundreds of thousands of women in the eastern DRC have been victims of sexual violence. During the 1994 Rwandan genocide, it’s estimated up to 500,000 women may have been raped and up to 50,000 during the Bosnian conflict.

1 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

2 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

3 sensational   

adj.使人感动的，非常好的，轰动的，耸人听闻的

参考例句：

• Papers of this kind are full of sensational news reports.这类报纸满是耸人听闻的新闻报道。
• Their performance was sensational.他们的演出妙极了。

4 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

5 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

6 retaliation   

n.报复，反击

参考例句：

• retaliation against UN workers 对联合国工作人员的报复
• He never said a single word in retaliation. 他从未说过一句反击的话。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

8 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

9 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

10 drawn   

v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的

参考例句：

• All the characters in the story are drawn from life.故事中的所有人物都取材于生活。
• Her gaze was drawn irresistibly to the scene outside.她的目光禁不住被外面的风景所吸引。

11 savagely   

adv. 野蛮地，残酷地

参考例句：

• The roses had been pruned back savagely. 玫瑰被狠狠地修剪了一番。
• He snarled savagely at her. 他向她狂吼起来。

12 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

13 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

14 pregnancies   

怀孕，妊娠( pregnancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• She's had three pregnancies in four years. 她在四年中怀孕叁次。

15 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

16 jurisdictions   

司法权( jurisdiction的名词复数 )； 裁判权； 管辖区域； 管辖范围

参考例句：

• Butler entreated him to remember the act abolishing the heritable jurisdictions. 巴特勒提醒他注意废除世袭审判权的国会法令。
• James I personally adjudicated between the two jurisdictions. 詹姆士一世亲自裁定双方纠纷。

17 rapes   

n.芸苔( rape的名词复数 )；强奸罪；强奸案；肆意损坏v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的第三人称单数 )；强奸

参考例句：

• The man who had committed several rapes was arrested. 那个犯了多起强奸案的男人被抓起来了。 来自辞典例句
• The incidence of reported rapes rose 0.8 percent. 美国联邦调查局还发布了两份特别报告。 来自互联网

18 stereotypes   

n.老套，模式化的见解，有老一套固定想法的人( stereotype的名词复数 )v.把…模式化，使成陈规( stereotype的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Such jokes tend to reinforce racial stereotypes. 这样的笑话容易渲染种族偏见。
• It makes me sick to read over such stereotypes devoid of content. 这种空洞无物的八股调，我看了就讨厌。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

19 mythology   

n.神话，神话学，神话集

参考例句：

• In Greek mythology,Zeus was the ruler of Gods and men.在希腊神话中，宙斯是众神和人类的统治者。
• He is the hero of Greek mythology.他是希腊民间传说中的英雄。

20 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

21 disparage   

v.贬抑，轻蔑

参考例句：

• Your behaviour will disparage the whole family.你的行为将使全家丢脸。
• Never disparage yourself or minimize your strength or power.不要贬低你自己或降低你的力量或能力。

22 denigrate   

v.诬蔑，诽谤

参考例句：

• It was unkind to denigrate her achievement.贬低她的成就是刻薄的。
• To assert this is to denigrate the effectiveness of the police.坚持这一点就是贬低警方的办事能力。

23 contentious   

adj.好辩的，善争吵的

参考例句：

• She was really not of the contentious fighting sort.她委实不是好吵好闹的人。
• Since then they have tended to steer clear of contentious issues.从那时起，他们总想方设法避开有争议的问题。

24 replicated   

复制( replicate的过去式和过去分词 )； 重复； 再造； 再生

参考例句：

• Later outplant the seedlings in a replicated permanent test plantation. 以后苗木出圃栽植成重复的永久性试验林。
• The phage has replicated and the donor cells have lysed. 噬菌体已复制和给体细胞已发生裂解。

25 incumbent   

adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的

参考例句：

• He defeated the incumbent governor by a large plurality.他以压倒多数票击败了现任州长。
• It is incumbent upon you to warn them.你有责任警告他们。

26 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。