Abby Trujillo Maestas compares rape to the climbing of Mount Everest. "Why do people climb Mount Everest? Because they can. Why is there rape? Because it's possible."
Only now it is time for our society to say, "No more. No more." No more rape. Maestas, director of the Salt Lake Rape Crisis Center, will deliver her message to a national audience in November, when she speaks at the second Public Health Conference Addressing the Health Issues of Women of Color.Victims of violence, and rape victims in particular, are members of vulnerable groups, says Maestas. They have relatively little political or physical power. They are women, children, the elderly, the disabled.
"How does violence fit in with women of color? We need to look at how the violence against powerless people coincides with violence within a culture that isn't recognized." Just because there is violence within the Hispanic culture does not mean violence is part of the culture, says Maestas. "Violence is not cultural. It is a learned behavior. "We need to learn to stand up within our own culture as well as within the mainstream and say `No
more.' "To transform society it takes everybody working together, women and children and particularly it takes men.
"Ninety-eight percent of all rapes are committed by men," Maestas says. "Now is the time for men to teach other men that this is an unacceptable behavior. In order for the human race to survive, it is time for men to stand up and teach."
At the conference, Maestas says, "I plan on challenging. I hope all the women I talk to challenge all the men in their lives to change." Maestas says she thinks she will get a lot of phone calls after she issues the challenge. Men may call and say "I'm not a rapist, and there is nothing I can do about rape." They might be angry.
Maestas says, "It's kind of scary and people don't want to see it, but that's how we start a transformation. We have to start now."