Angry and Inspired

Angry and Inspired

This is the first Olympics in which every participating country had at least one female athlete. The first gold medal of these London games was won by a Chinese woman sharpshooter, Yi Siling. This was the first Olympics to include female boxing; a British boxer, Nicola Adams, became the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in this sport, in the fly weight competition, followed by an Irish boxer, Katie Taylor, who won gold in the light weight competition, and a USA boxer, Claressa Shields, who won gold in the middle weight competition.

A lot of firsts for a lot of girls and women in a whole host of Olympic events.

Meanwhile a twelve-year-old girl, Tia Sharp, has just been found dead in her grandmother’s house near London. The grandmother and her boyfriend have both been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Another female. Another act of violence. Another relative involved.

Why is it that in seemingly progressive, so-called developed, modern democracies like the United Kingdom and the United States of America, infants and children are more likely to be killed or abused by a relative—often a parent—than by a non-relative or stranger?

According to the British Crime Survey (2010/2011), “more than one in four women will experience domestic abuse from the age of 16 (the age of consent here in the UK), and every year around 400,000 women are sexually assaulted, 80,000 are raped, and around 1 in 25 women are victims of stalking.” The perpetrator tends to be a person known to the victim, rather than a stranger, with the crime taking place in the victim’s own home as opposed to a dark street or deserted alley.

Part of me is tired of hearing one more story about child abuse, or reading about some woman killed by her husband or boyfriend, or learning that genital mutilation of girls goes on right here in Britain and not just in those other countries, on top of news stories about rape in war zones, sex trafficking of poor people, and torture and murder of gay people.

But another part of me says I can’t be tired. I’ve got to get angry. And I’ve got to direct my anger toward positive changes. Just like those athletes who have been training for years for the chance to compete on an international level, we—women and men, girls and boys—have to practice, every day, hospitality and inclusiveness and justice both locally—in our own homes and houses of faith—as well as globally—especially advocating for people who have few rights or protections.

I want to stay inspired by the first woman from Saudi Arabia to compete in the Olympics, Sarah Attar, who ran in an 800-meter event wearing a Muslim hijab headscarf. She happened to finish last, but she won a victory for the whole human race.