In her autobiography Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, after Dorothy Allison finishes describing the horrific sexual abuse she was subjected to as a five year old girl, she makes a statement. It is strikingly stark, but perhaps, most upsettingly, one that is made much too frequently, as is demonstrated by the fact that it has come up in several of the books read this semester.
“Two or three things I know for sure, but none of them is why a man would rape a child, why a man would beat a child” (43).
As a class, we have questioned this same reality when reading Push by Sapphire and The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler. Push tells the story of Precious, a young girl raped repeatedly by her father; at the age of sixteen, she is illiterate but has borne two children by her father. In addition to the continual rape, Precious is beaten and force-fed by her own mother. In Ensler’s collection of essays, stories, and poems, more than one story is told, but the vignettes still speak of horrific sexual abuse endured by young girls all around the world.
Why would a man rape a child? Why would a man beat a child?
There is no one, rational, reasonable answer to this question; no girl—or woman, man, or boy—should be subject to physical beatings and violations. There are inevitably many reasons that result in these abuses, but no excuse can justify this cruel abuse of power, particularly the power of age, which is the case in Allison’s life.
What these books have demonstrated, however, is the depth of human resilience. In The Vagina Monologues, Ensler counters the tales of violence with accounts of women finding their voices and standing up to their abusers. In Push, Precious manages to find strength in herself and start to change her path, as much as is possible given her circumstances. With the help of Ms. Rain, her son, and the other girls at Each One Teach One, this young woman breaks a generations-long pattern of neglect and cruelty. While I have not yet finished Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, it is evident already—shortly after the statement on page forty-three—that Allison will be resilient as well. No matter the outcome of her adult life, the fact that she intended, at a young age, to escape her circumstance, indicates a deep strength of spirit. And, given that Dorothy Allison has now written her autobiography, it is clear that she finds a way to move on with her life.
While it is not possible or responsible to make sweeping generalizations about gender, because each individual has his or her own individual strengths and abilities, it is interesting to compare these women—fictional Precious, Ensler’s hundreds of interviewees, Dorothy Allsion—to the men in Allison’s family. She discusses, at length, their resignation and hopeless acceptance of their lot in life—to live in a rural, impoverished area, working hard, day in and day out. The cycle of disrespect for women in the community that Allison grew up in is perpetuated, and the men act out in this way as they silently bear the pain that is “veiled by boasting and jokes” (28). Examining this seeming dichotomy—the women’s willpower to change versus the men’s resignation to fate—does not provide answers to the questions Allison is indirectly asking when she says, “two or three things I know for sure, but none of them is why a man would rape a child, why a man would beat a child” (43).
However, it does shed a light on the complexity of the social issues, prejudices, and cultural norms that contribute to intentions and behaviors of men and women alike, and it explains again and again the role that books like these—written by women, to give a voice—can play in revealing the human side of characters often stereotyped. Only in understanding this—that each person is an individual with circumstances—can we begin to answer the multitude of other questions that come up again and again, even in the face of resilience.
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