Warning: Today’s “musings” are likely to be more of a rant. As you can tell from the title, I am having some serious reservations about how far women in the U.S. have actually come in 2014.

What prompted my doubts? This morning I was driving to work while listening to the radio. The news reported that the attorney for the boys who sexually abused Audrie Pott is alleging that Audrie’s suicide is her parent’s fault, not the fault of the boys who abused her, and even trying to smear Audrie’s father by calling into question his paternity. In other words, since the victim is dead, and they can’t blame her, they are blaming her parents.

If you are unfamiliar with the case, brace yourself, because it’s very disturbing: In 2012, fifteen-year old Audrie Pott went to a party at a friend’s house with twelve other students from her high school. She fell asleep after drinking Gatorade laced with alcohol, and when she woke-up, someone had removed her shorts and written mocking words on her body. A week later, Audrie learned that photos had been taken of her while she was asleep and shared through text messages. She consequently committed suicide by hanging herself in a bathroom in her mother’s home. Three boys (who are, I assume, Audrie’s class-mates) are facing criminal charges of penetration with a foreign object, possession of child-pornography, and sexual assault.

Thus, you can understand why I am questioning just how far we “have come” in my lifetime, and finding great dissatisfaction with the answer.  The women’s movement in the US began in earnest in the late 1960’s, almost 50 years ago.  In August of 1970, 50,000 women marched down Fifth Avenue in NYC demanding legal abortion, universal childcare, and equal pay. By the late 1970’s, activists were organizing “take back the night” marches, which if you are around my age, you may remember being held at your college or in your town. There are now laws that are supposed to protect women from rape and violence, which did not exist when I was born. But it’s hard to feel like much has changed when we frequently hear heart-breaking stories about girls like Audrie, whom those laws failed to protect.

My first thought this morning was that the punishment should fit the crime. The boys who did this to Audrie should be stripped naked, violated with foreign objects, and publicly shamed via text messages to all their peers. You can tell I was pretty upset and not thinking rationally.

The more I thought about it and had a chance to calm down, the more I realized that finding a solution to this problem is not only about punishment, and it’s not just about laws. Sure, it’s good to have laws to protect us and bring criminals to justice after the fact, what about prevention? What about educating our boys to respect our girls? And teaching girls that if something bad is done to them, it is in absolutely no way their faults? Why don’t we educate mom and dad to share that message at home…especially dad, who needs to be an outspoken role-model. Why is this not included in our primary school curriculum, in an age-appropriate way? Educating kids from a very young age about right and wrong and respect towards other human beings, male and female is vital to our survival and well-being as a society. That’s where we have a long, long way to go, and will have to continue to work, educate, and protest to bring about change. I hate to think it will take another fifty years, but I certainly hope that by the time I make my exit, our “babies” will have come further than we have today, and no young woman will ever again have to experience what Audrie did.