A fiery piece about the sexual violence women endure globally from the perspective of a non-Western Feminist. Ms. Alam articulates a scathing critique of Western assumptions about cultural superiority. Particularly around the issue of rape.

That's my precis comment. The restatement of what you said. Would you agree this is accurate?

I am moving slowly and carefully. I am male. While I can understand what it is to be raped, I am not a woman. My experience, while similar, is not equal. This is an emotional issue. I do not want to offend, anger, or hurt you in any way.

That being said, with a presumption of "goodwill" on my part, and responding to your request. Here are some thoughts on this subject. I apologize if they are going to seem tangential at first but there is a lot of thought behind my words.

Let me ask you a question.

Do you think there was more or less violence towards women in the Paleolithic (Old Stone Age before farming)?

Let's go back to the beginning right? The dawn of human culture. Before we started playing culture games. What kind of status would women have had?

In my Archeotourist Tumblr blog I wrote a critique of a NOVA documentary called "The First Face in America". It's about the analysis of the oldest skeleton found in North America. A teenage girl they named Naia who died about 10,700BCE at the end of the last ice age.

Here's the relevance.

Naia, who was about 16 when she died had already had a baby. Analysis of her pelvis showed scarring of the bone as a result of carrying a child to term before she was fully grown herself.

On her arm was a type of "pull and turn" fracture that we associate now with domestic and child abuse. The yanking of the arm while violently twisting it.

Now, how do you interpret that fact pattern?

The "Western" expert James C. Chatters (born March 20, 1949) an American forensic anthropologist, archaeologist, and paleontologist (not a PhD though) has a theory. He thinks Naia was a victim.

Mr. Chatters thinks that ancient Ice Age people, like Naia, lived lives shaped by violence. Mr. Chatters thinks women have always been sexual objects to be controlled and fought over.

Mr. Chatters by the way, did much of the work on the analysis of the Kennewick man remains and did the facial reconstruction for that individual. He is a recognized expert in the forensic examination of ancient bones and in facial reconstruction.

Kennewick man had healed head fractures indicating that he had suffered multiple blows to his head during his life. The tip of a projectile point was also found encysted in a healed wound to his hip. Mr. Chatters interprets these wounds as evidence of interpersonal violence.

He ties this to Naia by citing the fracture on her arm as an example of violence against women. He then goes on to theorize that male on male violence must have been common in the late ice age because of a shortage of available women.

He states that such violence was inevitable. Because,

“you have lots of women dying in childbirth so that the average female life expectancy is in the mid-twenties and then you have men with an average life expectancy in the mid-thirties. The imbalance in numbers makes male on male and male on female violence highly likely”.

I think Mr. Chatters is full of shit.