How to Stop Rape

via la_donna_pietra's comment at We Need to Change How We Talk about Rape by Film Crit Hulk, Badass Digest

In case you can't read the rules on the picture above, here are the 10 Top Tips to End Rape:

1. Don't put drugs in women's drinks.


2. When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone.


3. If you pull over to help a woman whose care has broken down, remember not to rape her.


4. If you are in a lift and a woman gets in, don't rape her.


5. Never creep into a woman's home through an unlocked door or window, or spring out at her from between parked cars, or rape her.


6. USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.


7. Don't forget: it's not sex with someone who's asleep or unconscious -- it's RAPE!


8. Carry a whistle! If your are worried you might assault someone 'by accident' you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can call for help.


9. Don't forget: Honesty is the best policy. If you have every intention of having sex later on with the woman you're dating regardless of how she feels about it, tell her directly that there is every chance you will rape her. If you don't communicate your intentions, she may take it as a sign that you do not plan to rape her and inadvertently feel safe.


10. Don't rape.

Also, a poem by Patricia Lockwood, featured on The Awl.


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This should not have been a debate.

My right to safety is not a discussion.

To put this into perspective, could you imagine if Kamau held a "debate" about New York's Stop-and-Frisk policy between asked a white male officer from the NYPD and a black male victim of police molestation? "We need the ability to continue verbally harassing people after we have physically violated their civil liberties. It's comedy!"

And Kamau was right about that moderator. What was up with that guy?

For all of the people who have ever asked, "Is it really worse for women on the internet than it is for men?", or, "Is it really worse for women in comedy than it is for men?", the unequivocal answer remains, "YES, OF COURSE IT IS!" Whenever a woman stands up and speaks, especially for the rights of women, she is immediately a target for attack, even when people agree with what she is saying.

For a big drop in the even bigger bucket of proof, here's a link to what happened to Lindy West after the "debate":

If Comedy Has No Lady Problem, Why Am I Getting So Many Rape Threats?, Jezebel.


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"Hey, Representative Todd Akin."

"I have a question for you. If women can't get pregnant from legitimate rape, then how come there are so many light-skinned black people walking around Alabama?"

Because the rapists stole their cars. Obviously.


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My main problem with Republicans

Rape-Nuts

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

is that they actively support and vote for people like these: 30 GOP Senators Vote to Defend Gang Rape.

Please note that former Presidential candidate John McCain is one of the 30, now putting him in the same moral league as former Presidential candidate David Duke.

I have problems with Democrats, too, but so far, my problems with them have not included the phrase "defending gang rape."

Republican readers (all two of you, maybe), can you explain this situation?


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This man should be removed from his position.

"Date Rape is not Rape" ?!, by passtheERA, Feministing Community.

University of the Pacific Says Date Rape is Not Rape, by Cara, The Curvature.

UOP responds to sexual assault lawsuit, by David Siders, Recordnet.com. Emphases mine.

A woman identified in court papers as Jane Doe claimed in a March lawsuit that two basketball players raped her at a May 2008 party at Townhouses, campus housing on Pershing Avenue, and that a third player came into the room where she was and assaulted her as the first two players were leaving.

Pacific spokesman Richard Rojo said Thursday that the school does not consider the incident to be a rape.

"We would call it date rape," he said.

Rojo said the university considers "outright rape" and date rape to be different, in that date rape does not involve "a rapist jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly."

He said, "These are people who knew each other. ... It's a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities.

"It doesn't make it right. It's a sexual assault, and that's why the university took action in this matter."

Doe said in her lawsuit that Pacific's handling of the matter was hostile, causing her to feel unwanted at Pacific. Doe, a freshman, left the school.

I wonder how Mr. Rojo would feel if he had attended a party with his university colleagues, and three men whom he knew brutally attacked him. I guess it would not be called "outright assault" since the situation did not involve someone "jumping out of bushes and attacking people randomly." No, it involved three men purposefully attacking a targeted victim. Since Mr. Rojo knew his assailants, and was therefore on a "date" with the three men, he should feel comforted because this was "a social situation and unfortunately an all-too common problem at universities." Getting assaulted at university parties happens all over the world, therefore Mr. Rojo should not feel too bad that it happened to him. He could simply leave the University of the Pacific, like the above Jane Doe did, and find another university with new colleagues that might not "outright" attack him.

Additional articles and posts:

Thursday Frustrations, by Sarah M, The SAFER Blog.

University of the Pacific official's comments blasted, by Jennie Rodriguez, Recordnet.com

University Of The Pacific Claims That Date Rape Isn't "Outright Rape", by hortense, Jezebel.

University Of The Pacific Doesn't View Date Rape As Outright Rape, by Marcella Chester, abyss2hope.

From the annals of willful ignorance on sexual violence, by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon.

Rape Comes From Bushes, Spokesperson Says, by Amanda Hess, The Sexist.

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I cannot process this animal feces anymore.

[Big angry baby head!]

Is Date Rape Funny? Seth Rogen Explains It All For You, by Margaret, Jezebel.

You wouldn't know it from watching the commercials playing constantly on TV, but in Observe & Report Ronnie (Seth Rogen) date rapes Brandi (Anna Faris) after taking her out to dinner, and today, bloggers are talking about it.

It surprises me how many posts I have generated on Seth Rogen, and that most of those posts are about the misogyny of his projects. This is the same Seth Rogen whom I was first introduced to in the beloved Freaks and Geeks. I now refer to Mr. Rogen in my head as "that f-ing f-er who can eat bleep and go bleep himself. Bleephole."

Sady at Tiger Beatdown does the research and says it all so I don't have to, emphases mine: Um.

Anyway, I could spend a little while talking about how even though this comedy is going to be intentionally dark and edgy and scary and weird, and even though I know representation is not the same as perpetuation, and even though as a lady I am somehow always supposed to be a "good sport" and "understanding," because it's not as if women could look back on the history of the world and note that it has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and the history of art and note that it too has been pretty much exclusively male-dominated, and note when looking at art produced by men within a male-dominated culture that a whole lot of it reflects and perpetuates male domination, because that would mean they are just terrible people who cannot hear the Music of the Spheres nor hear the Eternal Human Verities within this canon that kind of perpetually excludes or insults or misrepresents them, this is fucked up. I could talk about how I am a person who routinely makes jokes about her own experience of sexual assault, and has maybe the least mature or gentle sense of humor in the world, and I still feel that the whole "dumb bitch gets raped by comic hero" thing is indescribably foul, and yeah, maybe I could "give it a chance," maybe I could try to be "fair" about this, but maybe I just have better things to do than watch a movie that might be about a woman who gets a deserved raping, maybe I've reached the precise point at which I cannot be a "good sport" any longer and that is the point at which I am asked to pay ten fucking dollars plus however much a soda is these days for a movie that may very well insult me and every woman who's ever had an unwanted dick shoved into her body. I could talk about how, even though I got warned in advance, even though I won't be seeing the movie, the incredible frequency of rape and sexual assault in our society means that many, many victims of rape will see it, and the PTSD that often accompanies rape will mean that, for a joke, for some dipshit filmmaker's attempt at being edgy, they are going to experience all of the pain and psychological trauma associated with that experience, they are going to feel that rape all over again, there, in their seats, in the theater, and they are going to pay for the experience, and if they try to talk about what that filmmaker did to them it's probably going to get sidetracked into some conversation about the Sanctity of Art which is invariably given more consideration than their actual lives.

I could talk about all of that, but I won't. These conversations last so long and always seem to involve some guy calling me "oversensitive" or accusing me of making shit up or otherwise calling my perceptions invalid because they conflict with his own or just saying that I'm pissy and not funny and mean, and all of it makes me so tired, you guys, so unbelievably tired of stating basic facts that pretty much everyone with a shred of decency should comprehend but most people and/or movie studios and/or acclaimed Artists of Our Times just fucking don't. So, nope, not getting into it. I'm just going to enjoy the fact that I am, apparently, psychic. Because, of all the many things this is, it is not even remotely surprising.

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As a potential member

of the one in six, or possibly one in three, I present you with a Public Service Announcement:

There is no such thing as gray rape.

It doesn't matter if you have known a person for six years or for six minutes. As I have stated before, if you have sexual intercourse with someone without that person's consent, it is rape. It doesn't matter if the two of you have had sexual relations for months, or if you have never met before. It doesn't matter if you think you're a good person. Sex without consent is rape. In the words of a prolific comedian who has taken the time to hone his craft quite effectively over the years,

Whatever you’re doing is what you are, everybody. If you’re boozing, you’re an alcoholic. If you’re raping, you’re a rapist. Who cares what your core is?

For further clarification on this topic, please consult the following articles:

Call it what it is., and "Gray rape," cont'd..., both by Ann at Feministing.


Also, rape jokes are not funny. Ever. Those attempts at humor--anecdotes usually shared by men to amuse other men--sound a lot different to the ears of 50% of the population. Especially when that 50% is more likely to be attacked, simply because we were born female.

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The one where Joanie's fiancé rapes her.

The scene below is from Designing Women, Season 3, Episode 20, “Stand and Fight”.

Mary Jo: If kicking a man is such great defense technique, how come you almost never see that on TV? I mean, you’re all the time seeing women get raped, but you almost never see a man get kicked there.

Charlene: Oh, I can answer that. Because the TV network censors won’t allow it. I mean, at least that’s the way it used to be.

Mary Jo: How do you know that?

Charlene: Well, because Rhonda Fay Knuckles, who graduated high school with me in Poplar Bluff, is in fact married to a network censor. Which in itself is incredible since Rhonda Fay had the filthiest mouth of anyone I ever knew. I mean, she would even answer roll call with, “None of your damn business.”

Mary Jo: That’s incredible.

Charlene: I know.

Mary Jo: No, no. That they can show a woman being raped on TV, but they can’t show woman defending herself by kicking a man in a certain . . . sensitive area. You know what gets me even more is that twisted ankle business. That is so annoying.

Suzanne: What twisted ankle business?

Mary Jo: Oh, you know how they always show some young, blond thing in high heels with her bosom popping out of the dress. You know, running away from some monster or killer or something. And she’s doing pretty good, she’s making pretty good time, until [Mary Jo snaps] she twists that ankle. And then she just lies there till the monster polishes her off. I mean, I guess that’s what you get for having big breasts and running around on three-inch stilts.

Suzanne: What do you want her to do, Mary Jo? Stand up and beat the tar out of Frankenstein?

Mary Jo: Yes! I want a movie where some woman stands up and beats the tar out of Frankenstein. Or Jason or Freddy Krueger or whatever, and does it before her friends get killed. I want a movie where a woman with a gun knows how to use it, and doesn’t let some man wrench it out of her wimpy little wrist. I want a movie where the hero is Charlene, not Charles Bronson.

[Applause]

Charlene: I kinda like that idea.

I really like that idea. I am tired of seeing women attacked in my media. I was so upset when I was watching Mad Men earlier this week. You can see clips from the episode, "The Mountain King", explained by Creator/Executive Producer Matthew Weiner here. Or, you can watch the entire episode here. The AMC website describes the scene as such:

In Don's office the same afternoon, [Joan's fiancé Greg] asks Joan to "pretend I'm your boss" and forces himself upon her despite her protest that "this isn't fun." He pins her to the floor, saying, "This is what you want, right?"

Way to euphemize, AMC. Apparently the network has no problem showing a rape on screen, but heaven forbid they put the word "rape" in print.

After the scene aired, I could barely finish my breakfast, and breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I quickly remembered the following study that I found earlier this year on Feministing:

A recent report by NOW-NYC's Women and Girls in the Media Committee (WAGM) uncovered the startling fact that a number of films in circulation today fail to accurately warn against the sexual content they contain. The Motion Picture Association of America is in charge of assigning detailed and precise ratings to films. And they are not doing their job.

In response, WAGM spearheaded a campaign aimed at the MPAA and its failure to include warnings of rape and/or sexually aggressive behavior in movies where these abominable acts are clearly depicted. The committee compiled a list of 144 films released between January 1996 and March 2006 that had received either an R or NC-17 rating with mention of sexual content, but no specific mention of rape or sexually aggressive behavior (which we have defined as any non-consensual sexual contact/behavior that does not result in sexual penetration). Of the 144 films screened, 31 depict rapes or attempted rapes, and 66 contain characters that are victims of sexually aggressive behavior.

I read the actual media report, and what troubled me was that many of the 31 films that depicted rapes or attempted rapes were mainstream R-rated films, like Con Air, The Good Girl, The Craft, and Disturbing Behavior. One could argue that these films reflect the American culture of rape. However, I am more concerned about these films--and television shows and videos and commercials and advertisements--normalizing rape and perpetuating the image of women as victims.

When I saw Joan's fiancé smashing her face into the carpet as he attacked her on screen, I felt demoralized. I saw the physical act of slut-shaming: Joan's fiancé was angered by 1) Joan's numerous past partners, and 2) the fact that she likes to be on top. So he attacked her.

I doubt that Matthew Weiner consciously knew he was doing this, but he effectively punished the show's strongest female character for owning her sexuality. In the process of attempting to elicit the viewers' sympathy for Joan's tragic situation, the show also reinforced the message that eventually, women who enjoy sex will always get what's coming to them. And not in a good way. :(

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So much to say, so little time.

Why Soldiers Rape, by Helen Benedict, In These Times via Feministing.

[ . . . ] Rape in civilian life is already unacceptably common. One in six women is raped or sexually assaulted in her lifetime, according to the National Institute of Justice, a number so high it should be considered an epidemic.

In the military, however, the situation is even worse. Rape is almost twice as frequent as it is among civilians, especially in wartime. Soldiers are taught to regard one another as family, so military rape resembles incest. And most of the soldiers who rape are older and of higher rank than their victims, so are taking advantage of their authority to attack the very people they are supposed to protect.

Department of Defense reports show that nearly 90 percent of rape victims in the Army are junior-ranking women, whose average age is 21, while most of the assailants are non-commissioned officers or junior men, whose average age is 28. [ . . . ]

[ . . . ] [Duke University Law Professor Madeline Morris and University of California professor and folklorist Carol Burke] both show that military language reveals this "unabashed hatred of women" all the time. Even with a force that is now 14 percent female, and with rules that prohibit drill instructors from using racial epithets and curses, those same instructors still routinely denigrate recruits by calling them "pussy," "girl," "bitch," "lady" and "dyke." The everyday speech of soldiers is still riddled with sexist insults. [ . . . ]

There's more!

[ . . . ] The message in all these insults is that women have no business trying to be soldiers. In 2007, Sgt. Sarah Scully of the Army’s 8th Military Police Brigade wrote to me in an e-mail from Kuwait, where she was serving: "In the Army, any sign that you are a woman means you are automatically ridiculed and treated as inferior."

Army Spc. Mickiela Montoya, who was in Iraq for 11 months from 2005-2006, put it another way: "There are only three things the guys let you be if you’re a girl in the military: a bitch, a ho or a dyke. [I know which one I am! Hint: we get things done.] One guy told me he thinks the military sends women over to give the guys eye candy to keep them sane. He told me in Vietnam they had prostitutes, but they don’t have those in Iraq, so they have women soldiers instead." [ . . . ]

Now for some statistics, which you may have seen before:

• A 2004 study of veterans from Vietnam and all wars since, conducted by psychotherapist Maureen Murdoch and published in the journal Military Medicine, found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving.

• In 2003, a survey of female veterans from Vietnam through the first Gulf War by psychologist Anne Sadler and her colleagues, published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military.

• And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, also conducted by Murdoch and published in Archives of Family Medicine, reported that 90 percent had been sexually harassed, which means anything from being pressured for sex to being relentlessly teased and stared at.

• A 2007 survey by the Department of Veterans Affairs found that homelessness among female veterans is rapidly increasing as women soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Forty percent of these homeless female veterans say they were sexually abused while in the service.

In addition to perpetuating the culture of rape, how can our government send soldiers to war, and then--if and when these soldiers make their way back home--allow them to be homeless?

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On this Mother's Day,

I am thankful for my Mummy and Grammy.

With that out of the way, here's what I'm angry about. It started with this Feministing article which led me to the source: My Spring Weekend Nightmare, by Melissa Bruen at The Daily Campus. Most of the comments following the original article were supportive. However, some other people had the gall to write the following responses, emphases mine, sic implied. First the doubter:

This story seems like a graduating journalist's cry for fame. If I'm mistaken, then I am sorry, but I don't buy into any of it. Sweet picture on the front page, and nice "swimmer's build," but I feel sorry for anyone who is actually a victim of assault and doesn't have such a romanticized story to tell.

Then the critic:

Let me first start off by saying that I feel sorry for what happened . . .

Now, on to some journalistic criticism. This is on journalistic matters and how this story was handled, NOT about the situation itself. I felt that the article was poorly written and should not have been put on the front page above the fold. If anything, it should have started in the Commentary section and continued elsewhere. Normally, any story that is printed a week after the occurence rarely gets on the front page of any paper. Yes, I know it was traumatic, and if she couldn't bring herself to write it before, then perhaps a reporter should have done an interview, so she could get her story out there and more timely.

Maybe if she had been killed, then she would have been front-page material. But being assaulted by multiple men on a college campuse belong in the "Commentary section". Right. He continues:

Secondly, the picture is totally inappropriate for the article. The first thing I honestly saw when I picked up the paper was the three words "SOME GIRLS LUCKY". We all know that "lucky" is another word for having sex, and to wear that shirt and talk about being sexually harassed, well that was just in very poor taste. After looking closer, I saw that there were smaller words, but from afar, no one would honestly see them. Another photo should have been used, or a different shirt.

Thirdly the article being released when it was was poor timing. Yes, I know taht she might not have been able to talk about it right away, but I ask that you go back to where I said that she should have talked to a reporter. To have the Editor-In-Chief who is graduating next week tell this tale without another issue for anyone to comment about the article seems also in very poor taste. This article should have run sooner, or it should not have ran at all. From my perspective, it seems like she wanted to get her story out there (and I give her full credit for that and support it), so she used her power as Editor-In-Chief and put it on the front page above the fold for the last normal issue.

Finally, because accused rapists allegedly hurt more than the people actually being assaulted:

Oh wow, you're sooooo brave. Please. There's a story of a kid in Georgia who was imprisoned for several years for having consensual sex with a 15-year-old girl when he was 16. THAT'S injustice, not whatever minor shenanigans happened with you. There are COUNTLESS instances of false rape accustations that lead to arrests, convictions, or simply the staining of a guy's name. (Duke lacrosse is only the foremost example).

When it comes to "rape", the vast majority of the time the only injustices are felt by men, not girls. I'm sick of supposed to be feeling sorry for girls (and yes, I say girls just to annoy feminists). This editor will probably have here future paved with gold by newspapers who will hire her only because she's female, while far more qualifed male reporters/editors, etc. get the shaft. Happens every day, in companies, newspapers, etc. across the land. Who's getting raped there?

The anger hit me again when I read this comment under a related post on Feministe from kayline:

. . . Anyway, I wanted to contribute to the larger discussion evolving here about campus rape culture. In my second year of college I dated a a guy named Jake for about a month, before I decided that I was feeling emotionally manipulated and pressured to engage in sex even when I really wasn’t interested. (In one instance he came into my room at 2am while I was asleep, crawled into my bed, and started fondling me. Sounds romantic? Is actually really unpleasant.) After I broke it off I mostly avoided him, but one night about a month later I was at a small party in a mutual friend’s room. I had been having a really bad week, and drank too much too quickly. When I decided to go to bed I was a little unsteady on my feet. Jake offered to walk me back to my room, and I shrugged and said sure. When we got to my room (I had a single) he helped me into bed, then crawled into bed with me. I blacked out after that. When I woke up he was gone and I was completely naked. I know for a fact that I got into bed with all my clothes on.

When I woke up I didn’t quite know what to think. I was hung over, and confused by the gaps in my memory of the night’s events. But as the day went on and I started thinking more clearly, I realized that I was feeling OFF. I couldn’t stop thinking about, but I kept talking myself down. “You don’t know what happened, it was probably nothing, don’t be so dramatic, you’re just looking for attention.” This was happening inside my own head. Finally I called my mom, and though I love her dearly, she failed me that day. I told her what had happened and she basically said: You don’t really know what happened, you’re never going to know, there’s nothing you can do about it, so just don’t think about it . . .

If you read the rest of the comment, the situation ended Jake getting a six-semester suspension from the college and his classmates throwing him a going away party, while simultaneously shunning the multiple women that he raped.

. . . the worst part was what my classmates did.

I went to a REALLY small college. 75 students per class. I’d literally lived in the same building with these people for 4 years, and they abandoned me, and abandoned my roommate. They offered us none of the support that they offered Jake, because they couldn’t stomach coming to grips with what had happened to us. When I go to alumni events and visit with people from school, I look at their faces and think “The night I cried myself to sleep alone in my room, you were at a party for the man who raped me.”

I then thought to myself, I wouldn't just think that, I would say it to their faces. But that's me now. That wasn't me in college. That's not other people, nor does it need to be. I'm the one who screams about things, both here on the interwebs and also on the phone to my Mummy. I'm the one who won't shut up because there are stories that must be told. I'm the one who gets acutely annoyed when women who think they "haven't experienced much oppression" make posts like this:

. . . It's time to realize that you win nothing by exaggerating your own victimhood or claiming that all individual problems are systemic. Above all, it's time to stop saying "It sucks to be a woman," because really (I've been one for like a whole bunch of years now), it doesn't. Being a woman is not yet like being a man, but it does not suck...

I think it sucks for the 1 in 6 women (and 1 in 33 men) who will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I think it sucks for Senator Hillary Clinton who is being blamed for the entire downfall of the Democratic party, although Howard Dean has been the chairman of the Democratic National Committee since 2005.

As far as I know, Mike Gravel and Ron Paul are still running, too. Ron Paul is very popular among the passionate and growing Liberterian sect of the US. Yet why aren't we seeing any media coverage on them? And why no coverage on the effect that the $2 billion a week war is having on our failing economy? Think about that.

Why is there a picture of the latest Menudo group up there? I watched Dance on Sunset last night on Nickelodeon, and Menudo performed. How does this relate to rape or Mother's Day? It doesn't, but one of the earlier episodes of Dance on Sunset featured a performance by Akon. Yes, that Akon. That one, too. Note that the latter throwing was at a Radio Disney concert. Ooh the irony. This same video documented child attacker is now a-okay to appear on a Nickelodeon show.

But what about Menudo? To make my long brain process short, why are all five members of the by-definition Puerto Rican musical group some of the lightest people in the United States? Latino people come in every shade, despite what the commercials on Univision would have you believe. Also, why are both of the hosts on Dance on Sunset men? You know the show's audience has to skew female. Don't girls deserve at least one female role model . . . on a dance show?

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Things I liked this week

Jokes that objectify women, by Matsu at media girl.

Let She Who Is Without Period Stains Throw The First Tampon, by Margaret Cho at The Huffington Post, via Feministing.

The Slut on Gossip Girl, by Jessica Wakeman at The Huffington Post, via Feministe.

Know Your Limit . . . For Rape?, by Cara at The Curvature, via Feministing.

Montana, nation's least-black state, confronts issues on MLK Day, by Rob Chaney at Billings Gazette, via Racialicious.

How would Chris Matthews sound if he talked to men like he talks to women?, by Hart Seely at Slate, via Feministing.

Also, I am now cross-posting my relevant musings at BlogHer.com, so tell your friends in China!

Happy reading!

Update 1/28/2008 - I forgot this one:

That fragile male ego, by media girl at media girl. including privilege, a poem for men who don't understand what we mean when we say they have it, by D. A. Clarke.

. . . privilege is being
smiled at all day by nice helpful women, it is
the way you pass judgment on their appearance with magisterial authority,
the way you face a judge of your own sex in court and
are over-represented in Congress and are not strip searched for a traffic ticket
or used as a dart board by your friendly mechanic, privilege
is seeing your bearded face reflected through the history texts
not only of your high school days but all your life, not being
relegated to a paragraph
every other chapter, the way you occupy
entire volumes of poetry and more than your share of the couch unchallenged,
it is your mouthing smug, atrocious insults at women
who blink and change the subject -- politely -- privilege
is how seldom the rapist's name appears in the papers
and the way you smirk over your PLAYBOY . . .

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In Rape Today

Eight teen rapists go free after taping their crime, by Jessica at Feministing.

Eight teen boys in Australia were given a slap on the wrist after sexually assaulting a 17 year-old girl, taping the assault, and distributing it as a porn movie.

The girl was filmed performing oral sex on two boys, had her hair set alight, was spat at and urinated on during the incident at a park at Werribee, inMelbourne's outer-west, in June last year.

...A DVD of the attack - which was titled 'C**t the Movie' - was distributed throughout the community, the court heard.

The most poignant comment so far has come from Blitzgal:

You know what stands out the most for me in this case? Six guys in Jena, LA were charged with attempted murder and conspiracy for beating up a guy who was then well enough to go to a school function the same evening. They literally faced decades in prison. Many of them were the same age range as these guys. Just to put it in perspective. Rape simply isn't treated as a serious crime. Period. Bodily assault is treated with more severity.

The problem is that rape is bodily assault. So is setting someone's hair on fire. Rape is not about sexuality. It is about violence and control and humiliation. And in this case, it is about a society that encourages violence against women in particular, and condones depraved, unforgivable behavior by eight individuals who, in a different world, would be justifiably "released."

#

Marital Rape, by Courtney at Feministing.

You all know I have complex feelings about my girl Oprah (evidenced by the title of my book review column), but right now she is doing a great service. I'm watching her show on marital rape and it is both horrifying and such a relief that more national airtime is being devoted to this critical and neglected issue. She just told viewers that 1.5 million American women are raped or sexually abused every year by an intimate partner...

I'm trying to watch the episode now. I get so frustrated and angry when I read these stories and I watch these shows, with these stories of women who stay in relationships with men who abuse them mentally, physically and emotionally. Women who don't recognize the abuse because they married to their abusers. Women who think their wedding vows have deservedly condemned them to a life of misery. Women who put their shattered matrimonial dreams first, and their own well-being last.

There is so much that can be said and has been said on the subjects of rape, sexual assault and abuse. Here are two more sentences:

• If you have been forced to perform sexual acts against your will, you have been raped.

• If you have forced someone to perform sexual acts without their consent, you have committed an act of rape.

For a more educated view on the subject, visit the National Domestic Violence Hotline or call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233).

What I didn't like about the Gossip Girl pilot.

From the comments section of the Gossip Girl recap on the site that must not be named:

Allison says:

. . . I have to say I did not approve of the scene where Serena has sex with Blandy McBlanderson [Nate] being interspliced with the scene where Steff/Chuck is trying to rape her. It's just offensive to parlay glorious bar sex with a frickin rape attempt and that idiot Blair child being over-dramatic about Blandy's revelation of the sex scene. That combined with the other attempted rape (two date rape attempts in one episode by the same guy?!) made me feel like the show was normalizing date rape . . .

For more astute observations on this based-on-a-book television show, you can read my comments here, here and here on South Dakota Dark. I'm funny!

Also, there is no need to euphemistically refer to Chuck's actions in the pilot as attempted "date" rape. He wasn't on a date with either Serena or Jenny when he attacked them. He is an attempted rapist and he should be in prison. That goes for real life attempted rapists as well. Because, as we saw in the show, the attempts don't stop even when the victims fight back, and those are only the attempts we know about.

Date Rape and Name Changing

I love this cake!

I found this video from The Onion on today's Pajiba Love: J.K. Rowling Hints At Harry Potter Date Rape. I have my own thoughts about it, but I'd like to hear yours, too. Second opinions are nice when they're requested. Subsequently, I found this video,
Onion News Network : Panda Demands Abortion, which I actually found amusing. I guess abortion can be funny. But rape? No.

#

In marital news, What's in a name? by Jessica on Feministing:

...Even before identifying as a feminist, the whole changing your name thing never really made sense to me. I mean, what's the point outside of upholding an antiquated sexist tradition? You want to share a last name with your partner for feeling-like-a-family and kid purposes? Ok. What about hyphenation? Or taking the woman's last name? And I'm sorry, I don't buy the "it's just easier" argument. What's easy about changing your name and all that paperwork? Ugh.

I'm in the minority opinion on this one, 81 percent of women getting married intend to change their last names. (An aside: Can I just how much I love that National Review writer and IWF's token young woman Alison Kasic says that I'm crazy radical for my opinion on name-changing? The day the National Review doesn't think I'm radical, I'll have a problem.)...

As I have told my friends and associates, I'm not changing my name unless I go into the Witness Protection Program. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my kids if I have them with someone else, especially someone with a hyphenated last name like mine. That'll be fun. I know I'd be hard-pressed to not give my kids my name. I don't care who it ticks off, they're getting my name. The question isn't whether there will be a hyphen, but how many.

Why I don't say, "I'm sorry"

unless I really have to:

Living While Female, by Ann, at Feministing.

above and beyond all this, by kate, at a cat and twenty.

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death, by Joss Whedon (yes, that Joss Whedon), at Whedonesque.

And, if you haven't heard any mainstream media coverage about this heinous situation, let's read about it together, shall we:

The De Anza case: men really hate drunk teenage girls, at I Blame The Patriarchy.

I remember when I was in college--which was like so long ago, I know--my mother was worried about my being a part of the LGBT awareness group on campus. She thought other people would harbor animosity towards me for associating with the gays. I told her then, and I still tell her now, people already hate me for no reason at all. There are people I know for a fact have despised me in the past and will continue to do so in the future because I'm too smart, or too dark, or too fat, or not fat enough, or too funny, or too creative, or too kind, or too patient, or too caring, or too progressive, or too concerned, or too peaceful, or too fortunate, or too demanding, or too driven, or too critical, or too informed. Or because I have a vagina.

Slightly more humorous post to follow in a moment.

This expresses my sentiment.

From Feministing, You will not shame me, by Samhita:

I have gotten email upon threatening email to rescind what I said last year about the Duke Women's Lacrosse Team and their uninformed support for the accused rapists in the Duke rape case. The case that was mishandled, manipulated and finally dropped on Wednesday...

...I just want to say first and foremost, I still stand by what I say and have said. It does look bad for people to support accused rapists, at that point we didn't know the facts either way. Furthermore, women of color are in fact OFTEN sexually assaulted and usually the criminal justice system and/or the media either overlook it or mishandle it. Women of color often have a higher burden of proof that they are not lying about rape. Case in point (as Amanda and others stated ): when the lack of DNA evidence was announced -- before we even knew whether the players were innocent or not -- people were quite quick to accuse the accuser of being guilty of lying...

...And what is the outcome of all of this? The general public now believes that black strippers ARE in fact lying whores and the worst thing that could happen to a strapping Duke lacrosse player is that his lily white reputation is marred by false accusations. Beyond this being a terrible precedent set for women that bring up rape accusations (still something underreported) to never ever report rape again, the racist and sexist reaction from the media and public have been to say the least profound...

I also liked this comment that followed by The Law Fairy, emphases and expletives hers:

...These guys were accused, potentially falsely. They got a lot of publicity for it, and now they're sobbing about their poor tattered reputations.

Um.

These guys all but BEGGED for the publicity they got. They did media interviews OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL. They whined and screamed the whole time that the simple existence of charges against them was itself discriminatory. And because they are rich and white, the [MainStream Media] ate it the fuck UP. Make no mistake: these assholes WANTED the publicity. They MADE the publicity happen. Their LAWYERS made the publicity happen. This was a calculated media attack meant to intimidate the DA into fucking up, and guess what -- he did. Now, instead of taking their victory and going home, they want to re-write history and pretend that the MSM was against them this whole time.

I don't think I've EVER read an MSM story where a stripper was believed over a rich white guy she claims raped her. I read a few blogs supporting the woman in this case. Please, if someone could point me to an MSM article that ACTIVELY SUPPORTED THE NOTION THAT THESE PRICKS WERE GUILTY, I would really appreciate it. I'm not talking balanced articles. I'm not talking articles reporting the facts. I'm talking articles that came out and said "these scumbags did it. Listen to the stripper." I mean, crazy I haven't seen one, I know, Time and Newsweek print stories like that all the time, right?...

Someday I'll write about happy things again, like this week's episodes of The Office and 30 Rock. I need to get my own Floyd, because this VapoRub isn't going get under my nose by itself.

Still Angry, Retroactively.

The other prisoners, by Luke Harding, The Guardian.
May 24, 2004.

Late [2003], [Amal Kadham Swadi], one of seven female lawyers now representing women detainees in Abu Ghraib, began to piece together a picture of systemic abuse and torture perpetrated by US guards against Iraqi women held in detention without charge. This was not only true of Abu Ghraib, she discovered, but was, as she put it, "happening all across Iraq".

Military Hides Cause of Women Soldiers' Deaths, by Marjorie Cohn, TruthOut.org.
January 30, 2006.

Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day. They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.

The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired US Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview. It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.

This makes me angry.

The Women’s War, by Sara Corbett, New York Times Magazine.

If the link expires, you can also read the article here, and here, sans pictures.

A summary of the (not-so) shocking points, posted at Feministing:

...Holy shit, one-third of a nationwide sample of female veterans said they experienced rape or attempted rape during their service. Well, of course rape is rampant in a war zone based on humiliation, sexism, and blind submission to authority. (Hell, rape is rampant everywhere.)

Holy shit, female soldiers are more likely to be diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, sometimes at twice the rate of male soldiers. Well, of course women exposed to the “double whammy,” as Patricia Resick calls it, of sexual trauma and exposure to combat are coming home with some serious mental health issues. Though the 160,000 female soldiers that have been deployed in Iraq often are in roles technically classified as “combat-support,” the violence of this war is ubiquitous. (There were just 7,500 females who served in Vietnam and 41,000 who served in the gulf war.)

Holy shit, the Department of Defense isn’t doing anything to support these women: of the 3,038 investigations of military sexual assault charges in 2004 and 2005, only 329 have resulted in a court-martial of the perpetrator.” Well, of course the government isn’t taking responsibility. Just like they’re not taking responsibility for the rampant brain injuries resulting from this new kind of warfare or the civilian casualties or the lies that got us into this war in the first place or the…you get the point...

And an excerpt from the article that resonated with me:

...There appears to have been little, too, in the way of female bonding in the war zone: most reported that they avoided friendships with other women during the deployment, in part because of the fact that there were fewer women to choose from and in part because of the ridicule that came with having a close friend. ''You're one of three things in the military - a bitch, a whore or a dyke,'' says Abbie Pickett, who is 24 and a combat-support specialist with the Wisconsin Army National Guard. ''As a female, you get classified pretty quickly.''

Many women mentioned being the subject of crass jokes told by male soldiers. Some said that they used sarcasm to deflect the attention but that privately the ridicule wore them down. Others described warding off sexual advances again and again. ''They basically assume that because you're a girl in the Army, you're obligated to have sex with them,'' Suzanne Swift told me at one point...

Read the entire article. It's long, but informative. I have my own observations to make about the article, but I'm too tired to post them all now. Though I will say, I sense a pattern of abuse emerging.