Mar

31

Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time — Cara’s WAM Presentation

Filed Under events and excursions, feminism, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 17 Comments

wam logoOn Sunday, as many of you know — and a few of you were actually there! — I moderated and participated in a session at WAM called Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time with three absolutely amazing and fabulous co-presenters, Marcella Chester of Abyss2Hope, Ashley Burczak of the SAFER blog, and Ashwini Hardikar, also from the SAFER organization.

The session was packed, and though I was nervous as hell, I thought that it went really, really well.  WAM filmed the whole thing, so once the video is available online I will also post it, despite how uneager I am to see myself on camera.

I plan to post a session recap/overview in a couple of days.  (In the meantime, my Feministe co-blogger Jill liveblogged the session — after she finished taking pictures of me like a mother at a school play.)  But while we’re waiting on me to get up off my ass and do that, I thought I’d post my actual portion of the presentation given at the event, for those who were not able to attend and might be interested.

I didn’t read off of this verbatim, adding in some ad libs and clarifications and omitting a few things as well, but it’s pretty true to what I actually said while presenting.  I’ve also added in the slides that I showed at the session, or at any rate the ones that are important to your comprehension while reading, as links — click it, and it will take you to a jpeg file.  They are basically just the news stories that I highlight in the discussion.

Also, I know it’s not the same as a live Q&A session, but I would be happy to take any questions you may have in the comments.

The presentation is below the jump!

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Mar

26

WAM

Filed Under blogging | 5 Comments

I’m in Boston, for WAM.  The day of travelling has been much too long for a simple 1 hour plane trip from Buffalo to Boston, but . . . there you go.

I don’t have any intentions to live-blog the conference.  In fact, I’m taking a break from blogging over this weekend, and will do my best to not check in at all until at least Sunday night, once my presentation is over and I’m safely back  home.  It’s not because I don’t love you; it’s a mental health thing.  Dealing with blogging has been much too stressful lately, and I need the break.  So if your comment gets stuck in moderation until then?  Sorry, tough cookies.

I will, however, be using Twitter!  Perhaps obsessively, we’ll see.  So, follow me.

And I will see you in a few days.

Mar

24

Rolling Stone Subscription = Cancelled

Filed Under assholes, media, misogyny, objectification, pop culture | 37 Comments

I said a few weeks ago that I was planning to cancel my subscription to Rolling Stone magazine, due to their repeated misogyny and other prejudice.

Well, I hadn’t yet gotten around to it.  But then, this issue just landed in my mailbox:

rolling-stone

The subscription to “random misogyny mag,” as my husband just called it, is officially cancelled.  They also got this email, along with my cancellation:

Dear Editors,

As a loyal subscriber to your magazine for many years, I have written you many letters, with increasing frequency, about the repeated misogyny and other prejudice displayed in your magazine’s pages.  From allowing Matt Taibbi to use misogynistic and homophobic slurs like “cocksucker,” to calling a transgender woman a “tranny,” to wondering not how to end intimate partner violence but how oh how Chris Brown will rebound his sales figures, you’ve ignored each and every email, both actually and in spirit.  Opening up my mailbox and seeing two women simultaneously fellating an ice cream cone was the absolute final straw.  I just cancelled my subscription, and I won’t be coming back.

Not that your liberal publication wants feminist female readers like me anyway.  Treating women like human beings is so the antithesis of sex, drugs, and rock and roll!  Wouldn’t want to water yourselves down, right?  Next thing you know, you’d be publishing cover stories about a show like Gossip Girl!

Oh, wait.

Good luck to you in the dwindling print media sector, Rolling Stone.  When your readers are so disposable, you’re going to need it.

So, dear readers, any suggestions on how I should replace said music magazine subscription?  Spin sucks, Blender is just as misogynistic to the best of my knowledge, and I found Paste to be downright pompous.  I’ve seen Mojo in stores and it looks alright, but I’ll be damned if their international subscriptions aren’t outrageous.  So . . . thoughts?

Mar

23

Observing and Reporting Rape Culture at Work

Filed Under assholes, marketing, media, misogyny, objectification, paternalism, patriarchy, pop culture, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 20 Comments

Watching random music videos on TV last night, this commercial for the new Seth Rogen film Observe and Report kept playing over and over again.  The basis of the film seems to be that Seth Rogen plays a quirky (according to IMDB, bi-polar — so yay, we can likely expect lots of “jokes” mocking disability and mental illness, too!) mall cop, who has to solve the case of a man who keeps flashing women at the mall.

Well I think we can all agree that this is a totally awesome and highly amusing premise for a movie.  So we should probably be unsurprised to see that just a few seconds in, there is a rape joke:

I imagine that the “joke” within the context of the film might possibly be that the line “everyone thinks they’re fine until someone puts in ‘em something they don’t want in ‘em” is referring to something other than a penis. If that’s not the “joke,” then the joke is clearly just “Ha! A penis in a woman that she doesn’t want in her! Whew, rape is hilarious!”

But even if it is the case, the “joke” is still “Oh, hey, that sounds like he’s talking about a penis! In her, when she doesn’t want it in her! Oh man, saying things to women that makes it sound like you’re talking about someone raping them is hilarious!”

And regardless of the context within the movie? The joke in the trailer is clearly the first interpretation anyway.

Actually, this isn’t the exact same trailer that I kept seeing on TV last night.  In the preview I saw, we also get a scene were Seth Rogen’s character grabs the female lead and starts making out with her right after she demonstrates how completely drunk she is by throwing up all over the sidewalk.  Get it!  It’s a joke!  Drunk chicks are awesome because you get to take advantage of them!

You can also rest assured knowing that when I was searching for this particular trailer on YouTube, I came across another clip from the movie that portrays women who are the victims of sexual harassment or assault as hysterical, helpless, over-reacting, obnoxious — and yet funny! — bimbos.

Aren’t we so happy that the Apatow clan is constantly purported by the mainstream media to be taking over and reimaging the entire comedy world?  God knows that we weren’t going to find a whole movie based on rape jokes before they came along!

Mar

20

When a Man is the Victim: A Second Study in Rape Apology

Filed Under media, paternalism, patriarchy, pop culture, race and racism, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 48 Comments

I’ve previously done an in depth analysis of victim-blaming and rape denial, and how it varies and how it stays the same, in a case of rape where a man was the victim of a female assailant.   After seeing this video at Sociological Images, along with the questions Lisa poses about the attitudes towards sexual violence it reveals, I’m compelled to do a second one.  The results are a bit long and wandering.

Below, rapper Lil’ Wayne appears on Jimmy Kimmel Live and (starting at about 2:40) is asked by the host whether or not it’s true that he “lost his virginity” at 11.  After looking shocked and attempting to laugh it off, Lil’ Wayne tells his story, and it may be triggering to some of you.

I do not know what Lil’ Wayne would call his own experience, but though he does not use the word, the admittedly few details he provides do indeed portray this quite clearly as rape, for reasons that I hope are obvious to most readers here, and which will be delved into in more detail below.  Lil’ Wayne seems to me to be uncomfortable with the line of questioning, and yet Jimmy Kimmel and the other man on the show continue to laugh and joke around about it, even after Lil’ Wayne says very clearly that the experience was harmful to him.

It seems like a reasonable question, to ask what the hell is wrong with Jimmy Kimmel.  But the problem is, while not excusing his actions for a single second, that he has a whole culture (and audience) backing him up.

In the majority of sexual assault cases, where a woman is the victim of a man’s violence, rape apology is rooted primarily not in the denial that male violence exists, but in the denial that male violence means something and needs to be stopped.  Conversely, in cases where a man is the victim of a woman’s violence, rape apologism is strongly rooted in the denial that women’s actions can count as violence at all — and especially that their actions can count as sexual violence against men, who are routinely construed as incapable of being victims.

In cases of both of these two types of sexual violence (though hardly the only two that exist), the victim is accused of “wanting it.”  But while the female victim is also, when that reasoning fails, accused of deserving it, this seems to not be the case with men.  No, they just always wanted it.  (Again, talking only about male victims of women — gay male victims of other men are routinely portrayed as “deserving” it as well as “wanting” it.)  There are no sneers about what he should and shouldn’t have been doing.  Just jokes about how awesome the assault must have been for him.  Like we see Jimmy Kimmel engaging in above.

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Mar

19

This is Rape Culture

Filed Under assholes, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 25 Comments

Note: The original post, which linked to a post at Jezebel about a question asked at Metafilter by a woman who had been raped by her boyfriend, has been removed.  I have never removed a post before,  and so the decision was hard and I still feel conflicted about it.  However, after learning about how the Jezebel bloggers have treated the woman — the background of which you can read in the still preserved comments — and how they have not allowed her to speak about her own experience, it makes me feel that I cannot leave it up in good conscience.  No matter how I personally felt or feel about the post itself, the woman in question feels that it is doing her harm, and I have no right to say otherwise.  And no matter how I feel about her other statements and reasoning, if there is any chance that this post was doing her damage, I want no part it in it.

In the very off chance that the woman in question reads this, I sincerely apologize if the original post hurt you in any way.  And I wish you the absolute best with your decision, and all throughout your future.

Mar

18

Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People

Filed Under LGBTQ, bigotry, discrimination, gender, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, violence against women and girls | 5 Comments

The video below, Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People, is a must watch.

A description, from the YouTube page:

Alishia is a firefighter. Enoch is a university professor. Dana is a software engineer. Jesse is an HIV prevention educator. Each makes invaluable contributions in the work place and in the community. And each faces the threat of losing a job, being denied housing or health care, and suffering violence and harassment simply for being transgender.

In Everyone Matters: Dignity and Safety for Transgender People – a new video produced by Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders(GLAD) Transgender Rights Proejct, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coaltion (MTPC), and MassEquality – Alishia, Enoch, Dana, and Jesse talk about their jobs, their family, their hopes, and their worries. Framed by hope and optimism, their stories nevertheless show how vulnerable transgender people still are, and highlight the need for comprehensive laws to ensure that people can obtain and retain employment, remain safe on the streets, and have access to health care and housing.

Click here to learn more about anti-discrimination legislation pending in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Hampshire, and how you can show your support.

h/t to Womanist Musings

Mar

18

Required Reading

Filed Under blogging, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | Leave a Comment

This post by Lisa at My Ecdysis, No Person is “Born to Rape” — about Josef Frizl, rape culture, how rape is regularly framed as inevitable and uncontrollable, which rapes are deemed “real” rapes, and so many other things — is so damn good that I’ve just shared it on every single social media site that I belong to.  And am now sharing it here.

Go. Read. Now.

Mar

17

Call Your Senators to Stop Violence Against Native American Women

Filed Under action alert, legislation, patriarchy, politics, race and racism, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 3 Comments

According to reports by Amnesty International, Native American and Alaska Native women have a rate of rape and sexual assault 2.5 times higher than the U.S.  national average.  And seeing as how all of us here agree that the U.S. average rates of sexual violence are already much too high, this is clearly far from acceptable.  Further, non-native men who rape native women are even more likely than usual to be able to rape with impunity, due to confusion with federal, state and tribal jurisdictions.

But the Senate is considering the Tribal Law and Order Act.  And while the name of the legislation sounds a bit sketchy, the descriptions I have found of its contents are indeed quite promising, and the Pretty Bird Woman House is apparently a supporter.

Amnesty International is promoting this legislation, and last week hosted a call-in week for people to let their senators know that they support legislation which helps stop violence against women, including the Tribal Law and Order Act.  Though the official call-in week has passed, it is not too late for you to make your call now — so please do.

h/t matttbastard’s twitter

Mar

16

Speechless

Filed Under courts, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 31 Comments

Trigger Warning

Via CNN, on the man who “allegedly” imprisoned his daughter in a basement dungeon for 24 years, repeatedly raping her and forcing her to bear seven of his children, and who is just now finally entering his plea in the case:

Josef Fritzl, accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar for decades and fathering her seven children, pleaded guilty to incest, imprisonment and one charge of assault Monday at the opening of his trial in Austria.

He denied charges of murder and enslavement. When asked to enter a plea on a charge of rape, the 73-year-old replied: “Partly guilty.”

Franz Cutka, a press spokesman for the Landesgericht St. Poelten court, said the “partly guilty” plea might mean that Fritzl contends he is not guilty of all the individual rape charges or that the violence used wasn’t as severe as rape.

Emphasis mine.

I’m not up on Austrian rape laws, so I have no idea what contending that “the violence used wasn’t as severe as rape” means in legal terms.  (The insight of anyone who does know would be greatly appreciated.)  But the idea that there might be some sort of threshold for severity of violence in order for any non-consensual sex to legally count as rape makes me physically seize up, wince and feel queasy.  And even worse, but just barely, the idea that anyone — anyone, even the perpetrator — could possibly think that such a concept applies in a case where we’re talking about rape committed through forcible imprisonment for 24 years, just.  Yes . . . it leaves me completely speechless.

Leaving me significantly less speechless is the description of the charges that CNN provides.

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