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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Mar
12
On Prison Rape and Complacency
Filed Under assholes, bigotry, discrimination, human rights, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 2 Comments
Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence and rape apologism.
The NY Review of Books has published an article by David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow about the enormous problem of prison rape in the U.S. and how to adequately address it (h/t).
The authors describe in detail the sickening severity and tremendousness of the problem, and how it is only exacerbated by the apathy of those with the power to help victims. A very small excerpt (again, trigger warning):
When Laura Berry told the Arkansas corrections officer who had raped her that she thought she might be pregnant, he forced her, according to the commission’s findings, to drink turpentine and quinine, hoping that would induce an abortion. After Kenneth Young was raped at knifepoint by a cellmate in Pennsylvania, he flooded the cell to attract the attention of officers, and as punishment was put in a “dry cell” for ninety-six hours, with no access to running water, a shower, or a toilet—forced “to live in his own excrement,” as a court later put it. Alisha Brewer told our organization, JDI, that she was raped by three different corrections officers as a twenty-two-year-old prisoner in Kentucky; she reported the last two incidents, and was punished with more than four months of punitive segregation and loss of sixty days of good time on her sentence. Another prisoner who wrote to us, and who for obvious reasons prefers to remain anonymous, quoted the male officer who was abusing her: “Remember if you tell anyone anything, you’ll have to look over your shoulder for the rest of your life.” We get letters like this every day.
But perhaps their most shocking part of the article for many will be their claim that these atrocities do not need to continue:
One of the most pernicious myths about prisoner rape is that it is an inevitable part of life behind bars. This is simply wrong. As the variance in the BJS findings shows, it can be prevented. In well-run facilities across the country it is being prevented—and this shouldn’t be surprising. After all, the government has extraordinary control over the lives of those it locks up. Stopping sexual abuse in detention is a matter of using sound policies and practices, and passing laws that require them.
If we think rape is bad, one of the worst things a person could force another to endure, we should find prison rape to be especially horrific. For rape in prison involves not just rape, but also being legally kept captive either by or with your rapist(s), for an extended period of time.
Rape in prison is also a form of social discrimination and violence. In prison, as with everywhere else in the world, rapists deliberately seek out the most vulnerable potential victims, whether it be with regards to physical ability, social stature, or both. Even within prison, a place that makes all of its inhabitants marginalized, the most marginalized and the most vulnerable are still the most likely to be raped. Rape in prison is horrific violence, human rights abuse, and personal act of control, but it is also a means of reinforcing abusive social hierarchies of power.
Mar
5
Rape Myths Lead to No Justice for Sexual Assault Victims on College Campuses
Filed Under discrimination, education and schools, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 6 Comments
Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence and rape apologism.
You have quite likely read on other blogs about part two of the Center for Public Integrity’s report into sexual violence on U.S. college and university campuses. I wrote about part one of the report, A Culture of Secrecy, back when it was released. And A Culture of Indifference is no less brilliant, distressing and enraging. You can check out all the different sections here: A Lack of Consequences for Sexual Assault, An Uncommon Outcome at Holy Cross, Lax Enforcement of Title IX in Sexual Assault Cases, and ‘Undetected Rapists’ on Campus: A Troubling Plague of Repeat Offenders. Be forewarned, however, that it may be particularly upsetting or triggering. After merely reading the first section, I was personally so filled with rage that my vision actually blurred for several minutes.
Plenty of bloggers have already written about the general findings, the enormous problem of on-campus violence, and the downright insulting (lack of) response from the institutions where they occur. One particularly great piece was written by Sarah from SAFER, over at RH Reality Check, with my favorite small excerpt reprinted below:
Clearly school administrations do not have the same powers as law enforcement, and as such they cannot technically “prosecute a crime.” But students who choose to use the campus disciplinary system realize the difference. What they expect, and rightly so, is that their school is invested in upholding standards of acceptable and unacceptable student conduct, as they often do when passing judgment in a host of other misconduct cases. Students are routinely dismissed from schools for drug charges and plagiarism. Why should a charge of sexual assault be different? Students are betrayed by their schools not because the school is unable to mirror the criminal justice system, but because the refusal to treat sexual assault as a serious breach of student conduct amounts to entirely dismissing the severity of the crime and the trauma undergone by the survivor.
But as I find myself generally compelled to do when presented with the enormity of rape culture, I want to focus on a few specific, small sections from the report’s findings — aspects of the rape culture CPI exposes which I find to be particularly troubling.
Mar
2
N.J. Police Allegedly Harass Trans Woman Based on Gender Identity
Filed Under LGBTQ, bigotry, discrimination, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, violence against women and girls | 4 Comments
Trigger Warning for discussions of police harassment and violence against trans* people.
The New Jersey police department is being sued after two Newark officers allegedly harassed a trans woman on the basis of her gender identity.
Diana Taylor of Newark said two officers steered their cruiser into her path as she walked down a street two blocks from her home on March 23, 2009. According to Taylor, the officers made fun of her wig and demanded she show them her identification. She didn’t have it with her, but she gave them her legal name, [redacted].
The two officers had placed a bet on Taylor’s gender before they blocked her way, she said during a news conference after the ACLU-NJ filed the lawsuit in Essex County Superior Court on Wednesday, Feb. 17. One said to the other, “You’re right. I owe you $10. It is a man,” Taylor recalled.
She further alleged the officers began tormenting her by calling her a “chick with a dick,” “faggot” and other derogatory names. Taylor added they further embarrassed her by questioning her sexuality as witnesses gathered.
She said the officers handcuffed her and took her to a police station where they searched crime databases looking for a reason to arrest her. Although they found she had no record, Taylor contends police continued to humiliate her by frisking her in a sexually intrusive manner.
What these officers have allegedly done is not in the least bit unusual in terms of interactions between police and trans* people. For many trans* people of all identities (binary, non-binary, agendered/non-gendered, etc.), but particularly trans women, and particularly trans women of color, law enforcement is entirely synonymous with violence.
Feb
9
Deaf Woman Was Not Told Her Cancer Was Terminal
Filed Under disability, discrimination, human rights, women’s health | 9 Comments
I’ve heard a lot of heartbreaking and enraging stories in my lifetime, but this still manages to rank pretty highly up there. Health care providers never gave a woman with cancer and her husband, both of whom were deaf, a repeatedly requested interpreter. And thus, they weren’t told for three months that she was dying.
For three months, the Nelsons met with doctors at North Memorial Medical Center, but they weren’t aware Mary Ann was dying of cancer. In fact, they thought she was doing well enough in her battle with the disease that she could go to her retirement party. So they were stunned in March 2006 when her oncologist abruptly put an end to their hopes — and their request — with a terse note saying, “We can’t cure the cancer!”
It was the first time the Nelsons, both deaf, understood the cancer was terminal, according to the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. Mary Ann Nelson died in May 2006.
The agency pointed to the incident as an example of the medical team’s failure to communicate effectively with the Nelsons. This week, state regulators announced that North Memorial agreed to pay $105,000 to settle charges that Nelson and another patient were not provided access to qualified sign language interpreters. Often, David Nelson had to read lips or write notes to communicate with doctors and nurses, despite his repeated requests for an interpreter.
“It was extremely difficult and painful for them,” said Rick Macpherson, Nelson’s attorney. “They couldn’t ask any questions. They couldn’t have any discussion. They couldn’t get any kind of comfort.”
I imagine that this news is among the worst that can ever be received, even with all of the empathy in the world. The very idea of receiving it like this, and three months after it should have been received — precious time that very well may have been used quite differently had the information actually been conveyed — both makes me want to sob into my pillow, and causes my blood to boil.
Dec
23
Mother’s Disability Featured in Custody Dispute
Filed Under bigotry, courts, disability, discrimination, parenthood, reproductive justice | 10 Comments
Kaney O’Neill is a 31-year-old mother with a 5-month-old son. Her ex-boyfriend, and her son’s father, is now waging an ugly custody battle against her. So far, it’s an experience that countless parents have endured. What makes O’Neill’s story newsworthy, if not rare, is the fact that she has a disability — and her ex is using that disability as evidence that she is an unfit parent.
In September, Trais sued O’Neill for full custody, charging that his former girlfriend is “not a fit and proper person” to care for their son, Aidan James O’Neill.
In court documents, Trais said O’Neill’s disability “greatly limits her ability to care for the minor, or even wake up if the minor is distressed.”
O’Neill counters that she always has another able-bodied adult on hand for Aidan — be it her full-time caretaker, live-in brother or her mother. Even before she gave birth to Aidan, O’Neill said, she never went more than a few hours by herself.
The custody case, expected back before Cook County Judge Patricia Logue next month, raises profound questions about what rights disabled parents have to care for their own children.
Ella Callow, the director of legal programs for the National Center for Parents with Disabilities and their Families, said disabled parents are incorrectly “perceived as unable to perform to standard.”
“No judge wants to be the judge who sends a child home when the child gets hurt,” said Callow, of the Berkeley, Calif.-based advocacy group.
Callow said the bias against disabled parents is such that judges tend to grant custody to an able-bodied partner “even if they have a history that might usually be a heavy mark against them — not having been in the child’s life, a history of violence, etc.”
What Trais is attempting is repulsive, wrong, and inexcusable. But the bigger problem is that parents who try to pull this type of nonsense have a whole lot of backup. It ranges from the multitudes of ignorant online commenters who have agreed with him, to the judges who have ruled previous custody cases based on one parent’s disability, to complete outsiders who feel the right to speak on the matter as experts (emphasis mine):
But Howard LeVine, a Tinley Park attorney not affiliated with the case, said Trais’ concerns are legitimate and may hold legal weight.
“Certainly, I sympathize with the mom, but assuming both parties are equal (in other respects), isn’t the child obviously better off with the father?“
LeVine, who has specialized in divorce and custody cases for the last 40 years, pointed out that O’Neill would likely not be able to teach her son to write, paint or play ball. “What’s the effect on the child — feeling sorry for the mother and becoming the parent?”
Well here we see a bias exposed in all of its glory: you see, Mr. LeVine, all things being equal, the disability wouldn’t factor in to this decision at all.
Dec
10
New Report About Sexual Violence on College Campuses
Filed Under assholes, courts, discrimination, education and schools, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, violence against women and girls | 11 Comments
The Center for Public Integrity has released a three-part report on sexual violence on college campuses, and the response of administrators to such allegations. Part one talks about the culture of secrecy surrounding sexual assault proceedings. Part two talks about the barriers to reporting sexual assault on campus, and how such reports are actively discouraged. And part three discusses how colleges are under-reporting the number of sexual assaults that are committed on their campuses.
Thankfully, the information is presented in a highly digestible form — and I recommend you go read it all for yourselves. But it’s also a huge amount of information, and there are more things to write about it than I can count — from the student told that she would face disciplinary action if she shared the outcome of the sexual assault hearing she had initiated, to the fact that “mediation” (mediation!) is regularly offered as a resolution to allegations of sexual violence, to the administrator who actually told a student that one of her options was to have that administrator call the perpetrator into her office and tell him that what he did was wrong. Schools are actively sweeping allegations under the rug, and since the victim leaving the school is an incredibly common outcome, seemingly also just trying to get rid of the accuser, period.
But in all of this information — and again, there is a lot — one thing in particular stood out at me. And it was the repeated allegation, from many, many sources, that the administrators were motivated by a desire to save the reputation of their schools. Of course, administrators all act appalled at the suggestion. But I can only presume that with so many victims, so many victims advocates, so many victims’ parents, and finally an impartial outside source, concluding independently that this is a main motivating factor, there has to be some truth to it.
This strikes me not because it’s some big surprise, but because it’s a damn travesty. And it’s a travesty not just because the rights and needs of a victim of violence should come before any other such trivial consideration, but also because they’re quite frankly handling their own comparably petty concern absurdly.
Only in a misogynistic rape culture is it possible for an institution to go about avoiding the appearance of sexual assault taking place on their campuses by telling the victim to shut the fuck up rather than by rooting out the offenders and getting them off the campus. It’s a bizarre reaction. For most people, if you want to avoid being seen as a liar, you try not to lie. If you don’t want to be seen as a thief, you don’t steal things. If you don’t want people to think you’re a jerk, you try to be a considerate, nice person. And if you don’t want your campus being perceived as unsafe, you try to make it safer.
Unless, of course, you want to take the easy way out, and making your campus safer involves refusing to partake in a misogynistic culture.
Yet again, we run up against the diametric perceptions of rape as theoretically even worse than murder, and as practically on par with accidentally bumping into someone on the sidewalk. Because rape is, in practice, seen as negligible, no big deal, a molehill turned into a mountain, administrators can dismiss the woman standing in front of them, speaking of being raped the night before. Because rape is, abstractly, treated as the greatest horror one can commit, and one that only a subhuman monster could even consider, those administrators have an even bigger reason to dismiss that woman, lest their institution be seen as a home to those kinds of monsters. They’d rather it be the habitat of actual rapists than perceived as the habitat of mythical ones.
That’s a big problem to unpack, because it’s rooted in so many different aspects of rape culture — from victim-blaming to rape denialism, from the idea that rape is not a common occurrence to the idea that rape is an unstoppable, unpreventable force not worth fighting. But we do know from repeated demonstration that student activism can go a long way towards changing individual school policies. And so if you’re a college student, despite the enormity of the problem, you shouldn’t feel helpless — rather, you should be getting to work. I recommend SAFER’s newly launched initiative, the Campus Accountability Project as a great place to start.
Oct
12
Boss Admits to Firing Woman Because of Her Gender Identity
Filed Under LGBTQ, bigotry, discrimination, gender, human rights, legislation, misogyny, politics, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, work | 7 Comments
Vandy Beth Glenn was fired in 2007 when she informed her boss her boss that she was a trans woman with plans to begin her transition. With Lambada Legal, she has since launched a federal lawsuit against her former employer, the Georgia General Assembly. (Yes, you did in fact read that correctly — her employer was a government body.) In an interview, she said:
“Mr. Brumby told me that people would think I was immoral. He told me I would make other people uncomfortable, just by being myself. He told me that my transition was unacceptable. And over and over, he told me it was inappropriate.”
Then, Brumby fired Glenn.
“I’m not sure I was really thinking anything in that moment other than utter shock,” Glenn told ABCNews.com. “That he was so matter of fact about it blew my mind.”
Now, Sewell Brumby has actually confessed to firing Glenn on the basis of her gender identity, while still claiming to have done no wrong (warning: transmisogynistic/transphobic language contained in the quoted text):
During the deposition, Brumby describes Glenn, who is referred to in court documents by her pre-transition name of [redacted], as not being very good at her job and not particularly well-liked. Brumby said several times that Glenn’s transition would have been disruptive to his workplace.
“I think it would have been, I suppose, an unusual and notorious event. And I think when unusual and notorious events happen in the workplace it distracts the people in that workplace and takes away from the performance of their job duties,” he said.
Although the legislative cousel office has four one-stall gender-neutral bathrooms, Brumby was concerned about what would happen if Glenn were to use one of the public women’s bathrooms. He also expressed personal concerns about his reactions to Glenn’s transition.
“I think it would have made it very uncomfortable and emotionally upsetting for me to communicate with [Glenn's male name redacted] under those circumstances, and I imagined that some other number of our employees would feel likewise,” he said.
“It makes me think about things I don’t like to think about, particularly at work … I think it’s unsettling to think of someone dressed in women’s clothing with male sexual organs inside that clothing.”
Brumby couldn’t explain to Cole Thaler, the Lambda Legal attorney representing Glenn, why it was upsetting.
“It’s not something that I enjoy thinking about, and I think it would have been unsettling to have a constant reminder to think about something I don’t like to think about,” he said.
Brumby called her transition unnatural, but said he didn’t make moral judgments while acknowledging others would. He said that some in the legislature would view Glenn’s transition as “liberal or ultra-liberal” and could lose faith in the office’s required neutrality.
Shorter Brumby: In addition to generally being a transphobic bigot, I also can’t stop thinking about the genitalia of the women who work in my office, and see this as a reason why they should be fired instead of myself.
Oct
3
Edmonton Teacher Fired Over His Gender Identity
Filed Under International, LGBTQ, bigotry, discrimination, education and schools, gender, human rights, trans, transphobia and trans misogyny, work | 8 Comments
A trans man who worked as a substitute teacher in Edmonton, Alberta was fired by a Catholic school upon telling them about his plans to transition:
Jan Buterman is praised in a letter of dismissal for his teaching abilities, but told his gender change from woman to man is not aligned with the teachings of the Catholic church or its values.
The letter says the teacher would confuse students and their parents.
“I am horrified that this would happen to anybody,” said Buterman, 39, who taught social studies, German and French to students in Grades 7 to 12 in the well-to-do bedroom community of St. Albert north of Edmonton.
“I don’t think that someone’s medical condition is really fodder for your employer. It should not be any of their business. I respect people’s beliefs, I do. That doesn’t mean they get to ignore the laws we have around equality.”
Officials with the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board were not available for comment.
The letter suggests that board officials consulted with Catholic church leaders before telling Buterman that he was being removed from the list of substitute teachers on Oct. 9, 2008. Buterman filed the complaint Thursday before the time limit on filing ran out.
“The reason for removing you from the substitute teacher list follows a conversation we shared in which you indicated that you had been diagnosed with a gender identity medical condition and that you were undergoing physical gender changes from the female gender to the male gender,” wrote Steve Bayus, deputy superintendent of schools.
“In discussions with the Archbishop of the Edmonton Diocese, the teaching of the Catholic church is that persons cannot change their gender. One’s gender is considered what God created it to be.”
Sep
25
The Deal With Disability
Filed Under blogging, disability, discrimination | 1 Comment
Via Womanist Musings, I’ve come across a great blog called The Deal With Disability. The blog is written by Eva, a woman with cerebral palsy, and chronicles her experiences with how people treat her — from ignoring her, to being over-bearing and patronizing, or treating her like a child. Sometimes she writes about the experience; other times she actually records the interaction with a camera mounted discreetly on her wheelchair, and posts it along with commentary. The interactions are at turns funny, revealing, and appalling, or all at the same time.
One particularly popular video, of Eva and her aide out at a restaurant with a pushy and hovering waitress, is below:
Though a somewhat extreme example, this particular video shows a lot of common reactions to people with disabilities all at once, from ignoring social cues that would otherwise generally be acknowledged, invading personal space in a rather extreme way, treating disability as something to “feel better” from, and more.
While obviously chronicling Eva’s experiences, and therefore not covering the experiences and treatment of people with other wide-ranging disabilities, the blog exposes a great number of common and entrenched able-bodied prejudices. What it shows is that many able-bodied people respond to people with disabilities in a way that is intended to be helpful, polite, and/or friendly without considering how they would feel if someone was treating them the exact same way — one of the surest signs of privilege and prejudice. I know that I’ve seen myself in several of the interactions, and imagine that many other able-bodied people and people with disabilities different from Eva’s will see themselves, too. In line with Eva’s stated goals with the bog, it has helped me to recognize some of my own ableist assumptions, and the harmful behavior they can spawn. (And some comments on the blog also inadvertently expose defensive and self-righteous able-bodied privilege.)
Eva explains why so many common reactions to her as a person are misguided and offensive, and takes the time to also point out how things can and should go differently if only others would treat her with the same basic respect they afford to most able-bodied people. For anyone interested in social justice and breaking down privilege (whether their own, other people’s, or both), I’d call it a must-read.
Aug
27
Defense Attorney Calls Rape Victims “Whores,” and Worse
Filed Under assholes, bigotry, courts, discrimination, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sex work, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | 13 Comments
Trigger Warning
Every single time I argue that a rape apologist defense attorney has hit a new low, I speak too soon. This time, the evidence that there was still further to sink just came at a particularly rapid speed, and with a particularly hard impact.
Outside Charleston, West Virginia, a defense attorney defended a now-convicted serial rapist who specifically targeted prostitutes by repeatedly proclaiming the victims “whores,” and explicitly stating that their bodies and rights did not have the same value as those of non-sex working women:
Ed ReBrook, Gravely’s defense attorney, called no witnesses. But he summed up his case in a dramatic closing argument to jurors during which he called the victims “tramps” and “whores.”
“You cannot rape the willing,” ReBrook said. “They got in those automobiles with the intention of having sex for money.
“I would be horrified if any of the women in my life were raped, but I’m talking about decent, honorable women,” ReBrook said, and then dramatically raised his voice. “Not whores who have sex with many, many men for money.”
Assistant Prosecutor Fred Giggenbach immediately asked Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod Kaufman to stop ReBrook, but he did not.
“They are whores,” ReBrook persisted. “That is a perfectly usable word in the English language.
“Finding this man guilty of rape lessens the dignity of every other woman,” ReBrook said. “What they have done is turn sex into something disgusting.
“They are not like your wife, your girlfriend or your daughter,” he said. “They are street tramps. And what happened to them was, at least in part, their fault.
“If stupidity was a crime, my client would be a three-time loser,” ReBrook told the jury. “He may be guilty of assault, but he is not guilty of sexual assault.”
I had to read all of this over several times, feeling more and more nauseated upon each read, just to verify that yes, this article is recent, and no, it is not written on some kind of horrifically unfunny “spoof” site.
The idea that a woman who has sex for money is physically and emotionally incapable of being raped is absolutely nothing new. It has been around since the dawn of rape itself. The idea that a woman’s inherent human worth is tied to her sexual purity, and that any woman who has sex willingly — hell, who has sex willingly or not — has therefore given up her human right to say “no” in the future, is a basic staple of misogyny. It is used against all women, each and every one of us. But it is quite logically used most harshly, regularly, and despicably against sex workers — some of the very most despised women in a world that determines a woman’s value based on what she does or doesn’t do with her genitals.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
