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"In my heart, I think a woman has two choices: either she's a feminist or a masochist." --Gloria Steinem
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May
8
Walking Out a Rapist
Filed Under Europe, International, human rights, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sex and sexuality, sex work, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 22 Comments
Did anyone doubt that my first post back would be about a rape-related issue that is considered “controversial”? If not, you know me well.
. . . Well, almost.
You see, the British Home Office has released this campaign to fight the sex trafficking industry — and from what I can tell, I love the concept (I have a practical criticism later). But, nowhere can I find the full text on the poster or an image large enough to make out the small text myself. As the Home Office has received my criticism before for some pretty terrible anti-rape ads, I’d like to know the full text before I sing its praises. If you find it, please send it on! I’ll be looking for it over the next few days; just be aware that my opinion is subject to change or expand on that basis. But here’s what we know:
Posters will appear in clubs and pubs from Monday warning men against paying for sex in brothels with exploited or trafficked women.
The posters, which will be piloted in men’s toilets in Westminster and Nottingham, will say “Walk in a Punter. Walk out a Rapist”.
They are part of a six-month home office review into tackling the demand for prostitution, which began in January, and aim to point out that trafficked women are forced into selling sex, and that forced sex is rape.
“So if you pay for sex with a trafficked woman what does that make you?” the posters ask.
They also urge Johns “if [they're] man enough” to call Crime Stoppers if they come across something suspicious.
Popularity: 15% [?]
May
1
Rape Jokes Taken To Whole New Level
Filed Under Europe, International, assholes, misogyny, patriarchy, pop culture, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 62 Comments
UPDATE: The Guardian has removed O’Hara’s blog post about the Johnny Vegas incident and Vegas has filed a complaint. This does not surprise me, actually, as Britain has very strong libel laws and the post called the actions “sexual assault” in the title even though he was not charged or convicted of anything. Personally, I don’t think that this means the incident did not happen. The facts are supposed to be in dispute, but this will be the case with any crime. Again, I’ve seen no one dispute the sexual assault — I have seen disputes over whether or not penetrative rape took place. I also haven’t found a statement from Vegas about the incident, a statement from the woman who was allegedly assaulted, or a statement from O’Hara in defense or retraction of her article.
Of course, I feel that I made it clear in the blog post that he has been neither charged nor convicted of any crime. And I stand by everything I said, in the context of an opinion about what the nature of these actions would be if they occurred, and so long as its recognized that the opinion on this specific instance was based off of an eye-witness account that was corroborated and printed in a major international newspaper. I am reopening comments, but will absolutely close them again if things get out of hand like they did last time.
Warning: I personally found this to be very upsetting and triggering.
Popularity: 41% [?]
Apr
26
Faulty Feminist Introspection
Filed Under feminism, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sex and sexuality, sexual exploitation and harassment, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | 17 Comments
Will someone tell me what the fuck this shit is?
A study has concluded that men often “misinterpret” women’s subtle messages during a sexual encounter when the message means “stop”. But my WTF is not towards the study, which is nonetheless very interesting to talk about — my outrage is at the blog post from Broadsheet (emphasis mine).
Now, for the ear steam: I think it’s unfair to blame this sexual miscommunication on men. Just as men are misreading women’s indirect resistance, women are miscalculating how men will interpret their cues to slow down or stop. (Interestingly enough, in previous research, Motley found that women use indirect messages of resistance to avoid upsetting men, but most men easily accept direct resistance.) I also find it hard to blame men for not correctly reading women’s indirect resistance; women are often expected to, in the very least, put on a halfhearted performance as the steadfast sexual gatekeeper — even if it’s clear that she ultimately intends to abandon her post for the night. Given that cultural script — first she resists, then she consents — how is it any surprise that a guy would misinterpret a woman’s subtle suggestions to slow down?
What. The. Fuck.
Of course, the commenters think that it’s the best damn thing since sliced bread.
When Clark-Flory began this post with anger for the concept of “faulty male introspection,” I was with her. The idea sounded pretty damn offensive to me, too. What, guys are just too stupid to talk to women and ask what they mean when unsure? Women are a whole different species that we can’t expect men to actually communicate with? It’s not that he’s sexually assaulting you, ladies, it’s that he has faulty male introspection.
But no. That’s not what she was mad about. She was mad because it placed all the blame on guys. Due to ambiguous writing, I’m not even sure if she merely thinks that women need to take some of the blame, or if she thinks men should be entirely off the hook.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Apr
11
Dancers For Hire Exploited, NYT Gets Hard On
Filed Under WOC issues, class and economics, media, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, race and racism, sex and sexuality, sex work, sexism, sexual exploitation and harassment, stereotypes, work | 3 Comments
Former employees have filed a lawsuit against a club where they used to work as dancers for hire, claiming that they were never paid wages for their work. The women are mostly immigrants, many of them Spanish-speaking only, and they were paid a mere $2 per dance direct from the customers while the club raked in profits from the door fee and drinks. They were forced to pay fees to the club in order to work there and were all around treated like shit. (All emphasis mine.)
In interviews in Spanish, several former dancers said the owners often made them pay a $60 or $70 fine when they missed a day of work. Several complained of having to pay an $11 fee each day just to enter the club and an additional $10 if they arrived a half-hour late.
They said that sometimes, after dancing from 4 p.m. to 4 a.m., they had to attend meetings that lasted until 6 a.m. in which the owners held forth, calling some dancers “puta” (whore) as well as ugly and fat. The dancers’ most serious complaint was that the club never paid them a cent for their 45-hour workweeks.
“I never received anything in wages,” said Patricia Gonzalez, a long-haired, leggy immigrant from the Dominican Republic who quit dancing at the Flamingo last June. “In my three years there I must have paid thousands of dollars in fines. And I paid the daily fee of $11 to enter. What kind of job do you have to pay just to go to work?”
The lawsuit raises an intriguing question of law: whether the for-hire dancers were employees, who should have been paid wages for every hour they worked, or independent contractors who, as the Flamingo’s owners assert, were merely renting space on the dance floor.
The owners say they had no obligation to pay wages, asserting that the dancers were entrepreneurs who made a living by keeping the $2 they earned for each dance.
“They’re paying to rent the space so they can make a living,” said Peter Rubin, a lawyer for the club. “They can keep all the money they make dancing. They don’t have to split anything with the house.” The club makes its money by charging the men $5 to enter and $7 a drink.
[. . .]
If the dancers win their lawsuit, it could have ripple effects at the city’s many for-hire dance clubs, latter-day versions of Depression-era joints where men paid 10 cents for a dance. Many of today’s dancers, like their customers, are illegal immigrants who earn their money off the books. Amy Carroll, a lawyer for Make the Road, said it was ridiculous for the Flamingo to suggest that the dancers were independent contractors.
“It seems that Flamingo is doing the worst of both worlds,” she said. “They’re not paying the workers anything, and they’re controlling every aspect of the dancers’ work life. They tell them what days to work, what time to show up, what outfits to wear, what makeup to use. They even make the dancers sign in and out to go to the restroom. That level of control makes them employees, not independent contractors.”
Popularity: 20% [?]
Mar
31
It’s Not Just A Dream: Responsible Reporting on Sexual Assault
Filed Under media, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 11 Comments
I spend a lot of time writing about rape apologism and really irresponsible coverage of sexual assault in the media. I also regularly find myself asking people to write letters to editors, criticizing the common victim-blaming, women-are-liars approach to articles about rape.
And so, when responsible and honest reporting actually happens, I think that I owe it to all of you, and to the journalists out there who want to do the right thing, to point it out. So here we go: via the SAFER blog, a local Ohio newspaper called the Athens Messenger ran a story about how sexual assault is more than just penetrative rape. It’s a good article, though not very long, and you should go read the whole thing.
One in four college women will be sexually assaulted during their college years, experts say, but what many college students consider to be sexual assault is actually only a small part of what the law defines as sex offenses.
“Sexual assault occurs along a continuum of intrusion and violation ranging from unwanted sexual comments to forced sexual intercourse,” according to an Ohio University Police Department statement on sexual assault, which states that anything along that continuum violates the student code of conduct.
“When there’s no sexual contact, people don’t necessarily think of sexual assault,” said Lindsey Daniels, who is the sexual assault prevention program coordinator for Tri-County Mental Health and Counseling.
Not all sex offenses involved physical contact. Several sex offenses defined in the Ohio Revised Code, such as public indecency and voyeurism, do not involve physical contact.
The misdemeanor-level offenses like public indecency, voyeurism, and sexual imposition (any unwanted sexual touching) get reported much less than forceful sex offenses like rape, but Amanda Childress, OU’s assistant director of health promotions, said they probably happen just as often.
Well, there you go. Truth!
Popularity: 12% [?]
Mar
29
Updates and Things
Filed Under 2008 election, Republicans, assholes, blogging, media, objectification, politics, race and racism, random, rape and sexual assault, sex work, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 5 Comments
A few stories I’ve recently blogged about have some updates:
Yesterday, I wrote about a woman who was forced to undergo a painful process of removing her nipple piercings before she could board a plan, apparently for the amusement of the male security officers. The TSA has responded to the situation:
The TSA said Friday in a statement on its Web site that the officers properly followed procedures, but that the procedures must change. In the future passengers can either allow a visual inspection of their piercings, or remove them, the agency said.
The statement stopped short of apologizing to Hamlin.
”TSA acknowledges that our procedures caused difficulty for the passenger involved and regrets the situation in which she found herself,” the agency said in a statement. ”We appreciate her raising awareness on this issue and we are changing the procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.”
Hamlin’s attorney said she accepted the TSA statement as an apology, and commended the agency for taking quick action. The policy change is ”an achievement for the protection of passengers’ civil rights while meeting the security goals of the TSA,” Gloria Allred said.
Uh huh. Well call me difficult to please (you wouldn’t be the first), but I do find it a little odd how the TSA website already said prior to this statement that “If you are selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to a pat-down search.” A pat-down search was never offered to Hamlin, and was in fact refused to her when she made the offer herself to show her nipple piercings to the female guard in private — the same guard who had to look at her piercings anyway as Hamlin went through the excruciating process of removing them. So I think that TSA will have to try again. Changing a policy is totally different from beginning to enforce one that is already in place. It was previously indicated that Hamlin was considering suing if she did not receive an apology. I think that it will be a shame if a lawsuit doesn’t go through, and after all of the trouble, TSA gets off the hook with a slight wag of the finger.
I’ve also recently blogged about how Al Sharpton and the NAACP are supporting leniency for the Dunbar Village rapists. Now, Sharpton’s organization (NAN) and the NAACP are furiously denying, changing their stories and pointing fingers at each other. Sharpton has tried to rewrite history and is blaming the “misinformation” on the women of color bloggers who have raised awareness and interest about this issue, without noting that the information came from numerous objective and mainstream news sources. In other words, he’s not only ignoring the fact that women of color deserve rights equal to those of men of color, but is now also blaming his own disgusting mess on women of color rather than taking responsibility for his actions. Nice. Also, while reviewing the denials and backpedaling, check out this flier. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of who produced it, but according the the Dunbar Village blog, it was passed around at the NAN and NAACP join press conference on March 11. And even if they didn’t produce the fliers themselves, the fact remains that putting together an event with this type of bullshit propaganda being openly distributed isn’t exactly the best way to prove that you’re not supporting the rapists (and neither is standing on a stage with the rapists’ families).
Keep those letters coming, folks.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Mar
28
Bad Ass Women’s Activist of the Week: When Ordinary Women Refuse to Accept Absue of Authority Edition
Filed Under assholes, bad ass women’s activist of the week, misogyny, objectification, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 8 Comments
Think it was bad when Southwest Airlines started kicking women off of their planes for dressing “inappropriately?” Well they’ve apparently got nothing on the Transportation Security Administration. They recently forced female traveler Mandi Hamlin to remove her nipple piercings before allowing her to board a plane — even though she offered to show her piercings to the female officer and required pliers to remove the jewelry:
Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on Feb. 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.
The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin’s chest, the Dallas-area resident said.
Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent then called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.
Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.
She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.
“Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her,” said Hamlin’s attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a well-known Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.
Applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin that had a peach-colored bra with the rings on it, Hamlin showed reporters at the news conference how she took off the second ring.
She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring. (emphasis mine)
Best case scenario, this was sexual harassment. Absolutely nothing that Hamlin was forced to do was necessary. She was upfront and compliant. None of it made passengers more safe, and the officers knew it. It seems pretty obvious that the male agents did this for shits and giggles. They sexually humiliated and injured her, laughed about it, and then proved that this was their goal by completely ignoring her equally “dangerous” belly button ring.
Popularity: 22% [?]
Mar
11
An Open Letter to Governor Eliot Spitzer
Filed Under Democrats, abortion, assholes, misogyny, politics, reproductive justice, sex work, sexual exploitation and harassment, women’s health | 14 Comments
Well you’ve certainly fucked things up, now haven’t you?
I was at the FPA conference in the Empire State Plaza, yesterday. That’d be Family Planned Advocates of NY State. You may remember that you were scheduled to speak there that morning, though with so much else going on, I wouldn’t be surprised if it slipped your mind.
You spoke there last year, and I was honestly very impressed. You were by far the most famous public official whose presence I’ve ever been in, but much more than that, you were unwaveringly pro-choice and pro-woman. Of course, you were at a conference for family planning supporters. But the media was there, and I’ve heard that other prominent speakers have not taken the opportunity to make a statement nearly as dramatic and affirmative. Frankly, I was very happily surprised with your display of enthusiasm and dedication. I’m almost embarrassed to remember how lucky I felt to have you as a governor. I thought “for a politician, this guy is pretty great.”
When you didn’t show up this morning, we were told that you had a “last minute emergency” that needed attending to. And I suppose that you did! Of course, you didn’t tell organizers the reason, and the news hadn’t broken yet, so we spent the whole morning talking about what an amazing governor you are. All of the legislators and other speakers invoked your name a lot of times, and I’d say that despite your absence, you probably got the most applause of the entire morning! That made us look and feel pretty foolish.
But don’t worry. That’s not why I’m mad at you. I have far more important and rational reasons than that.
Popularity: 24% [?]
Mar
4
International Sex Workers Rights Day
Filed Under blogswarm, class and economics, courts gone crazy, discrimination, feminism, human rights, misogyny, objectification, pornography, rape and sexual assault, sex and sexuality, sex work, sexual exploitation and harassment, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | 26 Comments
As I briefly mentioned earlier, yesterday was International Sex Workers Rights Day. I missed it; I didn’t know that it was going on until I’d already posted for the day, and I just didn’t have the time for a second post. So I planned to write about it today instead. I felt slightly guilty about that, but now that I’m well aware that the issue didn’t get nearly as much coverage as it should have, I feel really guilty. I tell you this not only by way of explanation, but also to say that if you blog, I know it’s easy to miss things and to not blog about something when you should. And it’s not too late to make it right.
That being said, to those who purposely avoided blogging on the topic, I understand why. Talking about sex work causes fighting, and not the feminist vs. troll kind, but the feminist vs. feminist kind. Positioning yourself in that argument isn’t a fun thing to do, particularly if you think that each side has at least a couple of good points, and it’s easy to avoid the question all together (this is of course, what we call “privilege”). But that doesn’t make avoiding it right. I’m fine with everyone voicing their opinions, but I do want to let everyone know up front that I will not allow things to get ugly, personal or insulting. And while I’m not going to insist that everyone post from a pro-decriminalization standpoint, I do insist that comments come from a perspective that promotes rights for sex workers — however you believe that those rights are best obtained. I’ve never had to ban a feminist before, or even ask one to stop posting; please don’t make me start today.
So. Why sex workers’ rights? Well, it’s pretty simple. Even those sex workers who enjoy their jobs get a hell of a raw deal. All around the world, sex workers are: investigated and arrested for making a living, deported even when there is evidence of non-consent, left without any form of job security, gang-raped and abused by their bosses but left without recourse for fear that they themselves will be arrested, and arrested for mere suspicion of prostitution, including carrying condoms (which only discourages safer sex).
Popularity: 27% [?]
Feb
18
Distributing Homemade Porn without Ex’s Consent Could Land Man in Jail
Filed Under Asia, International, assholes, misogyny, objectification, pornography, sex and sexuality, sexual exploitation and harassment, slut-shaming, violence against women and girls | Leave a Comment
This greatly pleases me: a Hong Kong man who posted sex videos of his ex-girlfriend online without her consent could face jail time.
A jilted Hong Kong boyfriend who posted video clips on the internet of his ex-lover having sex with him was warned on Monday that he could face jail.
Lee Wing-fung, 29, uploaded nude photos and video clips in an act of revenge when his former girlfriend refused to get back together with him.
He was sentenced to 240 hours community service in September after admitting criminal intimation and publishing indecent material.
However, the prosecution claims the sentence was too lenient and is now seeking a jail sentence for Lee.
It says the fact that he threatened the woman beforehand and published her name and work address with the video clips deserves a jail sentence of at least 12 months.
In the earlier hearing, the defence claimed Lee resorted to the action because he was devastated when his girlfriend ended their three-year relationship.
A true threat of punishment for such an action isn’t exactly one that you see often, even if the practice itself is becoming more and more common. We’ve long had people who steal and release homemade sex videos by celebrities. Then came the camera phone phenomenon of taking pictures up women’s skirts and posting them online or passing them around to friends. Now, the practice of posting sex videos without one person’s consent has increased, with the success of sites like xTube and YouPorn. For those who don’t know, these sites are the YouTube of porn — anyone can upload videos to the site, so long as they own the copyright to the material. They are designed specifically for amateur porn, and though the sites have a rule that the consent of all participating parties in the video must be obtained to legally publish it, there isn’t exactly any way to enforce such a requirement.
Though I’m sure that this kind of thing has happened to men as well, with straight men being the primary consumers of porn, women are mostly the ones getting screwed over. No matter how much a woman is comfortable and unashamed of her sexuality, as a general rule, she still wouldn’t want images of herself engaging in a sexual act available for anyone to see — particularly without her consent. Beyond simple modesty concerns, this is a highly rational worry, seeing as how one’s entire career can be unfairly jeopardized for even the most benign photographs (of course, it’s also a huge violation of personal and sexual rights).
Popularity: 28% [?]
Feb
7
Sheriff’s Deputies Sexually Assault Woman On Camera
Filed Under assholes, gender, human rights, misogyny, patriarchy, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | 9 Comments
I’m a few days late on this (as I seem to be on everything, lately), but this is also one of those stories that doesn’t seem to get any less outrageous with time. In fact the original story is fifteen months old. A woman is suing an Ohio sheriff’s department over, well, there aren’t really any words:
Hope Steffey’s night started with a call to police for help. It ended with her face down, naked, and sobbing on a jail cell floor. Now, the sheriff’s deputies from Stark County, Ohio who allegedly used excessive force during a strip search 15 months ago face a federal lawsuit, and recently released video won’t help their case.
Steffey’s ordeal with the Stark County sheriff’s deputies began after her cousin called 9-1-1 claiming Steffey had been assaulted by another one of their cousins. When a Stark County police officer arrived, he asked to see Steffey’s driver’s license. But instead of handing over her own ID, she mistakenly turned over her dead sister’s license, which she contends she keeps in her wallet as a memento. That’s when the situation became complicated.
“Hope was not treated as a victim,” her lawyer told WKYC News. “The officer said to her ’shut up about your dead sister.’”
Eventually, Steffey was arrested and taken to the Stark County Jail, charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. But once in custody, her attorney says seven jail workers, male and female, forcibly removed Steffey of all her clothes, including her undergarments, while she lay face down in handcuffs. Local news footage shows Steffey wailing, asking “What are you doing?!?”
“And you have to ask yourself, what was the purpose of the strip search?” said Steffey’s lawyer. “What was the necessity of it? This was a disorderly conduct claim.”
The lawsuit says that Steffey remained in the cell for six hours and wrapped herself in toilet paper to stay warm. During that time, she was not allowed to use a phone or seek medical assistance for injuries she accrued that night, including a cracked tooth, bulging disc, and bruises.
Popularity: 24% [?]