rape apologism

Defense Attorney Calls Rape Victims “Whores,” and Worse

by Cara August 27, 2009

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 [...]

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A Crime of Opportunity

by Cara August 20, 2009

Trigger Warning Three years ago in B.C., Canada, a woman woke up in the bed of the man in the image to the left. She was bleeding and bruised, and though she remembered going out for a night on town, she didn’t remember how she got in this bed, or what had happened to her. [...]

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Man Allegedly Rapes Girlfriend Live on Webcam

by Cara June 4, 2009

Trigger Warning It seems that as soon as I think I’ve been doing this long enough that nothing can shock me anymore, the people of this world get even more repulsive. Case in point: a man in Arizona was just arrested for raping his girlfriend while she was unconscious, and streaming the rape live via [...]

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Serial Rapist Convicted of Raping His Daughter

by Cara May 26, 2009

Strong Trigger Warning Sometimes these stories are just too horrible to convey in words.  The rapist in the story below (h/t Lauredhel) had a long history of sexual abuse towards his vulnerable female family members: At the time of the offences, the man had been out of jail for a year after serving 10 years [...]

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Defense Attorney Argues That No Doesn’t Always Mean No

by Cara April 22, 2009

Via the Hand Mirror (h/t Lauredhel), I came across a story this morning about a line of questioning used by a New Zealand defense attorney in cross-examining a woman who alleged that a taxi driver attempted to rape her: After a long cross-examination, the taxi driver’s lawyer, Letizea Ord, put it to the complainant [that [...]

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British Prosecutors to Challenge Rape Myths in Court

by Cara April 21, 2009

I am seriously a month behind on this story out of Britain, but the news is interesting enough that I still think it’s worth our time to take a look at. It has apparently been made an official part of policy in rape cases for prosecutors to “robustly challenge” rape myths in court: Prosecutors have [...]

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Actual Rape Victim Jailed for “False Report”

by Cara April 3, 2009

I just came across this story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (h/t), and I am absolutely fuming.  A woman was raped at gunpoint while working for a convenience store, and reported her rape — as, you know, cops, the government, and well-meaning people are always encouraging her and other rape victims to do.  Her rape was [...]

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

by Cara March 31, 2009

On 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, [...]

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

by Cara March 20, 2009

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 [...]

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Rape Culture and Its Incredible Prevalence: A Strangely Optimistic Analysis

by Cara March 10, 2009

When I first read the news at Feministe that a full one-quarter of people surveyed in England and Wales said that a woman is fully or partly to blame for a rape if she wore sexy clothing, my first response was, as it should have been, complete and total dismay.  It wasn’t surprise — no, [...]

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