"inWhile acknowledging the unrelenting struggle waged by a handful of feminists within the UN, as well as a myriad international feminist organisations and lobby groups to push the UN, to even condemn the resort to sexual violence in contexts of conflict, it is also important to recognise that such piecemeal resolutions – 1325, 1820 and now 1888 – do not adequately address the fact that militarism is inherently violent, patriarchal and masculinist, and intrinsic to the expansion of capitalism and imperialism. In other words, it is a legitimised form of structural violence that pervades our everyday, is dependent on particular gendered notions and practices and is not merely restricted to wars and conflicts."

— Don’t ignore militarised sexual violence (via gauntlet) (via robot-heart-politics)

10:53 am  •  23 October 2009

violence against women

the-activista:

RT @melsil Check out this facebook group: Petition to Rescind the Polanski Rape Petition: http://tinyurl.com/yf5k7qu

2:52 am  •  23 October 2009

violence against women

the-activista:

A new project with a great mission. A collaboration between PAVE and NOW, the group functions to raise rape awareness and end the shrouds of silence around sexual assault.

Getting involved seems like a no-brainer.

6:49 pm  •  21 October 2009

violence against women

"

And this is the entire history of feminism and anti-rape activism: the history of people introducing ideas that are seen as prudish and crazy and extreme until they are understood as common sense. Or, in some cases, law.

Here’s a history of some of the crazy ideas advocated by the feminist fringe: that rape is still rape if you were dating or married to your attacker, since knowing or even loving someone does not necessarily make it impossible for that person to hurt you. That a woman’s prior sexual history should not be used as evidence against her in a rape trial, since having consented to sex in the past does not mean that you have implicitly consented to all sex thereafter. That rape is still rape if a woman does not or cannot physically resist her attacker, since it is generally unwise to require that all rapes come with an accompanying beating. That some rapists use no physical force whatsoever, and employ intimidation, coercion or intoxication as weapons, and that it is still rape if compliance is forced through these measures.

All of these ideas were once radical. Indeed, there are still many people who regard some or all of them with deep hostility. But most of them have become central to our understanding of sexual assault, and that understanding is often reflected in the changing rape laws of the last 40 years.

"

— Sady Doyle (via gauntlet)

6:45 am  •  19 October 2009

violence against women

feminism

"

Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women’s daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.

Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape.

Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.

"

—

Shakesville | Rape Culture 101

Possibly the best thing I’ve ever read on Shakesville.  This was very hard to excerpt as it is much more impactful when read as a whole, so please click through.

(via katoleary)

Go go gadget feminist awesomeness.

(via a-eliz)

2:44 am  •  19 October 2009

violence against women

gauntlet:

Hollywood has been plunged into confusion with the arrest in Switzerland this week of the film director Roman Polanski. After 30 years of evading prosecuters, he’s finally going to face charges of unlawful sex with a minor — something that, even as CW writes it, continues to look pretty definitively not-great. The victim’s contemporaneous allegations included Polanski giving her quaaludes, asking her if she was on the Pill, and then having anal sex with her, after she’d repeatedly asked to go home. I mean, it’s not exactly Arthur Miller going to prison for refusing to incriminate colleagues during the McCarthy hearings. There’s very little glory in this one. It’s hard to style your way out of getting a kid high, then screwing her.

Bewilderingly, however, Polanski’s arrest seems to have driven half of Hollywood insane. Hollywood is freaking out. Signatories on a “free Polanski” petition include Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodóvar, and Woody Allen. Anyone who, on spotting Allen’s name, rolled their eyes and said, “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” is far too cynical for their own good, and probably sitting on a bar stool beside CW next Friday. The former Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein made it clear to Switzerland just who they’re dealing with: “I’m not too shy to go and talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and ask him to look at this,” Weinstein said — as if, in a fundamental misjudgment between “real” and “not real”, he’d decided to get the Terminator to smash the prison walls with his fists and carry Polanski out.

This niggling sense of Hollywood’s real/not real confusion continued with Whoopi Goldberg’s frankly amazing contribution: “I don’t believe it was rape-rape.” Goldberg’s blithe certainty is explicable only if you conclude that, since playing a psychic inGhost, she harbours residual beliefs that she has “the sight”, and knows the difference between “rape” and “rape-rape” by instinct. CW has read the celebrity statements and can only observe that what they seem to be saying is: “Something unpleasant definitely happened, but I really like Chinatown, so, erm, free Roman!” CW has never seen Chinatown — so just thinks Polanski is a prison-dodging pervert who’s got it coming.

Caitlin Moran

6:43 pm  •  15 October 2009

violence against women

abbyjean:

Perhaps now Erin Andrews can rest easy. A 48-year-old Illinois man named Michael Barrett was arrested Friday night at O’Hare airport for allegedly stalking and filming nude videos of 31-year-old ESPN reporter Erin Andrews. Barrett is scheduled to appear in federal court on Saturday to confront charges of “interstate stalking” and faces up to five years in federal prison, reports USA Today. The charges encompass a far more creepy series of acts, which include allegedly following Andrews to Nashville hotels, rigging the peepholes to her rooms, taking eight shoddy cell phone videos of her naked, posting the videos online, and trying to sell the videos to TMZ, who alerted police.

put him in jail!!

10:42 pm  •  14 October 2009

violence against women

a-eliz:

abbyjean:

The musician Moby said Thursday he will donate the proceeds of three upcoming California concerts to help domestic violence shelters that lost all state funding in the budget Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed this summer.

Six shelters that temporarily house victims and their families have closed since Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto to eliminate their funding in July. Advocates say dozens more of the 94 agencies that received a total of $20.4 million in state money last year have scaled back services and cuts hours and staff.

“In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a lot of money,” Moby said about the cuts during a phone interview from Chicago. “But it’s going to directly harm the women who benefit from these programs.” Moby, whose real name is Richard Melville Hall, said he hopes to generate $75,000 to $100,000 from dates in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco from Oct. 12 through 15 to give to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.

california: served better by the charity of popular musicians than our actual governor.

Awesome.

10:40 am  •  14 October 2009

violence against women

patriarchyisbullshit:

“The church has sometimes ignored domestic violence,” he continued, “covered it up, distorted biblical teachings to excuse it and participated in it by supporting a male-dominated household where the wife is always subservient and has no voice.”

Correct me if I’m wrong here, pastor, but what I’m hearing you say is “patriarchy is bullshit.”

3:34 am  •  11 October 2009

violence against women

abbyjean:

Do we all remember the depressing story of Jamie Lee Jones, who, while an employee of Halliburton/KBR in Iraq, was drugged, gang-raped by fellow employees, then locked up without food or water in an empty shipping container for 24 hours? And then told that if she sought medical attention outside of Iraq she would lose her job? And then Halliburton, a company whose previous CEO was Dick Cheney, refused to take any action against her assailants? And then the Department of Justice refused to take her case because she had signed a (clearly illegal) document saying “these matters” would be handled in secret extra-judicial arbitration?

Apparently, Halliburton tried to argue that the gang-rape was a “work-related” activity and was therefore rightfully dealt with by forced arbitration with a tots impartial Halliburton-paid arbitrator.

Well…. she is still fighting and has won a small battle. She went to trial against the Halliburton arbitration agreement to fight for her right to go to trial against Halliburton for realz. And 2-1 the the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in her favor.

3:34 pm  •  10 October 2009

violence against women

"

“I don’t like all of this “It’s rape if I say it’s rape” because you are not the one who experienced it”

Here’s the thing. One time a girl told me about a boy who kept getting girls drunk and then having sex with them while they were passed out from a mixture of drugs and alcohol. (These were high school students, and I was a faculty member.) The girl came to talk to me about a project, and then not-so-subtly started talking to me about other things, like the many parties she went to where a boy would have sex with girls who were passed out. “He’s kind of notorious, and everyone knows about him, you know?” she said. Then she continued on with her story, all (and I quote), “I mean, it wasn’t rape, but it wasn’t consensual, you know?”

At that point, I had to point out that non-consensual sex is the same thing as rape. Actually, when I was in college my cousin told me a similar story, about a dude she was dating who got her drunk (like, kept buy her shots and daring her to drink them/mocking her when she didn’t—she was 19) and then took her upstairs and started having sex with her, even though he knew that she wasn’t ready to have sex with him. She told me she felt gross and dirty and angry and was all depressed since it happened, and she wasn’t really sure why she was so upset and dirty-feeling. I had to gently point out that her feelings weren’t unusual, because what had happened was illegal, and a sexual assault, and rape.

Yet another college friend was raped by a date, in no uncertain terms (she was crying and saying “no…no..no…please stop etc.” and he ignored her, but heard her). But she couldn’t say that she was raped until 3 years later. Even though she knew it was rape, and got counseling and a medical exam and stuff, she could only call it “that thing-that thing with the guy that happened to me.” Because calling it “rape” is scary.

Women are trained to be polite, non-aggressive, and above all nice to men. If a guy wants to buy you a drink and you decline, you’re a bitch. If he buys you a drink and you don’t talk to him—bitch. If you talk all night but then don’t go home with him—bitch. And what’s the worst thing in the world? Being a bitch. Going against ten thousand years of cultural inertia and saying that you own your body, and recognizing that the fragile house of cards that is our belief that we are invincible and untouchable (because how else could we get through the day, except to ignore things like how many people die in car accidents each year, how many women are raped, etc) is just that, a fantasy—these are very difficult thing to do, and many women are not capable (because of a lack of vocabulary) or ready to name their experience “rape.”

That doesn’t make it any less rape.

"

—

Jezebel commenter Cimorene, who should really have a star so I don’t have to go through rape threads and individually promote her comments. (via pilgrimsoul) (via hurricane-k)

Rock star comment.

This is such a well written comment. It’s so hard to admit these things to oneself. (I’m still struggling with something that happened to me. I’m not sure what to call it. It was scary, and humiliating, but I feel guilty, like I am making too much out of it and somehow, by extension, minimizing the bad/worse things that have happened to other people.)

(via thedisgruntledgradstudent)

(via a-eliz)

3:31 am  •  10 October 2009

violence against women

femininity

sexuality

"

Sexist oppression is of primary importance not because it is the basis of all other oppression, but because it is the practice of domination most people experience, whether their role be that of discriminator or discriminated against, exploiter or exploited. Unlike other forms of oppression, most people witness and/or experience the practice of sexist domination in family settings.

It is the practice of domination most people are socialized to accept before they even know that other forms of group oppression exist. This does not mean that eradicating sexist oppression would eliminate other forms of oppression.

"

— bell hooks, Feminist Theory From Margin to Center. (via abbyjean)

7:30 am  •  9 October 2009

violence against women

isay:

Yay it’s that time of the year again… the Ernie Awards.

Brilliant, that’s when it is revealed which Aussie has made the most sexist comment this year.Drum roll please…and the winner is…wait for it…you waiting? The winner is Pastor Danny Nalliah, the head of the Catch the Fire Ministries with this little beauty. “God’s conditional protection has been removed from the nation of Australia, in particular Victoria, for approving the slaughter of innocent children in the womb.”. His comment was made following the tragic February bushfires in Victoria.Bravo sexist Danny, you got the biggest boos to take out the coveted award.

The Silver Ernie was shared by two deserved winners, Kyle Sandilands and the NSW Police Force. Kyle Sandilands was sited twice, once for his comment following a girl’s confession on radio she had been raped “Right, is that the only experience you’ve had?” and secondly for his quip about Magda Szubanski “she could become skinny if she was in a concentration camp.”. Well deserved Kyle.

The NSW Police Force won the Silver for making a female employee work overtime for every minute she spent expressing breast milk for her baby. The Sporting Ernie (aka the Warnie) went to NRL player Simon Williams for his remarks about the recent NRL group sex scandal “It’s not during the act, it’s the way you treat them after. (It) could have been avoided if they had put them in a cab and said thanks.”

And last but not least the award that guarantees the best boos of the night, the Elaine Award. This prize is reserved for the woman whose remarks are “the least helpful to the sisterhood”. Oh dear this year’s winner was journalist Miranda Devine with this little doosie “Decades of androgynous feminism have stamped on chivalry, deriding men who opened doors or stood back for women as being sexist and patronising. It would have been better for women if feminism had appealed to men’s better natures.”

7:29 am  •  8 October 2009

violence against women

"

We have long prioritised men’s art over women’s safety, because there is a belief that a talented man, an auteur with a vision, might change the world, and to truncate that grand possibility with something as bourgeois as justice would be devastating.

The irony, of course, is that failing to hold a rapist accountable for his crime doesn’t change the world at all – it merely perpetuates a status quo in which most rapists are not identified; of those who are, few are charged, and of those who are charged, vanishingly few are convicted.

Polanski’s defenders have long argued that the small-minded pursuit of accountability was stifling a radical innovator, but the outcome with most revolutionary potential has always been holding Polanski to a standard unqualified by his vocation.

"

— Melissa McEwan (via gauntlet)

3:28 pm  •  7 October 2009

violence against women

"It’s funny. If your average guy were to rape a 13-year-old girl and then flee into exile rather than paying for his crime, pretty much everyone and their twin sister would agree that he was a scumbag who deserved nothing less than the hammer of justice brought down upon him. Turn that average guy into a rich artist with good connections, and suddenly the crime wasn’t that bad, the girl was probably asking for it (or her mother was, whatever), and it’s really close to fascism to put the guy through the indignity of being extradited to face justice."

— Jeff Fecke (via katoleary) (via abbyjean) (via gauntlet)

11:27 am  •  7 October 2009

violence against women