[Trigger warning for child sexual abuse; racism.]
It's not been a good few days for the Catholic Church.
Shaker InfamousQBert (who hat-tips Atheist at Large) emails the story of a child protection official, hired by the Catholic Church "to monitor church groups to ensure paedophiles did not gain access to children in the church's congregations," who has been caught with 4,000 images of child pornography on his home and work computers.
Despite having a vast child porn collection on his work computer, Christopher Jarvis, a former social worker, was only fired after the police began an investigation into his creation and distribution of the pornographic images, as the Church claims to have been unaware of his activities.
Meanwhile, Shaker Brunocerous forwards the story of a Catholic high school principal in the Bronx, whose student population is primarily Latin@ and Black, who has "published material with American Renaissance, a white supremacy group." Frank Borzellieri, who is now under investigation by the Archdiocese of New York, wrote, among other equally repellent ideas: "Even the most cursory glance at life in America reveals that diversity is a weakness, a hindrance and a terrible burden."
A diocese spokesperson has noted, in response to inquiries about Borzellieri's "interesting" views on race, "Any form of discrimination or bigotry is inconsistent with Catholic teaching."
Whooooooooooooooooooops! That's the same Catholic Church that hates gays and won't ordain women, right?
LOL FOREVER.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please take the time to make sure any criticisms are clearly directed at the Catholic Church leadership and not at "Catholics," many of whom are themselves critical of the failures of Church leadership.]
Showing posts with label Today in Rape Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Today in Rape Culture. Show all posts
Quote of the Day
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
"I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never."—Rosa Parks, from an essay about "nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931." The six-page handwritten document was found among her papers "currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive."
"I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never."—Rosa Parks, from an essay about "nearly being raped by a white neighbor who employed her as a housekeeper in 1931." The six-page handwritten document was found among her papers "currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey's Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive."
Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire said she had never before heard of the attempted rape of Parks and called the find among Parks' papers astounding.That was a woman with a teaspoon the size of Texas.
It helps explain what triggered Parks' lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire, whose recent book "At the Dark End of the Street" examines how economic intimidation and sexual violence were used to derail the freedom movement and how it went unpunished during the Jim Crow era.
"I thought it was because of the stories that she had heard. But this gives a much more personal context to that," said McGuire, an assistant professor of history at Wayne State University in Detroit.
...McGuire wondered why Parks omitted the attempted rape incident from her memoirs but included the story about the little boy who threatened her.
"It shows some kind of conscious effort in shaping her own legacy but also, I think, speaks to the issue of respectability. She doesn't necessarily feel comfortable telling the world about what happened," she said. "But she's contemplating telling people about it because she's written it down."
On Harassment and the Marking of Visible Womanhood
[Trigger warning for misogyny, rape culture.]
So, yesterday we had this great thread about how telling people to "smile" is not merely impolite, but a gross disrespect of agency. As frequently happens in such threads, there was also discussion of other types of street harassment and getting hit on.
Often, we contributors/mods have our own private conversations about topics being discussed on the blog, especially when we want to chat about something tangential that would be a derail to the main point. Yesterday, in tandem with the aforementioned thread, we were talking about the truly fucked-up scenario in which women who deviate from traditional definitions of womanhood, or whose appearance is nonconforming to beauty standards, are excluded from such discussions by virtue of having rarely or never harassed in that way.
It's an important conversation, and it deserves its own thread.
It is a conversation I've had before with trans women, with fat cis women, women with noticeable physical disabilities, and with a women who has severe craniofacial deformities—the "I don't want to be treated like a piece of meat or an object or a possession, but because Visible Women are treated like pieces of meat and objects and possessions, the fact that I'm not makes me feel like I'm not even a woman" conversation.
The conversation about feeling excluded from the sisterhood, because you haven't been harassed in the way most women talk about being harassed.
None of the women with whom I've ever had this conversation want to be harassed, nor do they want other women to be harassed, either—and yet there is something akin to envy they feel, sheerly by virtue of being on the outside looking in.
Simultaneously, they feel guilty for feeling that way, because, to a harassed woman, there is nothing enviable about being harassed.
Except, of course, for how there is—because being harassed is a routine part of the Visible Woman's experience. And as long as women's value is determined by objectification, to not be objectified is to feel unvalued, even if to not be objectified is what you want.
This, of course, is not a commentary on women—objectified or not, feminist or not. This is a commentary on the Patriarchy, and how unfathomably fucked-up it is that a failure to be treated poorly—not in exchange for being treated well, but as an alternative to not being acknowledged at all—has the capacity to make women feel worthless.
What a choice: Acknowledged but harassed, or ignored and denied recognition of one's womanhood.
It's a terrible predicament, this place of horrible and shameful "envy," that most women (especially feminist women) probably experience at one time or another during their lives. An older woman finally free of being hit on and cat-called and told to smile may suddenly "miss" the harassment the despised, because its void is not born of a long-sought respect, but of a silent commentary on her diminished worth as a sex object per the Patriarchy's horseshit standards. Two female friends of different races might alternately "envy" each other for the unique forms of objectification by which they're respectively targeted: She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks like the Girl Next Door. She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks Exotic. Etc.
Knowing how fucked-up it is doesn't change that visceral feeling of alienation: We are all too keenly aware of the narratives used to marginalize us.
And this "envy" is not just about being recognized as a woman; it's also about getting access to the tables at which women sit.
I have had friends who have never been raped confess to me with wracking guilt that they "envy" my history, because to have survived rape is to have earned admission into what can be a very tight-knit group of survivors, not unlike a group of veterans who emerged from the trauma of war as "brothers," having experienced something outsiders cannot understand and sharing a bond outsiders cannot penetrate.
They needn't feel guilty: I understand what they are saying. They don't want me to have been raped. They are not minimizing it. They don't want to be raped themselves. They are simply acknowledging a feeling born of the reality that so many women are victimized by sexual violence that it can feel, to women who have not been, that a key part of what defines womanhood is missing from their histories.
We all view, if not consciously, sexual violence and harassment as a sort of rite of passage, a fire through which we must pass on our way to womanhood. To be denied that trial, even though we don't want it, is to be denied as Woman.
I can think of few things that more poignantly underline how truly and comprehensively woman-hating the Patriarchy is than its creation of an "envy" to be hurt, just to feel like a complete woman.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please note that if your immediate response to this is to assert that you've never experienced this "envy," that may well be a function of privilege. Visible Womanhood is an indicator of privilege—cis women tend to be more visible than trans women, straight women more visible than lesbians, white women more than women of color, able-bodied women more than women with disabilities, etc. I strongly encourage you, rather than reflexively challenging the concept, to listen to the experiences of less privileged women which will certainly be shared here.]
So, yesterday we had this great thread about how telling people to "smile" is not merely impolite, but a gross disrespect of agency. As frequently happens in such threads, there was also discussion of other types of street harassment and getting hit on.
Often, we contributors/mods have our own private conversations about topics being discussed on the blog, especially when we want to chat about something tangential that would be a derail to the main point. Yesterday, in tandem with the aforementioned thread, we were talking about the truly fucked-up scenario in which women who deviate from traditional definitions of womanhood, or whose appearance is nonconforming to beauty standards, are excluded from such discussions by virtue of having rarely or never harassed in that way.
It's an important conversation, and it deserves its own thread.
It is a conversation I've had before with trans women, with fat cis women, women with noticeable physical disabilities, and with a women who has severe craniofacial deformities—the "I don't want to be treated like a piece of meat or an object or a possession, but because Visible Women are treated like pieces of meat and objects and possessions, the fact that I'm not makes me feel like I'm not even a woman" conversation.
The conversation about feeling excluded from the sisterhood, because you haven't been harassed in the way most women talk about being harassed.
None of the women with whom I've ever had this conversation want to be harassed, nor do they want other women to be harassed, either—and yet there is something akin to envy they feel, sheerly by virtue of being on the outside looking in.
Simultaneously, they feel guilty for feeling that way, because, to a harassed woman, there is nothing enviable about being harassed.
Except, of course, for how there is—because being harassed is a routine part of the Visible Woman's experience. And as long as women's value is determined by objectification, to not be objectified is to feel unvalued, even if to not be objectified is what you want.
This, of course, is not a commentary on women—objectified or not, feminist or not. This is a commentary on the Patriarchy, and how unfathomably fucked-up it is that a failure to be treated poorly—not in exchange for being treated well, but as an alternative to not being acknowledged at all—has the capacity to make women feel worthless.
What a choice: Acknowledged but harassed, or ignored and denied recognition of one's womanhood.
It's a terrible predicament, this place of horrible and shameful "envy," that most women (especially feminist women) probably experience at one time or another during their lives. An older woman finally free of being hit on and cat-called and told to smile may suddenly "miss" the harassment the despised, because its void is not born of a long-sought respect, but of a silent commentary on her diminished worth as a sex object per the Patriarchy's horseshit standards. Two female friends of different races might alternately "envy" each other for the unique forms of objectification by which they're respectively targeted: She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks like the Girl Next Door. She gets harassed by people who ignore me because she looks Exotic. Etc.
Knowing how fucked-up it is doesn't change that visceral feeling of alienation: We are all too keenly aware of the narratives used to marginalize us.
And this "envy" is not just about being recognized as a woman; it's also about getting access to the tables at which women sit.
I have had friends who have never been raped confess to me with wracking guilt that they "envy" my history, because to have survived rape is to have earned admission into what can be a very tight-knit group of survivors, not unlike a group of veterans who emerged from the trauma of war as "brothers," having experienced something outsiders cannot understand and sharing a bond outsiders cannot penetrate.
They needn't feel guilty: I understand what they are saying. They don't want me to have been raped. They are not minimizing it. They don't want to be raped themselves. They are simply acknowledging a feeling born of the reality that so many women are victimized by sexual violence that it can feel, to women who have not been, that a key part of what defines womanhood is missing from their histories.
We all view, if not consciously, sexual violence and harassment as a sort of rite of passage, a fire through which we must pass on our way to womanhood. To be denied that trial, even though we don't want it, is to be denied as Woman.
I can think of few things that more poignantly underline how truly and comprehensively woman-hating the Patriarchy is than its creation of an "envy" to be hurt, just to feel like a complete woman.
[Commenting Guidelines: Please note that if your immediate response to this is to assert that you've never experienced this "envy," that may well be a function of privilege. Visible Womanhood is an indicator of privilege—cis women tend to be more visible than trans women, straight women more visible than lesbians, white women more than women of color, able-bodied women more than women with disabilities, etc. I strongly encourage you, rather than reflexively challenging the concept, to listen to the experiences of less privileged women which will certainly be shared here.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for misogyny, racism, body policing, heterocentrism, gender essentialism, rape culture.]
Holy Shit: 10 Things Men Find Unattractive.
Don't let the genericism of the title fool you: This is no standard-issue entry in the Worst Thing series, which has featured a number of "Listen Up, Ladies"-type pieces. This piece is uniquely awful in its extraordinarily detailed criticism of women who fail to conform with the author's ("men's") expectations.
The author, nativenotes, a Black man ostensibly directing his "advice" primarily at Black women (but finding the most receptive audience, I imagine, among other men), polices women literally from our heads ("Can we talk about that funky smelling weave with the tracks showing because that's not a good look. Or my natural sisters—who think dry and flaky is the new it do. We ain't feeling you neither.") to our toes ("Chipped nail polish and ashy feet will not be flying either. Talk to the little Asian women and tip them well so you no longer scratch my legs in bed. Thanks.")
The little Asian woman?! Yiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Naturally, everything in between is policed, too, from clothing choices to directions on how to trim our pubic hair.
I was particularly fond of #4: Angry for No Damn Reason. "Some of y'all are taking this feminism thing too far—you're lashing out at men every chance you get and we're tired of it."
You know, I would suggest that if Mr. Nativenotes has found himself on the receiving end of a lot of female anger, he might consider that there may, in fact, be a reason—like, say, writing horseshit articles in which he proudly puts on full display his unrepentant misogyny.
Meanwhile, I imagine there are quite a few men who are none too pleased with his assertion to be speaking for all men, not merely for the heterocentrism and the implication that men are, by nature, misogynist bullies, but also for opening the piece with a disturbing sop to narratives of male sexual aggression and lack of self-control:
My favorite part by a country mile, however, is his friendly closing to all the ladies who have just been given the gift of his sage advice:
[H/T to Shaker Amy.]
Holy Shit: 10 Things Men Find Unattractive.
Don't let the genericism of the title fool you: This is no standard-issue entry in the Worst Thing series, which has featured a number of "Listen Up, Ladies"-type pieces. This piece is uniquely awful in its extraordinarily detailed criticism of women who fail to conform with the author's ("men's") expectations.
The author, nativenotes, a Black man ostensibly directing his "advice" primarily at Black women (but finding the most receptive audience, I imagine, among other men), polices women literally from our heads ("Can we talk about that funky smelling weave with the tracks showing because that's not a good look. Or my natural sisters—who think dry and flaky is the new it do. We ain't feeling you neither.") to our toes ("Chipped nail polish and ashy feet will not be flying either. Talk to the little Asian women and tip them well so you no longer scratch my legs in bed. Thanks.")
The little Asian woman?! Yiiiiiiiiiiikes.
Naturally, everything in between is policed, too, from clothing choices to directions on how to trim our pubic hair.
I was particularly fond of #4: Angry for No Damn Reason. "Some of y'all are taking this feminism thing too far—you're lashing out at men every chance you get and we're tired of it."
You know, I would suggest that if Mr. Nativenotes has found himself on the receiving end of a lot of female anger, he might consider that there may, in fact, be a reason—like, say, writing horseshit articles in which he proudly puts on full display his unrepentant misogyny.
Meanwhile, I imagine there are quite a few men who are none too pleased with his assertion to be speaking for all men, not merely for the heterocentrism and the implication that men are, by nature, misogynist bullies, but also for opening the piece with a disturbing sop to narratives of male sexual aggression and lack of self-control:
Let the record reflect that just because men find said issues unattractive that does not mean we will not attempt to sleep with you. The two are not mutually exclusive; this is a very real disclaimer.Whoa.
My favorite part by a country mile, however, is his friendly closing to all the ladies who have just been given the gift of his sage advice:
Peace and love ladies, I think you're beautiful. I hope you enjoy your weekend and in no way was I trying to offend but a dose of keeping it real is always healthy.Just LOL. I'm not offended; I'm contemptuous.
[H/T to Shaker Amy.]
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape culture, police malfeasance.]
Despite NYC police and prosecutors' insistence that Jerry Ramrattan, a man who framed his ex-girlfriend for armed robbery as revenge for reporting that he had raped her, is some kind of criminal mastermind, and despite the New York Times' valiant attempt to sell that framing, it is manifestly apparent that Ramrattan is just your run-of-the-mill vindictive wankstain who paid off a couple of dudes and a woman willing to play roles in his misogynist scheme in exchange for the (false) promise of getting something they wanted.
I guess making Ramrattan out to be some sort of Danny Ocean is easier than admitting they held a rape victim behind bars for seven months because her rapist exploited their inclination to believe it was more likely that a successful businesswoman was randomly robbing strangers than that her boyfriend raped her.
I don't guess I need to point out the irony that Ms. Sumasar was evidently presumed of making false charges while her ex-boyfriend's stooges were making false charges against her. Two men who had not even been robbed easily convinced the police they had been, while Ramrattan is only now being charged with rape, after he was discovered to have framed his victim of armed robbery.
[H/T to Shaker Beth_in_Mpls. Previously on the New York Times' appalling coverage of sexual violence: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.]
Despite NYC police and prosecutors' insistence that Jerry Ramrattan, a man who framed his ex-girlfriend for armed robbery as revenge for reporting that he had raped her, is some kind of criminal mastermind, and despite the New York Times' valiant attempt to sell that framing, it is manifestly apparent that Ramrattan is just your run-of-the-mill vindictive wankstain who paid off a couple of dudes and a woman willing to play roles in his misogynist scheme in exchange for the (false) promise of getting something they wanted.
I guess making Ramrattan out to be some sort of Danny Ocean is easier than admitting they held a rape victim behind bars for seven months because her rapist exploited their inclination to believe it was more likely that a successful businesswoman was randomly robbing strangers than that her boyfriend raped her.
I don't guess I need to point out the irony that Ms. Sumasar was evidently presumed of making false charges while her ex-boyfriend's stooges were making false charges against her. Two men who had not even been robbed easily convinced the police they had been, while Ramrattan is only now being charged with rape, after he was discovered to have framed his victim of armed robbery.
[H/T to Shaker Beth_in_Mpls. Previously on the New York Times' appalling coverage of sexual violence: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.]
Photo of the Day
In September, I wrote about [trigger warning for sexual violence] the case of two Michigan State University basketball players who were accused of taking turns sexually assaulting a woman for nearly an hour in their dorm room. Despite corroboration by one assailant of the complainant's story, they were never prosecuted and retained their places on the team.
Above, the Friendly Neighborhood Curmudgeon unfurls a sign at a game reading: EXPEL RAPISTS.
Two MSU basketball players raped a woman in the dorms then one admitted to it. Their only consequence was that they had to move out of the dorms. This picture is of me and one other woman holding up this banner during Midnight Madness. Two other brave souls had a banner on the other side for a while before some jerk started playing tug or war with them over it. This was taken before we got booed at by 10,000 people and police escorted from the stadium.Brava. o.oP
Dispatches from ComicCon
[Trigger warning for misogyny and rape culture.]
As per usual, there's been no shortage of misogyny and rape culture at ComicCon.
1. A woman dressed as Batgirl and her tween daughter dressed as Spoiler bravely challenged the lack female characters in the Justice League line and the dearth of female creators. Naturally, she received a hostile response from panelists and crowd, who don't like having their fun ruined etc.
2. At the Game of Thrones panel, actor Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo (and whose rape of Daenerys Targaryen was much discussed here), said his favorite thing about working on Game of Thrones is that fantasy shows let him "rip someone's throat out and rape beautiful women."
3. At the True Blood panel, executive producer Alan Ball said
That is not a comprehensive list. Consider this a general thread to share links and discuss the various goings-on (and naturally, discussion need not be limited to sex- and gender-related oppressions).
As per usual, there's been no shortage of misogyny and rape culture at ComicCon.
1. A woman dressed as Batgirl and her tween daughter dressed as Spoiler bravely challenged the lack female characters in the Justice League line and the dearth of female creators. Naturally, she received a hostile response from panelists and crowd, who don't like having their fun ruined etc.
2. At the Game of Thrones panel, actor Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo (and whose rape of Daenerys Targaryen was much discussed here), said his favorite thing about working on Game of Thrones is that fantasy shows let him "rip someone's throat out and rape beautiful women."
3. At the True Blood panel, executive producer Alan Ball said
his favorite moment of the current fourth season was the "ritualistic gang rape of Jason Stackhouse" by werepanther women.So. Fucking. Gross.
"There was actually a sense of enjoyment in that for me as well," joked Ryan Kwanten, who plays Jason.
That is not a comprehensive list. Consider this a general thread to share links and discuss the various goings-on (and naturally, discussion need not be limited to sex- and gender-related oppressions).
Recommended Reading
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment, assault, violence, and rape culture.]
For background on "the Elevator Incident," which has precipitated all sorts of discussion about misogyny and rape culture within the atheist, skeptic, and/or scientific community/ies, go here.
First, read Jennifer Ouellette's "Is It Cold in Here?"
Then, read Zuska's "What Constitutes Blatant Sexism of the Most Egregious Sort?"
Finally, read Eric Michael Johnson's "The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion." Shaker Erica passed on this last one, and she notes that the author "doesn't just make the comparison (apes use coersive sexual behavior and so do humans, surprise!) and leave it at that—he goes on to not only emphasize that 'biology is not destiny' but also to make case studies of primate societies that don't display that behavior (yay for bonobos, once again!). ... And he ends the whole thing with a call for societal change that left me embarrassingly teary-eyed at work. In particular, he stresses that, 'While specific policies that protect women from coercion and exploitation remain important, what we're ultimately after is social change'." It is a remarkable piece.
For background on "the Elevator Incident," which has precipitated all sorts of discussion about misogyny and rape culture within the atheist, skeptic, and/or scientific community/ies, go here.
First, read Jennifer Ouellette's "Is It Cold in Here?"
Then, read Zuska's "What Constitutes Blatant Sexism of the Most Egregious Sort?"
Finally, read Eric Michael Johnson's "The Science of Sexism: Primate Behavior and the Culture of Sexual Coercion." Shaker Erica passed on this last one, and she notes that the author "doesn't just make the comparison (apes use coersive sexual behavior and so do humans, surprise!) and leave it at that—he goes on to not only emphasize that 'biology is not destiny' but also to make case studies of primate societies that don't display that behavior (yay for bonobos, once again!). ... And he ends the whole thing with a call for societal change that left me embarrassingly teary-eyed at work. In particular, he stresses that, 'While specific policies that protect women from coercion and exploitation remain important, what we're ultimately after is social change'." It is a remarkable piece.
Photo of the Day
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
So there's this new Marilyn Monroe sculpture in Chicago, which was finally unveiled in all its dubious glory today after spending about a week with a bag over its head. (Seriously.)
I find this sculpture suuuuuuuuuper depressing not only for the reasons elucidated here by Mary Schmich:
Chicago, a city that has almost as many statues as it has potholes, is notoriously short on statues of women. Mile after magnificent mile, our city teems with large reproductions of presidents, philosophers, sports stars, warriors and saints, almost every one a man.—and by ChicagoNow blogger Abraham Ritchie:
Finally, we get a highly visible statue of a woman. Twenty-six-feet tall. Looming next to North Michigan Avenue at the Chicago River. As obvious as a skyscraper.
...Its only distinguishing feature is its size, which brings to mind some 1950s B movie about giant women.
What's most disturbing about the sculpture, though, is not that it's mediocre. It's the fact that Marilyn Monroe was real. She wasn't a sci-fi amazon. She was more than an image. She was a real woman who died at the age of 36 of a drug overdose, perhaps by suicide. Inviting people to leer at her giant underpants is just icky.
"This work is totally objectifying," said Ritchie when I called him Thursday, curious about his perspective as a young male art critic. "It's not even the subtle eroticism of a pinup of the 1950s or of the original photo. It's a stiff representation of sexual voyeurism."—but also because this gargantuan mockery of Marilyn Monroe, a real woman whose untimely death froze her as an icon of perpetual youth and sexuality in spite of, because of, her documented struggles with being objectified and exploited, is an invitation for "hilarious" displays of male sexual aggression. The link goes to a photo gallery in which men and boys are pictured standing between her legs giving the thumbs up, standing in a way to be photographed to appear to be grabbing her ass, turning their faces up and pretending to lick her, etc.
She is a a giant, silent avatar of non-consent, posed forever to be a sexual object for the pleasure of passers-by.
Sob.
[H/Ts to Shakers Daniel and @knitmeapony.]
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Trigger warning for rape culture.]
On Monday, I mentioned that Jamie Leigh Jones, the Halliburton/KBR employee who reported being gang-raped by her co-workers, only to then be held hostage by her employer, and who had to fight through an absurd stipulation in her employment contract that required sexual assault allegations be addressed by private arbitration in order to take the case to court, lost her civil rape case against Charles Boartz and KBR.
As you may recall, one of the good things to come out of this nightmare was the passage of Senator Al Franken's anti-rape amendment to last year's Defense Appropriation bill, which stipulates that the US Defense Department must withhold defense contracts from private contractors "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."
When Franken first introduced the amendment, Jones said: "It means the world to me. It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it."
Cue Mother Jones with an extraordinarily absurd article headlined: "How the KBR Rape Verdict Undermines Al Franken's Contracting Law."
According to author Stephanie Mencimer, Jones having lost her case threatens the law because Franken's amendment must be renewed annually as an amendment to the defense budget. And now that Jones' case was lost, there's less incentive to support the law.
Huh? So because one woman lost her case, legislators should/will decide that no woman should have the right to have her day in court? Does not compute.
Of course, I don't think that logic is the point here. The concern trolling about the safety of Franken's law seems like a contrived justification for Mencimer's real objective, which is to deliver some thinly veiled contempt for Jones ostensibly on behalf of survivors: "[I]t's hard to see how bringing—and then losing—a dubious rape case in civil court is a win for victims of sexual assault. If anything, Jones' case, in which she asked the jury to award her $145 million, will make it even more difficult for sexual assault victims to have their claims taken seriously."
So Jones is just a gold-digging opportunist with a "dubious" rape case whose unmitigated temerity to lose her civil rape case has now made it "even more difficult" for survivors to be believed.
And this is about concern for Franken's law. Sure.
You know, I don't believe that a complainant losing a case in a culture so steeped in rape culture narratives that winning is nigh impossible makes things more difficult for survivors.
I do, however, believe that reporters sneering at survivors who lost and making thinly veiled accusations that they're lying, money-hungry whores is precisely the sort of thing that renders justice elusive for most survivors of sexual violence.
On Monday, I mentioned that Jamie Leigh Jones, the Halliburton/KBR employee who reported being gang-raped by her co-workers, only to then be held hostage by her employer, and who had to fight through an absurd stipulation in her employment contract that required sexual assault allegations be addressed by private arbitration in order to take the case to court, lost her civil rape case against Charles Boartz and KBR.
As you may recall, one of the good things to come out of this nightmare was the passage of Senator Al Franken's anti-rape amendment to last year's Defense Appropriation bill, which stipulates that the US Defense Department must withhold defense contracts from private contractors "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."
When Franken first introduced the amendment, Jones said: "It means the world to me. It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it."
Cue Mother Jones with an extraordinarily absurd article headlined: "How the KBR Rape Verdict Undermines Al Franken's Contracting Law."
According to author Stephanie Mencimer, Jones having lost her case threatens the law because Franken's amendment must be renewed annually as an amendment to the defense budget. And now that Jones' case was lost, there's less incentive to support the law.
Huh? So because one woman lost her case, legislators should/will decide that no woman should have the right to have her day in court? Does not compute.
Of course, I don't think that logic is the point here. The concern trolling about the safety of Franken's law seems like a contrived justification for Mencimer's real objective, which is to deliver some thinly veiled contempt for Jones ostensibly on behalf of survivors: "[I]t's hard to see how bringing—and then losing—a dubious rape case in civil court is a win for victims of sexual assault. If anything, Jones' case, in which she asked the jury to award her $145 million, will make it even more difficult for sexual assault victims to have their claims taken seriously."
So Jones is just a gold-digging opportunist with a "dubious" rape case whose unmitigated temerity to lose her civil rape case has now made it "even more difficult" for survivors to be believed.
And this is about concern for Franken's law. Sure.
You know, I don't believe that a complainant losing a case in a culture so steeped in rape culture narratives that winning is nigh impossible makes things more difficult for survivors.
I do, however, believe that reporters sneering at survivors who lost and making thinly veiled accusations that they're lying, money-hungry whores is precisely the sort of thing that renders justice elusive for most survivors of sexual violence.
Two Facts
[Trigger warning for sexual violence and war.]
1. One in 3 female members of the military are sexually assaulted during their service, making them more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.
2. Via Christie Thompson: "A startling study released yesterday found that 80 to 90 percent of New Mexican women veterans with PTSD say the cause was sexual assault, not warfare."
In good news, due to a rule change by the Department of Veteran Affairs made last summer, it is now easier for servicemembers diagnosed with PTSD to get disability benefits.
Of course, that depends on getting an accurate diagnosis in the first place, which itself can be quite a challenge, to put it politely.
1. One in 3 female members of the military are sexually assaulted during their service, making them more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire.
2. Via Christie Thompson: "A startling study released yesterday found that 80 to 90 percent of New Mexican women veterans with PTSD say the cause was sexual assault, not warfare."
In good news, due to a rule change by the Department of Veteran Affairs made last summer, it is now easier for servicemembers diagnosed with PTSD to get disability benefits.
Of course, that depends on getting an accurate diagnosis in the first place, which itself can be quite a challenge, to put it politely.
Mila Kunis Is SO HORRIBLE! (This, too, is sarcasm.)
[Trigger warning for misogyny, coercion, rape culture.]
OMG you guys, remember that TOTALLY CUTE story I told you about, the one where a marine made a YouTube video inviting actress Mila Kunis to go to the Marine Corps Ball with him and then her Garbage With Barfs co-star Justin Timberlake totes put her on the spot to say yes and acted like he owned her during a promotional appearance for their nightmare film...? Gawd that was SO CUTE!
Anyway! It turns out that Mila Kunis now claims to be "working" a lot around the time of the Marine Corps Ball in November and so she's not sure she can go. She is a total bitch! Which is DEFINITELY TRUE, because basically every person on the internetz is saying she is!
And everyone is saying that because everyone suspects no doy that she's using "work" as an excuse to avoid going on a date with a perfect stranger, and there's NO WAY that she should be allowed to bow out gracefully, or adhere to her actual work commitments, because SHE PROMISED after Justin Timberlake pressured her to!
So WHAT A BITCH she is if she doesn't go on this very awkward date with a very nice Marine who gives interviews about how excited he is in which he says things like: "Justin Timberlake's encouragement definitely helped; I owe him one," and "I think I'll keep [any special plans I have in store for Kunis] a secret for now; we have to iron out the details," which aren't GROSS AND CREEPY THINGS TO SAY at all!
In case I'm not laying the sarcasm on thick enough, I believe this entire situation is absolutely disgusting, and I feel immensely sorry for Mila Kunis, who's now been put in a no-win situation by a couple of guys who can't stop metaphorically high-fiving each other over treating her like a fucking trophy.
After thanking Timberlake for being such an awesome wing-man, Sgt. Scott Moore also says in his interview: "I do feel bad for putting her on the spot, but it's not like I was going to bump into her on the streets of Musa Qala between now and the ball."
Which is pretty much the rape culture in a nutshell: Look, I know this is a shitty thing to do to another person, but WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?!
Seethe.
OMG you guys, remember that TOTALLY CUTE story I told you about, the one where a marine made a YouTube video inviting actress Mila Kunis to go to the Marine Corps Ball with him and then her Garbage With Barfs co-star Justin Timberlake totes put her on the spot to say yes and acted like he owned her during a promotional appearance for their nightmare film...? Gawd that was SO CUTE!
Anyway! It turns out that Mila Kunis now claims to be "working" a lot around the time of the Marine Corps Ball in November and so she's not sure she can go. She is a total bitch! Which is DEFINITELY TRUE, because basically every person on the internetz is saying she is!
And everyone is saying that because everyone suspects no doy that she's using "work" as an excuse to avoid going on a date with a perfect stranger, and there's NO WAY that she should be allowed to bow out gracefully, or adhere to her actual work commitments, because SHE PROMISED after Justin Timberlake pressured her to!
So WHAT A BITCH she is if she doesn't go on this very awkward date with a very nice Marine who gives interviews about how excited he is in which he says things like: "Justin Timberlake's encouragement definitely helped; I owe him one," and "I think I'll keep [any special plans I have in store for Kunis] a secret for now; we have to iron out the details," which aren't GROSS AND CREEPY THINGS TO SAY at all!
In case I'm not laying the sarcasm on thick enough, I believe this entire situation is absolutely disgusting, and I feel immensely sorry for Mila Kunis, who's now been put in a no-win situation by a couple of guys who can't stop metaphorically high-fiving each other over treating her like a fucking trophy.
After thanking Timberlake for being such an awesome wing-man, Sgt. Scott Moore also says in his interview: "I do feel bad for putting her on the spot, but it's not like I was going to bump into her on the streets of Musa Qala between now and the ball."
Which is pretty much the rape culture in a nutshell: Look, I know this is a shitty thing to do to another person, but WHAT ABOUT MY NEEDS?!
Seethe.
Assange's Curious Defense
[Trigger warning for sexual violence, rape apologia, and victim-blaming.]
Hey, remember when the rape allegations against Julian Assange were first made public, and Very Important Men (and Women) were falling all over each other to mendaciously misrepresent the charges and discredit the complainants and peddle conspiracy theories and defend Assange on the basis that he does Important Work and, more importantly, he doesn't SEEM like a rapist to them, right, Daniel Ellsberg?
I will, as an aside, note that, contrary to pervasive narratives about women who "feel guilty" after a consensual act inventing rape charges, the reality is that women who feel shame, or fear, or regret after an actual rape frequently re-imagine the encounter as consensual, because admitting rape even to themselves is so difficult. Rapists are exponentially more likely to indirectly benefit from women "consenting" after the fact as a survival strategy than are innocent men likely to be victimized by false rape charges.
Supposing Assange's victims did actually "consent" to the continuation of acts of rape, about which I am profoundly dubious, Assange's own attorney now effectively concedes that was, at best, what happened here: His victims gave "subsequent consent" to sexual activity for which explicit consent was neither sought nor given, after having been assumed, for months, to have invented the act of rape out of revenge or because they were government operatives or whatthefuckever.
I think I may have pointed out once or twice or three million times in this space that the people who benefit from rape apologia and victim-blaming, of the precise sort that we've seen with regard to the accusations against Julian Assange, are rapists.
Which is a pretty strong incentive not to engage in it, if you don't like rape or rapists.
But somehow it's never strong enough to deter the invocation of the same old tired rape culture narratives when it comes to defending an Important Man Doing Important Work.
Whoops. You defended a rapist.
I'm sure some of Assange's defenders, whether they publicly admit it or not, are furious that Assange made them look stupid. Well, don't worry your Important Heads about it, Very Important Rape Apologists: I can assure you that you looked stupid already.
Hey, remember when the rape allegations against Julian Assange were first made public, and Very Important Men (and Women) were falling all over each other to mendaciously misrepresent the charges and discredit the complainants and peddle conspiracy theories and defend Assange on the basis that he does Important Work and, more importantly, he doesn't SEEM like a rapist to them, right, Daniel Ellsberg?
Sex charges against Assange are grave, but having heard his account personally, I believe they're false and slanderous.Whoooooooooooops! They are—SURPRISE!—in fact not false and slanderous. Angus Johnston has the latest from a London court, where Assange is contesting an extradition order:
[Assange lawyer Ben Emmerson provided] accounts of the two encounters in question which granted — at least for the purposes of today's hearing — the validity of Assange's accusers' central claims. He described Assange as penetrating one woman while she slept without a condom, in defiance of her previously expressed wishes, before arguing that because she subsequently "consented to … continuation" of the act of intercourse, the incident as a whole must be taken as consensual.I don't guess I need to point out that retroactive consent does not magically make a sexual encounter not rape.
In the other incident, in which Assange is alleged to have held a woman down against her will during a sexual encounter, Emmerson offered this summary: "[The complainant] was lying on her back and Assange was on top of her … [she] felt that Assange wanted to insert his penis into her vagina directly, which she did not want since he was not wearing a condom … she therefore tried to turn her hips and squeeze her legs together in order to avoid a penetration … [she] tried several times to reach for a condom, which Assange had stopped her from doing by holding her arms and bending her legs open and trying to penetrate her with his penis without using a condom. [She] says that she felt about to cry since she was held down and could not reach a condom and felt this could end badly."
As in the case of the first incident, Emmerson argues that subsequent consent renders the entire encounter consensual, and legal.
I will, as an aside, note that, contrary to pervasive narratives about women who "feel guilty" after a consensual act inventing rape charges, the reality is that women who feel shame, or fear, or regret after an actual rape frequently re-imagine the encounter as consensual, because admitting rape even to themselves is so difficult. Rapists are exponentially more likely to indirectly benefit from women "consenting" after the fact as a survival strategy than are innocent men likely to be victimized by false rape charges.
Supposing Assange's victims did actually "consent" to the continuation of acts of rape, about which I am profoundly dubious, Assange's own attorney now effectively concedes that was, at best, what happened here: His victims gave "subsequent consent" to sexual activity for which explicit consent was neither sought nor given, after having been assumed, for months, to have invented the act of rape out of revenge or because they were government operatives or whatthefuckever.
I think I may have pointed out once or twice or three million times in this space that the people who benefit from rape apologia and victim-blaming, of the precise sort that we've seen with regard to the accusations against Julian Assange, are rapists.
Which is a pretty strong incentive not to engage in it, if you don't like rape or rapists.
But somehow it's never strong enough to deter the invocation of the same old tired rape culture narratives when it comes to defending an Important Man Doing Important Work.
Whoops. You defended a rapist.
I'm sure some of Assange's defenders, whether they publicly admit it or not, are furious that Assange made them look stupid. Well, don't worry your Important Heads about it, Very Important Rape Apologists: I can assure you that you looked stupid already.
Small Things
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
In August of 2008, I wrote about a ghastly Page Six blind item about a male movie star who reportedly raped an ex-boyfriend and then paid him off to keep quiet about it. My interest (for lack of a better word) in the item was about the ways in which it played into and perpetuated the rape culture.
I did not realize that there was apparently a widespread internet rumor that the unidentified actor in the item was James Franco.
In a new interview with Playboy, Franco addresses being linked to the horrible item, despite the fact that the victim himself admitted not knowing him:
It is also a small thing that he does not say it's offensive because he's not a rapist, defensively centering himself, but instead says it "was so fucking offensive because I have friends who have been raped," thus allying himself with survivors and underlining that treating speculative rape allegations as fodder for entertainment is bullshit for survivors of rape.
That's an important thing, too.
What's depressing is that both of these small things are notable.
[Via Andy.]
In August of 2008, I wrote about a ghastly Page Six blind item about a male movie star who reportedly raped an ex-boyfriend and then paid him off to keep quiet about it. My interest (for lack of a better word) in the item was about the ways in which it played into and perpetuated the rape culture.
I did not realize that there was apparently a widespread internet rumor that the unidentified actor in the item was James Franco.
In a new interview with Playboy, Franco addresses being linked to the horrible item, despite the fact that the victim himself admitted not knowing him:
Gawker [picked up the rumor] and did this "Gay Rapist" story that was so fucking offensive because I have friends who have been raped. They did a very classy online reader's poll asking which actor who had a big movie out that summer had beaten up and raped his boyfriend and then paid him off so it wouldn't go to court. The poll had me, Will Smith, Christian Bale and maybe Tom Cruise or some others, and the readers voted for me. Because it was just an innocent poll, they could report this.It's a small thing that Franco does not use this opportunity to insist that he's not gay. But it's an important thing.
...My lawyer called them and said that it was completely untrue and to take it down. They said, "Well, we're just reporting what the New York Post told us. If James wants to make a comment on our blog, we're happy to report it." It was a choice. Either let this thing build and become bigger and bigger, or just let it go and let them be the petty scumbags that they are.
It is also a small thing that he does not say it's offensive because he's not a rapist, defensively centering himself, but instead says it "was so fucking offensive because I have friends who have been raped," thus allying himself with survivors and underlining that treating speculative rape allegations as fodder for entertainment is bullshit for survivors of rape.
That's an important thing, too.
What's depressing is that both of these small things are notable.
[Via Andy.]
Justice Denied. Again.
[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]
Jamie Leigh Jones, the Halliburton/KBR employee who reported being gang-raped by her co-workers, only to then be held hostage by her employer, and who had to fight through an absurd stipulation in her employment contract that required sexual assault allegations be addressed by private arbitration in order to take her case to court, has lost the civil rape case against Charles Boartz and KBR.
I'm so sorry, Jamie Leigh.
[H/T to Shaker InfamousQBert.]
Jamie Leigh Jones, the Halliburton/KBR employee who reported being gang-raped by her co-workers, only to then be held hostage by her employer, and who had to fight through an absurd stipulation in her employment contract that required sexual assault allegations be addressed by private arbitration in order to take her case to court, has lost the civil rape case against Charles Boartz and KBR.
The main attacker named in the complaint defended the case by saying the sex he had with Jones, while she was unconscious, was consensual. And it was enough for a Houston jury to believe.I don't believe there's anything I can say that I haven't already said a thousand times before. This is the rape culture in action.
To beat the charges the defense did what the defense had to do: they went after Jones' character. They produced medical experts that testified that her injuries "may" have been consistent with rape. They introduced evidence that Jones had alleged rape before, that she had a book deal and that her success post-attack was inconsistent with someone who was claiming psychological injuries.
The defense was shooting for reasonable doubt. Except there is one problem here. Reasonable doubt is the standard in a criminal case and Jones' claims were civil. All the jury had to do was believe it was more likely than not that Jones was correct and then they were required to find for her. Think of it as about 51% that Jones was telling the truth.
Instead, the jury found it was more likely than not that Jones consented to sex while unconscious.
I'm so sorry, Jamie Leigh.
[H/T to Shaker InfamousQBert.]
Quote of the Day
"I am a feminist, because skeptics and atheists made me one."—Rebecca Watson, continuing this discussion at her place. Please note that the post contains discussion of various aspects of the rape culture, as well as violent imagery, which may be triggering.
Sure
[Trigger warning for sexual harassment and assault.]
So, the Chicago Sun-Times published an article about how Jennifer Aniston is playing a boss who sexually harasses and assaults her employee in the new "dark comedy" Horrible Bosses.
The article details the harassment and assaults she commits in the film; it is accompanied by a still image from the film of Aniston as the Horrible Boss groping her employee, played by Charlie Day.
Naturally, it makes no mention of how fucked-up it is for all of this to be played for laughs, although is it discussed at length how Aniston lobbied to wear "a brown wig with a row of bangs" instead of sporting her "trademark streaky blonde" hair, because: "There was just no way I could [play that role] and not look somewhat different."
The headline of this article is: "Jennifer Aniston takes risk, turns hair dark for 'Horrible Bosses'."
Sure.
So, the Chicago Sun-Times published an article about how Jennifer Aniston is playing a boss who sexually harasses and assaults her employee in the new "dark comedy" Horrible Bosses.
The article details the harassment and assaults she commits in the film; it is accompanied by a still image from the film of Aniston as the Horrible Boss groping her employee, played by Charlie Day.
Naturally, it makes no mention of how fucked-up it is for all of this to be played for laughs, although is it discussed at length how Aniston lobbied to wear "a brown wig with a row of bangs" instead of sporting her "trademark streaky blonde" hair, because: "There was just no way I could [play that role] and not look somewhat different."
The headline of this article is: "Jennifer Aniston takes risk, turns hair dark for 'Horrible Bosses'."
Sure.
The Point, You Are Proving It
[Trigger warning for misogyny, rape culture, violent imagery, anti-Islamism.]
Rebecca Watson of the skeptics blog Skepchick recently posted a video in which she speaks, in part, about being on a panel in an atheist conference in Dublin during which she spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. The video, with transcript for the relevant section, is at the bottom of the post. (If the video does not automatically start playing at 2:20, skip ahead.) She then describes how the discussion continued at the hotel bar late into the night, and how a man who purported to be interested in what she was saying followed her into the hotel elevator and propositioned her. Missing the point award.
PZ Myers wrote a post in which the video was mentioned, largely making another point about naming people with whom one disagrees, but acquiescing that perhaps hitting on women and backing off when they signal disinterest possibly is not enough: "Maybe we should also recognize that applying unwanted pressure, no matter how politely phrased, is inappropriate behavior. Maybe we should recognize that when we interact with equals there are different, expected patterns of behavior that many men casually disregard when meeting with women, and it is those subtle signs that let them know what you think of them that really righteously pisses feminist women off."
I almost can't conceive of a more innocuous, virtually noncommittal ("maybe") expression of support for the idea that it's pretty gross to creepily pursue a woman who has said she is going to bed in order to invite her back to your hotel room to further discuss an idea she had introduced in a professional capacity, no less when the idea is not sexualizing women.
And yet, totally predictably, the thread erupted in a hideous gushing explosion of misogyny, anti-feminism, and rape apologia, not only proving Rebecca Watson's point, but illustrating precisely why it is that, despite being an atheist and online activist, I don't touch movement atheism with a 10-foot pole. Were it a place merely hostile to feminist women and outspoken survivors of sexual assault, well, so is the rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't passionately advocate against ignorance, only to feign it when asked to examine its privilege.
Anyway, among the many comments in the thread was one left by the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who had also sat on the panel at which Rebecca Watson spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. Given Dawkins' history of doing things like making anti-Muslim rape jokes and reckoning that a child is "arguably" better off repeatedly raped than raised religious, his comment (which Myers has confirmed is indeed the real Dawkins) is not surprising, but it is nonetheless appalling.
I love those things almost as much as I love the embedded premise that the marginalization of women is a series of unrelated injustices that exist in competition with one another for attention and concern, as opposed to a spectrum of injustices on which exists both women being creeped on in elevators by strangers and female genital cutting.
That is a silencing mechanism.
The implication is that women with relative privilege have no reason or right to "complain" as long as there are women who are experiencing something worse somewhere in the world—a truly despicable position given that it creates a justification for continued brutalization of women across the globe. Feminist scolds like Dawkins, who fancy themselves enlightened, recoil with horror at the suggestion that they support the violent oppression of women, and yet they nonetheless reference it at every opportunity they have in order to defend their lack of concern about injustices done to relatively privileged women in their own communities.
The abject suffering of the world's most vulnerable women is thus used as rhetorical weapon to silence feminists—and feminism is treated as some sort of finite resource that is meant to be kept under glass, broken only in case of a "real" and "serious" emergency, as determined by men who want to silence feminists.
Men who police feminism and feminists, and judge the worthiness of feminist complaints on a sliding scale, don't recognize oppressive acts as interwoven strands of the same rope, and they don't respect the reality that most feminists can multi-task: I can write about a sexist t-shirt being sold to little girls at Wev-Mart, and I write about the rape epidemic in DR Congo in the same day. And do, frequently.
Commenters in the thread made variations on the same argument I am making now, reasonably concluding that Dawkins was arguing that "since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home." But Dawkins left a second comment, insisting that was not his meaning:
Of course, I don't guess this is the sort of stuff that really matters to a man so privileged that he can, with a straight fucking face, assert an equivalency between being followed to an elevator and propositioned by a strange man and having to share an elevator with someone who is chewing gum. Yiiiiiiikes.
PZ Myers followed up with another post, attempting to inject some perspective back into the conversation, to no avail. Dawkins continued to insist that Watson had nothing to complain about in the first place:
Eventually, Myers appended this to his post: "[Rebecca Watson] asked for some simple common courtesy, and for that she gets pilloried. Sorry, people, but that sends a very clear signal to women that calm requests for respect will be met with jeers by a significant subset of the atheist community."
And 'round and 'round we go.
[H/T to Shaker Insomniax, who hat-tips Jen.]
----------------------------------------------------
Rebecca Watson of the skeptics blog Skepchick recently posted a video in which she speaks, in part, about being on a panel in an atheist conference in Dublin during which she spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. The video, with transcript for the relevant section, is at the bottom of the post. (If the video does not automatically start playing at 2:20, skip ahead.) She then describes how the discussion continued at the hotel bar late into the night, and how a man who purported to be interested in what she was saying followed her into the hotel elevator and propositioned her. Missing the point award.
PZ Myers wrote a post in which the video was mentioned, largely making another point about naming people with whom one disagrees, but acquiescing that perhaps hitting on women and backing off when they signal disinterest possibly is not enough: "Maybe we should also recognize that applying unwanted pressure, no matter how politely phrased, is inappropriate behavior. Maybe we should recognize that when we interact with equals there are different, expected patterns of behavior that many men casually disregard when meeting with women, and it is those subtle signs that let them know what you think of them that really righteously pisses feminist women off."
I almost can't conceive of a more innocuous, virtually noncommittal ("maybe") expression of support for the idea that it's pretty gross to creepily pursue a woman who has said she is going to bed in order to invite her back to your hotel room to further discuss an idea she had introduced in a professional capacity, no less when the idea is not sexualizing women.
And yet, totally predictably, the thread erupted in a hideous gushing explosion of misogyny, anti-feminism, and rape apologia, not only proving Rebecca Watson's point, but illustrating precisely why it is that, despite being an atheist and online activist, I don't touch movement atheism with a 10-foot pole. Were it a place merely hostile to feminist women and outspoken survivors of sexual assault, well, so is the rest of the world. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't passionately advocate against ignorance, only to feign it when asked to examine its privilege.
Anyway, among the many comments in the thread was one left by the prominent atheist Richard Dawkins, who had also sat on the panel at which Rebecca Watson spoke about misogyny in the atheist movement. Given Dawkins' history of doing things like making anti-Muslim rape jokes and reckoning that a child is "arguably" better off repeatedly raped than raised religious, his comment (which Myers has confirmed is indeed the real Dawkins) is not surprising, but it is nonetheless appalling.
Dear MuslimaAh, the old there are more Important Things to worry about chestnut. I always love when a man decides what the Important Things feminists should be worried about are for us feminist women. I also love the idea that "Muslim women" and "American women" are mutually exclusive groups, and the idea that there no American women, Muslim or otherwise, whose lives are controlled and whose bodies are violated with impunity. And I love the mendacious misrepresentation of Rebecca Watson's experience—being innocently invited to coffee, as opposed to followed into an elevator at 4am after announcing her intention to go to bed and asked back to a man's room "for coffee" immediately following her public request to not be sexually objectified—and the profoundly disingenuous implication that because Watson had the unmitigated temerity to mention this incident, she is either equating it with other women's suffering or somehow arguing that her experience is more important than other women's.
Stop whining, will you. Yes, yes, I know you had your genitals mutilated with a razor blade, and . . . yawn . . . don't tell me yet again, I know you aren't allowed to drive a car, and you can't leave the house without a male relative, and your husband is allowed to beat you, and you'll be stoned to death if you commit adultery. But stop whining, will you. Think of the suffering your poor American sisters have to put up with.
Only this week I heard of one, she calls herself Skep"chick", and do you know what happened to her? A man in a hotel elevator invited her back to his room for coffee. I am not exaggerating. He really did. He invited her back to his room for coffee. Of course she said no, and of course he didn't lay a finger on her, but even so . . .
And you, Muslima, think you have misogyny to complain about! For goodness sake grow up, or at least grow a thicker skin.
Richard
I love those things almost as much as I love the embedded premise that the marginalization of women is a series of unrelated injustices that exist in competition with one another for attention and concern, as opposed to a spectrum of injustices on which exists both women being creeped on in elevators by strangers and female genital cutting.
That is a silencing mechanism.
The implication is that women with relative privilege have no reason or right to "complain" as long as there are women who are experiencing something worse somewhere in the world—a truly despicable position given that it creates a justification for continued brutalization of women across the globe. Feminist scolds like Dawkins, who fancy themselves enlightened, recoil with horror at the suggestion that they support the violent oppression of women, and yet they nonetheless reference it at every opportunity they have in order to defend their lack of concern about injustices done to relatively privileged women in their own communities.
The abject suffering of the world's most vulnerable women is thus used as rhetorical weapon to silence feminists—and feminism is treated as some sort of finite resource that is meant to be kept under glass, broken only in case of a "real" and "serious" emergency, as determined by men who want to silence feminists.
Men who police feminism and feminists, and judge the worthiness of feminist complaints on a sliding scale, don't recognize oppressive acts as interwoven strands of the same rope, and they don't respect the reality that most feminists can multi-task: I can write about a sexist t-shirt being sold to little girls at Wev-Mart, and I write about the rape epidemic in DR Congo in the same day. And do, frequently.
Commenters in the thread made variations on the same argument I am making now, reasonably concluding that Dawkins was arguing that "since worse things are happening somewhere else, we have no right to try to fix things closer to home." But Dawkins left a second comment, insisting that was not his meaning:
No I wasn't making that argument. Here's the argument I was making. The man in the elevator didn't physically touch her, didn't attempt to bar her way out of the elevator, didn't even use foul language at her. He spoke some words to her. Just words. She no doubt replied with words. That was that. Words. Only words, and apparently quite polite words at that.Again, he implies that "Muslim women" and "American women" are mutually exclusive groups; again, he implies that American women do not "suffer physically from misogyny," nor are their lives "substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny." Certainly, Dawkins and I would disagree on what constitutes "substantial damage," as I suspect his definition would start just beyond what any relatively privileged woman had ever suffered, but suffice it to say I disagree with his contention. As, I imagine, would the many American women who have been sexually abused by religious leaders, without justice. Just for a start.
If she felt his behaviour was creepy, that was her privilege, just as it was the Catholics' privilege to feel offended and hurt when PZ nailed the cracker. PZ didn't physically strike any Catholics. All he did was nail a wafer, and he was absolutely right to do so because the heightened value of the wafer was a fantasy in the minds of the offended Catholics. Similarly, Rebecca's feeling that the man's proposition was 'creepy' was her own interpretation of his behaviour, presumably not his. She was probably offended to about the same extent as I am offended if a man gets into an elevator with me chewing gum. But he does me no physical damage and I simply grin and bear it until either I or he gets out of the elevator. It would be different if he physically attacked me.
Muslim women suffer physically from misogyny, their lives are substantially damaged by religiously inspired misogyny. Not just words, real deeds, painful, physical deeds, physical privations, legally sanctioned demeanings. The equivalent would be if PZ had nailed not a cracker but a Catholic. Then they'd have had good reason to complain.
Richard
Of course, I don't guess this is the sort of stuff that really matters to a man so privileged that he can, with a straight fucking face, assert an equivalency between being followed to an elevator and propositioned by a strange man and having to share an elevator with someone who is chewing gum. Yiiiiiiikes.
PZ Myers followed up with another post, attempting to inject some perspective back into the conversation, to no avail. Dawkins continued to insist that Watson had nothing to complain about in the first place:
I sarcastically compared Rebecca's plight with that of women in Muslim countries or families dominated by Muslim men. Somebody made the worthwhile point (reiterated here by PZ) that it is no defence of something slightly bad to point to something worse. We should fight all bad things, the slightly bad as well as the very bad. Fair enough. But my point is that the 'slightly bad thing' suffered by Rebecca was not even slightly bad, it was zero bad. A man asked her back to his room for coffee. She said no. End of story.Spoken like someone who does not understand what it's like to live as a woman in this world and has never even bothered to try.
But not everybody sees it as end of story. OK, let's ask why not? The main reason seems to be that an elevator is a confined space from which there is no escape. This point has been made again and again in this thread, and the other one.
No escape? I am now really puzzled. Here's how you escape from an elevator. You press any one of the buttons conveniently provided. The elevator will obligingly stop at a floor, the door will open and you will no longer be in a confined space but in a well-lit corridor in a crowded hotel in the centre of Dublin.
Eventually, Myers appended this to his post: "[Rebecca Watson] asked for some simple common courtesy, and for that she gets pilloried. Sorry, people, but that sends a very clear signal to women that calm requests for respect will be met with jeers by a significant subset of the atheist community."
And 'round and 'round we go.
[H/T to Shaker Insomniax, who hat-tips Jen.]
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And I was on a panel with AronRa and Richard Dawkins [which] was on 'communicating atheism.' They sort of left it open for us to talk about whatever we wanted, really, within that realm. I was going to talk about blogging and podcasting, but, um, a few hours prior to that panel, there was another panel on women atheist activists, and I disagreed with a lot of what happened on that panel, uh, particularly with something that Paula Kirby had said.Whoooooooooooooooops, Richard Dawkins! Almost everyone else.
Paula Kirby doesn't have a problem with sexism in the atheism community, and, because of that, she assumes that there is no sexism, um, so I thought that I would, during my panel, discuss what it's like to communicate atheism as me, um, as a woman, but from a different perspective from Paula. I don't assume that every woman will have the same experience that I've had, but I think it's worthwhile to publicize the fact that some women will go through this, and, um, that way we can warn women, ahead of time, as to what they might expect, give them the tools they need to fight back, and also give them the support structure they need to, uh, to keep going in the face of blatant misogyny.
So, I was interested in the response to my sort of rambling on that panel, um, which, like this video, was unscripted and rambling, for which I apologize. [grins] But the response was really fascinating. The response at the conference itself was wonderful, um, there were a ton of great feminists there, male and female, and also just open-minded people who had maybe never considered the, um, the way that women are treated in this community, but were interested in learning more.
So, thank you to everyone who was at that conference who, uh, engaged in those discussions outside of that panel, um, you were all fantastic; I loved talking to you guys—um, all of you except for the one man who, um, didn't really grasp, I think, what I was saying on the panel…? Because, um, at the bar later that night—actually, at four in the morning—um, we were at the hotel bar, 4am, I said, you know, "I've had enough, guys, I'm exhausted, going to bed," uh, so I walked to the elevator, and a man got on the elevator with me, and said, "Don't take this the wrong way, but I find you very interesting, and I would like to talk more; would you like to come to my hotel room for coffee?"
Um. Just a word to the wise here, guys: Uhhhh, don't do that. Um, you know. [laughs] Uh, I don't really know how else to explain how this makes me incredibly uncomfortable, but I'll just sort of lay it out that I was a single woman, you know, in a foreign country, at 4am, in a hotel elevator with you, just you, and—don't invite me back to your hotel room, right after I've finished talking about how it creeps me out and makes me uncomfortable when men sexualize me in that manner.
So, yeah. But everybody else seemed to really get it.
Rape Is Hilarious, Part Wev in a Neverending Series
[Trigger warning for rape "humor," fat hatred, sexual assault, violence.]
Deeky texted me last night after he saw a new TV spot for the previously discussed upcoming film Horrible Bosses, in which murder and sexual assault are central "comedic" themes. This spot ran during a primetime re-run of NCIS.
And, no, the fact that it is a prison rape joke between men does not make it funny. There is nothing funny about prison rape.
Call Time Warner and let them know that you don't think rape jokes, especially rape jokes that suggest rape is a fucking compliment, are funny.
If you're on Twitter, you can tweet directly at Warner Brothers Pictures: @WBPictures.
Deeky texted me last night after he saw a new TV spot for the previously discussed upcoming film Horrible Bosses, in which murder and sexual assault are central "comedic" themes. This spot ran during a primetime re-run of NCIS.
"Tool Boss" Colin Farrell tells "Disrespected Employee" Jason Sudeikis, "We've got to trim some of the fat around here." Sudeikis says, "What?!" to which Farrell replies, "I want you to fire the fat people."Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
"Maneater Boss" Jennifer Aniston, who is a dentist, suggests to "Harassed Employee" Charlie Day that they have sex on top of an unconscious female patient. "Let's use her like a bed," she says, to which Day exclaims in response, "That's crossing the line!"
"Psycho Boss" Kevin Spacey tells "Abused Employee" Jason Bateman, "I own you, you little runt," to which Bateman sheepishly replies, "Thank you."
At a bar, with "murder consultant" Jaime Foxx, one of them says, "I guess we're just gonna be miserable for the rest of our lives," and Foxx offers, "Why don't you kill each other's bosses?" Sudeikis says, "That's actually a good idea."
Montage of someone flying out the window of a highrise building; the three men in a car spinning out of control; police cars with sirens blaring.
Cut to Sudeikis and Bateman walking down the street together, evidently discussing the murder plan. "I can't go to jail," Sudeikis says. "Look at me, I'll get raped like crazy."
"I'd get raped just as much as you would, Kurt," says Bateman, in a sort of hurt voice because rape is totes a compliment.
"No, no—I know you would," Sudeikis reassures him.
And, no, the fact that it is a prison rape joke between men does not make it funny. There is nothing funny about prison rape.
Call Time Warner and let them know that you don't think rape jokes, especially rape jokes that suggest rape is a fucking compliment, are funny.If you're on Twitter, you can tweet directly at Warner Brothers Pictures: @WBPictures.
Today in Rape Culture
[Trigger warning for sexual violence; physician assault.]
I would say this is unbelievable, except, by virtue of writing about this garbage day in and day fucking out, it is all too believable: The Florida Board of Medicine has decided in a 7-3 decision that being convicted of rape should not be an impediment to practicing medicine in the state.
[H/T to @ShelbyKnox.]
I would say this is unbelievable, except, by virtue of writing about this garbage day in and day fucking out, it is all too believable: The Florida Board of Medicine has decided in a 7-3 decision that being convicted of rape should not be an impediment to practicing medicine in the state.
The board, meeting in Ft. Lauderdale, made the decision in the case of Tampa doctor Mark Seldes a former Air Force flight surgeon who was serving in South Korea when he was accused of raping a civilian co-worker [while she was unconscious]. He was convicted in a military court-martial in 2008, served 3 years in prison, and was dismissed from the service for rape and adultery. He was also forced to be registered as a sex offender, and appears in the Florida Sex Offender Registry.Wow.
...[T]he board voted 7-3 to allow Seldes to practice, so long as he completes 300 hours of community service, remains in a monitoring program for troubled physicians, and works in a government facility.
The state agreed not to put him on formal probation, after Seldes argued that probation might make it hard for him to get a job in the future.
[H/T to @ShelbyKnox.]