anythings.org

I read this on DollyMix last week, and I thought I posted it already, but apparently not. The incident which state-side feminist blogs have only now just gotten wind of actually occurred early last week, but we’ll let them pretend they were the first to blog it even though they’re presenting the facts inaccurately.

As I’m sure many of you have already heard, a London mayoral candidate, Richard Barnbrook (via mouthpiece Nick Eriksen), likened the idea of a woman being raped to a woman being force-fed chocolate cake. While I’m not surprised this quote came from the same man that described career women as “unnatural and vile”, I’m sincerely shocked he actually thought putting it into bring on his blog would be a good idea. A direct quote from his blog said:

“I’ve never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime… Rape is simply sex (I am talking about ‘husband-rape’ here)… Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal…To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence.

The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors.”

Now, while he was talking about spousal rape, he is still completely off his rocker. So, following his logic: if men enjoy sex, and they are raped (anally, by another man) it can’t possibly be that traumatizing or that terrible of a crime, now can it? You can’t use the excuse that it’s a different type of sexual act: sex is sex, rape is rape, regardless of where you happened to be penetrated and what with.

I thought misogyny of this obscenely blatant nature by politicians was going out of style? Apparently, I was wrong.

A man in Oklahoma was found not guilty under a “Peeping Tom” statute for putting his camera up a 16 year old girl’s skirt (without her consent, obviously) and taking photos. Don’t go commando in Oklahoma!

What kind of world do we live in where this kind of violation is legal? At the very least I would think of this as sexual assault or some sort of violation of privacy. Apparently the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals disagrees with me.

From the Feminist Majority Foundation:

Oklahoma’s Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that taking pictures up someone’s skirt in a public place is not a crime. The court voted 4-1 in favor of 34-year-old Riccardo Ferrante who was arrested for putting his camera up an unsuspecting 16-year-old girl’s skirt in a department store, reports the Associated Press.

The lone dissenting voter on the court, Appeals Judge Gary Lumpkin, wrote, “What this decision does is state to women who desire to wear dresses that there is no expectation of privacy as to what they have covered with their dress. In other words, it is open season for peeping Toms in public places who want to look under a woman’s dress.”

Ferrante was charged under Oklahoma’s “Peeping Tom” statute, which makes such offenses felonies punishable of up to 5 years in prison. Tulsa World reports that the court ruled that the statute only applies in situations where the victims are in a reasonably private place such as their own homes, a restroom, or a locker room.

State Representative Pam Peterson is working on a bill to reform the current “Peeping Tom” statute so that it will also include offenses committed in public places. She also proposes to change the statute from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris told Tulsa World, “How do I go back to this victim and tell her she has no expectation of privacy to her private parts in a public place?”

Emphasis mine. Absolutely ridiculous!

[Image from Getty]

Having a semi-scientific background and understanding the ways in which scientific studies work, I have to say I was more than a little miffed to read this article about a study done linking adolescent girls’ weight to their perception of their own popularity. They claimed that girls who viewed themselves as unpopular gained more weight over a two year period than girls who viewed themselves as popular. What was the weight difference, you ask? Popular girls only gained 6.5 pounds over two years, while unpopular girls gained 11.

While how a woman feels about herself can be important when looking at her weight gain and loss, it isn’t always the source of their “fat”. I have met fat, popular high school girls and I have also met skinny unpopular high school girls - all whose happiness did not hinge on their weight. But then again, what one person knows isn’t true for the entire world of American high schoolers. Unless, of course, I’m completely off base here and everyone is walking around high school in mini skirts and stilettos like the ladies of Mean Girls.

Now, maybe it’s just me being “old” and “uncool” (ok, I’m 22, I’m not that old and uncool)… but have things really changed so much since I was in high school? Sure, girls were dieting and drinking Slim Fast for lunch - or skipping lunch altogether - but they were not nearly as concerned with their weight as high school girls are today. The last time I sat in a room surrounded by 15 year old girls was only a few months ago and all they seemed to care about what their weight, their appearance, and how this would attract boys. They spent eons criticizing other girls out of the yearbook or on their MySpace pages and almost as long looking at themselves in a mirror. Maybe it’s because I went to high school in a smaller and less urban town, but there is something wrong with this picture. Are young girls really connecting thinness with popularity?

Of course, we can always blame the celebrities, models, and other worthlessly famous individuals for this sudden “thin is in” craze. We can even blame Apple, Inc. for their last iMac commercial - “Thin is Powerful.” But really, can we blame anybody? Thin has been in for quite awhile. We can’t blame Lindsay Lohan or Nicole Richie for a trend that has been raging for years - more years than I think most of us have been alive.

While I’m sure being rail thin, but supple in all the right places, has helped many actresses and talentless famous people further their “careers”, is it really helping people in the real world? Other than the occasional “scientific study” claiming pretty people get hired more frequently and those of us blessed with an hourglass body make more money, there isn’t really much of a claim to be had by being thin.

One minor reflection on the previously mentioned study: they compared girls using their self-reports of popularity. While they are claiming to link a girls “self-image” of her popularity with her weight, how do we know this wasn’t impacted by a psychological illness such as depression, or even more serious life events such as sexual assault, family problems, or trouble with classes? Or, even more minor in a researcher’s eye, a recent break-up with a boy who told a girl she was disgusting and nobody would ever love her? In addition to this, they compared 4,264 self-reported popular girls with only 182 self-reported unpopular girls, leaving quite a few questions unanswered as far as I’m concerned.

This study is trying to link a poor self-image of popularity with unhappiness by preying on our deeply ingrained stereotypes that nobody likes a fat girl.

While the data for this study was taken in 1999, they are interpreting the it with today’s societal perceptions of body image and weight, which have become more and more in favor of increasingly thinner bodies. I was a high school freshman just turning 15 in 1999 and I knew I was dreadfully unpopular. Hell, I was even harassed on a daily basis for being rail thin and flat as a board and I still didn’t gain the weight this study is claiming the girls they took data on did. I didn’t even weigh 100 pounds, and didn’t hit anything above 110 until after I was in college for two years. While my weight is mostly due to genetics, my self-image didn’t have much of an impact on whether or not I gained weight.

But then again, I like to think of myself as a fairly logical and level-headed person: I don’t connect two variables together that are entirely unrelated and try to draw conclusions to support society’s stereotypes.

This is so infuriating! If a woman says “no”, she says “no”! It doesn’t matter who she is saying “no” to. Apparently, in the UK, a top Tory senior adviser says that “suggested rape accusations made by women against their partners should be treated as “disagreements” between lovers.”

Well of course it’s a disagreement. One person wants to have sex, the other doesn’t, and the one who wants to doesn’t give a shit what their partner wants and rapes them. That is, very obviously, a disagreement. His justification is ridiculous:

None of us want men to rape women, but there is a difference between a man using unreasonable force to assault a woman on the street, and a disagreement between two lovers over whether there was consent on one particular occasion.

Who is to say that a partner doesn’t (or can’t!) use unreasonable force to rape their significant other? Last time I checked, the definition of rape was anal, oral, or vaginal penetration without consent. How is a situation where a couple disagrees about whether or not there was consent NOT rape? Everything about that screams rape. Just because you know someone doesn’t mean they can’t rape you. Assaults on the street are far less common than assaults by people the survivor knows.

This can only have bad consequences. Every acquaintance rapist in the UK is now going to use the defense that it wasn’t rape because they knew each other. They’ll say “we just disagreed about consent! We’re friends, we’re work it out. It was only a minor disagreement, no need for the law here!” Sorry, not ok with me. With only 15% of rapes in the US being stranger rapes and the other whopping 85% being acquaintance rapes, this can only spell bad things for rape survivors. If you consider the fact that rape is one of the most underreported crimes, assholes who run around saying stuff like this will only decrease the number of acquaintance rapes that are reported.

Probably the best part of the whole thing is that they know this:

“It has also been suggested that around three-quarters of rape victims do not report the crime to the police.” Mr Cameron told the Conservative Women’s Organisation that this meant only 15 out of 1,000 victims see justice done.

He said: “We have a situation where rapists think they can get away with it, while victims fear not being believed and wonder what’s the point of pursuing the criminal process. How can any civilised country, that sees the sanctity of consent to sex as a vital right for every woman, accept these facts?”

If we live in a society where rapists think they can get away with it, and survivors fear not being believed I am highly doubtful that running around telling people that rape is simply just a “lover’s quarrel” will help fix this discrepancy. This is so disgusting. If a woman says no, she says no! It doesn’t matter who she is saying no to!

What is with all the countries I want to move to disappointing me with their political opinions and judicial rulings surrounding rape?

Source, via Feministing.

A judge in Canada called a rape victim “stupid” and “naive” because she got into a car with a man who offered to take her to a bus station, but instead drove her to a cemetery and brutally raped her. While the judge did sentence the rapist with 3 1/2 years in prison, he took the opportunity during sentencing to blame the victim for her foolishness.

Now, none of the articles I have found say whether or not the survivor knew the man who raped her, but regardless, she shouldn’t be blamed for the fact that she was raped. This is just as bad as saying it’s her fault for getting raped because she wore a short skirt or had cleavage the night she was attacked. You cannot blame the victim for the circumstances surrounding their attack. They are not wearing a sign that says “I KNOW, I’M ASKING FOR IT. PLEASE RAPE ME.” And for the old school chauvinists who still think that being sexy means you’re asking for sex (even though you may say “no” when it’s forced down your throat or into your vagina), take a look at it this way: it’s a young Asian American woman’s fault for being raped because she happened to be Asian American and she bumped into a man at the coffee shop, who later rapes her because he has a fetish for Asian American women and dominating them.

Or, even more obvious, if a woman was completely incapacitated (either from drugs, drinking, or being drugged while drinking) and running down the street naked and was raped, it wouldn’t be her fault. In every single one of these situations the victim is not to blame.

Asshole judges like this are why so few rape cases are reported, and even fewer go to trial. This is almost as bad as the rape case in the US earlier this year where no one in the trial could say “rape”, “assault”, or “victim” and the jury DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT IT.

And to think all this time I’ve been praising Canada for it’s awesome-ness and non United States-ness and wanting to move there… and then they go and get some asshole judge (cough - ALITO - cough) who screws up everything.

[Image from Peace Over Violence]

I have issues with authors who write emotionally fueled pieces about their bad experiences and attempt to get people on their side. Almost every single article of this nature I have read is a thinly disguised grudge against some group, person, or figure. This article in The New York Times by an ex-sorority girl about “swearing off sorority sisterhood” is no exception to this rule.

Why The New York Times would print this trash is beyond me. I understand that this woman had bad experiences in college and that she feels her sorority is to blame. And while the sorority may have been partially to blame, her “article” comes off as a bitter rant against her sorority. She has a grudge, and who can blame her? She’s telling us the story of how she lost her virginity at a fraternity party, and somehow never manages to use the word “rape” despite the fact she was unconscious and drunk. Last time I checked, if you were unconscious or drunk you couldn’t consent to anything.

I indulged, partied hard and, a scant two months into the semester, lost my virginity. It happened after a fraternity barn dance. All I knew about my date was that he was festively inclined and physically stunning. My sisters considered him a catch. I felt lucky. After the usual alcoholic overindulgence, I followed him upstairs, where I soon passed out on his sofa. There, I assumed the starring role in a garden-variety “ledge party,” my deflowering on display for anyone desiring a peek. I suspect mine was one of the duller productions, but, alas, I remember none of it. I learned later that some sympathetic brothers had objected to the spectacle and pulled me from the wreckage, which, to me, was remarkable. Ledge parties weren’t merely tolerated in the fraternities — they were rewarded with knowing winks and backslaps. But my date had crossed a line: Apparently the fraternal code of ethics only approved of the performances when the girls were conscious (albeit still unaware they were being watched).

Of course, the fraternity brother was “blackballed” (who uses that term anymore?) and he eventually dropped out of school for his antics. Well, duh, of course he dropped out: he raped someone and had plenty of witnesses to the fact.

The author then spends the rest of the article talking about how her sisters systematically kicked her out of the house because of what she had done. Which makes absolutely no sense. I’m sensing we’re missing a part of the story here, or she’s reframing events to make it easier to connect the dots. Nevertheless, she can’t possibly understand why her sisters would do this to her because they were even bigger sluts: they didn’t get raped, they had sex all over the sorority house!

My sisters, of course, were hardly model citizens, either. Indeed, some boasted a sexual prowess that still makes me blush. They had sex in our chapter room, in hot tubs, behind rocks. They participated in communal bulimic binges and coordinated the termination of unwanted pregnancies. Many, naturally, had been victimized by ledge parties as well but had somehow managed to keep it quiet.

I love that she likens group bulimia to group abortions - because they are both equally terrible. Comparing abortion to bulimia is ridiculous: bulimia is a disorder and abortion is a medical procedure. It seems as though she was trying to think of every bad thing she could possibly say about her sorority experience to make it clear just how justified her anger was. Which is great and all, but it wouldn’t have been necessary had she actually focused on her experience of being raped.

On the final page of her article, she makes the point that I would have made in the first paragraph: her sisters didn’t support her during her time of crisis. Instead of supporting her, they cast her out.

And they not only failed to support me in crisis, they collectively kicked me as I lay in the gutter, judged me from under a veil of hypocrisy, then cast me out, leper-style. Their betrayal cut so deep that it has left me anxious and cowering to this day.

The sad thing is, she has made this generalization about sororities, which isn’t fair nor it is true. Instead of writing about her experiences in college and encouraging young women in similar situations to seek campus services, she wrote a bitter diatribe that has so much hate in it I had a difficult time reading it. When I was in college we had a fair amount of Greek participation in Take Back the Night, and because of this, many of my sister’s and the women of other houses felt able to discuss their experiences with each other. When one of our girls was raped by another sister’s boyfriend she was not ostracized; she was cared for, comforted, and helped in every way we knew how. The author’s experiences may have been terrible, but instead of seeking support elsewhere she did nothing (that we know of) and blamed the sorority for all of her problems and her difficulty healing. Has she not found any new friends? Does she not have anyone else she can rely on for support? Blaming a group of immature college girls for your problems is not the way to make people side with you.

The bottom line is this woman joined a bad sorority that had terrible girls in it. The fact that they were in a sorority does not make them bad girls, they were probably awful bitches on their own who used the Greek system to enhance their Mean Girls status. She had bad friends, and through no fault of her own: she was a freshman who was swayed by the advertising of the sorority and was attracted to their image. Of course, this is never the right reason to join a sorority, but it is also not the sorority’s fault that she started drinking, got raped, and had bad college memories. The fact is, if she was going to drink in college she would have done it with or without the sorority. If she was going to party with fraternities, she was going to do that regardless of whether she was Greek herself. The only person she can blame for her rape is the rapist. Not her sorority. Not herself. And not the woman who ran up to her in leggings to greet her when she was out with her children. The bottom line is she, like many drunken and vulnerable college freshman, was taken advantage of.

The author then closes her article pondering how she going to teach her daughters to “wander the duplicitous female maze” of college. Sure, I met some bad people in college. And yes, there are sororities out there that are awful and terrible and treat people as if they are nothing to them. However, there are also extremely kind and wonderful people that you can meet in college. Not every woman in a sorority is automatically evil: you have to leave that up to your daughters to figure out for themselves, they can’t learn everything from you. Raise your daughters to be strong and independent thinking women and they won’t have problems with the “duplicitous female maze”.

From my personal experience, this kind of stuff happens more in high school than it ever does in college. I’ve seen more girls ostracized for reporting being raped, attacked, or assaulted by the high school football star or the cute guy they were just dying to go out with. High schools don’t have resources for assaulted girls, and colleges are starting to realize that this is a huge problem and are making resources available to victims and survivors of sexual assault.

Again, I ask, why did The NYT print a trashy article that was merely a grudge disguised as a memoir?

The problem is complicated, the solution is simple (according to one judge): just say you’re sorry.

Eight boys in Australia filmed their sexual assault of a 17 year old girl and “distributed it as a DVD throughout the community”. You’d think that a filmed record of the event and their confessions along with guilty pleas would secure these boys some time in a juvenile detention facility… but it didn’t:

All except one of the boys had convictions recorded against them. The judge placed six of the boys on youth supervision orders for between 12 and 18 months and two of the boys were placed on probation for 12 months.

He said that if it was not for their guilty pleas and willingness to participate in rehabilitation they would have been at “significant risk” of serving time in youth detention.

Each of the boys had previously pleaded guilty to procuring sexual penetration by intimidation, making child pornography and assault.

[…] He said the program would involve the boys and their families engaging in individually tailored treatment over about nine months.

Of course they were willing to participate in rehabilitation! It was either that or they were going to end up in jail or juvenile detention. Instead of being punished using the legal system, the judge granted them nine months of “tailored” therapy. Now, while I may be a strong advocate for alternative punishments, this is not a punishment: it’s therapy. I was a Psychology major in college (I have a Bachelor’s degree in the subject), so I am well versed on the different forms of therapy and behavior modification. Probably the most important thing to understand about any type of therapy is that it does not work for everyone.

While certain psychological aspects do come into play here - namely, group think - the bottom line is these boys need to be held responsible for their actions. All the therapy in the world won’t do that for them unless they are willing. Sure, they pleaded guilty and were eager to participate in rehab, but that doesn’t mean they sincerely felt they did something wrong and needed to be punished.

In the nine months those boys spend in therapy, I’m willing to bet their victim will be doing the same thing. And at the end of that nine months, I’m willing to bet none of them - including the attackers - will be completely healed, cured, or free of remorse and pain. Nothing will have changed at the end of those nine months, except that poor girl will probably still be in therapy and have large medical bills as a result. How is this fair?

This is a misuse of the legal system, plain and simple.