Shakesville: Seen
“It’s why it’s considered more dishonorable to report a rape, than to rape a fellow soldier.”
Good read.
The Problem with 'Boys Will Be Boys'
For months, every morning when my daughter was in preschool, I watched her construct an elaborate castle out of blocks, colorful plastic discs, bits of rope, ribbons and feathers, only to have the same little boy gleefully destroy it within seconds of its completion.
No matter how many times he did it, his parents never swooped in BEFORE the morning’s live 3-D reenactment of “Invasion of AstroMonster.” This is what they’d say repeatedly:
“You know! Boys will be boys!”
“He’s just going through a phase!”
“He’s such a boy! He LOVES destroying things!”
“Oh my god! Girls and boys are SO different!”
“He. Just. Can’t. Help himself!”
I tried to teach my daughter how to stop this from happening. She asked him politely not to do it. We talked about some things she might do. She moved where she built. She stood in his way. She built a stronger foundation to the castle, so that, if he did get to it, she wouldn’t have to rebuild the whole thing. In the meantime, I imagine his parents thinking, “What red-blooded boy wouldn’t knock it down?”
She built a beautiful, glittery castle in a public space.
It was so tempting.
He just couldn’t control himself and, being a boy, had violent inclinations.
She had to keep her building safe.
Her consent didn’t matter. Besides, it’s not like she made a big fuss when he knocked it down. It wasn’t a “legitimate” knocking over if she didn’t throw a tantrum.
His desire — for power, destruction, control, whatever- - was understandable.
Maybe she “shouldn’t have gone to preschool” at all. OR, better if she just kept her building activities to home.
I know it’s a lurid metaphor, but I taught my daughter the preschool block precursor of don’t “get raped” and this child, Boy #1, did not learn the preschool equivalent of “don’t rape.”
Not once did his parents talk to him about invading another person’s space and claiming for his own purposes something that was not his to claim. Respect for her and her work and words was not something he was learning. How much of the boy’s behavior in coming years would be excused in these ways, be calibrated to meet these expectations and enforce the “rules” his parents kept repeating?
There was another boy who, similarly, decided to knock down her castle one day. When he did it his mother took him in hand, explained to him that it was not his to destroy, asked him how he thought my daughter felt after working so hard on her building and walked over with him so he could apologize. That probably wasn’t much fun for him, but he did not do it again.
There was a third child. He was really smart. He asked if he could knock her building down. She, beneficent ruler of all pre-circle-time castle construction, said yes… but only after she was done building it and said it was OK. They worked out a plan together and eventually he started building things with her and they would both knock the thing down with unadulterated joy. You can’t make this stuff up.
Take each of these three boys and consider what he might do when he’s older, say, at college, drunk at a party, mad at an ex-girlfriend who rebuffs him and uses words that she expects will be meaningful and respecte, “No, I don’t want to. Stop. Leave.”
The “overarching attitudinal characteristic” of abusive men is entitlement
Mike Keefe, Cagle Cartoons
“Some of these cases…involved the victims being raped after drinking quite a lot of alcohol … So I would appeal that young ladies should not drink too much.”
- the Hong Kong security secretary, in response to the city’s rising reports of rape.
Survey says: 26% of students didn’t know if their school has a sexual assault policy. Only 42% said they were informed about their school’s sexual assault policy during orientation.
This is abysmal.
Read more here.
A TED Talk That Might Turn Every Man Who Watches It Into A Feminist? It's Pretty Fantastic.
This is what male feminism looks like.
John beat Mary.
Mary was beaten by John.
Mary was beaten.
Mary was battered.
Mary is a battered woman.
“We’re not even thinking about John – we’re totally focused on Mary. … So now Mary’s very identity is what was done to her by John, but we’ve demonstrated that John has long ago left the conversation.”
This is great. Worth the watch.
Silence Isn’t Useful Against Street Harassment
from here.
When I was a freshman in college, I went to Woody’s, a gay bar in center city, with a few friends. At the end of the night, I went outside to get some air while waiting for my friends to meet me. It happened to be the same night of a big Phillies game – I don’t follow sports, so I can’t tell you which team they played against or even if they lost or won – and there were cars lined up on the street in a traffic jam, honking their horns and going wild. I also don’t understand Philly sport fans.
Next thing I knew, I was being pulled into the back of a truck where at least six grown men were screaming names at me, ripping at my dress and punching me to keep me down. I curled up as tight as I could, holding my head and hoping someone would help me.
Luckily, due to the congestion of cars, a stranger on the street was able to pull me out of the truck before they had the chance to drive away. I immediately went to the cops, reporting what happened and also explaining that they had taken my phone, but the cops said there was simply “nothing” they could do since I didn’t have a license plate number or any way to identify them.
I guess this experience kind of shaped my belief that as a woman, I would just have to put up with harassment from men. It made me believe that being catcalled on the street was no big deal. But as we accept it, we start to let bigger things happen. We start to lose a sense of power, and we give into society’s wrongs rather than joining together and letting people know that no, it’s not OK.
Circle of 6 is an app designed to help young women quickly contact their friend group in potentially dangerous situations. It has everything from a “bad date” button (“Call me, I need an interruption”) to a notice that you need to be picked up with a GPS ping of your location.
This anti-domestic violence ad is running in Saudi Arabia. The text reads “Some things can’t be covered. Fighting women’s abuse together.”
(via opus-pocus)
Source: iamproudcampaign
Rape myths often suggest that women ask for rape because of how they dress or behave and contribute to a rape culture that accepts sexual violence and victim-blaming.
The ultimate consequences of sexual violence and victim-blaming are shocking – and all too common.
We’re coming to work in jeans tomorrow in commemoration of Denim Day.
Part of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Denim Day began as a protest against an Italian rape case, in which the guilty verdict was overturned because the victim was wearing tight jeans before the rape occurred. The court felt the victim must have helped take off her jeans, therefore consenting to sex.
On Wednesday we stand up for this woman, and for all women, in fighting misperceptions about rape. Clothes play no part in causing rape — it can happen to someone wearing jeans, a tight dress, or an oversized parka.
We all grow up in a culture in which women’s bodies are constantly turned into things, into objects. Here she’s become the bottle of Michelob. In this ad she becomes part of a video game. And this is everywhere – in all kind of advertising; women’s bodies turned into things; into objects.
Turning a human being into a thing is almost always the first step towards justifying violence against that person. We’ve seen this with racism, we’ve seen it with homophobia, we see it with terrorism. It’s always the same process: the person is dehumanized, and violence becomes inevitable.”
Time to Talk Seriously About Sexual Violence on Campus
Nationally, one in four sexual assaults take place on college campuses, and about one in five college women are assaulted.
This is why we worked hard to ensure that the Campus SaVE act was included in VAWA.
