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I’ve never asked anyone to reblog anything before, and I probably won’t again. But I am now - because this matters.
The Steubenville rape victim, when offered money for her legal expenses or counselling, asked that people donated to a shelter for abused women and children in her county, Madden House, instead.
Her attorney spoke in a local news article on why the family wanted this, and said they hope very much that “the attention … can help other people that have been victimized by this type of crime,” Fitzsimmons said, “and give them some strength and some assurance that people are there to help them when that happens.”
You can donate as little as $2 via your Paypal account to Madden House. (You can also navigate their website from that link, to be sure it’s a charity you can also believe in.) When I donated back in January, they had a message up that said, “Every single cent says, ‘We believe you, and we care.’” They had to remove it almost at once. I’m sure you can deduce the reasons why, in a case where even her status as “victim” was challenged before the trial.
The best way to show you support Jane Doe is to make a donation, however small and leave a Paypal note when you do saying “In the name of Jane Doe, Steubenville.” They are telling her how many people donate in her name so it’s a direct way of letting her know. Even if all you can afford is a dollar, a thousand Tumblr users donating that is a thousand dollars for abuse victims. And it’s also a thousand people telling her directly that they, unlike the likes of CNN and her erstwhile “friends”, care about her, support her, and believe in her. It’s what she has actually asked people to do. In a case where she has been so effectively silenced and sidelined, I think acknowledging she’s been heard is particularly important.
I think it says so much about this girl and her parents, that when met with offers of serious money they immediately asked that it went to a charity that helps other victims of violence instead. They are extraordinary people in my opinion, and that’s why she had the strength to come forward. Images of two other girls, naked and face down on that basement carpet, were found on a phone. The boy insisted he’d never seen them before, and had no idea who they were of. Jane Doe may well not have been speaking up only for herself. She has very possibly saved others with her courage. She deserves so much more respect than the mainstream media have given her.
If you can’t donate, I really do understand. I’ve been broke before too. But please, do reblog. Get the message out. There is a genuine, positive way to support the victim, in the way she has asked for, and this is it.
Sorry it’s so long. There are so many scams online that I wanted to provide ample links, so there can be no doubt this is legit. Please, if you can, donate/reblog. Show Jane Doe what you think of her.
Rebloggable on request, and link in the question/comment added for context.Anonymous asked: Thoughts on this argument re: lifting the ban? Why don’t they ever mention the rapes of women in war by the soldiers? Is that supposed to magically go away too with women on the ground? thepoliticalnotebook.com/post/41381354564/motherjones-pentagons-top-general-barringPfffft. “Treating people equally” my foot. And yes, you’re right: that ridiculousness also doesn’t explain or even acknowledge the rape and assault of women in countries the US throws its troops in. Fuck that. I am sick and tired of the US military throwing around words like “gender equality” and “feminism” when it benefits them, right as they go around killing people in other countries.
The military itself enforces a system of sexism, racism, violence. Putting women on the ground isn’t going to make that go away. All it does if enforce internalized sexism and the idea that if you play by the master’s rules, maybe, maybe you’ll be okay. That’s no where near confronting issues of rape or sexual assault, anywhere- in fact, it encourages it. It says, “if you’re a “full soldier” and therefore follow all our orders to kill innocent people, then maybe you deserve to not be raped”.
Not here for that. Not my “feminism”.
Everyone needs to watch this video, left, right, center, apathetic—it doesn’t matter. This is the very essence of rape illiteracy that is still being fought in 2012.
Share with everyone. You never know who needs these words the most.
for me as a european, it’s unbelievable. seriously.
to watch later.
this is why racism is not a fucking joke, if you dont understand what Natives deal with, why we’re angry, watch this and you will understand
I can’t stop crying.
So much love to Megan Bertasson for her bravery in sharing her stories.
Canada does not give a shit.
It really doesn’t. Our dehumanization, especially that of Native women, is total.
and I’m sorry, but to the “as a European” person: if this is unbelievable, your blinders must be something else. Fuckin believe it, and remember that the vast edifices of Europe were bought and paid for with the blood and suffering of billions.
I have nothing else to say. I cried. I’m pissed.
because no one gives a shit.
ayhay wapi-maskwa iskwewThis is native and you should all watch it.
this woman. no words
Megan Bertasson (Whitebear Woman, Wolf Woman), York University student and out-of-territory Cree woman from Kinosao Sipi Cree Nation, delivers a talk at TEDxYorkU 2012 on the theme of the impact of storytelling.
TW: rape, racism, violence
(TW: rape, incest) Another way parents let down their daughters is by having no clear boundaries - not just emotional boundaries, but also physical ones. I consider certain actions that might not be incest, per se, to be incestuous. For example, I have heard many stories from girls whose fathers walked around naked or never shut the door when they were getting dressed or made suggestive comments to their daughters about their breasts or asses. Often, when these girls spoke up to protest their father’s behavior, their families accused them of being prudish or repressed, and the girls developed real insecurities about their own rights to boundaries.
Fathers don’t have to rape their daughters or do anything secretive to effectively violate and silence their daughters. Girls know when their feelings will not be respected. They also know when it’s not safe to set their own terms within the family. Girls left voiceless like this are at much greater risk of being abused.
)Dr. Patti Feuereisen & Caroline Pincus. Invisible Girls: The Truth About Sexual Abuse – A Book For Teen Girls, Young Women, and Everyone Who Cares About Them. Avalon Publishing Group, Inc. 2005. (pg. 44 - 45)
- “To Rape or Not to Rape,” from avoiceformen.com
Is this a piece of good advice on why to not rape women? Is this a Men’s Right’s Activist telling other men that having sex with an inebriated woman is a bad idea for both parties? Is a Men’s Right’s Activist helping fight rape culture?!
Let’s look to the next few lines:
“That atmosphere invites trouble. It is rife for manipulation and entrapment. An upscale bar may give free or low priced drinks to ladies and advertise for men to come and enjoy the company of the self-inebriated. At any of these ladies nights, there could lurk an opportunist willing to be picked up in order to blackmail a well-intentioned male with a rape charge if he doesn’t make her financially happy.”
(via giver-of-armbands)
Because really
It’s totes more important to advise men on the dangers of RAPE ACCUSATION versus you know
not raping.
(via lightspeedsound)
I find the first part of this quote to be particularly disturbing on it’s own. This guy is saying don’t rape because then you’ll go to jail and your life will be destroyed and no woman is worth that! He doesn’t give a shit that he’s talking about fucking RAPING someone. “Personally, I would not take the risk.” That part makes me fucking shudder.
(via hrarara)
^This. The first part is just as, if not more disgusting.
(via feistyfeminist)
That is fucking disgusting. It still doesn’t equate women with human beings, worthy of respect, and THAT’S why you do not want to destroy their life and rape them. It’s telling them not to rape because the girl will tell on you and ruin your life.
Because, even when we’re talking about violent fucking crime here, the man’s reputation is still more important than caring about the person who would be victimized.
Fuck that.
(via whosthegirlwearingsunglasses)
“Personally, I would not take the risk.” As if he’s advising someone not to drink expired milk.
(via thelastgoodkiss)
)i want you guys to stay informed. here are some of the arguments that i edited for a defense attorney who specialized in defending men accused of sexual assault, rape and domestic violence
- these cases work in a peculiar way — the jury won’t be swayed if the lawyer seems to be attacking a victim (especially female). so the defense plays up how smart and well-balanced the woman seems and how helpless and naive the guy is. if you’re cross-examining a woman and ask her nicely about a string of achievements — “you graduated summa cum laude from an ivy league school, correct?” “you started your own business, correct?” “you are in charge of over 40 people at your company, correct?” “if one of your employees behaved inappropriately, you would have no problem reprimanding or firing them, correct?” “a smart woman isn’t likely to stay with a man who beats her every night, right? does that sound right to you?” — the jury ends up having sympathy for her, but believing that she’s too smart (or pretty or accomplished or whatever vein the attorney picks) to let bad things happen to her
- when he cross-examines his own clients he emphasizes that they’re either too morally sound or too confused, “it was just a mistake,” so that sometimes you can admit that there was an altercation but (he tells the jury, shaking his head) you can’t call it rape because that’s too strong
- “victim pretended to be unconscious following alleged rape to avoid answering friend’s questions” - that’s a section heading for a case summary
- “friend did not initially believe explanation” - that’s the heading of the next section. in this particular case, the attorney cross-examined the victim’s friends and got them to admit that she was just a dramatic person, or flustered, pointing to signs that she either lied about this case or chronically lies/exaggerates
- “victim had time to consider her circumstances before accusing client of rape” - she took until the next day to go to the police station, soooo
- point out all the different ways she could have resisted or every possible sign of resistance that wasn’t there — the prosecution will focus on the few signs they have, but the defense can be really smarmy here and list every single way she did not resist
- if the woman was drunk, and the prosecution says she was unable to consent because she was drunk, the defense can call in experts on alcohol absorption and grill them until they admit that there’s a margin of error (“Since it was our contention that the alleged victim had exaggerated her level of intoxication to attract attention, and was not, therefore, too intoxicated to consent to sexual relations, the main goal of this cross-examination is to undermine the credibility of the chemist’s retrograde extrapolation calculations.” that’s a quote from a book i edited)
- and of course the good ol focusing on her sexual history, any flaws she could have, emphasize that these are human flaws and that nobody in this case deserves any punishment
these are very convincing arguments to juries
and that’s why we hesitate to report our sexual assaults and rapes, because “it’s not that big of a deal,” because there’s no way we could “let” that happen to us; because once we get to the police station they ask “what took you so long” and “how could you let that happen to you”; because when you get to the courtroom you’re subjected to this; and the time and the money and “i just want this to be over.” and then…the jury is so easily convinced. they say 1 in 4 women has been sexually assaulted, but i really think it’s more, and i don’t even want to know how many sexual assaults and rapes have happened with absolutely no mention — or even recognition — of them happening (from either party). let alone retribution
Male privilege is this article.
Because we’re supposed to feel sorry for the poor widdle rapist
My short piece about the latest misogynist mess in The Netherlands, in view of our very own election campaign currently under way.
As you may have heard, congressman and senate candidate Todd Akin said some incredibly ignorant things about rape and pregnancy today. Basically he said that you can’t get pregnant as the result of rape, or at least not “legitimate rape”. As shocking as this may seem, it’s nothing new from the anti-abortion movement. Statements like this have been going on for years now.
Anna North at Buzzfeed notes 6 instances of this myth being used by abortion opponents in the past, usually to dismiss questions about rape exceptions in abortion bans. Not including this one.
They do this because the rape exception question scares them. They don’t want to answer to people asking them to explain their reasoning to force an already-violated person to continue a pregnancy they didn’t even consent to risking, so they look for ways to dismiss that scenario completely. So they cling to this myth because they either believe or want to believe it, or because it’s already a well-established lie.
Rape exceptions are a tough question for abortion opponents because they’re forced into admitting that they either don’t care about pregnant people or they don’t actually care about the fetus. I don’t know why they bother, because rape exceptions are almost never granted anyway.
Lifers, if you really think that the rights of a fetus come before the rights of a pregnant person no matter what, then just say so. At least your heartless “oh well!” attitude is honest and logically consistent.
As for the choice of words “legitimate rape”, well, it’s no surprise when you consider the fact that Akin was a co-sponsor of the bill that would have changed the requirements for rape victims seeking Medicaid assistance for abortion funds to “forcible rape”. The implication is that unless violent force was used, the person wasn’t “really” raped and shoulders at least some responsibility for their having been violated. Basically, if they can find some way to blame you (“she shouldn’t have drank so much and passed out, she should have fought back…”), they’ll say that your rape wasn’t real and doesn’t count and you aren’t worthy of help.
To make matters worse, Todd Akin also supports a complete ban on emergency contraception, a form of birth control often administered to rape victims which actually is an effective way to prevent pregnancy after a rape.
See, this is why so many women don’t get help if they get raped, socially or from the justice system. Because asshats like this confirm the cultural understanding that it’s only rape if a big scary stranger with a knife in an alley does it, so it doesn’t count if it’s your friend/brother/husband/boyfriend/roommate. This helps that cycle of violence continue.
Why most mass killers are privileged white men - http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2012-07-why-most-mass-murderers-are-privileged-white-men By Hugo Schwyzer (via riselikethetide)
Folks, this quote was written by serial abuser, rapist, and attempted murderer of an intimate partner Hugo Schwyzer… an important detail that was left out of the original post’s attribution.
(via alexandraerin)
For additional perspective on why we should, perhaps, reconsider before we give Schwyzer and his POV much more of our attention, please see yesterday’s article on serial rapists, attention, and addiction at The Daily Dot.
(via bookshop)
THIS^^ Stop reblogging this shit like it has any merit.
)Pennsylvania State University was fined $60 million as college sports’ governing body penalized the school for its handling of a child sex-abuse case involving assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. It avoided the stiffest punishment, a shutdown of the football program that was at the center of the scandal.
The school also was stripped of all its wins from 1998 through 2011, barred from postseason games for four years and lost 20 total scholarships annually for four seasons, according to a release from the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
“One of the grave dangers of our love of sports is that the sports themselves become too big to fail,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said at a televised news conference in Indianapolis.
The NCAA statement said Penn State’s leadership had perpetuated a “football-first culture that ultimately enabled serial child sex abuse to occur.”
Penn State President Rodney Erickson announced the decision Sunday morning, calling the statue “a source of division and an obstacle to healing.”
The Korean government may fall in line with the U.S. State Department in abandoning the euphemism “comfort women” for women drafted as sex slaves for the Japanese military during World War II, Foreign Minister Kim Sung-hwan said last Friday. Kim said the government “will consider using the term ‘sex slaves,” when asked about the matter by Democratic United Party lawmaker Shim Jae-kwon in the National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee.
“I understand that the term ‘comfort women’ was coined in the past by taking into account the victims’ opinions,” he added, “but the government is ready to change the term after consultation with the victims.”
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told department officials to use the grammatically dubious but factually more accurate term “enforced sex slaves,” instead of “comfort women,” which is literally translated from the Japanese euphemism.
Meanwhile, Kim confirmed in the same session that Korea is claiming sovereignty over a potential oil field known as Sector 7 on an underwater continental shelf stretching south of Jeju. “We’re submitting supporting documents to the UN. Japan is expected to raise objection, so it seems important to engage in talks with Japan over this matter.”http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/07/16/2012071601075.html
I’m just going to add my commentary in the form of a snippet from the essay I wrote on Korean ‘Comfort Women:’
When examining the issue of the portrayal of comfort women, perhaps one of the most interesting aspects to examine is the question of what to call these women and girls. The words used to describe them can carry unintended connotations or value judgments.
The popular name euphemism given by the Japanese is ianfu (wianbu in Korean), which translates as “comfort women.” This term carries certain expectations about the people it describes that may or may not be accurate. This is most relevant to the “woman” aspect of the term. “Woman” implies “adult.” In reality, many ianfu were girls or teenagers. The Korean Council For The Women Drafted For Sexual Slavery By Japan (Korean Council) cite girls as young as 11 being forced to serve the Japanese military as comfort women. Most sources agree that most comfort women were between 14 and 19 when drafted (Amnesty International; Chung, 228). The young age of the girls is especially problematic when taken into account that the Japanese government had set the legal age for Korean women to become prostitutes at 18. (Kim-Gibson, 107).
The other popular euphemism used is chongshindae (Korean; teishintai in Japanese), which was the so-called “voluntary” labor corps. This referred to any Koreans drafted to serve the Japanese war effort, but has come to especially refer to comfort women. The irony of this term is that while labeled “voluntary,” it was a method for coercing labor from the Japanese colonies. Women were often tricked into becoming comfort women under the banner of chongshindae, which promised them opportunities to make money working as nurses or in factories. Several testimonies indicate the forced recruitment of elementary school girls to be sent to comfort houses within the premise of chongshindae (Chung, 221; Kim-Gibson, 41).
Non-euphemistic terms to describe comfort women are “forced prostitutes” or “military sex slaves.” The term “military sexual slavery” is preferred to describe the issue by certain groups and individuals since the term “comfort women” “obscures their real situation.” Two such prominent groups to adopt the term in their official discourse are the UN and the Korean Council (Chung 222).
I do think the term “comfort women” should not just be cast aside as politically incorrect. As the Japanese term for these people, it gives us an insight into the Japanese mindset at the time. The term “comfort women” implies that there is another party in this relationship supposedly being comforted, the Japanese soldiers and military officers. In this way, the term tries to take the focus off the women themselves, and asserts their function as part of the Japanese war effort. The purpose of the women was to provide a sexual outlet for the soldiers while avoiding the transmission of venereal disease and civilian rapes (ironic, but just go with it). As bluntly put by Dai Sil Kim-Gibson in her book Silence Broken: Korean Comfort Women, “they were nothing more than military supplies of the Emperor,” (40). Kim-Gibson also says she prefers the term “comfort women” because “’comfort’ more accurately depicts the sexual servitude committed in a chilling casualness as well as a dehumanizing brutality,” (1).
“Military sex slave,” while still implying another party that the slaves are subordinate to, emphasizes the violence committed against the women and girls. Unlike “comfort woman,” it makes clear the lack of consent in the relationship and replaces the fuzzy term “comfort” with the unequivocal “sex.”
So, with the different arguments for and against each term in mind, I will use the terms interchangeably to help avoid subscribing to the political agendas and connotations each term implies. I also use the term “survivor” to talk about former comfort women because it is becoming popular today to describe victims of sexual assault as “survivors” as a way of empowering them. It is a term that allows people who have been sexually assaulted to be referred to with dignity. In a similar way to this, surviving Korean comfort women are often referred to by other Koreans as halmeoni, or grandmother, a term of respect for these women who are their elders.
A legal system is always inextricably bound up in the beliefs of the culture that created it. Rape culture is alive and well throughout the world, and therefore this damaging set of assumptions gains a degree of credibility as judges believe untruths and the minds of the lawmakers are swaddled in lies. Sweden is no different, and its implementation of “justice” is as likely to engage in rape apologism as any other legal system. It is not a haven of feminism, it is the same as anywhere else.
Anyone who thinks Sweden is a “feminist haven” should read Katarina Wennstam’s books on how rape is viewed and handled in this country. There’s victim blaming, slut shaming - you name it.
