Today, December 6, is the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women. Eighteen years ago today, Marc Lepine walked into the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal and opened fire while yelling that he "hated feminists" and killed 14 women. This horrific act was carried out because Lepine, like far too many men, hated women. It is the world's oldest hate crime and form of discrimination, it has been justified and rationalized by numerous arguments, and it is largely ignored. More than 3000 women are killed by men in the United States every year--roughly equating to a 9/11 on an annual basis. Yet there is no "war on misogyny" that seeks to eradicate men's terrorism and violence against women; it is accepted as the most outrageous manifestation of a "boys will be boys" mentality.
Today is a day of remembrance, to the extent that people know about what happened on December 6th. Given the paucity of white and purple ribbons adorning people's coats in Halifax, I think it is safe to say that not many do. A month ago, we all honoured--rightly so--those killed in the two World Wars by wearing poppies. It is expected. It is right and proper. But we don't take the time to remember the women who are murdered by men today, yesterday, last week, last month, last year, and who will continue to be killed tomorrow, the next day, next week, and so forth. There are memorials in many cities in Canada, and some small vigils. You don't see too many politicians wearing white ribbons in late November/early December. It says a lot about our pride in our forefather and our country that we remember those who gave their lives to a just and noble cause more than half a century ago. Unfortunately, it also says a lot about us that we don't remember and don't honour the women who are killed on an all-too-regular basis. But those of us who do, do so through books, through public events, through personal memorials, and through the commitment that we undertake to take action.
Today is a day of action. Today we come together and say, "This must stop." We join the White Ribbon Campaign, taking the pledge to never commit, condone, encourage, or turn a blind eye to men's violence against women. We can join Amnesty International's Campaign to Stop the Violence, or the Stolen Sisters remembrance campaign. We talk to our friends and family about violence that affects 1 in 3 women world-wide. We send letters and emails to our elected officials demanding justice. We tell people that think beating up, humiliating, and degrading women makes for good comedy that they are wrong, that it is not funny. We change our attitudes and look to change the attitudes of others so that we can all come to the very sensible conclusion that the scope and scale of violence against women is unacceptable, that it must end, that we must begin to regard all people with the same compassion and empathy and accord them the same rights and dignity that we expect for ourselves. This is what we do today...and what we must all strive to do every day.
Showing posts with label Destroy Your Porn Collection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Destroy Your Porn Collection. Show all posts
06 December 2007
02 September 2007
"Gray Rape" Theory = Bunk
A number of venues around the Internet have commented on an article in the latest issue of Cosmo magazine that puts forward the idea of "gray rape," which are supposedly situations in which the existence of consent can be contested and thus women are not entirely sure whether or not their rape was, in fact, a rape at all. Feministing and a poster at the White Ribbon Campaign blog are but two excellent places to visit that thoroughly expose this concept as ridiculous and hurtful.
Longtime readers will recall a list that I posted last year that very accurately points out the various scenarios that are rapes. Due to the severe importance of this topic, I will re-post that list in full:
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Hell, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a woman is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.
Don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.
I've taken the liberty to bold out some of the extra-key ones here, just to emphasize how much garbage is the idea that there is a "gray zone" separating consensual sex and rape. I would also like to point out that the situation provided always concludes with "don't rape her" and not "don't have sex with her." There's a reason for that. When any one or more of this set of circumstances arises, consent is not given. Indeed, in the second scenario that I bolded, consent is actually withdrawn. The Cosmo article points out exactly that type of scenario and the story of a confused woman the morning after who was not sure whether or not she was raped, and makes no effort to affirm that she was indeed raped.
This all begins with the assumption by some men that women's default position on consent is "yes." For many of these men, this assumption arises from their consumption of pornography, in which women are portrayed as always willing, always submissive, always desirous of doing whatever vile act men may wish to perpetrate upon them. The inability to rationalize that not all women want to have sex with all men at any time, and more specifically, that any individual woman does not want to have sex with any individual man is an insidious failure on the part of many men that will often result in them raping a woman. The need to impose and imprint in men's minds the reality, that consent is not automatic and not default, that it is only when a woman says "yes"--the first time!--in an environment in which she has a legitimate ability to make a truly free choice, is sex consensual. Anything less than that standard should be perceived and portrayed as rape, because that is what it is. Pestering a drunk girl for two hours to have sex, and receving her ultimate concession, is still rape, because: a) she is intoxicated and her ability to rationalize and make her own judgment called is limited, and b) consent was withheld for 119 minutes, only being given after being worn down and in combination with a). That, by any sensible standard, should be viewed as rape.
Thus, not only is "yes" assumed to be the default position for all women, so too does a single "yes" override any number of "no's." This, to any reasonable person, is not logical, and should not be indicative of legitimate consent. Allow me to go to an extreme scenario: if I'm being held captive in a dark room, imprisoned and subjected to mental and psychological abuse, and I've said no to the question "Can we cut your arm off?" 149 times, does my relenting to this trauma on the 150th posing of the question truly mean that I consent to having my arm cut off? I should surely think not. That is not a gray area, is it?
In sum, Cosmo, as it does in so many other fields of women's lives, truly has failed women with this article. It leaves them with a considerable impression that there are some scenarios where their "no" doesn't count and that their failure to say "no" doesn't count as withholding consent. It is perpetuating an illegitimate and unjust status quo in which rape is not only tolerated in our culture, but accepted. For a magazine that purports to "empower" women, Cosmo's "gray rape" theory is yet another imposition of male-dominated harmful ideology that prevents women from reaching their maximum potential while giving men an out card from accepting responsibility for their causal role in rape.
Longtime readers will recall a list that I posted last year that very accurately points out the various scenarios that are rapes. Due to the severe importance of this topic, I will re-post that list in full:
A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Hell, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all. Instead of that bullshit, how about:
If a woman is drunk, don't rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her.
If a woman is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don't rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her.
If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend.
If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and tell the guy he's a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it's not okay to rape someone.
Don't tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x.
Don't imply that it's in any way her fault.
Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl.
Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.
I've taken the liberty to bold out some of the extra-key ones here, just to emphasize how much garbage is the idea that there is a "gray zone" separating consensual sex and rape. I would also like to point out that the situation provided always concludes with "don't rape her" and not "don't have sex with her." There's a reason for that. When any one or more of this set of circumstances arises, consent is not given. Indeed, in the second scenario that I bolded, consent is actually withdrawn. The Cosmo article points out exactly that type of scenario and the story of a confused woman the morning after who was not sure whether or not she was raped, and makes no effort to affirm that she was indeed raped.
This all begins with the assumption by some men that women's default position on consent is "yes." For many of these men, this assumption arises from their consumption of pornography, in which women are portrayed as always willing, always submissive, always desirous of doing whatever vile act men may wish to perpetrate upon them. The inability to rationalize that not all women want to have sex with all men at any time, and more specifically, that any individual woman does not want to have sex with any individual man is an insidious failure on the part of many men that will often result in them raping a woman. The need to impose and imprint in men's minds the reality, that consent is not automatic and not default, that it is only when a woman says "yes"--the first time!--in an environment in which she has a legitimate ability to make a truly free choice, is sex consensual. Anything less than that standard should be perceived and portrayed as rape, because that is what it is. Pestering a drunk girl for two hours to have sex, and receving her ultimate concession, is still rape, because: a) she is intoxicated and her ability to rationalize and make her own judgment called is limited, and b) consent was withheld for 119 minutes, only being given after being worn down and in combination with a). That, by any sensible standard, should be viewed as rape.
Thus, not only is "yes" assumed to be the default position for all women, so too does a single "yes" override any number of "no's." This, to any reasonable person, is not logical, and should not be indicative of legitimate consent. Allow me to go to an extreme scenario: if I'm being held captive in a dark room, imprisoned and subjected to mental and psychological abuse, and I've said no to the question "Can we cut your arm off?" 149 times, does my relenting to this trauma on the 150th posing of the question truly mean that I consent to having my arm cut off? I should surely think not. That is not a gray area, is it?
In sum, Cosmo, as it does in so many other fields of women's lives, truly has failed women with this article. It leaves them with a considerable impression that there are some scenarios where their "no" doesn't count and that their failure to say "no" doesn't count as withholding consent. It is perpetuating an illegitimate and unjust status quo in which rape is not only tolerated in our culture, but accepted. For a magazine that purports to "empower" women, Cosmo's "gray rape" theory is yet another imposition of male-dominated harmful ideology that prevents women from reaching their maximum potential while giving men an out card from accepting responsibility for their causal role in rape.
05 March 2007
Sticker Sightings
Looks like someone's taking a page from CharlieGrrl's playbook...ahhh the fun. In case you have trouble making out the wording on the "Warning" stickers, they read: "Use of this product may impair your ability to relate to actual women and has also been shown to increase levels of aggression against them in laboratory experiments."
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