ff

a friend texted me yesterday, while i was out running work errands, that he was crying over the sentencing in the rehtaeh parsons case.

 

remember her? rehtaeh. we aren't supposed to use her name. remember? remember how well reporting went for her? remember that there was a photograph of her rape, and still she was blamed and shamed and doubted and mocked? remember how cruel the world was to her? remember how she did not survive it? remember how we grieved when she died?

 



{rehtaeh's father, delivering the victim impact statement yesterday as reported by the cbc}

'why wouldn't a person report an assault?'
'we are having a watershed moment!'

{amanda hess writes on rehtaeh for slate.com}

i don't know what justice would look like, exactly. i don't. but i know this isn't it. i don't like prison as a catch-all. but i want something. i want something better than this. a system that rips a girl to shreds when she has already been broken apart.

the system is broken. the system is sick and rotting at its core.

'why wouldn't a person report an assault?'
'we are having a watershed moment!'

forgive me if i am not a believer. forgive me if i am too tired, even, to cry for her again. and for the ones who never got brought out into the public eye, whose assaults stayed 'community matters', who will never even come close to this non-justice-justice, to being heard and believed and cared for.

happy friday, don't forget.

ff emergency edition

 alrighty, canada. this ghomeshi sitch is looking to get really ugly.

where i stand is pretty clear, i think, after a long history of railing against the man... but not everyone knows what i know, or can get up in my heart and see the full conviction of my knowledge, and that's fine.

but if you are thinking about believing his statement, if you are skeptical of the claims against him, i'm gonna need you to be really up to date of information surrounding sexual assault and reporting and so on. so i'm giving you a zillion bits of info. super fun, right? here we go:

* the statistics

if you don't know a survivor of sexual assault it is almost certainly because no one has told you, not because they don't exist in your circles.

* rate of sexual assault tends to remain fairly consistent, but reports to police have declined steadily since 1993

so why aren't women reporting?

* fear and shame, concern about the attitude of both police and the courts

* fear of revictimization in the legal process

and why on earth might ladies not feel like the police or other powers-that-be or the world are on their side?

* "One of the safety tips was for women not to dress like ‘sluts.’" says a police man to a group of university students in toronto

* "“Nobody comes out of the Ched Evans rape case with any credit – not the victim who’d drunk so much she could barely stand, nor the two footballers who had sex with her in the most sordid of circumstances.”" says a bbc host

* "...a judge ruled that what the defendant did was technically rape, but it wasn't rape-rape because the fact that woman was all gussied up in heels and fancy clothes meant that "sex was in the air.""

* there is video of a woman beaten to unconsciousness by her partner, and she still gets blamed and shamed

* "...these are the harms we persistently lack the (legal) language to describe, the experiences to which our laws, our campus policies, our media and our Title IX activism are ceaselessly unresponsive." on dating violence.

* "It appears a growing number of young girls are not only being sexually assaulted on campus, but have come to think of it as a normal part of their educational experience." said in 2008    
         
* "The trauma of the rape and ongoing bullying caused depression and suicidal thoughts."

quick break. how 'bout some puppies?

{thanks, that helps, cutest paws!}

on we go.

* people think 'survivor privilege' is a thing

* people think 'rape culture' is NOT a thing

* talking about anything that is well loved (like a radio icon, say, or video games, perhaps) can cause an outpouring of hate and abuse that is not only appalling, but also terrifying and damaging

* like, say, you speak up about being afraid of an aggressive anti-woman movement, and immediately are targeted by that movement

* like, say, if your attacker plays football

* and again, with the football

* rape apologia is especially present when Famous Men are involved

break.
here's a pile of kittens.

{thanks for that, cat lovers only!}

okay, back at it. here's a fun little thread:

* "A police officer in Detroit is charged with sexually assaulting a woman who called 911 during a domestic violence incident."

* "A San Jose police officer is accused of raping a woman who called 911 following a domestic violence incident."

* "A police officer in Baltimore, Maryland is accused of raping a woman he was supposed to be helping after a traffic accident."

* "Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Ken Holtzclaw was released from jail Friday as he faces charges for allegedly sexually assaulting 7 different African American women while he was on duty. Among the claims against him are forcible rape, burglary, and felonious stalking."

* "Two Los Angeles Police Department officers are under investigation for allegedly preying on women over a period of five years, luring them into an unmarked car and forcing them to perform sex acts, according to court records."

* "The officers were found to have violated police procedure by returning to the apartment of a drunk woman they escorted home, and Moreno went so far as to admit he cuddled with her while she wore only a bra."

* "...a Manhattan jury made up of highly educated professionals refused to convict Officer Michael Pena of rape for a startling reason — the victim could not recall the color of a car parked by the courtyard where she was forced to her knees, sources told The Daily News Thursday.“If she doesn’t remember these details, how does she know she was penetrated,” one of the holdouts reportedly said, according to sources."

 i could do this all day. for many days. the examples are endless.

so i don't wanna hear 'why don't they just go to the police' re: ghomeshi's victims. okeedokes? until you have read through each and every one of these links in their entirety, and maybe followed some of the links IN the links, leading to even more examples and more examples and more.... until then? i will not tolerate even the smallest hint of victim-blaming from my friends and acquaintances.

now here's a slow loris.

{seriously, you're the greatest, thank you zoobourns!}

ff

this week emily yoffe, aka dear prudie, wrote an exceptionally idiotic and irresponsible piece of victim-blaming drivel about girls and drink culture and rape.

i'm not linking to it cause, ew, dude, you don't deserve the traffic. i found it because they had her on to talk about it on double x, the slate so-called feminist podcast. i can't even begin to express my 'ugh' after listening to that bullshit episode.

i'm not surprised that people continue to write stupid ass pieces about rape being, really, kinda sorta, ohi'msorrytohavetosayit, alittlebit THE VICTIM'S FAULT... (but she's not 'victim blaming', she continues to shout at the internets.)

what surprised and sickened me is that double x talked about the piece as if it was: something new. like. OMG has anyone ever noticed that sometimes ALCOHOL is involved in the sexual violence perpetuated against women and girls?! and, WORSE YET, has anyone ever noticed that high school and university experiences often involve IRRESPONSIBLE DRINKING?!

fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that shit. sorry, but seriously. i'm not a journalist. i don't have research standards to meet. i don't have an editor reviewing my work... and yet i have been able to locate hundreds of hundreds of facts and statistics on rape in the US and canada. i've linked to a whoooole pile of them throughout my time feminist-fridaying. i'm also a baby-feminist. but in these few years of being concerned about the cause, i've managed to get a solid education about rape culture. so if you're going to get paid to write about rape culture, put in some goddamn time, do some fucking research, or shut the hell up and stop spewing your toxic pearl-clutching babble. what do you think you are doing to the girl who was raped when drunk? or the girl who was raped even though she did 'everything right'? what is the value of your 'advice'?

i've never been raped. yay me.
i have been completely and totally irresponsibly intoxicated. maybe even more than once!!! i went to unchaperoned parties in high school and university. i met strangers at parties or bars and i made friends with them or flirted with them or ignored them. one time when i was, like, 16 or 17 i went to a boy's house in the middle of the night with a few friends and we hid in his basement goofing off and flirting and our parents didn't know. i made mistakes and stupid choices and took risks.
but i never got raped.
because i was lucky enough that there was never a rapist around. when i was doing those things.
or when i gave rides home to people. when i lived alone. when i had new friends over for parties. or old friends... or stumbled home drunk and alone at night after a gallery opening in edinburgh. or not drunk and not alone, but still, you know, a women with my oh-so-rapeable bits just being right out there in the world.
i didn't get raped cause i wasn't with rapists.

so fuck you for implying that i somehow did something right that some other girl did wrong. or that i'm *lucky* to have made it through those experiences safely. just. fuck. you.

*just a reminder of a really GREAT campaign talking about rape that i'm so proud came out of my home town... just a reminder that talking to the ones who are making the rapes happen are the ones who we should talk to.

and once more for emphasis, fuck you emily yoffe. and shame on you.