I’ve lived in New York City since 1993, on 4th avenue before it was called Park Slope, Red Hook before IKEA and lobster rolls, and after 18 years of nomadic renting, I became a homeowner in Sunset Park. My partner and I moved to Sunset Park for the beautiful views, the diversity of residents, the family-friendly atmosphere and the delicious food. I didn’t move to Sunset Park because I thought it was “safe,” but I really appreciated walking home late at night without looking over my shoulder.

Right now, there’s a real and present danger going on in our neighborhoods. There is a rapist attacking women along 4th avenue in Sunset Park, on 16th street in Park Slope, and in Bay Ridge. He is on his 5th attack since March. These are incidences of rape and attempted rape where calling the police for help would be the logical thing to do.

Statistics show that 85% of women who are raped, are raped by people they know. The “stranger on a dark street” is a stereotype, and the minority of our experiences. But when strangers do attack, they rape in Williamsburg apartment vestibules, on late-night subway platforms, at a Chelsea nightclub, or by the Dunkin Donuts on 4^th avenue. I’m a rape survivor, and although I was raped by someone I know, it’s hard for me to truly feel safe anywhere. I take my experience of rape wherever I go. I’m keenly aware of my vulnerability on the dark stretches of 5th avenue by Greenwood Cemetery just after I miss the B63 bus, or the shadowy and loud walkway under the Prospect Expressway when I come home on the F train. I’m vulnerable in these instances not because I’m “a victim”, but because I am a woman, and there’s a predator who is actively looking for women like me.

Right now, we need the police, but after the events this summer, I don’t trust the NYPD. Kenneth Moreno, Franklin Mata and Michael Pena, three NYPD officers charged with rape while in uniform, have made our streets less safe for women. What they have shown us by their actions, is that we women cannot expect protection if we need it. These officers collected salaries and pensions, swore to serve the community, but they raped us instead.

Taken from www.thecampussocialite.com

Since it seems to never rain but pour, the past week has landed us with not one but two instances of mansplaining on the topic of sexual assault with a particular emphasis on giving consent while drunk.

First up is an opinion piece by Peter Berkowitz published in the Wall Street Journal on the 20^th. In it, he discusses a letter issued by the Obama administration and addressed to colleges and universities that details guidelines for dealing with sexual assault accusations. The letter, among other things, encourages schools to take allegations more seriously, discourages direct cross-examination of the victim by the accuser, and requires that the allegations be reviewed by a disciplinary board consisting of faculty and administration.

To any rational thinking human being, this sounds like a major step forward. Sexual assault and rape are ridiculously underreported, and campus police forces in particular have a sketchy track record when it comes to appropriately responding to reports of rape and assault. This directive would foster an environment in which victims would feel more inclined to come forward, and would have a higher chance of being heard.

But that’s not the conclusion that Berkowitz draws. For him, this directive is not a means to make the college experience safer for everyone, but an evil plot schemed by radical feminists to ruin the lives of unsuspecting men. To do this, he makes quite a few astounding leaps (not the least of which is the idea that the Obama administration likes to cater to radical feminists).

Berkowitz writes,

“The consequences for a wrongly convicted student are devastating: Not only is he likely to be expelled, but he may well be barred from graduate or professional school and certain government agencies, suffer irreparable damage to his reputation, and still be exposed to criminal prosecution”.

Truly, it would be horrific for anyone to have to deal with any sort of a false criminal accusation. However, Berkowitz addresses this point without ever considering the thousands of rape survivors who have never received any justice (and consequently the thousands of rapists who got off scott free). For someone who claims to be so concerned about justice, that seems like an odd point to neglect. He reveals the basic flaw of his argument when he writes this:

“Where are the professors of history, political science and law who will insist clearly and in public that due process is a fundamental component of American political institutions and culture, a cornerstone of our legal system, and indispensable in a free society to the fair administration of justice?”

To Berkowitz, clearly, this directive presents a slanting of the judiciary process towards the victim and their allegations. However, the point he seems to miss is that this directive is meant to correct a currently existing bias towards the accused. This directive is not meant to ensure that countless innocent college students will be punished for crimes they did not commit. It is meant to ensure that countless violated college students will have a better chance of receiving the justice they deserve.

What increases Berkowitz’s concern is what he sees as an ambiguity in the matters of consent when it is combined with alcohol consumption. He writes,

“On campus, where casual sex is celebrated and is frequently fueled by alcohol, the ambiguity that often attends sexual encounters is heightened and the risk of error in rape cases is increased”.

In this misunderstanding of what consent means, he is not alone, but is joined by, amongst others, one Roland Hulme who wrote an article entitled Alcohol & Consent: Why the Double Standard.

In his opinion piece, Hulme muses on recent tabloid stories involving celebrities having drunken sex. One example was the discussion over Bristol Palin’s description of her first sex in her autobiography, which was (quite aptly) interpreted as rape by some. Hulme however makes the argument that, as long as you are still conscious, you are still responsible for your own actions and thus can be taken at your word when you say “yes” to sex (or, don’t say “no”, or don’t kick and scream … whatever).

“In fact, in almost every aspect of life, being blacked-out, stumbling drunk does not relieve you of responsibility for the actions you take or the decisions you make; except in this ridiculous double standard of sexual consent.”

The problem with this argument is that Humle is talking consistently and exclusively of the personal responsibility of the person getting ridiculously wasted, and NOT of the person choosing to take advantage of them. While, yes, it would have been a smarter idea to not get drunk, or to at least not get drunk around people you cannot trust, that does not give anyone else the permission to abandon their own personal responsibility to not take advantage of others. If you are choosing to sleep with the person who’s slurring their words and can’t walk in a straight line, you are choosing to engage with someone who is clearly in an altered state of consciousness and who may not be able to make decisions anymore.

All philosophical waxing aside, many States in the US have actual laws in place that state that someone who is intoxicated cannot give consent. So even if you are sure that the drunken person in front of you really, really means it when they say “yes”, you may still want to hold off on sleeping with them.

What Hulme is doing, underneath all of the appeals to rational thinking and personal responsibility, is buying into the same old thinking of victim-blaming that we are surrounded with daily: if you don’t want to run the risk of getting raped, don’t get drunk. I wish we could finally turn this around, so it says that if you don’t want to be accused of rape, you shouldn’t rape. If the person in front if you cannot remember their own name, leave it be – they probably cannot give meaningful consent. And this is not about party-pooping, ruining the lives of male college students or about declaring women unfit for drinking. It’s about understanding what consent is and what it is not, and about always making sure to get and give enthusiastic consent.

In this first part, How a Rape Case Went Off the Rails, she describes Epstein’s interaction with the police, as well as with her own rapist, in an effort to be heard.

In the second part of the series, Why a Rape Doesn’t Get Prosecuted, North explores the reasons why Epstein’s rapist gets to walk away. Epstein says that the Assistant County Attorney cited Epstein’s mental illness – she has bipolar disorder – as one factor. But it is not the only one at play here. It seems that Epstein, like so many women, is not “a perfect victim”. Our very own Nancy Schwartzman is quoted in the article:

“When it comes to sex crimes or sexual behavior, the average person/jury member can’t seem to comprehend nuance. If you are raped, you should diligently scream and struggle in just the right way, call the police, collapse in a ball, and never have sex again. If you deviate from this script or course of action, well, you didn’t fight hard enough. You weren’t actually raped”.

Go ahead and read the whole series. It’s as powerful as it is depressing.

That’s in fact what’s motivating the women speaking out about the Peace Corps. The Times article reports that from 2000 to 2009, more than 1,000 volunteers reported sexual assaults, including 221 rapes or attempted rapes. Those numbers are likely far lower than the actual count, as reported numbers are always low and there is even more incentive to keep quiet in this program. After all, women in the article report that their treatment in the US after reporting their assaults was sometimes worse than the attack itself, as they were blamed for the crimes and given inadequate care. They were also poorly trained for these circumstances beforehand. Many complain that they weren’t advised on how to prosecute their attackers, leading nearly 40% of those raped and 50% of those sexually assaulted in the program to say in a survey that they didn’t report the attacks.

But by coming forward and speaking out, they’re already making progress. One of the women, Casey Frazee, spent the last 18 months tracking down assault survivors and collecting more than two dozen affidavits. Her work was also featured in a segment on ABC’s “20/20.” After these women came forward, the director of the Peace Corps, Aaron S. Williams, has said he is committed to creating a more “victim-centered approach,” including modernizing its procedures with “compassionate care,” hiring a “victim’s advocate,” signing an agreement with a rape crisis group to examine the organization, and removing a training video that emphasized the role of alcohol in assaults. The women are now pushing for Congressional legislation to require that the Peace Corps develop response teams to collect evidence and provide care for victims, among other things. Jess Smochek, another survivor working on this cause, has said her goal is to alert future volunteers and to let those who already experienced crimes know that “they are not alone.”

That’s also what motivated Lara Logan to talk openly about her attack. In her 60 Minutes expose, after going through all the painful details of her assault, she said, “One thing that I am extremely proud of that I didn’t intend is when my female colleagues stood up and said that I’d broken the silence on what all of us have experienced but never talk about.” Women journalists who cover dangerous situations often feel the need to bury their stories of assault for fear of being treated differently than their male colleagues and kept from assignments in these areas. As Logan put it in her interview, “[W]omen never complain about incidents of sexual violence because you don’t want someone to say, ‘Well women shouldn’t be out there.’” In her 2007 piece in the Columbia Journalism Review on this problem, Judith Matloff reports that a meager survey, one of the only ones, of war correspondents by the International News Safety Institute found that of the 29 who took part, more than half reported sexual harassment on the job and two had experienced sexual abuse. “The shame runs so deep–and the fear of being pulled off an assignment, especially in a time of shrinking budgets, is so strong– that no one wants intimate violations to resound in a newsroom,” she says. She even reports that of her own narrow escape from such a crime, “We got away untouched, so why bring up the matter? I didn’t want my boss to think that my gender was a liability.”

What this means is that the issue ends up buried. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports, “We have little on our site [about this issue] because sexual assault is not commonly reported to us–the data, therefore, is not available.” And when the issue is buried, it goes unaddressed and women are left more vulnerable to these attacks. Logan herself reported, “I had no idea how endemic that it is so rife, so widespread, that so many Egyptian men admit to sexual harassing women and think it’s completely acceptable.” As Matloff puts it, “The general reluctance to call attention to the problem creates a vicious cycle, whereby editors, who are still typically men, are unaware of the dangers because women don’t bring them up. Survivors of attacks often suffer in lonely silence, robbed of the usual camaraderie that occurs when people are shot or kidnapped.” And the proper training and infrastructure simply isn’t created to help women prepare for and then deal with these problems. “When one considers the level of detail over protections against other eventualities–get vaccinations; pack dummy wallets, etc.–the oversight is staggering,” Matloff says. “[V]ictims of assault say that some training might have helped them make more informed decisions, or at least live with the outcome more easily.”

Women aren’t the only ones who are attacked in these situations, but the fact that some are is no reason to hold them back from this line of work. They can be unique assets abroad, gaining access to women in countries that divide the genders and the trust of assault victims. But even beyond that, using sexual assault as a reason to keep women from fulfilling important jobs that they are passionate about doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. What is needed is more conversation about the realities they face and what can be done to help them. That starts by encouraging women to come forward about their assaults.

Feminism is an wide-ranging movement, and we at WIYL feel it’s so important to include activists working to broaden our perspectives and work in negotiating the complexity of intersectional oppressions, making the voices of marginalised groups heard. For this mini-series, we’ll be focusing on men and women who critique the gender hierarchy across all boundaries – cultures, race, age and medium.

So without further ado…

Here’s Jessica Skolnik of SlutWalk Chicago!

Jessica Skolnik is a Chicago activist, community organizer, musician, blogger, zinester, and all-around bad-ass.  Together with Jaime Keiles, Jessica is co-organizing SlutWalk Chicago, an international grassroots response to widespread victim-blaming and rape culture, on Saturday, June 4th at the Thompson Center Plaza.  Jessica is also an enthusiastic member of the Sexual Health Education to End Rape (SHEER) Collective, a new survivor centered, sex-positive coalition in Chicago, and the resident shredder of synth in the post-punk band Population.  Jessica’s spent the last ten years organizing several communities for sexual assault survivors and administering an educational workshop on enthusiastic consent, rape culture and issues of sexual assault within small communities, specifically within punk communities.

What’s your philosophy of anti-violence?

Violence is not just personal but structural. We live in a society that glorifies violence to the point where many of us are inured to it. I see interpersonal violence as often encouraged and exacerbated by a struggle for control and power that stem from structural inequalities (racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc). Yes, we need to educate ourselves as to how to deal with specific and personal incidents, but we will not seriously change this society toward nonviolent ends until the entire playing field is leveled.

How did you become involved in anti-violence work and community organizing?

I am a survivor of multiple incidents of sexual assault and relationship violence. Combine that with growing up in DC in the early ‘90s with parents who encouraged my burgeoning interest in the DIY punk scene, and you have a recipe for a young riot grrrl who learned everything she could from the older activists at Positive Force and other activist collectives. I read as much as I could, learned as much as I could, and listened as much as I could.

Eventually I realized that activism would help me heal and allow me to help others. I realized that healing from trauma doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and connecting with other survivors is part of that process. I drew from my academic background in labor history and cultural studies, and I started thinking about how I could use my knowledge of organizing and education to change the dominant culture.

One of the sexual assaults happened when I was barely 13.  I brought the incident to my counselor at school who encouraged me to report it to the police. It was one of the most dehumanizing experiences I’ve ever encountered with bureaucracy — and that’s saying something. They questioned me in a way that implied that I was at fault — I didn’t behave like a “good girl,” I wasn’t dressed “correctly,” I was sexually active at a young age and I had “led them on…” It was as far from the myth of the supportive, understanding police from Law and Order: SVU as possible, and there was no follow-up on my report.

After I digested the pain and dealt with the feeling of being violated all over again by people who were supposed to help me, I realized that traditional structures may not be the answer for everyone. I decided that I would spend the rest of my life involved with alternative community organizing by other survivors and active advocates.

I’m really interested in the strategy and skills behind working within subversive counter cultures to create culturally relevant narratives of sexual violence. What strategies do you use in your workshops to help create punk communities free from rape and sexual violence? What are some obstacles to anti-violence work specific to punk culture?  Are there specific persistent attitudes or beliefs that have helped to normalize rape within punk communities?

The first strategy I use in my workshop model is to systematically debunk myths and narratives specific to punk culture, as well as the ones we’re more familiar with in mainstream culture, and examine how they are all connected. Punk communities are obviously not immune to rape culture, as much as we’d like to think we are.

One of the most pervasive myths about sexual violence in punk communities is that it’s not supposed to happen there, and that myth in and of itself is an enormous obstacle to ending violence. There’s this narrative that just because we’ve created this culture and community where the line between consumer and artist is less demarcated, where we control creativity as much as possible, that we’ve also created a world where oppression doesn’t exist. Anyone who’s spent even a cursory amount of time in the punk scene knows that’s not true. All the -isms and phobias from mainstream culture are still present, they just emerge a little differently – which makes them more difficult to recognize.

One thing that always baffled me is that, inevitably, when you bring up an allegation of sexual assault within the punk community, you’ll get an echo of voices asking why the person making the allegation didn’t call the cops. There’s a long history of punks resisting police brutality and police culture — it speaks volumes to me that the only time you’ll ever find punks trust the word of the police over the word of a fellow community member is when someone makes an allegation of sexual assault.

Nobody wants to believe that a member of a small, close community could perpetrate such a horrible act. There’s an immediate defensiveness that arises because the allegations are so serious. But violence happens at fests, within collectives, between activists and musicians… It’s hard to talk about rape when many of us don’t feel as if we have the right vocabulary for it. Regardless of our cultural participation in it, we still live in a world without adequate training about what consent looks like, what crossing that line looks like, and we need to trust the word of survivors. Yes, false accusations happen, unfortunately, but very rarely. The more we learn about consent and how to talk about it, the more equipped we are to support one another without immediately assuming that a survivor isn’t telling the truth.

How did you end up co-organizing SlutWalk Chicago?  What do you have planned for SlutWalk in Chicago, and what do you hope the event will accomplish?

I first read about SlutWalk on Tumblr through various feminist blogs as the Toronto organizers were putting together their event. I was outraged and frustrated by the persistence of this institutional attitude that I’d encountered when I reported to the police in 1992, the attitude that a survivor is responsible for an assault if she or he doesn‘t act in certain socially prescribed ways. I was inspired by all the photos and reportage from the Toronto event, and when Jamie Keiles (my co-organizer) posted on her blog that she was going to take on the challenge of organizing a satellite SlutWalk here in Chicago, I didn’t even think twice about emailing her to offer my organizing help.

We’re planning a really wonderful event here in Chicago — not just a march but a rally with live music, speakers, tabling by some of our ally organizations, and possibly other forms of entertainment. We’re looking into burlesque and comedy at the moment. We want this to be a chance to meet up with likeminded folks similarly interested in dismantling the culture of shame. SlutWalk will be a celebration of the work the sex-positive rape crisis and survivors’ community has done to change that victim-blaming dynamic and a celebration of our future potential as a united movement going forward.

We also have two after-parties planned, as we’d like to keep the momentum going from the event through the day. We’ve organized a patio party for directly after the walk at Zella. My band happens to be playing a show that night with two other great bands, Martial Canterel and Anatomy of Habit, and that’s our official after-after-party. There’s more information on our website as our plans unfold!

Has the reception for SlutWalk Chicago been pretty positive?  I’ve heard a lot of anti-violence activists question the use of the pejorative word “slut” for an event that’s supposed to be empowering… How do you respond to that?

I’m actually amazed by how positive most of the feedback has been — I was expecting a few more trolls, to be honest! Maybe they just haven’t come out of the woodwork yet, who knows. I credit the original SlutWalk in Toronto for paving the way and opening a dialogue.

The response from the anti-violence activist community has been roughly what I expected: positive but cautious. I was actually dubious about the use of the word “slut” when I read about the initial event and started organizing this one. At one point in my life, I was very much invested in reclaiming the word for myself, since I had been labeled a slut by others and found that reclaiming my enjoyment of sex was personally enormously healing. But that’s a goal I’ve found less personally profound over the years.

SlutWalk Chicago’s stance is that whether you find it personally empowering to reclaim the word “slut” or not, we stand with you. Using the SlutWalk name doesn’t just ally and align us with the work done by the amazing organizers in Toronto and all of the other satellites around the world, it really gives us a unique opportunity to talk about how sexual double standards and slut-shaming are cornerstones of rape culture and how a sex-positive attitude ties into the dialogue about consent, and I think that is enormously valuable.

What can our readers do to get involved with SlutWalk?  And do you have any advice for starry-eyed activists in-the-making?

Email us at slutwalkchicago@gmail.com to get on our volunteers’ mailing list. Ally your organization, business or blog with us! Print out the posters we have available and hang ’em everywhere. Invite your friends and post all over your social media about SlutWalk, connect with us on any number of social networking sites (all linked from our main website).  Enter our DIY SlutWalk poster contest!  We’re organizing a poster-making session before the walk, details are on our website.

Show up on Saturday, June 4^th at the Thompson Center plaza (100 W. Randolph) for the SlutWalk step-off at noon! And if you are so moved, organize your own SlutWalk satellite in your city!

To activists-in-the-making: whatever cause and perspective you align yourself with, there is an enormous wealth of community resources and a world of movements to connect with, both locally and globally.  Before you strike out on your own trying to build a movement from the ground up, check out the work other folks are doing and see how you can get involved or build off of it. Listen and learn, as well as contributing your energy and ideas!

Remember to take care of yourself at every step of the process. Personal healing and growth are as much a part of an activist’s journey as larger community and cultural change. Everything is connected.

The Line Campaign is proud to ally with SlutWalk Chicago. We support SlutWalk’s mission to promote education about sexual assault and to make it known loud and clear that victims of violence are never the ones at fault and no one asks to be raped.

Just a week ago I was walking home from a yoga class, sweaty and wearing a sweatshirt over my yoga pants. I thought nothing of the middle-aged man walking toward me until he looked me up and down and simply said “Nice.” I looked around. It was unmistakably directed at me. And I didn’t know what to do or say. As he walked past me I gave him a quizzical and then angry look. But should I yell? Curse him out? And call more attention to myself? As soon as I decided to turn the corner and just walk home, the shame and embarrassment flooded me. Should I be walking around in tight yoga pants? Did I open myself up to that? How can some man on the street feel such ownership over my body as to issue a passing grade on it?

I’ve been working against a culture of harassment against women that blames them for the harassment for years and years. But it was easy to zoom right past all of these things I knew logically and feel that shame blossom deep inside my psyche. The first thought right after “How dare he” was “Maybe I shouldn’t wear these clothes.” And it made me realize that while I may know where my line is when I’m alone with a man, I may not know what it is when I’m walking down the street.

Rape culture doesn’t end when you leave your bedroom and head outside – that’s where it may in fact start. Street harassment is one of those things that women are expected to simply cope with. We all have stories. This was one of my more subtle ones. Worse ones involve the men I caught masturbating while staring at my body on two separate occasions, the man who grabbed my ass hard as he walked behind me in a crowded department store, the litany of comments that followed me as I walked alone to the subway on Friday nights. Over at the ACLU’s blog, Robyn Shepard shares her own story of being smacked on the ass in public – and doing something about it. She writes that she ran after the perpetrator, confronted him, and called the cops on him. They didn’t end up finding him for the arrest, but it’s heartening to hear that law enforcement took her seriously. While we clearly haven’t gotten past blaming rape victims for their assaults, we have barely begun to address the victim blaming in street harassment. To the point that I do it to myself.

In her blog post, Shepard makes a crucial point: “Sexual assault doesn’t always necessarily mean something as horrible as rape.” In fact, it can be the smaller, subtler acts that are the most culturally pernicious. Over at Hollaback, they state: “Street harassment is one of the most pervasive forms of gender-based violence and one of the least legislated against… [I[t is rarely reported, and it’s culturally accepted as ‘the price you pay’ for being a woman or for being gay… Sexual harassment is a gateway crime that creates a cultural environment that makes gender-based violence OK.” And they’re doing something about it. By using crowd-sourced data and creating a space to share stories, they’re working to make this problem visible enough to mobilize against.

One is a stepping-stone to another. When men feel they can yell whatever they want about a woman’s body and get away with it, that they can touch her body in public and get away with it, why wouldn’t they think they can go further? Any form of gender- or sexual orientation-based harassment or assault is unacceptable, be it on the sidewalk or between the sheets.

Columbia Spectator, we applaud you! With campuses being one of the the highest-risk areas for young women in terms of date rape and assault, it is imperative that college media offers female student support by acknowledging incidents of violence and disrespect without victim-blaming.

Sadly, this isn’t often the case – last year, a writer at the Eagle, American University’s newspaper claimed that women too often make false claims of rape and sexual assault due to excessive drinking:

Let’s get this straight: any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice, and walks back to a boy’s room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK? To cry “date rape” after you sober up the next morning and regret the incident is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s head and then later claiming that you didn’t ever actually intend to pull the trigger.

Our very own Carmen Rios of (con)sensual at AU retaliated swiftly by turning his rhetoric on its head:

Let’s get this straight: any person who heads to a party and drinks five cups of the jungle juice is unable to provide consent. To justify manipulating someone who is inebriated, taking advantage of someone with physical threats, date-rape drugs, and coercion, and/or disregarding someone’s ability to enjoy or consent to sex is the equivalent of pulling a gun to someone’s back and shooting it in the dark.

Walker Harrison, of the Columbia Spectator, on the other hand, has called readerly attention to how violence against women and assault is invisible in popular culture and media because of the cult of celebrity. Unflinchingly, he argues that sexual violence is inexcusable and should be better addressed on campuses – and should never be brushed off.

We at Where Is Your Line commend Harrison and the Columbia Spectator for calling out sexual violence and disrespect as they see it, and insisting on change at the source of the problem. We can only hope media on other campuses will follow in their footsteps.

Harrison’s article below

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Sexual violence on campus: Entertaining violence.

A quick glance at a sports section from this past weekend would most likely reveal headlines on the upcoming NBA playoffs, the threat of an NFL lockout, and the revival of legendary golfer Tiger Woods. The subjects of these articles are all incredible athletes performing at the height of their profession. But another more disturbing, less-acknowledged common denominator for many of these individuals is alleged sexual assault and domestic violence. Yet even the most alarming of these allegations, charges, and convictions tend to be ignored in the larger-than-life world of popular culture.

Two of basketball’s best teams, the Lakers and the Mavericks, will be led by their star players Kobe Bryant and Jason Kidd. Bryant was accused of raping a 19-year-old during a rehabilitation trip in 2003. Kidd has been accused of multiple counts of sexual assault and domestic violence with multiple women, including his ex-wife. People afraid that the NFL is facing a lockout next year will fondly remember its last game, Super Bowl XLV between the Packers and the Steelers. Last summer, seven Packers were investigated in a sexual assault case, of which one was charged, while Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has been acccused with not one but two cases of sexual assault in the last 20 months. Lastly, Woods was at the center of a highly publicized case of possible domestic violence between him and his supermodel wife, Elin Nordegren, which elucidated his countless sexual transgressions.

The pattern is also apparent in the equally influential music industry. The top music videos on iTunes feature Chris Brown, who beat then-girlfriend and pop star Rihanna (whose song, ironically named “S&M,” tops Brown’s by four spots in a slight instance of poetic justice). Also on the list is a song by Lil Wayne, whose crew was accused of sexual assault during one of Weezy’s recording sessions just a few weeks ago. Further down the list are the artists Snoop Dogg, who was accused of rape in 2003; Eminem, who was charged with domestic violence and whose songs often allude to physically harming females; and Waka Flocka Flame, who was investigated for sexual assault in 2010.

The point isn’t to shine light upon the rampant cases of sexual assault and domestic violence in our favorite forms of entertainment, but to show how easily and quickly we brush off these charges and allegations. With some backward calculus, we forgive perpetrators because of their hit singles and three-pointers, as if professional feats balanced out criminal tendencies. I myself turned a blind eye to my beloved New York Jets’ sexual harassment case—the victim of which, female reporter Ines Sainz, was later labeled as “asking for it” by Fox sportscaster Brian Baldinger—when they began winning game after game.

And do not think that the prestigious Ivy League is above these occurrences. Pledges from the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale marched on Old Campus last October, chanting, “No means yes, yes means anal.” Two months later, a Columbia professor was charged with sleeping with his own daughter.

Our inclination to dismiss cases of sexual assault and domestic violence calls for a better, smarter effort when it comes to Columbia and Barnard’s Take Back The Night. The reality is that the members of the community will not understand the gravity of the issue unless it’s brought to them. Marches, speeches, and movie showings are attended by the people—mostly women—who already recognize the prevalence of sexual assault and domestic violence on college campuses. But the people who need to be informed are the potential victims and offenders, who will most likely only consider these initiatives as nuisances.

So, instead, target sexual assault at its source. These incidents often take place during socializing hours, late at night and on the weekends, when alcohol is involved. Thus, the best way to combat sexual assault and domestic violence is to declare a safe, sober weekend. Ask fraternities to postpone parties, or request that local bars hold off on special events. Have students sign up to sacrifice one of their precious weekends and pledge not to consume. The result—quiet Friday and Saturday nights—would pack more potency and remind more students of the issues at stake than noisy marches through campus—because in our fast-paced universe, where the roar of a crowd at a game or a concert drowns out the reality of sexual assault, calm silence might be the ultimate reminder of our better selves.

The author, Walker Harrison, is a Columbia College first-year. This post initially appeared in the Columbia Spectator, and is cross-posted with their permission.

There’s long been a back and forth over whether or not violent video games lead kids to violence. But what else might children be picking up from video games? If they play Duke Nukem, they might internalize the idea that women are objects and can be smacked around if they don’t behave.

It’s been leaked that the upcoming Duke Nukem Forever game (which, admittedly, has been “upcoming” since 1997) has a multiplayer mode, and one of the activities in this mode is a game called “Capture the Babe.” As the name might suggest, it’s capture the flag where the “flag” is a woman. But it’s not enough that women be picked up and thrown around literally like a toy. If she “freaks out” (and what woman wouldn’t when a random man decides to sling you over his shoulder), the game’s solution is to have the player give her a smack.

I used to be a huge Duke Nukem fan when it first came out as a computer game where a Hulk Hogan-esque character had to shoot up all the invading aliens. Sure, it was a bit silly, but the point of the game was to defeat the invading Dr. Proton and no babes were involved. How far we’ve come from such simple times. It appears that consequent versions have gotten more and more over the top – one of the sequels for Playstation is called Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes. It’s veered away from a simple man vs. bad guys game to one that relies on sexist tropes. In fact, the goal of this game is to save women from being raped by invading aliens. It isn’t enough to pit Duke against aliens; rape as a weapon of war is co-opted as a motivator to go get the bad guy. The Mary Sue claims that the game sees itself as “over the top in every way” and “something that considers itself satire,” and this may be true (I haven’t tried it out since the days of dial up modems). But satire can still go too far.

What “Capture the Babe” and the rest of the game shows is just how pervasive the acceptance of forcing things violently upon women is in our culture. Duke Nukem is just one shoot-em-up game, but if something like this can pop up without much fanfare, it’s clear how insidious it is. The reviewer of the game that reveals this new function, Eurogamer, isn’t even phased by it. Boys playing it aren’t going to go out and start hoisting random women and smacking them into line. But if they see these things taking place and aren’t asked to interrogate whether or not it’s okay, it becomes normalized. Women are but pawns used for the entertainment of men. Their agency over their bodies is suppressed for the sake of a game.

May I suggest a level of Angry Birds instead?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have used a state budget shortfall as an excuse to strip public employees of their collective bargaining rights, but 44 states and DC are also facing a budget crisis. While they try to pinch every penny, prison reform is showing up on the table among Republicans and Democrats alike. Right alongside the issue should be the problem of prison rape, an epidemic in our system. With so much taxpayer money spent, addressing our astronomical rates of sexual abuse and the paltry options available for victims should be part of what we pay for. Until it is, sexual assault will continue to be seen as something that “just happens” to some people.

The United States prison population stands at over 2 million people, with the highest incarceration rate in the world – 743 per 100,000 of the national population. The costs of this system are dramatic. In 2006, governments at the federal, state and local level spent an estimated $68 billion on corrections. What happens to many of the people living behind bars is perhaps even more dramatic. In the New York Review of Books, David Kaiser and Lovisa Stannow expose the current state of abuse in the incarceration system (it’s definitely worth reading the whole article). Recent numbers published by the Justice Department found that more than 216,600 people were abused in 2008 – that’s almost 25 people an hour. These numbers are still likely lower than the real rates, the authors point out, because it’s hard to eliminate barriers to reporting – the shame some victims feel or the fear of relation from their attackers. Meanwhile, the numbers only count people who were abused, not the instances of abuse, which is far higher. The article notes, “Between half and two thirds of those who claim sexual abuse in adult facilities say it happened more than once; previous BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics] studies suggest that victims endure an average of three to five attacks each per year.”

And while Law & Order: SVU may make it sound like most of this abuse is at the hands of fellow inmates (and disgustingly as if jailed people “deserve” such treatment), the reality is that most victims are abused by staff. As the authors point out, these are “agents of our government, paid with our taxes, whose job it is to keep inmates safe.” There is something extremely wrong with a system that uses so many tax dollars to pay such a great number of people who sexually assault those under their supervision.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Preventing abuse is a moral issue, but it also makes monetary sense. The Justice Department has come up with a very conservative value for preventing it, assigning only $375 to preventing an adult from experiencing “abusive sexual contact” and $500 for a juvenile. But in fact, Kaiser and Stannow point out that this is only one-fifth of the generally accepted benefit of preventing rape by force. It also leaves out the costs of spending on public assistance, like welfare, disability benefits, housing vouchers, and food stamps, to sexual assault victims who are unable to reenter society and maintain employment because of their long-term trauma – something the department acknowledges happens without quantifying what this means. It also neglects to factor in the savings incurred from reducing the recidivism rate, which it in fact notes “could potentially save society and government tens of millions of dollars per year by avoiding the economic and human costs of crime, the cost of investigating a prosecuting crimes, and the considerable cost of incarceration itself.” Reducing the rate of abuse in prison is likely to reduce the recidivism rate at the same time.

While a draft of standards to reduce abuse to be reviewed and implemented by Attorney General Eric Holder aims to reduce it by 3%, Kaiser and Stannow point out that this is a meager goal and one that could easily be ratcheted up. They suggest targeting the average rate of abuse in the top half of facilities that have already begun attempts at addressing rape – this would “give us an estimate of possible gains that was both realistic and conservative, based on what has already been accomplished across the country,” and far more could be done with explicitly stated standards. Meanwhile, achieving better rates doesn’t have to break the bank. They note:

The department could do much more than it is now proposing while remaining fiscally responsible. Many of its proposals can be improved at minimal cost. Other necessary measures will carry a significant price, but we do not believe they will be nearly as expensive as the department has estimated.

As we look to address our overcrowded prison system, it’s clear that much can be done to improve costs, sentencing, and other practices. With this must come a consideration of how we can keep a population literally trapped in its situation from being tormented by exposure to abuse. Letting our government – and the general population – turn a blind eye to the crisis of sexual assault on prisoners only serves to normalize rape in our society and enhance the idea that anyone could “deserve it.” Prisoners don’t deserve to be raped and anything that can be done to stop it from happening must be put into action. And it doesn’t just make moral sense; it also makes fiscal sense. The time for action is now.

So without further ado…

Here’s anti-street harassment expert Holly Kearl .

Holly is the program manager at the women’s equity nonprofit the American Association of University Women. She is also the founder of the website stopstreetharassment.com and author of the book Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women. She regularly gives talks and writes articles about street harassment and recently founded the First Annual Anti-Street Harassment Day, on March 20, the First Day of Spring.

Let’s start off by defining street harassment – What is it and why should we care? How many people are affected? Who is affected and who’s doing the harassing?

Street harassment is sexual harassment that happens between strangers in public places. Most women everywhere in the world have experienced street harassment, commonly in the form of whistling, kissing noises, vulgar gestures, leering, unsolicited comments about your appearance, sexist or sexually explicit comments, demands for sex, blocking your path, following, masturbation or flashing, groping, and purposely rubbing up against someone in a sexual way. Street harassment can escalate to rape. In some cases, it’s escalated to murder.

There aren’t enough studies on the prevalence of street harassment, but the studies that exist show it impacts anywhere from 80 to 100 percent of women. I conducted informal online survey of 811 women from 23 countries and 45 US states and found that 99 percent reported experiencing forms of street harassment.

Gender-based sexual harassment in public spaces is largely perpetrated by men against women. While some women on occasion may harass men in public, gender inequality means that the power dynamics at play, frequency of the harassment, and the underlying threat of rape is rarely comparable. For these reasons, I primarily focus my work on men harassing women, though I certainly don’t believe anyone should have to face unwanted attention from strangers in public. While public harassment motivated by racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, or classism— types of deplorable harassment which men can be the target of and sometimes women perpetrate—is recognized as socially unacceptable behavior, men’s harassment of women motivated by gender and sexism is not. Instead it is portrayed as complimentary, a joke, “only” a trivial annoyance, or women’s fault because of what they were wearing or the time of day they were in public. One of my goals is to change the social acceptability of gender-based street harassment. Despite what the larger society thinks, this kind of harassment has a very real impact on women’s lives by reducing their sense of safety and comfort in public and thus influencing them to limit their time in public.

How did you get started in street harassment research and education? Was there a specific experience – personal, academic or professional – that confirmed your passion for this work?

While researching a master’s thesis topic I read about a new website called HollaBackNYC that encouraged women to share their stories about street harassment online. I had never heard the term street harassment before, but I immediately recognized it from my own life. In public places, men I do not know have honked and whistled at me, made sexually explicit comments, followed me, and one man even grabbed me sexually when I was on the street. In college, I experienced this type of harassment daily. I rarely talked about it and hadn’t made the connection that it was a form of gender violence

When I wrote my thesis, I found almost no books on the topic, so, a year after I turned it in, at the suggestion of my parents, I decided to start writing a book to help fill that gap. Each time I receive stories from women for my blog or when a woman shares her story in person, they reconfirm my passion for this work. Often it is their first time talking about street harassment, sharing their stories, and finding validation for being upset about what happened, and they remind me why this work is necessary. And each time I face harassment or one of my friends or family members does, it reminds me on a very personal level why this work matters and is important

As a street harassment expert, have you had any experiences or discussions or learned something that really surprised you about this subject?

Last month I came across a report on the website of the U.S. Department of Transportation that talked about how as early as 1909 people were advocating for women-only cars on the new transit system in New York City because of men harassing and soliciting women. I suspected that harassment on public transportation was nothing new, but it still surprised me. More than 100 years later, men harassing women on the New York City subway system is still a huge issue and that is why anti-harassment PSAs launched in 2008. But clearly we need to do more.

What are the consequences of street harassment, immediate or long term, on both a personal level and a broader community level?

The consequences of street harassment are actually quite serious. The more often a woman experiences harassment, or the scarier her experiences, the more likely it is she will take preventative actions like avoiding going near the place it occurred, avoiding being out alone at night, altering what she wears, and generally distrusting men that approach her. On the extreme end, I found that some women move neighborhoods because of harassers (almost 20 percent in my survey) and change jobs because of harassers along the commute (almost 10 percent of the women in my survey). Street harassment results in women limiting their time in public spaces and limiting their access to the resources there. Scholar Cynthia Grant Bowman calls this the “informal ghettoization of women” to the home. Women will never achieve gender equality with men as long as harassment keeps them from having that equal access to public places.

What do you think are the root causes of street harassment? What aspects of our culture facilitate or condone this behavior?

Some of the root causes for street harassment include societal disrespect for women, the objectification of women, and unhealthy definitions of masculinity that encourage men to harass not only women but also other men, particularly men who do not seem to adhere to traditional definitions of masculinity. The media truly is a prime example of this — from marketers that use women’s bodies to sell products, to industries that value women’s looks more than their brains or talents, to commercials that tell men what “real men” do or don’t do.

I also see a lot of reinforcement of these ideas from generation to generation. From older women or mothers who tell girls that the harassment is a compliment or that they should just learn to avoid it or ignore it, to men who harass women in front of their sons or try to bond with sons or younger brothers over objectifying and harassing women. Over and over, I encounter people who believe street harassment is a compliment and this really reinforces street harassment, silences women who experience it, and give men a free pass to continue to do it.

In my experience, street harassment can be a really scary and dehumanizing experience. It’s also really frustrating because it happens so abruptly and we’re so conditioned to keep to ourselves in public spaces, it’s hard to know how to react safely and effectively at the time harassment occurs. What can victims do to counteract harassment and reclaim power? Can you recommend some strategies for our readers?

At minimum, it’s really important for targets of harassment to recognize that it’s not our faults and that nothing we’ve said or done is causing the harassment. This is a societal problem. Recognizing it’s something most women deal with can inspire, enrage, and empower us to do something about it.

In general, thinking about something you can say or do that challenges the behavior of the harasser in a non-violent, non-aggressive way (no insults or profanity because that is more likely to escalate the situation) works well. Turning what the person said into a joke, simply telling them to stop or back off, asking them how they would feel if a man treated his sister/mother/girlfriend/wife/daughter that way, or announcing to people around you what he just did are all examples of what to say.

Also, if the person works for an identifiable company, report them to their company! I’ve read several success stories from women who have reported construction workers or delivery truck drivers and the harassment stopped. And if you’re on a bus or subway, report the harasser to the driver or transit manager. I’ve also received several success stories where harassers are kicked off the bus or told to leave the subway car.

Are there opportunities for victims to pursue legal action against street harassers, here in the United States or elsewhere around the world? Are there any individuals or organizations working to make this happen?

Yes, often if the harassment is extreme enough that it makes you fear for your safety or fear attack, depending on the state or city laws, you can press charges for public harassment. The limitation is that this usually requires repeated harassment and threatening behavior. Also, since there are often laws against public lewdness, if someone flashes or masturbates on you, you can report it. And if someone gropes you or assaults you, then you can report it under assault charges.

On an international level:

- The Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights is working with members of parliament to pass a new anti-sexual harassment law that would include harassment occurring in public spaces.

- In Delhi, India, there is a law that encompasses a lot of street harassment behaviors. Since January, police have been cracking down on harassers (“eve-teasers,” as they call them). During the second week of January, I read that they arrested 26 harassers in one area for “passing lewd remarks at women.” There have been a lot of suicides among young women in Bangladesh because of street harassment. In response, last year the police started actually enforcing a law that encompasses street harassment behavior, and last spring the first harassers were arrested under it.

- Since last spring, the UK Anti-Street Harassment Campaign (ASH) is lobbying politicians to take on the issue of street harassment and pass better laws.

What can our readers do to stop street harassment and prevent it from happening in the first place? What can men do to support efforts to end street harassment?

It’s so important to break the silence on this topic, so just talking about it, sharing stories, and sharing strategies is essential. Talking specifically to young women or young men you know is really important in preventative work: let them know what is or is not acceptable and teach them how they can respond in an empowering way so they do not feel victimized.

In my book and on my website I really break down what we can do into four main categories: educating men, empowering women, raising awareness in our communities, and creating anti-street harassment campaigns.

Men can learn about this issue from the women they care about. Ask a woman what experiences she’s had and how they have impacted her life. Men can be good bystanders when they see harassment occurring, though it’s important to use non-violent, low aggression tactics rather than inadvertently escalating the situation. And, most important but also the most difficult, they can challenge sexist talk and not promote or reinforce harmful gender definitions.

What is unique about your approach to street harassment and how do you work with other organizations to the same ends?

A lot of the work that I do is raising awareness about street harassment and providing ideas to people for how they can help end it. My website and book are depositories of knowledge on the subject that include resources. I take a comprehensive approach to street harassment in my work, including a historical perspective, exploring the intersections of gender + race, class, sexual orientation, dis/ability, examining that through a global lens, acknowledging that not all women view street harassment the same way, and looking at why some men are street harassers and how definitions of masculinity treat that harassment as socially acceptable behavior. In fact, a lot of what I do is idea sharing. I collect what people have used and done and share those ideas so other can find inspiration for taking on street harassment in their community. One example of this collaborative aspect occurred when I met with Emily May of HollaBack and Oraia Reid of RightRides in 2009 to interview them for my book. I mentioned some of the activism going on internationally, including that Egyptian women were developing a system so people could report harassers via cell phones. Emily and Oraia loved the idea and a year and a half later, the HollaBack iPhone and droid apps were released. I work with other organizations to promote their work and include them as resources for others. I’ve also had the opportunity to collaborate with groups like Girls for Gender Equity, and Men Can Stop Rape for community events on street harassment, and I hope there will be more opportunities for collaboration in the future.

If you’d like to participate in the first ever Anti-Street-Harassment Day, on March 20th, more information here!