‘sexual assault’

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Know your line in the bedroom and on the street

4.27.11 | 1 Comment »

street-harassment

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.

Sexual violence on campus: Entertaining violence.

4.20.11 | No Comments »

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.

Charlie Sheen: A Small Feminist Victory?

3.28.11 | 2 Comments »

Confession: I am hooked on any and all news and stories related to Charlie Sheen. I can’t help it. As a moth is drawn to the light and then subsequently zapped to death, so am I strangely drawn to celebrity shenanigans, and Charlie Sheen’s meltdown is to me, well, the World’s Largest Lamp, which Google tells me is an actual thing. Anyways, I’ve genuinely reading tweets and updates about tiger blood and winning and warlocks and other vaguely fantastical references that could only originate from a man who is clearly so wired on cocaine and ego as to combine the imagery inspired by a 13-year-old boy’s gaming collection with an overtly zealous political candidate’s rhetoric (“My violent torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option”…what?). That said, when Trisha asked me to cover Mr. Sheen for WIYL, I was a little confused. Charlie Sheen’s downward spiral is a feminist issue? Should I not be following this man’s downward spiral? Is it wrong for me to enjoy his interviews and rants? Feeling guilty and dirty about my apparent feminist sins, I did some deep, deep soul-searching (okay, I watched a few episodes of Gilmore Girls), and realized that The Sheening, Bruce Springsheen, and any other Sheen-related pun you find appropriate, is not a feminist issue. It’s a feminist victory.

That said, the pleasure I derived from Keeping Up With the Kardasheenan was actually a healthy dose of schadenfreude. Charlie Sheen is a character. He’s unintentionally hilarious. He’s also a total asshole. Sheen has allegedly threatened to kill five women, has shot at and strangled his girlfriends, and once beat a woman for not having sex with him. It’s darkly enjoyable to see a man who has abused so many women in the past now be openly mocked by the public, and to witness his breakdown and consequent firing from Two and a Half Men. What goes around, comes around, Justsheen Timberlake.

Similarly, the public reaction to Sheen’s actions- the domestic abuse, the coke binges, the bevy of porn stars for hire- has given feminists reason to celebrate. Firstly, Sheen’s history of violence against women shows this true, misogynistic colors, but his actions alone do not a feminist issue make; it is society’s reaction to these happenings that should provoke our response. In this case, while Sheen faced no legal trouble, his violent acts have been publicly decried; tiger blood references may be ubiquitous, but no one is celebrating or giving Sheen a free pass for abusing these women. Also noticeably lacking in the media coverage of Sheengate is slut-shaming. Bloggers and commentators have often remarked how male celebrities continue to find work and slip fairly quietly under the radar when they find themselves in the midst of drug abuse and generally reckless behavior, while female celebrities are collectively scolded and reprimanded; the classic example given here is Robert Downey Jr. v. Lindsay Lohan. The Last of the Mosheencans isn’t exactly how I pictured arriving gender equality, but I’ll take what I can get. Charlie Sheen’s latest escapade, the one that put him in this media mess, involved too much cocaine, and a house full of porn stars that were paid for their services. Surprisingly, there has been limited slut-shaming involved in this affair; the general reaction has been one of “I can’t believe Charlie Sheen hired a bunch of hookers, that perv, what was he thinking?” and less of “I can’t believe those porn stars had sex with Charlie Sheen for money! The nerve of those wenches!” While there has been some fascination and speculation about these women, particularly about Kacey Jordan, who claimed she was promised a Bentley in the throes of passion (which isn’t “slutty” at all, just gullible), the focus has not been on their consensual choice of occupation, but on the legally questionable pastimes of one Charlie Sheen.

Granted, these signs of progress of depiction and treatment of women, and violence against women, in the media are small victories. It’s encouraging to see that people are laughing at Charlie Sheen, not with him, as he holds a knife to his girlfriend’s neck and holds a prostitute hostage in a bathroom. To quote Mr. Sheen, we may very well be on our way to, duh, winning.

Reducing Sexual Abuse in Prison: A Moral and Fiscal Crisis

3.21.11 | 1 Comment »

prison

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.

Badass-Activist Friday presents JOSEPH VESS of Men Can Stop Rape

3.4.11 | 1 Comment »

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire culture change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

So without further ado…

Here’s Joseph Vess of Men Can Stop Rape!

Joseph Vess

Joseph Vess is Men Can Stop Rape’s Director of Training and Technical Assistance. In this role he conducts dozens of trainings, workshops and presentations around the world every year, building the skills of professionals to engage men and boys and guiding MCSR’s Men Creating Change (MCC) program. Before joining MCSR, Joe was a community organizer and educator at the DC Rape Crisis Center, where he worked with young adults and college students, LGBTQ populations, and communities East of the Anacostia River to explore grassroots, community-based solutions to sexual violence.

How did you first get involved with MCSR? How did your personal experiences play into your decision to get into activism, prevention and education?

I first got involved as a volunteer, doing weekend programs with high school men we work with. I started doing more and more, worked at the DC Rape Crisis Center for a while, and came back to MCSR about 4 years ago. I got into it primarily because of my experiences with women I care about. I have been involved in social justice work and activism for many years, but it wasn’t until I was almost 25 that I began to develop a good understanding of men’s violence against women. Around that time two things happened: a friend of mine told me about how she was sexually assaulted in college, and I began dating a woman who shared with me many of her experiences of discrimination, harassment, and just the general garbage she has to put up with as a woman. It really bothered me that these things happened, and I realized that as a man speaking out about these issues I could have an even larger impact because there weren’t (and still aren’t) enough men talking about this. And what we always heard from women about how we could contribute was, “talk with other men.” In that respect and in so many others, we as men who do this work are truly standing on the shoulders of giants, the amazing women who have been doing this work for centuries. They still lead the way and make everything I do possible; my debt to the women who have taught me is incalculable.

Can you tell us a bit about the unique role of men in the fight against sexual assault and rape? Do you think feminist activism has underestimated the potential of men as allies and how you think we can better involve them?

I don’t think feminism has underestimated the potential of men as allies, I think as men we haven’t stepped up and played the role we can and should. I think the feminist movement is still finding the most effective ways to engage men, but the desire has always been there. In terms of men’s role, I think the main thing is that men are playing a role where by and large we weren’t before. Beyond that is the fact that men are often socialized to listen more to men than women; so as men doing this work, our role is to support and back up the things women have been saying to reinforce that message, and to help other men be better able to hear women’s voices. It’s often surprising for men to hear another man speak out against violence against women, so that means it is very much our responsibility, and a tremendous opportunity, to do so.

What do you think are the most prevalent attitudes of young college males regarding sex, consent and boundaries? Why do you think these are the way they are?

That’s such a huge question to answer because I think that college men, like all men, are all over the map with this stuff. One unique thing I’ve noticed recently in many places I go is that many men are disenchanted with their opportunities to have relationships with women, in whatever form. Guys who are looking for a long-term female partner are disenchanted and frustrated by a culture they see as prioritizing hook ups. Guys into hook ups wish that hook up culture was more healthy, with less of a reliance on alcohol as a social lubricant. Questioning and gay or bisexual men are bothered by the heteronormativity and lack of opportunity to explore their sexuality. So many of the men we work with very much want to practice active consent, have good boundaries and positive, fulfilling sex lives, but many feel that they don’t have good opportunities or role models for it, so they’re searching for the best way to do it. I think many are hopeless about the situation, many are resigned, but more and more are actively seeking and exploring, and really taking agency in creating healthier spaces on their campuses and in their communities.

What is the most surprising thing you hear when educating young men, or the thing that gives you most hope?

The answer to both is that most men aren’t happy with the way things are in terms of men’s relationships with women. Men want to have friendships with women, not just sex or relationships. They want to be able to have sex without feeling like alcohol is the necessary third ingredient. They want to have gender-equitable relationships and friendships and families, and they don’t want the women they care about to live in fear. The challenge for all men is that we’ve often been told that we shouldn’t care about these, or that it makes us less of a man to care about these things. More and more men are rejecting that, and realizing that the dominant stories of masculinity and manhood just plain don’t serve us, in fact more often than not they hurt us, and the people we care about. No one is benefiting, when you get right down to it.

Do you feel like sex-positivity is an important part of your work? Is it difficult to include considering the wide range of people and opinions you encounter?

Sex positivity is incredibly important. Sex is a natural and healthy part of life, and unhealthy attitudes toward it are part of the reason that so many men (and women) are unhappy with relationships. I want to support the men I work with in having whatever kind of sex they want with whomever they want—provided it’s consensual. For some people that means no sex, for others that means gay, lesbian, bi, hetero and more, all across the spectrum. So sex positivity looks different for different people, and we believe in supporting all of those options, again, provided it’s consensual. For me that’s the most important thing. But I believe having a positive attitude toward sex goes right along with actively practicing consent with your partners.

What frustrations have you encountered in your work? Or questions that you wish people would ask but don’t? Feel free to add anything else you’d like to say.

Honestly, there’s not much I find frustrating in what I do. I am incredibly lucky and privileged to spend pretty much every day working with amazing women and men who are doing so much to create a better, more gender-equitable world. When I get frustrated I just think about the great impact the college men I work with are having on their campuses, and are going to have as they go out into the world. I think there is currently a bit of a backlash against re-imagining masculinity and gender equity, but I don’t think it is sustainable. We know what the future looks like, and we’re not going back.

When Every Word Counts

3.2.11 | No Comments »

rape
Combating rape culture usually involves going after big, widespread problems. But some of the most pernicious battles currently being waged focus on just one word at a time.

Perhaps the recent word most loudly decried was “forcible”. That one was inserted into HR3, the Republican House bill full of all sorts of anti-choice, anti-women policies, including the expansion of “conscience clauses” to cover ER doctors who refuse to perform them even in life threatening cases, imposing a new tax on people who buy health insurance plans that cover abortion, and denying women in the military the right to pay privately for abortions in military hospitals abroad. But what caught many people’s attention was the attempt to redefine rape. Under the bill, abortions would only be funded by Medicaid in instances of “forcible” rape, a qualifier never used before. This led to the (unanswerable) question: what exactly is non-forcible rape? Kristen Schaal on The Daily Show explained that it is “what is merely rape-ish.” The use of this word could have meant that women seeking abortions after being raped would have had to show their bruises to prove that enough force was used to qualify (because the process of reporting a rape and pressing charges isn’t traumatizing enough). The GOP has now promised to drop that language after a veritable firestorm erupted, including another valiant Twitter campaign by Sady Doyle, #DearJohn. (Although the language may actually still be in the bill.)

A lesser-noticed bill in Georgia also focuses on one word: “accuser.” Republican Representative Bobby Franklin has introduced a bill into the state legislature to call women who report their rapes “accusers” instead of “victims.” Franklin claims that it’s unfair to call someone a victim until there’s a conviction – even though, as Carolyn Fiddler of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee points out, “Burglary victims are still victims. Assault victims are still victims. Fraud victims are still victims.” All before the crime is proven by a jury of the victim’s peers. This takes our attention away from the fact that the woman in question is a victim of a horrendous crime and diverts it to the possibility that she is merely accusing an innocent man. Using such language diminishes the seriousness of a rape accusation and the vulnerable position of someone who has experienced sexual assault.

And then there’s the word “rape” itself, which Stephanie Gilmore noticed was glaringly absent from Super Bowl coverage of accused rapist and Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. It was said that he “had sex with” his victim, that the incident in question was just a “drunken night,” it was just a “poor and classless decision.” As Gilmore puts it, “When we avoid the words ‘rape,’ ‘statutory rape,’ and ‘sexual assault,’ we dehumanize and silence victims.” Rape charges get demoted to “sexual misconduct” or simply being “involved” with an unwilling woman and are considered something other than rape. “Having sex with” implies consent that is absent when the act is forced. You can see the effects of this kind of thinking in the Canadian case where a judge withheld jail time from a rapist because the victim was drunk and wearing a tube top with no bra. The case wasn’t about rape, in his words; it was about “misunderstood signals and inconsiderate behaviour.” By refusing to call the act rape he completely changed the sentencing – and avoided laying blame where it was due, at the feet of a man who forced sex on his unwilling victim.

Refusing to use the word rape can have serious effects for victims as well. As Chloe Heintz recounts in a video explaining how Planned Parenthood saved her life, it wasn’t until someone described what happened when her boyfriend forced sex on her as rape that she understood it as such. Only then did she really come to grips with what it meant and process how it related to her identity. Gilmore connects our horrendously low reporting rates to the lack of conversation around what rape is – if you don’t know what constitutes it, you may not know you should report it. Would Chloe perhaps have pressed charges against her boyfriend if she had recognized his crime as rape at the time? It’s more likely. And as Jaclyn Friedman points out, it creates an environment in which even Whoopie Goldberg feels there is a difference between “rape-rape” and real rape.

Each misused word only serves to diminish the seriousness of rape and sex crimes, making victims more vulnerable and empowering attackers. And they all seek to roll back the clock to a time when it wasn’t taken seriously. “Forcible rape” hearkens back to when women had to somehow prove that they resisted an assault for the crime to qualify as such. “Accuser” puts women and the crimes that happen to them in a category apart from others. And calling rape a euphemism that obscures the facts smacks of calling domestic violence “putting a woman in her place.” The battle to protect the rights of rape victims, to prevent rape from happening, and to get our society to face rape culture head on is a challenging one, but it starts with language. Friedman calls for someone to sit down with editorial boards “to challenge their resistance to saying that what is alleged is rape.” Someone clearly also needs to sit down with legislators and judges. The words that frame this debate and become encoded in law sets the stage for the rest of the fight.

Strong New Voice, Seeking Others!

1.3.11 | 1 Comment »

Hello everyone,  I am so happy to be introducing myself!  My name is Marisa and I am a new blogger for whereisyourline.org! I am a twenty-year-old political science and women, gender, sexuality studies major at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Massachusetts.  At UMass, I volunteer as a rape crisis counselor/advocate at the Everywoman’s Center.  As a rape crisis counselor/advocate, I take calls on the hotline as well as provide legal and medical advocacy for survivors of sexual assault.  This has been an amazing experience and has truly changed my life.

I have been a dedicated feminist for as long as I can remember.  I believe my feminism came about when I began reading books by Tamora Pierce in the third grade.  Tamora Pierce writes fantasy novels for young adults that not only have strong female protagonists (whose professions are often knight or mage!) but also contain strong feminist social commentary.  After reading these wonderful books as a child and really starting to think about what it meant for me to be a girl, I heard the word “feminist” in the eighth grade.  Suddenly I had a name for the thoughts I was thinking and a whole new world was opened up to me.  I have known for a long time I wanted to make activism my life.  Through one of my passions (reading dorky novels) I was able to discover my new passion for feminism.

I love writing, and I am so excited to get started blogging here. I am always looking to hear from other feminists, so I’m looking forward to hearing from you all!

He Shoots, he scores.

10.26.10 | No Comments »

500_AlcoholConsent

Consent.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary consent is “Voluntary agreement to or acquiescence in what another proposes or desires; compliance, concurrence, permission,” permission.  Yeah, I gave him permission, there was no struggle, and I never said “no,” never said “stop.” So, I guess, I really wasn’t raped.  Of course, who can give consent when they are very nearly black out drunk, could you.  If you cannot even walk in a straight line on your own, if you will not remember every single part of the night, if you cannot speak without slurring your words, can you really give consent?  No.  I don’t think so.

Honestly, I don’t think that he is such a bad guy.  What do you expect when every voice he hears is saying, “yeah, go for it,” or “you’re both drunk so it’s okay.” Uhm no, it is not okay.  In what universe would you ever think that it would be okay to take a girl that is that drunk home with you, the girl who literally fell into your lap.  Lucky, damn right you got lucky.  Who tells these guys that this is okay, why the fuck do we put up with it.  Empowerment, my ass, Cosmo says you have better sex when you are sober, aren’t we all about having great sex; great consensual sex.  What I want to know is who the hell can look themselves in the mirror after correcting the level of drunkenness reported by their hookup:

So, how drunk were you last night?

Uhm, fairly drunk, slightly more than average…I guess.

Ha, really, really drunk.

Alright, and how the hell don’t you think that’s wrong.  But I guess it is my fault isn’t it? My fault for going out, for over indulging, I was asking for it right?  Uh uh.  Wrong.

You have a brain, you have a conscience, hell you’re fucking hot; you don’t need a girl to have had 5 or more drinks for you to get some.  So why did you do it?  Maybe you can explain it to me and I’ll understand.  Maybe you can explain it to me and I’ll stop feeling physically ill every time that I see you, every time that I dwell on this.

You see, sex isn’t just physical, sex is chemical, and as much as I want to slap you across the face, I still want to be near you.  I want to be close to you, to have you want me for the person that I am and that’s what makes me sick to my stomach, to the point that it is almost hard to breathe.  The fact that I can’t help it, I hate myself for wanting to be with you.  And the worst part?  You don’t even give a damn.  It’s just chemicals, and I gave consent.

Telling the Whole Story

8.26.10 | No Comments »

Charlottesville, Virginia is a a relatively peaceful town.  It has been honored by numerous publications as a great place to live and work. In 1998, Reader’s Digest even named it as one of the top 10 places to raise a family .  But despite our glowing reputation, we’ve been in the news several times in recent years for things besides our golf courses — including the disappearance and murder of Morgan Harrington, the murder of student athlete Yeardley Love, and Liz Seccuro’s much-belated justice in her decades old rape case. The University of Virginia, which seems to be at the heart of most of these incidences, was cited in 2009 as a particularly egregious offender in a report on the lack of honesty and transparency in campus sexual assault cases by the Center for Public Integrity.

But in the past month, the University has sent out several e-mails notifying students of attempted sexual assauls in the area around the school.  In all three instances, a stranger accosted a woman and wrestled her onto the ground and into nearby bushes.  All three women struggled and managed to fight off their assailants. The incidences, separated by several weeks, were not committed by the same perpetrator — two women assaulted on the same night reported that their assailant was a young white male with blonde or brown hair, the third woman described her assailant as Hispanic and in his thirties.

Now, don’t get me wrong — the school was right to notify students of these events.  This represents a real risk.  Both occurred in areas where students live, work, and walk through on a regular basis.  What worries me, though, is the constant reinforcement of the “stranger in the bushes” myth.  In this case, it was very literally true.  But we know that upwards of 70% of rapes are committed by a non-stranger.

If students receive notification only when a stranger assaults someone, but never when a friend, roommate, partner, father, uncle, dentist, acquaintance, or co-worker is the perpetrator, we will only become further entrenched in the delusion that we are only in danger when walking alone at night.

This brings me back to a constant conflict I face — as a survivor of a drug-facilitated stranger rape, I nevertheless firmly believe we need to challenge the prevailing belief that most rapes are committed by strangers or that bars are full of men slipping GHB into women’s drinks.  As I sit in my rape crisis hotline advocacy training, we are frequently reminded that most callers, and indeed most victims of any sexual assault, will have been assaulted by an acquaintance, friend, or relative.  Sometimes I feel that my own experience is being erased, negated, and denied.  I struggle to remind myself that this isn’t about me or my experience, and that there is plenty of attention already paid to that specific type of sexual assault- but that doesn’t change the danger of telling an incomplete story of rape and assault to women everywhere, and specifically on college campuses.

We need to move away from the warnings of “ladies, watch your drinks” and “don’t walk home alone.” (That’s not to say we should stop watching our drinks or taking self defense classes, but these bits of advice should not form the dominant cultural narrative on sexual assault.) We need to begin telling the whole story, and telling people the truth.

The situations advocates, professionals, academics, activists, survivors, and other groups work to raise awareness about and prevent are scary, wrong, and unjustifiable – no matter who commits them.

Hotdogs for Breakfast

8.3.10 | 3 Comments »

Last week, my partner and I had our first session of volunteer training for our local rape crisis hotline. It’s a pretty intense 40 hour training program for volunteers: there was even an application and interview process in which they called three references and ran a background check.  (I suppose there’s good reason to make sure the volunteer on the other end of the hotline is sensitive, stable, and well-informed.)

There are eight of us in the training, including my partner and me.  Two of us self-identify as survivors and one as a secondary survivor. We are all women, and the hotline coordinator expressed genuine sorrow that they only have a single male volunteer.  I couldn’t help but feel a little glad, though, that the room was exclusively female- it isn’t to say that men can’t comprehend the emotions of a rape survivor (or, for that matter BE a rape survivor), but, in my experience, men tend to get a little defensive when generalizations are made about the behavior of men in reference to sexual harassment and sexual assault.

Our training facilitator, LJ, is a wonderful, bubbly, friendly woman — the kind of woman you’d expect see working in early childhood education rather than sexual assault prevention and counseling.  She doesn’t have the aura of someone who’s seen the things I know she has.  Part of me is angry that she can smile and make jokes while she knows the binder in front of her is full of horrors and violence, but most of me is glad that she can fight the good fight every day and not let it break her.  After every section, she would apologize to us for being depressing, laugh a little, and try to brighten the mood.  The effort was admirable, but we signed up to be sexual assault advocates — we knew this wasn’t going to be comedy hour.

Toward the end of the evening, LJ got up and wrote on the white board “hot dogs for breakfast.”  She asked us, without explanation, “would you eat hot dogs for breakfast? Why not?”  Ultimately, we decided that, within our culture, we’ve been ingrained with a certain ideas of what is and is not appropriate breakfast food.  If you invited friends over for breakfast and offered them a plate of hot dogs, they wouldn’t hesitate to ask you what in the hell was wrong with you.  The immediate, almost instinctive, reaction of disgust and confusion should be the way we react to sexual harassment and rape culture.  But it isn’t.

LJ also shared with us a short parable meant to differentiate between prevention and crisis intervention work:  Imagine you are walking and you come across a river.  The river is full of injured people floating downstream.  You begin pulling as many people as you can from the river, but it seems futile — they just keep coming.  Upstream, you can see that the bridge is out and an endless number of people are falling into the water.  We as hotline volunteers have tasked ourselves with the impossible task of trying to pull the injured from the river.

I hope there’s someone upstream working on that bridge.

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