Quick hit: that’s enough politeness – women need to rise up in anger

As usual. Laurie Penny is pretty on the money:

Women, like everyone else, have been duped. We have been persuaded over the past 50 years to settle for a bland, neoliberal vision of what liberation should mean. Life may have become a little easier in that time for white women who can afford to hire a nanny, but the rest of us have settled for a cheap, knock-off version of gender revolution. Instead of equality at work and in the home, we settled for “choice”, “flexibility” and an exciting array of badly paid part-time work to fit around childcare and chores. Instead of sexual liberation and reproductive freedom, we settled for mitigated rights to abortion and contraception that are constantly under attack, and a deeply misogynist culture that shames us if we’re not sexually attractive, dismisses us if we are, and blames us if we are raped or assaulted, as one in five of us will be in our lifetime.

[...]

Like the suffragettes and socialists who called the first International Women’s Day over a century ago, women who believe in a better world are going to have to start thinking in deeds, not words. With women under attack financially, socially and sexually across the developed and developing world, with assaults on jobs, welfare, childcare, contraception and the right to choose, the time for polite conversation is over. It’s time for anger. It’s time for daring, direct action, big demands, big dreams. The men who still run the world from boardrooms and government offices have become too used to not being afraid of what women will do if we are attacked, used and exploited. We must make them afraid.

[independent]

Quick hit: even in academia, dads don’t do diapers

To help women in academia advance, elite universities should consider scrapping their generous paternity policies. That is the counterintuitive conclusion of a research paper published in the January issue of the Journal of Social, Evolutionary & Cultural Psychology.

The writers, Steven Rhoads of the University of Virginia and his son, Christopher Rhoads, of the University of Connecticut, studied a sample of 181 married, heterosexual, tenure-track professors all of whom had children under two and taught at schools with parental-leave policies. While 69 percent of the women in the sample took post-birth parental leave, only 12 percent of the men took advantage of the available leave—even though it was paid. They also learned that the male professors who did so performed significantly less child care relative to their spouses. Worse yet, they report that male tenure-track professors may be abusing paternity leave by using the time to complete research or publish papers, an activity that enhances their careers while putting their female colleagues at a disadvantage. One female participant quoted in the study put it this way: “If women and men are both granted parental leaves and women recover/nurse/do primary care and men do some care and finish articles, there’s a problem.

[...]

Not quite. As the authors of the paper state: “Most of the academics in our study said they believe that husbands and wives should share equally, but almost none did so.” To be precise, only three men out of 109 reported that they performed half the child-care work.

[businessweek]

Quick hit: when states abuse women

Here’s what a woman in Texas now faces if she seeks an abortion.

Under a new law that took effect three weeks ago with the strong backing of Gov. Rick Perry, she first must typically endure an ultrasound probe inserted into her vagina. Then she listens to the audio thumping of the fetal heartbeat and watches the fetus on an ultrasound screen.

She must listen to a doctor explain the body parts and internal organs of the fetus as they’re shown on the monitor. She signs a document saying that she understands all this, and it is placed in her medical files. Finally, she goes home and must wait 24 hours before returning to get the abortion.

“It’s state-sanctioned abuse,” said Dr. Curtis Boyd, a Texas physician who provides abortions. “It borders on a definition of rape. Many states describe rape as putting any object into an orifice against a person’s will. Well, that’s what this is. A woman is coerced to do this, just as I’m coerced.”

[nytimes]

Quick hit: Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control (via alternet)

This is an excellent article from alternet.org and explains, from an interesting sociological perspective, what the War on Contraception is all about. Excerpt:

With that one essential choice came the possibility, for the first time, to make a vast range of other choices for ourselves that were simply never within reach before. We could choose to delay childbearing and limit the number of children we raise; and that, in turn, freed up time and energy to explore the world beyond the home. We could refuse to marry or have babies at all, and pursue our other passions instead. Contraception was the single necessary key that opened the door to the whole new universe of activities that had always been zealously monopolized by the men — education, the trades, the arts, government, travel, spiritual and cultural leadership, and even (eventually) war making.

Full article.

uniLad, rape culture, and overdoses in Ireland

If you haven’t read this piece already, you should now: Gang-rape woman arrested during trial, following overdose.

The linked piece concerns a woman who was gang-raped by three men and who had to stand in front of them in court and identify them. She was later arrested for not turning up to court again. Unsurprisingly, she self-harmed because she couldn’t cope with what was happening to her. The three accused men have since been acquitted. After the victim’s arrest, Mr Justice Carney said: ‘If she has to spend a long time in prison herself waiting for a re-trial that’s her fault.’ Yes, really. A spokesperson for the Rape Crises Centre (Ellen O’Malley) criticised the trial process, ‘As making the complainants “feel they are the ones on trial and not the accused”.’ O’Malley went on to say, ‘This system in our opinion is very imbalanced and needs radical reform. As a result Ireland has one of the highest attrition rates for rape and sexual assault cases in Europe.’

But it’s not on its own. The clear up rates for rape and sexual assault cases in England and Wales are equally low. The attrition to which O’Malley refers starts right after the attack takes place when women are too frightened to report it, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone. If they do report it, it may not be recorded and pursued by the police as a offence that can be tried. And that’s before anything even. reaches a courthouse where the horrific tales of victim-blaming, brutal cross-examination, and even threats from the crowd and blatant intimidation, are numerous. O’Malley is right when she says that rape victims too often feel that they are the people on trial. Clear-up rates for rape cases in England and Wales hover around the 5% mark. That means that there is only a 5% chance of a rapist being convicted for his crime.

Anyone who has been on the feminist blogosphere this week has heard about uniLad. This is a site that is run by male students (“affectionately” known as “LADs”) and seems to be something of a “tip” site for getting laid. Except it’s not. Observe this little beauty:

‘If the girl you’ve taken for a drink… won’t “spread for your head”, think about this mathematical statistic: 85% of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds.’

It doesn’t take a brainiac to figure out that that very sentence alone trivialises, normalises, and even condones rape. If the comments from the LADs are anything to go by, they’re on board with getting a bit of rape in when the opportunity is presented. When uniLad was challenged about its attitudes, it huffed for a while, then it got defensive, then it issued a sorry excuse for an apology (“We’re sorry that you were offended, but if you weren’t so sensitive” etc.), and then it started threatening women. One particular LAD threatened to murder and rape a woman for questioning uniLad’s content. It didn’t get much better from there.  They’re still telling us that we’re being too sensitive, that we’re all stupid hairy-legged lesbian feminists, that we need a good dicking, that it’s just a joke, that we shouldn’t be in the kitchen if we can’t stand the heat (though, ironically, that’s exactly where we should be), and that it’s just boys being boys. You’ve heard it all before.

But what’s the big deal, I hear you ask. It’s just a JOKE!

A woman taking an overdose and running away so that she didn’t have to face a trial of her attackers is the big deal. We, and by that, I mean women, walk around in fear of being raped (even though I live in a “safe area”, I will not leave my house before sunrise in the mornings, just in case), we see images of sexual objectification around us all the time, we’re encouraged to measure our entire worth on how fuckable we are, we’re expected to believe, and are frequently told, that our bodies are open property for men (and that being whistled at in the street, for example, is a compliment), we have police officers telling us that we wouldn’t get raped if we didn’t dress like sluts, and we have sites like uniLad telling the chaps go get out there and take what they want whether women like it or not. That’s rape culture. In rape culture, women are not even considered to be human beings; we’re not even afforded that simple right to exist in safety and without fear of attack. Rape is not even considered an attack; it comes with the territory of being a woman, it is par for the course, and it is very likely to be our fault anyway.

Don’t tell me that rape culture doesn’t exist. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be a woman in Ireland today scared out of her wits, washing down handfuls of pills with vodka, and dreading the day that she runs into the three men who raped her, and there wouldn’t be a website which maintains that it’s all just a great big laugh.

–

Some links to uniLad commentary from the week, but there are lots more out there: stavvers; thefword; ontoberlin; petitefeministe; and sianandcrookedrib.

In brief: baking powder to keep him…

I don’t know where this  board is from but I have but two words I want to say about it.

Fuck.

and

Off.

Ok, more than two. Yeah, we can all laugh (and we do!) but there are too many people who believe in what this board says (i.e., that a woman should be chained to the kitchen sink if she wants to keep her man and make him happy or she’ll lose him and it’ll serve her right) and that is no fucking laughing matter at all. I feel sick when I see messages such as this one and realise that both men and women subscribe to these ridiculous and hateful norms. Let’s not even start on the heterocentricty of it all. It’ll be another couple of centuries, I’d say, before the bible-bashers are able to have a sensible conversation about that.

In brief: Iranian sentenced to blinding for acid attack pardoned

An Iranian man who was ordered to be blinded for carrying out an acid attack on a woman has been pardoned by his victim, state television has said.

Ameneh Bahrami had demanded qisas, a rarely used retributive justice under Sharia law, but the report said she had forgone that right at the last minute.

(via BBC News)

I blogged about this case some time ago. I’m still conflicted about how I feel about the initial decision that allowed Bahrami retributive justice for her victimization. One thing is for certain: I have endless respect for Bahrami. She said of her decision:

“I struggled for seven years with this verdict to prove to people that the person who hurls acid should be punished through ‘qisas’, but today I pardoned him because it was my right.

“I did it for my country, since all other countries were looking to see what we would do.”

The Real Face Of Rapists (Trigger Warning)

Please read this. All of it. Now tell me again how I’m supposed to “avoid” being rape, stop putting myself in danger, stop wearing those rapey sorts of clothes etc.

From droppingthefbomb, hat tip to lapetitefeministeanglaise.

There has been quite a few discussion on why telling someone to be safe, and avoid getting themselves in bad situation, is NOT victim blaming.

Sit down and listen.

This is still victim blaming.  You are still perpetuating Rape Culture.

I have to make this distinction clear: there is a difference between sex and rape. There is a difference between having sex and being raped. Rapists are not sluts. Sluts (by societies general definition) is someone who has consensual sex frequently. When a rapist is raping someone, they are not having sex with their victim… They are torturing them. Rape is a human rights violation and it defined as a form of torture by International Criminal Courts.

There is this myth that rapists have this uncontrollable sex urge and this is why they rape. If you believe this, re-read my previous paragraph.  And I would urge you to go read about Groths study on Rapists (1979) and several others!

He interviewed 500 men convicted of rape and found that:

• 55% of them were “power rapists” meaning rape was a demonstration of their power over their victim and a way of showing their hyper-masculinity
• 40% were “anger rapists”, and their aim was to humiliate their victims and hurt them for revenge
• 5% were classified as “sadistic rapists”, these men were sexually aroused by dominance and violence, and they took pleasure from their victims pain.

Groths study showed that rapists tended not to be sexually aroused either before, during or after the rape. This is why there are several incidence were the rapists had to obtain an erection by masturbation or forcing their victims to sexually arouse them. There is no “uncontrollable urge.” Rapists are not losing any power of themselves, they are gaining it.

Yet, a lot of people think they are helping by telling people not to avoid “risky behavior”

I just have to show you how impractical this is.

• In the UK fewer than 17% of rape are committed by strangers. And only 13 percent take place in a public space. Half of all female murder victims world- wide are killed by a current or former partner. And most rape victims KNOW THEIR ATTACKER.

Yet in the UK 54.4% of assaults reported in the press were committed by strangers and always in public.

• In America 73% of sexual assaults are committed by a non-stranger. 38% of rapists are friends or acquaintances of the victims. 28% are intimate partners of the victims. 7% are relatives of the victims. 6 in 10 rapes occur in the home of the victim, or in the home of a friend or relative of the victim.

Tell me how I am supposed to avoid risky behaviour in this instance. The “judgement prevents rape” argument falters in reality, at least 73% of the time.

These people were not in any RISKY BEHAVIOUR. They was no “deviant” person hiding behind the bushes ready to pounce. Stop reinforcing the idea that rapists are hiding in parking garages or in the often-called-upon “dark alley.” the assumption that rape, on the whole, happens when someone leaves a bar with a stranger.  These rapes do happen, and are still entirely problematic, but they are not the norm.

As the statistics show, most victims know their rapist, and most rapes occur in a home setting.  Statistically, you are more likely to be raped by your boyfriend or husband than you are by a stranger. So should I avoid having a boyfriend or a husband as this is more likely to get me raped?

I agree that People do act in the interest of their own safety, regardless of gender.  We could say, “Stay out of that dark alley!” but you probably already are for the most part.  Any of the things that we could think of suggesting had nothing to do with rape at all, but instead with protecting general personal safety, which is something people of both genders do already for the most part.

The idea if you dress in sexy attire, you are making yourself more at risk is complete and utter bullshit.  People are raped in sexy, going out ensembles, but they are also raped in sweatpants, baggy tee shirts, burqas, and suits.  Dress does not imply consent, and historically rapists do not appear to put much thought into what a victim is wearing in deciding if they should rape them or not.

I’ve even seen arguments of people suggesting that women and girls should avoid hanging out unsupervised in all-male groups, or hanging out one-on-one with male friends.  PLEASE TRY NOT TO TRIP OVER THAT LOW BAR YOU HAVE SET FOR ALL MEN. This argument is incredibly insulting to men.  It implies that men have no moral compass that would incite them to stop one friend from raping another, and that they are entirely out of control of their ability to monitor their own behavior.

The first thing we need to be able to do if we want to have honest, open discussion about rape is challenge the assumptions we have about where rape happens and who commits it.

And when discussing Rape Culture, just ask yourself: Who feels more comfortable with my assertions? The rapists or the Rape Victim/Survivor.

In brief: child brides

www.stephaniesinclair.com

(Trigger warning.)

Photo caption: “Whenever I saw him, I hid. I hated to see him,” Tahani (in pink) recalls of the early days of her marriage to Majed, when she was 6 and he was 25. The young wife posed for this portrait with former classmate Ghada, also a child bride, outside their mountain home in Hajjah.

National Geographic have compiled a series of photos about child brides. I was discussing with a colleague the other day the problem of western feminism trying to colonise the Middle East and women in that region. We western feminists often have a very set view of what is acceptable and unacceptable, what is oppressive and problematic, and what needs to change.  But those views are generally based on western experiences which are embedded in western cultural and societal norms. In short: it is very likely that these norms do not apply to non-western women. And nor should they. The most glaring example of such colonisation is the on-going discussion of the wearing of the Islamic veil. We in the west tend to disagree with the veil because we see it as a symbol of the oppression of women and evidence of their mistreatment in Islam. If we’re France we ban Muslim women from wearing the veil. That’s colonisation.

So when it comes to the discussion of child brides in non-western cultures, it’s fundamental to remove our western lens and to consider the practice within non-western culture. (Maybe it’s the case that we shouldn’t be having this discussion at all?) But that’s easier said than done, even on an abstract level. And when you see pictures such as those on the link above, it becomes harder still.

www.stephaniesinclair.com

Photo caption: Kandahar policewoman Malalai Kakar arrests a man who repeatedly stabbed his wife, 15, for disobeying him. “Nothing,” Kakar said, when asked what would happen to the husband. “Men are kings here.” Kakar was later killed by the Taliban.

This is not a quandary that I can solve here and now.

No sex please; we’re British. And we’re called Dave.

Below is an excellent and interesting critique of the recent announcement by Dave (Cameron) et al that said that we need to halt the over-sexualisation of our young girls. Dave et al are backing several proposals (from a Christian organisation, it’s worth noting) that aim to protect children from sexual imagery (e.g., by selling top shelf magazines in brown sleeves). In predictable Tory fashion, Dave said that such change is about “social responsibility, not state control”. The conservatives are always keen to giveth autonomy with one hand and to very quickly taketh it away with the other. Whether it’s their plan or not, any measures introduced to combat over-sexualisation of young people will, inevitably, result in greater state control. But that’s an aside (for now).

Now, don’t get me wrong – over-sexualisation of young girls is a very serious issue and is unavoidably an aspect of our patriarchal objectification and sexualisation of women, and the impossible centrality of their physical appearance (they must be attractive but not too attractive because that’s inaccessible, they must be thin but not too thin because that’s emaciated, they must be curvy but not too curvy because that’s slutty and/ or fat, they must be lightly dressed but not too lightly dressed because that’s also slutty, etc. etc.) In short, they must be perfect but not too perfect  because then they’d never bang you. These norms are communicated to our young people everywhere they look, alongside the image of women as (available and willing) sex objects. So, should we do something about all of this? Yes, we absolutely should. Though we should be honest about it. If it’s about addressing the issue of pervasive sexual imagery and messages, that’s one thing; if it’s a cover for something else entirely, though, then we have a whole new problem. Laura Woodhouse from the f-word unpicks what is really going on with this conservative policy.

… the real problem with thongs and padded bras being marketed at young girls and pop culture being defined by women writhing around half naked is that it encourages children and teenagers to have sex.

…

For these right-wing, often conservative Christian types, the commercialised vision of sex being thrust in kids’ faces is dangerous because their view of “normal” has no place for anything other than sex between one man and one woman, bound together for life, who are willing to accept the tiny wee bundle of a consequence that may result. Sex for pleasure, sex outside relationships, sex that results in abortion – any sexual activity that deviates from their norm – is a sinful, threatening act that tears another rip in the moral fabric of a fading social order they are doing their darnedest to resurrect. This kind of sex is dark and dirty, while children are pure and innocent. By bringing the sinful world of sex into childhood, we defile our children.

So is it about saving our children’s innocence, protecting them from the horrid world of the patriarchy, and teaching them that they don’t have to subscribe to these messages? Or is it just that the right-wingers don’t want anyone (apart from a happily married man and woman) having sex? I’m inclining towards Woodhouse’s argument. Nadine Dorries, for example, is notoriously anti-abortion. By and large, if I may generalise, anti-abortionists are also anti-non-marital, non-procreative, sex-for-the-hell-of-it sex. But here’s the rub: sex is “normal”, teenage sex is “normal”, teenagers are horny little rascals, teenagers are walking frickin’ sexers. Teens have been having sex for as long as anyone’s been having sex. Teenagers living in a vacuum would still have sex.

Yes, girls need to know that they don’t have to be anything for anyone, that they don’t have to do anything for anyone, that the messages they see every day present a patriarchal view to which they do not have to subscribe, but if Dave’s new bandwagon is about preventing sex and little else, then the conservatives are once again barking up the wrong tree.