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.

What I’ve been reading – burka ban, budget 2011, Ivory Coast horrors, and US revisionist history

Ok, yes, I possibly have been on the Interbets all week. Here’s some of what’s been happening:

• It’s quite unbelievable, still, that France passed the “Ban on the Burka” law last week, but it did. Needless to add, there was outrage. The irony of telling women that they’re not allowed to wear what a patriarchal culture tells them to wear is not lost on Sarkozy, I’m sure, even if he is brainless. You cannot beat oppression with oppression. (Though we shouldn’t fool ourselves that Sarkozy et al were thinking of the women at all here. No, this is thinly veiled – pun intended - Islamophobia at its best.) And as if it’s not offensive enough as it is, the Guardian reported that refusing to comply with the ban will result in a fine or a condition to have lessons in “French citizenship”.  Arrange the following words in a sentence: off, fuck. Within hours of the ban coming into force, women were being arrested for continuing to wear the veil. Well, you would wouldn’t you! There are several excellent blog posts around the Interweb which discuss this issue in much more detail than I do here: thefword, delilah-mj, msmagazine, and lattelabour for starters.

• Budget 2011 leaves women out in the cold (fawcettsociety). The 2011 budget spells trouble for women in Britain. There’s been talk for a some time now of how the vast array of cuts introduced by the coalition government will affect women, and the picture is now becomnig clearer. First, a piece from the Guardian reveals that job losses have affected women the most and, second, a report produced in partnership with the Fawcett Society (‘The Impact on Women of the Budget 2011’) highlights the following issues. It is not looking good.

- The current economic strategy looks set to undermine gender equality in the labour market: if current trends continue, more women than men in the UK will be unemployed, for the first time since records began.
– The bonfire of regulations will remove the protections that women and men with caring responsibilities need in order to be able to work.
– The increase in the Personal Tax Allowance threshold will not touch the most vulnerable, and among those who will benefit, men will gain £140 million more than women.
– Without action to tackle entrenched gender inequality within the apprenticeship sector, where women earn on average 21 per cent less than men,  the Government’s flagship expansion in apprenticeships and training opportunities will not improve the employment opportunities young women face and do nothing for older women.
– The businesses set to benefit most from new tax breaks and other incentives are typically owned and invested in by men while schemes to support women in business are scrapped.

• The Ivory Coast standoff ends, but the nightmare for women continues (msmagazine). Most mornings when I wake up, I’m inclined to be rather discontent with my lot for a few minutes before I come to (I’m tired, it’s cold, I have too much to do; that sort of thing). Reading about the women in the Ivory Coast reminds me that I don’t even know I’m born. Though the conflict in the Ivory Coast has come to an end now, women and girls there are still being persecuted (kidnapped, beaten up and raped) daily. They’ve been through all of this before in 2004 and they’re going through it all again. And we don’t know the half of it.

Pender [a gender-based violence Technical Advisor for IRC] conveyed reports from women of gang rapes, rapes of entire families and sexual slavery, as women and girls are “taken as wives” for weeks at a time. “These women have experienced things that we cannot even imagine–and many for the second time,” said Pender. The collective memory of rape and violence from the last Ivorian war, in 2004, is still fresh. In fact, the recollection of “what happened last time,” and the threat of new violence has driven many girls and women to flee.

• Finally, Americans seem to [want to] forget slavery (prospect). When a research centre asked why the American Civil War took place, a frightening number of respondents answered that they thought it was about the rights of states. The reason for the war is disputed, of course, but even I (a European)  know that slavery was as central a reason as any other.

That so many young Americans believe a revisionist account of the Civil War is, if anything, another sign of our collective refusal to deal with our difficult past. Slaves built the White House and fueled Wall Street, but we want nothing more than to forget slavery and the central role it played in our nation’s history.

Couple this finding with the recent revisionist adaption of Huckleberry Finn (to remove the n-word) and one wonders if America wants to forget all about its sordid past altogether. I hope not.

[Trigger warning for mention of rape] Gang Rape Story Lacked Balance

Follow-up to this blog post: [Trigger warning for mention of rape] Tell the New York Times to Apologize for Blaming a Child for Her Gang Rape (petition)

The NYTimes blog has attempted an “apology” for its coverage of the gang-rape story in Texas. The original story was littered with victim-blaming and sympathy for the perpetrators. Here is a link to the petition for an apology on change.org.

The story quickly climbed The Times’s “most emailed” list but not just because of the sensational facts of the crime involved. “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town,” published on Tuesday, reported the gang rape by 18 boys and men of an 11-year-old girl in the East Texas town of Cleveland.

The viral distribution of the story was, at least in part, because of the intense outrage it inspired among readers who thought the piece pilloried the victim.

My assessment is that the outrage is understandable. The story dealt with a hideous crime but addressed concerns about the ruined lives of the perpetrators without acknowledging the obvious: concern for the victim.

While the story appeared to focus on the community’s reaction to the crime, it was not enough to simply report that the community is principally concerned about the boys and men involved – as this story seems to do. If indeed that is the only sentiment to be found in this community – and I find that very hard to believe – it becomes important to report on that as well by seeking out voices of professional authorities or dissenting community members who will at least address, and not ignore, the plight of the young girl involved.

From Shelby Knox of change.org:

Brisbane’s blog post is not an apology, nor does it go far enough in explaining that “balance” does not mean giving equal weight and space to the concerns of the child rape victim and those of her alleged rapists. In addition, as the blog post only appeared online, we have yet to see whether a condemnation of the coverage will also appear in his regular Sunday column (or anywhere) in the paper. But as the public editor of the New York Times holds a respected place in the journalism community, his words sent a message to reporters at publications across the country that victim-blaming is never appropriate.

I completely agree that this “apology” is unacceptable. To claim that the piece ‘lacked balance’ is patronising and minimising. Instead of focusing on a this lack of balance, the blog piece would have been better served to be as outraged as 1000s of readers at the amount of victim-blaming which went on in the original piece. The victim-blaming was discussed but only in a tokenistic and defensive ‘we didn’t mean it like that, honest’ way. Is the next piece going to tell us that we’re all too sensitive and that we should just lighten up? Quite possibly.

[Trigger warning for mention of rape] Tell the New York Times to Apologize for Blaming a Child for Her Gang Rape (petition)

It is immensely important that the NYTimes apologies for this article. In the few short paragraphs of the piece, the paper sympathised with the numerous perpetrators of this horrific gang-rape (“they will have to live with this for the rest of their lives”) and firmly placed the blame for the rapes in the 11-year-old victim (“she wore make-up and dressed as if she was older”). Please sign this petition.

On March 8th the New York Times published a story by James C. McKinley Jr. titled “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town.” The assault it described was, indeed, heinous: an 11-year-old was gang raped in an abandoned trailer house by as many as 18 men, with suspects ranging in age from middle school students to a 27-year-old. The attack came to light because several of the suspects took cell phone video of the assault.

Also appalling was the way in which New York Times reporter James C. McKinley reported the victim blaming sentiments of members of the Texas community in which the rape occurred as truth. McKinley insinuated the young woman had it coming, writing, “They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.”

Mr. McKinley also gave ink to community members who are more concerned about the impact raping a child will have on the suspects than being raped will have on the young victim. Mr. McKinley quoted Sheila Harrison as saying, ““These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

1 in 4 American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. A culture that blames victims for being raped – for what they were wearing, where they were, and who they were with – rather than blaming the rapist is a culture that tacitly condones rape. A society that is more concerned with how being held accountable for rape will impact the perpetrator than for the well being of the victim is a society that doesn’t take rape seriously.

The New York Times contributed to this dangerous culture by publishing this article by Mr. McKinley without asking him to edit out his and community members’ editorial victim blaming.

Tell the New York Times to issue a published apology for their coverage of this incident and publish an editorial from a victim’s rights expert on how victim blaming in the media contributes to the prevalance of sexual assault. No one ever deserves to be raped and no victim should ever be told it was their fault. New York Times, we expect better. We demand better.