Author: Ophelia Benson

Raw Story offers the top five rape apologist responses to the Steubenville verdict, so you don’t have to go looking for them and evaluating them.

1. CNN: “Those poor boys’ lives are ruined”

CNN correspondent Candy Crowley responded to the verdict by bemoaning the sad future of two rapists who traumatized one young girl for life but would never get to live out their football dreams.

3. Author/blogger Michael Crooke: “It’s just buyer’s remorse”
Author/blogger Michael Crook, who additionally claims that “rape doesn’t exist,” won the race for most-likely-to-be-poorly-executed satire, at least until he took to his Twitter feed to demand that the survivor be “held accountable”, tell women that “skimpy clothing is pretty much implied consent” and encourage every woman to not “dress like a whore if you don’t want to be treated like one.”

Those are my top two from Raw Story’s top five. Not at all, don’t mention it.

Gee, is Mitch McConnell a fan of the slime pit?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) got in a few yucks during his 2013 CPAC speech Friday morning, telling a crowd that he thinks the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential field is looking like “a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls.’”

“Don’t tell me the Democrats are the party of the future when their presidential ticket in 2016 is shaping up to look like a rerun of ‘The Golden Girls,’” he said. The crowd erupted with laughter.

Ahahahahaha – that’s so funny. Old; geddit? Women who are old. Hilarious, right? Stupid bitches – they should just die instead of hanging around getting old.

A guy got beaten up by shouty racist bully-boys on a Manchester tram packed with football fans, and nobody helped, instead everybody just watched, as if it were an entertainment.

Prakash Patel, 56, from New Moston, was on a tram with his daughter Devyani  at Trafford Bar when he suffered a tirade of racist abuse followed by a sustained vicious assault. He was punched in the face and head more than 18 times and suffered two black eyes and concussion.

He tells what happened.

WE had been to the Fulham match at Old Trafford. We go as often as we can because we are big fans, we’ve been going for 25 years and never had any trouble. There were more than 200 people just in our carriage, it was so packed you couldn’t move. About six men or seven men came on to the tram and started making indecent racist comments.

Myself and my daughter felt distressed and very uncomfortable about this so I said ‘just behave’.  I said it again ‘please behave’ and that’s when it started. There was one in front of me and one behind me both punching me in my face and on the back of the head. They were hitting me in the face, the eyes, the head.

And no one helped. No one helped. All those people, and no one helped.

Both of them are horribly upset by that. It is upsetting.

Devyani Patel, 21, is an estate agent who lives with her parents in New Moston.

Reliving their ordeal, she said: “I was screaming at them to stop. They were punching him over people’s heads, but nobody did anything or said anything. I was trying to pull them off my dad and shouting at them to get off my dad.

“The one facing me was just staring at me with these cold evil eyes. I am tiny and I’m a woman. I don’t understand why nobody did anything. I was just being his daughter.

“That’s what hurts the most – that nobody did anything, nobody said anything. I have lost my faith in society.

“Later at the police station, they showed us the CCTV footage. You can’t see the men but you can see all those passengers watching – it sent a shiver down my spine when I saw that. Some of them were actually jumping up to get a better view.”

[shiver]

Keep the title in mind.

It’s a beautiful spring afternoon here, one of the first we’ve had, and I went out into it, and not ten minutes along I saw a dog get hit by a car.

I probably could have prevented it, and I failed to.

There’s this scenic walk a couple of minutes from where I live, overlooking Puget Sound and the mountains. Where the street curves from south to east, there’s a little open park overlooking the view and diagonally across the street a little closed park that used to be a private garden. It’s a busy spot on days like today. I was approaching the curve and the open park when a boxer came racing out of the enclosed park, across the street, and into the open one. Uh oh, I thought; uh oh, uh oh; danger danger; cars. I heard a child’s voice calling, “Freddy! Treats!” Then I heard a car approaching behind me. I turned to look, and thought I should signal it to stop until someone got Freddy under control – but I didn’t. The car kept going and the boxer changed direction and raced right smack into it.

I said shit really loudly – involuntarily – and turned away for a few seconds.

But the dog was still racing around, and ended up going back to the closed park where two little boys were waiting for him. A guy in the overlook park shouted rather angrily “you should have it on a leash!” I stood and quivered for a bit, and watched as the driver parked and got out and went into the closed park. Then I went there too, to tell the little boys they had to take the dog to the vet. I told them that, and there was a woman just ahead of me who told them the same thing. “I’m a vet tech,” she told me, and I felt oddly reassured.

The boys gathered up Freddy’s leash (which was now connected to his collar) and headed for home.

I think Freddy’s ok. It was the meaty part of his shoulder that took the hit.

Still. I’ll be watching for a boxer out for a walk for awhile, hoping to get a chance to make sure.

I wish I had signaled that car though. I didn’t have any real reason not to, I think it was just accidental passivity. But if I had – she might have stopped, and then seen Freddy race into the street without getting hit, and everybody would have been glad she’d stopped. Sigh.

It was horrid. An awful crunch-thump as the car punched Freddy’s shoulder.

Physioproffe said let’s for fun post pictures of our bookshelves so I said ok so here’s my picture.

Metametameta coverage – reactions to the Steubenville verdict, reactions to reactions to the Steubenville verdict, [continue the series].

Too much sympathy in court being shown for these disgusting little rapists. It is not a tragedy when a rapist is found guilty.#Steubenville

— Radical Feminist (@RadicalFeminist) March 17, 2013

Is there? I looked for coverage and haven’t found it yet but did find commentary on the tears and sobs of the rapists themselves. The anchor (a woman) in the studio asked the commentator (a man) outside the courthouse about how gut-wrenching it all was, and he said the boys “didn’t realize that what they did was so serious.”

They didn’t?

Well why the fuck not?

Did they think it’s just ok and normal and no biggy to shove your fingers up a nonconsenting girl?

If so, why would they think that? Why would anyone ever think that?

Why would anyone ever think it’s ok to shove your fingers up a nonconsenting girl while other people watched and took pictures and video?

I would really like to know.

I wonder how much of it, if any, has to do with being called a girl by their coach during football practice. I wonder if their coach did that; I wonder if it’s universal among football coaches; I wonder if anybody even talks about it, in schools, where it counts. I wonder if all or most football players learn contempt for women, even loathing of them, in the very act of playing and training for football.

Anyway. I would really like to know how teenage boys can fail to realize that sexual assault is serious.

Both were found guilty of rape; Mays was also found guilty of disseminating a naked photo of a minor.

Richmond’s father told CNN that his son was doing OK.

“I told Ma’lik to put all his trust in God. God will see him through this,” Nate Richmond said. “I told him that I love him, basically. And to be strong.”

I wonder if Richmond’s father told him anything about not raping.

QED has released the video of the panel “A Question of God” from last March. The panel is moderated by Paula Kirby and has Maryam Namazie, DJ Grothe, and me. Ironic, isn’t it.

It’s as I remembered it – fun, congenial, entertaining, interesting. That’s why I was so surprised when a few months later Paula Kirby called me a Feminazi and Femistasi. Watching that panel, she doesn’t seem like that kind of person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gdewF7tMk

How…quirky. Brazil’s House of Representatives elected a racist homophobe as the new chair of its Commission for Human Rights and Minorities. Kind of defeats the purpose.

Marcos Feliciano is known for his homophobic and racist declarations:  “Africans descend from an ancestor cursed by Noah. This is a fact,” he wrote. “Noah’s curse on his grandson, Canaan, lingers in Africa,  therefore leading to all the hunger, diseases, ethnic wars.”

This is a fact? What would a fiction look like then? If an old story in an old book is “a fact” then what criteria do you use to detect a fiction?

Marcos  Feliciano’s image has been further tarnished by the exposure of his  behavior during his fund-raising sermons at the ‘Resurrection  Cathedral’ (Catedral do Avivamento) for his church ‘The Assembly of God’  in Riberão Preto, in São Paulo state. Feliciano accepts donations in  cash, check, credit cards. Even motorbikes can be used to pay for  ‘divine rewards’, he announces.

In this video (not  subtitled), Feliciano says: “This is the last time I’ll say it. Samuel  de Sousa has donated using his credit card, but hasn’t provided the  password. This is not fair. Then he is going to ask God for a miracle,  and if God doesn’t reply he’s going to say God is evil.”

Even more quirky. Racist, confused about what a “fact” is, and venal to the point of embarrassment.

Today people dressed up as ghosts to protest.

Bjarte’s stick figure has discovered “civility.”

1. So you think you should not be treated like a public toilet and I disagree. [butterfly, flower, smiley]

2.Surely that’s a legitimate difference of opinion over which we can have a polite conversation. [birdie, musical note]

3. *@! no, because:

context
facts
values

analysis
logic

conclusions

4. #FTBullies blabla “*@!” blablabla uncivil blablabla uncharitable blabla tone blablabla rather than engage in civil dialogue!

There’s a gallery in a little neighborhood shopping area about half a mile from where I live, not the main top of the hill shopping area, but a smaller one, with a miniature grocery store, and the dentist I go to, and a great bakery-coffee shop called Macrina, and a taco place, and an orthodontist with witty signs (“if you have more tattoos than teeth, come see us”), among other things – quite a humming little spot really.

The gallery is the Fountainhead Gallery. I went past it yesterday and looked in the windows as I always do, and then looked some more and then went inside. They’re having an exhibit called Frontline Heroines, by Judith Larsen. The heroines are journalists killed on the job.

For instance –

NEDA Neda Agha Soltar was an Iranian student demonstrator who was gunned down during the 2009 student protest. She has since become an icon and martyr for democracy in Iran.

ANNA Anna Politkovskaya, born in the USA, was a Russian newspaper editor, journalist, human rights activist and an award-winning author who was shot to death near her Moscow apartment, allegedly for her coverage of the Chechen conflict and her investigative articles.

MARGARET Margaret Moth, CNN photo journalist, was shot and critically wounded while covering the Bosnian War. She died later from related health issues.

SHAIME Shaime Rezayee, host of an Afghan MTV show, was executed for her role in that program.

An important subject.

The CBC doesn’t seem to consider internet harassment just “drama” or “playing the victim card” or similar. The CBC takes it seriously enough to report on it, at least.

An Alberta man found out just how ugly an online debate can become when someone hijacked his identity and went on a crude Facebook rampage.

He joined a Facebook page about preserving an Edmonton airport – whoa, controversial, right?! – and things got heated.

One of the users started harassing him, using profane language, so Ken blocked him.

This only angered the man and he recreated Ken’s Facebook profile, stealing his real profile pictures, his name and even where he worked.

The man then started posting racist, homophobic and exceptionally crude things under Ken’s name. One status claimed Ken was a rapist.

I thought everybody was allowed to do that. I thought that was “humor” – “parody” – “satire” – “lighthearted joking.” No?

Ken said he repeatedly reported the problem to Facebook. He asked dozens of Facebook friends to report the fake profile, but claims the company did nothing.

That’s Facebook. Facebook – unlike CBS – Doesn’t Care.

Steph Guthrie, who makes her living as an online activist but specializes in outing internet trolls who harass behind the cloak of anonymity, said she sees situations like Ken’s all too often.

“Harassment is unfortunately extremely common on the internet,” she said.

“The identity thefts side of things is maybe less common, but it’s definitely one of those key tools in an internet harasser’s arsenal.”

She said stealing someone’s identity is illegal, but Facebook rarely bothers to act.

Guthrie said police tend to prioritize investigations with financial or physical threat, so people just suffer in harassment cases, which can harm their well-being and reputation.

Yes but you see that’s their problem because they are out in public. If they weren’t out in public, the harassers wouldn’t know about them, so obviously it’s their own fault that they’re being harassed.

Facebook finally shut down the fake page today after being contacted by CBC News.

Ah well done Facebook! Do nothing for two years – and react only when the CBC taps you on the shoulder. You lying shits.

Account co-ordinator Claire LaRocca said the social media company takes the privacy of their users’ information very seriously.

“It is a violation of our policies to use a fake name or operate under a false identity, and we provide resources for both users and non-users to report false accounts through our Help Centre,” she said.

That is a shameless lie. Just ask my friend EllenBeth Wachs.

Legal reform is not enough to end violence against women, Katherine Brickell observes.

Despite what Unifem (the UN agency for gender equity) claims have been 20 years of “unprecedented progress” on the issue – including an increase in the number of laws – many women around the world still have no knowledge of their rights and even fewer of how to lay claim to them.

Brickell leads a research team in Cambodia, which has a law (passed in 2005) on the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of the Victims.

The law starts by defining its dual purpose as protecting victims of violence, and “preserving the harmony within the households in line with the nation’s good custom and tradition”. While the international development community has been largely successful in shifting violence against women from a private to a societal concern, in Cambodia this message has become distorted. Its societal significance is linked in law to the symbolic value of harmonious households, rather than to women’s wellbeing. Our research shows that this rhetoric is practically difficult for women to manage: they are repeatedly told to reconcile their relationships and not pursue punishment by law. This problem is compounded by persistent ideas in villages that violence against women is a private matter – in Cambodian customary rules, a “fire” – which women have a responsibility not to spread beyond the home.

There it is again. If you prioritize harmony, or unity, or consensus, or “peace” over equality or rights or the wellbeing of a subset of the group or community or movement, then that’s what you get – an arrangement in which the rights of some are sacrificed to the unity of all. Sometimes you have to do that. If there’s a tiger running toward the group, the group needs to unite to deal with the tiger. If there’s an earthquake or tsunami or hurricane, the group needs to work together on rescue and repair. But when there’s not a pressing emergency (and there will always be disagreement about which emergencies are pressing) then unity should not be valued over the rights of everyone. The few should not be expected to ditch their rights for the sake of unity or “harmonious households” forever.

Soraya Chemaly has some trenchant thoughts on the Steubenville rape case and the culture that enables such cases.

While teaching people about consent isn’t going to change the behavior of predatory serial rapists, it will cultivate a culture that encourages effective bystander intervention and teaches both women and men how to reduce risk.  What we have now and by default are subtle and overt messages that teach children, like the two Steubenville boys and the kids who watched them, to treat other human beings — disproportionately female ones — as dehumanized prey instead of as people for whom they should feel compassion.

Seriously, what is that? Why did everyone else just let it happen? Why didn’t anyone stop it? How horrible that is. Imagine you’re at a gathering with a lot of adults and one person – a woman – becomes ill, and gets so groggy and dizzy that she can’t respond properly. What happens? A couple of men proceed to pull some of her clothes off, and stick their fingers up her, and text their friends about it, and drag her around the room, while everyone else stands around and laughs?

Well, no, at least I hope the people you know aren’t like that. No, people help, and suggest going to the ER, or lying down for a minute, or whatever seems appropriate.

So what the hell is this? What’s wrong with everyone? I know teenagers don’t have a complete prefrontal cortex yet, but that doesn’t mean they’re grizzly bears.

In the meantime, kids in Steubenville will pay a high price. The thing is, the boys probably are basically “good.” Although I think they are clearly at fault for violating this girl’s body and human rights, I do not think it’s their fault that they were born into a culture where “nice guys” rape all the time and get away with it.  We could avoid an awful lot of hardship and wasted lives if we disregarded the repugnant antics of those who are aggressively opposed to a fairer distribution of rights and confronted these issues head on.

As I recently said when participating in a Women Under Siege forum on victim-blaming, explaining context and shifting the focus from individual people to the systems that produce them isn’t a mentality of victimization, it’s a critique of the deeply entrenched, destructive attitudes at the heart of violence and oppression, and the first steps toward dismantling them. That is a matter of personal responsibility.

Tame the grizzly bears.