Author: Ophelia Benson

  • The crime of Moska

    So that’s how it’s possible to treat rape victims as perps.

    Just 21, Gulnaz had been released that week from prison, where she had given birth to her daughter Moska. Gulnaz seemed younger than her years, but she held my gaze almost defiantly as she told her story.

    She had been imprisoned in a Kabul women’s jail after her cousin’s husband raped her.

    The crime came to light when the unmarried Gulnaz became pregnant.

    The police came and arrested both Gulnaz and her attacker. Under Afghan law she too was found guilty of a crime known as “adultery by force”, with her sentence increased on appeal to 12 years.

    Oh, I see! Afghan law doesn’t have a crime of rape, apparently, it has “adultery by force” and both parties are the perps as opposed to one party being the perp and the other being the victim.

    That’s interesting. Usually we* think of serious crime as being a crime because there are victims; that’s why laws against actions that can be considered “victimless” are contested.

    Imagine everything rearranged in a way comparable to “adultery by force.” You would get…”Suicide by force.” “Redistribution of wealth by force.” “Cosmetic surgery by force.” “Home visits by force.” “Account transfer by force.”

    In what we would call murder, it’s not one person doing a bad thing to another person, it’s two people teaming up to do a bad thing to…….to whom? The owner of one of them? The owner of both of them, “god”? “The community”?

    Never mind. I’m just playing silly buggers. I know that’s not how it works with other crimes. It’s just rape that works that way, because rape involves a woman (except when it doesn’t – there are those dancing boys in Afghanistan), and women always belong to men, so whatever is done to a woman is actually done not to the woman but to the man she belongs to. It’s not an assault on the woman, it’s adultery which is a bad thing done to the woman’s husband (certainly not to the rapist’s wife – don’t go getting that idea).

    I suppose Gulnaz’s daughter – the one conceived as a result of the “adultery by force” – is guilty of “birth by force” and will be sentenced to 12 years in prison as soon as she’s old enough to use the potty by herself.

    *By “we” I mean people who try to think about things, not “we in the West” or the like.

  • Jerusalem: gynecology conference bars women speakers

    Women are allowed in the audience, in a section separate from men.

  • Helen Lewis-Hasteley on the pinkification of toys

    If a girl wants a construction set, how is making her feel abnormal going to encourage her – and her parents – to spend money at your store?

  • Skepticlawyer on a suit against a blogger

    And on feminism, religion, debates about porn and abortion.

  • What future for Afghan woman jailed for being raped?

    The police arrested both Gulnaz and her rapist. Under Afghan law she too was found guilty of a crime known as “adultery by force.”

  • Amartya Sen on identity

    From Identity and Violence:

    My disturbing memories of Hindu-Muslim riots in India in the 1940s…include seeing – with the bewildered eyes of a child – the massive identity shifts that followed divisive politics. A great many persons’ identities as Indians, as subcontinentals, as Asians, or as members of the human race, seemed to give way – quite suddenly – to sectarian identification with Hindu, Muslim, or Sikh communities. The carnage that followed had much to do with elementary herd behavior by which people were made to “discover” their newly detected belligerent identities, without subjecting the process to critical examination. The same people were suddenly different.

    So were their identities really “Hindu” or “Muslim” or were they not? If Sen is right, their religious identities suddenly expanded in size and overpowered all their other identities, which means that they were mutable as opposed to fixed. Identities that can swell can also deflate. This is worth remembering.

  • Janet Heimlich on Helen Ukpabio

    We must examine what role authority figures play in failing to protect children from abuse or, worse, inciting violence against children.

  • Dainty boxing

    A couple of months old, but too stupid and bad to overlook.

    Women will be boxing at the Olympics for the first time this year. And…can you guess what follows?

    Geniuses in the International Amateur Boxing Association think maybe they should wear skirts.

    Skirts.

    For boxing.

    Really? Really? It’s so important that everyone should have easy access to women’s Little Special Place that they have to wear skirts even for boxing? So that when they fall down everyone can check for visible pubic hair?

    What’s next? Rules requiring women to wear high heels, a plunging neckline, lipstick, earrings, long hair?

    Adults and Tiaras.

     

  • Mary Raftery

    RTÉ remembers Mary Raftery.

    Ms Raftery was best known for her ‘States of Fear’ documentary series, which revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in Irish industrial schools and residential institutions.

    It led to the creation of the Commission of Inquiry into Child Abuse.

    In 2002, her ‘Cardinal Secrets’ programme for RTÉ’s Prime Time led to the setting up of the Murphy Commission of Investigation into clerical abuse in the Dublin Archdiocese.

    So did survivors of abuse.

    Andrew Madden, the former altar boy abused by a senior Dublin cleric, said Ms Raftery had understood that the Church’s concealment of child sexual abuse was systemic, but that it could best be exposed by helping survivors to share personal experiences.

    He said that her work had provided a way for some survivors to do that.

    The organisation Survivors of Child Abuse said all survivors will forever remember her enormous contribution to revealing historical abuse in the country’s enclosed institutions.

    Its spokesman, John Kelly, said each survivor owed a great deal to her steadfast courage that brought hope where there was despair and vindication when it was sorely needed. He said their hearts and prayers were with her family.

    So did politicians.

    Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín O Caoláin said she had given a voice to the voiceless, including victims of abuse and, more recently, to those who suffered in psychiatric institutions. He said she had forced governments to act.

    Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Frances Fitzgerald said Ms Raftery had played an essential role in the alerting the country to its child protection duties.

    She said her ground-breaking documentaries such as “Cardinal Secrets” brought home to viewers the squalid prevalence of child sexual abuse while emphasizing the life-long damage it could inflict on those abused.

    So did journalists.

    Seamus Dooley, Irish Secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said Ms Raftery ”will be mourned by all who knew and respected her as a fearless journalist”.

    He said she was someone “who was always willing to ask awkward questions, to seek out uncomfortable facts and to shine a light in the darkest corners of Irish society”.

    The Irish Times Editor Kevin O’Sullivan said Ms Raftery’s journalism ”fearlessly exposed the gross failures of Church and State in looking after some of the most vulnerable and damaged of people in Irish society”.

    He said her work lifted ”so many layers of institutional secrecy”.

    Ireland needed her.

  • RTÉ on Mary Raftery

    She was best known for her ‘States of Fear’ series, which revealed the extent of physical and sexual abuse of children in Irish industrial schools and residential institutions.

  • Mary Raftery’s work changed Ireland

    After RTÉ broadcast Raftery’s States of Fear in 1999, the Ryan commission of inquiry into child abuse was set up, as was the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

  • Mary Raftery 1957-2012

    The journalist whose television documentaries exposed decades of abuse of children in church-run industrial schools in Ireland.

  • 5 men accused of stirring up hatred due to sexual orientation

    The leaflet which formed the basis of the charges featured a hanged mannequin and claimed that “Allah permits the destruction” of those who allow homosexuality and those who practise it.

  • Frolicking in the gentle breeze

    Nidhi Dutt experienced a little “Eve teasing,” or as you might call it, assault, in Bombay one afternoon.

    My colleague and I were piling into a rickshaw, heading back to the bureau. And that’s when it happened. We were suddenly surrounded by a group of boys, barely teenagers.

    At first the whole thing seemed harmless, if a little predictable – the cheery interest of a group of bright eyed, smiling boys.

    Their approach was not unusual, foreigners and cameras make for an unmissable attraction in India.

    But it was only a matter of minutes, possibly seconds, before the smiles turned into a blur of pawing, grabbing hands. Their indecent behaviour was punctuated by cheers, laughter and explicit comments in Hindi.

    And that was it. I had been Eve-teased. Or as we describe it in the West, sexually harassed. In broad daylight, on a street in a busy business district of Mumbai.

    “Teasing” they call it – a group of boys physically attacking two women. That’s not “teasing” and I don’t think we call that harassment, either, not when it’s unwanted resisted physical contact – I think we call that assault.

    This kind of harassment, often described in India as innocent play, is commonplace. Yet this is a country in which the predominant Hindu religion worships female deities and claims to respect women.

    Described as “innocent play” is it – being treated as a commodity as public as a toilet? That’s not any kind of play. It’s an assault on women’s autonomy and ability to be in the world without fear.

  • Christian love

    What Jessica Ahlquist has to put up with.

    A small sample (all spellings theirs):

    • May that little, evil teenage girl and that judge BURN IN HELL.
    • U little brainless idiot, hope u will be punished, u have not win sh..t! Stupid little brainless skunk!
    • How does it feel to be the most hated person in RI right now? Your a puke and a disgrace to the human race.
    • shes not human shes garbage
    • Fuck Jessica alquist I’ll drop anchor on her face
    • Jessica Ahlquist may have won her case, but she’s going straight to hell.
    • literally that bitch is insane. and the best part is she already transferred schools because she knows someone will jump her
    • I hope there’s lots of banners in hell when your rotting in there you atheist fuck #TeamJesus
    • your home address posted online i cant wait to hear about you getting curb stomped you fucking worthless cunt
    • gods going to fuck your ass with that banner you scumbag

    And that’s all I can stand. It’s only a sample from only about 10% down the page.

  • Christian love

    What Jessica Ahlquist has to put up with.

    A small sample (all spellings theirs):

    • May that little, evil teenage girl and that judge BURN IN HELL.
    • U little brainless idiot, hope u will be punished, u have not win sh..t! Stupid little brainless skunk!
    • How does it feel to be the most hated person in RI right now? Your a puke and a disgrace to the human race.
    • shes not human shes garbage
    • Fuck Jessica alquist I’ll drop anchor on her face
    • Jessica Ahlquist may have won her case, but she’s going straight to hell.
    • literally that bitch is insane. and the best part is she already transferred schools because she knows someone will jump her
    • I hope there’s lots of banners in hell when your rotting in there you atheist fuck #TeamJesus
    • your home address posted online i cant wait to hear about you getting curb stomped you fucking worthless cunt
    • gods going to fuck your ass with that banner you scumbag

    And that’s all I can stand. It’s only a sample from only about 10% down the page.

  • Dr Gingrich sneers at the crime of speaking French

    I hate my country sometimes. Really hate it. Visceral stomach-heaving loathing.

    One such time is when candidates for high office tell us that ignorance is good and knowledge is bad. It makes me murderous. Yes, ignorance is good, poverty is good, starvation is good, disease is good, pain is good – and that’s what we have to offer, the candidates imply. Vote for us and pride yourself on not knowing any pesky foreign languages.

    Quelle horreur! Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney has been skewered in a new political attack ad – for speaking French.

    The ad, released by rival Newt Gingrich, seeks to draw unflattering parallels between Mr Romney and another Massachusetts politician, John Kerry.

    Entitled The French Connection, it features a clip of Mr Romney talking in French when he ran the Winter Olympics.

    Newt Gingrich has a PhD in history – European history. He has to have had minimal competence in at least two European languages for that.

    His 1971 dissertation, Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945-1960, contains a number of sources in French in its bibliography.

    Miserable lying bastard.

     

  • Newt Gingrich ad treats speaking French as a crime

    How dare a presidential candidate speak a second language! Presidents should be as pig-ignorant as possible!

  • Nidhi Dutt on being “Eve teased”

    It was only a matter of minutes, possibly seconds, before the smiles turned into a blur of pawing, grabbing hands. In broad daylight, on a street in a busy business district.

  • Jessica Ahlquist targeted by cyber-bullies

    “shes not human shes garbage” “I’ll drop anchor on her face” “i cant wait to hear about you getting curb stomped” “what a little bitch lol I wanna snuff her”