Le silence des femmes. – Léa Streliski – Lea Streliski 20 janvier 2013 9h51 · Lea Streliski Il y a plusieurs semaines que je tergiverse. Que je veux écrire sur le sujet. Le viol, pour être plus exacte… J’ai moi-même du mal à dire le mot et suis hésitante à écrire ce texte car il est douloureux. Je suis lâche car je ne veux pas les voir. Combien sommes-nous à avoir été abusées ? Je parie que ça vous fait mal, je parie que c’est tapi en vous et je parie qu’à personne ou du-moins à presque personne, vous n’en avez jamais parlé. Je regardais tantôt les meilleurs moments du Oprah Show. Dans la rétrospective que je regardais, la Oprah d’aujourd’hui expliquait qu’à l’époque où elle avait tourné cette séquence, elle n’avait pas fait le deuil de l’agression sexuelle qu’elle avait elle-même subie… Elle n’avait pas encore fait, ce qu’elle appelle son « full circle moment », sa guérison. Et c’est là que ça m’a marqué, en la revoyant, bien plus jeune, sangloter devant une victime d’un viol, j’ai ressenti son silence. Nous avons honte.
Ten Things to End Rape Culture Rape culture exists because we don't believe it does. Here's how to empower men and women to change the status quo. Women at a SlutWalk protest in Berlin. The walk was held in response to a Toronto police officer who said women shouldn't dress like "sluts" if they want to avoid being raped. (Photo/Markus Schreiber) Rape culture exists because we don't believe it does. From tacit acceptance of misogyny in everything from casual conversations with our peers to the media we consume, we accept the degradation of women and posit uncontrollable hyper-sexuality of men as the norm. About the Author The Nation The Nation is America's oldest weekly news magazine, and one of the most widely read magazines in the world for... Also by the Author The progressive revival, from the asphalt up. The Nation's sports editor Dave Zirin will join former luge competitor Samantha Retrosi to take reader questions on the politics of the Olympic games. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Please support our journalism. 9. 10.
And just when you thought the Good Men Project couldn’t get any worse… They put up this piece by a self-identified rapist, saying that he would rather keep partying and raping than take responsibility and stop (obviously trigger warning on the rest of this piece). I’ll tell you now: There’s nothing particularly insightful or interesting about the piece, which I’m not linking to because GMP is not getting any traffic from me (the relevant bits are copied and pasted below). It’s by a dude who parties a lot, and says that because he’s so inebriated and his partners are so inebriated he just doesn’t know when he has consent or not, so he is probably a rapist (and in fact one woman told him he raped her), but also he’s a good dude and doesn’t really know and this is all so messy, and he likes partying and has just come to realize that a little raping is the price of entry to his lifestyle. That question of “why do rapists rape?” The thing is, though, anyone with even an ounce of personal or journalistic integrity would do a five-minute Google search.
Finally, Date Rape Ads That Put The Onus On The Raper Shifting Cultural Sensibilities and Valentine’s Pleas by Lisa Wade, PhD, Feb 13, 2013, at 11:30 am Originally posted in 2011. Re-posted in honor of the holiday. I recently posted a vintage cartoon featuring men showering. Today, in the context of “don’t drop the soap” jokes, it seems obviously homo-erotic (or -threatening). At the time, however, it likely didn’t because homosexuality didn’t hold such a central place in our collective imagination. Dmitriy T.M. sent along a series of vintage Valentine’s Day cards that, similarly, have a different effect given our contemporary cultural sensibilities. Cards borrowed from Funny or Die and Buzzfeed.
Poissonnes sans Bicyclettes Framing the Occidental Fight for a Better Sexual Assault Policy by Lisa Wade, PhD, Mar 10, 2013, at 12:00 pm Cross-posted at The Huffington Post. Last week I posted about our college President’s suggestion that he is disinclined to believe students who report sexual assault. In response to this, and a series of other problems with our sexual assault policy, the Occidental Sexual Assault Coalition is filing a federal complaint with the Office for Civil Rights and a Clery Act complaint. These seem like extraordinary measures, but I want to be clear that there is nothing extraordinary about the number of sexual assaults or the mishandling of reports by the Occidental administration. Instead of a sign that Occidental has a uniquely broken system, the activities on campus reflect a commitment to making the college a nationwide model. Photo credit: Chris Ellis and the Occidental Weekly.
'Help! False Rape' This is a guest post by Jennifer James, who can be found on Twitter @msjenniferjames Two people a month are killed by animals in the UK. Which is a horrible thing to happen - but it's rare. Similarly, two people in the UK are falsely accused of rape each month. Which makes me question why the two writers of a @bbcnewsbeat piece, Declan Harvey and Anisa Subedar splashed with 'False Rape Claims 'Devastating' Say Wrongly Accused'. Mr Starmer QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions has directed police and the CPS to be more robust when seeking rape convictions. BBC Newsbeat is the news outlet for Radio 1. By raising the issue of false allegations, @NewsDeclan and @OnlyAnisa have taken the finger of blame and forced it painfully the other way. Noone is forgetting the humanity of men and I really don't think we need reminding of it when reporting on sex crime policy. False allegation is rare enough to be classified as a rape myth: 'She's lying' or, 'She's making it up to get back at me'.
The Careless Language Of Sexual Violence There are crimes and then there are crimes and then there are atrocities. These are, I suppose, matters of scale. I read an article in the New York Times about an eleven-year old girl who was gang raped by eighteen men in Cleveland, Texas. The levels of horror to this story are many, from the victim’s age to what is known about what happened to her, to the number of attackers, to the public response in that town, to how it is being reported. The Times article was entitled, “Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town,” as if the victim in question was the town itself. The overall tone of the article was what a shame it all was, how so many lives were affected by this one terrible event. We live in a culture that is very permissive where rape is concerned. The casual way in which we deal with rape may begin and end with television and movies where we are inundated with images of sexual and domestic violence. I am trying to connect my ideas here. We live in a strange and terrible time for women.
Roxane Gay is Spelled With One "N" : What Empathy Is Steubenville teens are found guilty but rape culture remains alive and well *Trigger warning* Yesterday, the verdict was handed down in the Steubenville rape case. The defendants, Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond, were found guilty. Mays will serve at least two years in the state juvenile system; Richmond was sentenced to at least one year. And the attorney general may also bring charges against others who turned a blind eye to the assault. I feel great relief that I’m not writing about a “not guilt” verdict today. But it’s hard to hold on to that sense of relief–to realize that this ending was the best one possible in this particular case–when the problem is so much bigger. I don’t want to live in a world in which a mainstream media outlet reporting on the verdict barely mentions the victim in their rush to lament the fact that the “promising lives” of the defendants have been ruined and that this “will haunt them for the rest of their lives.” I don’t want to live in a world in which the victim’s former best friends testify against her. Image via