I feel like my answer takes for granted how complicated this issue is and how it needs to be talked about a lot more…
I can see the problem in which rape is constantly and repeatedly framed as a women’s issue. Yes, feminists take on the issue because there is a certain popular culture around rape that is often tied to male privilege, power relations, and cultural expectations that “if you wear this, look a certain way or do certain things with your life then you’re asking for it.” and also the pressures to achieve masculinity in the heternormative sense of “you must prove you’re a man by getting sex by any means necessary.” or how women of color, historically, aren’t even considered rape-able because of the way WOC have been hyper-sexualualized in history, media and even science.
I felt by just saying “yes, a man can be raped by a woman” really simplifies things. Because me just saying yes doesn’t explain - well why is it framed the way it is? and its worth pointing out all the different types of rape that isn’t just man/woman or heteronormative. Yes, rape culture in the contemporary sense is worth understanding because it does impact gender relations and it is factored into how women are perceived within the male gaze - but rape is a way bigger issue. Like prison inmates and how that rape is always written off as a joke. Or how rape that doesn’t even involve a penis, or a man, is written off as not rape at all. We need to just think about this even farther than just “can a woman rape a man too?” There are many different levels of sexual abuse and sex being used as a tool of power & coercion.
idk, random thoughts. feel free to expand or even correct me in places where you see fit. This topic is soooooooo complex and deep.
Our community, much like society-at-large, needs a paradigm shift as it relates to our sexual assault prevention efforts. For so long all of our energy has been directed at women, teaching them to be more “ladylike” and to not be “promiscuous” to not drink too much or to not wear a skirt. Newsflash: men don’t decide to become rapists because they spot a woman dressed like a video vixen or because a girl has been sexually assertive.
How about we teach young men when a woman says stop, they stop? How about we teach young men that when a woman has too much to drink that they should not have sex with her, if for no other reason but to protect themselves from being accused of a crime? How about we teach young men that when they see their friends doing something inappropriate to intervene or to stop being friends? The culture that allows men to violate women will continue to flourish so long as there is no great social consequence for men who do so.
— Zerlina Maxwell’s Ebony.com piece “Stop Telling Women How to Not Get Raped.”
Gee, she must have a pretty low opinion of male soldiers. And women. But as we found out, she didn’t have those problems when she was a “combat” reporter in Vietnam.
Clicking the link to get context only makes the story even more sickening. In response to offering services to PROTECT those in service “That’s funny, I thought the mission of the Army, and the Navy, and four services was to defend and protect us, not the people who were fighting the war.” wow - the mission of the Army & Navy is to defend “american interests” (whatever that means) at all cost - even at the expense of the people who signed their life over to fight… because they’re just pawns in the game right?
I’m so glad the army recruits so hard in low-income areas & schools just for their recruits to continue to be treated like second class citizens breaking their backs for the benefit of the rest of America…
more updates on the school where the teacher was recently busted for [TW-sexual abuse] blindfolding his elementary students and feeding them his semen:
The investigation began over a year ago when over 40 photographs depicting children in a school classroom, with their eyes blindfolded and mouths covered with tape, were turned in to law enforcement by a film processor. Parents are furious because they only learned about the investigation last week.
Miramonte Elementary School is located in an unincorporated area of South Los Angeles within the Florence-Firestone area which according to the school is a “predominantly Hispanic” community. It’s unclear how many students at the school have undocumented parents but 56% of the students are English language learners, about 1% are considered “migrant” students and the school has a “Migrant Education Program” and an “Emergency Immigrant Education Program,” leading many to believe, including the Sheriff, that there may be many parents who fear coming forward because they are undocumented.
“Unlike the Los Angeles Police Department, which has a policy on the books intended to protect undocumented victims and witnesses, the department has two different immigration enforcement partnerships with the federal government,” explains Leslie Berestein Rojas at KPCC’s “Multi-American.”
Because Miramonte is an unincorporated the jurisdiction falls on Los Angeles County Sheriff which has a Secure Communities and 287(g) contract with the federal government.
“Critics of immigration enforcement programs like Secure Communities often say that when the lines between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement are blurred, community members stop being able to trust the police and fear coming forward to serve as witnesses or to report crime,” said Colorlines.com’s immigration reporter Julianne Hing. “The risk of deportation is just too high. What we’re seeing now is illustrative of exactly that critique.”
— TOURÉ in this article for TIME.
from the article:
The documentary “The Invisible War” premiered last week at Sundance, and it is already bringing much needed attention to the problem of rape in the military. Watching clips from the film last fall, I found the experience harrowing. I was struck by the sense of betrayal as well as violation that too many women, and a smaller number of men, encounter when they sign up to protect the national interest. It is just really hard to watch one after another woman tell us how she was assaulted, how authorities failed to protect her both before and after the attack, and how post-traumatic stress disrupts every attempt to rebuild her life. As tough as it is to witness, though, it has to be harder to live, and more witnesses are clearly needed to pressure military leaders to act. Their failure to do so is unforgivable, in a time when a woman is more likely to be raped by an American soldier than killed by enemy fire.
what lesson can we learn from this? Powerful institutions love to cover up rape/mistreatment and neglect the necessary steps needed to stop these atrocities from happening… from colleges to prisons to even the military. Is maintaining the reputation of the military at home and abroad WORTH sacrificing the dignity of the people who put their lives aside to sign up for these institutions? short answer: yes. These are fundamental flaws that can only really be changed when we have higher awareness of not only the problem but WHY the problem is not being dealt with - no one likes accusing institutional state apparatuses of corruption or wrongdoing. Thus, institutions are going to keep making up their own rules and practices until we stop being afraid to question them at their core.
another interesting things brought up in the article is the lack of WOC represented in the story:
The film itself features no women of color among the major protagonists. I don’t know why that is, and I won’t speculate. I do know that thousands of young women of color join the military every year; it isn’t possible that they could escape a fate that affects so many soldiers. I bet women of color are disproportionately affected by sexual assault, as they were by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and, as we reported earlier this week, by homelessness when they return stateside as veterans. I hope that advocates working on this issue take into account additional or just different barriers faced by women of color. Putting proposed remedies through a racial equity impact analysis may help with that.
Was not expecting to see this, but I’m glad it exists. I really hope this meme sticks around for a while, so many perspectives are using it as a medium to explain their daily lived experiences.
Watch and discuss
A look through western history reveals the different stages of black, female identity. There was the black woman as a sexual object: explorers looking for the New World would often stop in Africa and tell stories of their exploits with the indigenous women. Back when the west viewed Africa as the “dark continent,” West African women were regularly greeted by western explorers, taken and raped. Later on the black woman was a slave, and held the burden of her masters sexual object, housekeeper and servant. After emancipation, as black men were able to vote and fight for their citizenship, women of color stayed in the homes of white women, taking responsibility over the upkeep of white children and white households. Today, black womanhood is still plagued by these stigmas. Popular culture still restricts black women to the roles of sexual object, servant, and housekeeper. She is at the disposal of everyone else, while still needing to establish her own identity and self worth.
ASCOSA: A UK-based organization for adult male survivors of child sexual abuse
Male Survivor: A comprehensive site on male victimization, including a message board and healing weekends of recovery
Menweb: Male child sexual abuse
Survivors Manchester: Supporting male survivors of sexual abuse and rape
Further resources
Helplines:
If you are in crisis and need someone to talk to, or if you need advice, then the following helplines may be useful:
UK:
Male Rape Support Association: 07932 898274
AMSOSA: 0845 4309371
Childline (Under 18): 0800 1111
Men’s Advice Line - 0808 801 0327 (For men in abusive relationship)
USA:
RAINN: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) (for male and female survivors)
Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-888-7HELPLINE (for men and women)
Australia:
Mensline: 1300789978
Men’s Domestic Violence Helpline: 08 9223 1199
Other helplines can be found here.
I want to graffiti that headline EVERYWHERE.
The holiday season is upon us, which means it’s time for SAFER and V-Day’s second annual Winter Break Challenge. We know what student activists are against. Now we want to know what you’re for.
This winter break, SAFER and V-Day are asking you to participate in the Campus Accountability Project (CAP) to hold your school accountable for preventing and responding to sexual violence on your campus. Register at www.safercampus.org and submit your school’s sexual assault policy to the CAP database using an easy, step-by-step policy review form. CAP helps you identify the gaps in your school’s policy and inspires concrete ideas for action on your campus.
Currently, the CAP database houses 233 policies in an online, public and searchable database, which details what colleges and universities are doing to prevent, reduce and respond to sexual violence. The database publicly recognizes the successes of some schools’ sexual assault policies while also highlighting flaws. For the Winter Break Challenge, SAFER and V-Day are asking current students and recent alums to submit their schools into the CAP database to reach a goal of 300 published policies. Soon we’ll be able to look at all of the schools in the database and report back on trends across the country—your participation is key part of this national conversation.
Spread the word =)
by Jessica Valenti
Excerpt -
Despite decades of work by feminists, the myth that women somehow deserve sexual harassment and assault hasn’t died. When graduate student Imette St. Guillen was found raped and beaten to death in New York City in 2006, for example, the Wall Street Journal ran an article headlined, Ladies, You Should Know Better, referring to the fact that St. Guillen had been at a bar before she was attacked. When Julian Assange was accused of rape in 2010, even progressive “heroes” like Michael Moore and iconic feminist Naomi Wolf rushed to his defense. Wolf wrote a series of mocking pieces for the Huffington Post claiming that Assange’s accusers were simply women scorned and also claimed, outrageously, that starting to have sex with someone while they are asleep and unable to consent is not rape. Perhaps most disgusting was conservative blogger Robert McCain’s response: “Listen up, sweetheart: You buy the ticket, you take the ride.”
Despite the onslaught of victim-blaming and the downright apathy that surrounds the harassment and violence still done to women, I feel (dare I say it?) optimistic once more. I’m fortunate to be part of a generation of activists—men and women alike—who are fighting back in new and innovative ways. When Moore and Wolf took to the airwaves to defend Assange, Twitter erupted with campaigns to hold them accountable. Now when newspapers run victim-blaming headlines, there are thousands of feminist blogs to hold their feet to the fire. Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), an organization run mostly by young women, puts pressure on college administrations to enact progressive and accountable sexual assault policies. Hollaback!, which started as a blog where women posted pictures of their harassers via cellphones, is now a flourishing anti-harassment organization with outposts all over the world.
—
Emily Nagoski. no idea who she is, but i thank her. there is no excuse for rape and anyone who excuses it is insulting both the victim and the rapist. (via rapeisnotajoke)
There are two arguments I’ve noticed
So basically we have to prepare ourselves all the time, but if we ever give a man the sense that we view them as a misogynistic/violent threat - that’s unfair
hmm…
