Category Archives: violence against women
Before Killing, Pistorius Resembled Abuser
Reeva Steenkamp, Oscar Pistorius
South Africa’s Olympian sprinter, Oscar Pistorius, stands accused of murdering his girlfriend, model Reeva Steenkamp. She had locked herself in the bathroom of their apartment when he shot her. He claims he’d mistaken her for an intruder. A verdict is due next week.
I can’t say for sure that he’s a murderer, but abusive men are more likely than others to kill their mates. And he definitely sounds like an abuser, as suggested by text messages sent in the weeks before the killing.
The warning signs could caution others in similar circumstances. Read the rest of this entry
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Yes Means Yes: There Oughta be a Law
Yes Means Yes
Should “no means no” be upgraded to “yes means yes”?
The California Legislature says state-funded colleges should do just that when determining whether a complaint constitutes rape. By a 52-16 vote in the State Assembly and unanimously in the Senate.
Because:
- Rape is rampant on college campuses, where 1/5 of women are assaulted
- Rape charges on campus almost always involve alcohol
- When people are drunk, they often can’t say anything
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Shackling elephants is sad. Shackling women is hot.
The PETA ad below deplores cruelty to elephants.
Yet cruelty to women seems okay.
PETA: cruelty to women vs animals
Animal cruelty depresses me and creates a lot of anxiety. So I’m with PETA on that.
But their advertising often troubles me. Read the rest of this entry
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Blaming Victims of the Powerful
There is no honor in killing innocent victims
Trigger Warning: May be triggering for rape victims
Ten-year-old “G” was attacked in a rape so violent that it made a hole between her vagina and rectum.
She bled so heavily that she nearly lost her life.
In the hospital, G’s mother and aunt fretted over community pressure to kill her to retain family honor.
Little G felt homesick at the hospital, but no one had the heart to tell her that her family was conspiring to kill her. Read the rest of this entry
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Must I Give Sex To Get Love?
The Pink Lady
By The Pink Lady @ Scratch Paper
Let’s talk about sex.
In all honesty it’s never been a very comfortable subject for me, and it’s taken a long time to figure out why. It wasn’t until my women’s studies class in college that the pieces started coming together, and I really started to figure out why I relate to sexuality the way that I do.
Trigger Warning: May be triggering for victims of sexual assault.
When I was younger (early teens) I was assaulted a number of times on my middle school campus, at my church, on various church events, and even in my own home by people who until these acts were committed I was pretty convinced were interested in me as a person. Read the rest of this entry
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Elliott Roger Blames Women For Patriarchy’s Problems
Elliot Roger
Women have control over which men get sex and which men don’t. Feminism is evil.
And so Elliot Roger blames women for his own problems — and for problems created by patriarchy — as he justifies his sad, horrifying, screwed up human hunting spree.
But then, if everyone else weren’t to blame, he would have to feel bad about himself.
Ironically, patriarchy — and not feminism — is the source of the particular problem he cites above. Read the rest of this entry
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Fantasizing About New Men
Walk a mile in her shoes
by Donna Decker @ Ms Magazine
Dear Men:
Here is a new kind of fantasy. It is about a new kind of man.
These men are born on the campus of an Ivy League college in New England. Or at a West Coast university. Or maybe at a football-happy school on the Great Plains.
These men talk to each other. They order pizza, play fantasy football, share their feelings and do not make fun of each other for this. Mostly, they talk about the men who behave badly, who rape the women on campus, who threaten the women in online blog posts by creating a “rape guide” instructing other men how to rape specific women.
These New Men are, quite frankly, appalled. When the women activists on campus are shouting, demanding justice, they stand among them. They shout. They, too, demand justice. Read the rest of this entry
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My Experience with Sexual Assault: The Epitome of Common
By Alexandra Greene
I have been sexually assaulted three times in my life.
I am sharing my story not because it is fun, but because it is the epitome of common. I hope to help others who have been hurt, and who might be at risk for further harm.
Around age seven, fresh off the tails of my parents’ messy divorce, I became close friends with a neighborhood girl just a few years my senior. I was vulnerable and in need of guidance. Over the next six years I hung on her every word, and believed she wanted the best for me. Read the rest of this entry
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Only Virgins Can Be Sexually Assaulted
Indians protesting the way rape survivors are treated.
Once upon a time in America only virgins or married women could be raped, people thought. In some places people still think so.
The problem comes from failing to see the world through the eyes of victims.
And so an article from the 1952-53 Yale Law Journal explained that sexual assault is illegal because,
Women’s power to withhold or grant sexual access is an important bargaining weapon… it fosters, and is in turn bolstered by, a masculine pride in the exclusive possession of the sexual object… whose value is enhanced by sole ownership.
Even though this is the crime women most fear, outside of murder. Read the rest of this entry
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Your Pain: A Small Price for My Pleasure
Police in Salinas, California conducted a home welfare check after three children, ages 8, 5, and 3, didn’t arrive for an unspecified appointment. What they found was gruesome. The isolated children, who were ostensibly being homeschooled, were malnourished and bruised.
But the eight-year-old girl seems to have gotten it worse than her brothers. She was periodically locked in a closet or chained to a wall, 4 feet off the ground. She was sometimes shackled by the ankle, and other times by a collar around her small neck. And starving, she resembled a concentration camp victim. Read the rest of this entry
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