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I Made Fun of Feminists… Before My Abuse

Rape Awareness

Rape Awareness

By Anonymous

I used to make fun of feminists because I wanted boys to like me. Back before I met a boy who abused me. Before realizing that I lived in a culture that supported my abuse, and that kept me from questioning it.

TRIGGER WARNING May be triggering for some survivors of sexual violence 

At seventeen I met my ex-boyfriend. It was small things at first. He’d put me down and laugh it off.

The first time he raped me I didn’t cry. I was numb. I asked if he realized what he’d done and he had said, matter-of-factly, “All girls get raped at some point.” Read the rest of this entry

Men Fight For Women’s Rights

1381765742000-SaudiThumbsupFrom Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Iran to India to America – and points between – men are supporting women’s rights.

Over in Saudi Arabia, women are taking to the streets to drive. It’s actually not illegal for women to operate vehicles in the Kingdom. The country just won’t issue driver’s licenses to them. So these “women drivers” simply get licenses elsewhere.

And some Saudi men give two thumbs-up. Video here.

Or, see this parody of Bob Marley’s classic, “No Woman, No Cry” renamed, No Woman, No Drive,” from Alaa Wardi on YouTube

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Assaulting Daisy to Create “Male Superiority”

Daisy Coleman, Matthew Barnett

Daisy Coleman, Matthew Barnett

Trigger Warning: May be triggering for rape victims.

Plenty of people think rape is perpetrated by men who are sick in the head, or men who can’t control their lust for scantily clad women – especially women walking around late at night.

But as most know, rape primarily revolves around power issues. And relatedly, sexual assault is often used to create a sense of manhood and male superiority. The case of Daisy Coleman, who I wrote about recently, helps unveil the evil phenomenon.

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Why Maryville Citizens Defend Rapists

Screen Shot 2013-10-17 at 10.39.36 AMFourteen-year-old Daisy Coleman was raped and left for dead in freezing temperatures. Despite strong evidence, charges were dropped. And, large parts of her community bullied her. Some told her to apologize to men involved in the attack.

What’s wrong with these folks?

I’ll get to that question in a moment. First her story:

Nearly two years ago, Daisy went to spend the night at her 13-year-old friend’s house. The two were sneaking booze and watching scary movies when Daisy texted a 17-year-old friend of her brother’s – a guy her brother had warned her about. She says,

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Rapists Echo “Blurred Lines” Lyrics

tumblr_m3eo9bPCzZ1r65rllo1_1280by  (Originally published at Ms.)

TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

Robin Thicke’s summer hit “Blurred Lines” addresses what he considers to be sounds like a grey area between consensual sex and assault. The images in this post place the song into a real-life context. They are from Project Unbreakable, an online photo essay exhibit, and feature women and men holding signs with sentences that their rapist said before, during or after their assault. Let’s begin going through the lyrics:

I know you want it.

Thicke sings “I know you want it,” a phrase that many sexual assault survivors report their rapists saying to justify their actions, as demonstrated over and over in the Project Unbreakable testimonials.  Read the rest of this entry

When Playboy Pushes Consent It’s Cool

tumblr_inline_mtbms0Kacv1r6p31lYou’ve probably heard about Playboy’s new and revised Top 10 Party Commandments for the ultimate guide to a consensual good time.

Because without consent, “party times are under serious threat” by rape:

A good college party is all about everyone having a good time. Consent is all about everyone having a good time. Rape is only a good time if you’re a rapist. And f— those people.

You’ve probably also heard that these revised commandments are a hoax unleashed by college feminists.

Read the rest of this entry

GIRLS “On All Fours”

girls-hbo-season-2-episode-9-shiri-appleby-sexIf we started saying, “It ain’t sex unless everyone enjoys it” would rape and “gray-rape” (where consent is unclear) become less common? And might we all enjoy sex more?

An Emmy-nominated episode of “Girls” sparks the question.

“On All Fours” finds “Natalia” ready to have sex with “Adam” because, “You’ve been really nice all week.” And then she tells him what she likes and what she doesn’t as they indulge.

The next time is very different.

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Man Chops Off Wife’s Fingers Because She’s More Educated Than Him

BANGLADESH-CRIME-DOMESTIC-VIOLENCE-20111216-161044Rafiqul Islam told his wife that he wanted to give her a surprise present. He blindfolded her, taped her mouth shut (huh?) and asked her to hold out her hand.

Then he chopped off all five of her fingers.

Why? Because she was working toward a college degree without his permission.

Mr. Islam had only made it to eighth grade and was a migrant worker in the United Arab Emirates. He did not want his wife thinking that she was better than him with some hoity-toity education and future career.

His wife, Hawa Akhter, promptly moved in with her parents and took to writing with her left hand in order to finish her studies.

According to the Daily Mail, this was one of a series of attacks against educated women in the Middle-East. Here’s another: Read the rest of this entry

Who’s Afraid of a Feminist? And Why?

CLICK IMAGE TO ZOOM

CLICK IMAGE TO ZOOM

Scary stuff, eh?

Placing these images on the Internet was only the third frightening thing that 17-year-old Jinan Younis did this year.

Here’s the first:

A group of men in a car started wolf-whistling and shouting sexual remarks at my friends and me. I asked the men if they thought it was appropriate for them to be abusing a group of 17-year-old girls. The response was furious. The men started swearing at me, called me a bitch and threw a cup of coffee over me.

In response to this and concerns about other ways girls suffer – eating disorders, abusive relationships, and pressure to put out – she started a feminist group. She didn’t anticipate how ominously boys in her peer group would find it:

They took to Twitter… One boy declared that “bitches should keep their bitchiness to their bitch-selves #BITCH” and another smugly quipped, “feminism doesn’t mean they don’t like the D, they just haven’t found one to satisfy them yet.” Any attempt we made to stick up for each other was aggressively shot down with “get in your lane before I [ridicule] you too,” or belittled with remarks like “cute, they got offended.”

Next, girls were photographed with white boards that completed the sentence “I need feminism because…” and posted on the Internet. The response?

We were told that our “militant vaginas” were “as dry as the Sahara desert,” girls who complained of sexual objectification in their photos were given ratings out of 10, details of the sex lives of some of the girls were posted beside their photos, and others were sent threatening messages warning them that things would soon “get personal.”

Luckily, most guys don’t act that way.

But why do these guys feel so threatened? Read the rest of this entry

She Asked For It?

9142666_600x338Why are victims so often blamed for rape?

What’s “her” motive in the situation? What drives the rapist? And who has control?

I’ve been thinking about this as two men are sentenced for joining eighteen others to brutally rape a 16-year-old Richmond, California girl.

She wore a lavender dress to the homecoming dance. But she left early and began dialing her dad to pick her up. And then a schoolmate invited her to join some friends who were drinking on school property, and who encouraged her to drink too much. She said they were polite — at first.

She doesn’t remember anything after one kicked her in the stomach and she fell over.

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