Actresses Meryl Streep (left) and Viola Davis arrive at the 2012 Women In Film Crystal + Lucy Awards held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on June 12, 2012 in Beverly Hills, California. [Getty Images]I love images of women who are colleagues, and sometime competitors, who genuinely seem to like and admire one another. My cockles! They are warmed!
[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia.]
I haven't written much about the trial of Jerry Sandusky, the Penn State football team's former defensive coordinator accused of sexually assaulting 10 boys over 15 years, because there isn't a whole lot I have to say about the case I didn't say when it was first reported, or that I haven't said, literally, dozens of times before.
And yet.
I have been reading coverage of the trial. It is not good. There is rape apologia all over it, in every minimizing euphemism and every bit of oblique victim-blaming and the reminders that, hey, those boys could be lying, even though there is no answer to the obvious question why, given the overwhelming disincentives against publicly identifying as a survivor of sexual violence, no less pointing your finger at your rapist, no less when he is famous, beloved, worshiped.
This CNN story is one of the better articles, and still contains this:
A 25-year-old man testified Wednesday that as a boy, he was abused by Jerry Sandusky and that Sandusky threatened him and then later apologized, telling the child that he loved him and that he didn't mean the threat."Engaging in oral sex" connotes consent. A child cannot consent. The man testified that Sandusky orally raped him.
...He testified the school's longtime assistant football coach sexually abused him on at least five different occasions in the basement of his central Pennsylvania home, pinning him down and engaging in oral sex.
[Content Note: Sexual violence; rape apologia.]
"In recent weeks, we've learned of several incidents involving a few bad actors trying to take advantage of some of our younger members."—Skout founder and CEO Christian Wiklund, whose "Flirt, Friend, Chat" iPhone app was used by three different men "accused of raping minors they met after posing as teens in Skout's community for 13- to 17-year-olds. The alleged victims are 12, 13 and 15 years old."
"Trying to take advantage" is certainly an interesting euphemism for rape. And by "interesting," I mean gross and minimizing.
Wiklund is not responsible for rapists committing rape. The rapists are responsible for their actions. But if Wiklund truly gives a shit about his service being used by rapists to locate victims, then he needs to not talk about rape in prettified euphemisms.
"In recent weeks, we've learned of several incidents in which adult men posed as children to meet other children whom they subsequently allegedly raped."
That is factual. That does not minimize sexual violence. That does not uphold the rape culture, even as one purports to disdain it.
Unlike, say, Wiklund's actual comment.
[Content Note: Zelda snaps at flies in the video.]
This blogaround brought to you by stripes.
Recommended Reading:
David: Trans Pacific Partnership Document Leaked, Shows Corporations Could Violate National Sovereignty
Jim: Boundaries
Maria Elena: Cake Boss's Transgender Disaster [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of transphobic bullying.]
FMF News: CT Declares Abortion an Essential Health Benefit
Crunkonia: Something to Cry About: Report from the Kitchen Floor [Content Note: This post contains discussion and descriptions of child abuse.]
Maya: Stand with Servicewomen: Support Access to Abortion in the Military
Andy: Betty White Talks About Her Meeting with Obama, Gay Marriage
Ian: Romney Touts Presidential Salary Plan That Was Literally a Saturday Night Live Skit
Angry Asian Man: Seeking Participants for a Writing Study of Korean American Adult Adoptees
Happy Fifth Anniversary to the Adipositivity Project! [Site may be NSFW.]
Deeky's got the video of Anna Deavere Smith's amazing one-woman show Let Me Down Easy. I recommended this to him after I watched it, and now both of us are pretty much obsessed with it. IT IS SO GREAT! SHE IS SO GREAT! It's quite genuinely one of the most amazing pieces of acting I've ever seen.
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
1. There is an actual for real organization called the "American Decency Association."
2. They are rampant homophobes who assert that JC Penney's inclusion of a same-sex couple in a Fathers' Day advert "insulted millions of us 'traditional,' i.e. 'real,' family people."
lol your definition of decency!
I think I will start an organization called the Decency Association of America which posits that not being homophobic is decent. CONTROVERSIAL!
[Content Note: Misogyny.]
The opinion section of the Wall Street Journal has been an unmitigated garbage disaster for years, but this barfatorial is embarrassing even by their usual cavernous void of standards.
Actual Headline: "Women Don't Belong in Ranger School."
Actual Subhead: "Do individuals serve the military or does the military serve them?"
Actual Lede: "The United States Army is debating whether to admit women to Ranger School, its elite training program for young combat leaders. Proponents argue this is to remove a final impediment to the careers of Army women. But the move would erode the unique Ranger ethos and culture—not to mention the program's rigorous physical requirements—harming its core mission of cultivating leaders willing to sacrifice everything for our nation."
Following is eleventy paragraphs elaborating on the hand-drawn sign stuck outside the scrap-wood playhouse in Frankie Flunderton's backyard: "No Girls Allowed."
Stephen Kilcullen does make a valiant effort to convince us his argument is not, in fact, that girls are icky and totes have cooties, but is instead that opening up the Rangers to women just because denying access limits their career opportunities is BULLSHIT, man!
Ranger School isn't about improving the career prospects of individual candidates. ... The promise of something bigger than oneself—bigger than any career track—is what motivates these men.I'mma go ahead and let you parse in comments alllllll the irony (ALL OF IT!) inherent in defending privilege with charges of selfishness.
It is this culture of excellence and selflessness that attracts young men to the Ranger brotherhood. The Ranger ethos is designed to be deadly serious yet self-deprecating, focused entirely on teamwork and mission accomplishment. Rangers put the mission first, their unit and fellow soldiers next, and themselves last. The selfishness so rampant elsewhere in our society has never existed in the Ranger brotherhood.
And that is the secret of the brotherhood's success. Some call it "unit cohesiveness" but what they are really describing is a transition from self-interest to selfless service. The notion of allowing women into Ranger School because denying them the experience would harm their careers makes Ranger graduates cringe. Such politically correct thinking is the ultimate expression of the "me" culture, and it jeopardizes core Ranger ideals.
[Content Note: Misogyny; homophobia; fat hatred; rape culture; harassment.]
You may or may not have heard by now about the video project that Anita Sarkeesian proposed for funding via Kickstarter. It's a cool project looking at the tropes of women used in video games. Here is a video introducing the project.
To the surprise of approximately zero feminist bloggers and to the horror of a lot of people who only just now realized How Bad It Is, the reaction by a great swath of self-proclaimed dudes has been abusive and threatening. Sarkeesian hasn't even made the project yet and the push back to silence her has been tremendous. The YouTube video has had threats and harassing comments made on it, her Wikipedia page was vandalized repeatedly. She has been verbally assaulted on Twitter, Facebook, in email, and via the Feminist Frequency website.
We at Shakesville are unfortunately familiar with this sort of abuse. Some of you may still recall the Fat Princess post and the response (Content Note: The comments were left unmoderated to demonstrate how vicious those assholes are/were, they are fat-hating, homophobic, misogynist). Of course, there's also all the crap with that bastion of rape apologia, Penny Arcade (link has links to all the other posts; CN--also unmoderated thread(s)). These are just two examples, culled specifically due to the gaming references. There is so much more outside of gaming commentary.
There have been a fair number of people writing on what has been happening with Sarkeesian's project and subsequent abuse lately. It's a point raised by John Walker at RockPaperShotgun that I want to look at:
It kind of terrifies me that reporting that Sarkeesian has received multiple threats of rape and death feels like it won’t make a significant impact on the reader. Perhaps that the internet’s more wretched areas are so commonly filled with such threats has normalised our reaction to reports of them. The key to snap out of this, and take it on board, is I think to not read about it as a thing that happened to someone else, but to imagine being the person on the receiving end – to imagine being an individual who is reading person after person saying they will sexually assault or murder you.While some disgruntled former commenters may disagree, heh, here is not a "wretched area". It's not just "the internet's more wretched areas" which are filled with such threats. It's areas--just about any site--that have articles that discuss sexism and (gaming, sports, literature, television, pick-a-topic), especially if it is an article written by a woman.
There were also a shitload of "TM" signs I didn't bother to transcribe. Just figure that I am probably breaking ALL the rules by posting this.
[Content Note: This post refers to homophobia]
Dear Co-Religionists:
Please stop being ass mitres.
Your ridiculous arguments about same-sex civil marriages in the U.K. amount to "If X then then possibly Y and if Y then possibly z and if Z THE WORLD GOES BOOM." That kind of slippery slop reasoning does nothing to further Christian teaching and everything to encourage fear of queers. The leadership's record with LGBT*QI folk in the church and in civil partnership is spotty, at best. You can cloak it in all the Christian platitudes you like, but every time you engage in this kind of fearmongering, you give sanction to bullies and homophobes the world over.
So stop it. We have nothing to fear from love.
Your fellow member of the global Anglican communion,
Aphra
by Shaker BGK Starbuck
[Content Note: Homophobia; Christian Supremacy.]
Howdy, Shakers!
This is Starbuck, filling in for Dad-Dad again. Things are a bit stressful around Chez BGK because of recent events in Washington State, so I decided to take matters into my own paws, and help write a guest post about the latest round of antigay bigotry.
Back in 2009, Washington Citizens approved Referendum 71, which allowed same-sex partners to register with the sate as Registered Domestic Partners, affording the partnership the same rights and responsibilities as marriage. The law included several provisions to protect religious organizations opposed to marrying same-sex couples.
The Registered Domestic Partnership law was not without flaws. Some in Washington, like the company for which Dad-Dad works, refused to give employees the ability to put their Registered Domestic Partner on their health insurance and other spousal benefits. The court system has had issues with dissolution of registered domestic partnerships, as the new partnerships did not have the case history of divorce, causing difficulty with child custody and spousal support cases. Additionally, the federal benefits of marriage were not given to Registered Domestic Partners.
Back in February, we had people over to watch the Senate and House votes on a Same-Sex Marriage Bill. I remember watching Dad-Dad cry when Gov. Gregoire signed marriage equality into law for Washington State. We became citizens of the Seventh State (and D.C.) to allow members of the same-sex to marry. This was great news for all our LGBTQI friends, many of whom, like Dad-Dad, finally felt equal. The law removed many of the problems Registered Domestic Partners were facing in the state. With the passage of the law, many Registered Domestic Partners contemplated a judicial challenge to DOMA, in order to extend the federal benefits of marriage to Same-Sex Washingtonians.
Unfortunately, the same PAC that failed to get the Registered Domestic Partnership law overturned has qualified Referendum 74 to go to the November ballot. This means that the citizens of Washington must vote to approve or disapprove of the law as passed by the legislature and signed by the governor. Now, I'm just a pug, but I don't believe the rights of the minority should be voted on by the majority.
Newt Gingrich thinks US elections favor the rich:
Newt Gingrich said Tuesday that elections are "rigged, frankly, in favor of the wealthy."What a fucking genius.
"It is very difficult in America today," he told MSNBC's Al Sharpton. "If you look at New York where Mayor Bloomberg spent an extraordinary amount of personal money to buy the mayor's office for the third time. It is fairly hard to compete with a billionaire if — if they get to spend all the money they want and the middle-class candidate's raising money in $2,500 units. So I think the current system is rigged, frankly, in favor of the wealthy."
Last night on the way home from dinner, we had to stop for gas, and the station into which we pulled was across the street from the "He Ain't Here" Lounge.
What, for you, is the most important attribute in a romantic partner(s)?
(Note: "Nonexistence," i.e. indicating you have no interest in having a romantic partner(s), is a valid response, as always.)
