I've Decided That It's Simple After All

After reading through the thread on feministing, I've figured how to articulate why the violence against prostitutes in GTA bothers me so much. (by stealing from everyone else, of course)

Robos A Go Go argues

Shooting at police, stealing cars, and running down pedestrians are widely discouraged in other areas of life. Sexism and violence against prostitutes is not. In fact, many people feel that prostitutes invite violence upon themselves by virtue of the "choice" they make, or at the very least accept abuse of sex workers as a matter of course rather than a problem that should be as much of a concern as random assaults of pedestrians and law enforcement officers.

yup, yup, yup

Later, noname asks

Where in that video.... did you see forcibly performed sex acts?

doh, how silly of me, none of the prostitutes ever say "no!" There's no sexualized violence here!

More seriously, correct me if I'm wrong, but none of the prostitutes who are "propositioned" ever say "no," yes? Which means that instead of going right out and making it "real" rape, Rockstar has instead chosen to hide behind rape apology arguments (prostitutes never say no) in order to make sexual violence more palatable. Kudos to you Rockstar!

(Also, I'm fairly certain that the police occasionally survive one's attack. In fact, they have guns, themselves, yes? As do other characters? But do the prostitutes have weapons? Are they occasionally not dumb as rocks and aware that johns often want to hurt them? Do you ever get to proposition women who are not prostitutes or strippers? I think I may die of shock if any of these are ever true.)

nonam also tries to argue

There is an anti-male equivalent to killing prostitutes. Killing men.

just _pat points out what should be obvious:

That's not equivalent at all. I can't kill men:
a) As a member of the opposite gender.
b) As someone who is paying them for sex.
c) As someone being paid BY them for sex.

I also can't go to a club and wait for asshole guys to try to pick me up and/or drug me, only to pull out a weapon and exact vengeance upon them.

There's no equivalent.

sgzax adds what should be even more obvious:

Yes, because there are two sexes: male and prostitute. Exactly. Thank you noname for playing all your cards at once like that.

spike the cat then gives us our deep thought for the day:

People just won't admit that killing feels good. But killing a ho feels even better.

Funny, I thought that whole visceral reaction I was talking about earlier was because while killing (in video games) rates as a "meh" to "gotcha!" in my book, murdering prostitutes makes me want to barf.

Update:

Kristen answers the "can they say no?" question.

The hookers even have to like you enough to let you pick them up.

Interesting.

I disagree with her assertion that "There is no sexual violence in this game," however. There may be no outright rape, but if you watch IGN's fan trailer...oh, wait, you can't because IGN took it off their site. (dorks) It's on youtube though. no idea for how long. Anyway, if you listen to the trailer, ("I'm a hired killer and I pay for sex. My mother would be ashamed") "violence" and the "sex' are hardly divided into neat little categories. Sexualized violence isn't just about rape, after all. Often it's simply about normalizing the idea that they go hand in hand.

I Don't Get It

People that normally make a lot of sense to me have tried to defend GTA to me before.

The advances in game play are mentioned. I am reminded that it is a game, it's not real. It is explained to me that no, there isn't anything anymore disturbing about controlling such action than there is watching it in a movie. And that, of course, the game actually discourages such behavior - really!

But I still don't get. I still don't buy it.

(Perhaps partly because I think sexualized violence poorly done and overdone in most movies as well.)

I don't "get it" anymore than I'd "get" a video game where players go around trying to lynch PoC.

But my reaction to it is more emotional and less intellectual that it is to things like Resident Evil 5. Which means that I have a lot of work to do on becoming a better ally, and that I have a really hard time coming up with coherent arguments that explain how not ok this is.

Trust

I have a post stuck somewhere in draft hell about trust and experience and how people interpret the books they read, the movies they see, etc.

Reading this comment over at Random Thoughts and watching Criminal Minds tonight made me think of it.

The gist of the comment at Random Thoughts was this:

You see, you say something like this and you get messages of support.

I say something like this and get told that I shouldn't be saying women should go out and make comics. Of course, I was a lot more confrontational, but still.

Tammy's response was:

I'm sorry. I know it ain't exactly fair. Sometimes gender does count for more.

Which, well....as a fan of Tammy's books, I hate to disagree with her because it reminds me that she's merely mortal, but.....as a fan of comics and scifi and fantasy and books and movies and TV and lots of other stuff, I have to call bullshit.

All reading, viewing, listening, etc. involves a certain amount of interpretation.

So, I don't listen when Tammy says this but ignore people like her commenter because Tammy is a girl and the commenter is a boy, I listen to Tammy because I actually know who the fuck she is. Relatively speaking, anyway. I've read her stuff, both fiction and non-fiction, and I have a general idea of where she's coming from so I can read between the lines a lot better than when I run across some random person I've never encountered before.

Now, it's true that being female generated a certain amount of initial trust back when I started reading her books. Or, well, not trust, exactly, but a certain amount of capital when it came to risk analysis. (Cost of book versus chance it will suck.) Not because of anything to do with biology, but because of socialization. Hers, not mine, that is.

Mickle is quite aware that male authors are capable of writing female characters worthy of mountains of praise. But she has noticed that male authors are more likely than female authors to write books that get lots of fannish praise - but also include female characters that make her want to raise invading armies.

More importantly, unlike the guy who is suspicious of the female mechanic because he's never dealt with a women who knows anything about cars before, logic and basic understanding of the culture I live in support my risk analysis rather than contradict it. A female mechanic, after all, is more likely to have faced a lot of discrimination than oh, say, actually been able to sleep her way into a job. (I've never really gotten that. At least not how common such accusations are, anyway. Are women so completely devoid of logic that we would willingly do two jobs for the price of one? en masse? Anyways.....) However, considering how often the male experience is treated as the default, it unfortunately makes a lot of sense that a not insignificant number of male writers, both good and bad, would write women that sound fake.

Still, despite all that, gender was a tiny fraction of my consideration when deciding whether to spend all of 5 bucks on one of Tammy's books. The main factor was the vast amounts of praise her books always got, and who was giving the praise, and what the praise actually was.

The same logic and risk analysis comes into play whenever I decide how to spend my money and time.

The point of my previous (and now molding) post on trust and interpretation was that while I ignore a lot of stuff that might otherwise piss me off as long as it comes from writers that I know, I don't do this out of some misguided sense of fan loyalty. When Julia Quinn's heroes start acting like jerks, I don't ignore my feminist sensibilities because, golly gee willickers, that Julia person seems like a nice girl! I keep reading because I know from experience that there's going to be a payoff a chapter or two down the line.

As a more accessible example of what I mean (since I'm guessing a limited number of my readers are Julia Quinn fans), tonight's episode of Criminal Minds started out with an opening that would have had me switching channels if I didn't know the show already. Not only is the girl who is kidnapped the silly girl who doesn't listen to all the scary warnings about teen girls gone missing! she's also kidnapped while out alone, at night, with her boyfriend. Making out, of course. With suggestions of much more to follow. Bad slutty teen girl, you broke one the cardinal rules of being in a bad horror flick! You must be punished!!!!!!!!

However, not ten minutes later, my double crush says one of the many true things that are acknowledged more often on Criminal Minds than on any other show I've ever watched - that the evil, bad, monster who is raping, torturing, and murdering women does it (in part) because he hates women. And not "hates women so much it's made him crazy crazy crazy!" But "he's messed up enough to kill and he doesn't think too highly of women." The "is willing to commit murder" and "really dislikes women" are connected but not necessarily dependent upon one another. (Thus the constant reminders that cruelty to animals is part of the homicidal triad.)

Every time one of the characters says something like tonight's "Well, we know what he thinks of women." I want to send the writers a lifetime supply of brownies. Especially when it's followed up by "he's a part of this community" - in other words he's not some monster hiding in the shadows, he's one of you. He's a husband, a father, a co-worker. Then I also want to send them milk to go with the brownies.

-mental reminder to donate to the writer's guild - BAD MICKLE!-

And that's before you get to the subplot of rape victims not being believed, the conversations between the victims that revolve around them worrying what other people think of them, and the conversations between JJ and Hotch about what it's like to be the target of so much violence* and the fine line between not caring enough and being consumed by empathy.

Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed with this episode. But part of the reasons why I love Criminal Minds is because the more I analyze it, the more I agree with it. And the more I re-watch seasons 1 and 2, the more I'm convinced that there's a lot being snuck in there that works as commentary about the bad trends it's supposedly a part of.

Like violence on TV.

I was cringing through a good chunk of this episode. The stuff they were describing? Yeah, I can totally see a victim of that being extremely eager to convince herself that everyone is right, she was lying, it never happened to her. But - they never actually show any of it. It's all suggestion.

Fast forward to the opening of tonight's CSI:NY and one of the many reasons why I stopped watching the CSI's a long time ago: several shots (maybe even a full minute or two of screen time) of a dead guy with a big gaping hole where is mouth, upper chin, and nose used to be. That? DO NOT NEED.

Now, this isn't to say that the CM writers don't fuck up (scroll down to the third *). But it does mean they do so less often. And that when they don't, they sometimes get it really, really right. I'm all for less violence towards women on TV, but I much prefer CM's more realistic portrayals and stats to CSI:NY's statistically negligent man whose mouth was blown off by an exploding cigar.

Anyway, back to the main point.

It may be that there is more back story to the comment on Tammy's post, but, well, to go with the themes laid out so far (or, attempted to, anyway)...this is an argument that I've seen come up several times before. And the people crying sexism** when feminists note the gender of the author, or people listen to the Tammys or even Ragnells of the world more than the random dudes out there....they are often people who can't seem to differentiate experience from discrimination, caution from accusation, example from bullying.

If I ignore you, or even berate you, because I misinterpreted what you said, the fault isn't necessarily mine.

The fact that CM warms my heart - despite my being heartless, bitchy feminist- that doesn't mean that CM's opening scene tonight wasn't stupid.

It was. Very.***

Likewise, if I misinterpret what you are saying because it sounds a hell of a lot like what really stupid people say...that's not really my fault. The likely explanation is not that I'm a mean feminist who thinks less of men, but that I misinterpreted what you said because you began it by making it clear that punishing slutty teen girl with a serial rapist/murder/torturer was considered to be appropriate. Or, it could be that experience, logic, a basic understanding of human nature, and risk analysis predicts that you are blind to the fact that she is being punished at all.

Then again, it simply might be useful to establish a certain amount of trust and understanding before we delve into complicated topics.



*technically, the conversation is about what it's like to have so much in common with so many of the victims. But again, an interpretation that takes past episodes into account - which we are obviously meant to do, what with two echoes of Vigilante!Elle! in the same episode - reminds us that JJ isn't just like the victims. Aside from the FBI training, she is the ideal victim - at least in TV land - and has even, like Elle, played the victim to get the case solved.

**unsurprisingly, such people also tend to call this "reverse sexism" -sigh- I'll just leave that one be for now, 'cuz I'm all out of outrage tonight. Except as directed towards my family and my inability to communicate to them the political and social ideas that are the driving force behind my chosen career path. I really think they believe I just love books that much. Game Nights are apparently just bribes. -sigh- sorry for the digression, I had a long fight with my dad and sister tonight about the writer's strike. not fun.

***It was made less so by the team talking about how well executed the attack was; it's clear that the unsub was, um, talented enough to have found someone to grab. This was cancelled out, however, by the scene where the second victim blames herself for what happened to her, and nothing in the episode contradicts this. Although I guess one could argue that since this is the segue into the victims talking about shame.....And I was already willing to give them bonus points for showing some male flesh.....

The Ghost of Lilly Kane

(found via WFA)

ms_ntropy asks an interesting question about my favorite recently cancelled show:

Is Lilly Kane (Veronica Mars) a [Women in Refrigerator]*?

I would argue mostly no, because

1) Lilly is always a person to us.

We learn a lot about Lilly after her death. (Technically, everything we learn about Lilly we learn after she has died.) And we learn this because of Veronica's investigation. In searching for Lilly's killer, Veronica never treats her dead friend as a symbol; Veronica is very much focused on finding Lilly's killer, not on taking revenge on the person who took her friend from her. And no matter what she finds out about her friend - who was very real and very flawed - Veronica still views her as a friend. This is true even of Lilly's boyfriends and brother, the former of which had a tendency to put her on a pedestal.

and most importantly:

2) Lilly has agency.

Even aside from the question of whether Lilly's ghost is really Lilly, Lilly was killed because she was important, not because Veronica or someone else was. Lilly was the one with connections and knowledge and power. Lilly was killed to stop Lilly, not to send a message to Veronica. Plus, Lilly's death resulted in lasting changes to Lilly's entire world, not just Veronica, and not just Veronica's world.

The problem with WiR, after all, isn't that women get hurt or killed, it's why women get hurt and killed and how often women get hurt and killed and how little we know about them other than that they get hurt and killed. A lot of the complaints about Tygra and Big Barda are not so much that they were hurt/killed, it's that didn't fight back, which makes them seem to be secondary characters rather than superheroes - ie, it treats them like people we know little about. The rest of them seems to be more just general disgust at this happening yet again. Plus, added ire for the possible allusion to WiR in leaving Big Barda on the kitchen floor.

*ms_ntropy actually asks if she is a "Person in Refrigerator" after also asking why WiR is restricted to male protagonists. Not that I don't think that's a good question, I just think that it's a bit silly to ignore the gender implications of stuffing women in refrigerators, especially considering what recently happened to Big Barda. More importantly, Lily's not the protagonist, so why use gender neutral language for non-protagonists if you aren't questioning limiting the discussion to female victims?

Echo Chambers

I never really considered myself to be all that left wing - until we took some stupid test in high school history and I scored as a complete commie-loving radical. Despite that, I still tend to side with the status quo when controversial stuff comes up.

For years, I was more moderate on abortion than even my younger brother. Now, my views are probably the most radical within my entire family.

A part of this recent change is due to reading some of the really awesome left wing and especially feminist blogs over the last few years. There's so many brilliant writers out there blogging away reminding me of things the mainstream media ignores and explaining things so much better than anyone else does.

I find it interesting, though, that my most radical stances tend to solidify not through reading Pandagon or Shakesville, but by reading the comments of people who disagree with Amanda and Melissa. Or rather, by responding to such comments.

For example, Amanda made a short post recently in response to a comment left at another blog. The comment itself was very outrageous (it ends with "Ugly old women virtually never get raped") and no one who reads Pandagon regularly would disagree on that point.

The topic of discussion then became the first part of the comment (because, despite stereotypes, you can only go so far with the unnuanced "evil!" or "that sucks!") :

Feminists invented the idea of “rape as hate crime” because it fit their overall “men vs. women” worldview.

Or rather, the main topic became whether or not rape is a hate crime. (fyi, while the discussion there considered at certain points whether or not all rape is a hate crime, I'm only talking about men raping women. Mostly because that's the kind the comment is talking about. Apparently men and boys are as lucky as girls and older women.)

Now, when I first read Amanda's post, I was thinking to myself "hell, yeah!" as she pointed out several of the ways in which the commenter's "proof" that rape is motivated by lust is so very, very wrong. What I wasn't really thinking about was whether or not that meant rape was a hate crime. If you had asked me back on Saturday when I first read the post, I likely would have answered "sometimes" - which very few people argued against in the comments section.

The weird thing is, listening to all the arguments, and pointing out the obvious - and maybe not so obvious - flaws in the less offensive arguments made my stance more out of step with the status quo than it was before.

Or - maybe not so weird.

The great thing about blogs isn't just the bloggers, it's the democratic act of discussing and debating things. Despite the fact that lots of comment sections are full of juvenile taunts and grammar lessons (I'm sure I've been guilty of both myself), comment threads can be some of the best parts of blogs. Not so much just to read, but because they are participatory.

By requiring that defenders of the status quo give forth real arguments, they force people to put to (digital) paper the twisted logic that often stays hidden, and therefore unquestioned. By motivating people to point out these various contortions, it forces the people making such comments to think things through more thoroughly than they would otherwise.

Emotions still cloud judgement. Debates still get hung up on connotation, definition, and myths that are accepted as fact. But overall, I think they are just what the founders had in mind.

Which brings us back to the weirdness of my more radical stances. Because the weird thing about my conviction that rape is a hate crime* is that it's a view that is less likely to change, despite being very not mainstream. Because it's a view that I put a decent amount of thought into, not just an emotional reaction or a value I picked up without questioning it.

The weirdness is that this goes against what we tend to think debate should be about. I shouldn't be simply convincing myself more thoroughly, I should be compromising and/or convincing opposite minded people.

But while the actual act of governing requires a lot of compromise and convincing, I don't think the real value of everyday discussions and debates lies in just getting more people on your side. It think a lot of the value of such discussion lies in self-discovery and being certain about what you really believe in, so that when the time comes to make that compromise, you know when it's ok to do so, and when you need to stand your ground.

After all, the reason why most people seemed to agree that at least some rapes could be hate crimes is because that's a very vague stance to take. As annoying as we radicals are, one has to admit that vague positions aren't very useful when it comes to actual governing.

*As I said there, the fact that it is one doesn't necessarily mean that it makes sense to prosecute it as such every time, especially when one is talking about hate crimes. But it does mean that it should be an option and that the larger culture should be educated about the true nature of rape.

fyi/warning

fyi


when bullies travel in packs, they generally don't give a shit about their targets reaction

they mainly just care about how much their peers will approve of their asinine behavior

and whether that will move them higher up on the pile of dirt they are all fighting over



warning


so don't suggest in my presence that calling attention to such sludge is the same as feeding the trolls

i'm likely to go all ape shit

or at least curse more than usual

especially if you are suggesting this through concern trolling

Is the Problem Logic, or Reading Comprehension?

The Women in Refrigerators theory makes the assumption that women really are killed or treated worst then [sic] men in comics, but I’m not convinced that’s true. Below is the list from Women In Refrigerators. Following the “---“ is my commentary and some male characters who were treated similarly or worse.

What was that about anti-feminists just making shit up anyway when they run out of not so brilliant arguments from feminists?

Since the topic is WiR, I think it's safe to assume that what our intrepid blogger is focusing on is injury, death, depowerment, etc. - not badly written characters or the ratio of men to women, etc.

So - although the sentence is muddled so it's hard to tell - he seems to think that the point of the WiR list is to prove that more women die/etc. than men.

From Wikipedia, that bastion of feminist thought:

The site features a list of female comic book characters that had been injured, killed, or depowered as a plot device within various superhero comic books.......[Gail] Simone maintained that her, "... simple point (had) always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"

How the fuck do you get from that to "more women die in comics than men"?!?!?

Which brings us to the other question, is the problem reading comprehension or logic?

At no point in the wiki article - or anywhere else I've read - does anyone argue that more women are killed in superhero comics than men. That would be like trying to argue that female soldiers are more likely to be harrassed or assault by their fellow officers - by arguing that female soldiers make up more of the casualties than male soldiers. Which would be ridiculous.

It has been argued that female characters are more likely to be killed, injured, depowered, etc. than their male counterparts. Which may true - so long as you stick to recurring characters with names. Which brings us to the quote from Gail Simone and what most people consider to be the phenomenon known as WiR: the fact that women are rarely treated as interesting in their own right, but instead tend to be mainly important because they are someone's girlfriend, mother, sister, co-worker, etc. And that even when they are interesting, they don't tend to last long and usually die because a male character needs motivation or angst.

One of the things I noticed when I did a similar list for Lost - after being pissed at the whole concept of Libby's character - was that a lot more men died than women. But the men who died tended to be obviously temporary characters. The opposite was true when it came to the women who died, they tended to be people we had gotten to know - and more of the now dead people we had come to love were women - and of the women that we'd gotten to know, a greater percentage of them ended up dead compared to the men we'd gotten to know.

Plus, men and women tended to die in different ways. As I said back then:

All the men murdered on the island were either bad guys murdered by good guys or good guys murdered by bad guys. All of the women murdered on the island were good characters murdered by good guys. I'm not sure what this means, but there does seem to be a definite gender difference when it comes to being murdered.

While I don't know if comics has the same phenomenon going on, it does seem to have a similar one, where women are more likely to be murdered because of their association with good guys, if not directly by the good guys. As opposed to being killed because the bad guys/good guys see them as a threat. (I'm guessing killing off bad gals because of their association with bad guys doesn't happen often, not only because the bad guys wouldn't care as much, but also because only bad guys touch other guys stuff.)

In any case, our intrepid blogger is either incapable of understanding what he reads, or he doesn't understand the difference between saying that

members of group X are more likely than members of group Y to be [blank]

and

of the people that are [blank], more are from group X than group Y.

I shall leave you, dear readers, to figure out which of these is the problem.

I'm Sure the Problem Lies With My Illogical Brain

* Nebraska Revised Statutes
Section 27-403
Rule 403. Exclusion of relevant evidence; reasons.

Although relevant, evidence may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of cumulative evidence.

Source:
Laws 1975, LB 279, 13

(emphasis mine, hat tip to Marcella)

I'm still trying to figure out how "rape" and "victim" are not only "unfairly prejudicial" - or at least more so than being able to say that "they had sex" - but are "unfairly prejudicial" to such an extent that they override any and all concerns about the language used during the trial being "misleading" or causing "confusion."

What's in a Name?

Some people have been arguing that it makes sense for a judge to disallow "rape" "sexual assault" "sexual assault kit" and "victim" from a rape trial because using these terms presumes guilt.

First of all, I was under the impression that the prosecution is presuming guilt (based on the evidence they've gathered) - that would be the point of the trial, after all.

Secondly, it may be different in other states, but as far as I know my state allows prosecuting attorneys to use the legal definition of the crimes that they are accusing the defendant of. See the previous sentence and "rights of the accused" as to why.

Third, banning "rape" and "sexual assault" from witness testimony is not the same as requiring that attempted murder victims use words like "kill" or the like instead of word "murder"- which doubles as a legal term. This is because "rape" does not have as many synonyms as "murder" does. The judge has effectively banned about the only two terms that are used by laypersons to describe the crime in question. And the latter is mostly by used only by laypeople if they write for newspapers or if the assault is something less than rape.

Furthermore, said persons may want to look up the legal definition of "rape" in the state in question before they focus on "rape" as a legal term. It's not. The legal term is "sexual assault." (hat tip Kristen)

Fourth, if legal meaning of "sexual assault" (or "rape" if that were the case) prevails above all else despite the profound lack of clarity that will result in the victim and the prosecutors not being able to use this term, then the legal meaning of "victim" should prevail as well. The state in question defines "victim" (at least as it pertains to sexual assault) to be

the person alleging to have been sexually assaulted

Yes, "alleged" is included in legal definition of "victim" in the state in question. I rather think it's quite likely that this is the prevailing legal definition of the term.

While I can see the logic behind arguing that terms like "victim" and using the legal definitions of crimes to mean something nonlegal can be confusing for jurors and might prejudice them, I hardly think that it does so to a greater extent than banning both "rape" and "sexual assault" - while simultaneously allowing for "sex" and "sexual intercourse" (which presume consent) to be allowed.

Amanda, Jill, Bean, and Shakesville have more. (Shakesville is down, I will add when they come back up.)

update

Since that particular argument also seems to boil down to "such things are standard" - can get a special "wha?" As in, "then why the need for special orders?"

Things You Should Know

Since I don't do enough useful stuff with this silly bog of mine:

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Eastern Michigan University

Because, Eastern Michigan University, knowing is half the battle.

(idea stolen from Auguste, who has more to say on the subject)

(hat tip to Melissa as well.)

The Really Scary Part?

This is not the only one of it's kind out there.

How about this:



please note that the decay has managed to touch neither superheroine's breasts. trying to look sexy, my ass.

Or this:



Sadly, it seems to be a trend (and no, I don't mean the zombie bit.)

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

Violence against women as a punch line is so overused that even misogynist comedians should take a break from it for no other reason than on account of it being excessively amatureish.

Showing women who are maimed or had violence done to them as sexy is so pervasive in our culture and so fundamentally disturbing given real life stats that, no matter how good-natured the intent, it's pretty much never a good idea.

Plus, it tends to make the whole irony of a sexy zombie not so ironic after all.

Because this is Important

(and I'm too tired to write a real post)

Melissa's had some great - but heart-wrenching - posts lately about rape and how it's normalized through humor. In her most recent post on the subject she responds in the comments to someone who makes the tired old argument that:

If I were wasted and walked down a city street with $100 bills sticking out all of my pockets, then got jumped you’d call me, at the least, irresponsible wouldn’t you?

Having responded to such arguments at face value before, without really examining how false the core of the argument is, I want to highlight the Melissa's fantastic reply, which boils down to:

Relying on the “guy getting mugged” comparison tells us two things, however. One: It shows how deeply ingrained the notion of women’s bodies as property is. Comparing a woman’s genitals to a $100 bill visibly dangling out of a man’s pocket is laughable in both practical and intrinsic ways, and yet the association was cited with not a hint of awareness at its patent absurdity. Two: It illustrates how far removed you are from the real threat of rape. Invoking a mugging is evidently the closest thing you can imagine to being forcibly subjected to an assault on one’s sex organs. That must be a lovely world in which to live.

I will be stealing that the next time I get into that argument with someone.

Not My Cute Bunnies and Happy Puppies Post

I told myself I was going to write about some of the comics I've read recently that I really liked, even if for no other reason than for Ragnell's sanity, but, like hippokrene, stupidity offends me.

But do you know what offends me more? That our culture has managed to link women with vulnerability, and violence against women with sex to such an extent that normally not stupid people are unable to tell the difference between this:

and this:
It makes me wonder if these same people cannot tell the difference between this:
and this:
How many times do I have to explain that it's not just that women always! = sex that offends me, it's also very much the fact that so large a portion of my peers finds the thought of me in pain to be sexually arousing and that this is considered normal! That's what disturbs and enrages me. That's what scares me.

It's really not the fact that (heterosexual) men like looking at sexy women that bugs me. It's really not even just the pervasiveness of it, nor even just the double standard that says that they are not for looking at. It's not these things alone that makes me look askance at the guys around me. It's also very much the fact that time and time again "regular" people prove that they can't tell the difference between "women = sex!" and "violence against women = sex!" that makes me wonder and worry.

Marvel Editor in Chief: Comics Are Neither Art Nor a Medium for Telling Stories

From Newsarama:

NRAMA: ....How about the Heroes for Hire #13? This has caused some controversy of its own, with some people likening it to a very unsavory recurring element in some more adult-themed manga?

JQ: This one I can answer to. First, I think people are reading way too much into that cover than was ever intended. I heard terms such as “tentacle rape” being thrown around when that in no way is what’s happening, nor does it happen in the book. Those tentacles are the arms of the Brood who appears in the issue and is a major story point, the Brood have tentacles, sorry about that.

Secondly, the concept for that cover, soup to nuts came from a female artist. Thirdly, not being a deep follower of manga, I have no idea what recurring theme people are referring to or concerned with. While I appreciate the sentiment and the feelings that some may have about this, I honestly feel that there is way too much being read into this cover.

Also, HFH is a book that features two strong, lead female protagonist who kick major ass; somehow folks have forgotten to focus on that.

NRAMA: Well, you correctly identified the “unsavory” element we were referring to…just one of those absurd phrases (though it exists).

Now, I should be upset that Joe

1) blames all this mess on someone else (a woman no less) instead of, acknowledging his role as editor in chief

2) implies that since a woman made the cover, it's a-ok

3) acts as if the fact that two of the women cringing on the cover are "two, strong lead female protagonist who kick major ass" makes it all better, rather than worse

And trust me I am.

But you know what really pisses me off the most? That it's apparently so important that he turn a blind eye the to sexism his company promotes that he is willing to insult every person who works for him or buys his products in order to do it. Yes, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not when the cigar is dripping white gooey fluid all over the nearly naked breasts of a group of women that show a remarkable similarity to terrified porn stars. The only way that people could be reading too much into this cover is if you argue that comics are not capable of anything remotely resembling allusion, metaphor, euphemism, inference, symbolism, puns, tone, or style. Which, quite frankly, is insulting to the artists and writers and fans that convinced me to give Marvel money in the first place.

Plus, the editor in chief of one of the two major publishers of american comics must be excessively undedicated to his work if he has never heard of "tentacle rape" before. How else, besides being barely aware that there are companies other than Marvel or DC selling comics in America, can you explain the fact that he has managed to stay completely ignorant of something that is just a google search away?

This is What We Mean By Rape Culture

First, you have all read Whedon's latest rant of excellence, right? Good.

Now that I've spent far too much time compiling the list below I'd like to talk about why I believe that the Twain quote about there being "lies, damn lies, and statistics" is never more apt than when it comes to discussions about gender, harassment, and the male gaze.

Amanda recently made the comment on her blog that:

.....I call bullshit on the simple-reversal thing.

For example, a scene: Woman in library reading by herself, man leans over her shoulder. vs. Man in library reading by himself, woman leans over his shoulder.

Simple equation, but most of us could more easily see the former being scary because we’re aware of how commonly men invade women’s personal space to harass them.

Experience isn't something that people need to get over, it's something people rightly use to make everyday choices. While we should never let fear dominate our decisions, ignoring our feelings because they are inconvenient is never good nor logical.

The two posts must hardly seem connected in most people's minds, however. Amanda's example is of man doing something that many women would find threatening, while most women would find Laura's example of a man looking at store displays featuring sexy women to be harmless everyday behaviour. Yet why is looking at objectified women in public considered to be such mundane behavior? Does it really carry no other meaning than "sex is good and healthy?"

Just like the image of the person looking over another's shoulder, we view the situation through the lens of our experiences. Just as we bring to images like the ones below the knowledge that men rape women exponentially more often than women rape men, we also bring the knowledge that men are allowed more freedom when it comes to sexual desire than women are. While the pervasiveness of all this often prevents us from seeing the big picture impact of everyday actions, it's also what contributes to the impact such actions have.

Every instance of such behavior is a reminder that not only men are allowed to look at objectified images of women, but they are often given the right to do so without reasonable boundaries, while women often barred from the same basic privilege. The amount of harm done by such actions is not limited to the crudeness displayed or lack of respect when interacting with actual women. No more than it's all about the way he's looking over her shoulder that makes the image frightening. It's also about the experiences of being denied similar privilege and being forced to participate in the same pastime of looking at objectified images of women, whether you like to or not.

The final score is not thirty-something to nine, it's thirty-something to a fraction. Because, like Amanda's example. mere gender reversal does not equate to equality. Whatever I may feel looking at person-shaped Spidey in peril, I'd imagine most (heterosexual) men see nothing sexual in it at all. Which means that the pairing of sex and violence is not present in those images the way that it is in even the image of Sue Storm being held captive by two men.




I don't dislike the Fantastic Four cover. I just think it carries different connotations than a similar image of a male superhero would. Especially the typical superhero, who would be built closer to a tank and than a movie star. And I think we can all agree that many of my additions to the "sexy men in peril" were highly questionable when it comes to the sexy part. Is Spidey in that cover really in any way sexy the way that Sue Storm is in hers? He's mostly just person-shaped and looking a little graceful and awkward at the same time. There's nothing really objectified about him. Sue Storm, on the other hand has a blank expression, "perfect" body, hands clenched together (not apart and in fists), and knees together as well.

Quite frankly, in some ways I find this cover more disturbing than the infamous Heroes for Hire cover. (With the exception of the needless injustices done to Misty.) Setting aside for the moment the rating of the cover, it is at least honest about what it's trying to convey. To a disturbing degree certainly, but, well, honesty counts for something. But images like the F4 cover normalize the intersection of sex and violence against women in a way that's needed for the HFH hire cover to become acceptable in the mainstream. How many people are going to look at the F4 cover and consciously think "sex! and women in pain!" and yet still absorb the message? What kinds of real life signals do guys miss because they are taught that her posture is womanly rather than deliberately vulnerable? Which brings us back to Dworkin and the question of how a culture that equates femininity with vulnerability and submission can ever properly define rape.

The guy who "can't take a joke" is now arguing that "sexism is a convention of the genre" - in the guise of "sex sells."

If it was just sex that sells, I'd be fine with it all. I'd imagine most of us would (leaving sex in kid's stories for another debate). But it's not just sex that sells. It's degrading sex that sells. It's sex that degrades women that sells. It's sex that lumps sex and violence against women together that sells, and that's something else entirely.

The male gaze does burn. Largely because, as the covers show, it's meant to.

I can't speak for other women, but I didn't buy Super-hero comics until recently not because I don't like action or super-heroes, but because I thought they were more of the "action hero saves damsel in distress" type of story - often with added objectification of women and sexual violence towards women. Other people (Ragnell, Kalinara, and yes Whedon) showed me that this isn't always the case, but I never would have been able to find the comics that don't do this without their help. And I'm still very, very torn between liking the medium, wanting a good adventure story, and wanting to avoid crap like this as much as humanly possible.

Blood is Cumpulsory, but it's Best if it's With "Love"

Let's count the number of covers up on Marvel's site that show women as being both sexy and in peril, shall we? Because this and this have put me in the mood to do so.

>One.

>Two.

>I'm including this this partly because I've always found the preponderance of Superheroines with unbound long hair to be nearly as silly as the number of exposed bellies and improbable shoes. O don't know who she is, but even if she's not a superhero - the artist included that flowing long hair for a reason, and it's not just to improve the composition. That makes Three.

>Yes, she's evil, but she's a sexy evil villain - and we all know why that is. Four.

>So, the other two X-Women look like they're kicking ass, but Rogue looks like she'd looking for a handy boulder. Five.

>I so want to count this, because she looks like she's about to fall, but I'll let that one slide.

>I get that there's men lying (dead)?) on the ground as well as women, but only the women are draped as well as mangled. Six.

>Wolverine may be the one with the claws in his neck, but she's the one who looks scared - and has holes in costume everywhere a normal costume would have more coverage. Seven.

>Again, why do Superheroines so often look like they are scared? Eight.

>Again! Scared! Why are the girls always the ones who are scared! Nine.

>No, I'm not going to count this - but it does rather look like she's expecting something other than what she's obviously getting. That ought to be it's own category.

>Oh, hell yes. Ten.

>I swear, it's like we never left the Victorian age and women are constantly swooning gracefully. Eleven.

>Twelve

>Scared again. Possibly surprised this time. But note how the gals look scared surprised and the guys are angry surprised. Except for the Thing, who just looks comical. Thirteen.

>It still counts when it's women doing the violence. Fourteen.

>This is simply because of the composition, but I still think it counts. Fifteen.

>I wasn't going to coountthis, but then I noticed how her knees are together and decided that it doesn't really matter if that's just her regular suit - because who makes the suits so form fitting? And is it just me, or wouldn't one think that breast armor would cover both breasts together, not each individually? Sixteen.

>They're all rotting away, but they keep enough of her so that we get to see all that nice exposed skin. Seventeen.

>Eighteen

>Yay! They're all scared. But only she's half naked. Nineteen. (I somehow lost the link to this one - I'll go back and find it sometime soon.)

>Yeah, 'cause I'd totally have that expression if I just got punched in the face. Twenty.

>Not that these count for either, I just found the juxtaposition interesting.

>I do not get what this is about, but Twenty-One.

>Could her mouth be open any wider, and could they have worked harder to show her breast and hint at her crotch, and again with the unboundhair - while he has a helmet. Twenty-Two.

>Aside from Spider-Girl, are men just incapable of making that :0 face - and women incapable of making any other? Twenty-Three.

>Twenty-Four.

>You know, if the wouldn't keep insisting on making so many of the female characters the token girl, they'd worry less about making sure people are sure she's a girl, and then the women wouldn't look any more scared or prettied up than the men. Alas..... Twenty-Five.

>It's really scary that this is really good compared to the cover for the next issue. Twenty-Six.

>Twenty-Seven.

>Almost missed this one. Twenty-Eight.

>Twenty-Nine

One female shaped person, and we see more of her face then all of the guys she's chained up with combined. Thirty.

>Dear God. Thirty-One.

>Scott's doing the :0 face - but again with the sexy hair. When their flowing locks are practically their costume, it has the same effect as their actual form-fitting costumes. Thirty-Two.

>Thirty-Three

>Thirty-Four

>Is this her second or third so far? Thirty-Five.

>I was looking at whats-his-name, trying to decide if he counted or not, when I realized that it's her butt that's blocking part of our view of him. Thirty-Six.

>Now this doesn't count, but it gets a very special honorable mention because it's for kids, and while the boys and older girl all look scared, it's the girl we focus on first and last because of her placement, posture, and sight-lines. Bad Marvel.

>I have of course, saved the best for last. Thirty-Seven. And it's rated T+: 9 and up. (Though I've they've changed it to 12+ but not all of the site is updated.)

Now, let's count the number of covers up on Marvel's site that show men in peril and looking sexy, shall we?

>Ok, maybe - maybe - we can count this. But since the guy in the dominant position looks far sexier, I vote no.

>Aha! One thing you can always count on LKH for is the save the handsome prince plot. That's pretty much the reason she's one of my guilty pleasures. Too bad the comic sucks and Phillips looks more creepy than sexy. The thought was there, though. One.

>I can't decide about this because he's outnumbered, undressed, and not too scary muscled - but he's also not only got that bigass gun, but his symbolic genitals scream power! not pain! And well, gee, if this is Ghostrider - isn't that him up above as well, or is the guy with the bigass gun someone else? Either way - he doesn't really look scared, does he?

>I dunno, partly because I have a hard time finding something with eyes like that sexy but mostly because we don't have a but shot.

>Barely I'm not sure it should, because of the dominating images of strength behind him negate the small amount to which he's sexualized, but ok. Two.

>Call me weird, but I think this counts. Spiderman is so very, very small compared to the image behind him, and he's in one of those awkward pseudo-graceful positions. Three.

>I don't think that there's enough of his ass in this picture for it to count, but I'll do so anyway. Four.

>The way his legs are spread alone. Plus, he's got the :0 face. A very distorted :0 face, but a :0 face nonetheless. Five.

>Meh. He looks as confident rather than scared, but ok - just because his clothes are shredding. Six.

>Spidey's problem is that we're supposed to always remember it's Peter Parker in there. Which means he's vulnerable and human-shaped. Plus he's a spider, so his mere four appendages must try to do the work of the normal eight. I'll keep counting them, but I'm fairly certain the sexiness part is mostly unintentional. Whereas women are pretty much always drawn intentionally sexy. It's the combination of sex and peril that I think isn't always consious. Seven.

>Eight.

>Scott has the face, but he doesn't even have eyes.

>I really don't have a crush on Spiderman, I promise. I think my gudging might be skewed by the fact that it's so refreshing to see an actual male-shaped body after all those tanks. Nine.

>The intent is here but that weird mask thing is just not scary enough.

Note that we can't count this.

Damn. Now I have to go back and count the total covers. And the number that have women on them at all. And the number that don't have men at all. (I remember about three.) And the number of them that have women in peril that aren't sexed up.

Well, for now the final score is Thirty-Seven to Ten. With about half of the sexy men in peril consisting of nothing more than Spider-Man being a spider, and absolutely none of them comparing to the worst of the Thirty-Seven. (Anita Blake wants to, but it really doesn't manage it at all.)

It's too bad I know never want to buy anything from Marvel again, because I like this cover.

Plus this freakin' makes up for a good chunk of those other covers, 'cause Little Red - the perpetual warning to all girls to "stay on the path" or else - looks like she's more than capable of decking that big bad wolf with her basket.

Although, please don't tell me what this 'cause I'm sure I really don't want to know.

Blood is Compulsory

We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.

Since I'm doing the procrastination thing anyway, I wanted to share a conversation I overheard the other day at my favorite local cafe/deli:

Well, actually, it was a month ago, so I don't remember the exact words, so I'll have to paraphrase.

The grown-ups at the table next to me are talking about YA books...

Oh, wait, I'm a grown-up.

Let's try that one more time:

I came to gradually realize that the group at the table next to mine are talking about YA books...and they sounded like librarians. So , being the nosy person I am, I started eavesdropping on their conversation. Much of it was blah, but I did find one bit to be both amusing and annoying. They were talking about what books were popular and good for teens. Stephen King was mentioned, and then dismissed by one of the librarians - because they have sex scenes.

If anyone reading this has yet to see This Film is Not Yet Rated - stop and go see it right now. Just go buy it since you can't get it at Blockbuster, Netflix takes forever, and you'll be glad you did anyway.

Aside from raising such good questions as "why is blood compulsory?" it also points out that, while violence is more acceptable than sex in kid and teen rated movies (in the US), exceptions are made for sex which includes violence. Which is an even scarier observation than the ones that led to it, if you ask me.

Dworkin gets lots of crap for having said that all sex is rape, which besides being not true, has to be one of the worst examples of taking a quote and using it out of context. What Dworkin was talking about is pretty much the same thing that John Water's comments on in This Film is Not Yet Rated when it comes to rape and sexual violence and movies. He argues that part of the reason that there are so many BDSM porn sites on the internet is not just due to it being more accessible, but also due to rape, assault, and derogatory remarks being the first type of sex most kids are exposed to when it comes to media portrayals of sex. When rape is how we define sex, how can we distinguish sex from rape?

I'm not sure how much of a direct connection there is between ratings and online porn, but I can't see it being healthy for us to shield teens from consensual sex, but not violence. And I really don't see how it's healthy for them to have seen more fictional depictions of rape than fictional depictions of people having consensual sex. Especially (relatively) realistic portrayals of consensual sex.

Which is why I take issue with the MJ statue as is, and the number of similar items, but disagree with those who argue that it does not belong in comic shops because it is pornographic.

PS - if you want a much better written response to This Film is Not Yet Rated and these specific ideas, go read Amanda's take, which was good enough to convince me to go buy the movie just so that I could see it.

Idiots Be Forewarned: I Am In The Mood To Do Some Major Ass-kicking

I'm not terribly certain that I have much say that hasn't already been said in response to Kos' most recent "insert foot in mouth" moment, but also figure that if there is ever any time that gratituitous piling on isn't really gratutitous at all, this is it.
 
I'm also pretty much incapable of writing a nice, neat, concise, coherent essay on this topic at the moment, so instead I'm just going to pick apart a bunch of the more idiotic and rage inducing comments from Markos and his defenders.
 

What surprised me was the obvious fear and surprise she showed despite being a public figure in a public arena, and that such things would stop her.  She let the bastards win.

Jackass.
 
I have a feeling I'm going to want to say that about a lot the people I will quote in this post.  So in the unlikely event that I don't work it in each time, just consider "Jackass" to be the unspoken tagline for just about every blockquote until I say otherwise.

Hmmm...I wonder if I could write some code that would do that, like have a special "Jackass" version of the blockquote tags.
 
You know, Jackass, when someone surprises you, it might do everyone some good if you spent a few minutes thinking about why that might be instead of immediately assumming that the other person is the one who made the mistake.
 
People who go to the same work related conferences as Kathy Sierra threatened her repeatedly, violently, sexually, publicly, and graphicly.  The fact that this scared her makes her anything but stupid, and while it's true that the bastards have won for now, it's not Ms. Sierra who has let them win.  It's people like those who defended or dismissed Harlan Ellison's public assault of Hugo winner Connie Willis last August.
 
Oh, have we forgetten that already?  I didn't.  Somehow I doubt Kathy Sierra has.
 
But you go right on ahead dismissing women's fears of sexual and sexualized violence despite the fact that it's so common that Ellison can do that to a fellow honoree at a national awards conference and get very little flack for it outside of certain very small circles.
 

If you run a blog of any kind, you bound to get this kind of attack. After awhile it's just silly to get outraged about it. Plenty of random crazy people out there.

 
Random crazies......In what way are collegues and fellow students random people?
 
In other news, I don't run a blog.
 
I must admit, though, that it's nice to now know that I shouldn't take threats of random violence seriously.  I was complaining quite recently about all the stupid advice I've been given about the various things that, as a woman, I shouldn't do - because doing them makes me more vulnerable to random violence.  Since worrying about such stuff tends to not only cut down on the amount of fun stuff I get to do, but make it hard or impossible to do some of the stuff I need to do, this is a huge relief.
 
Thanks, Jackass!  You're a peach!
 

everybody sets their own standard of behavior on their own blogs, as is their right in a free society.

 
Actually, Jackass, in a free society, society uses government to pass and enforce laws regarding certain activities, and then leaves the rest up to community standards.  Since Ms. Sierra has already said that the law considers at least some of the threats against her to be illegal and credible, I really don't know what the fuck you think you are talking about.  Whether or not Tim O'Reilly's specific proposal is good or workable or not is beside the larger point: bloggers should try to not let illegal threats remain on their site.
 
There will be people who violate this more general code of ethics, but before kos's diary, I wouldn't have thought that people would consider it controversial for anyone to ask that bloggers pledge to uphold the law so that visitors will feel - and be - safer on their sites.

am i missing something or are people out there believing that the type of person who would send a death threat would follow a code of conduct?

 
Yes, like Kos, you are missing the fact that the code of ethics isn't aimed at the people who make death threats, but rather the bloggers who let death threats against others stay up on their site.  In light of the fact that several Kos supporters have commented that DailyKos troll rates physical threats, and a few have even gone so far as to say this helps increase civility, I find the cries of "language police!" especially obnoxious.

Locks only keep out honest people...

 
No, they keep out thieves, too.  They just don't keep out all thieves.  The trick in risk-assmessment is to balance the cost of the lock with the risk of danger.  I.e. balancing getting to spend a decent amount of time in Glasgow with the possibility that I'll be raped while walking from the train station to the youth hostel alone and in the middle of the night.  Or, balancing curtailing public appearances with the possibility that people who have posted really nasty and violent threats about you on trade blogs will try to hurt you in some way if you go to work-related conferences.
 
I get the pile on for O'Reilly's specific proposal. However, I'm failing to see what Ms. Sierra's ordeal has to do with why it's bad. And I really don't get why simply admitting that this is serious a problem is so very controversial.  And arguments along the lines of
 

I run an educational website about a historical topic that 99.9% of people consider non-controversial, and I still get the occasional crazed, foul-mouthed, verbally abusive tirade similar in tone and coherency to the one Kos published above.  There are people out there who just like cursing at strangers on the Internet.

 
sound suspiciously like the usual, dismissive "boys will be boys" arguments - especially considering the type of threats that Ms. Sierra and others have received.
 
To spell it out more clearly for you all:

the online threats against Kathy : online cursing at strangers :: sexual harrassment in middle schools : use of foul language among middle schoolers
 
Oh! speaking of middle schoolers! Um, no, let's not at the moment.
 

Kos said that the worst we use against people is a cream pie.  His meaning is that we do not typically see people use violence or carry out death threats.

 
Oh, well, then.  If Kos says that it's true......
 
There's this thought on the tip of my tongue...something about media figures equating "liberal" with "traitor"....and the government itself spying on left wing peace groups...
 
Or maybe it was about radical right wing groups posting personal information about certain types of doctors....and those doctors ending up dead....
 
Or maybe it was about jackass lawyers in training threatening all sorts of things....and following through with several of them.....
 
Or maybe it was about media depictions of certain minorities....and their ability to get a job....the probability that they will do jailtime....the amount we are willing to spend to help people we keep crushing down.....

Or maybe it had to do with men who kill their significant others....and how often they threaten to do so beforehand.....

And something else...about all these being lie....lib...l.... ..... pro...pra...pre........ damn, I lost it.......
 
....there seems to be a hole in my head through which all logical thought is leaking out.  Must be going around.
 

LMAO i really enjoy those emails.  People need to develop a thicker skin and a sense of humor. Seriously, kos. Could you post more of those?

 
Nadai has suggested, in all seriousness, that bloggers do this.  I think it's an excellent idea.  I can definitely see a lot of men being unintentionally ignorant of the extent to which women are harrassed, online and in real life. Even I was unaware of how virulent Amanda's hate mail was until I read some of her comments about it. A hollaback style site may help.  (At the very least it will give women another space to help each other deal with it.)
 
That does not, of course, excuse idiotic comments like those above.  Especially in light of the fact that it's fairly easy to find out that the threats Ms. Sierra received were nothing like the e-mail Kos equated them to.
 

Quite frankly I have three words for the young women who find themselves being threatened online followed up by three more, self defense course and conceal carry permit.

 
(I'm sure Kathy is surprised to hear herself described as "young" seeing as how she turns 50 this year.)
 
Re: words 1-3:  Done.  Oddly enough, my little brother mocked me when I talked about taking it. Said it wouldn't do much good against a big, strong, man like him.  The fact that I think he was being an asshole, and that I still consider the class well worth the time, does nothing to negate the fact that he would be right in certain situations.
 
Re: words 4-6:   I work in a public library.  I don't think a conceal carry permit would extend to preschool story morning.  Besides, I don't want to have to carry a gun simply because I'm a woman any more than I want to not get to travel alone because I'm a woman.
 
Try another answer.
 

If you are that worried by threats you really have two options 1) give up blogging (which gives the nutballs what they want) or 2) ensure you can defend yourself if some psycho were to manage to track you down.

 
Those weren't them.
 
How about number 3) pressure people to take down personal information, number 4) expect the vast majority of people to react negatively to actual harassment, and number 5) expect support from those that consider themselves to be progressive and allies.
 

I AM a woman. As far as I can see there are only two options open to people who are being threatened or intimidated 1) back down or 2) learn to defend yourself. [Choosing] any other option simply isn't going to work and one need only look at domestic violence to recognize that.

 
Yeah, those silly laws about alimony and rape existing within marriage have nothing to do with it.  Neither does feminists asserting that "no means no" or helping to build safe houses for victims of domestic violence.   Women deciding to stick up for themselves just sorta...happens - if you tell them to do so often enough.
 

I've observed the opposite: excessive desire for protection. I've also seen flagrant disregard for safety, but that's a different thing.

 
Finally! Someone who gets it!  I mean, it's one thing to deride the boogyman in the dark as being statistically unlikely and a handy tool of the patriarchy, but to dismmiss the statistically supported idea that many of the average guys you know are capable of sexual assault - just because he seems like a "nice guy" and nice guys don't do that - well...
 
Er, wait...that isn't what the Jackass meant?

I want civility as much as you, but I just can't get on board with this "victim" shit.

I really hate the "victim" mentality. Why can we not empower those that suffer from others actions?

I will never get the "victim" mentality, I suppose. I guess that's because I refuse to see victims, and choose to see people empowered.

o_O

You know, I don't care so much about civility as I do being able to take a shower without having to worry that someone will be hiding outside my window.  I have, in fact, argued before that I think civility can be overated - owing to the fact that those in power usually get to decide what is polite and what isn't.  Such as whether or not it's appropriate for me reveal certain personal facts about my (anonymous) brother when arguing that the preponderence of guys like my brother working in mainstream politics, and the dearth of Amandas and Melissas, has a profound impact on the nature, tone, and subjects being debated.

More importantly though, I don't get what is empowering about having my fears dismissed and derided as paranoid rather than grounded in experience.  But then I'm just some crazy chick who still talks about stupid stuff that happened to her as a kid.

Does that make me a bad person too?

No, just ....um...I'm having trouble coming up with the right words here? Anyone want to help me out?

And now, for a nice quote, because GreenSooner put it better than I could:
 

kos's failure to identify the ideology behind the Blogger Code of Ethics and his disparaging of Sierra are of a piece. Identifying all criticisms of online behavior as simply misplaced nanny-ism serves his purposes better than more careful analysis of either the Blogger Code of Ethics or the Sierra matter.

 
as did aimai
 

Kronos, its sweet of you to keep working at this from such an open minded perspective but I'd like to take a different step and ask you this--what makes you think the women who are posting here, and the many people who post anonymously/without gender who are women--*haven't toughened up?*...Every woman you interact with here and elsewhere has received some kind of anti-female attack at some point and yet she still posts, just as most of us have been sexually harrassed on the street and yet still go out, and sexually harrasse at work and yet still go out.

Frankly, I think its a bit odd to assume, given all you've been told, that the women around you haven't in fact gone the extra mile to laugh shit off and just shrug off a hostile work and play environment.*

aimai, I love you.

Update: forgot to add that MB is keeping track of the posts.

"Look, Nora, in lots of things, you're still a child. I'm older than you in many ways and I've had a little more experience."

I adore my alma mater to pieces.

Quirks and all; and trust me, it has plenty of quirks.

Such as...a PE requirement.

Yup, that's right, we had a PE requirement to fulfill before we could graduate. I took Badmitton, Rennaissance Dancing, and Self Defense. Which....yeah, that says a lot about both me and my school right there.

If memory serves me, the self-defense course was the most popular PE class available; owing in no small part to the college being both liberal leaning and all-women. Our instructor was tiny, not much taller than me. I'd imagine most people saw her as pretty non-threatening. as just your normal, slightly overweight, middle aged woman. She was also in charge of campus security and had a black belt in karate. One of our final classes included a demonstration of her breaking boards with her karate chops and kicks (with one of us nervously holding the boards up for her).

At the time, the class was - to use an over-used and often abused phrase - empowering. Of course, pretty much anytime we got together and had the opportunity to yell simultaneously was an empowering experience - Convocation, Disorientation, Graduation, Friday Night parties, etc.. Adding in the practice punches and learning how to get out of a choke hold certainly gave the class extra kick to it, though.

However, one of the most memorable parts of the class was not so empowering in retrospect.

Part way through the course we got the lecture from our instructor about acting smart so that it would be less likely that we would ever have to use any of this stuff. Now, I do give her props for not pretending as though following her advice would for certain save us. I will also adore her forever for being the first person to ever tell me about the FBI's research about rape, and how they concluded that women who act confidently - as if, you know, they have every damn right to be wherever the hel they happen to be at that moment - are statistically less likely to be targeted by rapists.

Her list of advice - which sounded a lot more like dire warnings - was endless. Don't have an apartment by yourself if you can help it. Don't say your name on your answering machine. Don't walk alone at night. Don't take trips by yourself. Don't trust strangers. Watch your drink at all times. Never carry your keys with your fingers through the key rings (they can be easily broken that way if you are attacked). Carry your keys in a fist with one key poking out between your fingers. Make sure someone knows where you are going if you do go out alone. Glance under your car as you walk towards it whenever the area is deserted or it's nighttime. Have your keys ready to go so that you can get in your car quickly. Don't make your routine too normal. Get a second floor apartment if you can. Don't listen to music while jogging outside. Don't jog at night. Make sure your dorm blinds are closed before dressing and undressing. And on and on and on.

Now, a lot of this advice is perfectly reasonable - as long as it's taken with a grain of salt and one balances trying to be safe with not missing out on opportunities. Unfortunately, when people give out such advice, they usually leave out the bit about the salt and weighing various costs.

Which is part of why my reaction at the time was mixed. I wanted to be smart and safe, and her advice seemed mostly reasonable, but....some of it rubbed me the wrong way, and it was one of the most logical and reasonable bits of advice she gave us that bugged me the most.

Closing one's blinds before undressing is a pretty normal and low energy task. It might seem odd to you that she would even mention it. Unless, of course, you happen to be living on a fairly isolated campus with a student body that is all female. Privacy boundaries change. The topic of periods becomes acceptable in normal conversations. Pajamas are worn to communal dining spaces. Third story blinds that look out over the lake or the athletic fields are often left open for the view and sunlight.

Side note: when people ask me why I went to a women's college, I want to point to experiences like this. Nothing opens one's eyes to the subtle way that culture and other institutions blindly favor men than going to a school that is focused only on women. Not that one needs to do so to see that "male" is the constant default "in real life", but - for me, anyway - there's just something about having spent several years in a culture where "female" was the default that solidifies this knowledge in a way nothing else could have.

Back to the main topic....

I immediately knew why the thing about the blinds bugged me. I was convinced I was behaving illogically as well, but I still rebelled at the suggestion and deliberately ignored it. Not because I thought the 15 seconds it would take to do this was really all that much of an inconvenience, however.

Here's where I explain, because I'm sure very few of my current readers know this, that I spent my entire high school career checking not only my windows - but also in my closet and under my bed - each and every time I got undressed. I didn't do this because I was irrational or paranoid. I did this because it was the precaution that I had learned to take in order to prevent my brother from spying on me. It was the safety measure that I found worked best. It became so automatic that I didn't stop doing it until I had been living in the dorms for quite a while. What had started out as a logical response to clear and present danger had morphed into something closer to a tic or a security blanket. Until one day my brain noticed what my body was doing....and I stopped and pushed the horror of what I had become back into the dark corner of my mind where everything else about that time dwelled.

Until we got the lecture.

And all I could think when she mentioned the thing about blinds was that I didn't want to go back to being afraid all the time. I refused to go back to living in a world where even my own bedroom was unsafe. I thought at the time that I was being illogical, but in reality I was being very logical, I was just to scared to examine everything throughly enough to realize it.

I wasn't living on a co-ed campus in the middle of a city, in a bedroom that looked out into the street. I was living on a relatively remote all women's campus and my bedroom window looked out over lots and lots of green space surrounded by forest. Yeah, some creep could hide out by the trees with binoculars, but I it seems to me that such men are looking for victims, and will find them no matter what I do. Yes, a couple of extra seconds spent doing a simple chore was certainly low cost enough to be worth the safety gained by doing so. The problem is that this would never be a mindless task for me ever again. I would never be able to go to the window and simply consider it normal behavior, like closing the door to the bathroom or keeping my mouth closed as I ate. This had gone far beyond normal cultural mores long before I'd ever gotten to college. And it wasn't ever going away - at least not anytime soon. It's still something that I often think of when I go to open or close my bedroom blinds.

So my choice was not between having to do normal, simple, short tasks and endangering myself. It was between doing something that would make me a tiny bit safer and not expecting to feel like shit for at least a few seconds every day. What would seem to be the logical choice to any outsider was no longer an acceptable option to me.

At the time, I didn't question any other particular bits of advice our instructor gave us (remember, I thought I was being illogical), but the experience did leave me with a vague uneasiness with such advice. As time went on and I had to decide more and more often whether or not I would follow her safety measures, I found myself looking more critically at what I would be giving up by doing so. I've decided in favor of ditching her advice to a degree that would shock and alarm many, I'm sure. I've walked down streets alone at night. I traveled alone by myself dozens of times. I've done so without making sure anyone has my itinerary (what itinerary?). I've even walked alone, by myself, in a foreign city, with no cell phone, at frickin 1 am at night, and I was perfectly fine, thank you very much. And no, no one knew where I was except me.

Do you know when I wasn't safe? In the middle of the day on a crowded subway full of normal people. That's when some guy decided my boob was his little pet.

And in my bedroom, when I was alone by myself, and no one else was home except my own family.

And do you know what else? I don't regret getting on the subway that day. If some fortune teller had told me that my choices were getting on that subway and experiencing that humiliation along with everything else I did that day - or staying home where it was safe - or even choosing to travel to Paris with a group and doing group things instead, I still would have taken that damn subway. Because that was the subway that took me to Monet's Waterlillies.

So, I'm with Sheezlebub on this one: you can take your "advice" and shove it you know where.

The Myth of the Boogyman Rapist (Warning: Long, Rambling Post)

I know that I've said similar before (and I'm sure this won't be my last post on the subject) but I'm going to bring it up again because it can't be mentioned often enough. Although this time I'm going to let twf in the comments at Feministe do it for me:

I guess I’m just saying that part of where blame-the-victim comes from is thinking that “rapists” are not real people

Often times, the response to pointing out that one should be asking why rapists rape, rather than why women "get raped", is either that "no one wants to think about that" (which begs several obvious questions) or that such people are just plain sick - which is implied by the first response.

That reminds me of the quote - that I can't quite remember - about how everyone who commits murder is insane at the time. Sane people don't kill. Which has some truth to it - but no one would ever suggest that only obviously bat-shit crazy people could possibly be guilty of murder. And yet many people assume something similar when it comes to rape. Only evil men rape. Which isn't true at all - at least no more so than the idea that every murderer is insane.

This really seems to be where the majority of guys mess up. They just can't imagine that the guy sitting in the cubicle next to them at work - trading sports scores, TV gossip, game strategies or what have you - could be a rapist. Their drinking buddy? No way. The guy they see opening doors for women all the time? Pshaw. The die-hard Buffy fan? Are you kidding?

Which a lot of women I know would find funny in a dark humor, you gotta laugh if you don't want to cry, sorta way. Because we spend so much of our time wondering if the guy sitting in the cubicle next to us could be a rapist. Or the janitor. Or the security guard. Or anyone else who may be in the building with us long after most everyone else - including all our female co-workers who reminded us not to stay too late because "it's not safe." - has gone home.

Granted, a certain amount of this is that we have a hard time believing that the people we interact with on a daily basis could do such a thing. But a part of it is also a willfull blind spot on the part of such men - willfull because it allows them to cede responsibility for their own actions. They aren't required to worry that their friend may be capable of such things. They aren't required to examine their own behavior and change it accordingly.

Most criminals justify their actions in some way - even if it's only along the lines of "they deserved it." Rapists often believe that not only would conviction be unfair (which, I'd imagine, is quite common) but that no one was even inconvenienced, much less hurt. Many men see anything that leaves bruises or causes bleeding to be highly suspect, but dismiss a whole host of other behaviours that hurt women.

It's not a coincidence that many of the jokes about consent revolve around the idea of legal documents. The inescapable implication is that there is some exact - and ridiculous - procedure that feminists are asking for. Which in turn suggests that there's a reason why it's silly to expect clear consent to be easily obtainable. The obvious one being that women don't want sex - at least not as much as men. Which kinda makes the whole idea of enthusiastic participation a farce. Consequently, just about any way of getting a "yes" - or even the silence of previous "no"s - is acceptable as long as it doesn't require physical violence - because how else are you going to get it?

Recently, a commenter at Pandagon dug a hole for himself in arguing that the suggestion of safewords was a reasonable response to a woman whose boyfriend had raped her while she was tied up (she had agree to sex, but had made it clear that she did not want to do the specific act he ended up forcing on her). While there are all kinds of things to pick on in his comments, the part that I found interesting was how much this real life scenario mirrored a hypothetical rape scenario argued over at Alas, A Blog.

Both women were with their boyfriends? Check.

Both women had repeatedly said no? Check.

Both women's choices were restricted in some way by the rapist? Check

Both women made choices that contributed directly to being restrained? Check.

Now, there are some big differences. In the second, the girl never screams out "No!" during sex. (It's unclear if she ever says "yes" and, as just stated, she has said no repeatedly. It's also made clear that she is simply giving in to what he wants - her desires haven't changed.) The second victim is also not brutalized enough to require an overnight stay at the hospital and the restriction was mostly veiled threats and psychological ("Don't you love me?", boyfriend is her ride home, she snuck out of the house) rather than the physical restraint in the first.

It is quite clear when comparing the two, however, that they are simply different degrees of the same thing. In both cases the boyfriends do not respect their girlfriends stated wishes. Both rapists see getting what they want - rather than mutual pleasure - as the main goal. Both are willing to ignore - or get around - the entire concept of consent in order to get what they want.

Many, however, would only see the first as a rapist. Even disregarding legal definitions and (supposedly) looking at both scenarios only through the lens of what consititute's consent in the true meaning of the word - many would claim (and did) that the second guy is merely an asshole.

Considering how many people are willing - on the other hand - to conflate copyright violations with stealing, I find that very telling - and frightening.

Putting aside the logistics of legal definitions and punishment, this hypothetical rape scenario - although less violent than the real one - certainly deserves to be called such. If it doesn't, we're going to have to seriously rethink how we use words like "steal" - even outside of talking about copyright. If one can "steal" a parking spot - this can certainly be called rape.

But men especially get uncomfortable at the suggestion because it's safer for them to think of rape as something strangers do in dark alleys. Or psycho boyfriends that send their victims to the hospital. The very logical assertion that sexual violence is a spectrum and not a clearly defined act tends to put them on the defensive.

From the comments at Alas:

Rape is so horrible to me, and I view it as one of the most violent acts against a woman that a man can commit, either through physically violence, emotional abuse or emotional manipulations, and I have no desire to view a man that has raped as any other than horrible person, I can’t have all these gray areas about what rape is

Which, unfortunately, seems to sum up many people's views on rape. The fact that life is messy and uncertain, and that otherwise good people can do bad things, is too scary to be worth contemplating. Even if people get hurt because of it.

I, however, don't want people simply hurt because we're all too scared to look inside ourselves.

So, listen up, everyone:

1) Women like sex. We don't need to be "tricked" into agreeing to pleasure. We just sometimes need to be convinced that sex with you will be worth it. And sometimes you just aren't going to be able to do that. Because sometimes it just isn't. And the fact that sex with you isn't always (or ever) worth it is not proof that women do not like sex.

2) Rapists are not monsters. Or, at least, they are no more monsters than murderers are. And very few people around saying "I can't have all these gray areas about what [murder] is" Especially the justice system, which recognizes at least a dozen type of murderers if you add possible state and federal charges together. Some of which include the word "involuntary." Meaning - you aren't an evil person who wants to harm anyone, you're just a stupid shit who cares so much more about your own wants than other's needs that you ended up causing someone's death. I'd say that idea, at the very least, can be applied to our hypothetical rapist. Especially when one is talking about morals rather than legal definitions.

3) Safewords - and even notarized consent forms - only prevent rape if both people understand the meaning of "no", "yes" and "willing partner" to begin with. Because rape, like murder and theft, isn't just a legal definition, it's something people do to other people. "Date" rape, marital rape, the rape of prostitutes, and all kinds of other rape existed long before the law recognized such rapists as worthy of punishment. The law is merely a tool for protecting people's rights and the current interpretation of the law is not a trump card to be used to ignore the ways in which people hurt each other. We really don't need to providing would be rapists with more excuses.

4) The only way to prevent rape is to educate people about what causes rape - and it has nothing to do with short skirts or women going out to bars. It's caused by people disbelieving that women like sex, pretending that all rapists are boogeymen, and acting as if rape is something that happens rather than something someone does to someone else. Death is something that happens. Rape and murder require perpetrators who fail to respect the rights and desires of others.