Hoyden about Town » violence

Our best sign yet that we are doing something right.

Orlando — Mon, 27 May 2013 04:49:01 +0000

Content note: child rape.

When Roman Polanski calls the hope for gender equality “idiotic”, what I don’t think is “I must remember to get more of my advice on relationships between men and women from a man who rapes little girls.” No, I get one of those great moments of clarity where it is confirmed beyond all doubt which is the side that no decent human being would ever want to be on.

With George Pell about to give evidence before the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, we had better leave a space ready for him to make up the triumvirate, with Polanski and Nick Ross, of repugnant men who should never give anyone advice about sex or morality, ever. Ever ever ever.

Didion at Feminéma, who has just become my new favourite person, has written this response to comments made by Polanski at a press conference at the Cannes Film Festival, where he continues to be welcome.

Signal Boost: women being prosecuted for retracting domestic violence allegations

Orlando — Thu, 09 May 2013 01:06:11 +0000

From Destroy the Joint, prompted by this article in the Australian, about a woman who faced criminal charges for being too frightened to continue with her testimony against her abusive partner, a call for action at NSW state level.

This is directly from the DtJ FB page:

Victims of domestic violence need our help. Women in NSW are being charged after retracting domestic violence allegations against their partners.

Since 2006, the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT has represented 20 Indigenous women who were charged with either false accusation or public mischief offences following the retraction of a domestic violence allegation. There was no investigation of the retraction itself – the women were just charged on the basis of their testimony that the domestic violence did not happen – and three of the women were handed jail terms by country magistrates.

The solution to the shocking problem of NSW police inappropriately charging alleged victims of domestic violence with criminal offences when they buckle to pressure & retract their allegations is simple.

Call upon the Attorney General Greg Smith to issue a direction to the NSW DPP under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act to ensure that no one is prosecuted solely for retracting an allegation of domestic or sexual violence without the approval of a senior lawyer within the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. The cases reported in The Australian by journalist Natasha Robinson demonstrate that unless this occurs NSW police will continue to further victimize highly vulnerable woman who recant allegations due to pressure, threats and duress.

The recent reporting of the cases in which Aboriginal woman already at risk have been jailed solely for retracting DV allegations has been a reminder of the harsh way our criminal justice can treat the state’s most defenceless citizens, particularly in remote areas.

Please act now. Email the NSW Attorney-General and ask him to issue the direction to the NSW DPP to ensure no-one will ever be charged for simply retracting an allegation of domestic violence. Mr Smith’s email is greg.smith@minister.nsw.gov.au or office@smith.minister.nsw.gov.au or epping@parliament.nsw.gov.au

Update: Attorney-General Greg Smith has made a statement that he has no plans to revise the existing laws relating to this matter. Now is the time to up the pressure.

Quick link: Adults Who Give Children Guns

Orlando — Wed, 08 May 2013 00:31:36 +0000

From my friend Mel, an Aussie living in Philadelphia:

Adults who give children guns are as bad as adults who give children porn.

She also has a great recent post about being a woman and a composer of art music.

Taken at a gun rights rally in the USA

Quicklink: Rape prevention aimed at rapists works

tigtog — Wed, 09 Jan 2013 09:13:54 +0000

Greta Christina of FreeThought Blogs is back to blogging regularly after her cancer treatment last year, and as usual is linking to very interesting stuff, particularly around the intersection of sex-positivity and dismantling rape culture.

Rape prevention aimed at rapists does work looks at a successful anti-rape campaign in Canada, and unlike the rape prevention ~~tips~~myths currently being passed around on Facebook, this education campaign offers useful information:

The “Don’t Be That Guy” campaign is a public service rape prevention campaign launched in Edmonton in 2010, and adopted by other cities in Canada, which took the radical step of aiming its message, not at potential rape victims, but at potential rapists. It took the radical step of educating potential rapists about what rape actually is. It recognized the role that alcohol commonly plays in rape — and it educates potential rapists that having sex with someone who doesn’t consent, or who is too drunk to consent, or who is passed out and therefore unable to consent, is rape.

The campaign didn’t target the stereotypical media image of rapists, the drooling psychopaths springing on suspects in a dark alley with a knife. It targeted ordinary folks, frat boys and partiers and bar-hoppers and folks who just like to toss a few back now and then… who have been brought up in a culture that teaches that drunkenness equals consent. It was influenced by a study out of the U.K. showing that 48 percent of men ages 18 to 25 did not consider it rape if the women was too drunk to know it was happening. And it teaches them that no: drunkenness does not equal consent, being stoned does not equal consent, being passed out does not equal consent. It had slogans like, “Just because she isn’t saying no… doesn’t mean she’s saying yes.” “Just because you help her home… doesn’t mean you get to help yourself.” “Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean she wants to f**k.” It had slogans on every poster saying, “Sex without consent = sexual assault.”

And the campaign has been so successful, the number of reported sexual assaults in Vancouver fell by 10 per cent.

The first campaign focussed on male perpetrators and women. New campaigns will include same-sex scenarios. Other countries are expressing interest in adapting the campaign for their own communities.

Greta raises some typically cogent points in her introduction and her subsequent analysis. Read the whole thing.

BFTP: Popularity of long-debunked rape myths: talk about disheartening

tigtog — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 03:11:51 +0000

This is a repost: originally published in 2008. Over the last week it’s suddenly started getting first dozens and now hundreds of views per day. I’m presuming that it’s been linked somewhere busy. So, welcome to you new visitors! Since the original post’s comments were closed long ago, please comment here if you have something to say.

The top link offered to me on Stumble-Upon for Women’s Issues is this: Through a Rapists Eyes, a page on a rape-prevention site. Unfortunately, they are propagating misinformation, pure and simple.

Some of you may recognise the opening paragraphs as one of those emails that gets forwarded around the place. This one has been on the go since 2000, forwarded eagerly on and on by those concerned about how to appear less vulnerable/appealing to stranger rapists. However, it is dangerously misleading (not least in never mentioning that fewer than 1in 5 rapes are actually committed by strangers – by far the majority of rapes of women are committed by men they know who rape opportunistically when they are alone together and later claim that the sex was consensual).

Below are some excerpts from the quoted email (the most egregiously wrong), and a summary from me below each point of the actual facts as laid out by the meticulous Barbara Mikkelson of Snopes’ Urban Legend Reference Pages.

A group of rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim, and here are some interesting facts:

1. The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun, braid, or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets.

[fact: this claim is totally unsupported by any studies known to law enforcement - women with all hair lengths, including short hair, and all ages and body types, are raped in seemingly equal proportions]

2. The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women whose clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors to cut clothing.

[fact: rapists are often/usually more interested in terrorising and harming women than they are in obtaining sex quickly, so clothing is not a major factor in victim choice]
[snip]
4. The time of day men are most likely to attack and rape a woman is in the early morning, between 5 and 8:30 a.m.

[fact: the USDOJ and all other statistical sources agree that most attacks (2/3 or more) take place at night - between 6pm and 6am]

5. The number one place women are attacked and abducted is grocery store parking lots. Number two is office parking lots/garages. Number three is public restrooms.

[fact: another claim totally unsupported by any studies known to law enforcement - there is nothing inherently dangerous about parking lots or public restrooms, what matters is how isolated a place is]

[snip]
7. Only 2% said they carried weapons because rape carries a 3-5 year sentence, but rape with a weapon is 15-20 years.

[fact: dangerously wrong - the proper statistic is well over 30% of reported rapists carry weapons, which makes the risk that they will retaliate to resistance with a weapon much, much higher]

8. If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn’t worth it because it will be time-consuming.

[fact: this implies that there is only one sort of rapist and that all of them will be discouraged by physical resistance - this is dangerously wrong if the rapist is the wrong type who will respond to resistance with an escalation of violence - see Barbara's article for more detail ]

Women who believe the misinformation in this email are going to be hypervigilant when they could be more confidently relaxed, and complacent when they should be vigilant. Apart from the factoids above, the email also describes self-defence techniques to employ, which again is a dangerous way to encourage complacency, as Barbara explains:

The question of to fight back or not is an age-old one, and there’s no one right answer. Granted, one particular rapist might be sent running bloody-nosed by a swift right hook, but try that on another one and a horrific experience could be transformed into a fatal one. Resistance advice of the type being circulated in the e-mail in question creates the false impression that escaping unscathed from the clutches of a rapist is only a matter of knowing which self-defence tricks to employ. Reality, however, is far different. Not all rapists can be overcome.

[...]physical skills are only as good as recent training — someone who hasn’t practiced a move in the three months since she took a course is only a tad better prepared to fend off an attacker than someone who never had any training at all. Worst of all, such training can lead those who have aced their courses to develop a dangerous complacency about their own safety, inducing them into a state of overconfidence wherein awareness of their surroundings becomes a lost art, buried under the certainty that now bad things can’t happen to them.

Complacency kills.

For those of us interested in urban legend propagation, it’s interesting to see how the original form of the email (advice from a self-defence instructor (karate black-belt) who trained with Hollywood! stars! and interviewed rapists in prison) has managed to lose this instructor to just report nebulous interviews of “a group of rapists in prison”, but still offers the self-defence information at the end.

The enhancement of the “authority” of the information is typical of longstanding e-lore, but in this case the propagators have done away with the authority from the self-defence instructor for the alleged effectiveness of these techniques, perhaps in an attempt to present the results from these alleged interviews as more reliable than just some keen volunteers with no expertise interviewing convicted rapists. The original email also mentioned that date rapists were interviewed, but as the advice is all about stranger rape that part seems to have been cut by someone somewhere along the chain.

However, despite its fascination as an example of evolving urban folklore, the major point remains: this set of rape myths is dangerous misinformation, begun by

“a fear merchant vending false information to those who want to feel safe”.

Sites aimed at rape prevention should do a better job of checking their facts if they really want to help women and other potential rape victims: parroting long-debunked factoids does more harm than good.

Cultural diversity vs feminism

shonias — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 03:25:59 +0000

[Cross posted at Ariane's Little World]

The global coverage of the horrific death of a woman from Delhi has certainly shone the light on the difficulties of navigating universal women’s rights in a world where cultures are not all the same, and are certainly not equal in power. As usual the Oz has lead the way in how not to discuss women’s rights in cultures other than one’s own.

Where are the beacons of truth and light to save Aboriginal women? Why do Aboriginal spokespeople persist in the same policies that have failed to civilise Aboriginal violence? (Like India, we must end misogyny - behind the paywall, but Googlable)

It’s tricky ground. On the one hand, if the white, Western world speaks up to condemn the violence (and by implication, the aspects of the culture that produce it), it’s the voice of the cultural hegemony. On the other hand, not speaking up is implicitly condoning the appalling status quo. I quite firmly believe that it’s not anyone’s job to force change on other cultures, but it is our job to enable the changes that are being called for from within. This is a rather grand and delightfully vague statement of position, I realise. It needs some practicality about it. The first step is one that people from all minorities have been asking for for the longest time – to listen. To hear the voices of the women oppressed, and when appropriate, repeat and amplify them, but not editorialise them. Not a big ask, but apparently one that Gary Johns from the Australian has not grasped. In answer to your question, Mr John, the “beacons of truth and light to save Aboriginal women” are right in front of you. They are Aboriginal women. The rest of Australia’s job is to empower them to save themselves.

Which brings me to the point of this post – I’ve been meaning to write about this for years. That empowering thing is also very vague, and it requires a lot more than listening. I doubt there is one approach that will work everywhere, but I’m sure it doesn’t come from policies. People always resist change imposed from more powerful groups – whether it’s from a dominant culture or government that has little daily relevance to the cultures it governs. However, that doesn’t mean that external cultures and governments can’t assist change. One model for this sort of change comes from Monique Deveaux. In a paper she wrote in 2003^[1];, she outlines a deliberative democratic approach to helping cultures change themselves. The rest of the world only helps provide the framework, not the agenda. One of the most significant issues in interculture relations is whose voices are heard. A government may attempt to enable multiculturalism by granting or denying cultures specific rights, but Deveaux argues (fairly uncontroversially I would have thought) that this can’t be democratically legitimate unless cultural group members are involved in the decision making process. Further, acknowledging the importance of intragroup; relationships, representative members of all sub-groups must also be involved. Deveaux offers a complex model, in which pragmatism is more important than idealism. Representatives must argue on the basis of their own stakes rather than for the common good, to ensure that motives aren’t hidden. As a result, compromise and bargaining are encouraged over moral consensus.

This approach addresses a number of issues. With each party coming to the debate with a personal position, rather than a moral one, there is less chance of oppressed minorities perceiving the negotiations as a threat to their moral identity. With each sub- group personally represented, the decisions about cultural practices will be made on the basis of the “lived form of these practices” rather than that represented by group spokespersons or majority members. It also allows for each group to determine their own idea of gender equity – so there are no pointless arguments about whether an item of clothing is oppressive, for example.

Deveaux specifies that three criteria must be met for the process to be valid and effective: nondomination, political equality, and revisability. Very briefly, nondomination requires that no participants are co-erced in any way, political equality means “real opportunity for all citizens to participate” and revisability means that any decisions made may be subject to revision at a later date. Revisabilty acknowledges that change generally takes place gradually, and makes compromise more possible. Political equality clearly presents the greatest difficulty in a multicultural context, as Deveaux acknowledges.

Who can participate in political life is, for many, culturally determined. Often it is precisely the role and status of certain subgroups – for example, whether women ought to have a political voice – that is at issue. (p.793)

She proposes a range of solutions, such as state funding for cultural support groups and independent media to improve the general conditions for democratic involvement, as well as culturally specific solutions on a case by case basis. For example, in negotiations with cultural groups who specifically exclude women from political life, external women’s advocacy groups, preferably with demonstrable cultural understanding, may stand in place of the group’s women themselves. All of this seems eminently sensible, and importantly, quite achievable to me.

Deveaux was involved in implementing this in South Africa, where the process was used to negotiate dramatic change in customary marriage law. The process was designed primarily for the purpose of improving women’s rights. In the first round, amazing change was achieved, but nobody got everything they wanted. They were able to compromise, because testing and revision is built in. Women were afforded the right to own property, to initiate divorce and violence against women in marriage was outlawed. They didn’t win the right to take family law matters to the mainstream courts. Nevertheless, for a process of less than a few years, that’s amazing progress.

I really like the idea that no-one gets to claim the moral high ground, and that the process recognises both ongoing identity, and evolution of culture. I’m sure it won’t work in all circumstances, and needs a lot of support to work where it will – but it seems to me like a good way for external, probably dominant cultures, to assist oppressed groups within cultures improve their lives, without imposing ideas of what that improvement should look like.

I’d suggest this kind of approach could work very well within Aboriginal communities – the women know what they need, they just need a framework to enact change. It may work within the various subcultures in India too. It’ll certainly work better than white folks tut tutting at them.

1. Deveaux, M. ‘A Deliberative Approach to Conflicts of Culture’, Political Theory, 31(6), 2003: 780-807

Rebecca Watson made Mount Wahmbulance explode

tigtog — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 00:21:52 +0000

Content note: rape apologism in the linked post’s quoted responses.

Rebecca Watson decided to Tweet something super controversial to satisfy my feminazi need to make men cry:

If you have sex w/ someone who is drunk, they are unable to consent & that is rape.

— Rebecca the Undead (@rebeccawatson) December 17, 2012

If you “took advantage” of someone who is unable to consent, it is rape. End of story.

— Rebecca the Undead (@rebeccawatson) December 17, 2012

Minds were blown! Up is down! Left is right! Cats and dogs, sleeping together! These two Tweets only raised more questions, and clearly I was the only person on the Internet who could answer them.
[...]
not all people are like us, and so, there are the Tweeters who flooded me with their concerns, none of which were for people who have been raped while they were drunk. No, their concerns are for themselves, that they might one day be accused of being rapists because they didn’t give someone a breathalyzer before having sex with them. Here’s a thought: if you’re about to have sex with someone and you feel like they might have drunk too much to consent but you don’t have a breathalyzer handy, then why not err on the side of not being a rapist and not have sex with them?

There are now people out there bragging about how the very idea that consent is problematic when people are drunk makes them a rapist many times over, with the clear imputation that this obviously means that the concept is utterly ridiculous. Rebecca also quotes responses way worse than that.

We’ve got a long way to go.

Feminism Friday: this week on the Feminism 101 Blog

tigtog — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 01:49:44 +0000

BY DEFINITION YOU CAN’T ASK FOR RAPE sign at Slutwalk Melbourne 2011 | “you can’t ask for rape” by louisa_catlover, on Flickr

It’s that time of the month again with Call for Feminism 101 Links III, and a guest post – Feminism Friday: What can I do, right now today, to help stop sexual violence.

Comments on this post will be closed to encourage comments to happen over there.

Image credit Louisa Billeter shared under a Creative Commons License Some rights reserved
n.b. I’m 99% sure that the gent holding the sign is Melbourne comedian Ben McKenzie, it’s certainly the sort of thing he gets up to (just to point out that some Melbourne male comedians are also proud to be Feminist Killjoys).

Media Circus: Gaza edition

tigtog — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 05:38:05 +0000

I don’t have anything particularly useful to say on this, except that I notice how many conservatives who a few weeks ago were using drone bomb attacks on civilians in Afghanistan as an argument against re-electing Obama (as if Romney wouldn’t have just kept right on doing the same) are currently falling all over themselves to make excuses for Israel bombing civilians in Gaza while trying very hard to simultaneously condemn Hamas bombing civilians in Israel.

Seems to me that there’s plenty of blame and shame to go around for anybody who offers justifications for bombing civilians anywhere.

What’s piqued your media interests lately?

As usual for media circus threads, please share your bouquets and brickbats for particular items in the mass media, or highlight cogent analysis elsewhere, on any current sociopolitical issue (the theme of each edition is merely for discussion-starter purposes – all current news items are on topic!).

Friday Hoyden: Sekai Holland

Orlando — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 05:03:21 +0000

The current Zimbabwean Minister for Reconciliation, Healing and Integration has a long history with Australia, going back to her days as a university student, during which she was instrumental in founding the anti-apartheid movement here. She married an Australian, and one of their two adopted, grown children is Aboriginal. So when Sekai Holland returns to Australia she has at least as much to tell us about ourselves as about the country in which she was born, and where she now does most of her work.

Watching Q&A on the ABC is often an exercise in ranty frustration. If their twitter feed is any guide, audiences experienced a rare moment of unity when Sekai appeared as a guest, as comment after comment praised her grace, articulateness and sense (also sharing a collective gasp at the sheer awfulness of Grahame Morris, in his infinitely cruder attempts at plain speaking). In this forum, she was willing to tell us that “women need to vote in their own interests”, which no local politician dares to say. Here and in other interviews she makes the most of any opportunity to remind us that Australia has still not amended its constitution to acknowledge this country’s Aboriginal history, a fact that it is absurdly rare to hear mention of at present. She was most eloquent in explaining her ability to continue to work with the government whose people almost killed her, describing her task as to dismantle the mechanisms by which violence is used to govern, rather than to depose any single person. I strongly recommend watching the episode (transcript included at the link).

Sekai was here this week to accept the Sydney Peace prize, and give its associated lecture. The transcript of her speech, delivered last Wednesday night at Sydney Town Hall, is not yet up, but will be put on The Sydney Peace Foundation site. The site currently has a great round-up of links in the bottom right corner of this page. The Sydney Peace Prize jury’s citation reads: ‘Sekai Holland: for a lifetime of outstanding courage in campaigning for human rights and democracy, for challenging violence in all its forms and for giving such astute and brave leadership for the empowerment of women.’

Sekai Holland, via Sydney Peace Foundation

Hoyden about Town » violence

Our best sign yet that we are doing something right.

Related posts:

Signal Boost: women being prosecuted for retracting domestic violence allegations

Related posts:

Quick link: Adults Who Give Children Guns

Related posts:

Quicklink: Rape prevention aimed at rapists works

Related posts:

BFTP: Popularity of long-debunked rape myths: talk about disheartening

Related posts:

Cultural diversity vs feminism

Related posts:

Rebecca Watson made Mount Wahmbulance explode

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Feminism Friday: this week on the Feminism 101 Blog

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Media Circus: Gaza edition

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Friday Hoyden: Sekai Holland

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