via Scott, this is a truly disgusting story out of my home state:

A fellow student-athlete at Iowa alleged she was sexually assaulted by two football players on October 14, 2007. Within 36 hours of the assault the victim reported the incident to the highest levels of the Iowa Athletic department. Including athletic director Gary Barta, head football coach Kirk Ferentz, associate athletic director Fred Mims, and a faculty member. According to the victim's mother all of these individuals encouraged the victim to allow them to handle an on campus investigation rather than reporting the assault to authorities.

Left to handle the investigation, the mother states Iowa officials did nothing for over three weeks. In fact, one of the alleged perpetrators even moved in three doors down from the victim, and the victim says she was constantly harassed by the men and received no protection from university officials. Ultimately, she contacted the local police on November 5, over three weeks after the assault. This finally prompted an action from Iowa. On November 13, Coach Ferentz announced that the two players charged with sexual assault were suspended. Although he did not disclose why the two men were suspended. This was almost a month after he became aware of the sexual assault allegations.

Scott pointed out to me that this Iowa case sounds a lot like U.S. v. Morrison. In that case -- which went all the way to the Supreme Court -- Christy Bronzkala, a student at Virginia Tech was raped by two football players. The college punished one of the athletes but not the other, and when a state grand jury failed to charge either man with a crime, Bronzkala sued under the Violence Against Women Act. (VAWA initially had a clause that said women could sue their abusers/attackers in federal court. That provision was struck down when Bronzkala lost her case.)

Looking back, the thing that is most striking to me now about U.S. v. Morrison is what a sadly typical tale it is. I mean, just yesterday the SAFER Blog posted on a Clemson football player who -- despite accusations that he punched his girlfriend and threw her down the stairs -- will remain on the team. It becomes so painfully clear, after reading story after story like this, that in 9 cases out of 10, college authorities value their athletes more than the women on their campus.

Thomas Beatie, the pregnant trans man who made headlines recently after an appearance on Oprah and an article for the advocate, just gave birth.

You can see the video from the Good Morning America segment here.

Yesterday the Washington Post had a piece on the backlog of untested rape kits in the U.S.

Rape kits can help identify unknown assailants by matching DNA profiles obtained from evidence to profiles in the FBI's national DNA database. The kits can confirm the presence of a known suspect's DNA, corroborate a victim's version of events or exonerate innocent suspects.

Most states are not required to notify victims if their evidence has not been tested, so people usually have no idea whether their kits have been processed. Many victims assume that silence from the police means that their kit did not yield helpful information. A much-delayed National Institute of Justice report on the state of the rape-kit backlog is due to be submitted to Congress in the fall; experts on the crime expect it to show that a significant backlog remains.

(What's in a rape kit? The Denver Post did this graphic to explain.) This is an issue that many, many local newspapers have covered, stating the backlog numbers in the local community and (usually) highlighting one survivor's frustration with the system. But there's been little national action on this issue in several years.

It's not only the processing of rape kits that's at issue -- it's access. Some women have been denied them altogether. Take this story from last year about a Howard University student who was repeatedly denied rape kits at several DC hospitals.

I'd really like to know more about how rape-kit processing works. Is there a queue, where every new kit is just added to the line? Or is this a situation where uninsured and other women at a disadvantage in the medical system get shunted to wait in line, while others can jump ahead and have their kits processed right away? Does it matter what sort of attorney you have prosecuting your rape case? I'd love to hear from someone who knows more about this.

In the meantime, take action! The Post had some great suggestions for how Congress can start fixing this situation. Write your Senators and Representatives ask Congress to:

• Require that states that receive grants to use at least 30 percent of the money to pay for testing backlogged rape kits


• Build in accountability by requiring that states report how many rape kits are tested annually


• Lift restrictions against states using the grants to pay private labs for DNA testing; crime lab directors across the country have cited this as a reason that they have not applied for or been able to fully spend their grant money


• Remove an amendment that would require states to expand their DNA databases to include all felons and certain arrestees. Adding people who have not been convicted of any crime to DNA databases raises civil rights and civil liberties concerns, adding unnecessary controversy to the program.

Ophelia at Feminocracy observes something about the language used to discuss two very similar -- and very tragic -- cases in which a pregnant woman was murdered, her uterus cut open, and the fetus stolen.

The details provided about Kia Johnson's death are gory and detailed. Words like "eviscerated" jump out at you as you read the account. They call her a corpse. They note that the foul smell emitting from the body that was in "moderate decomposition" is how they found her.

Bobbie Jo Stinnet is called a "slain mom", a "pregnant woman" who had her "womb" cut open.

Kia is an "eviscerated pregnant teen."

Yes, there were gory descriptions of Bobbie Jo Stinnett's murder published, too. But I do notice a difference in tone -- especially in the headlines -- between the coverage of her and that of Kia Johnson. I think it's less subtle when you see those headlines (all from CNN) next to the pictures of these women:

Maybe this particularly resonates with me because I work as an editor, and I see it as a heartbreaking example of why language matters. How word choice can humanize (and dehumanize). How racism can pervade what probably, to the writer of those CNN headlines, seemed like straightforward, cut-and-dried sentences.

whatsername takes on transphobia in online feminism in
"Deconstructing Transgenderism" psssst your cis-privilege is showing;

Grace from the National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum talks about vegans/vegetarians of color mobilizing;

juliagoolia asks readers what they think of women's colleges;

and Emily vents over an anti-choice history teacher who says rape isn't that common and women don't get pregnant by rapists anyway. (whoa)

Unfortunately I missed being able to post the video on this one (apparently its been taken off you tube, media conspiracy anyone?), but we still have the quote.

For those of you more in tune with the plethora of "celebreality" shows on VH1, you might know Brooke Hogan. The daughter of Hulk Hogan, former pro-wrestling superstar whose family was featured on the show Hogan Knows Best. Well Brooke now has her own show (and a fledging music career) called Brooke Knows Best. Well apparently she doesn't know best, because this was her response on the show recently to a prospective roomate's questioning about who she was going to vote for:

You know what? I am actually not that much into voting. I think it's kinda crazy that a woman is running, because I think that women deal with a lot of emotions and menopause and PMS and stuff. Like, I'm so moody all the time, I know I couldn't be able to run a country, 'cause I'd be crying one day and yelling at people the next day, ya know?

Sigh. Hopefully most of the viewers found this as absurd as I did.

Thanks to Maria for the link

Click for full-size image.

In a letter to the New York Times, PETA defends its sexist ads and PR campaigns:

While cruelty to animals is a serious matter that should elicit widespread public outrage, efforts to reach the public through more serious means often fall on deaf ears in a world in which sex sells and there are both a war and an economic downturn.

Shorter version: We're justified in using women's bodies to make our point because that's the only way we can think of to get people to listen to us.

A sampling of PETA's wide-ranging creativity (visual aid above -- clockwise from top left):
Naked woman wrapped in plastic and covered in blood, naked woman, naked woman painted as a snake,another naked woman, naked woman in a cage, oinking, yet another naked woman, half-naked women in cages, and half-naked women with udders instead of breasts.

Clearly, they've tried a range of PR ideas.

Charming. I especially like the downward pointing arrows.

Also, not to nitpick, but shouldn't it be 'enter' when married? I mean, what kind of sex are these abstinence folks planning on having?

Sexualized violence comes with the territory of war. It is an age old tactic and also a byproduct of the pressure of war and the insistence on overt misogyny. So it is no surprise that according to the AP 15 percent of women that have served have experienced some form of sexual trauma. That shouldn't make it any less revolting.

Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma, The Associated Press has learned. That means they indicated that while on active duty they were sexually assaulted, raped, or were sexually harassed, receiving repeated unsolicited verbal or physical contact of a sexual nature.

Rape is clearly not only a weapon of war, but a byproduct of it creating an internal dysfunction within the military industrial complex.

via AP and ThinkProgess.