Recently in Violence Against Women Category

Clearly, they're just ASKING to be raped.

Here at Feministing, we've seen our fair share of victim-blaming articles. But this one takes the asshole, rape-apologist cake.

Trigger Warning

Peter Hitchens (yes, they're related) writes that a rape victim that was drunk "deserves less sympathy."

Wait, it gets worse. As Melissa at Shakesville points out, Hitchens makes flat out false statements like "women who get drunk are more likely to be raped than women who do not get drunk," and that rape is "the inevitable result of the collapse of sexual morality." (You know, because rape never happened before free love, per-marital sex, feminism, etc)

But here's the real kicker:

Of course she is culpable, just as she would be culpable if she crashed a car and injured someone while drunk, or stepped out into the traffic while drunk and was run over.

Getting drunk is not something that happens to you. It is something you do.

Melissa's response:

At this point, as you can see, Hitchens has totally lost the plot. Indeed, "getting drunk" is not something that happens to you--but getting raped is. Comparing getting behind the wheel of a car and getting held down and forcibly penetrated without consent is patently ludicrous, not to mention about as divorced from the actual experience of being raped as I can imagine. Essentially, Hitchens' argument is that women should be responsible for their choices, without ever acknowledging that rape isn't a fucking choice.

Hitchens can't seem to get his head around the idea that rapists rape women, rather than women magically "getting themselves" raped. There's so much more to say, but really, it's impossible to unpack all of the idiocy in this article (including the charming accompanying art above). So I'll leave that you, lovely readers, in comments.

Apparently the cowboy jeans company decided to "spice up" their ads a bit: by featuring corpses along with the tagline, "We are animals." Because, you know, murder is so hot right now. The one after the jump is so disturbing (trigger warning) that I honestly felt like I might throw up. I don't think I've ever seen the sexualization of violence against women so disturbingly portrayed on an ad before.

They also come with a live ad that's being run in France (along with these gems), as Melissa at Shakesville says, is "featuring the jeans models engaging in some animalism pre-death...?--I've no idea. Don't ask me to explain. I cannot." Took the words out of my mouth.

Sometimes, there are no words.

Via The Curvature.

Girls Gone Wild crew supervisor Matthew O'Sullivan, 37, was arrested for sexually assaulting a 20 year-old woman on the "party bus" while the show was filming in Long Island, New York.

[Trigger Warning]

At O'Sullivan's arraignment yesterday, Suffolk County prosecutors said he and the victim started touching and kissing, which she had no problem with.

But things took a tawdry turn when he allegedly pulled down her shorts and underwear as he put his hands around her throat to keep her from running out.

The young woman was able to break free when her friends came on the bus. The pals yanked back a curtain and saw her struggling with O'Sullivan, prosecutors said.

The friends called 911 and the victim was able to flag down a passing police car...

Seriously, when is someone going to shut this fucking operation down? How many more women have to be assaulted by Joe Francis and Co. before something is done? And yeah, I realize that you can't put them out of business because of the actions of a few of their employees, but it's clear that this company breeds and condones violence against women.

Via Gothamist.

Contributed by Adrienne Elyse Wallace

It's been about eight months since the murder of Tarika Wilson.

Reporting on her tragic murder, Christopher Maag of the New York Times wrote:

A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson's rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima's police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.

Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.

On August 4th an all-white jury acquitted Sgt. Joseph Chavalia. Chavalia's attorney said in response: "What kind of world would it be if we didn't have police officers...Joe was doing his duty."

Oh shit, I'm sorry - I didn't realize that killing a woman holding her baby was in the Lima, Ohio Police handbook. The fact that Chavalia was acquitted speaks volumes. His actions were sanctioned by the jury. The take away message is that it's okay to shoot a black woman holding her child. I mean the racism is apparent in the actions of the police officer and the media that covered the shooting but conveniently lacked follow up coverage. Why isn't this story important, why aren't people outraged? Citizens of Lima have spoken up - why aren't they receiving attention from folks outside of the black activist community? It seems the death of a black woman at the hands of a white police officer is fine, even forgettable - at least to twelve jurors and a slew of media outlets. However let me just say:

Tarika Wilson, I will not forget you.

Adrienne Elyse is a general badass who works in the anti-domestic violence movement by working for economic justice. She lives / works / loves in Massachusetts (which is now, officially for lovers).

The Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released a report yesterday afternoon on the prevalence of sexual violence in juvenile detention centers. An estimated 4,072 accounts of sexual violence were reported during 2005 and 2006:

An estimated 36 percent of the allegations of sexual violence in juvenile facilities were youth-on-youth nonconsensual sexual acts, such as rape and forcible sodomy; 21 percent were youth-on-youth abusive sexual contacts, such as unwanted touching or grabbing with the intention to exploit sexually.

About 32 percent of all allegations of sexual violence reported in state juvenile systems and local or private juvenile facilities involved staff sexual misconduct, defined as any act of a sexual nature directed toward a youth, either consensual or nonconsensual; 11 percent involved staff sexual harassment, including repeated comments or demeaning references of a sexual nature to a youth.

Victims of substantiated incidents of youth-on-youth sexual violence were more likely to be male (73 percent) than victims of staff-on-youth violence (49 percent). Females were more likely to be victims of staff sexual violence than victims of youth-on-youth sexual violence (51 percent versus 27 percent).

Check out the entire report.

Not only does this headline from 10News in San Diego victim-blame in the worst (and perhaps most common) way, the article itself is no dream either. Not once are the words 'rapist' or 'men' mentioned. Check out the lede, for example:

San Diego police are investigating a rising number of rapes involving young women who go on drinking binges, becoming too intoxicated to fight back or say "no," it was reported Tuesday.

What's so hard about instead writing, "San Diego police are investigating a rising number of rapes involving men who attack intoxicated women." It's shorter, more accurate, and doesn't blame women for being raped. It's like magic! I guess I won't be holding my breath.

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.

And sign this petition. Tomorrow is the three-year anniversary of LaVena Johnson's death (on July 19), which was ruled a suicide but was, in all likelihood, a rape and murder.

Phillip Barron has been working incredibly hard to bring attention to her case. And you may have read about LaVena recently on Feministing, or from Cara, Megan at Jezebel, Gina at What About Our Daughters, and Kate at Broadsheet,.

Retired Army Col. Ann Wright explains what we all want investigated:

From the day their daughter's body was returned to them, the parents had grave suspicions about the Army's investigation into Lavena's death and the characterization of her death as suicide. In charge of a communications facility, Lavena was able to call home daily. In those calls she gave no indication of emotional problems or being upset. In a letter to her parents, Lavena's commanding officer Captain David Woods wrote: "Lavena was clearly happy and seemed in very good health both physically and emotionally."

In viewing his daughter's body at the funeral home, Dr. Johnson was concerned about the bruising on her face. He was puzzled by the discrepancy in the autopsy report on the location of the gunshot wound. As a US Army veteran and a 25-year US Army civilian employee who had counseled veterans, he was mystified how the exit wound of an M-16 shot could be so small. The hole in Lavena's head appeared to be more the size of a pistol shot rather than an M-16 round. He questioned why the exit hole was on the left side of her head, when she was right handed. But the gluing of military uniform white gloves onto Lavena's hands hiding burns on one of her hands is what deepened Dr. Johnson's concerns that the Army's investigation into the death of his daughter was flawed.

They glued the white gloves onto her hands to hide burns. A literal cover-up. It's so clear that this and other details of LaVena's case don't add up to suicide. And it's sadly not exactly far-fetched that she was sexually assaulted: A full one-third of women veterans report rape or attempted rape during their time in the military. So it's important to keep the pressure on Congress and the military to open an investigation into her death. For LaVena, yes. Absolutely. But also for other military women whose rapes and murders have been covered up. Wright writes,

The military has characterized each of the deaths of women who were first sexually assaulted as deaths from "non-combat related injuries," and then added "suicide." Yet, the families of the women whom the military has declared to have committed suicide, strongly dispute the findings and are calling for further investigations into the deaths of their daughters. Specific US Army units and certain US military bases in Iraq have an inordinate number of women soldiers who have died of "non-combat related injuries," with several identified as "suicides."

Please sign that petition today. There may also be a legal fund established in the near future. We'll keep you posted.

Pic from raise_my_voice.

Trigger Warning

As I was going through my Google Reader today, I kept getting hit with story after story violence against women, of discrimination, racism and rape. We post on these stories often, so it's not as if I was surprised. But seeing them all together kind of overpowered me, so I figured instead of writing separate posts for each of these horrible stories - I'd put them together in one, so you could see what I'm seeing: the connection between racism and violence against women, the fear of women's sexuality, the straight-up awfulness of misogyny. (Not a light post, I warn you.)

This is great news:

The new law would make it possible for people in dating relationships, heterosexual or gay, to seek protection from abusers in family court. As it stands, New York has one of the narrowest domestic violence laws in the country, allowing for civil protection orders only against spouses or former spouses, blood relations or the other parent of an abused person's child.

An 18-year old girl from Auckland has accused four players of the England rugby union team of raping her, and the team has gone into victim-blaming overdrive.

But what has since followed that night at the Hilton is a mountain of suspicion about the woman's intent and an insane thought from the football union's chief, Francis Baron, that this has all been a "sting". Yes, a plot by the "bitter" All Blacks to bring down English rugby.

...The British paper The Independent said those insiders believed the allegations of rape after the first Test in Auckland were "designed to destabilise" England. "If there had been any substance in the case it should have been dealt with," a Twickenham official said. "The whole episode has been unsatisfactory, but you have to remember that New Zealand are still bitter with us over their exit from the World Cup." (Emphasis mine)

Ri-ight. It's amazing how this young woman has been completely erased and dehumanized - she's just part of a larger plan to bring down a team, she was a willing participant, a groupie, a liar. I'm just so sick of it.

Jessica Halloran, who penned the above article about the case, notes that in the past decade, all English soccer players who have had sexual assault allegations made against them have had the charges dropped. And for the past 28 years, "not one professional footballer from any major Australian football code has been convicted of sexual assault." And something tells me it's not because they're all innocent.

Yeah, charming indeed.

Thanks to Angi for the link.

Some very sad news out of Kansas. 25 year-old Jana Mackey, a feminist activist and law school student, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend last week.

Mackey, who worked with NOW (a Kansas chapter, I believe) on issues of violence against women and who organized activists to go to the March for Women's Lives in 2004, was killed by her ex, 46-year old Adolfo Garcia-Nunez, who subsequently killed himself while in police custody.

I really don't know what I can say about this, other than my heart goes out to Mackey's family and friends. What a horrible loss.

(Trigger warning: If you go to the videos, do yourself a favor and don't read the comments.)

Via Viva La Feminista.

I don't even really understand what this shirt is all about. But it's being sold on Amazon. And it's grossing me out.

Thanks to Anique for the heads up.

The headline above is from The Press Association.

Let's get something straight. Eleven year old girls aren't 'raped'; they're raped. Lose the scare quotes, seriously.

Thanks to Kate for the link.

A Supreme Court ruling made on Wednesday may make it easier for murders from intimate partner violence to go unpunished.

In Giles v. California, victim Brenda Avie called the police three weeks prior to her death, reporting that her boyfriend Dwayne Giles choked her and threatened her life. A trial court convicted Giles for murder which the California Supreme Court upheld, but the Supreme Court justices threw out the conviction in a 6-3 ruling. And it was because Avie wasn't available to be a witness:

The case revolved around the Sixth Amendment, which affords people the bedrock right to confront and cross-examine witnesses who give testimony against them. At issue is whether defendants forfeit their confrontation rights by doing harm to people whose statements are introduced in judicial proceedings.

So because she had made the prior report about his violent behavior and wasn't available for Giles to cross-examine, the conviction was thrown out. The exception of the amendment is if the prosecutors can prove that the accused purposefully killed the victim to keep them from testifying.

And Justice Breyer argued just that in his dissent: "The defendant here knew that murdering his ex-girlfriend would keep her from testifying; and that knowledge is sufficient to show the intent that law ordinarily demands."

What are people's thoughts on this? I find this really upsetting, but I'm no law expert.

Thanks to Jenny for the link!

Renee of womanist musings, guest-blogging at Feministe:

When you think of the Niagara region immediately the mind turns to the majestic falls. Some who have spent more than an afternoon here will think of places like the Welland Canal, The Skylon Tower, Fallsview Casino, Clifton Hill, and maybe even the dearth of reasonably priced hotels, and restaurants. The aforementioned sites are the Niagara region you are supposed to think about. It is what you will find printed in all of those handy little pamphlets, that the tour guides like to give out. Yes the safe family destination, where everything is bright and sunny.What you will not hear about are the women that have been killed here since 1996. What if I were to whisper these names in your ear?

Go read the whole thing.

Creating a "joke" list about how to kill your wife. Not funny.

Thanks to Jessica (and her boyfriend!) for the link.

Okay, I think It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is super funny. This video promoting it, however, is not.

Thanks to Daniel for the link.

At Thursday's meeting of the UN Security Council along with Condoleeza Rice, a resolution was adopted declaring rape and sexual violence as a “war tactic” that aims to “humiliate, dominate, instil fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group.”

We all know that this has been a long, long time coming, but nonetheless a sigh of relief to see the UN and other groups begin to recognize and document rape as a weapon of war.

Now we need the international community to adopt international law of rape as a war crime; let's hope this speeds the process. Check out the full resolution here.

Via Mighty Crankosaurus we find this oh-so-charming cartoon from a 1959 issue of Playboy magazine.

If you can't read the caption, it says, "Other than that, they didn't touch a thing!"

Ann reported in our Weekly Feminist Reader that John McCain canceled a Texas fundraiser to be given by Clayton Williams after it was revealed that Williams, during his 1990 campaign for governor of Texas, compared rape to the weather: “As long as it’s inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

After canceling the fundraiser, McCain's campaign said that they would be keeping the money raised by Williams - more than $300,000. (Various bloggers suggested, and I agree, that McCain should donate the money to an organization that works to combat rape.)

But the latest, and perhaps most egregious news, is that the fundraiser is back on! Because what's the big deal about rape, right? This is completely unacceptable. You can contact McCain's campaign here to let them know what you think.

Some choice quotes from Williams, including the rape remark, are highlighted in the video above.

UPDATE: I was remiss in not mentioning that Williams will be not be hosting the revived rundraiser. I didn't realize that was the case. I still think this whole situation is fucked, and that the money should be given to an organization working against rape.

Contributed by Juhu Thukral, Esq., the Director of the Sex Workers Project at the Urban Justice Center in New York City. She has been an advocate for the rights of immigrant women in the areas of health, work, and sexuality for over 15 years.

Friday's post about the anti-trafficking law that Congress is in the process of reauthorizing explained the basics of the dangerous and unnecessary change to the Mann Act that the House has adopted. This proposed change may not seem problematic, but it actually harms women and victims of trafficking, and does not even address the problem of trafficking in persons, as intended.

The federal anti-trafficking law already defines anyone under 18 who is involved in commercial sex acts, and anyone in prostitution who experiences force, fraud or coercion—regardless of immigration status—as a victim of human trafficking. The law does not prevent anyone from being arrested for prostitution, since most trafficked persons are not identified immediately. Changing the definition of trafficking so that law enforcement does not need to look at a person’s age or experience of coercion (the heart of the trafficking crime) is not going to help victims be identified—in fact, it is just going to create more problems.

The proposed change is based on the notion that all sex workers are victims, and that work in prostitution is inherently victimizing, even when no actual incident of violence or psychological abuse occurs. Sex workers actually do want help from the police when they are victims of violence—46% of the sex workers we interviewed in a 2005 study had been victims of violence during the course of their work —but often find the police ignoring their needs when they try to file a complaint. Broadly categorizing all prostitutes as trafficking victims means that police will go looking for victims who look and act like “victims,” allowing for even less focus on prostitutes who really have been abused in some way, but who have made the decision to enter into sex work for reasons far more complicated than a local police department might understand.

As law enforcement look for more victims, they will inevitably arrest more sex workers—because arresting people is the way that police reach them. Arrests can have a devastating effect—a recent arrest of sex workers affected a woman trying to get professional credential. Arrests drive people away from mainstream work and toward sex work. Our clients express incredible fears of being arrested and having their neighbors or family find out about their other life.

The reality is that people go into this work for a variety of reasons, often complicated, but usually based on financial need—for example, we found in a study we did a few years ago that 67% of the sex workers we interviewed in that 2005 study did not make a living wage in other jobs such as waitressing, administrative work, or retail.

The proposed Mann Act expansion will also hurt people who truly are victims of human trafficking. People are trafficked into all sorts of labor sectors, and an increased focus on prostitution will mean that immigrant workers in coercive situations will receive even less attention from law enforcement than they do now. The Department of Justice and other law enforcement groups are opposing this change because they want to keep their focus and resources on actual cases of human trafficking.

Broadly proclaiming any group as victims is a dangerous road for women and feminists. Denying people their own voice as activists, workers, and members of their community falls in line with the many policies that have historically been used against women in the name of protecting them.

RH Reality Check has a great piece up about Jackson Katz, an educator and activist who works on gender violence issues.

Katz says, "As a culture, Americans first must take the step in acknowledging that violence against women is not a women's issue, but a men's issue...The first problem I have with labeling gender issues as women's issues is that it gives men an excuse to not pay attention. This is also the problem with calling them gender issues, because the majority of the people in the status quo see gender issues as women's issues."

I'm especially interested in Katz's ideas about how the messages that women get about rape (don't go out at night, don't drink) are risk-reducing rather than prevention - and how those messages completely take men out of the equation.

"These programs focus on how women can reduce their chances of being sexually assaulted. I agree that women benefit from these education programs, but let us not mistake this for prevention...If a woman has done everything in her power to reduce her risk, then a man who has the proclivity for abuse or need for power will just move on to another woman or target," he says.

I highly recommend reading the whole piece - there's even a section where Katz explains how passive sentence construction in the media coverage of violence against women perpetuates the notion that rape is something that just happens to women, rather than something that's perpetrated by another person.

While 134,000 deaths are mourned in the midst of bringing aid to survivors of the Nargis cyclone, two Canadian advocacy groups are addressing another crisis that has existed in Burma for quite some time - systemic violence against women by the ruling military junta. And they're doing it by sending their underwear to the Myanmar's embassy:

The Quebec Women's Federation and the activist group Rights and Democracy claim the secretive military leaders in the country formerly known as Burma are superstitious and believe contact with women's underwear will usurp their power, CTV News reported.

'The campaign was launched by women from Burma,' Rights and Democracy spokeswoman Mika Levesque told the broadcaster from Montreal. 'They believe this is a very powerful message to the military because they are very superstitious.'

The campaign is called Panties for Peace. The Burmese women's rights group Lanna Action for Burma made a statement regarding launching campaign in the midst of catastrophe: "This campaign empowers the women of Burma a sense of purpose and hope," they said, "and we need hope now more than ever."

For more info on the cyclone, check out Ann's recent post on natural disasters and women.

The Washington Post has an article (and video above) about the very low conviction rate in UK rape cases.

As Vanessa reported last year, 33% of reported rapes ended in conviction in 1977. By 2005, that number had dropped to 5.4%.

In Britain, a nation whose justice system has been used as a model around the globe, government officials and women's rights activists agree that rape goes largely unpunished.

Solicitor General Vera Baird, who oversees criminal prosecutions in England, estimated that 10 to 20 percent of rapes are brought to authorities' attention. According to government figures, 14,000 cases a year are reported and 19 out of 20 defendants walk free.

"There will never be proper female equality and appropriate dignity afforded to one-half of the population if it's possible to rape somebody and get away with it," said Baird, one of the highest-ranking women in the British government.

The article also reports that "acquittals are often won on the 'mucky sex' defense -- that the man got mixed signals from the woman and what resulted really wasn't rape." Mucky sex? Is this the UK version of "gray rape"? Kill me now.

This horrible story is via Racialicious.

18-year-old Mildred Beaubrun from Florida was getting some gas with her friends at a local 7-Eleven when a car full of men pulled up.

"Hey, baby, what's your phone number?" they called out as the cars traveled west through Orlando.

Then the banter grew more aggressive. The men threw a T-shirt, then an AA battery, at the Nissan. One of the women threw a broken cell-phone charger back. At one point, the HHR swerved into the Nissan's lane and tried to run the car off the road.

When the Nissan turned north on John Young Parkway, the HHR followed. Then, at Princeton Street, a shot rang out. Shrapnel flew as the bullet pierced the door and struck 18-year-old Beaubrun, who was sitting in the back seat.

It is unclear whether Beaubrun will live, and she does live, if she'll ever walk again. Latoya points out that violence against women is absolutely connected to the fact that men are brought up to think that they have the "right" to talk to and approach women out of nowhere. When our bodies are considered perpetually accessible to men, violence is bound to follow.

Starting next year, survivors of sexual assault will be able to undergo anonymous rape kits.

Starting next year across the country, rape victims too afraid or too ashamed to go to police can undergo an emergency-room forensic rape exam, and the evidence gathered will be kept on file in a sealed envelope in case they decide to press charges.

The new federal requirement that states pay for "Jane Doe rape kits" is aimed at removing one of the biggest obstacles to prosecuting rape cases: Some women are so traumatized they don't come forward until it is too late to collect hair, semen or other samples.

Some hospitals already offer anonymous rape kits, but most states refuse to cover the cost of the exam (approximately $800) unless the survivor files a police report.

Beginning in 2009, states will have to pay for Jane Doe rape kits to continue receiving funding under the federal Violence Against Women Act, which provides tax dollars for women's shelters and law enforcement training. States will decide how many locations will offer anonymous rape exams and how long the evidence should be kept.

Awesome.

Thanks to Thomas for the link.

Lynsay Skiba is the Reigle Human Rights Fellow at Justice Now. She is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall), where she focused her studies on human rights law.

Many people who are pregnant inside California’s women’s prisons experience some form of mistreatment on a daily basis: they are deprived of basic information about their pregnancy; they lack access to responsive and consistent medical and mental health care; they endure degrading treatment at the hands of some prison staff; they lack control over important lifestyle choices impacting pregnancy such as diet and physical activity; and they are forced to cope with the prospect of being separated form their newborn shortly after birth, in some cases permanently.

Driving this mistreatment is the prison system’s apathetic and punishment-driven approach toward people in prison and their medical and mental health needs. What this means is that while people in women’s prisons who do not experience physical or mental problems during their pregnancies may receive treatment and experience medical outcomes that are unremarkable by accepted medical standards, those who have physical complications, mental health problems, or who choose to challenge their treatment are vulnerable to serious consequences, including death.

Using a participatory model of human rights documentation, Justice Now partners with those most impacted by these issues – people inside the two state prisons that house pregnant people – to expose pregnancy-related abuses through an international human rights framework. Together we have found that these prisons consistently violate the human rights to family, information, health, bodily integrity, dignified treatment, life, and the right to be free from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Can we please stop calling every attempt at analyzing pop culture "outrage"? Kthx, moving on.

Annalee Newitz's piece from the San Francisco Bay Guardian last week embarks on the task of justifying the violence and misogyny in Grand Theft Auto 4.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is lobbying to get the video game rated "adults only" (effectively killing it in the US market, where major console manufacturers won't support AO games) because there's one scene in the game where you have the option to drive drunk. Apparently none of the good ladies of MADD have ever played GTA, since if they had they might have discovered that when you try to drive drunk, the video game informs you that you should take a cab. If you do drive, the cops immediately chase you down. Which is exactly the sort of move you'd expect from this sly, fun game, which hit stores last week.

I actually stand at a different point than MADD and I don't necessarily support the censorship of the game, I don't really think censorship works. The more ratings and labels you put on something, the edgier and sexier it becomes. Censorship doesn't change the fact that violence and misogynist sex scenes make up the bulk of edgy popular culture or that violence is a serious problem for youth today and so is the sexualization of women, along with violence against women.

On some level, I do agree with proponents of GTA 4. Several of my friends have said, "but it is just fun." I don't deny that advances in video game technology are in fact mind-blowing and down right incredible and the they are fun. Hello, I am a blogger, I get the nerd new-cool-fun-fangled-technology thing.

What I can't get down with is justifying blatant misogyny by calling it art.

If GTA4 were a movie, it would have been directed by Martin Scorsese or David O. Russell, and we'd all be ooohing and aaahhing over its dark, ironic vision of immigrant life in a world at war with itself. But because GTA4 is a video game, where players are in the driver's seat, so to speak, it freaks people out. Earlier installments of GTA-inspired feminist and cultural-conservative outrage (you have the option to kill prostitutes!), and concern over moral turpitude from Hillary Clinton (you can beat cops to death! Or anybody!).

I think it is really problematic to lump all criticisms of GTA4 together. I believe at some point, I was written about along with a conservative writer (shudder to think) and that is not giving the full range of view points space to air their concerns. I am pretty sure if a movie had prostitute killing in it, I would write about it, but that is besides the point. GTA4 is not a movie, it is bigger than a movie. In fact, movies switched around their release dates for the release of GTA4. In the first week out it has grossed 500 million dollars. Furthermore, it is played, repeatedly and it is a role playing game, where you are the person engaging in violent acts. It is a fantasy, your fantasy. Perhaps there is a moment of identification like this with movies, but it is different then actually acting something out yourself.

Phyllis Schlafly, who is set to receive an honorary degree from Washington University this week has reiterated her support of marital rape. (Because, sorry, if you think that women who have gotten married have don't have a right to refuse sex - you are supporting rape.)

In an interview with Washington University's student newspaper, Schlafly held her anti-woman ground:

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do.

Find out how can you can contact Washington University about this honorary degree nonsense here.

Via Right Wing Watch.

The above picture is from an anti-female genital mutilation campaign by the AMAM, Association of Women against Genital Mutilation. The copy reads: "More than 140 million women in the world are condemned to feel nothing." You know, like a blow-up doll.

I'm all for raising awareness about FGM, but this campaign really rubs the wrong way. It reduces women to their body parts and the issue to just a sexual one. Using a blowup doll to depict a woman who has undergone FGM is incredibly offensive - they're literally being portrayed as no longer human, just a sex toy. Not only is the ad dehumanizing, it also suggests that FGM is all about sex - that women who have undergone FGM will never enjoy sex and that a woman who is no longer sexual is no longer, well...a woman. What do you think?

For more information on FGM, you can go to Amnesty International, the Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project, and this report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Related: FGM was named in the Beijing Platform for Action - a declaration and action items adopted at the Fourth World Conference on Women - as a form of violence against women to be eliminated.

Via BoingBoing.

(Trigger warning.) In 2003, 21 year-old Ramona Moore - a student at Hunter College in New York - told her mother she was going to Burger King down the street and would be right back. She never came home.

Moore was held in a basement a few blocks away where she was raped and tortured for four days before her captors beat her to death. The police, who Moore's mother begged for help, did nothing to find her.

Sean Gardiner at The Village Voice has a huge piece not only on the police's mishandling of Moore's disappearance - but also how it has sparked a historic racial bias case against the city.

Moore's mother Elle Carmichael is bringing forward a a civil-rights lawsuit claiming that the NYPD has a "practice of not making a prompt investigation of missing-persons claims of African-Americans, while making a prompt investigation for white individuals."

Not exactly shocking news, of course, but the case would be the first of its kind.

To prove racial bias, Carmichael's team would have to "show it's happened in a pattern of instances," says NYU law professor Paul Chevigny. And the only way Chevigny can think of to do so would be to take a large sample of missing-persons cases, identify the race of the people involved, and then determine whether there really is a pattern.

Carmichael's lawyer, Robert Barsch, is apparently attempting to do just that. He tells the Voice that he has heard from a number of black people who have also had their attempts to have police open up missing-persons investigations ignored. And he plans to point to the [Svetlana] Aronov case as a prime example of the flip side of that coin. After all, the NYPD tried harder to find Aronov's dog than they did Romona Moore. (Link added)

Tried harder to find a dog. "If this was a white kid, they would never had done this," Carmichael told Gardiner.

"I had to say to the detectives one day: 'You know, I feel the same emotions and pain as a white person.' "

Read more about Moore and the case against the NYPD at What About Our Daughters? and The Feminist Underground.

Several readers wrote in to tell us about this horrific "piece of flair" that you can send to friends on Facebook through this application. Now, users can create their own buttons so I'm going to assume that the creators of this application didn't make this - a user did. But that's not excuse. Contact the developers of Facebook's "Pieces of Flair" and let them know that rape isn't funny.

UPDATE: The developers of this application have emailed us to let folks know that they've taken the button down and are committed to their program being free of offensive, violent buttons like the one above. Kudos to them.

Check out this comprehensive new report by the Women & Girls Collective Action Network, comprised of 16 organizations in Chicago, about ending violence against women "with a focus on women of color, youth, queer and trans youth, women with disabilities, young women in the sex trade, among others." The report includes info on...

how groups have broadened their definitions of violence, rethought the roles of survivors and perpetrators, and identified systems of oppression as root causes of violence. Rather than copy the structures of the mainstream nonprofit system, many of these groups are creating new structures and negotiating older ones.

examples of how groups are building safe communities within the movement, responding to acts of violence within social justice communities, and grappling with the non-profit industrial complex.

strategies to end violence, including how to create community conversations, organize communities, use arts and performance, develop popular education, incorporate harm reduction, and partner with men.

Thanks to Ann Russo of DePaul U. for the heads up.