Carnival Against Sexual Violence 86

Welcome to the January 15, 2009 edition of the Carnival Against Sexual Violence.

Quick FYI for those unfamiliar with blog carnivals and who wonder about this terminology, the term refers to collections of related blog posts. Check out blogcarnival.com for more information.

I'm now on Twitter as Abyss2hope so if you Twitter please follow me and then let me know you arrived from this blog through the @ reply or DM.

Thank you to everyone who nominated a post or who wrote a post against sexual violence whether it was nominated/selected or not. Nominations that came in after the nomination deadline will be considered for the next edition of the carnival.

If you support the purpose of the carnival, you can help get the word out about it and all of the posts included in the carnival.

Here are the selections for this edition of the carnival against sexual violence:

gender

In My New Job posted at Fugitivus, we get a discussion about how parental notification laws which sound reasonable when proposed do not work as promised.

In Men and women in the public sphere posted at Genius With a Parachute, we get a discussion of how explicit and implicit gender restrictions placed on girls once they reach puberty negatively impacts girls and women's physical and mental health.

legal

In Sexual Assault Examinations Without Police Involvement: A Guide to Texas’ New Law posted at Speaking Out., we get a discussion of the practical aspects of a new law.

In Predator Pastor Admits Fathering Child Of Alleged Rape Victim posted at Lez Get Real, we get a discussion of Darrell Gilyard who wasn't charged with the alleged rape and is now in prison for molesting a 15 year-old girl in his church.

In 12yo Rape Victim Not to Be Believed, Say School Admins posted at Mother Jones, we get a discussion of disturbing statements made by school district employees after 2 boys interrupted an assault in Portola Middle School in El Cerrito, California.

In Principal accused of raping, molesting 11-year old girl posted at DetentionSlip.org, we get a brief post highlighting that those who seem most trustworthy can betray that trust.

In Dubai: Female tourist reports rape to police, is arrested for extramarital sex and drinking alcohol posted at Muslims Against Sharia, we get a discussion about how the treatment of a rape victim highlights that consensual behavior by women is worse than violent, non-consensual behavior by men.

media watch

In You're just not that into him posted at Shh... Inside Voices, we get a discussion of the movie He's Just Not That Into You and how it repeats the dangerous fallacy that tormenting a girl is how boys show they like her.

In On rape and journalistic description posted at Reporting 1 Blog, we get a discussion about how descriptions can inject bias into a story which is supposed to be unbiased.

personal stories

In Focusing on the new when the past stays with you posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss common themes in new years resolutions which can make impossible demands.

raising awareness

In Compassion for Southern Baptist leaders posted at Stop Baptist Predators, we get a discussion about the flaw in telling survivors of clergy abuse to show compassion when those leaders make choices which contribute to abusive clergy members continuing to have access to unsuspecting church members.

In Notes on Rape Prevention, Responsibility, and Culture posted at Gender Across Borders, we get a discussion of the contradictory messages sent to women about their need to prevent themselves from being raped.

In I do not consent: Musings on sexual terrorism posted at Race-Talk, we get a discussion about how sexual violence is linked to wider injustices.

In Good touch bad touch posted at Yes means yes, we get a discussion of various ways that children are taught to tolerate unwanted touches and how this undermines messages about bad touches.

In P.I.M.P.s, W.I.M.P.s and other men who control and occupy women for pleasure or profit posted at A Radical Profeminist, we get a discussion of sexual trafficking and the men who take profit and pleasure in promoting it.

solutions

In 1000 Grandmother Campaign - The Virginia Sexual & Domestic Violence Action Alliance posted at Anti-Violence Advocate, we get a discussion of an action oriented campaign for 2010.

In Self Care and Healing for Advocates... posted at "Time's Up!", we get a discussion about how important it is for those who advocate for others to deal with the secondary trauma they experience as they help others.

In Four-Letter Words posted at Holly Grande: Short and Sweet, we have a rape survivor sharing her experience on coping in the workplace and how friends and coworkers can help.

take action

In Help Save Rape Crisis Centres posted at Spinning Plates, we get a call to action for those in the UK.

That concludes this edition of the carnival against sexual violence. Thank you for taking the time to visit this carnival and thank you to the authors of all the posts included in this edition.

To nominate a post (your own or someone else's) to the next edition of carnival against sexual violence, use the carnival submission form. If you have any problem with the form, please let me know so your submission can be considered for the next edition.

Links to everything related to the carnival can be found on the blog dedicated to this carnival, http://carnivalagainstsexualviolence.blogspot.com/

Marcella Chester

Technorati tags: carnival against sexual violence blog carnival rape crime politics sexual assault feminism sex

Pat Robertson's Ignorance of Earth Science

I heard about the horrific statements 700 Club host Pat Robertson made about the cause of the earthquake in Haiti which included:

"They were under the heel of the French, you know Napoleon the third and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said 'We will serve you if you will get us free from the prince.' True story. And so the devil said, 'Ok it’s a deal.' And they kicked the French out. The Haitians revolted and got something themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by one thing after another," Robertson said.

These types of statements are relevant to violence prevention and response since many people who believe that natural disasters are caused by the victims' sin also believe that certain crimes are caused by the victims' sinful nature or sinful past.

Robertson's assumptions and bigoted "true story" remind me of shows on the History channel which talked about how people explained anything they couldn't understand including natural disasters like earthquakes in just this way.

But those people had an excuse since their faulty belief system predated scientists beginning to discover the basic mechanics of our planet and how construction techniques can increase or moderate the damage done during an earthquake. Scientists understand that the differences in the earth's surface at the epicenter can make 2 earthquakes which measure the same very different in the damage they do.

People like Robertson and those who excuse him have no valid excuse for their ignorance. Ignorance has become a choice.

This is an understandable choice. When you are not being cursed with any misfortune, ignorance can be a convenient means to feel smugly superior to those who are suffering and to those who have died. When it comes to sex crimes those who feel safe can use their ignorance to feel superior to those who are suffering and to those who have died at the hands of the sexually violent.

This belief that victims of sex crimes bring the crime upon themselves often shows up indirectly at the response to sex crimes where the victim did everything right and cannot be blamed in any way. There's a sense that this isn't how the world is supposed to work. This isn't who should be raped.

Along with ignorance which assumes the victim's guilt, this ignorance often erases other people's practical contribution to harm. The most obvious contribution to harm in earthquakes is building techniques. Except where builders are making deliberate choices to build unsafely the builder's spiritual life is irrelevant to the outcome. When it comes to crimes, bystander victim blaming has a practical contribution to harm. If a jury believes a rape victim deserved to be raped the rapist is less likely to be seen as criminally responsible.

One of the other things Haiti was "cursed" by were hurricanes where the harm is related to seasonal changes in the planet and ocean temperatures and even deforestation. If the rise in ocean temperatures was caused by humans and that contributed to increased severity of the hurricanes which hit Haiti in 2008 it wasn't the people in Haiti who are primarily responsible.

It would be the industrialists and those who consumed the most products per capita which contributed to the warming of the oceans and to the increased severity of related disasters. But this more accurate narrative indicts many of Pat Robertson's faithful viewers. To put it into their context, their sin of consumption contributed to the destruction of innocent lives. Consumer demand can also contribute to deforestation which can contribute to harm. This is a message his audience and those who share Robertson's simple sin solution would not tolerate.

Bystanders are innocent in Pat Robertson's sin explanation. Rather than understanding our complex relationship with our planet and treating the natural world with respect and understanding the solution is:

American Christian televangelist and host of "The 700 Club," said that Haitians need to have a "great turning to god"

This type of statement comes from a place of ignorant arrogance since it blindly assumes that the person making this statement was spared from this type of disaster and from other misfortunes because of his or her personal righteousness. In this worldview prevention of all that is bad or deadly consists of nothing more than the right kind of prayer.

We need a full understanding and then we need action based on that understanding not ignorance presented in the name of God.

Important Columbia Supreme Court Ruling

From Womens Link Worldwide:

Colombia - Supreme Court of Justice - In cases of sexual violence, previous sexual history and sexist arguments cannot be used.

The blatant level of violence shown in the case which caused this ruling highlights why this ruling is so important and why the elements which were banned were about bigotry trumping evidence.

In this case, a woman began to have a relationship with the school bus driver from when she was 14 years old. During eight years, the victim and the accused maintained sexual relations, in the course of which the accused verbally, emotionally and physically mistreated the victim.

One day, the accused attempted to run over the victim in a vehicle causing an injury, he threatened her with a firearm, and forced her to go to his apartment where he hit her and raped her. She subsequently filed criminal charges.

The judge in the first instance absolved the accused arguing that he saw in the victim the 'intention to prejudice the process, and that there had already been a sentimental relationship, even if it was tempestuous and difficult, that was consensual and stable with the passage of time, and therefore it was not possible to be sure, with a degree of certainty, that the sexual act which took place on the 8th of January 2002 took place without willingness of the woman'.

The bias here should be obvious to everyone who doesn't share this bias. The reality of the dynamics of the 8 year history in actuality supports the case in question. It reduces reasonable doubt rather than creates it.

Tempestuous and difficult is mutually exclusive with consensual and stable. What this nonsensical statement seems to mean is that abuse if repeated often enough and long enough it will be treated by the judge as if it never happened. Once the judge erases a man striking a woman with his car, erases a man threatening a woman with a gun, erases a man forcing a woman into his apartment, erases a man hitting a woman and erases everything else violent or controlling from consideration then he is left with nothing at all. And we all know you can't convict a man based on nothing at all, right?

What this sexist bias does is make a blatant and extreme attack disappear because the defendant wasn't attacking a random stranger. The first judge imposed sentimentality into a relationship he knows has been violent and uses it to nullify the evidence.

Cases like this are why it is hard to fathom that first judge and the defense attorney as anything less that pro-rape when the victim isn't a random stranger. The only way for them to not be pro-rape is if their illusions are so strong that when their illusions are contradicted by facts they find ways to assume the facts must be the elaborate falsehoods.

If the evidence against the defendant is undeniable then the alleged victim must be especially clever in the minds of those who cling to this bias. No evidence of this is required, it is simply a given in this worldview.

If they know certain girls and women can't be raped by certain boys and men then the evidence means as much to them as what they would see at a magician's show. In both scenarios there must be a trick. The only trick comes from their bias which distracts them from seeing the truth and which allows violent men to not have their violence recognized as such.

The supreme court of Columbia ruled that legal and judicial personnel must conduct themselves in ways which respect the recognized rights of women. This is a good ruling but it is also a sad one since it means that the human rights of women were being disregarded and would continue to be disregarded if this ruling hadn't been made.

What are we supposed to do when the police treat you as a criminal?

To Rainrunner87 who asked this question,

I'm so sorry you were treated this way by the police. There is no valid excuse. When police preemptively treat anyone who reports a sex crime as a criminal and threaten prosecution they are in effect doing preemptive witness tampering and preemptive witness intimidation.

For too many investigators when this witness tampering works at convincing victims that the police cannot be trusted their bigotry either allows them to assume they were right to treat victims as the only criminal or witness tampering was their intent all along and they were not interested in seeing a rightful prosecution in a particular case.

Two organizations come to mind as possible resources for you if you are in the US: http://www.victimrights.org/ and http://www.womenslaw.org/ The second 1 has a free hotline.

Craigslist Used Again To Setup Rape

From the LA Times:

The advertisement appeared on Craigslist in early December. "Need a real aggressive man with no concern for women," read the posting on the Internet classified advertising forum. Its purported author was a Casper, Wyo., woman, whose photo also was posted.

One week later, a man accepted the offer, forcing his way into the woman's home, tying her up and raping her at knifepoint. "I'll show you aggressive," he allegedly said, according to court testimony.

In fact, authorities say, the woman had nothing to do with the ad. Instead, they say, a former boyfriend had posted it, soliciting her assault.

Here's a clue for anyone who sees an ad like this and doesn't want to be arrested and convicted, talk to the person who allegedly has the violent fantasy face to face prior to beginning to act out the requested fantasy. Anyone who doesn't verify with the person who allegedly wants to act out a violent fantasy that they are in reality the person who created the ad should be treated as just as guilty as the person who created the ad.

Feeling like the ad was legit and having no proof that the ad was placed to facilitate a rape is not good enough and should never be an allowable defense.

If the law in any jurisdiction allows people who respond to these types of ads to not always be held legally accountable for their actions then the law needs to change immediately. If the law doesn't view placing these fraudulent ads as a felony then that too needs to change. Soliciting someone to commit murder is a crime and soliciting someone to commit rape must be a crime as well even if the person being sought may not consider what they are doing to be rape.

This isn't the first time someone set up a fake Craigslist ad in order to see someone raped. It must be the last however.

Being caught setting up this type of ad should be a felony whether or not anyone answers the ad. The information in the original ad compromised this woman's safety.

The victim in this case learned about the ad a few days after it was placed and contacted the police but the man who set up the ad wasn't arrested and while Craigslist took the ad down they should have redacted certain information and then broadcast that this ad was a hoax and that anyone who did as the ad requested would be committing a felony.

Currently, owners of websites are protected from liability for actions taken by those who use their website and while websites shouldn't be liable for the actions of others they should be liable for their own actions and for their failure to act with due diligence when they learn someone has misused their site to commit a crime or to harm someone.

Need Nominations for Carnival Against Sexual Violence

Tonight at 11 pm is the next deadline for the Carnival Against Sexual Violence so please take a few minutes and nominate a post you've written or a post you've read.

The holidays are over but I'm still running a little low on nominations so if you've been shy about nominating what you've written on this topic, please take this opportunity to highlight what you've written.

For anyone unfamiliar with blog carnivals, these are collections of blog posts on a variety of topics. You can browse the list of carnivals some of which are active and others which are not.

An Alienated Man

I received the following comment to my post Warnings to not alienate men from a man calling himself Gogonostop and decided to highlight it because it reveals much about the arguments made repeatedly by MRAs:

Sorry, domestic violence is not gendered. A look into daily life shows this reality - women are at least, if not more, violent toward the opposite sex. Out of me three long-term relationships I have been struck several times by two of them - never have I struck them. And they have laughed it off.

Abyss, you can engage men much more easily if you stop with the "patriarchy is the sole/primary cause of all domestic violence" mantra...it's very off-putting, and many people can see right through it. Traditional male roles are provide/protect - not "batter" - and most men are not batterers.

But if you continue with the rhetoric of "rape culture" and "violence against women culture," men will - at best - shrug it off, and at worst bristle up, take offense, and argue back - as anyone would at a misguided attempt to denigrate their entire sex.

More pragmatically - in terms of your own interests - look at it this way: by telling people that their sexuality (masculinity) is constructed around evil (which is simply not true), you basically do a good job as a recruiter for the Men's Movement.

I responded to this comment with 3 comments (combined below with hyperlinks added):

The scientific research doesn't agree with your limited example. Many women have never struck a man except in self-defense and could give examples of men's ongoing domestic violence (not just being struck several times) which are far more severe, rape for example, than your evidence of women's domestic violence.

You would not accept their more extreme experiences being harmed as proof of anything more general about men's violence yet your personal experience is supposed to be proof about women's violence as a whole and about men's lack of violence as a whole.

The intimate partner murder rates are provably gendered with men much more likely to be the murderer than the murdered yet you wipe those murders away with your flip response.

I've never said or written the quote you assign to me. I've never said that most men are batterers. I've never denigrated an entire sex. Those are your projections. This means you arrived alienated and don't let the reality of what I write interfere with what you claim I write.

As for the traditional male role being provide/protect and not batter, risk factors disagree that this is a protective factor for sexual or domestic violence.

You disprove that you fit within the provide/protect category when you let my rhetoric (much of which I've never said but hey why let a few facts interfere) prevent you from protecting women from domestic and sexual violence.

You make it clear you have no interest in my interests. That's honest, but my interests are to stop sexual and domestic violence.

I've never told anyone that their sexuality is constructed around evil. This is a falsehood you are promoting as if it were fact to recruit others to be MRAs.

Also your limited description of your relationships with women is vague enough that it doesn't prove that you've never been abusive to women. Abuse can show itself in many actions other than striking a woman.

You also don't give the context of those strikes to prove that they were not done in self-defense.

This matters because you presented your experiences as evidence of the gendered nature of abuse.

Gogonostop, I've been thinking about your accusation that I'm, "telling people that their sexuality (masculinity) is constructed around evil (which is simply not true), you basically do a good job as a recruiter for the Men's Movement."

The only way for men to interpret what I actually write on this blog in this way is if their formed sexuality incorporates a disregard for girls and women and their basic human rights so that these men's view of male sexuality embraces some level of sexual violence.

When I speak out against sexual violence which many people deny or minimize I am therefore speaking out against their formed (or deformed) definition of male sexuality.

Their mistake is in claiming that this subset of formed male sexuality comes from biology.

As an addendum to my comments it's interesting that Gogonostop cites provide/protect as a value when so many MRAs actively oppose protections for women and children from violent men.

Violence Projecting Mindset From Victim Focused Violence Prevention

I came across a letter to the editor in the Herts Advertiser (which is in the UK) titled Rape Prevention Advice Welcomed by Sonia McDonnell which disagrees with criticism from Kim Thornton of a police superintendent who instructed women on how to avoid being a victim of rape.

McDonnell writes, "many rape cases are not always as cut and dried as Miss Thornton would lead us to believe." McDonnell then goes on to talk about how alcohol can interfere with the victim providing a coherent account.

The problem with this is that these issues exist when men who are not sober become crime victims. They might have difficulty answering questions like: After you staggered from the pub did you walk left or right down the sidewalk? Getting left and right mixed up shouldn't imperil the criminal case against the man who subsequently pointed a gun at him and demanded his wallet. The victim doesn't need to be fully coherent for the public or a jury to understand that he didn't spontaneously offer that man his wallet.

There certainly isn't equal prevention messages telling men to not drink to avoid becoming crime victims and this lack of parity has a real impact. Victim coherency is also a problem when someone is assaulted as they sleep or if they are assaulted in the hospital. I doubt that McDonnell would accept the same attitudes toward these victims as she tolerates toward rape victims who aren't sober.

The default assumption that rape cases where the victim is not sober aren't cut and dry incorrectly prejudices assessment of the evidence. What was obviously meaningless for the defense in other types of cases can be seen as exonerating evidence or reasonable doubt when the charge is rape. "She's getting left and right mixed up, she can't keep her fabricated story straight."

The mindset which so many people express is contained in McDonnell's report of driving by a drunk young lady. Her mind immediately jumped to how easy it would be to rape that young lady if she had been a rapist. This woman who is not a rapist looked at a drunk young woman and she easily projected herself as that woman's rapist. This is not an automatic response, it is a learned response which comes directly from repeated victim-centered safety messages.

If those rape prevention messages had a non-rapist woman thinking about how easy rape would be in that moment imagine what those messages do to a man who has disdain for young women who go out drinking. He might use those rape prevention messages to decide that overpowering that young woman will teach her to not turn her nose up at prevention advice.

He's not a rapist. He's a hands-on rape prevention reminder.

With the absence of primary rape prevention messages there is no message to counter the victim-blaming prevention messages so when people like McDonnell say, "These young ladies do have a responsibility for their own personal safety," they are actively removing the potential rapist's responsibility. They are communicating that he's not responsible for the rapes he commits.

This will be denied by many of these people when stated this clearly, but this is often proven to by these people's beliefs about the prosecution of rape cases. We see this when people say things like, "rape cases involving alcohol are not cut and dried."

This takes us back to the beginning of McDonnell's letter. Basic assumptions about rape cases are informed by the responsibilities many people place on certain crime victims that they would never place on other crime victims.

These assumptions help rapists so rather than the victim-focused prevention messages reducing danger they increase the danger that someone can rationalize raping someone who is intoxicated and increases the likelihood that someone who is rightfully accused will be able to avoid legal responsibility.

If those who are presenting these messages are committed to reducing sexual violence then they will be committed to learning the complex impact of what they say and what they fail to say. Commitment means being willing to learn and change when a well-meaning idea is a failure.

Stranger Rapist Returns After 4 Years

From KPHO:

CHANDLER, Ariz. -- A scar-faced man raped a woman for the second time in about four years, Chandler police said. Chandler police are looking for a scar-faced rapist who appears to have stalked his victim for years. The victim was raped for the second time at her home near Pecos Road and Hamilton Street in Chandler Jan 4.

Chandler Police Detective David Ramer said the rapist also attacked the woman, who is a Sunday school teacher in her early 20s , at her Gilbert apartment in 2005.
Ramer said police and the victim believe it is the same rapist because he has a 3-inch scar on his right cheek and because of statement he made during the attack. [...]

Ramer said the victim is holding up well, in spite of her experience.

"By all accounts, she's clean living. She's very involved in her church, very reliable family she's raised up in," Ramer said. "It's a tragedy that she has to go through something like this."

The comments about this case were great until this detective's reference to this woman's clean living. That reference unfortunately supports the idea that rape is generally caused by the victim rather than being caused by the perpetrator and that this woman is a rare exception who did nothing to cause herself to be raped.

It is a tragedy that anyone has to go through being raped. It is no less of a tragedy if the victim is a hard drinker who never goes to church and who was raised in an unreliable family.

These types of statements always leave me with a sick feeling in my gut. Rather than highlighting support for rape victims I'm left with the feeling that most rape victims don't measure up and are not looked at as innocent victims when they must be seen as such if the crime of rape is consistently taken very seriously.

The victim's advocate interviewed for the story believes this man has raped other women and I agree with that belief.

This type of crime comes from who the rapist is as a person. I also believe that expressed attitudes which divide rape victims into different classifications may have discouraged other victims of this rapist from reporting him or a report against him might not have been fully investigated because the victim knew her attacker's identity and those are often considered to not be clear cut rape cases and a waste of limited resources.

The same people who will rape those who are perceived as putting themselves in danger of being raped can also choose to rape those who are perceived as doing everything right. The protection from rape that comes from clean living is not a real protection at all. Instead it is a social contract that some rapists ignore.

The only true protection from rape comes from addressing the willingness some people (mostly boys and men) have to commit rape. This must include addressing the rapes of those who would never be described as being clean living with the same attitude as the rape of those who are the perfect example of clean living.