For months, feminists have been trying to untangle the complex knot of racism, imperialism and misogyny that is the Sabbar Kashur case, in which an Arab man was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for 'rape by deception' by a Jerusalem district court after he supposedly tricked a Jewish woman into having sex with him by posing as a fellow Jew. That an Israeli court could convict on such a charge - and that an Israeli woman could file such a claim in the first place - caused international outcry, seeming to illustrate a poisonous culture of prejudice against those of Arab descent. Compared to such a clear-cut case of racism, how could the disdainful treatment of one rape claimant by the press be of any significance whatsoever? Fresh details emerged this week, however, that seemed to throw an entirely new light on the case.
Extracts from the unsealed testimony of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, reveal that she initially alleged that Kushur had forced himself upon her, leaving her naked and bleeding in a doorway, but the charge was changed to one of rape by deception following a plea bargain after the woman's sexual history was revealed. The victim, it is claimed, had alleged rape on several other occasions after being subjected to a lifetime of violent sexual and physical abuse at the hands of her father. She had worked as a prostitute, had fled to a women's shelter, and was so traumatised and bewildered that the prosecution were worried about putting her on the stand to face-cross examination about her past.
This changes much about the story – but nothing about its racist ramifications. Even if the victim herself could be conclusively shown to have told the entire truth about her experiences, this would not for a second change the fact that the verdict given by the Jerusalem district court was scored with ugly cultural assertions about race, religion and fear of miscegenation.
The judge in the case declared that the sex was consensual, but that the woman never would have agreed to it had she known that Kushur wasn't Jewish. He added that the state of Israel had a duty to protect victims from "smooth-tongued criminals" who sought to defile "the sanctity of their bodies and souls". It speaks volumes about the relationship between racism, sexism and imperialism in Israel that a district court was quite prepared to convict on the basis that an Arab had defiled a Jewish woman's bodily 'sanctity' simply by putting his penis inside her, but unprepared to countenance the notion that a woman who had been abused by men throughout her life might have been telling the truth when she claimed to have been brutalised yet again.
...(read the rest at New Statesman)
Showing posts with label rape culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rape culture. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Shiny happy rape culture
So the new government has somehow found time in its recession-busting schedule to propose a law that will grant anonymity to men accused of rape, who are of course the most pitiable and urgently unnoticed victims of woman-promoting-marriage-destroying-single-mum-supporting-violence-preventing Broken Britain. It's not as if the tabloids already paint women who allege rape as lying, heartless bitches out to destroy men and their god-given right to put their penis inside anything that gives the slightest hint of consent - by getting into their taxi, for example. Popular wisdom has it that vast numbers of rape allegations are false, when in fact false accusation is believed to account for only a tiny percentage of reported rapes - no higher than false reports for other crimes.
The Daily Fail have somehow produced both the most table-bitingly offensive assessment of the situation so far - from treacherous misogynist Melanie Phillips, who claims that "after Labour's reign of extreme man-hating feminism, common sense is reasserting itself" - and the most reasonable discussion of the issues for women, from Susanne Moore. "Do we have a Government intent on setting back women’s rights?" asks Moore. Sorry to disappoint you, Susanne, but we seem to.
Moore points out that adults who are falsely accused of child abuse run just as much, if not more risk of having their lives and reputations ruined as do men who are accused of rape - but the question of anonymity for them is not on the table. This is not a policy proposal with any real, consistent concern for the human rights of those accused of crimes. It is a rapists' charter, pure and simple, designed to protect men from lying women who, by not being properly shamed for speaking to the police when men rape, beat, assault and invade their bodies, have clearly had it all their own way for far too long.
Misogynists talk as though speaking about rape and consent is something that's easy to do, something that doesn't come with a social penalty for women, within or outside the legal system. This is not the case - particularly as most rapists prey on women who are personally known to them. When I eventually decided to speak about my experience of non-consensual sex on this blog, I was hounded by accusations of having made it all up. It was a big decision for me to come forward. At first I regretted it profoundly. Not because I was lying, but because as well as having experienced non consensual sex, during which I picked up a painful infection, I am now understood to be a manipulative lying bitch by people whose respect used to matter to me. I stayed in the house for days, not talking to anyone. And then I started getting the emails.
In the weeks after making that post I recieved no less than five emails from women who had recently experienced rape, saying that they felt happier talking to an anonymous person on the internet than going to their friends or the police. Saying that they were worried about telling people because they quite liked the guy, or their friends quite liked him, or because they thought they wouldn't be believed, or because they'd heard awful stories about how women who bring rape cases to court were publically accused of being sluts. Saying that they felt dirty and ashamed and scared and hurt and they didn't know who to contact about their internal bleeding. One of the women who emailed me was just fourteen years old.
Nobody is seriously suggesting that the number of women who remain silent about experiences of rape does not far exceed the small number of men who are falsely accused of rape - but it's clear where the government's priorities lie. It has been proven that naming rapists encourages women to come forward to report rape, just as it has been proven that a culture where women do not speak about rape and non-consensual sex allows rape to continue as an accepted part of our sexual dialectic - which is why anonymity for those accused of rape was waived in the first place. Just last year, when serial rapist John Worboys was eventually put on trial for nineteen counts of rape, no less than eighty-five women came forward claiming to have been sexually assaulted by him. Eighty five. Eighty five women who didn't know that they were part of a far broader picture. Eighty five women who didn't come forward until seeing their rapist's face in the paper convinced them that maybe it wasn't all their fault. Are eighty-five men falsely imprisoned for rape every year? Somehow I doubt it.
In this society, to accuse someone of rape is seen as a crime equal to raping someone. Men accused of rape are always given the benefit of the doubt. Women who get up the courage to speak about rape are invariably accused of lying. And now even our government is calling us liars. Rape ruins lives too - but the new regime seems to be interested only in silencing victims.
The Daily Fail have somehow produced both the most table-bitingly offensive assessment of the situation so far - from treacherous misogynist Melanie Phillips, who claims that "after Labour's reign of extreme man-hating feminism, common sense is reasserting itself" - and the most reasonable discussion of the issues for women, from Susanne Moore. "Do we have a Government intent on setting back women’s rights?" asks Moore. Sorry to disappoint you, Susanne, but we seem to.
Moore points out that adults who are falsely accused of child abuse run just as much, if not more risk of having their lives and reputations ruined as do men who are accused of rape - but the question of anonymity for them is not on the table. This is not a policy proposal with any real, consistent concern for the human rights of those accused of crimes. It is a rapists' charter, pure and simple, designed to protect men from lying women who, by not being properly shamed for speaking to the police when men rape, beat, assault and invade their bodies, have clearly had it all their own way for far too long.
Misogynists talk as though speaking about rape and consent is something that's easy to do, something that doesn't come with a social penalty for women, within or outside the legal system. This is not the case - particularly as most rapists prey on women who are personally known to them. When I eventually decided to speak about my experience of non-consensual sex on this blog, I was hounded by accusations of having made it all up. It was a big decision for me to come forward. At first I regretted it profoundly. Not because I was lying, but because as well as having experienced non consensual sex, during which I picked up a painful infection, I am now understood to be a manipulative lying bitch by people whose respect used to matter to me. I stayed in the house for days, not talking to anyone. And then I started getting the emails.
In the weeks after making that post I recieved no less than five emails from women who had recently experienced rape, saying that they felt happier talking to an anonymous person on the internet than going to their friends or the police. Saying that they were worried about telling people because they quite liked the guy, or their friends quite liked him, or because they thought they wouldn't be believed, or because they'd heard awful stories about how women who bring rape cases to court were publically accused of being sluts. Saying that they felt dirty and ashamed and scared and hurt and they didn't know who to contact about their internal bleeding. One of the women who emailed me was just fourteen years old.
Nobody is seriously suggesting that the number of women who remain silent about experiences of rape does not far exceed the small number of men who are falsely accused of rape - but it's clear where the government's priorities lie. It has been proven that naming rapists encourages women to come forward to report rape, just as it has been proven that a culture where women do not speak about rape and non-consensual sex allows rape to continue as an accepted part of our sexual dialectic - which is why anonymity for those accused of rape was waived in the first place. Just last year, when serial rapist John Worboys was eventually put on trial for nineteen counts of rape, no less than eighty-five women came forward claiming to have been sexually assaulted by him. Eighty five. Eighty five women who didn't know that they were part of a far broader picture. Eighty five women who didn't come forward until seeing their rapist's face in the paper convinced them that maybe it wasn't all their fault. Are eighty-five men falsely imprisoned for rape every year? Somehow I doubt it.
In this society, to accuse someone of rape is seen as a crime equal to raping someone. Men accused of rape are always given the benefit of the doubt. Women who get up the courage to speak about rape are invariably accused of lying. And now even our government is calling us liars. Rape ruins lives too - but the new regime seems to be interested only in silencing victims.
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Strike one for patriarchy: manchester gang-rapists acquitted over victim's fantasies.
This little story just makes me too sick to speak. In Preston, five men have been acquitted of rape and conspiracy to rape on the grounds that the woman they raped had kinky fantasies about multiple sex partners.
The defendant turned up at the house of Olatunji Owolabi, 28, of Bradbourne Close, who she had met online, to be greeted by six men, all expecting sex from her. When she refused, five of the men raped her in succession. But when the defence produced MSN conversations she had conducted with Owolabi where she mentioned that the idea of group sex was appealing to her, the judge ordered the jury to clear the defendants of all charges.
Prosecutor Michael Leeming refused to help the defendant any further after the chatlogs were shown, saying that'It is right to say that there is material in the chatlogs from the complainant, who is prepared to entertain ideas of group sex with strangers, where to use her words 'her morals go out of the window'... This material does paint a wholly different light as far as this case is concerned'
'Not to put too fine a point on it, her credibility was shot to pieces', said the Judge, Robert Brown
In other words, if a woman admits to having sexual fantasies, she asked for it. If she is forced to undergo elements of those sexual fantasies as part of a violent assault, her rapists and attackers committed no crime, because she had no 'credibility', no 'morals'. Apparently, it is impossible to rape a woman with no 'morals', where male recalcitrants get to be the judge of what is and is not moral. Apparently, when a woman admits to having 'entertained the notion' of being sexually experimental, that's a green light for men to rape her. And they have the gall to call feminists the cocking thought police.
Of course, it's not just the sexual fantasies of women which are policed and interpreted as indicators of criminality in this strange, pseudo-Victorian, porny-but-prudish culture- especially following the recent legislation against 'extreme' pornography. But only women have to endure having their sexual fantasies imply guilt when they are the victims of violent crime. I can't imagine what this poor woman, this woman who is the same age as me, must be feeling right now, having been told that because she dared to have a sexual fantasy about multiple partners, her 'credibility is shot to pieces' and the men who gang-raped her committed no crime.
Just in case you really do believe that a woman's fantasy implies consent and that's all that matters, consider this. Let's say, just for example, that my boyfriend is a little bit of a masochist. Let's say the idea of being smacked, spanked and hurt in a sexual context excites him; that we've discussed his fantasies and even acted some of them out in bed. Does that, then, mean that I'm entitled to beat him up in the kitchen whenever he annoys me? Can I punch him, cut him, smash his head into the cooker, and know that a jury will acquit me? Does the fact that he has kinky fantasies make it okay for me to physically abuse him in any context, with or without his consent?
No, of course it doesn't make it okay, and because he's a man and it's not a rape case, we all understand that that kind of response is never even close to okay. This anti-sex, anti-woman culture makes me fucking sick sometimes.
ETA: The excellent Pandora Blake -kinky model, actress, activist and feminist - has also responded to this story. ['Desire is not consent. Consent is consent' <3]
The defendant turned up at the house of Olatunji Owolabi, 28, of Bradbourne Close, who she had met online, to be greeted by six men, all expecting sex from her. When she refused, five of the men raped her in succession. But when the defence produced MSN conversations she had conducted with Owolabi where she mentioned that the idea of group sex was appealing to her, the judge ordered the jury to clear the defendants of all charges.
Prosecutor Michael Leeming refused to help the defendant any further after the chatlogs were shown, saying that'It is right to say that there is material in the chatlogs from the complainant, who is prepared to entertain ideas of group sex with strangers, where to use her words 'her morals go out of the window'... This material does paint a wholly different light as far as this case is concerned'
'Not to put too fine a point on it, her credibility was shot to pieces', said the Judge, Robert Brown
In other words, if a woman admits to having sexual fantasies, she asked for it. If she is forced to undergo elements of those sexual fantasies as part of a violent assault, her rapists and attackers committed no crime, because she had no 'credibility', no 'morals'. Apparently, it is impossible to rape a woman with no 'morals', where male recalcitrants get to be the judge of what is and is not moral. Apparently, when a woman admits to having 'entertained the notion' of being sexually experimental, that's a green light for men to rape her. And they have the gall to call feminists the cocking thought police.
Of course, it's not just the sexual fantasies of women which are policed and interpreted as indicators of criminality in this strange, pseudo-Victorian, porny-but-prudish culture- especially following the recent legislation against 'extreme' pornography. But only women have to endure having their sexual fantasies imply guilt when they are the victims of violent crime. I can't imagine what this poor woman, this woman who is the same age as me, must be feeling right now, having been told that because she dared to have a sexual fantasy about multiple partners, her 'credibility is shot to pieces' and the men who gang-raped her committed no crime.
Just in case you really do believe that a woman's fantasy implies consent and that's all that matters, consider this. Let's say, just for example, that my boyfriend is a little bit of a masochist. Let's say the idea of being smacked, spanked and hurt in a sexual context excites him; that we've discussed his fantasies and even acted some of them out in bed. Does that, then, mean that I'm entitled to beat him up in the kitchen whenever he annoys me? Can I punch him, cut him, smash his head into the cooker, and know that a jury will acquit me? Does the fact that he has kinky fantasies make it okay for me to physically abuse him in any context, with or without his consent?
No, of course it doesn't make it okay, and because he's a man and it's not a rape case, we all understand that that kind of response is never even close to okay. This anti-sex, anti-woman culture makes me fucking sick sometimes.
ETA: The excellent Pandora Blake -kinky model, actress, activist and feminist - has also responded to this story. ['Desire is not consent. Consent is consent' <3]
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Carnival of Feminists, 23/12/09: Tidings of Comfort and Joy
Season's greetings, and welcome to this special festive edition of the Carnival of Feminists.
As we're so close to the holidays, it's tempting to fill this space with cheery, unproblematic links and posts celebrating all our gains and pretending all's right with the world. This winter in particular that process seems especially hypocritical, so I've decided to just say bollocks to it. Here is a Carnival full of righteous indignation, intersectionality, rage and renewal.
As it's Christmas, let's start by remembering that the personal is political. A guest blogger at The F Word has some words of advice for fellow survivors of childhood abuse on dealing with the holiday season - which, for many victims, can involve unwanted proximity with their former abusers or with those who were complicit.
Even for those of us lucky enough not to have to face our abusers over the dinner table, Christmastime nearly always throws up a few feminist dilemmas. I've often found myself squeezed in with blithely misogynist members of my extended family, trying to explain why certain remarks are hurtful without causing an almighty row. An exciting-looking new blog, Stop Sexist Remarks, is here to help, with tips to challenge bigotry and stop sexist jibes in their tracks: Setting Boundaries in 15 Words or Less.
You might also want to take a look at a humourless festive rant I posted here at Penny Red this week, in which I get all pissy about the contemporary fetish for retro-domesticity.
Sometimes anger is important. Even at Christmas, when even more than usual women are expected to be placid, to keep the peace, to make things nice for everyone else, anger can be constructive, and it can be precious, and it's possible to stay tapped into to that vital stream of political awareness and personal rage without souring your appreciation of life's many joys. In that spirit, here are some excellent, topical posts full of incisive anger:
Radical Profeminist offers a powerful, angry and constructive response to man men's perception of their own 'suffering' at the hands of feminism, in one of the finest feminist posts I've read all year.
Guest blogger Dumi Lewis writes at Racialicious about the politics of being an ally.
Sara Ahmed at Comment Is Free reminds us that climate change is also about gender justice.
HarpyMarx reports on institutional police misogyny, brought to light once more by the case of a murdered woman failed by Greater Manchester Police
And the brilliant Womanist Musings offers a timely dose of WTF over the latest jolly commercial racist misogyny outing in celebland.
Rape, intersectionality and the language of victim-blaming -the feminist blogosphere is currently awash with powerful, courageous discussion of rape - and not only rape itself, but how we fight rape culture by working to change the language we use to describe rape, criminality and victimhood. Of particular concern this month has been the victim-blaming language used by authorities nominally responsible for rape prevention. (The following posts may be triggering for rape survivors):
On a new blog, rapedattufts.info, a brave survivor of rape at Tufts university speaks out about how her experience was dismissed by college authorities because she didn't resemble the 'perfect victim' - in part because she is a woman of colour. She describes the 'intersectionality of discrimination' that she faced with dignity and depth.
Kate Harding at Salon offers a powerful dissection of the shocking case of a 12-year-old girl being told by site supervisors at her middle school that she had 'asked for it', and that her attacker's 'hormones' were to blame. Jezebel has more.
In the UK, Dark Purple Moon tackles the graphic, distressing 'anti-rape' adverts currently being featured all over the London public transport system, reminding us that rape doesn't just 'happen'.
In slightly better news, In a Strange Land has details of a new rape prevention programme to train bar staff in reducing the risk of rape. The programme is refreshingly free of victim blaming language, in part because it was compiled in conjunction with anti-rape educators. And this week Al Franken's anti-rape amendment has been signed into law in the United States, which would 'withold defence contracts from companies like KBR if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court", after Jamie Leigh Jones was prevented from seeking justice for her charge of gang-rape by Haliburton (via Shakesville). Slowly but surely, and with tireless work from feminists of all genders, the dialectic of the rape culture we are living in is beginning to falter.
So, that about wraps it up for 2009, no pun intended. It's been a really exciting year for feminism online and in the meatspace, and next year looks set to be even more jam-packed. Watch this space for details of the next Carnival; meanwhile, on behalf of the new-and-improved Carnival of Feminists, it falls to me to wish all readers and contributors, of every faith and none, a happy holiday and a tolerable end to this crazy bloody decade. In sisterhood. x
As we're so close to the holidays, it's tempting to fill this space with cheery, unproblematic links and posts celebrating all our gains and pretending all's right with the world. This winter in particular that process seems especially hypocritical, so I've decided to just say bollocks to it. Here is a Carnival full of righteous indignation, intersectionality, rage and renewal.
As it's Christmas, let's start by remembering that the personal is political. A guest blogger at The F Word has some words of advice for fellow survivors of childhood abuse on dealing with the holiday season - which, for many victims, can involve unwanted proximity with their former abusers or with those who were complicit.
Even for those of us lucky enough not to have to face our abusers over the dinner table, Christmastime nearly always throws up a few feminist dilemmas. I've often found myself squeezed in with blithely misogynist members of my extended family, trying to explain why certain remarks are hurtful without causing an almighty row. An exciting-looking new blog, Stop Sexist Remarks, is here to help, with tips to challenge bigotry and stop sexist jibes in their tracks: Setting Boundaries in 15 Words or Less.
You might also want to take a look at a humourless festive rant I posted here at Penny Red this week, in which I get all pissy about the contemporary fetish for retro-domesticity.
Sometimes anger is important. Even at Christmas, when even more than usual women are expected to be placid, to keep the peace, to make things nice for everyone else, anger can be constructive, and it can be precious, and it's possible to stay tapped into to that vital stream of political awareness and personal rage without souring your appreciation of life's many joys. In that spirit, here are some excellent, topical posts full of incisive anger:
Radical Profeminist offers a powerful, angry and constructive response to man men's perception of their own 'suffering' at the hands of feminism, in one of the finest feminist posts I've read all year.
Guest blogger Dumi Lewis writes at Racialicious about the politics of being an ally.
Sara Ahmed at Comment Is Free reminds us that climate change is also about gender justice.
HarpyMarx reports on institutional police misogyny, brought to light once more by the case of a murdered woman failed by Greater Manchester Police
And the brilliant Womanist Musings offers a timely dose of WTF over the latest jolly commercial racist misogyny outing in celebland.
Rape, intersectionality and the language of victim-blaming -the feminist blogosphere is currently awash with powerful, courageous discussion of rape - and not only rape itself, but how we fight rape culture by working to change the language we use to describe rape, criminality and victimhood. Of particular concern this month has been the victim-blaming language used by authorities nominally responsible for rape prevention. (The following posts may be triggering for rape survivors):
On a new blog, rapedattufts.info, a brave survivor of rape at Tufts university speaks out about how her experience was dismissed by college authorities because she didn't resemble the 'perfect victim' - in part because she is a woman of colour. She describes the 'intersectionality of discrimination' that she faced with dignity and depth.
Kate Harding at Salon offers a powerful dissection of the shocking case of a 12-year-old girl being told by site supervisors at her middle school that she had 'asked for it', and that her attacker's 'hormones' were to blame. Jezebel has more.
In the UK, Dark Purple Moon tackles the graphic, distressing 'anti-rape' adverts currently being featured all over the London public transport system, reminding us that rape doesn't just 'happen'.
In slightly better news, In a Strange Land has details of a new rape prevention programme to train bar staff in reducing the risk of rape. The programme is refreshingly free of victim blaming language, in part because it was compiled in conjunction with anti-rape educators. And this week Al Franken's anti-rape amendment has been signed into law in the United States, which would 'withold defence contracts from companies like KBR if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court", after Jamie Leigh Jones was prevented from seeking justice for her charge of gang-rape by Haliburton (via Shakesville). Slowly but surely, and with tireless work from feminists of all genders, the dialectic of the rape culture we are living in is beginning to falter.
So, that about wraps it up for 2009, no pun intended. It's been a really exciting year for feminism online and in the meatspace, and next year looks set to be even more jam-packed. Watch this space for details of the next Carnival; meanwhile, on behalf of the new-and-improved Carnival of Feminists, it falls to me to wish all readers and contributors, of every faith and none, a happy holiday and a tolerable end to this crazy bloody decade. In sisterhood. x
Monday, 2 November 2009
Hemlines and hypocrisy: fourth column for Morning Star
This season's key hemlines, like the those of last season and the season before that, are short - joyfully short, shockingly short.
Shirts are see-through and short, jackets are spangly and short, and mini-dresses - the staple for all those Christmas parties we're doubtless going to be invited to - are sequinned. And yes, extremely short.
Fashion loves barely-there hemlines. They fulfil almost none of the basic functions of clothing and only look entirely good on skinny teenagers. But there's a downside to short skirts, too.
This season's key hemlines are, according to almost a third of the population, an invitation to rape.
Some 34 per cent of respondents to a recent Amnesty survey believed that if a woman is attacked while wearing "revealing" clothing, she is at very least "partially responsible."
So in a world where rape is often the fault of the victim, in a world where only 6 per cent of reported rapes end in conviction and prominent celebrities can step forward to say that a man who drugged and anally and vaginally penetrated a 13-year-old did not commit "rape-rape," what's a fashion-forward feminist to do?
When we discuss rape, we almost never discuss the men who rape - as if rape were not a real crime but a force of nature, a facet of male biology that can only be avoided, not punished or eradicated.
Our dialectic of rape and consent is embedded in the weasel words and outright denial of patriarchal apologists.
If a woman is raped, she invariably "asked for it," despite the fact that provocation has been shown to be a factor in under 5 per cent of rapes, as compared with 22 per cent of murders.
If a woman reports her rapist, British tabloids would have us believe that she is part of an epidemic of women making false rape charges, despite the fact that no more false charges are filed for rape than for any other crime.
And if she happened, at the time, to be drunk, to be behaving in - heaven forbid - a sexually forthright manner or to be wearing a gorgeously on-trend sequinned micro-mini dress as pioneered by Balmain at London Fashion Week, well, what on Earth did she expect?
In this patriarchal consumer culture, the messages that women receive about sex and shopping are intertwined.
The media we absorb instruct us that in order to be beautiful and admirable we should to buy whatever's in fashion and wear it with just the right note of quiet, demure sexiness.
Our sexuality and our consumption, still women's most bankable talents, should be both conspicious and submissive.
And yet when for whatever reason we choose to play along, we are immediately told that it's our fault if we're not taken seriously, that we are fair game to be mocked and dehumanised and underpaid and underpromoted and objectified and harassed and assaulted and raped...[read the rest of this article at Morning Star online.]
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