Downlo

Victim-blaming and social control

Amanda Marcotte on rape prevention ‘tips’:

[T]hese “tips” are actually a list of reasons that it’s okay to rape someone. If the tip is, “Don’t wear miniskirts”, that ends up saying to rapists, juries, and cops, “If she was wearing a miniskirt, she had it coming.” Rapists basically use these tips as a checklist for what to look for in potential victims…it’s a keep-yourself-from-going-to-jail strategy. If you attack drunk women, women who have a history of having (gasp!) sex, women who are wearing miniskirts after dark, then your chances go up of not getting caught. Your victims will be afraid to come forward, the cops won’t take it seriously, juries will let you off. So every time you pass around a “how not to get raped” list, you’re saying to rapists, “Here are the women you can rape and we, as a society, will allow it.”

Discourse, male privilege, and women’s lived experiences

Men build discursive spaces and discursive norms based on their own experience. And for instance, in a male-built discursive space, a threat of sexual violence may be viewed by male participants as an obvious joke. After all, the vast majority of men will never experience sexual violence in their lifetime. (Fewer than 4% of men will be sexually assaulted.) And so within the context of a male discussion on a World of Warcraft forum, for instance, it may seem entirely innocuous to use ideas of sexual violence to express one’s views on the game, or to use “rape” as a verb to describe one’s gameplay skills.

Women as a group have a vastly different experience with the idea of sexual violence. One in six women will be a victim of sexual assault during her lifetime. (Yes, some men are also sexual assault victims. But the numbers are overwhelmingly female — about 90% of sexual assault victims are women.) Rape is not an abstract idea or an obvious joke. For thousands of women, it is an immediate and extremely painful reality.

[…]

The same goes for statements about violence in general. In a male-dominated discursive space, it may be viewed as normal to make aggressive, threatening statements. However, men’s and women’s experiences with violence are also vastly different. One in four women in the United States has been a victim of domestic violence. Suddenly, the joke about wanting to punch somebody else isn’t so funny.

(Source: feministlawprofessors.com)

Penn State and Berkeley: A Tale of Two Protests

On the campus of Penn State University in State College Pennsylvania, several hundred students rioted in anger after the firing of legendary 84-year-old head football coach Joe Paterno. At the University of California at Berkeley, 1,000 students, part of the Occupy USA movement, attempted to maintain their protest encampment in the face of police orders to clear them out.

[…]

The difference is that at Berkeley, the Occupiers—a diverse assemblage of students, linking arms—pushed back and displayed true courage in the face of state violence. They would not be moved. These students are a credit to their school and represent the absolute best of a young generation who are refusing to accept the world as it is.

At Penn State, we saw the worst of this generation: the flotsam and the fools; the dregs and the Droogs; young men of entitlement who rage for the machine.

No matter how many police officers raised their sticks, the students of Berkeley stood their ground, empowered by a deeper set of commitments to economic and social justice.

No matter how many children come forward to testify how Joe Paterno’s dear friend Jerry Sandusky brutally sodomized them on their very campus, the students at Penn State stood their ground. They stood committed to a man whose statue adorns their campus, whose salary exceeds $1.5 million and whose name for years was whispered to them like he was a benevolent Russian czar and they were the burgeoning Black Hundreds.

[…]

November 9 was a generational wake-up call to every student on every campus in this country. Which side are you on? Do you defend the ugliest manifestations of unchecked power or do you fight for a better world with an altogether different set of values? Do you stand with the Thugs of Penn State or do you stand with Occupiers of Berkeley?

(Source: thenation.com)

• Penn State athletic department’s motto: “Success with honor”
• Penn State’s motto: “Making life better”

What they should really say:

• Penn State athletic department’s motto: “Success over honor”
• Penn State’s motto: “Making life better for rapists”