It’s sex, Jim, but not as we know it

Hoyden About Town has another post up in their depressingly-long-running series entitled “It’s not sex, it’s rape” – reporting the nigh-countless occurrences of sexual assaults being described as “having sex”.  Lauredhel includes a link to the fairly comprehensive and highly-recommended Pulling the Plug on Rape Culture One Word at a Time post at The Curvature:

What incorrectly using the word “sex” in cases of rape does is cast a shadow of doubt over the accusation.  The phrase “the defendant had sex with the woman” does indeed assume innocence for the defendant, but does not afford the alleged victim the same courtesy.  Her version of the events is entirely erased – and it also presents the “sex” as an objective fact, though the victim certainly might not view it as such. As far too many people don’t get, rape is not merely sex, but an act of violence – and this wording erases that as well.

Cara talks about how referring to things as “sex” and not “rape” implies consensuality, it implies that what occurred was just sex, not an act of violence – but on reflection, I realised there was a whole other, fairly grotesque, narrative in play.

To wit, that “had sex with a woman” may as well read as “had sex with a mobile vacuum tube“.

Down Under Feminists’ Carnival: I learned the truth at 17, that love was a patriarchal construct keeping me down

It’s that time of the month again – carnival time!*

Here it is, people, Volume XVII of the DUFC, containing the very best of Southern Hemisphere feminist discourse for the month of September.

Ten Simple Rules for Surviving Patriarchy

1. Mess Up That Dominant Paradigm Good And Hard

Boganette is leading the charge here with her sheer audacity in letting people know she isn’t going to change her name on marriage.  Gold star for the bonus cognitive dissonance caused by having a male partner willing to take her name!  It’s just not right!

Chally needs to you understand that you cannot actually be that progressive if you refer to things as “lame”.

In A Strange Land destroys Greg Sheridan’s reasoning why women shouldn’t be allowed in frontline combat positions.  I’m just amazed he didn’t raise the extra cost involved of shipping manicurists to warzones.  Then she takes on gender essentialism and what “woman” means.

2. Speak Truth to Power/Bigotry/Douchebags/Patriarchy

Just in case there were any concern that feminists just don’t talk about important issues enough …

Lauredhel reports on a Canadian study about the actual risks of injuries to mother and baby in homebirths vs hospital births.  Jo Tamar provides some analysis of why, despite the facts, doctors still prefer hospital births.

Spilt Milk writes an open letter to Kyle “Trigger Warning” Sandilands, whose work I am eternally grateful has never made it over the Tasman.

Chally reminds us that there are many different ways to be an activist.

Julie at the Hand Mirror reports on the Roundtable on Violence Against Women’s factsheet, released in response to the sentencing of Clayton Weatherston; and Anna takes on the odious CYFSWatch.

3. Break Down Controlling Narratives

shinynewcoin takes apart the notion of being “high maintenance” and the way it punishes women for doing what they’re supposed to.

Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony draws a fantastic comparison between men’s and women’s “risky” behaviour.

Richie dissects the good old “But I didn’t meeeeeeeeeeeean to!” line.

Lauredhel says yes, “these things” did happen in your day, you just said “boys will be boys”.

4. Don’t Forget The Men

Feminists are often criticised for making it all about the chicks and not caring about the poor oppressed suffering men.  There’s something in that.

We should definitely care about the men who get to have parental-celebration barbeques while women-parents shop, as documented by Fuck Politeness.  And we would be terribly remiss not to care about fathers getting governmental thank-yous for having the balls to financially support their own children, as brilliantly savaged by shinynewcoin.

Boganette has a Public Service Announcement about how it’s not your period that broke up your relationship, it’s the fact your boyfriend was an asshole.

5. Eat, Drink, Wear a Size Blah and Be Merry – or don’t

Chally links to an online feminist bookclub.

Boganette would be most delighted if you could not tell her she’s lost weight, asshole.  PodBlack Cat doesn’t drink, and has not been stripped of her Aussie citizenship for it.

Boganette and News With Nipples both cover the report which shows some women drink before sex due to self-esteem issues with their bodies.  Boganette is full of scorn, NWN wonders what the connection is with the study’s funders, Femfresh (for all your labia-deodorant needs),

6. Be Inspired By Women Who Rock

The Hoydens About Town presents an obituary of Barbara Moore:  Feminist, Lawyer, Writer & Grad Student of the University of Melbourne.  Bloody powerful stuff there.

Godard’s Letterboxes has the mighty Sarah Connor at #3 on their Top 100 Sci Fi and Fantasy Women list.  So far, so kickass, but if there ain’t a Servalan or an Ivanova showing up shortly there shall be a reckoning.

7. Have Kids and Consign Yourself to the Fight Against Gender Stereotyping and Societal Expectation

This is clearly a big issue of our times, and that’s just going by how often it crops up in the Australofemiblogosphere.  Heck, it starts before the bub even arrives!

Two posts on breastfeeding laws in WA: Lauredhel celebrating the likely law change, and girliejones explaining that yeah, she WANTS the freaking symbolism.

Godard’s Letterboxes has boys, not aliens.  blue milk has a boy and a girl – clearly the perfect sample for making wide conclusions about inherent gender differences.

Wildly Parenthetical wonders what’s so great about having a normal childhood.  Made in Melbourne sees people comparing the pole-dancing doll to the breastfeeding doll and is perplexed. Tor notes that the lovely paradox of performing femininity hits you good and young.

Lauredhel struggles with the eternal question, “How can feminist mums avoid being humorless childhood-ruiners?”

8. Celebrate Suffrage Day

September 19 was Women’s Suffrage Day in NZ.  Anne Else used the occasion to savage Chris Trotter’s waxing lyrical about the NZ Labour Party getting its manliness back on – apparently those 9 years in power under a woman leader were the worst thing to happen, or something.

In A Strange Land reprints the Women’s Christian Temperance Union’s reasons why women should get the vote, and Homepaddock features a cartoon from the era – why my househusband isn’t in the kitchen cooking my dinner right now is my question!

9. Refuse to Give a Fuck About Artistic Careers

In A Strange Land looks at the concept of moral luck, and about sums up the Polanski argument for me:

I don’t care how great a filmmaker he is. The fact is that he was convicted of raping a thirteen year old child, and he fled from justice.

An Irritating Truth gives good tips on how to be a socially-acceptable sex offender.

10. Remember, Little-p Politics Matter

The policing of trans people’s gender presentation.  Being a feminist in the open-source world.  The wider issues about “right to die” arguments – like the limited options people may be given.  The dominance of the male voice.  The wording of and assumptions underlying “scientific” surveys.  Whether privileged people’s “choice” trumps basic cultural sensitivity.  And why fear of genital mutilation doesn’t warrant refugee status in Australia.

That’s all she wrote!  Remember to submit your posts for the next edition of the Carnival, being hosted by Jo over at Wallaby.  ETA at Jo’s request:  The theme is Carers’ Week / Caring.  See her comment below for more info!

And if you’re ever at a loss for some good reading material, check out my own DUFC Contributors’ List (soon to be updated with this month’s new additions, I promise!).

Next time on Ideologically Impure:  savaging critique of the “posts” that didn’t make it into the Carnival, largely due to being horrible spam.

*Remember, boys, if you don’t actually want to know the details of my menstrual cycle, you are free to (a) not ask and (b) not ascribe my annoyance at you to it.

Rich white man expected to suffer consequences of own actions, end times nigh

Kate Harding basically nails it on the Roman Polanski issue, at Salon.com and then Jezebel.

Roman Polanski raped a child. Let’s just start right there, because that’s the detail that tends to get neglected when we start discussing whether it was fair for the bail-jumping director to be arrested at age 76, after 32 years in “exile” (which in this case means owning multiple homes in Europe, continuing to work as a director, marrying and fathering two children, even winning an Oscar, but never — poor baby — being able to return to the U.S.).

I don’t really have anything to add, because it’s just boggling my mind how this is even an issue.  How “he raped a child and fled the country to avoid being punished for it” is somehow not that bad because he’s made some movies and been forced to live in the cultural wasteland that is France for years.

Newsbites

Two articles of vague interest to the Dr Worth story:

Honest John plays strong hand, or How I learned to stop worrying and love my lack of journalistic integrity, by Richard Long.  Two tiny wee points:

For Mr Goff, this saga was a publicity godsend. A real live sex scandal so early in the term.

There seems to be some serious mileage being made out of the idea that it is totally plausible that a politician honouring a person’s confidentiality and taking things to the PM privately is just a cunning tactic to make the PM look even worse.

Perhaps in these fragile economic times, tinfoil stocks are looking surprisingly healthy?

And seriously, Richard, like many other rightwing trolls, it appears you haven’t been informed that Helen Clark isn’t even in the country any more:

We can all recall occasions when Opposition leaders have had to demean themselves to make the news bulletins… Miss Clark, at the margin of error level in the opinion polls, once leaped from a river bank on to inflated rubber tubes and was pictured at impact, legs splayed. Thank goodness she was wearing a wetsuit.

It’s Ms, and it’s a bit rich for a journalist to be complaining about the media’s choice of photograph, and the total obliviousness to just how much it says about Richard Long’s attitude to women that he has to find a sexually-implying phrase to describe her position is at once staggering and hilarious.  Yes, Richard, we get it, if she hadn’t been wearing a wetsuit one might have seen her naughty bits and you’re a proper red-blooded man who shies from such things and anyway she’s ugly, amirite?

Actress in stalker crossbow attack horror:  *Callousness Alert* Tonight, Simon, I’m going to be playing every idiot troll commenter of the last week:

The man had been sending Casanovas love letters and confronted her after her performance in Night of the Iguana.

WHY DIDN’T SHE JUST TELL HIM TO STOP? GEEZ. HE OBVIOUSLY WOULDN’T HAVE KEPT SENDING HER LETTERS UNLESS HE HAD SOME ENCOURAGEMENT, GOD.

He attacked her after she told him she wanted nothing to do with him.

*crickets*

And no, obvious commenters, no I am not saying Richard Worth is a potentially violent stalker. And no, I’m not equating text messages with a physical attack.  And no, “normal harmless guy” and “violent stalker” are, tragically, not mutually-exclusive always-identifiable-in-advance only-options-available.  Not that you care, yes?

Honest John plays strong handHonest John

Fight for your right to be called a harpy and STILL get harassed

Over at The Standard, the “how should Worth’s alleged victim(s) have reacted?” debate continues with everyone’s favourite psychic, Cactus Kate.

The case as given by CK and others is that if a woman doesn’t* instantly and firmly react to all and any inappropriate behaviour with a strident “YOU CAN’T AFFORD ME, SWEETHEART, BACK OFF”** well then she has no one to blame but herself.

They then go on to say that, therefore, that all people like me who defend Witness A and attack Worth’s alleged behaviour are the real misogynists, because we think women are passive victims who can’t stand up for themselves.

Which is fantastically logical for people living in a world where sexual harassment goes along the following lines:

1. Strange man approaches woman
2. Strange man says “Hey, I’d like to hire you, maybe in return you could suck my cock?”
3. Woman “stands up for herself”.
4. Strange man immediately ceases all inappropriate behaviour.

Unfortunately, human interaction only ever goes like that in the movies and the inside of Cactus Kate’s head.  But then, she also thinks people having coffee with a Minister of the Crown to discuss potential job opportunities should take a friend in case things turn nasty, and that victims of sexual harassment are suspect if they keep records – just like the Human Rights Commission advises them to.

I’d like everyone to please consider this: you’re at a cafe in Sylvia Park.***  Over at another table you see a well-dressed older man having coffee with a woman.  You may even recognise this man as a former partner at Simpson Grierson Law, or as the Member of Parliament for Epsom, or as the Associate Minister for Justice.

Suddenly, the woman bolts to her feet and declaims, “HOW DARE YOU OFFER ME EMPLOYMENT IN THIS CRUMMY CAFE, SIR!  DO NOT CONTACT ME AGAIN!” and storms out.

Now, how many of you are going to think, “What a fracking weirdo!” and how many of you are seriously going to think “You go girl, stand up for yourself to that pillar of the community offering you employment in a public space!”

Because that’s how it starts.  A working lunch.  A celebratory drink after work on a Friday.  An email asking how your weekend went.  And here’s the deal, folks.  If you’re going to argue, “Oh no, she didn’t need to rebuff him then, I meant later on when things got inappropriate” you fail.  There is no clear line between “professional meeting with utterly no sexual intentions whatsoever no sirree” and “oh, now I’m sexually harassing you.”  If we’re going to accept Cactus Kate’s theorem that women should Stand Up For Themselves, it’s got to be right from the get-go.

It’s got to mean shooting down every man who wants to get you a coffee after you’ve done him a favour.  It’s got to mean even bluntly refusing to do a coworker or superior a favour in the first place.  It means never letting a guy be nice to you, never letting a guy buy you flowers on your birthday or after a big project winds up or when a close relative dies, because if you won’t say fuck no get away from me I have no sexual interest in you whatsoever at the slightest provocation, well, how is he meant to get the message?

Because after that first step – which to you is just coffee or flowers or a pat on the back – your lack of strident strong-independent-woman smackdown is  giving him the wrong impression.

But hey, when you can’t get hired because you’ve developed a reputation as an insane overreacting bitch who can’t take a compliment without thinking it’s a come-on**** and you’re still getting dirty texts from your ex-boss because entitled harassing fucks will keep stalking you no matter how often you say no, be comforted with the fact that you stood up for yourself and you’ve made Cactus Kate proud.

*As she assumes Witness A didn’t.
**Which doesn’t feed into notions of women as commodities at all.
***Even though this makes you automatically trash.
****And because I know there are people itching to derail this, no. I do not think such reputations are good or deserved.  I just also acknowledge the reality of society’s reactions to anything a woman does – blame her.

I’m an equal-opportunity victim-blamer-hater

First things first, though, the XIIIth Down Under Feminists’ Carnival is up at SAHM Feminist. Awesome work, Azlemed!

Now, I must admit, I was probably asking for it when I agreed with Cactus Kate on something.  But I could hardly have expected the Universe to respond with the best most mindboggling piece of victim-blaming I’ve seen in a while.

She was lying there with her inbox open and her cellphone pulled up

The Richard Worth resignation/investigation has been fairly comprehensively covered by other Kiwi blogfiends.

And the victim-blaming has begun.

I don’t think the e-mails were actually illegal. Also, I would expect that this woman would have sent a fairly clear and direct response back to Worth when the first e-mail was received. Is there any indication that this actually happened? Otherwise there could be the suggestion that the woman was leading him on for the purpose making some political capital out of it.

Afterall, the behaviour, although disgusting, is not technically illegal, especially if Worth had reason to believe she was a willing party.

We need some sexual-harassment bingo boards, STAT!

First bold: “If the victim didn’t behave in exactly the manner I suggest a victim should have behaved in, she’s obviously not a real victim because she’s not fulfilling the role”.  See also the eternal if you cry you’re hysterical and unreliable, if you’re calm you clearly weren’t really raped dilemma.

I have been sexually harassed at work, and I have had unwelcome come-ons socially. And every time, I have kicked myself afterwards for not reacting the Right Way.  For defaulting to “shocked disbelief, unable to form coherent sentence” or “just be super-polite and hope he just goes away, girl” or “laugh nervously because brain is still processing godawful comment”.

According to tsmithfield and doubtless many, many others, you know what? I have nothing to complain about if my harasser then continues in his unwanted behaviour.  Because I didn’t react the Right Way.  Because power dynamics in work and political relationships don’t exist, because there’s no societal pressure especially on women to be polite and not come across as catty bitches.  Because all sexual harassers go straight to “would you like to fuck me in return for a sweet promotion” rather than starting so small, so just-this-side-of-weird that you question whether they’re really being skeezy or if you’re just overreacting, silly girl.

Bolding the second: “The victim isn’t a Logical Victim of the harasser, so there must be Something Else Going On.”  Because her failure to respond to the very first “Hey how’s it going” email with “STAY AWAY, HARASSING PIGFUCKER” must mean she has some ulterior motive.  Normally, we’d be going for she was flattered by his attention but because this is politics so God forbid we pass up the opportunity to insinuate some nasty conspiracy.  And of course, there’s no feeding into classics like “women using their sex appeal to lead Good Men astray” happening here at all.  Hell, it’s probably worse if she were doing it for political purposes rather than securing a designer-brand-furnishing sugar daddy like good strumpets do.

Bold part III, revenge of the bold: Just as we all know that being too drunk to form multisyllabic words is exactly the same as a signed affidavit affirming “I would like to engage in sexual intercourse with you right now”, it is also true, kiddies, that if you are polite, if you try to continue engaging on a purely professional level, if you redirect a person’s email address straight to your spam folder, if you God forbid try not to piss off someone with significant clout and thus stop short of rigging a Running Man necklace that will explode if they come within a hundred metres of you, your harasser is fully able to believe you are a willing participant.

The fact that all of this comes after the same commenter tries to argue that totally professional and un-sleazy emails could just have been, like, misinterpreted by someone with an axe to grind does nothing to improve my mood.  Dude, if you are sending ambiguous emails to coworkers which they could be reading in a “let’s go fuck now” sense, you’re really bad at writing emails.  And relying on “well, we just have to accept what the sender intended!” as a defence is just a wee bit sad.

But then, tsmithfield strikes me as the kind of person who’d say “I’m sorry you were offended” in all sincerity.

ETA: Let it be known that I love Mary Wilson of Radio New Zealand and wish to construct a small cathedral in her honour.

In other random news: I have to agree with Cactus Kate on this one.  Sorry, Shane-in-the-comment-above, the Herald is a lying, lying liar.  My sinuses are fucked as a general rule so add a headcold to that and I am screaming for the sweet sweet relief of pseudoephedrine, because nothing else allows me to feel vaguely human.

“Rape, not sex” watch: Oh look, yet another journo is capable of using the r-word.  Seems all a woman has to do is be in broad daylight* OR provably unconscious and suddenly, hey, it’s actual rape, not “took advantage of” or “began a sexual relationship with the prepubescent child”.

*And that’s still questionable; plenty of thoroughly-witnessed attacks still fail the victim-blaming game in the media.  I am by NO means interested to check out the complexion and dress sense of the accused in that one, no sirree.

Oh, *now* we can use the r-word

In case there were lingering doubt in anyone’s mind about the deliberate downplaying of sexual assault that occurs in media reports that commonly use phrases like “began having a sexual relationship with the nine-year-old”, and in case anyone still thinks the “not legally proven to be rape” argument holds water:

Horrified onlookers see daylight sex attack

A woman was abducted from a New Plymouth street and raped in broad daylight yesterday as horrified members of the public looked on.*

The 48-year-old was walking along Breakwater Rd … when she was grabbed by a man who forced her on to a nearby grass area where he sexually violated her in full view of the busy road.

…[Police] were able to arrest the alleged offender, a 29-year-old Taranaki man, soon after.

Look at that! Accurate use of the word “rape” while maintaining legally-mandated presumption of innocence! Who’d'a thunk it?

Unless of course there’s some reason this counts as “real” rape in some mystical way all those other cases don’t.

*In the interests of not confusing the point I am not even going to start on the phrase “looked on”.

Sex crime reporting: You’re doing it wrong

First up:  hat tips to Fuck Politeness and Hoyden About Town.

As seen at that bastion of journalistic integrity, the Sydney Morning Herald:

A 13-year-old girl who was violated by seven teenage boys – some of them dressed in school uniforms – was told to “smile like you’re enjoying it” as they took turns with her in a public toilet cubicle, a court heard today.

The girl had vaginal and oral sex in several different Sydney locations with the boys in acts that one teenager taped on his mobile phone and later sent to his friends.

THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS RAPE. THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS RAPE. THE WORD YOU ARE LOOKING FOR IS RAPE.

Maybe if I just focus on the GODAWFUL GRAMMAR I can keep my fury within reasonable limits

As seen at The Hand Mirror, our fascination with blaming filthy drunken jezebels for their own sexual assaults continues in fine form in 2009.

The truly pathetically-bad grammar in the Stuff article doesn’t help my mood either:

Dunedin police are warning woman to monitor their alcohol intake and ensure their personal safety on nights out after two unrelated sex attacks over the weekend.

Of course that may be partly down to the fact that I’m jobhunting at the moment and cannot believe other people are getting hired and paid God knows how much to produce this kind of crap. When it’s a grammatical error that Microsoft Word would spot on a bad day …

But maybe we Nasty Hairy-Legged Feminists are missing the bigger picture here. Perhaps we’re so blinded by our obsessions with being treated like the normal human beings we are and not being subjected to various and multiple oppressions in our day-to-day lives that we’ve totally missed the existence of Magical Sexual Assault Pixies.

Obviously when women gather in public places and dare to have a few vodka cranberries with their mates, the barrier between the worlds is weakened and the Magical Sexual Assault Pixies are able to slip through. It has to be, because otherwise the only explanation for the Dunedin fucking Police’s attitude – that it’s women who should monitor their alcohol intake, it’s women who need to “take care” – is that we live in a world that assumes that when a woman drinks, it’s her fault if someone else chooses to assault her.

I know this is an old song, but seriously. Where is the fucking, “If you drink and fuck someone who doesn’t consent, you’re a bloody rapist” ad campaign? Where is the, “Stay Safe In The City – stick with your mates and don’t let them act like scum” campaign?

Oh, right – that would involve us acting like men should be the ones to modify their behaviour, control themselves, “take care”, be held responsible. And we wouldn’t want that, would we, precious?