Sexual Assault – Page 4

EXCLUSIVE – Full transcript of “India’s Daughter”

Today is International Women’s Day, and whilst Feministe has historically received flak for sometimes myopic, U.S.-centric feminism, today’s post is at the globetrotting end of the spectrum. Were you disappointed by recent news that India’s misogynists have succeeded in intimidating England’s BBC into actively pulling Leslee Udwin’s rape culture documentary from YouTube’s servers in California? Long story short, India’s Daughter is now considered contraband, much like vibrators in Alabama. So we sat and laboriously typed up a transcript of Udwin’s film, in all its damning glory…

Q&A: Crowdfunding feminism into media…

Women’s representation in media is actually growing worse, not better, and women still comprise a fraction of directors off-screen. Unsurprisingly, some of the more feminist media we’ve seen in recent years – Tropes vs. Women, Veronica Mars and Hunting Ground – have been funded through alternative means or produced independently, to avoid creative interference by misogynistic studio suits. In this post, I interview one woman who’s ended up using the crowdfunding model to work on her upcoming Slut: A Documentary Film…

Fifty Shades of Sexual Assault: Y’all, I told you.

[Trigger warning for rape]

A University of Illinois student is facing charges for sexual assault after, he says, trying to re-enact a scene from — yup — Fifty Shades of Grey. Mohammad Hossain is accused of sexually assaulting a fellow student in his dorm room Saturday night, Christian-Grey-with-a-belt-in-the-Red-Room-of-Pain style.

Q&A: Rape, documentary filmmaking and triggers…

Millennials, social media and damning federal investigations are reshaping rape culture’s topography, as more women push back against a culture that loves protecting rapists and vilifying victims. One survivor of childhood slut-shaming opted to make her experience public, posting her diary from childhood online. And after hearing from other women their harrowing encounters with rape culture and victim-blaming, she decided to try making a documentary about rape culture itself. This post stems from Feministe’s interview with the accidental feminist filmmaker behind Slut: A Documentary Film…

Just a few reminders before you buy those “50 Shades” Valentines

[Trigger warning for sexual violence and emotional abuse]

Valentine’s Day is coming up! That day of romance, of togetherness, of coupledom, of… domestic abuse… Valentine’s Day is the release date of 50 Shades of Grey, that sensationalistic movie based on the “How to Spot an Abuser” pamphlet in your college guidance counselor’s office. Women and men who have read the book and know perfectly well what the story is about will flock to theatres, either a) dreaming of the day that they’ll be stalked and violated by someone as dreamy as Christian, or b) hoping to score on Valentine’s night with the person they took to the movie. And while people are free to get their rocks off to whatever they want (within certain limits), it’s important to acknowledge that what may (for some reason) come across as sultry and sexy on the page would, in real life, be a Razorbacks halftime show’s worth of red flags.

Cosby’s career death is a feminist failure, not victory…

Media attention around Bill Cosby’s fondness for drugging/raping women might be fading, but it’s not going away. Yet Woody Allen just scored a new show, despite longstanding claims of raping children from his own family. As pundits ponder why Cosby is nose-diving whilst Allen and countless others keep chugging along, it’s time to once and for all settle the question of why Cosby’s career really tumbled…

The Cosby jokes at the Golden Globes

[Content note for rape]

During their opening monologue at the Golden Globes last night, hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler went there: They went straight in with a series of very direct jokes about the rape allegations against Bill Cosby.

Expert witness: 9-year-old “protect[ed]” from the trauma of her abuse by her low IQ

[Content note: sexual abuse, ableism]

In 2010, a 9-year-old, developmentally disabled girl at a school in Los Angeles was sexually assaulted on five different occasions by a fellow student during an after-school program. When her parents sued the LAUSD, the district’s expert witness, celebrity psychologist Dr. Stan Katz, testified that her low IQ reduced the amount of emotional stress the girl suffered, acting as a “protective factor.”

“Well, she didn’t act like a rape victim,” Cosby edition

[Strong trigger warnings for rape]

Jesus. This again.

Recently, in a comedy routine, stand-up comedian Hannibal Buress brought up a fact that has largely been ignored over the past eight years: that Bill Cosby has been accused of drugging and raping multiple women. Among them is Joan Tarshis, whose story of two encounters — and not just one — has some people bringing up that familiar, reprehensible speculation that of course she brought it on herself, or else she’s lying.

South Carolina: Swell for fetuses, less so for victims of domestic violence

In Florida, Stand Your Ground was used as the foundation of George Zimmerman’s defense after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. In South Carolina, it was used to defend a man who walked out of the house with a gun to confront “women thugs” who had threatened his daughter; he ended up shooting a teenage boy in his car instead. Also in Florida, Marissa Alexander has repeatedly been denied the chance to use the Stand Your Ground defense against charges after she fired a warning shot above the head of her abusive husband. This month, Charleston prosecutors moved to further endanger the Marissa Alexanders of South Carolina by saying that Stand Your Ground shouldn’t apply to victims of domestic violence who confront their abusers.