In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Crime

Alton Sterling and Philando Castile Open Thread

I apologize for Feministe’s long, long radio silence, and I hate that this is the occasion to break it. This space is available for discussion of the recent extrajudicial executions of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. Updates and links to commentary will be added as they arise. Please be respectful and take your “All Lives Matter” and “Blue Lives Matter” elsewhere; this is neither the time nor the place.

Oregon militia bulldozes Native American archaeological site, still NBD

During their weeks-long occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, armed militants have declared their intention to return the federal land to its “rightful owners.” They’ve also made it apparent that by “rightful owners,” they weren’t talking about the Burns Paiute tribe, whose ancestral lands encompass the reserve. And on Wednesday, they made their priorities clear when they bulldozed a path through a Burns Paiute archaeological site.

Quick hit: An armed militia has occupied a federal building in Oregon, but whatever, NBD

On Saturday, a group of armed men seized control of the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside of Burns, Oregon. The building was unoccupied at the time they took control and they hold no hostages, but Ammon Bundy (son of Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, he of his own anti-government standoff in 2014), has said that they “will be [t]here as long as it takes,” up to several years, adding, “We have no intentions of using force upon anyone, (but) if force is used against us, we would defend ourselves.”

Quick hit: This is not a thing that happens

Content note: rape and rape apologia

Bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. You don’t accidentally fall on somebody and penetrate their vagina with your penis. I can’t believe this defense flew, and after only 30 fucking minutes of deliberations. Who thinks this? Who thinks “Gee, it is totes reasonable to think that he tripped and fell on her and his semen was only inside her because of a previous sexual encounter and she’s lying when she says she woke up to find him forcing himself on her, because ladies are just batshit like that, she’s probably doing this for funsies”?

Some days you wake up and read the news and realize exactly how much misogyny is operating in this world, and it’s too early to have a drink. I’m going to go make tea now.

White men with guns

So, ludlow expressed some confusion over the intent of this post. Here’s the story:

The most embarrassing thing to me about it is that I used the wrong word. Should be “rein.”

The post was originally supposed to be a modest proposal to tag Christian white guys, with the phrase “a modest proposal” in it as a tip-off. But by the time I got done finding all the links I was actually too upset to actually maintain the requisite tone, and it spilled over into just feeling bitter and tired and powerless. So there you go. It’s somewhat facetious, but genuinely upset.

White cis Christian men with guns are simply too big a threat to the rest of us. They gun down black church-goers. They shoot up Planned Parenthood, injuring several cops (and still get taken alive, because apparently that’s not as big a threat as a 12-year-old black kid with a toy gun). They kill people for no discernible reason. When they have badges, and even when they don’t, they kill unarmed black men and women. They kill waitresses for asking them not to smoke. They kill random people because they can’t get laid. They shoot up their schools. They kill their own children and former wives. And then members of that group, that same group, white cis Christian men who are pro-gun, have the balls to publicly question the morality and motives of other people.

And I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of following these news stories. I’m tired of getting minute-by-minute news on Twitter. I’m tired of seeing innocent people turned into hashtags. But if white, Christian, pro-gun, cis men can go on TV and question the integrity of Syrian refugees and US Muslims on the basis of nothing rational whatsoever, if France feels justified using its state of emergency to police environmental groups, then I feel perfectly justified here in calling white Christian men with guns out as the menace they are. Because they exist at the perfect intersection of a number of self-satisfied, entitled, rage-filled streets, and they do these things and then their brethren have the nerve to call the rest of us irrational, emotional, dangerous, subhuman.

And somehow in movies and on TV, we still pretend they’re the good guys. It’s sickening. I’ve always been anti-gun. And I know some regular commenters on this site have always argued strongly for the importance of gun ownership. I’m beginning to think they’re right. Guns aren’t the problem. White cis Christian men having them is the problem.

Fair warning: I’m going to completely wipe any comment accusing me of reverse racism, misandry, cisphobia, or any such imaginary nonsense. I’m tired and angry. You don’t like this characterization? Then reign in the men who keep making the news.

Hundredth verse, same as the first: Talking mental health after mass shootings

We’re now almost four weeks out from the shooting at an Oregon community college that killed nine people and injured ten more, and we know what that means: We can now stop “caring about mental health care” without guilt. Time heals all weaknesses in the mental health system, and while it becomes a subject under great scrutiny whenever a gunman commits a mass shooting, the passage of time, and the accompanying passage of fear, washes away those concerns pretty effectively. (Until the next shooting, of course.) And it happens isn’t because we manage to effectively address all of our problems in the interim but because discussions purportedly focused on Improving Mental Health Care are actually all about Protecting The Good People From The Crazies.

Amnesty International, CATW, a bunch of celebrities, and decriminalization

[Content note: sex trafficking and sexual abuse]

Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Lena Dunham, Emily Blunt, and numerous other celebrities, along with former sex workers and victims of sex trafficking and women’s rights advocates, have signed a letter from the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) criticizing a policy currently under discussion within Amnesty International. The policy, which Amnesty plans to introduce at a meeting in Dublin in August, promotes decriminalization of sex work to protect sex workers’ rights, health, and safety.

Links: In, around, and about Baltimore (Updated 5/1)

In the wake of Freddie Gray’s death from injuries mysteriously sustained while in police custody two weeks ago, and following his funeral yesterday, people in Baltimore have protested — some of it peaceful, much of it, as of Monday afternoon, violent, and with staggering consequence. Now, as the community comes back out into their neighborhoods, peaceful protesters continue to gather to voice their frustrations, and a lot of other people have things to say, too.

The report is out on Rolling Stone‘s handling of the UVA rape story, and it’s understandably awful

On November 19, 2014, Rolling Stone published a lengthy and damning piece on the handling of sexual assault on college campuses, centering around a University of Virginia student, pseudonymously identified as “Jackie,” and her alleged gang-rape by members of one of the school’s fraternities. It was striking and stomach-turning — the attack, the response from fellow students, the response (or, more accurately, lack thereof) by university administration depicted in that story. It was also, the world would later learn, almost entirely unsubstantiated. A new report by the Columbia School of Journalism, commissioned by Rolling Stone back in December, meticulously outlines those mistakes.