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

Month: October 2013

Is Anonymous good for Maryville?

There’s a part of me that thinks yes — when the legal system has failed, there are few other options to seek justice, and an internet collective isn’t the worst one. But I’m also incredibly wary of unchecked power and the ethos of spreading information without verifying its authenticity or accuracy, and a movement that feeds on rage and indignation without any real accountability. It’s particularly important to look at these issues when they’re being carried out for a cause we believe in. Does the calculus change if Anonymous’s tactics are leveled at someone we support? And then, are the tactics and ethics bad, or just the issue? I have a feeling this position will be very unpopular with the Feministe commentariat, but here goes:

What did she expect to happen?

That’s the question a Fox News contributor is asking about the Maryville rape victim. She snuck out! She drank! What did she think was going to happen? As a woman who in my youth did sometimes sneak out, drink and appear in the same room as young men, here is a brief and thoroughly non-exhaustive list of everything I expected to happen on the nights I went out:

Back in Action

The U.S. government is back in business, and the shut-down achieved, well, nothing. Except leaving a lot of people out of work and financially strapped. How did you spend your shutdown?

Selfless Signal-Boosting Wednesday

This thread is for links to pieces on other people’s blogs that you have found delightful/memorable/provoking recently (they can be older posts, just something you’ve found recently relevant). Please save the self-promotion links for a Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday thread – use this thread to let Feministe readers know about the other blogs you love to read, especially those on the margins of the mainstream social justice communities, who tend to not get as much exposure as they should.

Sex + Cookies 2.0 | Episode #3: “Consent Lies”

A well-meaning mother****er at one of our schools recently suggested that integrating consent into sex education should prevent rape, because it helps date rapists to understand what consent does and doesn’t look like. Bollocks, we say. Whilst teaching consent does create a more feminist, hostile environment for rapists who try operating without being called out, it’s not the same as educating date rapists to recognise signs of consent – because rapists in fact know damn well what consent looks like, despite claiming they just didn’t realise their dates said no. And coincidentally, that’s the topic of this episode…

What’s going on in Maryville?

In Maryville, Missouri, a 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped by a high school senior from a well-connected family. She and a 13-year-old friend snuck out to go to a party with some senior boys, mostly popular football players. They gave her alcohol until she blacked out, and one of them had sex with her. Photos were taken. Then they left her on her doorstep in the winter cold, where she nearly froze to death. Sexual assault, sexual exploitation and endangerment charges were all brought. Then they were dropped. The girl’s family was essentially run out of town, and their house eventually burned down. The entire story is horrific, and the Kansas City Star offers a great piece of in-depth reporting here.