An Arm's Length from Common Sense

Pensiero via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

After a spate of gang assaults on women in the German city of Cologne, the mayor recommended women stay "an arm's length" from people they don't know in order to prevent sexual assault.

A lot of people objected to this because, as usual, it put the onus of responsibility on women to avoid being raped.  I am somewhat ambivalent about that.  Yes, I should be able to be naked and unconscious on the public highway and still safe from being raped, because we want to live in a civilised society.  Nevertheless it is only sensible that women, including myself, take certain precautions to avoid high risk situations.

My main objection mayor Reker relates to the sheer level of cluelessness she shows in suggesting this particular precaution in the context of this particular crime spree.  Specifically, an arm's length distance is impossible to maintain in normal dailly life, and means fuck all when you are being gang attacked in the street by a mob of 80 to 100 men.

Gang sexual attacks are a case where not only is the female victim not at all responsible for the crime, there is no reasonable precaution she could have taken that would not obliterate her right to be in public spaces at all.  Gang sexual attacks can only be responded to as break downs in civil order that require a mass, coordinated, and emphatic response in which victim behavior is simply not a factor.

We continue to not know how to deal with domestic violence against men

A recent story about the Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk presents very common scenario.  I have seen this happen myself, first hand, and over and over. A statement is made about domestic violence.  A comment is made that the statement or initiative embraces only female victims.  Adjustments are made, but very shortly afterwards the gender bias of the DV community reasserts itself.

Domestic violence is, as Palaszczuk notes, one area in which gender is relevant in that there is often a dynamic where the  "issue is the attitude men have to women as their possessions". But gender is also at play when men are victims and the seriousness of their situation is not respected, their experience is not validated, and there may be little of no help available to them as male victims because services and shelters in the area accommodate only females.

Palaszczuk's argument seems to be that we should essentially ignore, or resist paying undue attention, to male victims because they are a minority.  When Australia long history of discrimination should sure teach us that ignoring the plight of vulnerable minorities is a mistake that the government just keep on making. Any initiative to address domestic violence must accommodate male victims as equally 'valid' victims of this crime with equal access to assistance.

UN Commission Report on Online Violence Against Women

Like any space on this planet, the internet contains violence, including violence against females.  So the report CYBER VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND GIRLS (shouty ALL CAPS from original) certainly has a valid subject.

The report itself is steeped in sex-negative assumptions that are not made explicit.
For example:

•  Referring to "revenge porn" (posting explicit material about a woman without her permission) simply as "porn" as if these are interchangeable things. 
• Sexting is discussed only as a risk, not a positive and deliberate expression of sexuality between competent and consenting individuals. 
• "Mainstreaming" of the pornography is treated only as a problem.
• Pornography is characterized as inherently abusive in content and damaging to male viewers.
• Non-heterosexual content and female consumers of pornography are not acknowledged to exist.

Many women I know have been effected by threats, stalking and various kind of online harassment (including group attacks) that were gender-based. And I do think the overall goals of this report to increase women's' access to online opportunities is a good one.  But the implicit assumption that this will not include any kind of sex-positive material (a.k.a "pornography") is self-defeating.

The report has a pervasive assumption that sex work and pornography of any kind is only damaging, and not a realm in which opportunity can also exist.  The very choice to refer to pornography as "porn" strikes me as telling. As it the choice to cite alarming statistics about how most porn depicts abuse and turns men into abusers without ever defining what is being counted as porn (in a document where almost every other repeatedly used term is explicitly define, porn is still "I know it when I see it"?).

What I think is missing is that online opportunities for women include the ability to explore and express their sexuality and take part in creative activities and exchanges about sexuality. Fostering, as much as possible, a safe environment online does not meant rendering the online space neuter and completely asexual. (Indeed, even the exploration of asexual identity requires being able to explore responses to sexualized material and discuss sexuality and asexuality freely).

In summary: Addressing the problem of cyber-violence against women requires that women's sexual and gender identities must be addressed positively. Sexuality cannot be framed only as a danger to women from which they must be protected, and never as a trait to be celebrated and expressed. This sex-negative approach effectively silences women on an important subject, one of the core subjects that is being used to restrict and victimize them.

Fab.com and Gun Chic Cliches

I am getting very very tired of Fab.com featuring design after design based on guns.  Even if you are not disgusted by gun chic and gangster kids shooting other innocent kids on a daily basis it is a design cliche.

Time to try just a little harder, please?

The same could be said for the perky but clearly generic reply I got when I emailed them about this concern. If you aren't going to make any effort to personalize the response you might as well use an auto-responder that says: 'we want your money, not your opinions'.

Examples shown are from today's Fab email, similar examples from (on average) every Fab email over the last month.

Hoodies=Mini-Skirts for Men

Think about it.

The old stupidity was that:
1) If a girl wears a mini-skirt (about to be banned in Indonesia BTW)
2) she is gagging to have sex with anyone (slut)
3) so it's okay to rape he no matter what else she does or says.

Now we have a new stupidity so men also get to experience victim-blaming clothing-based excuses for violence:
1) If a boy wears a hoodie
2) he is a violent criminal (thug)
3) so it is okay to report, follow, harass and ultimately shoot him no matter what else he does or says.

Male Chauvinist Pig slaughter

The decision by the Egyptian authorities to slaughter all of the pigs in the country is stupid on many different levels--and with a sexist little twist. It seems that the culling outstripped the capacity of slaughterhouses to use any kind of humane methods.

"Only the males are killed in accordance with the rules," said journalist Heba Nasreddin, while "the piglets and sows are hit with an iron bar and left to bleed to death."

So when it comes to non-halal animals it seems women and children come last?

"Hits"

When Duke Ellington wrote Hit Me With a Hot note (and Watch Me Bounce) in 1943 it clearly had nothing to do with violence. It was a metaphor for the visceral impact of truly great music. But it is interesting that the song is sung predominantly by women.

But a few decades later the similarly named song He hit Me (And it Felt Like a Kiss) performed by The Crystals in 1962 was quite the reverse. It was written by a woman as an explicit defence of staying in a violent relationship. It met with an unfavorable public reaction and has remained controversial ever since.



Another few decades later and Hit Me With Your Best Shot performed by Pat Benatar (1979) was again read as a metaphor, this time for the impact of love, positive and negative. It was part of an album that included "Love is a Battlefield" and is general accepted as feminist in tone and intent.



With this back in mind I was never really sure what I felt about Hit Me Baby One More Time as performed by Brittney Spears [at youtube] (1998). It the violence implied by "hit" a valid metaphor or a desire to be victimised in the name of love? If the currently pattern continues we won't be due for another "hit" hit by a female vocialist until around 2020.

Sharking, Actually Assaulting

The latest cute name for disgusting behavior is sharking--where a man runs up to a women or girl in a public and pulls down off some of her clothing while another man films it. I would say this is assault, plain and simple--humiliation of women and girls for amusement--a message that you are not safe just walking down the street. The description of this as a "sport" is egregious. This is different from "pantsing" which is done between friends as a joke (like the infamous wedgie in reverse).

If you have any spare time please run a search and flag these videos as inappropriate. Like gang tagging, if material doesn't stay up long the motivation to produce it is undermined. It could also be flagged or voted down on sites like Digg. Feel free to leave some comments and contact the advertisers on sites that won't withdraw the material. If they don't care about women being safe on public streets they might care when their income stream is threatened. Look for advertisers that are large brands with active PR.

I am all for freedom of expression, but not when it comes to glorifying assault and sickos taking 'up shirt' filming to the next level. Some of the videos may be fake but I am not giving any benefit fo the doubt. If I end up looking like a humorless bitch I can live with that.

examples:
Break, Whoomp, Online Video DB.