Most people reading this probably won’t remember the name Kyle Payne. His story broke right around the time I started working with SAFER in the summer of 2008, and it stuck with me over the past couple of years. For the best background, I would check out the series of posts that Cara did over at The Curvature, but the brief history is that Payne was an RA (resident advisor) at Buena Vista University in Iowa, who was charged with sexually assaulting an unconscious student and taking naked photographs of her. He pled guilty to the photographing, but not the assault, and was sentenced to 6 months in county jail.

The kicker is that Payne was also a sexual assault advocate. His blog is now set to private, but he used to describe himself there as follows:

Kyle is a social justice educator, writer, and activist. Much of his work is concerned with putting a stop to violence against women. For years Kyle has served as an advocate for survivors of sexual violence and other forms of abuse, in addition to promoting what he calls “a more just and life-affirming culture of sexuality” through activism and education. As a researcher, Kyle has studied the feminist anti-pornography movement and is particularly interested in men’s roles in confronting pornography and the rape culture. In addition to his pro-feminist work, he is involved with anti-racist, free speech, peace, and anti-globalization movements.

As repugnant as this description was in 2008, it gets worse this week as a commenter pointed us to this August 20, 2010 story about how Payne has been arrested again, this time for possession of child pornography:

After Payne told a counselor that he was continuing to use pornography, a police officer and two parole officers went to his apartment in Sioux City August 12 to examine his computer. His parole agreement required that Payne submit to such searches.

They found over 200 animated images of child pornography on the machine, and when questioned, Payne reportedly admitted that they might recover photographic images of actual child sex acts from his hard drive. Officers found software intended to “scrub” computer files to prevent them from being discovered. Payne had reportedly also downloaded child pornography onto his BVU student drive prior to his initial arrest.

It’s bizarre that this story got sent to us today—as we’ve been prepping some resources on housing rights for suvivors, I was just googling the original Payne story YESTERDAY to make a point about how schools need to have protocol for when a perpetrator of sexual violence is a member of the housing/res life staff. Re-reading all of the original posts about him, including the one written here by Ashley, I was again filled with rage at the hypocrisy (which honestly doesn’t seem like a strong enough word) of this man, claiming to be a supporter of women who suffer at the hands of men just like him. And tonight I am angry still, but I am also just deeply saddened by the fact that this story continues; that whatever therapy this man was going through wasn’t enough. So much of what I believe in—my social justice values, you might say—hinges on transformation, learning, redeeming oneself…and then people like this make me second guess the possibility of that at all.

I want to end this by echoing Ashley from two years ago, because it’s still really, really relevant:

This case is an excellent example of one of the myriad reasons a college should make the investment in full-time trained sexual assault advocates. They think that’s too expensive? How much will it cost when the school gets sued because some self-styled student “advocate” sexually assaults the person they’re counseling? How about the lost tuition from students too traumatized to continue with their schooling? The fallout from the suicide that happens when the counseling center is closed?

Seriously, you have three baseball coaches and you can’t hire one person to deal with sexual assault on campus?

For those of you who haven’t heard about Refuse The Silence, it is a project started by Morgane Richardson who is collecting the stories of women of colour are currently attending or graduated from an “elite liberal arts college in the United States.” She got the idea from her experience at Middlebury College – where she noticed that her peers struggled with anxiety, depression, and other pressures while the administrations provided no support.

Her personal statement (which can be found the main site) really resonated with me and I actually submitted my own experience. In my case, a poor sexual assault policy and an indifferent administration led to an experience where being a woman of colour added to the experience of oppressions as a sexual violence survivor. If you haven’t already, check out SAFER’s Activist Resource Center to read about how different identities can intersect and create multiple oppressions on an individual.

Most recently, they’ve have been featured in Feministing, The Burlington Free Press, Bitch Magazine and will be in More Magazine in October for a piece on up-and-coming young feminists. Check below for information on how to submit.

I am looking for vivid and honest personal stories and essays about the experiences of women of color from elite liberal arts colleges throughout the United States.

I am looking to attract submissions that reflect experiences, friendships and realizations made during the college years. Themes to consider include but are not limited to,

• identity
• socioeconomic, cultural, racial issues
• classroom dynamics
• turning points
• depression
• challenging moments
• friendships
• dating
• student/professor dynamics
• sex, sexuality

Contributions will be accepted in the form of a poem, letter, journal entry, personal reflection and/or essay. Entries should not exceed ten pages. Your submissions will be cautiously edited for grammar and comprehensibility. Unfortunately, I will not be able to include everyone’s submissions. Priority will be given to those who submit their work before the September 1st, 2010 deadline.

For more information and to learn how to submit your story visit, http://www.refusethesilence.com. You can also send the founder an email at morgane.richardson@gmail.com or refusethesilence@gmail.com.

Back to school for you means back to work for us! We’re currently looking for three interns for the fall semester to work with us in outreach/communications, policy and research, and development. Full descriptions of the internships and application procedures can be found here. Generally we ask for about 8 to 10 hours a week and that you commit to meeting with us in person once a week. (This is not a go into the office every day kind of thing, most work is done independently). Check em out and see if any sound right for you.

Over the weekend I read Amelia’s piece over at Feministe about the challenge of having a member of her campus feminist group dominate discussions, try and change the direction of the group without consensus, and misrepresent the group’s Take Back the Night event (having already been insensitive to triggering rape survivors during a past group meeting). Amelia’s story is complicated by the fact that the group member in question is a guy, bringing up some important questions about how to be a good male ally in a feminist organization largely made up of women (or in any progressive organization that includes feminism as part of its social justice frame). More on that to come (although for now, check out Hugo Schwyzer’s great follow-up to Amelia’s post on how feminist men can effectively step up and step back)…but the post brings up the basic issue of establishing ground rules for group meetings or discussions in order to make things run as smoothly as possible and let everyone’s voices be heard. It’s completely possible that Amelia’s group already had guidelines like these in place, but I figured they were worth bringing up.

At SAFER trainings we like to let the group brainstorm their own discussion ground rules from the outset. But here are some that are generally important to us. Feel free to leave more in the comments.

• “One Person, One Mic”: No interrupting. One person will speak at a time
• Agreeing as a group to be respectful of each other’s feelings, and our own, and to be respectful of all cultures, races, sexual orientations, gender identities, religions, class backgrounds, abilities, and perspectives when speaking.
• Speaking in “I” statements: Don’t tell others what to do or think as if it is a command. Instead, describe your own experience. Agreeing to challenge people who make hurtful comments.
• Guaranteeing a safe space: agreeing not to repeat personal things people say during a group meeting to others.
• Recognizing our own and others’ privilege: When entering a space and speaking, being aware of privilege based on race, age, experience, sex, gender, abilities, class, etc.
• “Step up and step back”: If we usually don’t talk much, we will challenge ourselves to speak more. If we find ourselves talking more than others, we will speak less.
• Self care and group care. Don’t make assumptions about anyone’s history of sexual assault or interpersonal violence. Be aware that there may be survivors present when taking about sexual violence. If the content of the discussion is triggering, allow yourself to take care of yourself first. As a group, don’t judge anyone who needs to step out either for a few minutes or for the remainder of the meeting.

Feministe commenter Frowner also had some great suggestions from their feminist collective that go beyond discussion ground rules and speak to really defining the kind of group and space you want to develop, like establishing a mission statement all group members must agree to before joining, establishing an accountability process for when someone crosses an established boundary, and creating facilitation rules and processes. Check em out.

This is my final Beyond the Campus post. I want to take this time to say thank you to the entire SAFER team for allowing me this space, and for their guidance, passion and relentless activism. And I’d like to thank YOU, dear readers, for your conversation, linking and sharing, and general involvement with SAFER and my posts. But fear not – this is not the last of Beyond the Campus: SAFER is looking for someone to take my stead. Interested? Contact contact@safercampus.org.

Now, some quick news from this past week.

Women Undefined praised True Blood for showing an accurate portrayl of a woman experiencing flashbacks from sexual violence: “This aftermath, the day to day grind just to make it through an hour, a minute, is something people don’t see with domestic violence and rape victims…The grief, anguish and suffering of Tara was perhaps the most heart wrenching and personally touching thing I have seen on television, ever.” Feminist issues made it into the mainstream in other ways, like a piece on untested rape kits in Marie Claire, and Law & Order adapting an episode around one such story.

There were some legislative wins as well: New York made it easier for those who are victims of sex trafficking and forced prostitution, as did Bangladesh. Some citizen activism caught a cop threatening someone with rape, and Female Impersonator wrote a great piece about consent and coming out.

Throughout this whole process, though the news isn’t always good, it always made me happy to see a mainstream outlet pick up on a feminist issue, or for several bloggers to rally around one particular story to cry out its injustices. This is activism in progress. And your sharing, your re-tweeting, your comments and writing, all help to bring these issues to light.

So thank you, and keep up the good work.

~Amanda

Amanda is the author of the blog, The Undomestic Goddess.

It’s back-to-school time, and for the first time in three years I’m headed back to school too. It’s exciting, but also stressful and, especially if you’re headed to college for the first time, potentially kind of scary. Not only do you have to worry about doing well academically, making friends, securing work, etc., but you’re navigating a new social world and testing your own boundaries, all in an environment where we know sexual violence is a pretty big issue. Luckily, new and returning students have plenty of folks to offer them super useful advice on staying safe like, don’t walk around alone at night. In fact, don’t be alone ever. Also, watch your drink. Maybe you shouldn’t drink at all actually. To be safest, just don’t trust anyone, or yourself, and you should be OK. Wait, what?

Over the two years I’ve been writing for SAFER, I’ve carefully walked the line between trying to promote primary prevention education and techniques (primary prevention meaning approaching sexual violence prevention by focusing on the changing perpetrator behavior and cultural attitudes that enable rape and assault) over risk reduction techniques, without totally writing off risk reduction (risk reduction being the strategies most often given to women to ‘reduce the risk’ that they will be assaulted by altering their behavior, i.e., stay in groups, watch your drink). Because honestly, people probably shouldn’t accept drinks if they aren’t sure what’s in them. If you feel a situation is unsafe, whether it be a walk alone to the other side of campus or an aggressive person hitting on you at a party, you should listen to your instincts and call in a friend for company or backup. Some of this advice is good old-fashioned common sense that we should all have, because until we’re living in a rosier world where violence isn’t an issue, sometimes we’re going to have to make shitty sacrifices.

But that’s the thing—they are sacrifices. What frustrates me about hearing the same risk reduction techniques handed out to students every year (and let’s face it, they are always aimed at female students) isn’t just the fact that focusing on women’s behavior alone puts the sole responsibility for preventing violence on the potential victim, which I think unintentionally plays a role in enabling victim-blaming. It’s also that while telling you how you can help “protect yourself,” no one stops to tell you how fucking unfair it is that you have to do it in the first place. Few things make me angrier than the fact that I experience social situations or even just taking a walk differently than my male peers because of the threat of sexual harassment or violence. And by not giving space to that anger, these lists of safety tips, as well-intentioned as they are, continue to normalize violence as harassment as these givens—like: Men are potential threats. Learn how to protect yourself from them. That is all. This defaults men into being predators and women into staying scared. There is no room for progress, or envisioning a world in which women’s behavior isn’t seen as a predictor of the likelihood that they will be assaulted.

What if instead or alongside these safety tips for women, we distributed information on how NOT to be a rapist? What would that world look like? Can you imagine, security and anti-violence professionals across the country releasing lists every fall with advice on how to reduce your or your friends’ risk of sexually assaulting someone? For example:

• Don’t use alcohol or drugs to manipulate someone into sexual activity. Don’t stand by silently while your friends do it either
• Don’t ignore verbal and/or physical signs of discomfort when hooking up with someone
• Ask your partner what they want, or check in with them before taking things further
• Stand up to your friends who make jokes about rape
• If you see someone being aggressive or making clearly unwanted advances to another person, step in or cause a distraction
• Understand the long-term negative emotional and physical effects of sexual violence on a survivor

People who get all up in arms about critiques of risk reduction as standalone prevention effort or critiques of victim-blaming usually talk a lot about personal responsibility—women need to be responsible for their behavior too. And there’s a lot to unpack there, but let’s just address the “too”—the “too” implies that culturally we are already holding folks accountable for perpetrating or enabling violence. And by and large, we aren’t. And I could wax philosophical for a long time about why we aren’t—because it’s harder to do than telling women to protect themselves, because it involves talking about sex with young people which makes everyone uncomfortable, because it challenges long-established gender and sexual norms, and so on—but the end result is that we accept that women should go through life afraid, constantly questioning that one wrong move that might ‘increase their risk’ of being violated. And I am so, so tired of settling for that, every year, over and over again.

So this year when you go back to school, and during orientation someone tells you about how you can “keep yourself safe,” file that information away for a time when you might need it, with the understanding that the only person who can truly prevent rape is the rapist. But also, harness your frustration, and anger, and fear into something positive.  Ask if your school has primary prevention education also. Ask if they are going to address the responsibility each of your peers has to not violate each other’s sexual boundaries. If you don’t get answers you like, start talking about it to the administration, to student activists, to your school’s peer health educators, to us at SAFER. Don’t feel forced to settle.

Continued from Part I. Where we left off, Suzy had just discovered her school’s Low Income Student Alliance (LISA).

Suddenly, there was this camaraderie that I previously found difficult to foster in a decentralized urban campus. All of us, despite our generous scholarships, still have to work to pay for our tuition, books, housing and/or supplies. Most of us came from homes with single parents, parents with serious financial debt or parents who never obtained college degrees. Many of us are students of color. A few students have had to take entire semesters, or even years off of schooling due to financial stress. However, all of us had trouble finding the time and resources to implement a policy change that would benefit us as working-class students. We even had trouble finding a time to meet, because all of our work schedules would clash.

Little by little, membership waned; a few students left the Alliance because they left school altogether, in order to make a living. Some of the most thoughtful, intelligent people were forced to halt their educations because their socioeconomic status wouldn’t allow them to continue. When I asked one of these people about an upcoming student action, they said, “I don’t care anymore. I’m focused on making money now. I don’t have time to fight for my right to an education, when clearly it’s not meant for people like me.”

A Diversity of Tactics

One thing that has alleviated most of our organizational issues is the internet. Because most of us had trouble finding a common time to meet, we exchanged our ideas from our homes or jobs. We had to continue the momentum somehow; by setting up a listserve, we could outline some objectives, and notify each other of upcoming events and job opportunities. We arranged a blog, printed flyers with statistics we collected from the government and wrote a zine that we eventually sent to members of the administration. Each member of LISA shared their personal story, describing the difficulty of attending school in the city with limited resources.

The administration’s interest in us peaked once we delivered the zine; they invited us to meet with them. We double-checked our calendars and drafted a proper platform and list of demands to back up our zine. After a couple of students briefly met with them in person, they made public the availability of emergency funds, which low-income students could use for supplies and bills.

Other secret resources for students gradually started popping up. Suddenly people were able to earn work-study money for their internships, or receive scholarships that had previously been kept hush-hush by the financial aid department. The correspondence between financial aid and low-income students has increased since the zine.

These resources had stayed hidden because people were too intimidated by the bureaucracy to navigate it or negotiate with administrators, but we accomplished the majority of our work from the comfort of our cheap computers. Even though I can’t afford a fancy Macbook Pro like many of my peers, I can still access the internet from any place at almost any time, whether it’s from my school, the local library, or even my phone. It’s safe to say that the internet is the most accessible medium through which anyone can learn about the issues, form a community and implement change, no matter if you’re living in a big city in the East Coast or a small Midwestern town.

Although most of LISA has parted ways, and even cities, have no doubt that we’re still scheming. We’ve even contacted similar organizations at neighboring private schools and state schools alike. Somewhere online, the momentum is picking up again, and it’s only a few clicks away.

This is part one of a piece written by Suzy, one of SAFER’s amazing summer interns. Look for part two on strategic organizing in the next couple of days.

Many college students in the US grew up believing in the same narrative. It starts with high school graduation, then it’s followed by the pursuit of a college degree, and it is guaranteed to end with a lucrative career and financial security.

By omitting the reality of student loans, a shrinking job market, and a failing economy, this narrative is, at best, an American fairy tale.

The reality behind being a college student hit me pretty hard from the beginning. After being offered a hefty scholarship to a school in New York City, I took advantage of the offer without any hesitation, eager to live my dreams of going to school in the city. I had borrowed just enough to cover what my school didn’t provide in tuition and housing costs, confident in my ability to balance a job and schoolwork.

However, when my dad was laid off from his job two months into my first year of college, it became clear that my parents would not be able to provide me with a safety net. Since then I have balanced 2 to 3 jobs at a time, all the while struggling to do well in 5 to 6 classes a semester. I even had to transfer to a program that was less challenging, so that I could reconcile my work schedule with my class schedule.

When money is tight, and your schedule is tighter

I always prided myself on my opinions, and my drive to change the status quo. When I noticed some glaring disparities—like the way the men at my coffee shop earned two dollars more than the women***, the rate at which my friends were being sexually assaulted, and the fact that no more than two gender studies classes were offered per semester—there was no way I was going to ignore them. Yet, I found that getting other people sufficiently riled up about it would take a lot of time and effort that I couldn’t spare, as long as I wanted to maintain good grades and keep my hours steady at work.

Rhiannon Auriemma, a junior at Eugene Lang College, understands my dilemma with organizing on a tight schedule. “The main disadvantage to being a low-income student activist is really a time disadvantage. I couldn’t afford to live on campus so I commute and I have a really demanding job on my days off… I haven’t been able to take a leadership role because I knew I wouldn’t be able to fully commit myself.”

Working your way through school is a tricky thing to do, and being a student activist isn’t any easier. You can burn out in no time if you don’t have the support you need to further your cause. Things like time, money, and contacts are all very crucial to carrying on a movement. And as a low-income student trying to revive the feminist movement at a school without a gender studies program, I was hard-pressed for all three of those things.

I had barely any time to manage a feminist group, much less meet on a regular basis without detracting from my hours at work; I had no time to run around the school and chase after bureaucrats for administrative approval, thus limiting my chances of gaining any funding; and I had a limited amount of friends or professors who had any interest in feminist analysis. It’s also difficult to foster a community in an urban setting like New York City where there are so many outside distractions and so little time. Things were looking pretty bleak.

Luckily, I found solace in my school’s Low-Income Student Alliance (LISA), a student-run support group for working-class students. There were plenty other students who, just like me, followed the social protocol of attending college, without any of the financial privilege that most students at our school had. Coincidentally, they were hosting their first meeting at the same time and place as the feminist group; thus, a beautiful and productive conversation was started, in which we discussed the intersections between gender, race and class. I realized that my issues as a low-income student were connected my issues as a woman of color. I also realized my issues were similar to many other people attending my school.

***Due to the gendered wage disparity, all the women eventually quit the coffee shop in unison, and the management caved and sold the place.

Stay tuned for part two…

Cross-posted at Feministing Campus

Amanda’s link, in her last post, to the recent story about a New York Department of Buildings Commissioner stopping and apprehending a man physically assaulting his wife got me thinking about the dynamics around bystander action. What I’m most interested in, however, is something quite a bit different than this case, in which someone witnessed an act of physical violence and forcibly subdued the attacker, who was subsequently taken into police custody. In this instance, there’s no room for ambivalence from the point of the view of a bystander – according to reports, the woman was punched and dragged out of the vehicle she was driving. Whether or not a witness can or does intervene, the fact of the woman being in danger is hard to dispute. But when it comes to other predatory or aggressive behaviors, there is less consensus about what constitutes danger  and when intervention is appropriate.

Currently, there’s a discussion happening on the Prevention Connection listserv about bystander prevention trainings for employees of bars and restaurants. If you’ve ever watched the evening news, you don’t need me to tell you that nightclubs and bars are often presented as perilous zones where one is  always at risk of becoming a victim. This narrative gets trotted out in coverage of sexual assaults wherein an attacker meets or accosts a victim at such an establishment (you may also have noticed that cases involving a young, white, able-bodied female victim are especially likely to be framed this way). It’s connected to that advice we talked about a few weeks ago: be careful not to drink too much/walk home alone/wear anything ‘too’ sexy. If you avoid certain behaviors, you can avoid being attacked by that lurking rapist. In that earlier post I mentioned how these admonitions place the burden on potential victims (and, retroactively, are handy ways to victim-blame) and shift attention away from from perpetrators. It’s paramount that, as a society, we reconceive sexual assault as something that can be prevented by the transformation of social norms that encourage and excuse it, and a sense of collective responsibility when it comes to intervening in predatory behavior could be a key contribution.

When we’re among strangers in a crowded, noisy environment, particularly one where alcohol is being consumed, most of us do feel safer with friends around, because they have a vested interest in noticing if the person chatting us up starts to make us uncomfortable by, say, insisting that we take a shot after we’ve declined, or suggesting that we accompany them somewhere else. But what if we knew we could rely on staff and other patrons to address behavior that makes us feel unsafe or uneasy? What if the norm was not to avoid “getting involved” when we witnessed what looks like an attempt to render someone vulnerable or unsafe? What if we were less willing to read certain interactions as one party “playing hard to get” or the other “running game?” I’m definitely not advocating that we start asssuming all flirtatious encounters are predatory, but rather that when we see something that does appear to be the latter, we think of ourselves as having the right and responsibility to intervene (and that doesn’t have to mean aggressive confrontation).

Of course, creating this environment is easier said than done. One post on the email list brought up ABC’s ongoing “What Would You Do?” series, in which unsuspecting passerby are confronted with scenarios (a woman stealing a bicycle on a busy street, or a man verbally abusing his date at a restaurant) acted by performers  and recorded by hidden cameras. The subjects don’t know that the scenes are fictional, or that they’re being taped, until producers introduce themselves and proceed to ask why the bystanders did or did not intervene.  One episode featured an intoxicated woman being hit on, in an overtly aggressive manner, by a stranger, who ultimately attempts to get the woman to leave the bar and accompany him to his hotel, despite her protests and the fact that she is visibly impaired.

The unwitting subjects do all intervene, telling the man to leave without the woman and in several cases positioning their bodies between hers and his. If you watch the video at the link,  however, you’ll notice a few things that probably made this more likely. For one thing, the scene takes place in the afternoon, in broad daylight, in a not very crowded establishment. The scene between the man and woman is very much on display – not reacting to it, if not also addressing it, was almost impossible. I’d argue that the visibility of the patrons to one another – everyone could see everyone else observing the scene – helped create a sense of collectivity which made intervention more likely. For me, part of the question is how can that same sense be cultivated elsewhere? What if we privileged a desire to be responsible and compassionate toward others and de-emphasized fears of appearing nosy, meddling, or a killjoy?

While the ABC video aims to suggest what this might look like, it unfortunately doesn’t do such a great job. Most of the folks who step in are older than the actors, and there’s some definite paternalism going on. While ABC runs the scene twice, with two different actresses (one a modestly dressed brunette, the other a more flamboyant blonde  ‘party girl’), both are young, white, and attractive, so we don’t get to see whether witnesses are as willing to intervene when it comes to people who don’t fit this rather idealized victim profile. Perhaps the most telling part of the video is the most disturbing. At one point, a man who appears to be close in age to the male actor mildly admonishes him for his behavior. But when the woman steps away to use the bathroom, he begins offering advice, suggesting that he “might wind up at the Hilton” if the male actor can get the woman to “go for a walk on the beach.” When the actor suggests that the man distract or otherwise prevent the woman’s fictional friends from intervening (“when her friends come back, that’s where you come in”), he readily volunteers, “that’s fine with me.” (I fear that this kind of bystander “assistance” is much more the norm,  informed by notions of hetereosexual sex as something to be “obtained” through various means.)

If this scenario were real, I don’t believe that this bystander would be legally or even morally culpable if a sexual assault did ultimately occur. But I don’t exactly think he would be blameless. (Perhaps he agrees, as his face is blurred out, unlike the other other patrons’. Maybe he chose not to sign a release when he saw the footage of himself offering such helpful advice.) But the actions of this one person are not my point. While, of course, perpetrators are responsible for their crimes, sexual assault doesn’t occur in a vacuum. We’re all part of the larger culture that so often excuses it. Without oversimplifying the idea of bystander intervention into “protect helpless young ladies!”, perhaps we can learn to think of ourselves as part of a social group – even if only a temporary one – invested in the safety of everyone present.

This week in sexual assault activism: A woman was raped in NYC’s Riverside Park, reported it, and it turned out that the suspect was linked to other suspicious behavior with women before, and more women came forward to report their assaults by the man. Finally, he was indicted. See what sharing information can do? It can save others. In a Hollaback moment, a picture posted of a subway harasser on the Daily News was recognized and the man has been since arrested. Let’s keep it going for citizen activism! A vigilante feminist stood up to the assault on women’s bodies through images of starvation, and this girl who stood up to a sexist boss, even though it turned out to be a hoax, I hope lit a fire under many a discriminated-upon female worker’s buttocks.

Let’s talk about workplace harassment. A hedge fund and a strip club in NY are both facing sexual harassment lawsuits, a Queens cop has filed suit against the NYPD, and Hewlett-Packard’s CEO has stepped down to avoid similar claims (but don’t worry, he left with a $28 million severage package). Jezebel reaffirms that workplace harassment is about more than just sexual advances, and called out Slate’s advice columnist who told women experiencing harassment in law to suck it up. And it’s not just on the job itself, but even getting certain jobs where women are discriminated against. Gawker compiled a list of jobs where it actually hurts your chances to be an attractive woman.

Now for misuse of power from trusted professionals. Remember that story of the Chicago doctor who assaulted multiple women? Well, it turns out he may not lose his license after all. But on the bright side, that cop who assaulted women in exchange for the promise to help out their families financially has been sentenced to five years for sexual abuse. Teachers didn’t fare too well either this past week. An NYC Catholic high school teacher admitted to placing a video camera in the girl’s locker room, and in the worst of news, a school used a rape victim as “bait” to catch kids having sex on school property after school, where she was raped again, along with another girl. Parents, understandably, were outraged that school authorities would use someone’s daughter in such a dangerous probe.

And of course, victim-blaming. The Dallas Police Chief blamed the city’s rapes on drunk women, and in clarifying his statements, didn’t hold rapists themselves any more accountable. In uncovering a story from Rand Paul’s past that involved kidnapping and trying to force a girl to do drugs, the media shrugged off the incident as “boys will be boys.” Shelby Knox takes on why that kind of thinking is dangerous for both young women and men. Later, Paul’s victim came forward to assert that there was no kidnapping – but one can’t help but wonder if there was any pressure for her to come out and say so. Jezebel also asked women what they were wearing when they were street harassed, and it turns out, no, they were not asking for it! No matter what they were wearing! And sadly, in Abu Dhabi, a 14 year-old girl has been jailed for having “consensual sex” with a man twice her age – consent in this case meaning that she opened the door. We need to stamp out victim-blaming myths both at home and abroad.

As for violence against women, a Department of Building’s official did some citizen activism himself by stopping a man beating his wife on the Grand Central Parkway. The wife told police ”they always had fights like that,” which makes you wonder what would have happened over time if the official didn’t intervene. Similarly, a Turkish man accused of beating his wife tried to pass off the incident as a traditional dance. I have a feeling some traditions, especially the misogynistic ones (which are mostly, all of them, across most cultures) needn’t be upheld. And in Queens, a woman expresses her fear of being stalked by her estranged husband who has beat her, was jailed for assault (and quickly released on bail) and violated her restraining order. One can only hope this story will help get him back behind bars, and help others realize the importance of threats when it comes to violence against women.

What have you been reading about activism regarding sexual violence these past two weeks?

Amanda is the author of the blog The Undomestic Goddess.