Thanks to The Word Warrior for drawing my attention to this awesome new campaign in Boston. More information here. The T is now plastered with signs warning that subway gropers will be prosecuted, and there’s a unit of police officers assigned to the case.

Why does this matter? Because we have a cultural habit of minimizing all kinds of sexual assault and sexual harassment, and minimizing the small stuff creates permission to minimize the big stuff. Because every small, gross incident of inappropriate touching or commentary serves to remind women that they are at risk, that they live in a world where they have to constantly monitor their surroundings for threats to their safety. Because the sense of “getting away with it” that almost all subway gropers experience (since most are never even reported) can encourage them to escalate their behavior. Because our bodies belong only to ourselves, and all human beings have the right to control how and when and by whom their bodies are touched. There’s a big principle at stake in these small crimes, and I hope more cities (ahem, NYC!) follow Boston’s lead.

If you want to get more involved in fighting street harassment, check out HollaBack!

The Washington Post has an article this morning about the abysmal rape conviction rape in England and it has me so angry I can hardly see to type. I don’t even want to rehearse the details, just go read it. When something makes our legal system look good, you know it’s bad. Just a few choice quotes:

Thousands of victims each year once chose not to go to police because of shame, women’s advocates say. Now, the advocates say, the bigger reason is that rape victims feel the system is stacked against them.

A 2005 report commissioned by the police found a “culture of skepticism” in the justice system when it came to rape cases, and recommended shifting the focus from seeking reasons not to believe the accuser to gathering evidence to support the charge.

The whole idea that you would need to tell a police force that sort of thing blows my mind.

[A defense lawyer who has defended over 100 men accused of rape] declined to speak about specific cases, but he said he has been surprised by some “not guilty” verdicts. He said jurors have been shown compelling evidence — such as blood at the scene or internal injury to the woman — and still not returned a guilty verdict.

Oh god, even their lawyer thinks they did it and they’re still not convicted.

“As many as one in two young men believe there are some circumstances when it’s okay to force a woman to have sex,” said Conservative Party leader David Cameron, citing studies.

“In my mind,” he said, “this is an example of moral collapse.”

Like I said, never happened before, may never happen again, but he’s right.

And just in case you’ve gotten all your moral outrage up against those crazy Brits – turn this case in the U.S. right back on ourselves. A woman is savagely (she had bleeding bite marks on her face!) raped by her crazed ex-boyfriend, who is in the process of pleading guilty, and she has had to leave town because of the harassment by his friends and the lack of support from her own.

But instead of support from the community where members of her family had lived for 150 years, she found hostility. Her daughter was harassed by friends of Houghton and finally felt forced to leave the state. Visits home are an ordeal, and now the mother says she feels she may be forced to leave the town, as well.

The victim, meanwhile, is afraid to date again, afraid to be alone and suffers from anxiety. She’s lost friends, who, the prosecutor said, don’t appear to understand the seriousness of the assault.

I’m just disgusted. As the mother of a rape victim in England said,

“What are they saying?” Davies asked. “That 95 percent of women that come forward are telling lies?”

The NYTimes ran an op-ed this morning on the need for better treatment for female soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post-traumatic stress disorder from being sexually assaulted or sexually harassed. It’s a call I completely endorse, until the last sentence.

The best way to honor all of our soldiers is to do what we can to help them mend.

No. The best way we can honor our soldiers, our students, our residents of homes for the disabled and elderly, our employees, and everyone in our society is to prevent them from being sexually assaulted or harassed in the first place. The best way we can honor them is by holding the institutions that claim to protect them responsible for doing so. We need to demand not just survivor services, but effective prevention programs and real enforcement of laws and procedures to hold perpetrators accountable. Let’s not settle for taking care of those who have been hurt – let’s demand to know why their safety was ever at risk.