Just wanted to give a quick congratulations to the CUNY students who have been working hard since 2008 to institute a CUNY-wide sexual assault policy. The Board of Trustees approved the policy on Monday. Among other things, the policy mandates that each CUNY college develop prevention and education programming and train relevant staff in the prevention and handling of sexual assault.
Monthly Archives: June 2010
NY City Council Eliminates Sexual Violence Funding
That was the title of the shocking and extremely distressing email I received this morning from the NYC Alliance Against Sexual Assault. Yesterday the NY City Council passed the FY2011 city budget, which completely cuts the Sexual Assault Services Initiative funding that the Council has been allocating since 2005. To put this in perspective, NYC has a $63.1 billion budget. For the past two years, $332,500 of that has gone toward sexual assault services, with another $100,000 in discretionary funding going to the Alliance for “preventing sexual violence and ensuring access to best care for all survivors.” As the Alliance email points out, that’s .001% of the total budget.
What does that mean for NYC? Besides the $275,000 loss for the NYC Alliance—which makes up one-third of their entire budget—funding was also cut for three rape crisis programs. In FY2010 the Kingsbridge Heights Community Center in the Bronx, Mt. Sinai Sexual Assault and Violence Intervention Program in Queens, and St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Intervention program in Manhattan each received $52,500 for providing sexual assault services. In FY2011 they will receive nothing.
This is an incredible loss for New York City. Yesterday an editorial in the NY Times praised the city for running the budget process quickly and quietly, despite the fact that the city faced $5 billion budget gap (which was dealt with by “cutting most services.”) The author mentions that some public services (all important ones as well, I might add) were saved, prompting Mayor Bloomberg to declare of the cuts: “pain, yes, serious damage, no.”
I’d have to disagree with the mayor. In a city where in one year the police department received 890 reports of 1st degree rape; 944 arrests were made for 1st-3rd degree rape; and 1,933 arrests were made for other sexual offenses; and where one in six public high school students say they’ve experienced sexual violence, I’d say that cutting funding for sexual assault prevention and crisis services does indeed do some serious damage.
Right now, the Alliance (who has been receiving city council funding for nine years) is asking for donations to their emergency fund and preparing a conference call with NYC rape crisis centers and other folks in the SV field to brainstorm around a collaborative community response to this incredibly sad and disappointing decision. Because this is a community issue—we all have someone in our lives who has been impacted by sexual violence, and should be committed to providing our loved ones and neighbors with support and resources. And in order to decrease the amount of sexual violence in our communities, we need prevention and education programming. Please consider making a donation to the Alliance here, or sending one to:
Emergency Fund
New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault
27 Christopher Street, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10014
The Alliance has a lot of great programming which I encourage you to check out. But as they wrote this morning:
“Without this funding for the Alliance, efforts to ensure sensitive, culturally competent treatment of victims, community-based programming for prevention, and research that identifies the determinants of sexual violence as well as opportunities for prevention will be severely curtailed.
You can also contact your council member to let them know how you feel about this tremendous loss. I’ll keep you posted in the coming days if any further action is planned.
Reports of Rape Threats and Assault from Toronto Police at G20 Protests
Just saw this on Jezebel, and it’s extremely disturbing to say the least.
Journalist Amy Miller of the Alternative Media Centre was arrested over the weekend at the G20 protests in Toronto. She was held for 13 hours, during which time she saw multiple women strip-searched and was repeatedly threatened with rape.
Miller was detained after she stopped to investigate police detaining a group of young people (presumably protesters). Here is a piece of her account of what happened after she was thrown to the ground, cuffed, and taken to a detention center (transcribed from the below video).
Throughout the time that I was detained I was told many statements that I find repulsive and completely inappropriate and what I view as threats. I was told I was going to be raped. I was told that I was going to be gang banged. I was told that they were going to make sure that I was never going to want to act as a journalist again by making sure that I would be repeatedly raped while I was in jail. While I was in the detention center, I saw numerous young women who were completely strip searched, who were strip-searched by male officers. And one young woman who was coming out, who was completely traumatized, said she had had a finger put up her.
I suppose I don’t need to point out how shocking and despicable this is, but just in case: this kind of behavior from anyone is appalling, from law enforcement officials it is…I dunno, I have no words right now, or anymore. No matter what you think of the protests going on in Toronto right now, there just NO EXCUSE for this kind of abuse. No, “the police are doing the best they can under the circumstances,” no “the protesters knew what they were getting into and purposefully provoke police response.” Even setting aside the fact that Miller was no where near being a violent protester and it’s unlikely that those she was being held with were, even if she or anyone else had broken windows, punched a cop, I don’t care—no one deserves to be threatened with rape or actually sexual assaulted, and no police officer should be able to get away with using threats of rape or assault as a way to punish, mock, or assert power over someone who has been arrested. Look up gender-based violence in the dictionary, and you should get this, in 2010, in Toronto. Rape threats—the fact that woven into fabric of our oh so civilized western society is the idea that rape can be held over a woman’s head as a usually invisible and silent but sometimes loud and clear reminder of where the power lies, to keep you in check, to keep you feeling powerless and scared. I feel ill. I’m done for the day.
(From the archives, check out these consent guidelines from the G20 activists in Pittsburgh last year)
Beyond the Campus: Week 12
This was the week of high-profile rape accusations. By now I’m sure you’ve heard about the sexual assault allegation against Al Gore (as if his divorce wasn’t shock enough, or the rumor of an affair with Larry David’s ex-wife). Of the charge, Feministing reminds us that liberal, progressive men can assault women too: “Now, there’s no way for us to know what’s true and what’s not, but I would really hate to see folks automatically come to Gore’s defense because of his reputation in the progressive and liberal spheres. In fact, the woman accusing Gore seems to know all too well that this kind of defense (and victim-blaming) is a distinct possibility.”
An icon of another sort, the Mets’ Johan Santana (and, let’s be honest, the only reason that team has a chance) was accused of sexual assault last year in documents recently released by TMZ. Nothing came of the case as “there was not enough evidence to prove lack of consent” according to the prosecutor (though as we know in some cases, “lack of evidence” can really mean intimidation). Santana admits to having sex with her, but says she never said “no” (leaving it the woman’s responsibility to not get raped). From the story, it seems that the pair had a history, and Santana perhaps misread cues and took it too far. He never saw the woman after that incident (which would lead me to believe that this in fact was not consensual), and she had completed a rape kit shortly after the event (which makes me think that she wasn’t after money). This story sparked an interesting conversation between me and my boyfriend (a Mets fan), who argued that, unlike Ben Roethlisberger or Lawrence Taylor (who was just indicted, btw), Santana doesn’t have a history of aggression, sexual or otherwise, or is a known asshole like this guy, who warns athletes to treat their mistresses right if they don’t want to be accused of rape. Which is why it’s important to note that, like Feministing’s point with Al Gore, nice guys can rape too – especially if we live in a society where rape culture is so prominent that men (and even women) can’t distinguish between consent and sexual playfulness – especially when force is so often depicted as playfulness. I’m currently in the middle of reading The Beauty Myth and the chapter on sex is spot on about how our cultural portrays rape as sex and tricks us into believing that’s a desirable situation (see: high end fashion ads, mainstream porn, etc).
This type of culture also leaves plenty of room for victim-blaming, like The Examiner did in reporting a sexual assault (oh but don’t worry, they apologized later by saying their intern did it). And Jezebel writes: “there’s only one proven cause of all rapes: rapists. Rather than arguing over the motivation for a crime committed by so many different people in so many different circumstances, maybe we should simply concentrate on lifting the blame from those upon which it all too often falls: the victims.”
And how about harassment in the workplace? Rape culture certainly allows for that (because you see, women in public spaces = open to commentary, touching, and the like). Take for instance this parks employee being groped by her supervisor on her first day of work, or this restaurant owner who groped his teen worker, or this doctor who set up a video camera to spy on women in the bathroom. These are assaults that happen everyday to women’s bodies, confidences, and sense of security.
As the discussion with my boyfriend concluded, he remarked how the entire culture has to change in order to fix this problem. We’re getting there, a bit at a time, but we must be that change we wish to see. That means speaking up, sharing our stories, and calling out friends when they’ve crossed a line. What’s one thing you can do this week to help prevent sexual assault?
See all Beyond the Campus posts.
Amanda is the author of the blog The Undomestic Goddess.
Celebrating Title IX Day: It Isn’t Just About Sports
So I’ve been seeing a few posts and twitter status celebrating Title IX’s anniversary today and wanted to write a quick blurb out there to add what’s been circulating. Today is the 38th birthday(anniversary?) of the enactment of Title IX. What exactly is Title IX? Well, History.com says
It begins: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” As a result of Title IX, any school that receives any federal money from the elementary to university level–in short, nearly all schools–must provide fair and equal treatment of the sexes in all areas, including athletics.
Title IX is most popular when talking about equality for athletics, but it also is relevant when it comes to sexual assault in schools. I had written a lot about Title IX and sexual assault on my blog RapedatTufts, but unfortunately I lost all my work, so I can’t link you. Basically in the context of sexual assault, Title IX requires schools to eliminate the hostile environment created by sexual harassment. By law, sexual assault is under the umbrella of sexual harassment.
For some quick reading about that other facet of Title IX that isn’t often spoken about check out:
- SAFER’s and ACLU’s Title IX and Sexual Assault Fact Sheet
- Security on Campus’ Title IX summary
- CPI’s info section about how Title IX affects sexual assault claims at schools
When a student doesn’t perform well in school and is kicked out or drops out or fails a class or three after being sexually assaulted, their access to education has been hindered. If a school knows about this student’s rape and refuses to help them, then they are denying that student their equal access to education guaranteed to them by Title IX. Sarah just posted about a recent ruling that allowed a survivor from UW-Parkside to sue the school for not doing anything about her sexual assault. The presiding Magistrate concluded that “the sexual harassment was severe and pervasive enough to alter conditions of the woman’s education and ‘deprive her entirely of access to an educational opportunity or benefit.’”
The Center for Public Integrity earlier this year has highlighted that there has little very weak enforcement of this, but fortunately things have been changing for the better. However, there’s a lot more attention on the issue of campus sexual assault and the case about the UW-Parkside assault shows that the enforcement of the law is making progress. Here’s to hoping that Title IX continues to improve and protect the rights of many.
New “Rape Joke” Low in Get Him to the Greek
Look, I walk through the world with pretty low expectations of what I see on screen. Movies and television are routinely filled with stuff I find offensive, and frankly I’ve stopped blogging about it as much as I used to, partially because I know I’m still going to watch it anyway, partially because after a while I start to feel like I’m just whining and no one wants to hear it, and partially because “media justice” just isn’t the battle I’ve chosen. But every once in a while I’m shocked enough by something to actually brave the “you just don’t have a sense of humor, I can’t believe how PC you are waters” and wage my own public complaint, however ineffectual it might be.
(I guess I should add a spoiler alert here? I really don’t think I’m discussing anything that’s important to the plot, but just know I’m describing a part of the movie.)
Get Him to the Greek. Produced by Judd Apatow, starring Russell Brand and Jonah Hill…I know what I’m getting into when I walk into this movie. And I’m actually looking forward to it, because despite the obvious critiques of movies like Superbad and Brand’s comedy schtick, I really enjoy this stuff—when I’m not being offended, I’m having fun, I’m laughing. You can call it a guilty pleasure; I don’t feel particularly guilty about it, but that’s a whole other discussion. So I’m thinking: Russell Brand as a rock star parody (reprising a character I laughed at in Forgetting Sarah Marshall) being dragged from London to Los Angeles by Jonah Hill as straight-man rock nerd record co. employee in a sort of road-trip-buddy-comedy-OMG SO MANY HIJINKS WILL ENSUE-kind of thing—this is going to give me some cheap laughs. And it did! And I didn’t even care while I was watching it that the female characters might as well not be there because they didn’t really have character at all!
But then we get to the rape scene. That seems like a sentence that shouldn’t have just been written because what place is there for a rape scene in this kind of comedy, right? But it’s there, and it’s really not funny.
Hijinks have taken our characters to Las Vegas, where Aaron’s (Hill) boss is trying to out-party rockstar Aldous Snow (Brand), basically so that Snow can’t take it anymore and gets himself to the Greek Theater in LA where he has a concert. In the midst of this partying, for NO reason and having NOTHING to do with the plot as far as I remember, Aaron’s boss sends Aaron and a random woman named Destiny to head up to a hotel room and have sex. So cut to the hotel room where Destiny is perched on top of Aaron and he is protesting this whole thing. Vocally. And then basically the joke is that she pulls out a large dildo and rapes him with it.
To make this even less funny (and more weird) when Aaron returns to the party downstairs, with a dazed look on his face, he actually tells the other characters that he’s been raped. I think his exact words are, “I think I was just raped.” This is greeted with laughter, and then someone gives him a lot of drugs and the story moves on and it’s never brought up again.
I’m pretty used to rape being used as a punchline, especially when men are the victims. This usually comes in the form of jokes about prison rape, but I’ve also seen more than enough films in which a guy is basically forced into having sex with a woman or is really uncomfortable with it (like, he’s in a relationship and she’s seducing him!) and it’s supposed to be funny because ya know, women can’t rape men LOL! And prisoners deserve it! That’s bad enough to me. But this was just so beyond explicit—the guy is sodomized with an object while saying no and then uses the word rape to describe it—that I was genuinely shocked. I actually can’t even imagine an explanation of how this is funny outside of the fact that a man being raped is SO IMPLAUSIBLE to folks that it’s just laughable. You’re not watching a “rape scene” because call it rape all you want, it couldn’t be real rape, so it’s funny. I get that the way physical comedy works is that you’re laughing at someone’s physical discomfort—like when Ben Stiller zips his balls into his pants in Something About Mary. But isn’t that distinctly different from the discomfort that comes from what is by this point widely understood to be a trauma-inducing sexual violation? I don’t know, I can’t even unpack all of the layers of fucked up here.
So yeah. Nice job, Nicholas Stoller and Jason Segel for writing that into your movie. It really added so much so much to film and sent a valuable message to your viewers about how funny it is when men are sexually assaulted.
While We Were Away: A News Round-Up
So, summer vacations have led to things being a little quiet around here, and when I got back I had SO MUCH NEWS to sort through. Here is some of what stuck out:
A big victory in Wisconsin last week when a U.S. Magistrate Judge ruled that a former UW-Parkside student could continue with her lawsuit suing the school for violating Title IX after she was assaulted by her resident adviser and the school was largely unresponsive and didn’t follow protocol. I’m glad to see that Judge Patricia Gorence understands the impact of sexual harassment and assault, since the university’s Board of Regents clearly doesn’t. They protested the suit on the grounds that “one assault was not enough to show a ‘systemic effect on educational programs and activities,’ [and]…also argued the woman’s situation was not so severe that it effectively denied her access to Parkside.”
We’ve written a bunch about the hard word students at Tufts have been doing to get a more comprehensive sexual assault policy, and last week the first part of the new policy was unveiled. The new policy outlines definitions, resources, and reporting options, and considering that Tufts’ old policy was two setences long, this is a huge improvement. The judiciary process hasn’t been outlined yet, but a comment on the Tufts Daily article states that it will hopefully be up by next semester.
The story out of Brown, where a former student is suing the school, claiming he was wrongly accused of rape and forced out of the school without a proper investigation got even messier as the woman who accused him filed a counter-suit saying that his lawsuit violates the contract that “settled” the dispute in 2006. She maintains that he did rape her.
This piece at OregonLive works off the CPI reporting on campus sexual assault and looks at the differences between how assaults are handled at Oregon’s Reed College and Oregon State University.
Tracy at Unapologetically Female lists some trends she has noticed in the Womens Studies 101 classes she has been teaching over the last two years. It’s an interesting picture of where some (perhaps many) of her students are at when they begin approaching feminist/social justice issues and the contradictions that riddle their beliefs. A lot of those contradictions were familiar to me, as they are things that I either did or still struggle with. I wonder how many of these ideas/habits will have changed by the time they graduate…
RMJ at Feministe has a really good post (with a very active comments section) about manipulating someone into “consent” and her own experiences in college. For me, the value in this piece is the conversation it starts about looking at sexual violation on a spectrum outside of the one presented by the legal system. So much of the discourse surrounding what rape is or isn’t is based on what would stand up in court. And while this is an important conversation, particularly in terms of how to reform the criminal justice system and encourage folks to report crimes, it’s not always the most helpful conversation. When immediately dragging conversations about consent and assault into the legal realm, defenses go up and the slippery slope argument begins: well if you’re going to call that rape, then everyone’s a rapist! But women like RMJ aren’t talking about wanting the opportunity to prosecute someone or defining what a violation is for every individual. The point (as I see it anyway) is to discuss the different ways in which consent can be violated, coerced, or simply never acquired, and with that on the table we can figure out how to make it better. The point of primary prevention, for example, isn’t: let’s talk about how you can avoid getting arrested and charged with rape. It’s (or it should be) let’s talk about the behaviors and attitudes that devalue your sexual partner(s) and what a healthy sexual relationship/encounter should look like.
And finally, Jessica at CALCASA talks about the importance of incorporating hope into anti-violence activism. Yes.
Reproductive Justice 101 at the US Social Forum
In case any of you were headed to the US Social Forum in Detroit this week, I wanted to give you the heads up on an awesome workshop SAFER will be participating in on Friday. Reproductive Justice 101: Creative Vision, Innovative Strategies, and Powerful Networks.
Event Date: Fri, 06/25/2010 – 1:00pm – 5:30pmEvent Location: Cobo Hall: DO-6BAround the country, women of color and feminist youth are organizing, advocating and achieving wins around reproductive justice. We’re working at the intersections of gender, race, class, health, education, immigration, media justice, environmental justice, and LGBT liberation in order to reach, empower, and mobilize our communities. In this workshop, we will work with participants to uncover a shared analysis of the reproductive justice framework and what it adds to our work as organizers for social justice. We will explore the potential to be found in a collaborative, multi-pronged movement strategy that includes organizing, advocacy, and transformative service provision. Most importantly, we will center our bodies/experiences in this work, and engage in activities that connect our whole selves to the world we want to see using art, storytelling, and multimedia tools. Reproductive justice is integral to and holds liberatory power in all of our movements, even if you’ve never explicitly talked about it before. Join the Third Wave Foundation, the Reproductive Justice Network, and our grant partners from around the country as we journey together from our personal and communal experiences to the movement for reproductive justice!
Besides the awesome folks from Third Wave and SAFER’s very own Erin, the workshop will include reps from SPARK Reproductive Justice NOW!, New Voices Pittsburgh, and the Media Literacy Project. Check it out!
Beyond the Campus: Week 11
Here’s what’s been happening in sexual assault this week:
Glenn Beck and the “you asked for it” syndrome – an excerpt from his new book:
“Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders’ Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she ‘not do anything sexy.’ [Ed note: Meaning anything he interprets as being sexy. Dressing in clothes, for instance, or simply having breasts, may work against her in this case. See: The Beauty Myth.] She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:
‘Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.’”
Because men are helpless hormone machines with no power over women’s wanton sexuality. In fact, the men are the real victim here, aren’t they? Also, Glenn Beck as a sex panther? Ew.
And on the topic of sexy ladies, Yes Means Yes blog talked about how slut-shaming hurts women who have been raped, pointing to both the current “What would you do” story about helping a domestic violence victim if she was dressed “inappropriately,” and the infamous 2002 rape trial of an unconscious teenage girl that resulted in a hung jury. Gender Across Borders suggested that this sexual violence starts off with high school “lists” and “rankings” of girls by looks and sexual acts – something that creates a grave disrespect for women in young men, and RH Reality Check talked about when school don’t do enough to prevent sexual bullying.
Spare Candy reminded the media that “rape” isn’t “having sex,” and The Curvature reminded us that we still need to care about male rape victims, and how the Justice Department failed yet again to address prison rape by the latest deadline. Oh, and remember last week’s Central Park rape? Well, the accused are upset about their reputations. They claim, “She wasn’t yelling; she wasn’t screaming. There was no rape.” See, you need to yell in order for it to be rape. Just scared or threatened into silence? No justice for you.
What have you been reading this week?
Amanda is the author of the blog The Undomestic Goddess.
Greetings from Vegas!!
Hello everyone!
I have been waiting to share what’s been happening here in Las Vegas since I arrived Tuesday night (which meant it was midnight for my body that’s on New York time). Finally I have some time as I’m waiting near my gate to head back home (Vegas, I barely knew you). I definitely have learned a lot during my time here that I cannot wait to share with you, but just wanted to give a little info about what SAFER did out here.
CALCASA hosted the Campus Training and Technical Assistance Institute for colleges and universities that have grants from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women (OVW)–or school’s interested in applying. The theme this year was that colleges need a coordinated community response (CCR) if they want to properly address sexual violence on their campuses.
We were honoured to be asked to apply to have a workshop there and we were selected! Our workshop was called From a Student’s Perspective: Mapping Community Response Through Policy. We had about 60 college administration and staff come (and two students!) and together we worked through how to move towards a better sexual assault policy to have a proper CCR. We had groups where admin brainstormed ways to improve a sample policy and they in turn were able to take ideas of how to improve their own school’s policy and how to get students involved.
I just have to say it was inspiring to see so many administrators and staff who were so invested in having an effective, supportive sexual assault policy. While SAFER is a student-centered organization, we know that administrators and staff are integral parts of the movement towards progressive change. It served as a great reminder that there are great potential allies in all part of the college community and we need to make efforts to make sure every voice is heard.
I got to take notes during “Not Just a Misunderstanding:Masculinity, Gender, Justice and Sexual Assault Prevention,” which was a panel that had Dr. Mandy from UC-Irvine, Shira Tarrant from Cal State University, Ashleigh Klein from the YMCA-LA Sexual Assault Crisis Services Program, and Rachel Griffin from Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. The 90 minutes at this workshop flew by and I know Erin and I will be implementing tools and tactics we learned.
My plane is about to board, so I will write about this panel next week. I just want to thank CALCASA and the OVW again for the great opportunity and hope SAFER gets to go again in the future!