I just love this:
Sunday, 13 January 2013
The poet is Christine Bartlett. She wrote this in early 1970s. The background to the poem is the response of the police to Bartlett's reporting a flasher who targeted her and a friend just after dropping off their children at school. The police blamed them for instigating the sexual assault: it must have been something they did or something they were wearing.
A flasher is a man who's simply quite outside the law
He'll expose himself for all the world its true,
But if you report a flasher, you will very
You will very quickly find
That the press will say the guilty one is you
They'll ask you...
What were you wearing when you saw this man?
Did you invite him to expose his tan?
Smile in passing, leave your coat undone?
You mean to say that sundress, dear, was just for catching sun...
You say "I wore jeans and T-shirt,"
They say "what a sexy sight"
you say "He was wearing NOTHING"
But the press say "thats alright"
we're certain he gave no offence that you did not invite
and we think the guilty one is you!
When you've just been raped at knifepoint
by a very nasty man
who broke down your door to have his evil way
Though your future lies in ruins, just ignore it if you can,
As otherwise you'll hear reporters say,
Now tell me...
What did you wear when he broke down your door?
What did you wear when he broke down your door?
Did you lie quietly on the bathroom floor?
Unprotesting! What, he had a knife!
D'you mean to say you'd rather have been raped than lose your life?!?
Now we do believe your story, its not one that you'd invent
BUt we're quite convinced that his attack was very kindly meant,
By your failure to resist him, he thought he had your consent,
and We think the guilty one is you!!
Saturday, 12 January 2013
I thought this was obvious. I didn't think it was something that feminists would have to start shouting from the rooftops:
Met Commander Peter Spindler was correct when he called Savile a "predatory, serial sex offender".
Spindler was wrong about Savile 'grooming the nation".
Jimmy Savile did NOT groom the nation.
Millions of people had no idea he was predatory, serial sex offender.
But, people did know.
We know they knew because Savile was not allowed to be involved in Children in Need.
We know people knew because they have been telling us they knew.
Jimmy Savile did not groom the nation. He was allowed to continue abusing because he was a 'celebrity'. Pretending that he "groomed the nation" allows those who knew to minimise and obfuscate their guilt. Those who knew and did nothing are guilty of helping Savile in sexually assaulting hundreds of children and adults. I say hundreds but we will never know how many.
Met Commander Peter Spindler was correct when he called Savile a "predatory, serial sex offender".
Spindler was wrong about Savile 'grooming the nation".
Jimmy Savile did NOT groom the nation.
Millions of people had no idea he was predatory, serial sex offender.
But, people did know.
We know they knew because Savile was not allowed to be involved in Children in Need.
We know people knew because they have been telling us they knew.
We know the police and CPS were aware because people told them.
Jimmy Savile did not groom the nation. He was allowed to continue abusing because he was a 'celebrity'. Pretending that he "groomed the nation" allows those who knew to minimise and obfuscate their guilt. Those who knew and did nothing are guilty of helping Savile in sexually assaulting hundreds of children and adults. I say hundreds but we will never know how many.
The term "grooming the nation" only serves to silence victims. It serves those predatory, serial sex offenders who are still harming people. It makes Jimmy Savile a one-off case that will never be repeated.
But, Jimmy Savile isn't the only one. He will never be the only one.
"Grooming the Nation" is about making bystanders feel better about having done absolutely nothing to protect vulnerable children and adults from a serial sex offender.
It not only absolved bystanders of responsibility; it gives them a space to be feted and petted in the press by journalists unwilling to look too closely at their own responsibility for reinforcing rape culture.
Jimmy Savile was a predatory, serial sex offender because people stood by and did nothing to stop him
How many other men are there today harming children and other adults safe in the knowledge that those around know and will do nothing to stop them?
(A longer version of this piece has been published by the Huffington Post)
(A longer version of this piece has been published by the Huffington Post)
These are all the lovely books I got for my birthday:
Vandana Shiva' Soil Not Oil: Climate Change, Peak Oil and Food Insecurity
Carol Adams' The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory
Elaine Showalter' The Female Malady: Women, Madness and English Culture 1830-1980
Marina Warner's From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers
Karen Boyle's Everyday Pornography
Phyllis Chesler' Women and Madness
Susan Sontag' Regarding the Pain of Others
Carole Pateman' The Sexual Contract
The Radical Women Manifesto: Socialist-Feminist Theory, Program and Organisational Structure
Friday, 11 January 2013
This week, I read yet another story of an adult male who wasn't held accountable for child rape. Technically, Steven Pollock was convicted of sex with a minor but he only received a community service and "the stipulation that he attend a sex offenders' programme." According to Kaye Adams in the Daily Record : "(t)he original charge was rape but prosecutors weren’t confident of convincing a jury that the girl did not consent and so they reduced the charge." Steven Pollock put his penis into the body of a 13 year old girl. Even if she was sober, a 13 year old girl isn't capable of consenting to sex. The fact that Lord Turnbull thinks that "the offence arises out of consensual conduct rather than any form of force, grooming or manipulation” demonstrates just how pervasive and destructive rape culture is. We need to keep repeating these messages until men start listening: a 13 year old girl is not capable of consenting to sex.
An adult woman who is extremely intoxicated is not capable of consenting to sex.
A child is never capable of consenting to sexual activity.
The judge's summation is a disgrace.
Steven Pollock's sentence is a disgrace.
Wednesday, 9 January 2013
This is reblogged with permission from SaltandCaramel:
Kenyan girls don’t go to school because they don’t have access to sanitary protection.
When I first read that, I thought there must be some mistake. Something that we take for granted, a basic necessity, hinders girls getting an education. I had asked a Kenyan based blogger for ideas on gifts to take to the families we would be visiting, and besides small toys, pencils and note paper, this was one of her suggestions. I wrote about this on the Gates Foundation blog Impatient Optimists last year.
While there are great projects running in East Africa, and elsewhere to provide menstrual cups or washable san pro, I wanted to send a small gift to the girls I met last year. Later this month, I will send a box of san pro and underwear to the girls in the Laikipia district.
If you would like to contribute, you can send me san pro to send on, or donate money so that I can buy san pro. Please use the JumpMag paypal account (scroll down to the bottom of the page). Thank you
Tuesday, 8 January 2013
This week it's Ryan Gilbey, the film critic for the New Statesman, who seeks to minimise Polanski's responsibility for raping a child because Polanski makes 'great films'. I suppose we should be grateful that Gilbey actually mentions the fact that Polanski raped a child. The British Film Institute managed to forget that piece of information when planning their retrospective on Polanski's work. They also tried to claim it was irrelevant when challenged on the issue.
Now, I'm sure Polanski's films are brilliant. I've only seen the Piano so I can't really comment on his artistic merit, however making good films does not negate the fact that Polanski drugged a 13 year old child and then sodomised her. A child of 13 is not competent to consent to sex. They have never been competent to consent to sex.
An adult man who puts his penis in the body of a 13 year old is a rapist.
But, Gilbey would like everyone to forget the fact that Polanski raped a child, or at the very least, seeks to minimise it by suggesting it was "historic" and "ambiguous":
He also spent a spell in prison and then under house arrest in 2009 and 2010 on historic rape charges dating back to 1977. A thorough documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, examines the case and its ambiguities.
There is no "ambiguity" to what Polanski did: he raped a child.
The fact that the justice system in the US, as with everywhere, is incapable of dealing with the rape of children effectively does not make rape "ambiguous". It means we live in a Patriarchal-Misogynistic culture which privileges the male right to put their penis wherever they like without consequence.
Polanski drugged and raped a child.
Those who seek to minimise Polanski's act of rape are just as guilty as those who ignored Jimmy Savile's sexual abuse of children.
Those who seek to minimise Polanski's act of rape are guilty of perpetrating and perpetuating rape culture.
You are the problem.
Ryan Gilbey, you are part of the problem.
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