Tag Archives: Rape Culture

The NFL’s PSA is a “Hail Mary” Pass

On Sunday, February 1, Americans will spend millions of dollars and valuable time glued to television screens across the country to view the events at one of the nation’s cathedrals for athletes and sporting events; the Superbowl. The tradition of Superbowl Sunday takes control of all things commercial.

And then there are the commercials. Known as THE showcase for advertisers, the amount of money paid for the time segments of space during the game is matched only by the obscenity of the amount of money flowing to the teams that play the game. Continue reading →

Obama, India and Avoiding Another Bhopal

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Bhopal Memorial. Photo Luca Frediani uploaded by Simone.lippi [CC BY-SA 2.0] from Wikimedia Commons

President Obama and India’s Prime Minister Modi announced a deal has been reached over a years-long delay in the civilian nuclear industry within India during a three day visit from the United States leader.

The U.S. signed a deal with India in 2008 to provide civilian nuclear technology. But implementation has been stalled over an Indian law that makes companies that build and supply the equipment liable in case of an accident.

Continue reading →

How National Defense Became Nationally Offensive

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On Friday, the Senate passed the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It’s a huge bill (1700 pages) covering the allocation of 60% of our country’s discretionary spending for the year. But, defense isn’t the only thing in the bill, and there’s a lot of just plain bad news for civilians and the military alike. Let’s look at some of the more egregious parts of this gargantuan bill, and why we think it deals with being nationally offensive instead of being strictly about national defense. Continue reading →

International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

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Today is a special today. We mark the International Day to End Violence Against Women by considering some aspects that are seldom discussed openly, yet grant understanding of the full impacts of violence against half the world’s population.

What are the odds of a little girl growing up to never know violence against her person? Not very good. The facts include that affluence, economic conditions, education levels, social status, living location or professionalism have little to do with a non-violent life. Violence permeates every level of society in every corner of the world at every moment of every day. Continue reading →

Out of Africa – Across the Globe

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Nairobi, Kenya on November 17, 2014. Photo via Twitter

Kenya, Africa: Last week a woman was stripped naked at a bus stop by men claiming she was not dressed modestly enough (she was wearing a mini-skirt). This follows two previous incidents of the same – stripping a woman in public for her choice of attire. The incident last week was captured by video camera and was later taken down, but not before it caused outrage and brought the attention of journalists. Continue reading →

STOP RAPE CULTURE!!!

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By now, you’ve probably either seen or heard of this video:

In the video (which was commissioned by Hollaback, an anti-street harassment advocacy group), Shoshana Roberts walks through various neighborhoods in New York for ten hours, following filmmaker Rob Bliss, who had a camera hidden in his backpack.

By her definition, which is the only one that matters here, Shoshana was harassed 108 times in those ten hours – and this doesn’t count the countless winks, whistles, etc. “Not a day goes by when I don’t experience this,” she later told NBC.

Continue reading →

Don’t Wear Dresses in Texas!

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Imagine “upskirting” photos being taken here. Mrs. Laura Bush, first row-center, joins former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter; former President Bill Clinton, and his wife, Hillary Clinton; Mrs. Nancy Reagan; Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, her husband Edwin Schlossberg; Mrs. Barbara Bush; Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former President Gerald R. Ford; and Patricia “Tricia” Nixon Cox and her husband, Edward Cox, upper-right, at the funeral service for former first lady Lady Bird Johnson. Photo By Shealah Craighead, White House Photo Office [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

On Friday, September 19, The Guardian reported that a Texas court “has upheld the constitutional right of Texans to photograph strangers as an essential component of freedom of speech – even if those images should happen to be surreptitious “upskirt” pictures of women taken for the purposes of sexual gratification.”

Once again, a court rules in the interest of protecting First Amendment rights of people who would stoop so low as to photograph up a skirt of a woman who ventures into public dressed like – GASP – a woman – over the rights of women to be able to go into public without fear of being sexualized or victimized simply for her choice of clothing.

“While there is a federal law against taking voyeuristic images on federal property, the issue is generally regulated at state level where seemingly outdated rules have prompted occasional controversies. Earlier this year the highest court in Massachusetts ruled that a man who used his mobile phone to take “upskirt” photographs of women riding the Boston subway did not break the state’s secretive photography law because the women were not nude or partially nude. The following day, lawmakers approved a bill criminalising such behaviour,” the article includes.

Seriously people, let’s think about this. When you get in your car and drive, you have an assumed trust that other motorists will follow the same laws you do, and thus, everyone reaches their destination safely. Maybe not always on time, as some motorists need more time to think about those laws or to finish their usage of electronic devices before discontinuing their impeding of traffic, but we digress.

It should be the same when we leave our homes dressed for our day. If a woman chooses to wear a skirt or dress to work, she should not need to worry if someone will photograph up her skirt during her day and images of her be recorded for the benefit of someone else.

We’d like to suggest that any organization, church, group or other such gathering to look for a spot to host events that include women, they refrain from considering Texas as a location option. We believe Massachusetts would be much more worth considering.

We notice there is no news of Texas following the example of Massachusetts by passing a law that bans the reprehensible behavior; we hear crickets. Yet Texas wants us to believe that men are men and women are treated respectfully within its borders. We think it would be more interesting to check the sales of small handheld cameras since the Texan court ruling.

STOP RAPE CULTURE

The Modern Gladiator Games

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Adrian Peterson. Photo by Mike Morbeck – Flickr: Adrian Peterson. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A week ago, we wrote a piece about Ray Rice and the NFL’s waffling on domestic abuse cases. Normally, we wouldn’t think about the NFL, much less write about it – none of us are huge football fans. However, since our last piece, some very disturbing things have happened that have everything to do with our previous story.

On Thursday, the Baltimore Ravens played their first game since Ray Rice’s indefinite suspension was made public. There were a number of fans wearing Ray Rice jerseys, and saying such things as “I don’t condone domestic assault, but I support Ray Rice.” One woman was given air time in a lot of the media; she said “I don’t condone domestic violence, but she hit him first. I’m sorry, but I think that if a woman hits a man, the man can hit her back.” The other reoccuring theme besides the “I don’t condone domestic violence” bit (which sounds a lot like the “I’m not a racist, but…” theme) was that he brought a Super Bowl championship to Baltimore, which somehow lent respectability to him. Really, people? Is that where your priorities lie?

Then on Friday, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was indicted by a Texas grand jury for child abuse. The charges stemmed from Peterson beating his 4 year old son with a branch as punishment for something the child had done. He beat him hard enough that the boy had welts on his legs, buttocks and back. After the news of the indictment broke on Friday, the Vikings benched Peterson for last Sunday’s game against the New England Patriots; a responsible move on their part. The Vikings lost their game – badly. Yesterday, the Vikings said that Peterson would play this Sunday.

Yesterday was a big day in the domestic abuse crisis surrounding the NFL. After the Vikings reinstated Peterson for Sunday’s game, news came out about another child abuse allegation about him. Ray Rice is appealing his suspension, claiming that at the most, he should be suspended for the six games that the new NFL rules call for. He further claims that he’d told the NFL’s head office everything about the domestic abuse incident in April, contradicting NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s claim that he (Goodell) didn’t know all the facts until TMZ leaked the second video last week. Meanwhile, the three other players who have been charged with domestic assault are playing and practicing with their teams every week.

Does anybody really think that the NFL will take the needed actions to make sure that the families and significant others of their players are safe from domestic violence? We sure don’t. Are these the role models we want for our children? Absolutely not.

The NFL is a huge business, taking in billions of dollars a year. It’s becoming more and more apparent that the NFL cares much more about their bottom line than they do about the players and their families’ health and safety, not to mention that they still promote these people as role models. Late yesterday, Radisson Hotels announced that they were suspending their sponsorship deal with the Vikings. Radisson spokesman Ben Gardeen said in an email; “Radisson takes this matter very seriously, particularly in light of our long-standing commitment to the protection of children. We are closely following the situation and effective immediately, Radisson is suspending its limited sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings while we evaluate the facts and circumstances.”

Occupy World Writes applauds Radisson’s actions, and we encourage all of the other NFL sponsors to do the same. We’re revolted by the excuses we’ve heard from the media and fans for both the NFL’s and individual players’ behavior. We’d like to think that we as a nation are better than glorifying what’s essentially a replay of the Roman era’s gladiator events.

A One Strike Policy We’d Like To See

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Ray Rice 2012. “Ray Rice 2012” by 1ravenscowboysnflfan – Own work. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

On February 15, 2014, former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice and his fiancée Janay Palmer were arrested in Atlantic City, New Jersey and charged with assault. Most of us have seen the video of Ray dragging Janay out of an elevator, and were horrified by the whole situation. We saw the whisper campaign to blame the victim start up (“Janay provoked him. She spit in his face or something like that. He must have been provoked beyond reason; it can’t possibly be his fault).

The NFL reviewed what had happened in Atlantic City, and in turn dropped the ball by giving Rice a measly two game suspension. This led to understandable public outrage and confusion over why testing positive for marijuana was considered a much more serious offense by the NFL than domestic assault and battery was.

Commissioner Roger Goodell last month admitted that he “didn’t get it right” when he only gave Rice a two game slap on the wrist, and said he would strengthen the league’s domestic abuse policy to include a six-game suspension for first-time offenders and a possible lifetime ban for second offenses.

Then, yesterday TMZ published the video from the elevator’s security camera from that night. In it, we clearly see Rice punch Janay so hard in the face that he knocks her out. Hours after the video appeared, the Baltimore Ravens released Rice, followed by the NFL suspending him indefinitely.

Both the NFL and the Ravens claim that they hadn’t seen the security camera video before TMZ published it. We can only come to one of two conclusions about that statement. Either both are lying, or both deliberately soft-pedaled the investigation. The first thing that would have happened if they were serious about getting to the bottom of the situation would be to look at any security videos of the incident; as the location was a casino, there would be security cameras everywhere. But, they claim they didn’t.

Furthermore – when the video they said they did see has Rice dragging his girlfriend out of the elevator, doesn’t that imply that she was knocked unconscious? After all, if it were just her passing out, there wouldn’t be an assault case, no? How much proof do you need? Are there acceptable levels of violence against women in the NFL’s and teams’ eyes? If you’re under so many broken ribs or so many black eyes, then it’s not as bad?

There’s three players in the NFL currently facing domestic violence charges. The NFL said last month after instating their new domestic abuse policies that “each case will be addressed individually on its merits.” We have a better policy to propose to the NFL, the teams and the players’ union – one strike and you’re out. We can’t think of any situation where domestic abuse would be excusable.

When Does SHE Get a Second Chance?

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“I feel that he’s earned a second chance.”

Image courtesy of Ms. Foundation for Womenpoooooooooiu4e

That’s what Steubenville High football coach Reno Saccoccia has to say about his decision to welcome convicted rapist Ma’lik Richmond back to his team.

The facts of the Steubenville rape case in 2012 were already horrendous. A teenage girl was repeatedly and publicly sexually assaulted by boys on her school’s football team. Pictures and video were taken and the victim was shamed on social media. Coach Reno Saccoccia allegedly tried to cover up the crime and continued to let the perpetrators play on the team even after it became clear that they had committed these acts.

This case was a clear-cut instance of rape culture, where a community prioritized the success and protection of its football team, and dismissed incidences of rape under the guise of ‘boys will be boys.’

Now, Ma’lik Richmond – who was found guilty of raping a minor while she was unconscious – is out of jail and and Coach Saccoccia has put him right back on the Big Red football team. While he was never charged with attempting to cover up the crime it’s clear that Saccoccia still doesn’t understand the seriousness of his players’ crimes. In his words: “[Richmond’s] one of 55 players that are in good standing with their teammates and their coaches.”

This cannot be tolerated. We as a nation are tired of rapists almost entirely getting away with their heinous crimes. This case is unusual in that the perpetrator did spend some time – a very short time – in detention. But now the high school appears to be putting forward the message that that is enough to absolve him of what he has done. By allowing Richmond on the team, the leadership at Steubenville High School is saying football wins mean more than protecting and respecting female students.

Please join Occupy World Writes’ individual members and others by signing a petition on Change.org that asks administrators at Steubenville High School to permanently remove Ma’lik Richmond from the Big Red football team, and instate a policy that bars convicted rapists from playing on the high school’s sports teams.

STOP RAPE CULTURE