remember when trayvon martin was literally killed in cold blood and people were going around calling him a ‘thug’ for wearing a hoodie and carrying ice tea but when a gang of boys rapes a girl they’re just ‘misguided children’
(Source: wlliamlecter, via saminalcrackers)
Society has allowed rapists to define what resistance is: screaming, crying, scratching, pushing, kicking, biting, punching. I didn’t resist like that. My resistance was to wriggle a bit, turn my head away when he tried to kiss me, try to stop his hand going into my bra and knickers, push him ineffectually, talk about wanting to get my cab; all things which normal men recognise as not being enthusiastic participation when they are engaging with women but pretend it’s a grey area when they talk about rape. Rapists have managed to get society to believe, that what I did, was consent.
Because I didn’t resist in the way rapists - and society - say that women should resist, they define our non-participation as consent.
"—
A section of the article “How I became a rape victim”
(via sociolab)
BOOM, rape culture at work… Can I also add, when you are in a situation that involves rape or you think might involve rape or looks like it might involve rape in a few minutes, its usually pretty scary to scream and kick… Especially if you know this person and sometimes might even care about them and think they care about you too. It is much more likely that you’ll say “No.. Lets stop.. I don’t want to right now..” etc
(via jojoholmes)
you can’t win for losing.. .i did all the resisting youre supposed to do til bones were crunched, snapped, and crunched to dust….and still they questioned what I’d done ‘’wrong”. i really havent heard of a scenario yet some dickbag cant blame on the survivor (via muckrakingiswomenswork)
(via bad-dominicana)
If the only time you seriously talk about men being raped is to criticize women who speak about rape, you are not a good person at all
Michelle Obama’s White Ancestors Revealed
Big surprise, Michelle Obama gets her DNA tested and finds distant white relatives descendent from the Plantation that owned her family. But of course, the New York Times writes an article about how hard it is for the relatives to deal with the fact that they’re decedent from slave owners.
The best part is where they try to assume that the relationship HAD to be consensual:
Melvinia was a teenager, perhaps around 15, when she gave birth to her biracial son. Charles was about 20.
Such forbidden liaisons across the racial divide inevitably bring to mind the story of Thomas Jefferson and his slave Sally Hemings.
I love it when slavery is painted to be some kind of southern love story.
Melvinia was not a privileged house slave like Sally. She was illiterate and no stranger to laboring in the fields. She had more biracial children after the Civil War, giving some of the white Shieldses hope that her relationship with Charles was consensual.
or that she was forced to have sex with the men of the plantation over and over…
The rest of the article just goes into how sad the family is to learn that they used to own slaves and how they *hope* their great grandfather wasn’t a rapist.
(via karnythia)
Rape Victim Denied Emergency Contraception By Doctor (by TheYoungTurks)
(via lipsredasroses)
that horrifying moment when you realize that some of the “DTF” girls on Jersey Shore were basically raped on camera because consent isn’t valid when they were too drunk to even walk
#my sister is 15 and this culture is what they think is normal and acceptable #it shouldn’t be
tw: abuse, rape, domestic violence
A few weeks ago my mom stapled pages of a story in one of her women’s magazines together and handed it to me. She gave it to me pretty much with the tag lines “for your feminist blog” and “something new to consider.” Indeed it was; she knows me well.
The story is titled “I was forced to be pregnant.” With a title like that, reading it was actually not on the top of my to read list. I thought it was about women not exercising their right to choice. I was very, very wrong on that one.
Have you ever heard of Reproductive coercion? It is a term that was quite recently coined by the advocates against domestic violence to describe a certain type of abuse some women face. It occurs when a man pressures their partner to have kids and/or impregnates them against their will. Reproductive coercion comes in three different types:
1. Emotional pressure that turns into verbal and physical abuse.
2. Sabotaging birth control
3. Marital rape
Over 75% of women 19-49 who reported once experiencing domestic violence also endured some type of reproductive control by men. It’s all about control and domination over a woman’s body.The first story in the magazine is about a woman who got married around 36 years of age. After a few months of dating her boyfriend talked excitedly about having children. After he proposed he began calling her “The Babymaker.” She then confided with him that one of her fallopian tubes was blocked. He in return insisted she see a fertility doctor. She recounts, “I had finally met a great guy who was eager to start a family with me. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?” Soon after her honeymoon he persisted on in an obsessive manner, but his efforts had to be temporarily halted as she had to get emergency back surgery. Alas, 6 months into recovery he was back to pressuring her again. She was in much pain at the time due to her back, but she agreed to In Vitro Fertilization. She then became pregnant, but soon miscarried. In response, her husband grabbed her by the neck, choking her. He apologized, blaming his outburst on his grief and had her sign up for another round of IVF. And then a third round. She tried to put him off with the excuse that she needed to weigh more before she could take treatments, her husband forced her to get on the scale often and filled the fridge with fattening foods. “It hurt that all I was good for was getting pregnant.” She recounts. At the end, he screamed at her, threatening to replace her with a maid if she couldn’t get pregnant and she told him she no longer wanted to have his child. He destroyed bedroom furniture, pushed her down the stairs and threatened her with a gun. She fled to a domestic violence shelter.
The second story was about a woman who faced marital rape. This woman was 40, had a then boyfriend and two children from a previous marriage. After telling her boyfriend she did not want any more children, her boyfriend refused to wear a condom and began to rape her. She then became pregnant with her third child. Birth control was never an option for her because she couldn’t hide pills anywhere for he went through all of her belongings. Three months after giving birth, he raped her again, impregnating her with twins. She lost the twins in a physical fight with him, but soon became pregnant again. During her recovery she begged her obstetrician to remove her ovaries and devise a lie to tell him; that she had cancer. After a decade of sexual abuse and violence she was able to get a job that kept her out of the house and often times traveling.
One in four callers to the National Domestic Abuse hotline said that their partners had tried to force them to become pregnant. Why? As one woman stated, “Its like he wants to own me from the inside out.” Having a baby is the perfect tie that binds. These type of abusers want to create a circumstance in which their partner is dependent on him.
WHAT’S THAT HAVE TO DO WITH PLANNED PARENTHOOD?
Many voters never consider how defunding these clinics could hurt victims of domestic violence who turn to them for counseling as well as pregnancy prevention. Abused women will turn to health care providers long before they will turn to domestic abuse hotlines and organizations. Many women in abusive relationships rely on life saving, affordable care programs such as Title X. It is critical that such places are open and operation when women and children need them so desperately.
holy fuck im crying.
I know I’ve told this story before, but my abusive ex refused to let me take birth control. I was on the pill until he found them in my purse.
I went to the Student Health Center—they were completely unhelpful, choosing to lecture me about the importance of safe sex (recommending condoms) instead of actually listening to my problem.
Then I went to Planned Parenthood. The Nurse Practitioner took one look at my fading bruises and stopped the exam. She called in the doctor. The doctor came in and simply asked me: “Are you ready to leave him?” When I denied that I was being abused, she didn’t argue with me. She just asked me what I needed. I said I need a birth control method that my boyfriend couldn’t detect. She recommended a few options and we decided on Depo.
When I told her that my boyfriend read my emails and listened to my phone messages and was known to follow me, she suggested to do the Depo injections at off hours when the clinic was normally closed. She made a note in my chart and instructed the front desk never to leave messages for me—instead, she programmed her personal cell phone number into my phone under the name “Nora”. She told me she would call me to schedule my appointments; she wouldn’t leave a message, but I should call her back when I was able to.
And that was it. No judgment. No lecture. She walked me to the door and told me to call her day or night if I needed anything. That she lived 5 blocks from campus and would come get me. That I wasn’t alone. That she just wanted me to be safe.
I never called her to come to my rescue. But I have no doubt that she would have come if I had called. She kept me on Depo for a year, giving me those monthly injections in secret, helping me prevent a desperately unwanted pregnancy.
I cannot thank Planned Parenthood enough for the work they do.
SUCH an important consideration. Many people don’t understand how you can be FORCED to carry a child. It’s very real and it’s very possible. And thankfully it is nothing that ever happened in my relationship, but who knows what the future could have held (especially because the main drive behind me finally getting out was fear for any potential future children).
I don’t have anything to add because I think it’s all been said, but this is some REAL shit that needs to be reblogged as much as possible.
(Source: feminist-blackboard, via lipsredasroses)
notes found in the girls bathroom on my campus
(Source: jamthefish, via vickiexz)
Amanda Marcotte on rape prevention ‘tips’:
[T]hese “tips” are actually a list of reasons that it’s okay to rape someone. If the tip is, “Don’t wear miniskirts”, that ends up saying to rapists, juries, and cops, “If she was wearing a miniskirt, she had it coming.” Rapists basically use these tips as a checklist for what to look for in potential victims…it’s a keep-yourself-from-going-to-jail strategy. If you attack drunk women, women who have a history of having (gasp!) sex, women who are wearing miniskirts after dark, then your chances go up of not getting caught. Your victims will be afraid to come forward, the cops won’t take it seriously, juries will let you off. So every time you pass around a “how not to get raped” list, you’re saying to rapists, “Here are the women you can rape and we, as a society, will allow it.”
I want to tell you guys about something that happened to me.
A little over a year ago, I went to a party. I had worked until 11, so I got there pretty late. When I arrived, the only people I knew there had already passed out. When I first started drinking, before I was even a little tipsy, some guy made a really obvious pickup attempt on me. He casually brushed his hand over mine and said, “Oops.” I had recently had a few casual sex encounters, and I had decided that I was going to stop doing that for a little bit because I wasn’t feeling too great about it. Not that I necessarily felt that it wasn’t okay to have casual sex, just that it wasn’t a good thing for me at the time. When he did that, I just thought to myself, “Nice try buddy, but it’s not going to happen.” I didn’t say anything though.
I kept drinking, and as the night went on, more people went to bed. I have a prescription for adderall, so I gave some to this girl because she really likes it, and the guy who had made the really obvious pickup attempt on me wanted one, too. I gave it too him, and when I turned around, he was crushing it up to snort it. I’d never snorted anything before, so I was kind of like “woah,” but I let him talk me in to doing it, too. After I did, things got really blurry. I remember he kept pouring me more shots, and I just kept doing them because why not? I was there to have fun.
Eventually I blacked out. I have a few split-second memories - like single slides from a movie or something. I remember sitting on the floor eating pistachios. Then I remember going upstairs. I was looking down the stairs as he was going up. I think he might have been carrying me, but I don’t remember it well enough to know for sure. I remember standing in the master bedroom, looking in at the bathroom and seeing the big Jacuzzi tub. The last memory I have of that night is of being in the bed with him on top of me.
My friend told me that when he came to check on me the next morning that I sat up but didn’t say anything, and my eyes rolled to the back of my head and I laid back down. I don’t remember that at all.
When I woke up, I was naked in bed next to that guy. I got up to get dressed, and I noticed something on the sheets. It looked like blood, and it was right where my head had been. I felt the back of my head. There was no blood, but there was a lump.
I had just barely enough memory to know what had happened. I knew we’d had sex. I was pretty sure he didn’t use a condom. I didn’t know his name, but I figured it out before I left. It was Sean. Eventually I left and had to go to work.
I had to leave work early that day. My head was heavy. I couldn’t concentrate. I had no idea what was going on. I felt disgusting. I’d had sex with a stranger, and it was totally my fault. I had put myself in a dangerous situation, and I was the only one to blame. I shouldn’t have drank so much. I shouldn’t have snorted that adderall. I shouldn’t have kept drinking after that.
I told two of my guy friends what had happened. One of them was surprised. It was “so unlike me.” The other one was shocked, too. He said it was “pretty slutty.” I felt even more disgusting than I had before.
I bled for a few days after that. That happens to me sometimes, when I have rough sex. Though I don’t think it’s ever lasted that long before.
I know now that it wasn’t my fault, but I still feel like it was. I don’t think I’ll ever truly feel like it wasn’t my fault. I shouldn’t have gotten so drunk around a strange guy who so obviously wanted to get with me. I shouldn’t have been so careless.
But even though I feel that way, there’s still the logical part of me that knows it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t get raped because I drank too much. I got raped because someone raped me.
It doesn’t make me feel any better, but it does make me more aware of what a lot of girls go through.
I just want to say, to anyone out there who has been in my situation - it’s not your fault. I know you feel disgusting. I know you feel like you shouldn’t have been so stupid. I know it’s easier to blame yourself than it is to blame the guy that did this to you. And most of all, I know you feel like your situation isn’t as worth noting as the girls’ who have been forcibly or violently raped. I know you feel like you shouldn’t complain, because other girls have had it a lot worse than you, but that shouldn’t belittle what happened to you. You still got raped. I know how ashamed you feel. I know how much you hate yourself for it, and I want you to know that it’s not your fault.
You didn’t get raped because you drank too much. You didn’t get raped because you made a careless mistake. You got raped because somebody raped you. I’m here, and I know what you’ve been through. I know it’s not your fault, and I want you to accept that. I know it’s difficult to accept because I still have a hard time accepting it myself, but it really, truly is not your fault.
I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.
But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.
And that guy? Thought you were on his side.
"— My brilliant friend Kate Harding: http://kateharding.net/2007/04/14/on-being-a-no-name-blogger-using-her-real-name/ (via sanitywatchers)
(via vicious-violet)
Because I felt like this needed its own post because this article is so accurate it’s ridiculous.
This past Thursday, a group of men started cat-calling/hitting on a group of women in Chicago. When the women said, no, the men threw bottles and then SHOT at their car as they tried to drive away. One woman was shot in the shoulder, and the driver took a bottle in the head as she tried to drive off. Last month in Washington, DC a Transwoman was shot for turning down a man’s request for sex as she sat in her car. In August a woman in Atlanta was shot for refusing to get in a car with a group of men. In May of 2010 a young woman was shot in the leg for turning down a man’s advances.
Ok, so that was one googling, which also yielded an article on a woman in Australia who was shot in the thigh after refusing to perform oral sex. Many people will claim that these are just “isolated” incidents. But three of those took place in the last two, two and a half months. That’s not really isolated, in fact, that sounds distinctly like a pattern.
When guys complain about women not giving them a straight answer, this is why. Granted, these are fairly extreme. However, on a regular basis women who turn down men, no matter how nicely, are insulted, yelled at, spit on, hit, kicked and knocked to the ground. Most of these assaults go unreported because women know that the police aren’t going to take them seriously, particularly if they’re dressed at all nicely or “sexy.”
This is why the Schrodinger’s Rapist post resonated with so many women.
“Why are you afraid of women?” I asked a group of men.
“We’re afraid they’ll laugh at us,” replied the men.
“Why are you afraid of men?” I asked a group of women
“We’re afraid they’ll kill us,” replied the woman. -Margaret AtwoodWhen men ignore our boundaries, try to push or test them, we rightfully feel that they are a bigger risk for pushing even more important, dangerous boundaries, like say, raping or hitting you.
Yeah, I know, a lot of you are out there (if you’ve gotten this far) thinking, “That’s bullshit! I’d never do that!” And maybe you wouldn’t, but we can’t take that chance. And when you push boundaries or ignore our “No”s, even about small things, this puts you higher and higher up on the risk scale.
We can’t take those chances because when we’re raped or assaulted it’s always our fault. Everyone tells us so. Every single person who says, “I’d never blame the victim, but if you’re wearing a short skirt, what do you expect?” Every fucking magazine with their “Ten Things You Can Do to Not Be Raped” articles, that place all the onus on women, and none of it on, oh, the rapists.
How do you not scare women?
Respect their boundaries. Take no at face value. As a commenter said over on Pharyngula, you have nothing to lose: If she meant no, you’ve respected her wishes. If she meant “pursue me harder” or whatever bullshit, then bullet dodged. You don’t want to deal with that kind of mind-game playing, anyway.
But in all seriousness, guys, if you ever wonder why women act like their scared of you, read the above links again.
(Source: gabrielleabelle, via vicious-violet)
Since 1929, the FBI defined rape as “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” Taken literally, this definition means men can’t be rape survivor and also excludes forced anal and oral sex. Now, I am happy to report that as of October 19, 2011, the FBI changed the definition to “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”
Bravo, and well done.
27 yo white-passing mixed race bisexual/genderqueer woc named christina, engaged to a wonderful man/tumblr user certainlynotshibas.
i blog tv shows anime manga race intersectionality queer rights feminism and lots of shit i just find cute or funny or fascinating
i'm pretty easy to get along with if you aren't an asshole. actually, i don't like people who are less of an asshole than me. it's annoying. so try to be a little bit of a asshole but not too much of one. strike a delicate balance and then we can be friends.
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I’m actually about to fly halfway across the country with a two year old. Wish me luck.
