I find your lack of faith disturbing…

Yeah, I'm looking at you!
(Image by Karpati Gabor,
via morgueFile)

So the world is all atwitter (quite literally) because of Dylan Farrow’s statements against Woody Allen and Stephen King’s tweets about them.  The quick summary: Farrow was upset that Allen is still being honored, despite accusations of molestation when she was seven years old.  King tweeted that he felt that there was “palpable bitchery” in the letter that Farrow wrote to the New York Times.  The conversation continued, with King saying that he “[didn’t] like to think it’s true” and then finally asking for “mercy” when people flooded him with negative comments.

First up: the irony.  Stephen King, in his book Dolores Clairborne, has his character kill off a child molester in order to protect her family.  (Yes, it’s her husband…) 

Hmmm.  In the real world, when a girl comes forward and says that her father has molested her, King wants it to be untrue.  But in a fictional world, it’s all good and sympathetic for a woman to kill her husband for molesting their child.  Admittedly, the fictional world is not the real world, but to write a book that attempts to justify a murder through child abuse and then hope that it doesn’t happen in the real world…how does that cognitive dissonance work exactly?

Second up: the personal connection.  No, I was not molested as a child.  However, a family member was molested by her father.  Not naming names as one of the parties involved is still alive…but this happened back well before I was born, and it did involve my grandfather (who is dead now).  I only learned of it when my sister and I turned about 12 and 13, and my grandfather, who had previously shown no interest in us, began asking my parents to allow us to go visit him overnight up in New York state.  My parents refused, but my sister and I, unhappy at being stymied from going away, protested, and it was finally explained to us why they would not let us go. 

Meanwhile, the only punishment that he ever received for his crime was that his wife divorced him and took their children away.  Did he ever molest anyone else?  How did the person he molested ever deal with it and stay “friends” with him?  This, to me, is completely mind-boggling.  After learning that about him, I couldn’t stand him, and I wished that he had been put in prison or somehow punished for his actions against a child.  But he wasn’t.  And because of the year and the fact it was family, people just pushed it aside and kept going.  But it was wrong.  Very, very wrong.  And it was not something that should be easily forgiven nor forgotten.   

Because of that, while I can’t feel Farrow’s pain, I can definitely understand her feelings of betrayal from the world at large.  How can people celebrate and honor someone who is so capable of doing such a heinous thing?  How can you forgive that just because someone is talented at something else?  If Allen had put someone in a coma…if he had murdered someone…or if he had been formally charged, would it have made a difference?

Third up – and the final point I feel the need to make: this brings up the most horrifying aspect of child abuse, in my opinion.  The lack of faith and belief in children when they bring these things forward.  Now, I’m not saying that there are times when there are false accusations.  I grew up in Maplewood, NJ, home of the infamous Kelly Michaels case.  But, by and large, I do believe that if children are brave enough to come forward, we need to believe them. 

In the case of Farrow, back in 1993 in Connecticut, “State'sAttorney Frank Maco says there was "probable cause" to charge Allenwith molesting Dylan and that police had drawn up an arrest warrant, but thathe decided not to pursue the case, in part because it would traumatize Dylan.”  

How sad that it never went forward.  And how sad that so many children are treated this way. 

In a CNN article, “The Rapist Next Door,” one girl shared her story of how, when she told that she was being molested by her brother, she was sent into foster care.  A boy who tried to tell that he was being molested was accused of being liar and a “no good, mischievous boy.”  Knowing that those who were abused or molested are more likely to abuse or molest themselves (according to one study of incarcerated child molesters, 30 to 70 percent were themselves sexually abused, according to the New York Times, we should be seeking out these cases and helping the children, not ignoring them and their pain. 

Perhaps this blog doesn’t belong under a feminist heading – it’s not just about women or girls.  It’s not just about boys or men.  It’s about a lack of faith in believing when problems are reported.  In many cases, yes, it is women and girls who are ignored, but it’s also children and adults who are ignored when they report a case.  Or, in even worse cases, are accused of being responsible for the crime. 

So, truly, I find that lack of faith almost as disturbing as the crime itself. 

Let’s rape ourselves! (Or, more appropriately titled, why do women feel the need to blame women?)

This mannequin better watch out
or Dick Black might get her!

Image by Pedro J Perez, morgueFile

 

Many a year ago, a wise man named Jonathan Swift suggested that perhaps we need to eat babies.  Eating babies, he said, would solve so many of societies’ ills.  We’d have food.  We’d have less population.  Babies wouldn’t go to waste!  The poor could get rich selling their offspring, which they didn’t really need or want anyway.  It was a total win-win situation.

Sadly, though, the brilliance of Swift is long gone.  Or at least, it appears to be when you are foolish enough to read anything written by Roxanne Jones.  Roxanne Jones, who somehow won the 2010 Woman of the Year award from Women in Sports and Events, wrote two pieces that I had hoped – prayed even! – were satire.  And sadly, for both myself and all women in the world, they were not.

The first one appeared back around Thanksgiving.

In the article, titled “Young men, get a ‘yes’ text before sex,” she begins by telling her son to “watch out for stupid girls…they are trouble.”  Oh my, as a certain famous and funny performer has said a few times.  She goes on to complain about women who are “party girls…who thrive on attention.”  These girls, she says, are not asking to be raped.  But, then she says, what you need to do is to get a girl to text you “yes” before she has sex with you.  This, she somehow believes, will solve the problem of rape on college campuses.

Yes, this awesome woman states “Never have sex with a girl unless she’s sent you a text that proves the sexual relationship is consensual.”  Wow.  Why isn’t she out there, campaigning for this to be made into a law?

Because it’s stupid as fuck.

Seriously, this harkens back to 1999 when an Italian appeals court ruled that a woman wearing jeans couldn’t be raped because “it is common knowledge…that jeans cannot even be partly removed without the effective help of the person wearing them…and it is impossible if the victim is struggling with all her might.” 

Let me just clear this up – there doesn’t have to be a struggle for it to be rape.  A woman can say no, but if fear is there (a weapon, a threat, anything) or if the woman is unable to fight (drunk, asleep, whatever), then it’s still rape!  It does not matter if she fights back.  It does not matter if she texts a yes.  How easy would it be for a guy, holding a gun on a woman, to make her text that message?  How easy would it be to put roofies in a girl’s drink, get her phone, and then text that to yourself?  Who the fuck would honestly consider a text all the permission they need?

Jones, at the end of her article, once again says that men shouldn’t rape drunk women.  But right before she makes that point, she again points out that “true equality means that we are also held accountable for our actions.  Partying and drinking until you are no longer in control of your body or mind instantly sets you up to become a victim of rape or bodily harm – or even to die.”  Yes, true, but the same is true for men – at least the death part is.  But it doesn’t matter.  People can do stupid things.  They do do stupid things.  But to bring that up – to say that “nobody wants to be a stupid girl” – implies that women are asking for it.  It says straight out that women should not be able to get drunk, like men can get drunk, without being “instantly set up” to be raped and murdered.

But Jones doesn’t stop there.

In December, she got up on her soapbox again and suggested that false rape accusers should be sued.  

Now, I’m all for justice.  It is very true that some women have lied about being raped.  However, that being said, Jones even admits that some things that can make rape cases not go to court can be as simple as the fact that “the alleged victim did not try to fight off the suspect or suffer injuries, was not threatened with a weapon or the victim and perpetrator had a previous relationship.”  In all those cases, the rape charge might be dismissed, and the case might be considered a false accusation.  In fact, according to GOP candidate Dick Black, spousal rape shouldn’t be a crime, and you can’t really call it rape if someone is wearing a nightie.  

Jones ends her article by telling us that “we have a long way to go before there’s justice for all.”  But she’s not referring to the rape victims who have had their cases dismissed because there wasn’t enough physical injury. She’s referring to those falsely accused of rape.

Again, I’m all for justice.  If someone is falsely accused and their reputation is destroyed, they deserve their day in court and their name restored.  However, what about those who are actually raped and can’t get their day in court?  How can you ignore the 87,000 “forcible rapes” that the FBI has on record in 2012?  How can you ignore the non-forcible rapes, where lives were just as destroyed?

I would love to see Jones stripped of her “Woman of the Year” award.  Her writing is not for women.  Her views are not for women.  She feels horrible for the “innocent men [who] end up in prison or with lives shattered” but seems to ignore the women who wind up in their own mental (and sometimes physical) prisons. 

Et tu, NPR?

Take this pie and shove it!
(Image by ayndroid via morgueFiles)

 

Why would NPR fall back in time with their headline “GM Gives A Woman The KeysTo Drive Its Future.”  Gives?  Gives? 

Okay, I have to bring this around to an argument about teaching now.  Years ago, I talked to another English professor.  He used to laugh when students talked about their grades.  If they failed, they often said that their instructor “gave” them an F.  If they passed, they said they “earned” an A.  He would laugh at them and point out that they earned the F the same way they earned the A.

Which brings us back to the article’s headline.  Did they “give” it to her?  It is just tokenism and a way to pad their numbers?  Or did she legitimately earn it?  I don’t hazard a guess; I’m not big on tracking what GM is doing and what their execs are like.  But I do know that if she honestly earned the position, as we would expect any male candidate to do, then we shouldn’t belittle her accomplishment by putting out headlines that imply that women only achieve things through being “given” them.

One of their points in the article is that “Even now in Saudi Arabia, women risk violence or arrest for just sitting behind the wheel of a car.”  How is that even relevant?  What does that have to do with any of this?  We’re not living in Saudi.  We’re not following their laws.  Is the author trying to show that we’re more advanced? That we actually “let” and “give” our women these things?

I suppose this wouldn’t be that bad, but it was a woman who wrote the article!  Marilyn Geewax.  Golly gee, Geewax, maybe next time you can go ahead and write a wonderful article about a man who gets an executive position, and you can go ahead and put the same information in about him.  Talk about how he was “given” the position, and point out something about circumcision, maybe.  Make sure to mention that he has kids (“a mother of two” is so cleverly slipped into the article…)

When are we going to stop looking at boobs and start looking at resumes?  When are we going to go ahead and report things fairly and equally instead of picking terminology that denigrates? 

Sorry, NPR, but you really fouled this one up.