Interesting article on Women’s Enews today by John Lasker on how female noncombat deaths look suspiciously like sexual violence – but the military denies it:
Mother of one dead soldier suspects sex assault
At least 20 female soldiers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan in “noncombat” circumstances that their families find mysterious. The mother of one talks here about why she thinks sexual violence–not suicide–was her daughter’s real killer.
Great debate on Democracy Now between Jaclyn Friedman of WAM and Naomi Wolf, author. Apparently, Wolf doesn’t have much sympathy for rape that is ambiguous. And, she believes consent can include someone giving in to repetitive pleas or having sex while asleep. Some advocate.
My stomach dropped when I read this…
Republicans kill bill to prevent child marriage
An estimated 60 million girls in developing countries now ages 20 to 24 were married before they reached the age of 18. The Population Council estimates that the number will increase by 100 million over the next decade if current trends continue.
Child marriage, noted Durbin, is often carried out through force or coercion.
It deprives young girls – and sometimes boys – of their dignity and human rights. In some countries, it is not uncommon for girls as young as seven or eight years old to be married. These young victims are robbed of their childhoods. In addition to denying tens of millions of women and girls their dignity, child marriage also endangers their health. Marriage at an early age puts girls at greater risk of dying as a result of childbirth. Pregnancy and childbirth complications are the leading cause of death for women 15 to 19 years old in developing countries. Their children also face higher mortality rates.
Reality TV Does a Real Hit Job on Women’s Brains
(WOMENSENEWS)–Women’s intellectual inferiority is among reality TV’s basest notions. Time and time again, we learn that the female half of the population is cringe-inducingly stupid.
In embarrassing scenes across unscripted subgenres, women are portrayed as “the dumber sex.” For women, we learn from one bridezilla, “Thinking is a waste of time. Thinking is for people who have no brains.”
Before we learn a thing about their personalities, we’re predisposed to deem them inane, idiotic or, at best, naive for signing up for reality TV humiliation in the first place.
Visit Jennifer’s site – Reality Bites Back – and be sure to view the Reality Rehab videos – they’re hysterical!!
Why is it that women make false allegations (making them sound vindictive and malicious) but men frame people (which sounds like they need intelligence and talent)?
Seemona Sumasar spent months behind bars after ex orchestrated elaborate frame-up to silence her
Sumasar was sprung last week, and yesterday, her conniving ex, Jerry Ramrattan, was charged as the mastermind of a stunning scheme. He was desperate to get her to drop the sex attack charges she filed in September 2009 after the two split up, officials said. So he paid two pals to concoct the armed robbery lies, authorities say.
Sumasar said cops thought she was crazy when she proclaimed her innocence and recounted the months of hell the spurned Ramrattan put her through.
“They acted like I’m just trying to blame somebody else for something I did,” Sumasar told reporters. “They did not want to look at it at all.”
Before the Far Rockaway woman was arrested in May by Long Island cops and held on $1 million bail, she says, Ramrattan, 38, was behind a massive campaign of harassment and intimidation.
She suspects he filed a series of anonymous complaints that prompted health and building inspectors to descended on her Golden Crust bakeshop.
Once she landed in jail, the business went under and her home is now threatened with foreclosure. The most painful part was being away from her 12-year-old daughter, Chiara.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/12/08/2010-12-08_seemona_sumasar_spent_months_behind_bars_after_ex_orchestrated_elaborate_frameup.html#ixzz18ngeV2tU
Sumasar and her lawyer call it all a miscarriage of justice.
They complain that investigators refused to check out her alibi that she was at a Connecticut casino when one of the armed robberies supposedly happened.
“Everybody looked at me as a drama queen, like I’m giving them a Lifetime movie story,” she said.
Sumasar, who spent a decade working on Wall Street before launching her own business, had never been in jail before.
“I did everything I could to keep my mind from going crazy,” she said. “I was praying somebody’s going to listen.”
Here’s some info on a Courage in Journalism award:
From the IWMF Web site:
It takes courage to report the news in many parts of the world. Each year, the International Women’s Media Foundation honors that courage and promotes the importance of a free press with its Courage in Journalism Awards, the only international awards that recognize the bravery of women journalists. Nominees risk political persecution, physical injury and death in their efforts to expose corruption and champion human rights.
Please consider signing the petition against Tilly’s despicable, degrading, and indefensible T-shirts:
No comment: Tilly’s teaches women how to listen
GREAT paragraph here –
Consumer activism like this is an indispensable tool to fight the widespread dehumanization of women seen in television shows, movies, advertising and even on t-shirts. Corporations are interested in drawing attention to their products, so they break through the clutter of messages with increasingly shocking content, too often at the expense of girls and women. The only way to break this cycle is to threaten their bottom line through organized boycotts, a disinvestment campaign, culture jamming or damage to the corporate brand through public truth-telling.
Salon ran this article: Why do serial killers target sex workers? by Tracy Clark-Flory. Honestly, I’m not sure why sections like Broadsheet don’t have articles with stronger positions. She wrote another article I posted here that seemed to rationalize away behavior – kind of like, boys will be boys (it was the article on the gang-rape and subsequent Facebook posting of the drugged teen girl). In this article on serial killers, she tells us serial killers attack sexworkers…because they’re easy prey. End of story.
So, does that include gay and transgendered sexworkers? Or, ONLY WOMEN?
I posted this comment (and just noticed other posters had something similar to say):
There are many easy victims in society – male prostitutes, homeless, disabled, drug dealers who would get close to a car, etc.
THEY TARGET WOMEN
Women’s groups in Atlantic City, NJ said this years ago when 4 female prostitutes were found dead – sure they’re sex workers BUT THEY ARE ALL WOMEN
Particularly when the bodies are found with things like rocks in their vaginas (Green River Killer), misogyny is at play (as if murdering females weren’t enough)
When will the media learn to SEE gender-based violence for what it is – and shame on ‘Broadsheet’ for often missing this boat as well.
Here’s the article she references: Women account for 70 percent of serial killer victims, FBI reports
According to never-before-released FBI data, women accounted for 70 percent of the 1,398 known victims of serial killers since 1985. By comparison, women represented only 22 percent of total homicide victims.
The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP), based in Quantico, Va., released the data at the request of Scripps Howard News Service. SHNS is conducting an investigation into the nation’s more than 185,000 unsolved homicides committed since 1980.
According to the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Report, local police reported that about 33,000 homicides of women remain unsolved.
FBI agent Mark Hilts, head of the bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit No. 2 that profiles serial killers, said “a large number” of serial killers act with a sexual motive.
“Sex can be a motivation, but it’s a motivation in conjunction with something else — with anger, with power, with control,” Hilts said. “Most serial killers do derive satisfaction from the act of killing, and that’s what differentiates them” from those who kill to help commit or conceal another crime.
I had read once that murder is the number one cause of death among prostitutes. They’re also subject to rape, verbal abuse, physical abuse, etc. Which makes you wonder why shows like HBO’s Cathouse and others only show the positive side of prostitution. Why the positive PR? Why not discuss violence, teen prostitution, sexual slavery? Would that spoil the fun?
We really need to hold them accountable. As the saying goes, prostitution is the world’s oldest OPPRESSION.
Baltimore makes progress on rape but has a long way to go
When Mr. Fenton interviewed victims of sexual assault — and, amazingly, current and former sex offense detectives — they described interrogations in which the police accused victims of making false accusations as cover for having cheated on a boyfriend or for having made a decision they regretted. It was, Mr. Bealefeld said at a City Council hearing on Wednesday, a unit that had “devolved into poor practices over an extended period of time.” Based on the response from the mayor and police commissioner, it’s hard to believe anyone in the unit could still believe that attitude is acceptable.
More than 1 in 3 South African men admit to rape: Study
JOHANNESBURG — A new survey says more than one in three South African men admit to having committed rape.
A 2010 study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, home to South Africa’s most populous city of Johannesburg, more than 37 percent of men said they had raped a woman. Nearly 7 percent of the 487 men surveyed said they had participated in a gang rape.
More than 51 percent of the 511 women interviewed said they’d experienced violence from men, and 78 percent of men said they’d committed violence against women.
A quarter of the women interviewed said they’d been raped, but the study says only one in 25 rapes are reported to police.
Media Misses 