Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[Kobi]

Mike Huckabee says Democrats make women feel helpless to control their libido by offering government-sponsored birth control.

The onetime presidential candidate and former Arkansas governor told the Republican National Committee during a speech Thursday that they can’t allow liberals to frame the debate any longer.

“I think it’s time Republicans no longer accept listening to the Democrats talk about a ‘war on women,’” Huckabee said. “Because the fact is, the Republicans don’t have a war on women. They have a war for women.”

He said Democrats convinced women they were victims, but Republicans wanted to empower them.

“Women I know are outraged that Democrats think that women are nothing more than helpless or hopeless creatures whose only goal in life is to have a government provide for them
birth control medication,” Huckabee said. “Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything anyone else can do.”

Huckabee made similar remarks Sunday during his Fox News program.

He said the Republican Party, which kicked off its annual winter conference by sending participants to the March for Life, stands for the equality of women.

“If Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government, then so be it,” Huckabee said.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/2...m-uncle-sugar/

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I see the GOP has been advised to reframe the war on women to the war for women.

Allison, you might be clairvoyant. I am a leetle closer to calling someone a fuckie fuck face.

[Kobi]

Conservatives are attacking Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) for misrepresenting her background, in particular the hardships she faced as a young single mother. But one Texas Republican is defending Davis' record, saying the gubernatorial candidate wouldn't be subject to the same criticism if she were male.

On Sunday, a Dallas Morning News article pointed out some discrepancies in the stories Davis has told -- including when she was divorced from her first husband, how long she lived in a trailer and how she paid for law school. In response, conservatives such as Rush Limbaugh have labeled her a "genuine head case" and claimed she had a "sugar daddy."

Some pundits have even suggested that Davis was a negligent parent for leaving her children with her second husband while she attended Harvard Law School in the early 1990s.

Becky Haskins, a Republican who served with Wendy Davis on the Fort Worth City Council, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Tuesday that Davis was a hard worker who did what she needed to do for her daughters.

“If this involved a man running for office, none of this would ever come up,” Haskins told the Star-Telegram. “It’s so sad. Every time I ran, somebody said I needed to be home with my kids. Nobody ever talks about men being responsible parents.”

“They wouldn’t be talking about Wendy if she weren’t a threat," Haskins added.

Davis' main Republican opponent in the Texas governor's race, state Attorney General Greg Abbott, accused her of “systematically, intentionally and repeatedly deceiv[ing] Texans for years about her background."

Davis has admitted that she was 21 when she divorced her first husband, not 19 as previously stated. (She was 19 with a baby when the two were separated.) She has also acknowledged that her second husband paid for a portion of her education.

In a Monday release from her campaign, Davis responded to Abbott's attacks with defiance.

"[The attacks] won’t work, because my story is the story of millions of Texas women who know the strength it takes when you’re young, alone and a mother," Davis said in the release. "I’ve always been open about my life not because my story is unique, but because it isn’t."

And in an email to her supporters sent Tuesday, Davis said, "You’re damn right it’s a true story."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_4645187.html

[Kobi]

*****Trigger Warning*****

“Ignore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong.

[Kobi]

"In a survey of high school students, 56% of the girls and 76% of the boys believed forced sex was acceptable under some circumstances. A survey of 11-to-14 year-olds found that 51% of the boys and 41% of the girls said forced sex was acceptable if the boy, "spent a lot of money" on the girl; 31% of the boys and 32% of the girls said it was acceptable for a man to rape a woman with past sexual experience; 87% of boys and 79% of girls said sexual assault was acceptable if the man and the woman were married; 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it was acceptable for a boy to rape a girl if they had been dating for more than six months."


This is from an internet conference from Harvard Law School that was held back in 2002. I cannot track down the study itself.

Even tho it is 12 years old, it still surprised me. It is a mindset that I expected back in my generation of the 60's and 70's.

Interesting reading tho. Access course here.

[Kobi]

This word describes so much of what we see in the cultural and systemic treatment of trans* women in our culture and ties in so clearly with feminism, and yet it’s not a word that many people know about or understand.

You may have heard of transphobia: the discrimination of and negative attitudes toward transgender people based on their gender expression.

And you’ve likely heard of misogyny: the hatred and denigration of women and characteristics deemed feminine.

Transmisogyny, then, is the confluence of these – the negative attitudes, expressed through cultural hate, individual and state violence, and discrimination directed toward trans* women and trans* people on the feminine end of the gender spectrum.

Who Is Vicitimized by Transmisogyny?

Transmisogyny targets transgender and transsexual women – male-to-female (MTF) people who were assigned a male gender at birth, but have transitioned to identify as women.

Transgender women are not the only people who experience transmisogyny.

Trans* people who do not necessarily identify as women, but who present feminine characteristics and/or identify along the feminine end of the gender spectrum are also on the receiving end of transmisogyny.

Transmisogyny is all about the hatred of the feminine, and it is not limited toward only those who identify as women. It includes transfeminine and feminine-identified genderqueer people, as well as many others who are feminine-of-center but were not assigned a female gender at birth.

So for the purpose of simplicity and brevity in this article, I will use the term trans* women (the asterisk used to mark inclusivity of those who are not necessarily transgender, but are also not cisgender) to refer to all people victimized by transmigogyny; when specifically referring to transgender women, I will use that terminology.

Why Does Transmisogyny Exist?

Transmisogyny is based in the assumption that femininity is inferior to masculinity.

It relies on an understanding of all those qualities that are associated with ”femaleness” and devaluing them, viewing them as less than those qualities associated with “maleness” and therefore as deserving of hatred, mockery, and violence.

This sounds a whole lot like sexism, doesn’t it?

Why should there be a specific word used to describe the experience of trans* people who are specifically feminine? How is this different from sexism and transphobia?

Trans* women experience a particular kind of sexist marginalization based in their unique position of overlapping oppressions – they are both trans* and feminine. They are devalued by society on both accounts.

Trans* people experience transphobia, or cissexism, due to a cultural and systemic obsession with the gender binary: the idea that there are two types of people – men and women – who are born, raised, and naturally associate with that gender and its accompanying characteristics. Our cultural and political institutions are based on this premise.

Transmisogyny reflects a hatred of those who do not fit easily into either side of the gender binary.

Trans* women are not always easily categorized, and for people and institutions whose understanding of gender relies deeply in the repressive gender binary, this is confusing, transgressive, and for some, worthy of hate.

The response to the existence of those who challenge the social understanding of gender, then, is extreme oppression and marginalization of trans* people of all gender expressions.

Trans-Femininity and Sexism

Our society is steeped in the notion that women and characteristics coded as feminine are inferior to men and those qualities coded as masculine.

In our sexist society, being a woman automatically places you in a position of less value.

But to give up one’s “important” position as a man, choosing (as trans* people are perceived to do) to be a woman and to be feminine, in a way, poses a fundamental threat to male superiority and may be seen as a rejection of the “superior male identity.”

Trans* women are not only a reminder to society that gender categories are not fixed, but also that womanhood and feminine gender expression is not something to be ashamed of.

In this way, understanding transmisogyny is absolutely imperative to our work as feminists, and makes clear just how integral trans* issues and rights are to our work around gender.

Not only is transmisogyny steeped in sexism, but the resulting oppression is parallel to what cisgender (those who identify with the gender of which they were assigned at birth) women face: physical objectification, over-sexualization, stereotyping, policing of bodies, a discrimination on all levels of society, and individual and systemic acts of violence.

The Violence of Transmisogyny

Transmisogyny rears its ugly head in many ways and on all levels of society.

We see it, for instance, in violence on an individual level.

Hate crimes against trans* people are disproportionately and tragically high, and the majority of this violence victimizes trans* women.

In fact, over half of all anti-LGBTQIA+ homicides were perpetrated against transgender women. And while we’re talking statistics, it’s important to note that nearly three-quarters of those homicides targeted people of Color.

We see transmisogyny in state violence as well.

1 in 5 transgender women (21%) has been incarcerated at some point in her life. This is far above the general population, and is even higher (47%) for Black transgender people.

According to the National Center for Transgender Equality, trans* people experience disproportionately high rates of poverty and homelessness caused by discrimination in jobs and housing, but they also experience greater incarceration rates, largely due to gender profiling by the police.

Gender is policed, quite literally by police officers who target, arrest, and often harass trans* women for looking “different” and therefore, “disorderly.” Trans* women of Color, in particular, tend to be perceived by police through racialized and gender stereotypes framing them as highly sexual and as criminal.

Trans* women are consistently targeted and arrested for being involved in sex work, even if they have no association with this work.

There have been many instances where trans* women, most often trans* women of Color, have been arrested for carrying condoms.

In New York, where having a condom on you can be used as evidence of involvement in sex work, trans* women are being profiled, searched, and arrested for being a trans* woman at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There’s also direct violence at the hands of police: A 2012 study by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that transgender people across the U.S. experience three times more police violence than cisgender people.

And nearly half of trans* people who reported hate crimes to the police experienced mistreatment from them while asking for help.

Trans* women experience abuse after being arrested as well, when they are most often forced to reside in men’s prison facilities, experiencing extremely high rates of sexual and physical violence – a study by the Department of Justice found that 1 in 3 are sexual assaulted in prison. In response, many prisons place trans* women in solitary confinement for extended periods of time “for their own protection.” (Meanwhile, solitary confinement is considered a form of torture.)

In the Media

While trans* men are generally ignored and made invisible by American media, trans* women are exoticized, their existence perceived as shocking and newsworthy. They are mocked, over-sexualized, and fetishized.

Trans* women are given an extremely two-dimensional portrayal in the news, where they are most often reported on in association of a hate crime. In these reports, their gender is consistently portrayed as confusing and illegitimate, appearing in countless headlines like this one: “Man Dressed as Woman Found Dead.

Our media portrays trans* women in archetypes – as the weak victim of a crime, or as the evil villain; as the mentally unstable character, or as the manipulative one.

They are often pathologized and sexualized, portrayed as someone manipulatively hiding their transgender identity to trick a man into engaging with them sexually or romantically.

They play countless television roles as sex workers.

They are shown as unattractive; they are the butt of jokes, their desire to be feminine mocked, their motives for transitioning questioned.

And while it is difficult to find complex and honest portrayals of trans* women characters on television, it is even more rare to find an authentic and respectful portrayal of a trans* woman of Color (though we have see a few recently, like the great Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black).

In Queer and Women’s Spaces

Sadly, transmisogyny is also very present in LGBTQIA+ spaces, where trans* women, particularly trans* women of Color, are marginalized within an already marginalized group.

The mainstream LGBTQIA+ movement has been called out many times for excluding trans* people, and there is a pervasive sexism in the movement as well as in social spaces, that promotes transmisogyny and a denigration of feminine qualities.

Masculine privilege, like white privilege, does not disappear once one is in a queer space, and trans* women have been accused of “hurting the movement” due to the visible transgression of many of society’s norms involved in being a trans* woman.

And although it should be the last place where transmisogyny is present, sadly, we see it often in cis-women’s spaces.

Trans* women are excluded from many domestic violence shelters and other crisis spaces that exist in response to violence against women in our society.

Trans* women continue to be excluded from many women-only spaces and feminist events, while some “feminists” continue to speak out against the very existence of trans* women, arguing that they are not “authentic” women and that they are “hurting the movement.”

Trans* women have called these groups and spaces out, creating inclusive spaces in the meantime, citing that they experience sexism and homophobia in very real and concrete ways, and yet are excluded from the spaces which were created in response to these oppressions.

What Can We Do?

Transmisogyny, like sexism, is pervasive and structural, but it also exists in our everyday experiences. Once you understand it, you begin to notice it in personal interactions, on television, and in social movements and political campaigns.

Call it out! Name it for what it is. Transmisogyny, like, sexism, goes unnoticed too often because it is so entrenched in our sociocultural and political understanding of gender. Educate others about this issue.

And most importantly, don’t be afraid to call out other feminists or gay rights advocates for transmisoginistic words and actions. These are the spaces we need to make more inclusive.

It is so important that we work together to find a solution to the problem of transmisogyny’s existence in our movements and that we always act in solidarity with our trans* sisters.

If our movements seek to eradicate transphobia, homophobia, and sexism, then we must place transmisogyny, located at the intersection of these oppressions, at the forefront of our fight.


http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/01/transmisogyny/

[Kobi]

There’s this fun thing we’ve been talking about for months and years and decades now, and despite continued conversations and critiques of this behaviour, it rages on… We call it trashing or tearing down or sometimes we call it a witch hunt. And it seems particularly popular in feminist circles. It’s not only a successful way to silence women, but the behaviour is sure to go unchallenged by the masses. (Misogyny never goes out of style!)

If you’ve been the focus of said trashing, you’re likely familiar with the ways in which others readily and willfully misrepresent your words, thoughts, arguments, and life in order to silence you and beat you (virtually, verbally, metaphorically) into submission. An odd preoccupation for the “feminist” movement, to be sure.

Feminist blogger, Glosswitch wrote a post about some of these issues recently, after a tweet of hers was twisted around into an excuse to intimidate and bully her, because, SURPRISE! It’s the internet and it’s de rigeur to hate women on the internet. (The internet isn’t very original).

I do hope you’ll read the post in its entirety (no skimming) because, while I will quote her liberally here, I’m not sure I will quite do her arguments justice.

Glosswitch gets at a lot of key issues at play regarding the toxicity that exists in online feminism, but what it comes down to, it seems, is woman-hating:

Right now I’m done with the female social code that commands me to express shame at myself, assume good faith in cruel people and deny my own qualities just so that my presence isn’t too disruptive.

Beyoncé brought the words of Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, to the masses in her track, ***Flawless, and I think those words are apt: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls ‘You can have ambition, but not too much’.”

Indeed, women are supposed to take up as little space as possible — girls learn not to speak up in the classroom, we learn to literally shrink ourselves, physically, by dieting and fetishizing thinness, we are forced to take up as little space as possible on public transit and, more generally, in public spaces (we are even warned to stay out of public places, lest we be assaulted). We’re not supposed to speak up, stand out, say what we really think, or be proud of our accomplishments or success — in fact, we aren’t supposed to be successful and, if we are, we should feel as though we don’t deserve it and know we will be punished for it either way. To be lady-like is to speak without certainty or to not speak at all. So I can’t help but wonder why it’s become acceptable, among certain feminist circles, to tell one another to shut the fuck up or to focus our efforts on silencing other women.

Glosswitch points to a trend in certain feminist circles that’s bothered me for some time. It seems as though we are expected to divulge every single horrific trauma we’ve experienced, every personal moment of oppression or abuse, every single problem/illness/addiction/struggle we might have faced or currently be facing, publicly and via bullhorn, before we are acknowledged as credible or worthy of a voice. Without this outpouring of every-single-horror it is assumed we’ve experienced nothing but diamonds and champagne. Do I need to tattoo “working-class” on my forehead in order to avoid being called “rich” or “classist?” Because I don’t want to. Women shouldn’t have to tell the entire world every gory detail of their stories in order to have a voice. Many women are not in a position to do this, even if they wanted to. (Consider that many abused women, for example, fear for their lives and, as a result, could never speak publicly about their experiences.) Glosswitch points out that, when we don’t engage in this practice, we are seen as deserving of abuse and assumed to have had the privilege of avoiding experiences that few women been lucky enough to avoid. Do we truly believe every woman should divulge her struggles with addiction, poverty, mental illness, or assault in order to be able to speak? Or her history as an abused or prostituted woman? Placing this demand on women by devaluing their voices and experiences should they choose not to divulge, is unacceptable.

Glosswitch notes:

I think, again, this is related to misogyny and visibility and to the idea of women such as me, who don’t succumb to the pressure to create a tragic narrative out of their own twitter bio, as shameless interlopers who deserve a kicking.

She notices, as I have, the way certain feminists have used this routine as a way to privilege their voices and position themselves as “better” or more deserving of a platform than other feminists:

I think a skim through the twitter bios of a number of white feminists who consider themselves “more aware” than so-called media feminists makes the continuation of this misogynist impulse glaringly obvious. I don’t list my depression, my mental health history, my sexual history, my precise attitude towards gender, my family background in my bio. But I could. I know the lingo I’d use. It would make me more than “just” a woman, but that’s why I don’t do it. Being a woman who defines herself by her actions and words should be enough.

In reality, this is silencing. And it’s also misogynist. To silence and shame and vilify other women in order to move your career forward or to build a platform is not a particularly feminist behaviour. Neither is telling a woman she has no right to speak. Neither is bullying and harassing women who do dare to speak. Throwing women under the bus in order to shield yourself from misogyny or to get cookies is cowardly. And believe me, treating other feminists as though they should be perfect people (said “perfect” behaviour is decided by a few, mind you) will only make you fearful, as you will become too scared to say anything of consequence, lest someone treat you in the same way you have behaved towards others. Women don’t need to feel more ashamed or more afraid to speak up than they already do. They don’t need to be told to shut the fuck up. That internalized monologue already exists within us and we fight it every day.

Glosswitch points out that this particular form of woman-hating is often represented as educational, as an exercise in “privilege-checking”:

We don’t allow [feminists] mistakes. We are grossly, rampantly misogynist about them but this form of misogyny is supposed to be corrective, humiliating the privilege out of them.

She points out that there is a long tradition of punishing women who get out of line and who refuse to go along with the status quo and notes that this punishment is reserved for women, not men:

It’s feminists who have the nerve to put honesty before radical posturing who are unsettling. Those who genuinely claim space, which is then written off as “privilege” (because what is a woman doing there?). Such women might actually make a difference. So into the bridle they go.

The “bridle” she refers to is a contraption used centuries ago to punish women deemed “rude,” “riotous,” or “troublesome” — attributes that are commonly and historically ascribed to feminists.

There’s an air of superiority from those who busily seek to ruin and silence other feminists: “We’re doing it right; she’s doing it wrong.” By pointing our fingers elsewhere we keep ourselves safe from attack. It seems pretty clear, though, which white feminists are using valuable ideas like intersectionality to advance their own careers and gain popularity, without an ounce of interest in movements towards ending oppression and with little understanding of structural inequality.

As a white feminist, I would say it is easier – much, much easier – to play along with this. You get to enjoy the privilege of being white and appear superior to the “mere” white feminists who just don’t “get it”. There’s an absurdly careerist edge to this. If you view feminism not as a movement for social change, but as the route to a media career you’ve got to admit it’s a competitive arena. Using other people to play at being the best white intersectional feminist has been seen by some as a gap in the market. Donning the metaphorical tin hat to shout down “bad” peers is a USP. When you boil it down, such “feminists” are arch capitalists, seeking to commodify not just feminism but the exclusion and lived experience of others. It is emotionally manipulative and disgracefully self-serving, but it doesn’t involve laying yourself on the line. You get to be a privileged white woman without looking like one.

Rather than working against privilege, though, this tearing down and this vilification of other-feminists-not-you! reinforces it, Glosswitch argues:

It is easy but morally untenable, insofar as it uses ideas of intersecting oppressions, not to offer context and understanding, but to reinforce privilege by the back door and to silence dissent. I think of it as a form of privilege laundering. I think it is an example of white people exploiting the narratives of women of colour and it sucks.

Attacking women in order to get cookies is a pretty low form of feminism. There are few who will challenge the sport of misogyny. I see feminists throwing women under the bus in order to ally with more powerful liberal white men all too often, under the guise of “intersectionality” and I wonder if they see how deeply misguided they are in their imagined work towards liberation. (Allying with men who work to silence and slander women? You’re doing it wrong.) But maybe it’s not about female liberation after all… maybe it’s just about the cookies…

But now I am on the other side of that imaginary, exploitative privilege line, I see other benefits to approaching feminism not as liberation, but as a self-interested cookie hunt. I didn’t appreciate at the time how much I shielded myself from misogyny by putting the “bad” white feminists out in front.

It’s just too easy. We all know, full well, that we will receive endless support if we hate on feminists. “Virulent hatred of feminists? We got you.” – The internet. It doesn’t make you brave, it makes you boring.

Let me be clear (not that I think my words won’t be ignored and manipulated as they so often are, despite how clear I am) and say that I am not discouraging critique and difficult conversations. But shaming, silencing, manipulation, defamation and vilification, combined with faux-progressive white-lady (of course the white bros love to do this too, don’t forget) posturing, does not encourage either critique or conversation.

I can’t imagine this summary quite articulates the arguments Glosswitch puts forth, but her righteous anger towards many of the “Twitter feminists” who pat themselves on the backs for being “better” than whomever is Twitter’s current punching bag, felt justified. “How dare you have a platform!” it says, “How dare you speak with confidence.” “How dare you speak about your life and your experiences.” “You clearly haven’t learned how to properly perform femininity and you will be punished.”

None of you have the right to tell me what my own words mean, to tell me what my thoughts are, to reconstruct my words and reality without my consent. None of you have the right to damage my mental health, make me doubt my capacity to think, to make me feel unable to trust anyone because of the whispering and distortion that follows. None of you have the right to do this just because I’m a feminist and, if flawed, nonetheless a bloody good one too. None of you has the right to expect perfection from me. None of you have the right to place the scold’s bridle on me, to shame and silence me because I don’t fit in with your hackneyed, conservative misreading of revolution.

In our desperation, we’re looking to escape misogyny by participating in it. We all know that trashing feminists will get you far, but know how transparent and destructive this behaviour is. Know that attacking other women is really about your privilege as it works to protect you from the wrath of a culture that abhors and punishes women who step out of line.

Glosswitch coined the term “misogofeminists” to describe “women (and allies) whose primary form of feminist activism is trashing other women.” And along those lines I’d like to point out what should be obvious, but seems not to be these days: if your “activism” consists primarily of witch hunts and concerted, vicious efforts to silence women, you are doing misogyny, not feminism.

http://feministcurrent.com/8540/woma...ny-other-name/

[Kobi]

Trigger warning for sexual assault and strong language.

Between 20-25% of women and 3% of men will experience an attempted or completed sexual assault in college. A girl has roughly the same chance of being sexually assaulted during college, one in four/five, as she does of getting the flu during an average year.

Given these statistics, virtually any college town could be called a college rape capital. Everyone knows that, on campuses especially, alcohol is often a factor. Eighty percent of cases reported (which is only 5% of the total estimated number) involve alcohol. What they are less likely to know is how frequently alcohol is used by rapists; that despite a reduction of rape nationally, sexual assault rates on campuses have not changed in 50 years; and that the Center for Public Integrity has documented widespread victim-blaming and repeated institutional failures. All of this is true 27 years after a family whose daughter was raped and murdered in her college dorm room in 1986 founded the Clery Center for Security On Campus.

So, this is the environment in which the Daiquiri Factory, a bar in Spokane, Washington (a city with at least 10 colleges and universities) recently decided to name a drink "Grape Date Kool Aid." Because punny allusions to a people being sexually violated are so witty. Last weekend, more than 100 people gathered to protest the name and ask that rape be treated seriously. What the hell is wrong with feminists? Can't we give it a rest? Instead of changing the name of the drink, the bar announced, in so much lie-back-and-enjoy-it logic: "We just think everyone simply needs a little daiquiri therapy."

The thing about the bar, however, is that it probably understands its prospective customers all too well. A whole lot of teenagers arrive at college thinking that dehumanizing women and making light of sexual assault is a source of status and entertainment. Take, for example, the young man who wrote this email at William and Mary a few weeks ago:

There's beer to be drunk, porn to view, and sluts to fuck. Let me reiterate that last point: sluts are everywhere... That vagina needs you. Never mind the extremities that surround it, the 99% of horrendously illogical bullshit that makes up the modern woman, consider only the 1%, the snatch." He didn't stop there because apparently that wasn't clear enough. "See some riding boots? Some uggs? A hideous pair of rain boots without a cloud in sight? Now, raise your gaze from the footwear up, allow your eyes to wander from the feet up the long and slender legs of the lesser sex until finally you arrive at God's greatest gift: the box.

This puerile drivel was titled "Life, love and pussy." After this email, framed as a "Save the Sluts" community service project, was leaked, the fraternity that he belonged to issued an apology and outlined disciplinary actions. The administration issued statements and this past week held a town hall meeting, attended by an estimated 700 students, to discuss rape culture.

William and Mary is not unique in any way. While the student there wrote about women as manipulable, inert sex toys, stripped of voices and autonomy, he did not explicitly mention rape as many of these students, in examples spanning the past few years, did:

A group of male students at Georgia Tech received an email signed "In luring rapebait" instructing them to, among other things, grab women "on the hips with your 2 hands and then let them grind against your dick."

At Miami University of Ohio someone thought it was a good idea hang a poster titled "Top Ten Ways to Get Away with Rape," which closed with, "If your [sic] afraid the girl might identify you slit her throat."

A University of Vermont fraternity surveyed members with this question: "If you could rape someone, who would it be?"

At USC boys released a Gullet Report ("gullet" defined as "a target's throat capacity and it's [sic] ability to gobble cock. If a target is known to have a good gullet, it can deep-throat dick extremely well.) For good measure they added some overtly racist material as well.

A woman filed a lawsuit against Wesleyan University citing a fraternity known on campus as the "rape factory."

A Yale fraternity took photos of members holding up signs reading, "We love Yale sluts." Another fraternity had fun running around campus singing, "No means yes! Yes means anal!"

At Amherst, a fraternity had t-shirts made depicting a woman wearing only a bra and a thong. She was bruised and had an apple stuffed into her mouth, bound to a split and being roasted over a fire. The caption read, "Roasting Fat Ones Since 1847."

Nor is this limited to the United States:

The Durham rugby club was reprimanded last Fall for playing an "It's not rape if..." drinking game on campus. They'd already been prohibited from playing competitively after members dressed up like Jimmy Savile, a popular media figure who molested more than 1,000 victims.

At St Mary's University in Canada, more than 80 students sang "Y is for 'Your sister,' O is for 'Oh so tight,' U is for 'Underage,' N is for 'No consent,' G is for 'Grab that ass,'" during an orientation event.

At Wales' Cardiff Metropolitan University a poster for orientation week events featured a man wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the text: "I was raping a woman last night and she cried."

These are just examples of rape as entertainment, and not of actual rapes and their botched investigations or damaging and tragic effects. Occidental, Emerson, the University of North Carolina, University of Connecticut, Yale, Dartmouth, (and Swarthmore itself) are all currently involved in very public Title IX complaints for allegedly mishandling sexual assault cases, mishandling that creates environments of institutional tolerance for rape and hostility against victims. Many more are grappling with how to avoid the same and manage an environment where 18-year-olds arrive with ideas that are unpalatable to a pluralistic and civil society.

Boys arrive at schools thinking that they can discuss women's "rape potential" with impunity for a reason. As a matter of fact, they feel that rape banter and worse, like posting rape videos online, are ways to gain status. The notion that rape is a serious crime for which they can be held responsible seems not to have entered their heads.

In the United Kingdom, the toxic and sexist expression that permeates schools is euphemistically called "lad culture." What do we call ours? I'd suggest "Boy Crisis," but that's already taken and people are super busy trying to make sure that we create elementary schools that "let boys be boys" so that our pronounced gender gap in self-regulation is maintained instead of eliminated. But, whatever, moving right along.

What will it take for our mainstream culture to teach children that it is unacceptable to talk about and treat other human beings in these ways? There are ways for boys to express their masculinity, create fraternal bonds and explore their sexuality that do not turn girls and women into "boxes," "gullets," "snatches," "pussies," "asses," and "sluts." I know I didn't have to write those words. If they feel assaultive, that's because they are assaultive. This is very obviously hostile and demeaning to women because they are women.

The amazing thing is how much resistance there is to challenging these behaviors on the basis of their misogyny. Neither of the two William and Mary statements, for example, used the words sexism or misogyny, instead opting for "derogatory," "hostile" and "unacceptable," generalized words that are part of our unwillingness to confront the problem at hand. When boys having a "bit of fun" are confronted with objections they and many adults around them seem genuinely shocked and feel as though their "rights" are being challenged. It's too rich.

A few months ago at Swarthmore College, a fraternity pledge posted a photograph on Instagram of his offer to join a fraternity. The picture was of a booklet cover featuring a mosaic of hundreds of naked or nearly naked women. The fraternity had used this format for several years, but this year a group of students led by senior Marian Firke protested the use of the photography. Swarthmore's dean of students agreed with protesters and took steps to address their concerns. Firke was assailed online by men who, after some throwaway "feminist cunt" ramblings, described her as a "Stupid girl who stick[s] [her] opinions where they do not belong," suggested that "somebody needs to send their pledges over to fuck the bitch" and said that she "deserved to be face raped so hard that she will be incapable of spewing any more of this bullshit." This is an abuse of speech that is discriminatory and meant to silence. It does ZERO to support the principles that free speech is meant to protect and enhance and, indeed, definitively degrades them.

As with the William and Mary email, no one at the Swarthmore fraternity advocated or suggested rape. But anyone who thinks that emails and photographs like these do not increase tolerance for rape, create a hostile educational environment for girls and women on campuses and negatively impact their ability to move freely and attend to their studies is deluding themselves. Additionally, not only do these words and media normalize sexism and violence against women, but they endanger boys and men by perpetuating myths that only girls and women can be sexual assault victims.

This could not be simpler: If we want campuses to be safe places for everyone, and if we want male students not to become "accidental rapists," we have to teach little boys and girls that women, as a class, are worthy of respect and have rights, something that is not happening now. At the very least, as a first step, if we have make treating rape like a joke socially unacceptable.

Girls may no longer be scrawling the names of serial rapists on the walls of bathroom stalls in school libraries, but yet, here we are, living with unsafe college campuses and a culture where young men -- and no small number of women -- think rape is funny. There are many initiatives to change campus culture. Some are based on consent, others on sex ed and others on forcing schools to fulfill their obligations to all students equally. There is a thriving Know Your IX national movement and President Obama just announced the creation of a task force to help universities develop best practices for dealing with sexual assault on college campuses. It is as clear as mid-summer Arctic daylight that our "teachable moments" have to happen way before people get to college.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya...b_4759742.html