Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[Kobi]

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls(1) are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl reveals the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women.

The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

It’s a Girl is now available for screening events globally.


- See more at: http://www.itsagirlmovie.com/index.p....gvZy5k8T.dpuf

[Kobi]

PLANO — The handwritten sign over the bar at Scruffy Duffies in Plano read: "I like my beer like I like my violence. Domestic."

The words are now gone, but their impact lingers.

"I was like, 'Oh my gosh, do you see this?'" said 24-year-old Courtney Williams. She couldn't believe what she saw on the chalkboard inside Scruffy Duffies Saturday night.

Williams was offended.

"How does someone think it's OK to put something like that up there?" she asked.

Williams asked the female bartender who had written the sign to erase it. Then Williams asked two managers.

They did not take it down.

Williams left the establishment at the Shops at Legacy and posted every detail — along with a photo of the sign — on Facebook.

That post has gone viral.

Williams is surprised by the attention, but others are thrilled.

"My gut reaction was, 'Thank you Ms. Williams for standing up and saying this isn't OK,'" said Vanessa Vaughter, the education program manager at Hope's Door, a women's shelter in Plano. "I was surprised and sad that someone would think it's funny and a great way to sell beer."

The sign did come down after Williams left, according to some of her friends who remained at the bar.

Scruffy Duffies' owners took action on Tuesday. A regional manager told News 8 the manager who was on duty was indefinitely suspended without pay, but an owner suggested that manager could lose his job.

The regional manager also said a new system of checks and balances is in place for any sign that is posted in the bar. All messages henceforth will require approval.

The regional manager added that Scruffy Duffies is making a donation to Hope's Door, and inviting shelter representatives to hold a sensitivity training class for bar employees.

"When one in four women are affected by domestic violence — and in Collin County alone last year we had over 12,000 incidents of domestic violence — then this isn't something we joke about," Vaughter said.

Williams thinks Scruffy Duffies' pledge to work with Hope's Door is a step in the right direction. She's heard from some critics who think she was overly sensitive, but Williams is focusing on the survivors of domestic violence who are thanking her for her stance.

"I want to give them a voice," she said. "It can be a really powerful thing for change."

http://www.wfaa.com/news/local/Sign-...260868081.html

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A woman writing this, thinking it was amusing and a good way to sell beer, is exhibiting internal sexism and misogyny. We often dont realize how the messages we are bombarded with since birth become so much a part of us.
We also dont realize how these messages are derogatory and harmful to us as women.

[Kobi]

Between sun-seared shrubs and the collapsed remains of Istanbul’s Byzantine city walls, police found the body of an American tourist, Sarai Sierra, 33, in February 2013. Ms. Sierra, a New Yorker and a first-time traveler abroad, disappeared after near-constant contact with her family for two weeks. What happened to her is still a little unclear, but a Turkish man has reportedly confessed to killing her after supposedly trying to kiss her.

This is not a case of wrong place, wrong time. Ms. Sierra was not wandering off the beaten path. She was not engaged in risky behavior. She was on a trip hoping to practice photography, according to news reports. This is a terrifying case of what can — and does — happen to female travelers abroad.

Since her death early last year, a number of reports of attacks on female tourists have made headlines. An Italian tourist was reportedly raped by police officers in Mexico in the same month that Ms. Sierra’s body was found. An American tourist was raped in a store in Israel last June. A Norwegian woman was raped (then jailed, for having “unlawful sex”) in Dubai; she and the man accused in her attack were eventually pardoned last summer. On Jan. 15, a Danish woman, 51, reported being raped at knife point in New Delhi. She said she had approached the seven or eight men who attacked her to ask for directions to her hotel. In March, a British woman said she was raped by a security guard in a luxury hotel in Egypt.

Whether it is on a bus in New Delhi or at a resort in Acapulco, Mexico, the risk of an assault may seem ever-present, if recent high-profile attacks in places like these are indicative of a general state of danger for female travelers. Such news reports have tripped an alarm for many of us who venture beyond familiar destinations, some seeking the sort of solo, immersive experiences that are becoming increasingly common.

We weigh our bodily integrity against our desire to see the world. For us, for women, there is a different tourist map of the globe, one in which we are told to consider the length of our skirts and the cuts of our shirts, the time of day in which we choose to move around, and the places we deem “safe.”

But what is the reality of violence against women now in the places we want to go — and should we be avoiding whole cities because of this risk, as some women are doing? What is the actual risk for women traveling abroad compared with the perception? I talked to statisticians and women’s rights advocates and visited a few countries where notorious cases have recently occurred to get a sense of what is happening.

Headlines in India

Since December 2012, ask most people what country they think of when they think of rape against tourists or others, and they will likely say India.

The brutality of the gang rape and murder of a young Indian medical student on a bus one December evening in New Delhi shocked many around the world. Protests erupted in huge numbers throughout India and beyond, and a government-led commission took an internal look at how the country prosecutes perpetrators of sexualized violence. But on the heels of the New Delhi attack came three more assaults on women in India that grabbed headlines. All three of the victims were foreigners: a Swiss woman during a camping trip with her husband in March 2013 in Madhya Pradesh state, central India; a British woman soon after that in her Agra hotel room; and a 30-year-old American woman in the resort town of Manali.

These attacks have apparently rattled people enough to affect tourism. The New Delhi-based Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry reported that three months after the woman’s death after the attack on the bus, foreign female tourism to India fell by 35 percent.

Still, the truth is that other countries are even more dangerous for women than India. Without firm statistics on violence against female tourists, the closest yardstick is violence against local women — which experts say far outnumbers the better-known tourist attacks.

“The fact is that the rate of rape in Mexico is higher than in India,” said Carlos Javier Echarri Cánovas, a professor of demography at El Colegio de México who studies violence against women. There were 15,000 rape complaints in Mexico in 2010 and about the same in 2011, according to government statistics. Mr. Echarri explained that while 18,359 rape cases were registered in India in the first quarter of 2012, according to the National Crime Records Bureau, Mexico has one-tenth the population of India.

Yet even these statistics aren’t conclusive. Reports of rape in all countries are hampered variously by corruption and a cultural willingness to ignore violence considered “normal,” even close to home. The compelling narrative has been that as more Western women travel farther afield, the more they are at risk. But that is hard to pinpoint statistically. It might raise the question of why few are asking about the safety of traveling as a woman in Western Europe and the United States, a country of more than 300 million people. In the United States about 270,000 women were victims of rape and sexual assault in 2010, according to the Department of Justice. (The department culled data from interviews with households, which means that these are rapes that may or may not have been reported to police.)

Various kinds of Internet searches that I conducted turned up very few news stories about attacks on women in these destinations: There’s one from July 2013 about a tourist from Georgia (the state, not the country) alleging rape in New York and another about a woman from Canada who says a handful of French policemen raped her in Paris in April. Mainly though, searching for news articles on the rape of foreigners in the United States yielded only their mirror image — reports of violence against American women abroad. But this does not mean there are fewer attacks taking place on Western soil.

Experts note that this trend, so to speak, is amplified by the media, which makes individual incidents seem part of a larger pattern. “On average, attacks against white women worldwide receive more coverage than attacks against women of color,” said Cristina Finch, director of Amnesty International USA’s Women’s Human Rights Program.

Looking at the Numbers

Experts I spoke to say they cannot know whether attacks on female tourists are actually increasing. Hard numbers are difficult to come by. None of these groups — UN Women, an agency focused on gender equality; the United States State Department; and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs — keep data on violence against female tourists. The British Foreign Office, however, does release statistics on how many Britons request consular assistance after a sexual attack; in 2012-2013, 310 people requested assistance, with 138 saying they had been raped and 172 sexually assaulted — an increase of 9 and 12 percent for the year respectively, according to figures from the office’s “British Behavior Abroad Report.”

But those figures are hardly the end of the story. A number of experts tell me that it is possible that violence is on the rise in part because more women than ever are traveling alone, and are venturing ever farther off the beaten path.

For sheer numbers, consider that nearly 25 years ago there were seven million United States passports in circulation, said John Whiteley, a State Department spokesman. Now there are 118 million. Still, Mr. Whiteley said he was not sure he saw a trend when it came to violence against female travelers.

“We do know that over the years that violence against women has become increasingly talked about and reported,” said Ms. Finch of Amnesty International USA. She agreed that there was no way to know whether actual violence against female travelers was up.

Dina Deligiorgis, a spokeswoman at UN Women, said there has been increasing attention to violence against women and girls in the last five to 10 years for a number of reasons, including the passage of various resolutions in the United Nations and the start of the United Nations secretary-general’s UNiTE to End Violence Against Women campaign.

How Safe Are Local Women?

Every expert I spoke to, whether in India, Mexico, Brazil or elsewhere, said that cases of violence against international female tourists are not only more likely to make the news, they are also more likely to see justice than cases involving local women.

On Feb. 6, 2013, six female Spanish tourists were raped in Acapulco. On Feb. 13, Mexico’s attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, declared the case “resolved.”

Teresa Inchaustegui, the director of the Mexican government’s Center of Studies for the Advancement of Women and Gender Equity, said that though that case had wrapped up swiftly, there were thousands of unsolved rapes of local women every year. And she noted that the Acapulco mayor initially tried to downplay the attack on the women, saying it had hurt the image of the town and that such violence could have happened “anywhere in the world.” (He later apologized for his remarks.)

“It’s undoubtedly a double standard,” said Laura Carlsen, director of the nonprofit Americas Program of the Center for International Policy, of the government reaction to the tourist rapes versus those of local women. An often cited crime statistic in Mexico is that 98 percent of the crimes in the country go unpunished.

Last May, I decided to visit Mexico because the country has long been on the international danger radar — rashes of drug-war-related violence have left headless bodies across the country for years, and recorded violence against local women is staggering. In the northern city of Ciudad Juárez alone, hundreds of women have been killed or have disappeared since 1993.

The United States State Department warns that women should avoid being alone in the country, “particularly in isolated areas and at night” and that rape and sexual assault “continue to be serious problems in resort areas.”

Overall, a number of people who study gender in Mexico expressed something similar to what Mr. Echarri at the Colegio de México told me: “You have a patriarchal society, a misogynistic one, with a widely held belief that women are the property of men.” This, it would seem, can lead to sexualized violence — whether harassment or assault — and foreigners predictably draw attention.

A Dutch citizen, Rachel de Joode, lived in Mexico last year and said she felt there was a reason to be more cautious as a woman “just because of what I heard in the media and around me.” She said she would never go anywhere alone after 9 p.m. without truly knowing the area and using a “safe cab” (one called from a reputable company, not hailed off the street).

Mexico City has taken recent precautions, creating women-only buses in 2008 — women-only subway cars were already in place — on which a number of female tourists, including Ms. de Joode, said they felt safer. And while Ms. de Joode told me that she had been grabbed at in the mixed-gender subway a few times, she had experienced that and worse on the streets of Berlin and Amsterdam.

Lonely Planet, a travel guide for the slightly more intrepid backpack set, also seems to fall on the not-as-scary-as-it-appears side: “Despite often alarming media reports and official warnings, Mexico is generally a safe place to travel, and with just a few precautions you can minimize the risk of encountering problems,” it states online.

In my half-dozen trips to Mexico, I have never experienced any kind of serious sexual harassment. I have, however, been asked for a bribe by the police.

Some Blame the Victim

When it comes to perception versus reality, it might help to look to Turkey. I was recently in Istanbul for a conference on preventing atrocities. I walked in the same places Ms. Sierra walked and felt no danger whatsoever beyond burning my skin in the blasting sun. I was warned, though, when I asked at the front desk of my hotel for directions one evening to a particular part of the city to meet a friend. “Be careful of the men there,” the staff warned.

Like many major cities, Istanbul has its share of crime. But what I found so ominous about this warning was that I was not told to watch for pickpockets or scammers or even violence from the anti-government protests that were in full swing last summer. I was told to watch for men.

Even so, multiple tour operators I spoke to in Istanbul said Ms. Sierra’s murder has had little effect on tourism in Turkey. Government figures show that the number of foreigners arriving in Turkey in May 2013 increased by 18 percent compared with the same month the year before.

Istanbul Tour Services said they had seen no cancellations or drop in reservations after Ms. Sierra’s death. Hakan Haykiri, 51, who owns a store that sells tourist knickknacks in the neighborhood in which Ms. Sierra was found dead, agreed that the case had not affected his trade, dismissing the violence as too common globally to matter.

“The same things happen everywhere in the world and it does not affect tourism,” Mr. Haykiri said. But he went on to say: “If the woman does not flirt, a man would not attempt to do anything, any harassment. Everything starts with a woman.”

This kind of victim-blaming was not terribly uncommon among men I spoke to in Turkey. Erkan Turkan, 30, a manager at Istanbul’s Volare Tour, interrupted a question about whether Ms. Sierra’s murder had affected business by saying, “She was asking for trouble.”

Victim-blaming is hardly unique to Turkey. Sara Benson, who has written for the Lonely Planet guidebook series since 1999, described an attack she experienced in Malaysia. Riding an old, rickety bicycle to update the company’s guide, she found herself being followed and taunted by a man on a motorbike.

“He’s laughing and cackling and making masturbatory gestures,” she said. “He circles back and I start hurling rocks at him.”

Shaken, she went to the police a couple of villages over. But all she got was laughter when she described what happened, she said. “You’re a white woman traveling around by yourself,” she recalled an officer saying. “You got what you deserved.”

How to Minimize the Risk

So what kinds of precautions can a concerned traveler take? Minimizing risk, whether in a foreign city or a local one, whether you are a woman or a man, is common sense. One easy way to do that is to check the State Department’s website for travel warnings before you head out; the site is regularly being updated and includes cautions about things like carjackings in Mexico and gender-based violence in and around protest areas in Egypt. For more women-specific updates, there are many “What can I expect?” message boards out there, including ones by Lonely Planet. Also, it never hurts to carry the telephone number for your hotel and the local police with you.

One out of every three women worldwide will be physically, sexually or otherwise abused in her lifetime, according to a 2013 World Health Organization study. Julia Drost, the policy and advocacy associate in women’s human rights at Amnesty International USA, said such violence “knows no national or cultural barriers.”

The question then, in the end, is: Should all this violence — real or amplified — stop us from seeing the world?

Summing up what seems to be the underlying sentiment of many female travelers I spoke to, Jocelyn Oppenheim, an architectural designer in New York who has trekked extensively through India, said: “Bad things can happen, but bad things can happen when you get in a taxi in New York.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/25....html?referrer

[Kobi]

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri-based Army drill sergeant has been accused of sexually assaulting 12 female soldiers during the past three years, including several while he was deployed in Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Angel M. Sanchez appeared at a pretrial hearing at Fort Leonard Wood on Wednesday and could face a court-martial later this year, defense attorney Ernesto Gasapin said Thursday. The Washington Post first reported on the charges against Sanchez.

Military court records indicate that Sanchez is accused of using his supervisory position as a drill sergeant with the 14th Military Police Brigade to threaten some of the women he's accused of assaulting.

He is accused of sexually assaulting four women and assaulting eight others by touching them inappropriately, said Tiffany Wood, a Fort Leonard Wood spokeswoman.

The charges, filed earlier this month, come amid persistent criticism by Congress over how the Pentagon handles sexual assaults. The U.S. Defense Department says more than 5,000 reports of sexual abuse were filed in the most recent fiscal year — a 50 percent increase from the previous 12 months.

The Pentagon's first formal report on sex assaults in its ranks — released two days after Sanchez was charged on May 13 — shows that in the vast majority of the cases the victim was a young, lower-ranking woman and the offender a senior enlisted male service member, often in the same unit.

Sanchez served one tour each in Iraq and Afghanistan, earning a Bronze Star, before arriving at the Missouri post in August. He's been assigned an office job with his unit as his legal case unfolds.

Several of the women Sanchez is accused of attacking testified at Wednesday's hearing. But Gasapin said the initial accuser chose not to attend the hearing.

"It starts as one allegation and spreads out," he said, referring to the investigation that led to multiple accusers coming forward. "We have serious questions about the credibility of the witnesses making these accusations."

The defense lawyer said he expects an investigating officer's full report to be complete by June, at which point Sanchez's case could be set for a court-martial. The charges could also be dismissed or downgraded, Gasapin said.

Military prosecutors say Sanchez's alleged crimes date back to his year in Afghanistan, which lasted from March 2011 until March 2012. Prosecutors allege that during that time, Sanchez assaulted a female soldier at Outpost Dandar in Kunar province and also had a sexual relationship with a soldier "subject to his direct control."

One of the alleged incidents took place at Fort Richardson, Alaska, according to military court records.

At Fort Leonard Wood, Sanchez is accused of forcing one woman to perform oral sex on him in an office he shared with other drill sergeants. That accuser said Sanchez suggested she would be kicked out of the Army if she didn't comply with his demands for sex.

"I can be your replacement for your girlfriend," he is accused of telling a Fort Leonard Wood soldier who is gay.

A married soldier in Afghanistan said that Sanchez, who was also married, told her and others that "I know you guys are married but it's OK if you have a deployment buddy."

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel called sex assaults in the ranks "a clear threat" to male and female service-members when the Pentagon released its latest statistics.

In December, Congress approved changes to the Uniform Code of Military Justice that strip commanders of their ability to overturn military jury convictions. That law also requires a civilian review if a commander declines to prosecute a case and requires that any individual convicted of sexual assault face a dishonorable discharge or dismissal.

The law also provides alleged victims with legal counsel, eliminates the statute of limitations for courts-martial in rape and sexual assault cases and criminalizes retaliation against victims who report a sexual assault.

Federal lawmakers are considering even further changes, some of which are opposed by top military commanders.

Greg Jacob, a former Marine who now works for the Service Women's Action Network, said the charges against Sanchez suggest that the military "hasn't fixed the problem." He said the inherent power imbalance between a drill sergeant and a lower-ranking soldier make the allegations even more disturbing.

"You're taught to trust authority, trust the chain of command," said Jacob, the group's policy director. "You're dependent on these people for everything, from your food to your sleep to your safety."

http://news.yahoo.com/sergeant-accus...042859324.html

[Kobi]

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

Consider the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. “sexual assault.” Herewith, a Philadelphia magazine report about Swarthmore College, where in 2013 a student “was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months”:

“They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. ‘I basically said, “No, I don’t want to have sex with you.” And then he said, “OK, that’s fine” and stopped. . . . And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.’”

Six weeks later, the woman reported that she had been raped. Now the Obama administration is riding to the rescue of “sexual assault” victims. It vows to excavate equities from the ambiguities of the hookup culture, this cocktail of hormones, alcohol and the faux sophistication of today’s prolonged adolescence of especially privileged young adults.

The administration’s crucial and contradictory statistics are validated the usual way, by official repetition; Joe Biden has been heard from. The statistics are: One in five women is sexually assaulted while in college, and only 12 percent of assaults are reported. Simple arithmetic demonstrates that if the 12 percent reporting rate is correct, the 20 percent assault rate is preposterous. Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute notes, for example, that in the four years 2009 to 2012 there were 98 reported sexual assaults at Ohio State. That would be 12 percent of 817 total out of a female student population of approximately 28,000, for a sexual assault rate of approximately 2.9 percent — too high but nowhere near 20 percent.

Education Department lawyers disregard pesky arithmetic and elementary due process. Threatening to withdraw federal funding, the department mandates adoption of a minimal “preponderance of the evidence” standard when adjudicating sexual assault charges between males and the female “survivors” — note the language of prejudgment. Combine this with capacious definitions of sexual assault that can include not only forcible sexual penetration but also nonconsensual touching. Then add the doctrine that the consent of a female who has been drinking might not protect a male from being found guilty of rape. Then comes costly litigation against institutions that have denied due process to males they accuse of what society considers serious felonies.

Now academia is unhappy about the Education Department’s plan for government to rate every institution’s educational product. But the professors need not worry. A department official says this assessment will be easy: “It’s like rating a blender.” Education, gadgets — what’s the difference?

Meanwhile, the newest campus idea for preventing victimizations — an idea certain to multiply claims of them — is “trigger warnings.” They would be placed on assigned readings or announced before lectures. Otherwise, traumas could be triggered in students whose tender sensibilities would be lacerated by unexpected encounters with racism, sexism, violence (dammit, Hamlet, put down that sword!) or any other facet of reality that might violate a student’s entitlement to serenity. This entitlement has already bred campus speech codes that punish unpopular speech. Now the codes are begetting the soft censorship of trigger warnings to swaddle students in a “safe,” “supportive,” “unthreatening” environment, intellectual comfort for the intellectually dormant.

It is salutary that academia, with its adversarial stance toward limited government and cultural common sense, is making itself ludicrous. Academia is learning that its attempts to create victim-free campuses — by making everyone hypersensitive, even delusional, about victimizations — brings increasing supervision by the regulatory state that progressivism celebrates.

What government is inflicting on colleges and universities, and what they are inflicting on themselves, diminishes their autonomy, resources, prestige and comity. Which serves them right. They have asked for this by asking for progressivism.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...f0a_story.html

[Kobi]

New Delhi (AFP) - A minister from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling party has said rapes happen "accidentally" in the latest controversial remarks by a politician amid renewed anger over attacks against women.

Ramsevak Paikra, the home minister of central Chhattisgarh state who is responsible for law and order, said late on Saturday that rapes did not happen on purpose.

"Such incidents (rapes) do not happen deliberately. These kind of incidents happen accidentally," Paikra, of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which also rules at the national level, told reporters.

Paikra, who was asked for his thoughts on the gang-rape and lynching of two girls in a neighbouring state, later said he had been misquoted. His original remarks were broadcast on television networks.

The remarks come days after the home minister of the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh state said rapes were "sometimes right, sometimes wrong".

The minister, Babulal Gaur, gave the remarks on Thursday at a time of growing outrage over the gang-rape and murder of the girls, aged 12 and 14, in northern Uttar Pradesh state late last month.

Modi, whose party came to power in a landslide election victory, has so far stayed silent over the rapes and has not addressed the politicians' comments.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav faced severe criticism for his perceived insensitivity over the attacks on the low-caste girls, who were found hanging from a mango tree after being sexually assaulted multiple times.

Yadav's father Mulayam Singh -- leader of the Samajwadi Party -- was also the target of public anger in April when he told an election rally that he opposed the recently introduced death penalty for gang-rapists, saying "boys make mistakes".

Women's groups have slammed the comments, saying they were evidence that politicians were unable to stem sexual violence because they lacked respect for India's women and were ignorant of the issues.

Politicians also came under fire after the fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi in December 2012, a crime that angered the nation and shone a global spotlight on India's treatment of women.

India brought in tougher rape laws last year after the Delhi attack, but they have failed to stem the tide of violence against women across the country.

At the time, several politicians sought to blame tight jeans, short skirts and other Western influences for the country's rise in rapes, while the head of a village council pointed to chowmein which he claimed led to hormone imbalances among men.

http://news.yahoo.com/indian-ministe...070139401.html
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Chow mein is now responsible for hormonal imbalances causing men to rape? That's a new one.

[Kobi]

Rape victims get called a lot of things. Sometimes it's "slut". For the 11-year-old gang rape victim in Texas, it was that she was a "spider" luring men into her web. It's not all bad, though - thanks to anti-violence activists, those who have been attacked also get called "survivors" and "brave". The last word I ever expected to hear to describe a rape victim is "privileged".

Yet in the Washington Post late last week, columnist George Will wrote about campus rape, claiming that being a victim in college has become "a coveted status that confers privileges", and that "victims proliferate" because of all these so-called benefits.

Ah, yes, the perks of being a rape victim! Here are just a few of the "privileges" that being raped at college confers onto women:

For Indiana University freshman Margaux J, it meant dropping out of school because even after her attacker was found guilty, the school refused to expel him.

Columbia University's Emma Sulkowicz had the great pleasure of enduring questions from a disciplinary panel that didn't believe being anally raped was physically possible without manufactured lubrication.

Andrea Pino, then a student at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, was told by an academic advisor that she was "being lazy" for applying for medical leave after her rape.

And who doesn't look at Lizzy Seeberg – a St. Mary’s College student who killed herself a week after reporting being raped by a a Notre Dame football player – and not think, wow, how lucky!

It takes a particular kind of ignorance to argue that people who come forward to report being raped in college are afforded benefits of any kind. If the last few months of coverage of the rape epidemic on college campuses – including new stories from brave young women today in the Guardian – has shown anything, it's that survivors of sexual violence are treated abysmally by administrators, peers and campus police. But to someone like Will – who calls this a "supposed" scourge of rape and puts the term "sexual assault" in scare quotes – rape is hardly even a real thing.

To demonstrate the "capacious definitions of sexual assault" that Will believes are running rampant on campuses, the conservative columnist cites a case in which a woman said, "No, I don't want to have sex with you" ... only to have her alleged attacker proceed anyway. The only people who could find ambiguity in this are idiots and, well, rapists. (And even the latter, I imagine, would recognize this as an assault.)

In response to Will's column this week, women on Twitter started posting under #SurvivorPrivilege, a hashtag started by writer and anti-rape organizer Wagatwe Wanjuki. "#SurvivorPrivilege of graduating 6 years later than planned bc, yanno, rape. How covetable!," Wanjuki tweeted. Activist Katie Klabusich wrote, "#SurvivorPrivilege is getting to explain to truly would-be allies in your life that yes, your boyfriend could rape you. & it was rape-rape." Washington DC-based Robyn Swirling tweeted, "#SurvivorPrivilege was losing all my friends when they decided it was easier to remain friends with my rapist than stand with me."

The good news from Will's very bad, no-good column is that anti-rape activism is clearly having a profound effect on the culture. The rape-apologist backlash – sadly, Will is hardly alone in his ignorance – is in full effect precisely because feminist language and recommendations around sexual assault are being taken seriously by the White House, the media and (hopefully, soon) schools as well. For people like Will – misogynists who believe rape is about "ambiguities" rather than violence – this shift also represents a win for feminists more generally.

Today, if you argue that women who drink or who dared to have past consensual sexual encounters are somehow un-rapeable, you will get taken to task. There's much work to be, for sure – victim-blaming is still much the norm in some circles – but gone are the days when you could say something stupid and sexist and it would go unnoticed or applauded. I'm sure that this change in what's socially acceptable terrifies Will and his cohort because it upends everything they believe about women, sex and consent – and it reveals them for the dinosaurs that they are.

I'm willing to bet that Will has an inbox full of emails from rape survivors (no, no scare quotes necessary) who are educating him on exactly the kind of perks they got if they came forward. I doubt these people's stories will change his mind, but I do know they're changing the country.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ge-george-will

[Kobi]

****Trigger Warning****

(Reuters) - Egypt has asked YouTube to remove a video showing a naked woman with injuries being dragged through Cairo's Tahrir Square after being sexually assaulted during celebrations for President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's inauguration.

Sunday night's assault took place as thousands of people enjoyed inauguration festivities, raising new worries about Egypt's commitment to fighting sexual violence.

Authorities arrested seven men aged between 15 and 49 for sexually harassing women on Tahrir Square after the posting of the video, which caused an uproar in local and international media.

It was not clear whether the men arrested took part in the assault shown on the video.

"The Egyptian embassy in Washington DC and a number of Egyptian authorities, at the direction of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, have requested the YouTube administration to remove the video of the sexual assault victim," Sisi's spokesman said.

"This came in response to her wish, which she expressed during the president's visit to her yesterday at the hospital to check on her condition," he added in an emailed statement late on Thursday.

YouTube was not immediately available for comment on the Egyptian request. The clip showing the assault was still available on the video-sharing website on Friday.

Egypt approved a new law this month which punishes sexual harassment with at least six months in jail or fines of at least 3,000 Egyptian pounds ($420). The United States has urged Egypt to make good on its promises to fight sexual violence.

Sexual assault was rife at demonstrations during and after the 2011 uprising that ousted veteran president Hosni Mubarak and has been common for a decade at large gatherings in Egypt.

Sisi, Egypt's former army chief who won a landslide poll victory last month after deposing elected Islamist president Mohamed Mursi last July, has frequently spoken highly of women and their importance to society.

A police officer who rescued the victim of sexual harassment should be honored, Sisi said, in an apparent reference to the woman in the video.

But some liberals have been wary of Sisi, especially after remarks he made defending an army practice - later denied by an army court - of conducting "virginity tests" on female protesters who complained of abuse.

Sexual harassment, high rates of female genital mutilation and a surge in violence after the Arab Spring uprisings have made Egypt the worst country in the Arab world to be a woman, a Thomson Reuters Foundation survey showed late last year.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/...edName=topNews

[Gemme]

Campus Sexual Assault

[Kobi]

Girlguiding UK has revealed that sexism affects “most aspects” of the every day lives of young women.

The organisation’s “Equality For Girls” report surveyed more than 1,200 girls and young women aged 7 to 21, and have called their findings “a wake-up call” and “a disturbing insight into the state of equality for girls in the UK.”

The survey revealed that 87% of the 11 to 21-year-olds surveyed said they thought women were judged based on their appearance, and not their abilities.

Disturbingly, most of the 13-year-olds questioned said they had experienced sexual harassment.

Of the entire 13 to 21 age bracket, 28% had experienced unwanted touching and sexual attention, with 26% experiencing unwanted attention and stalking. A further 51% revealed they’d been objected to sexual jokes and taunts, and more than three-quarters said they found this behaviour threatening if they were by themselves.

54% of girls aged 11 to 21 have experienced online abuse.




Young girls are also already worrying about how sexism with affect the career path:

Girls believe that motherhood still disadvantages women in the workplace, and almost half of those aged 11 to 21 worry that having children will negatively affect their career (46%). A similar number think that employers at least to some extent prefer to employ men over women (43%). Half worry about the pay gap between men and women (50%), rising to 60% among 16- to 21-year-olds.

The levels of criticism female celebrities and women in the public eye in the media has also affected young women’s aspirations to be in similar positions one day. 43% say the way women are criticised for how they look on TV has put them off every wanting to be in a position where they’d appear on TV themselves.

66% of 11 to 21-year-olds think they’re aren’t enough women in leadership positions in the UK. However, many of the girls surveyed said that the lack of women in leadership positions made them more determined to succeed.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesevilla/...ir-daily-lives

[Kobi]

George Will is standing by his controversial Washington Post column, in which he stated that universities have turned sexual assault into "a coveted status that confers privileges," arguing that people on the internet just like being upset about things.

As Politico pointed out, during an interview with C-SPAN Friday, Will argued that the backlash has less to do with his argument than with the way the internet works now. "Today, for some reason ... indignation is the default position of certain people in civic discourse," he said. "They go from a standing start to fury in about 30 seconds."

Will went on to say that while it's great that the internet has "erased the barriers of entry to public discourse" he argues that now you don't have to be even remotely intelligent to criticize Washington Post columnists. "Among the barriers of entry that have been reduced, is you don't have to be able to read, write, or think," he said. "You can just come in and shout and call names and carry on."

The reaction to Will's column didn't consist of shouting and name calling so much as people calling for him to be fired. In his Post essay, Will argued against the "preponderance of evidence" standard for adjudicating sexual assault cases that is often used in university investigations (as opposed to the "beyond reasonable doubt" level of a criminal court), but in the process seemingly implied that the sexual assault epidemic isn't real. In fact, as he argued on C-SPAN, it's mainly kids getting in trouble with alcohol. "What's going to result is a lot of young men and young women are going to get in this sea of hormones and alcohol ... you're going to have charges of sexual assault," he said. That combined with the less rigorous legal process on campus means, "you're going to have young men disciplined, their lives often permanently and seriously blighted, don't get into law school, don't get into medical school, all the rest."

Will also responded to the four Senate Democrats who wrote him condemning his column, and claimed that he was more serious about sexual assault — or as he would say "sexual assault" — than Congress, because his definition of sexual assault doesn't include things like "improper touching." As he told CSPAN, "When remarks become sexual assault, improper touching … we begin to blur distinctions that are important to preserve if you believe as the senators purport to believe, that this is a serious matter." And yet, it's hard to imagine how his detractors could trivialize sexual assault more than a man who thinks of increased awareness of sexual assault as an obstacle for future male doctors and lawyers to overcome.




http://www.thewire.com/politics/2014...people/373172/

[Kobi]

“Saatchi Art does not believe in censorship unless the material is pornographic or incites racial hatred." So, it is ok to consider violence against women as art now? And,they will censor racial hatred but not misogyny? WTF.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paintings depicting the moment Charles Saatchi apparently throttled his former wife Nigella Lawson have emerged for sale, on his own art website.

The couple divorced last year after Saatchi was seen with his hand around his wife’s neck as they sat outside Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair.

Seven images of the scene are currently for sale via the millionaire art collector’s website, for prices ranging from £150 to several thousand.

They appear on SaatchiArt.com, closely linked to his London gallery and mean the 71-year-old could benefit from any sales.

Mr Saatchi dismissed that ‘throttle’ art could be a new genre, as he said the works were a small proportion of those submitted by 40,000 artists who used the site.

He told the Mail on Sunday: “Would it have been a better story if I had censored artists whose work might be personally disobliging?”

Pete Jones, 52, has listed ‘Last Course’ on the site – a picture of Miss Lawson with hands on her throat painted on a bread board - for £17,600. Another picture, painted by Jane Kelly and called Art Collector Throttling a Cook has a price tag of £1,170.

Darren Udaiyan, 41, produced a Van Gogh style painting of the incident, which he uploaded to the site and is currently on sale for £5,870.

He told the newspaper: "It’s not really controversial. Saatchi is strangling Nigella but it’s also about him squeezing the art market.

"It works on many levels. It’s a comment on the art market and how people control it."

Mr Saatchi accepted a police caution for the incident after a photo was taken of the incident, leading to an acrimonious divorce.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Women’s Aid, said it was “extremely insensitive” to all victims of domestic violence for someone who had accepting a caution for assaulting their partner to earn commission from images of the incident.

Rebecca Wilson, chief curator at the online gallery, said: “Saatchi Art does not believe in censorship unless the material is pornographic or incites racial hatred."

Anyone can upload their work to Saatchi Art, and will received 70 per cent of the sale price with 30 per cent paid to the company for commission.

Pictures came be seen here. ****TriggerWarning****

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pict...i-website.html

[Kobi]

Many victims of sexual assault do not report these crimes to family, school officials or police, and a new report on the normalization of sexual violence among young girls and women offers several insights into why this is; it also functions as a pretty harrowing primer on rape culture and its consequences.

Researchers at Marquette University analyzed forensic interviews with 100 young people between the ages of 3 and 17, many of whom spoke candidly about their daily experiences of sexual violence and harassment.

According to sociologist Heather Hlavka, many of the young people she interviewed viewed these incidents as a normal part of life. One interview subject told researchers, “They grab you, touch your butt and try to, like, touch you in the front, and run away, but it’s okay, I mean … I never think it’s a big thing because they do it to everyone.”

According to a release on the report, there are several of the reasons why young women do not come forward about the abuse they experience, including a belief that men “can’t help it” and a fear of being labeled a “whore”:


~ Girls believe the myth that men can’t help it. The girls interviewed described men as unable to control their sexual desires, often framing men as the sexual aggressors and women as the gatekeepers of sexual activity. They perceived everyday harassment and abuse as normal male behavior, and as something to endure, ignore, or maneuver around.

~ Many of the girls said that they didn’t report the incident because they didn’t want to make a “big deal” of their experiences. They doubted if anything outside of forcible heterosexual intercourse counted as an offense or rape.

~ Lack of reporting may be linked to trust in authority figures. According to Hlavka, the girls seem to have internalized their position in a male-dominated, sexual context and likely assumed authority figures would also view them as “bad girls” who prompted the assault.

~ Hlavka found that girls don’t support other girls when they report sexual violence. The young women expressed fear that they would be labeled as a “whore” or “slut,” or accused of exaggeration or lying by both authority figures and their peers, decreasing their likelihood of reporting sexual abuse.

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/14/repo...ampaign=buffer

[Kobi]

A Tennessee woman is the first to be charged under a new state law that specifically makes it a crime to take drugs while pregnant, calling it "assault."

Mallory Loyola, 26, was arrested this week after both she and her newborn infant tested positive for meth, according to ABC News affiliate WATE-TV in Knoxville, Tennessee. Loyola is the first person in the state to prosecuted for the offense.

The law, which just went into effect earlier this month, allows a woman to be "prosecuted for assault for the illegal use of a narcotic drug while pregnant" if her infant is harmed or addicted to the drug.

Monroe County Sheriff Bill Bivens told WATE-TV that the 26-year-old admitted to smoking meth days before giving birth.

"Anytime someone is addicted and they can't get off for their own child, their own flesh and blood, it's sad," he said.

Bivens said he hoped the arrest would deter other pregnant women from drug use.

"Hopefully it will send a signal to other women who are pregnant and have a drug problem to seek help. That's what we want them to do," he said.

The law has come under tremendous opposition from both state and national critics, who say that the law will hinder drug-addicted pregnant women from getting help and treatment.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee is actively seeking to challenge the law, which they describe as raising "serious constitutional concerns regarding equal treatment under the law."

"This dangerous law unconstitutionally singles out new mothers struggling with addiction for criminal assault charges," Thomas Castelli, legal director of the ACLU Tennessee, said in a statement. "By focusing on punishing women rather than promoting healthy pregnancies, the state is only deterring women struggling with alcohol or drug dependency from seeking the pre-natal care they need."

Just before Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed the bill in April, Michael Botticelli, acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy at the time, said the federal government didn't want to "criminalize" addiction.

"What's important is that we create environments where we're really diminishing the stigma and the barriers, particularly for pregnant women, who often have a lot of shame and guilt about their substance abuse disorders," Botticelli said, according to The Nashville Tennessean. "We know that it's usually a much more effective treatment and less costly to our taxpayers if we make sure that we're treating folks."

Haslam released a statement after signing the bill saying the intent of the law is to "give law enforcement and district attorneys a tool to address illicit drug use among pregnant women through treatment programs."

Loyola was released on $2,000 bail and was charged with a misdemeanor according to WATE-TV. The law allows anyone charged to use entering a treatment program before birth and successfully completing it afterwards as a defense.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-charg...ry?id=24542754

[Kobi]

Eden Foods is an organic food business that's been operating out of Michigan since the 1960s. Eden's president and sole shareholder, Michael Potter, is anti-GMO, pro-macrobiotic diet, and believes in "full transparency–complete disclosure of ingredients and all handling" for Eden's products, which include things like mung beans, buckwheat noodles, plum vinegar, and dried sea vegetables. As a longtime Eden Foods consumer, I don't think it's unfair to describe the company as exactly what conservatives would dream up if they were parodying an organic foods brand.

Well, except for one thing: Potter is a Roman Catholic who says certain forms of birth control are abortion. And his lawsuit challenging the Health and Human Services (HHS) contraception mandate is one of three that the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered to be reviewed in wake of its June 30 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the controversial case concerning birth control and an employer's responsibility to provide health insurance that covers it. The Christian owners of corporate craft chain Hobby Lobby had said doing so violated their religious beliefs and the Supreme Court agreed, holding that requiring a closely-held company to provide the coverage was not "the least restrictive means" of accomplishing the government's goal (increasing insurance coverage for contraception) and therefore stood in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993.

Following the Hobby Lobby ruling, the Court ordered reviews of three similar cases wherein lower courts had rejected companies' requests to be exempted from the mandate: Autocam Corp. v. Burwell, Eden Foods v. Burwell, and Gilardi v. Department of Health & Human Services.

Autocam is a Michigan-based company that manufactures parts for cars and medical supplies. The Gilardi brothers operate two Ohio food distribution companies. In all three lawsuits, the companies objected to covering all forms of contraception (in the Hobby Lobby case, owners had merely objected to four specific types). The Gilardi case will now go back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia; Eden and Autocam will bounce back to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Of course, these three case are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. More than four dozen lawsuits against the Obamacare contraception mandate are pending by faith-affiliated charities, colleges, and hospitals, according to the Associated Press. And 49 lawsuits—many of them stayed in anticipation of the Hobby Lobby ruling—are pending from for-profit corporations. See a list of them here.

In October, when the U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term, it is expected to hear a challenge from the University of Notre Dame—a challenge very similar to one from Christian college Wheaton. Unlike Hobby Lobby, Wheaton was eligible for the accommodation for religious nonprofits that HHS had already worked out. Under this workaround, religious employers who object to covering contraception must simply alert the government of their objection and which insurance company they use. Thereafter, the government will make arrangements with insurers to provide birth control coverage for the company's employees (a move which insurance companies seem to have accepted because plans that include contraception coverage wind up less costly to them those that don't).

But Wheaton says that merely filling out the form violates religious beliefs, since doing so would indirectly end up facilitating birth control coverage for employees. Last week, the Supreme Court granted the college an injunction against enforcement of the contraception mandate pending appeal.

The Court's decision in Wheaton doesn't resolve the merit of the school's claims (though for a clickbait-y mess of legal ignorance, check out this Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West piece asserting that the court found the whole accommodation "unconstitutional"). Should Wheaton get its way, those who oppose the contraception mandate may be "close to the end of the line of what they can demand" under the RFRA, notes Jonathan H. Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy:

Wheaton and some religious employers claim that the form HHS requires them to fill out and sign (EBSA Form 700) substantially burdens their religious belief because it directly facilitates the provision of contraceptive coverage to which they object. Yet as the order notes, religious objectors are able to notify the government of their objections to contraception coverage without using the form, and that nothing in RFRA would prevent the government from using this information to facilitate contraception coverage for relevant employees. This would suggest that should a majority of the Court find the existing accommodation insufficient, a RFRA-compliant accommodation based on a different form or reporting procedure should be relatively easy to create.

Yes, some religious objectors might object to any form, but an objection to informing the government of one’s objection, due to the knowledge that the government may use this information in an objectionable fashion, would seem to fail for the same reasons that religious objections to paying taxes fail.

A small tweak to the existing religious nonprofit accommodation seems harmless enough, but there are reasons some supporters of the Hobby Lobby decision may object to the court coming down in full favor of Wheaton College. Michael Austin at IVN news likens it to the difference between exceptions and accommodations in education:

Accommodations include such things as providing sign-language interpreters, note takers, recorded textbooks, and extra time on tests. The guiding philosophy behind educational accommodations is that every student should have an equal opportunity to learn the material in a course and have that knowledge assessed by an instructor.

From time to time, educators are asked to forgo that philosophy and make exceptions for students who are having difficulty in a course—to require less reading, or fewer tests, or lower grades for some students than for others. Exceptions often look like accommodations, but they are actually very much the opposite.

Austin thinks Hobby Lobby was looking for an accommodation, while Wheaton (and Notre Dame and the dozens of institutions involved in similar cases) is looking for an exception. "It will be tempting for the courts, and for Americans generally, to believe that religious exceptions proceed logically from religious accommodations," he writes. "But they do not. Accommodations and exceptions are fundamentally different kinds of things. One allows us to balance competing interests, while the other demands that we sacrifice one set of interests to another."

Under the RFRA, it really comes down to substantial burden—does it substantially burden a nonprofit's religious freedom to fill out a form objecting to covering birth control? I would say no. Though neither would it burden HHS substantially to change the reporting requirement in some way (say, by having employees at objecting companies fill out a form).

But all this implies we're actually arguing about what we say we're arguing about, and by this point it's clear we are most certainly not, at least not unilaterally. Both the federal government and some employers are using the contraception bit of HHS' essential benefits mandate as a way to protest or defend Obamacare, and what it stands for, at large.

One person who isn't afraid to admit this is Eden Foods' Potter. Though Potter's lawsuit against HHS is brought on First Amendment and RFRA violation grounds, Potter barely mentions his religious beliefs when he talks or writes about the case. In 2013, he told Salon's Irin Carmon that he didn't care about birth control per se but the "whole category of things that I don’t think any company should be forced to be involved with." In a press release the same month, Potter called it "discriminatory" that not all employers have to comply with the HHS mandate ("individuals who practice certain faiths are exempt, while individuals who practice other faiths are not") and lamented the "overreach" of HHS:

Eden employee benefits include health, dental, vision, life, and a fifty percent 401k match. The benefits have not funded "lifestyle drugs," an insurance industry drug classification that includes contraceptives, Viagra, smoking cessation, weight-loss, infertility, impotency, etc. This entire plan is managed with a goal of long-term sustainability.

We believe in a woman's right to decide, and have access to, all aspects of their health care and reproductive management. This lawsuit does not block, or intend to block, anyone's access to health care or reproductive management. This lawsuit is about protecting religious freedom and stopping the government from forcing citizens to violate their conscience. We object to the HHS mandate and its government overreach.

After the Supreme Court ordered Eden's case to be reviewed, Potter put out a short press release affirming that "we believe we did what we should have." Many progressives are now calling for a boycott of Eden Foods. Carmon and others have suggested that the real root of Potter's distaste for "lifestyle drugs" like contraception is not religion but his macrobiotic diet and beliefs.

But should that even matter? Deeply held beliefs are deeply held beliefs. Why is it okay to object to medications because of Jesus but not because of your construction of health and science? If both get you to the same place—a moral conviction against certain healthcare—than why should one be any more valid than the other as a talisman against government overreach?

"No one has a natural right to force other people to pay for her (or his) contraception or anything else (with or without the government's help), and by logical extension, everyone has a right to refuse to pay if asked," Sheldon Richman wrote recently.

Of course, the only legally available way to refuse to pay (at least without getting hit by steep fines) is by claiming a religious exemption, so that's what we're getting at the moment. However—as Jacob Sullum has noted here many times, and I tried to convey in this recent interview with Catholic magazine America—allowing for religious exemptions to generally applicable law can lead to a general questioning or rethinking of those laws.

In any event, Hobby Lobby was only the beginning on contraception coverage front. We can expect to see a lot of similar cases coming before federal courts in the months and perhaps years to come. We can expect legislative action, too: The Obama administration is insisting that it will act to remedy the Court's Hobby Lobby decision. And Democratic Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn signed a law Sunday that will give voters the chance to enact a state law forcing business owners to offer prescription birth control coverage to employees.

But this is a controversy that only exists because the Obama administration and Congress have made birth control, and all sorts of health services, an appropriate subject of state and corporate concern. More laws trying to compel business owners to run their companies in a certain way isn't going to get us anywhere but more court battles.

"Accommodations support, while exceptions destroy, the integrity of the enterprise that creates them," Austin wrote about the Wheaton case. Perhaps that's actually a feature in this situation.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/07/0...-control-cases

[Gemme]

Originally Posted by Gemme

Montana Teacher Re-Sentenced for Rape of 14 Year Old


Teacher Rape Case

By MATTHEW BROWN

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- A former high school teacher who served one month in prison after being convicted of raping a 14-year-old student faces more time behind bars after the Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that his original sentence was too short.

Justices in a unanimous ruling ordered the case of Stacey Dean Rambold assigned to a new judge for re-sentencing.

The decision means Rambold must serve a minimum of two years in prison under state sentencing laws, Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said.

The high court cited, in part, the inflammatory comments of the sentencing judge, District Judge G. Todd Baugh, who drew wide condemnation for suggesting that the victim shared some responsibility for her rape.

Baugh said during Rambold's sentencing in August that the teenager was "probably as much in control of the situation as the defendant." He later apologized.

Rambold was released after fulfilling the original sentence last fall and is expected to remain free pending his reappearance in state District Court.

The defendant was a 47-year-old business teacher at Billings Senior High School at the time of the 2007 rape. The victim, one of his students, killed herself while Rambold was awaiting trial.

Rambold's sentence had been appealed by the state Department of Justice.

Attorney General Tim Fox said the Supreme Court's decision had "rebuffed attempts to place blame on a child victim of this horrible crime."

Under state law, children younger than 16 cannot consent to sexual intercourse.

Rambold's attorneys insisted in court filings that the original sentence was appropriate, and cited a "lynch mob" mentality following a huge public outcry over the case.

Like Baugh, they suggested the girl bore some responsibility and referenced videotaped interviews with her before she committed suicide. Those interviews remain under seal by the court.

Rambold attorney Jay Lansing was traveling and not immediately available, his office said.

The family of victim Cherice Moralez issued a statement through attorney Shane Colton saying the court's decision had restored their faith in the judicial system. The statement urged the family's supporters to continue working together to keep children safe from sexual predators.

During last year's sentencing hearing, prosecutors sought a 20-year prison term for Rambold with 10 years suspended.

But Baugh followed Lansing's recommendations and handed down a sentence of 15 years with all but 31 days suspended and a one-day credit for time served. Rambold was required to register as a sex offender upon his release and to remain on probation through 2028.

After a public outcry, Baugh acknowledged the sentence violated state law and attempted retroactively to revise it but was blocked when the state filed its appeal.

The Supreme Court decision did not specify what sentence would be more appropriate. That means Rambold potentially could face even more time in prison.

County Attorney Twito said he would consult with attorneys in his office and the victim's family before deciding how much prison time prosecutors will seek.

The case will likely be assigned to a new judge sometime next week, Baugh said Wednesday. He said he was not surprised by the court's decision.

The judge sparked outrage when he commented that Moralez appeared "older than her chronological age."

Her 2010 suicide took away the prosecution's main witness and resulted in a deferred-prosecution agreement that required Rambold to attend a sex-offender treatment program.

When he was booted from that program - for not disclosing a sexual relationship with an adult woman and having an unauthorized visit with the children of his relatives - the prosecution on the rape charge was revived.

During August's sentencing, the judge appeared sympathetic to the defendant, fueling a barrage of complaints against him from advocacy groups and private citizens. It also led to a formal complaint against Baugh from the Montana Judicial Standards Commission that's now pending with the state Supreme Court.

Justices said they intend to deal with Baugh separately. But their sharp criticism of the judge's actions signals that some sort of punishment is likely.

"Judge Baugh's statements reflected an improper basis for his decision and cast serious doubt on the appearance of justice," Justice Michael Wheat wrote. "There is no basis in the law for the court's distinction between the victim's `chronological age' and the court's perception of her maturity."

Baugh, 72, was first elected in 1984. He has said he deserves a public reprimand or censure for undermining the credibility of the judiciary and plans to retire when his six-year term expires at the end of the year.

He was unsure when the Supreme Court would act on the complaint against him.

"I expect at some point to appear before them, but don't know when," he said.

The leader of a women's group that filed one of the complaints against Baugh said Wednesday's high court decision gave advocates only part of what they want.

"The other part of the victory will be when something is done about Baugh," said Marian Bradley, president of the Montana chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Judge to be Censored Over Rape Comments

HELENA, Mont. (AP) - The Montana Supreme Court on Tuesday will publicly reprimand a judge who gave a lenient sentence to a rapist after suggesting the 14-year-old victim shared some of the responsibility for the crime.

District Judge G. Todd Baugh, of Billings, is scheduled to appear before the court in Helena, where one of the justices will read a censure statement prepared in advance. Baugh will likely get an opportunity to address the court, and the censure will then go into the record, state Supreme Court clerk Ed Smith said Monday.

The censure is a public declaration by the high court that a judge is guilty of misconduct. The rarely used punishment was recommended by the state's Judicial Standards Commission, which investigated complaints into the comments Baugh made during Stacey Dean Rambold's sentencing last year.

"It's a process basically to publicly reprimand them for their conduct bringing dishonor on their position and the court's judicial system," Smith said.

The standards commission can impose or recommend to the Supreme Court a range of disciplinary actions if it finds merit in a misconduct complaint filed against a judge. They range from a private letter of admonishment to removal from office.

The Supreme Court accepted the commission's recommendation for Baugh's censure, but also added a 31-day suspension. Chief Justice Mike McGrath wrote in the order that Baugh had eroded confidence in the court system.

Baugh sent Rambold to prison for 30 days last year after he pleaded guilty to sexual intercourse without consent.

Rambold was a 47-year-old business teacher at Billings Senior High School at the time of the 2007 rape. The victim was one of his students. She committed suicide while the case was pending trial.

Baugh said during Rambold's sentencing in August that the teenager was "probably as much in control of the situation as the defendant" and that she "appeared older than her chronological age."

Under state law, children younger than 16 cannot consent to sexual intercourse.

After a public outcry, Baugh apologized for the comments and acknowledged the short prison sentence violated state law. He attempted to revise it retroactively but was blocked when the state filed its appeal.

The last Montana judge was censured by the Supreme Court was District Judge Jeffrey Langton, of Hamilton, in 2005. Langton had pleaded guilty to a drunken driving charge, then was placed on probation for violating the terms of his sentence.

Rambold has been free since last fall after serving the original sentence. After his release, Rambold registered as a sex offender and was to remain on probation through 2028.

Prosecutors appealed Baugh's sentence, and the Supreme Court in April ordered a new sentencing in the case by a different judge. District Judge Randal Spaulding, of Roundup, is scheduled to re-sentence Rambold on Sept. 26.

Baugh, who is the son of former Washington Redskins quarterback "Slingin'" Sammy Baugh, has said he plans to retire after three decades on the bench when his term expires in December.

[Gemme]

Sexual Harassment at Comic-Con

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Amid the costumes and fantasy of this weekend's Comic-Con convention, a group of young women drew widespread attention to a very real issue - allegations of sexual harassment at the annual pop-culture festival.

Geeks for CONsent, founded by three women from Philadelphia, gathered nearly 2,600 signatures on an online petition supporting a formal anti-harassment policy at Comic-Con.

Conventioneers told Geeks for CONsent they had been groped, followed and unwillingly photographed during the four-day confab.

Meanwhile, what Geeks for CONsent and others regarded as blatant objectification continued on the convention floor. Scantily clad women were still used as decoration for some presentations, and costumed women were described as "vaguely slutty" by panel moderator Craig Ferguson. When Dwayne Johnson made a surprise appearance to promote "Hercules," 10 women in belly-baring outfits stood silently in front of the stage for no apparent reason.

Groping, cat-calling and other forms of sexual harassment are a larger social issue, not just a Comic-Con problem. And many comics and movies still portray women as damsels in distress. But Geeks for CONsent says things are amplified at the festival, where fantasy plays such a large role.

"It's a separate, more specific issue within the convention space," said Rochelle Keyhan, 29, director of Geeks for CONsent. "It's very much connected (to the larger problem) and it's the same phenomena, but manifesting a little more sexually vulgar in the comic space."

"Comic-Con has an explicit Code of Conduct that addresses harassing and offensive behavior," said Comic-Con International in a statement on Sunday to The Associated Press. "This Code of Conduct is made available online as well as on page two of the Events Guide that is given to each attendee."

Earlier, Comic-Con spokesman David Glanzer told the Los Angeles Times that "anyone being made to feel uncomfortable at our show is obviously a concern for us." He said additional security was in place this year, including an increased presence by San Diego Police.

Keyhan's focus on Comic-Con began with a movement launched in her hometown called HollabackPhilly, to help end public harassment against women and members of the LGBT community. She and her colleagues developed a comic book on the subject in hopes of engaging middle- and high-school students, which is what brought them to Comic-Con.

Costuming, or cosplay, is a big part of the popular convention, with male and female fans dressing as their favorite characters, regardless of gender. A man might wear a Wonder Woman outfit, and a woman could dress as Wolverine. Keyhan and her colleagues - all in costume - carried signs and passed out temporary tattoos during the convention that read, "Cosplay does not equal consent."

In addition to the existing Comic-Con's Code of Conduct, Geeks for CONsent wants the 45-year-old convention to adopt a clearly stated policy and says staff members should to be trained to handle sexual harassment complaints.

"It makes it feel safer for the person being harassed to report it and also for bystanders who witness (inappropriate behavior)," Keyhan said.

Toni Darling, a 24-year-old model who was dressed as Wonder Woman on Saturday, said the issue goes way beyond Comic-Con.

"I don't think it has anything to do with cosplay or anything to do with costumes," she said. "People who are the kind of people who are going to take a photo of you when you're not looking from behind are going to do that regardless, whether you're in costume or not."

Still, she'd like to see an advisory in the Comic-Con program against surreptitious photography, and a clearer statement from Geeks for CONsent. She found some fans were afraid to take photos, even when she was posing at a booth on the showroom floor.

"The kind of behavior that needs to be modified," she said, "is somebody taking a photo of you bent over while you're signing a print."

[Kobi]

Nearly one in five women have been raped, according to a new report on sexual victimization from the Center for Disease Control. The data tracks the responses of 12, 727 men and women over the age of 18, based on their experiences during and through 2011. The report's findings — particularly how prevalent rape is, and the fact that most rapists aren't strangers — shouldn't be surprising, but there's a difference between knowing facts dispel certain myths and seeing the numbers laid out.

Report

[Kobi]

“Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration,” said Thomas Edison.

The quote immaculately and succinctly captures the ingredients to success, and appears to be – at least to those who still believe he invented the light bulb – classic Edison: genius.

Except for one minor detail.

Edison never actually wrote or said those words. What’s more – experts now say that that a woman you’ve never heard of should get the credit.

And she’s not the only one, though we’ll never know all their names.

How Edison’s quote evolved hints at a tendency of prevailing culture to put words in the mouths of famous men – in a way that amplifies their greatness. A “courtesy” perhaps, that has never quite been extended in much the same way to women, many remaining largely unknown or forgotten.

So how did seven famously inspiring quotes come to be attributed to Edison and the likes of Emerson, Twain, Voltaire, Vonnegut and Kafka when these were originally conceived, or written by, women?

1. “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”

Attributed to: Thomas Edison

Credit due to: Kate Sanborn

In the early 1890’s an academic named Kate Sanborn delivered a series of lectures on the topic “What is Genius?” She defined genius as a mix of “inspiration” and “perspiration”. “Talent is perspiration,” she said, explaining that genius required more perspiration than inspiration. If she provided a ratio, it was never recorded.

Sanborn was ridiculed in a newspaper editorial column that said she was “getting a lot of attention” for stating something so obvious.

Nevertheless, her definition may have found its way into the consciousness of a famous and influential contemporary: Thomas Edison.

Edison, later asked for his definition of genius is said to have answered, “2% is genius and 98% is hard work.”

When probed on whether genius was inspired, he replied, “Bah! Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration.”

Within a month of Edison’s comments being published, several writers and speakers re-jigged his statements – and after clever re-writes (without his further input), this eventually culminated in the quote as we now know it.

Edison may have provided a ratio, but who deserves the credit?

“In my opinion Kate Sanborn’s lectures were very important in the evolution and construction of the quotation that is now popularly attributed to Thomas Edison,” writes “Garson O’Toole” in an email to me.

He’s the Quote Investigator (QI) – a Magnum P.I for the quote world if you will, that is, if Magnum also had a PhD.

I also checked in with Fred Shapiro, the renowned expert and editor of the Yale Book Of Quotations - considered the most authoritative and complete quotation book in the world.

Shapiro also happened to write “Anonymous Was a Woman” – a piece published several years ago in Yale’s Alumni Magazine.

“If I was writing my ‘Anonymous Was a Woman’ article now,” he tells me, “I would include Sanborn and Edison as another example of a woman not being given credit for a famous saying.”

Coming from a quotes legend like Shapiro, that’s all the confirmation needed: Kate Sanborn was a precursor of Edison’s famous quote and deserves major points.

Then again, this game called life isn’t really about keeping scores against others, is it?

2. “Sometimes you’re ahead; sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.”

Misattributed to: Kurt Vonnegut / Baz Luhrmann

Credit due to: Mary Schmich

Wise words indeed from Mary Schmich, often misattributed to Kurt Vonnegut or even Baz Luhrmann (via 1998’s Sunscreen Song).

Schmich, a journalist, had written a column for the Chicago Times about what she’d say to the class of ’97 if she were to be asked to give a commencement speech.

If the quote seems unfamiliar, her opening line to that column is sure to jog the memory of any kid from the 90’s:

“Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97: Wear sunscreen.”

The essay became the subject of a fake e-mail chain claiming to be a MIT commencement address given by counterculture hero Vonnegut.

The e-mail went viral and the association with Vonnegut became so widespread that his lawyer was flooded with requests to reprint, prompting Vonnegut to reply: “What [Schmich] wrote was funny, wise and charming, so I would have been proud had the words been mine.”

“Poor man,” responded Schmich. “He didn’t deserve to have his reputation sullied in this way.”

So it goes.

Schmich went on to win a Pulitzer in 2012 – the ultimate symbol of success for a journalist. But, success doesn’t always necessarily mean winning. Consider this still-refreshing definition:

3. “To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Misattributed to: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Credit due to: Bessie Anderson Stanley

In 1904 a Boston firm, in conjunction with a woman’s magazine, ran a competition in which people were asked to answer the question “What Constitutes Success?” in 100 words or less.

The winner was a woman from Kansas named Bessie A. Stanley. Her submission, presented in its entirety below, earned her the prize money of $250.

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;

Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men and the love of little children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world better than he found it,

Whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.

Sound familiar?

In 1951, in a piece titled “What Is Success?” a writer quoted the words he claimed to be from Ralph Waldo Emerson (the quote at the start of #3.)

According to QI, what the writer presented as an Emerson quote was “clearly derived” from Stanley’s essay.

However, the attribution to Emerson stuck (the writer’s column was syndicated) and the quote firmly entered popular culture when Ann Landers featured it in her famous column in 1966 and then again in 1980.

4. “Don’t bend; don’t water it down, don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

Misattributed to: Franz Kafka

Credit due to: Anne Rice

In 1995, a collection of short stories by Kafka was published, including a foreword by the author Anne Rice. Here’s an excerpt:

Kafka became a model for me, a continuing inspiration. Not only did he exhibit an irrepressible originality—who else would think of things like this!—he seemed to say that only in one’s most personal language can the crucial tales of a writer be told. Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly. Only if you do that can you hope to make the reader feel a particle of what you, the writer, have known and feel compelled to share.

According to QI, Anne Rice did not use quotation marks in the passage above because she was not quoting Kafka. “She was presenting her conjectural thoughts about Kafka’s attitude toward writing.”

Proving this one is a slam dunk: Anne Rice deserves full attribution for her quote.

Memo To Russell Brand: You may want to correct the misattribution in your Booky Wook.

5. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Misattributed to: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Credit due to: Muriel Strode

In August 1903, Muriel Strode published a poem titled “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers.”

Here’s the relevant excerpt:

“I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.”

In 1992, an academic periodical printed Strode’s slightly revised quote (replacing just the I’s) with an attribution to Ralph Waldo Emerson. Not long after, it appeared as a sign at a school once again incorrectly credited – and from there you could say it took off, becoming widely accepted by the general public as an Emerson quote.

“It is clear that the linkage of the saying to Ralph Waldo Emerson occurred many years after his death and is not substantive,” concludes QI.

In terms of misquotes Emerson ranks up there with another great writer – Mark Twain.

6. “The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”

Misattributed to: Mark Twain

Credit due to: Agatha Christie

According to Cindy Lovell, Executive Director of the Mark Twain House and Museum, this is not a Mark Twain quote. Several other Twain experts agree. “Mark Twain remains the most frequently quoted American author,” Lovell writes, “which means he is also the most frequently misquoted author.”

Here comes the plot twist.

In a surprising email to me, Agatha Christie Limited (a private company set up by Agatha Christie prior to her death) confirms that this is indeed one of hers. They say the quote originated during an old press interview – but are unable to locate the source.

John Curran, an expert on Agatha Christie with whom I share this bit of news, tells me he shall “remain dubious” until he sees the original citation.

With Twain definitively out of the running for this quote though, and unless it can be proven otherwise, Agatha Christie deserves at least a tentative full-credit for now.

7. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Misattributed to: Voltaire

Credit due to: Evelyn Beatrice Hall

In her 1907 book Friends of Voltaire, Hall wrote:

Voltaire forgave him all injuries, intentional or unintentional. ‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now.

With the quote marks, it easy to see how the words eventually came to be attributed to Voltaire. But, Hall was not actually quoting Voltaire – she was describing his attitude.

In 1934, the quote entered popular culture when it was misattributed to Voltaire in the “Quotable Quotes” section of the Readers Digest.

Later, in an interview with a newspaper, Hall tried to correct the misattribution. “I did not mean to imply that Voltaire used these words verbatim and should be surprised if they are found in any of his works. They are rather a paraphrase of Voltaire’s words in the Essay on Tolerance — ‘Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.’”

Still though, decades later, the quote still seems to stick to Voltaire.

So, what’s the big deal if quotes are misattributed or not attributed at all? If some of these women were around now, would they really have minded at all?

It might have mattered.

In this day and age, an uncredited quote could amount to millions of dollars in lost royalties – well, at least to Vivian Greene.

You may know her as she is more commonly known – Anonymous.

Greene has been struggling for years to get credit for her work.

Even copyrighted, her quotes still appear unattributed on various products sold in household-name stores around the world – denying her not just recognition, but a substantial amount of income from royalties.

Despite this, and several other setbacks she’s faced along the way, she still maintains a tremendously positive spirit.

You could say she’s figured out one of life’s secrets:

“Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass … it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

After all, she came up with that quote back in the 70’s.

Let’s give this woman, at least, credit in her time.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/maseenaz...piring-quotes/

[Gemme]

I've seen Laci on a few videos now and she brings up some excellent points, most of which we probably already know, but also some figures we might not be aware of.