Drug rape doesn't happen... oh wait

Rohypnol rape is a myth, did you know? It never happens.

Except, of course, when it does.

John Worboys has been found guilty of sexually assaulting over a dozen women. Other victims may number in the hundreds. Rape is 'he said, she said', though, isn't it? Apparently it takes the testimony of 14 women to contradict one man.

And is it any wonder rape convictions are so low then cases are handled like this:

It emerged in court that Worboys was arrested and questioned in July 2007 following reports by a number of women, but he was released on police bail without further action. A further seven of the women who gave evidence in court were assaulted after his initial release.

Following the verdict, the Independent Police Complaints Commission announced it will review the Metropolitan police's handling of the case and examine how Worboys managed to slip through detectives' fingers after the July 2007 attack. Scotland Yard referred itself to the watchdog and the officers involved could face misconduct charges if found to have acted negligently.

Credit to the Guardian, they have two excellent pieces on low conviction rates and how we can start taking rape seriously. Go read them.

One final excerpt to cheer you up for the weekend:

The reality of rape in Britain, that it is an almost cost-free act of crushing aggression, makes us look backward. No country in Europe has a lower conviction rate, other than Ireland.

SXSW

SXSW 2009 kicks off today. I'm jealous. Austin is a cool town.

Let's look on the plus side. I'm finally home for Paddy's Day. Um, yay. Who needs the film lineup of SXSW when you have... Darby O'Gill at the IFI.

Seriously, some of the rest of the programme looks quite interesting. I might try the 5k Road Race. We'll see.

Feminist Weddings

So, in my introductory post, I mentioned that I am getting married this year. It's on my mind a lot, and at the moment, much of my feminist thought is directed towards the marriage process (much as, when I was immigrating to America, much of my focus was on feminism and immigrant rights).

Hey, I'm in good company. Via Feministe, I learned that Feministing's Jessica is also getting married, and guess what, she's getting bullshit sexist criticism for it. "What a fucking idiot... Who is this... guy, the ultimate Beta male pussy or what... Why the hell would anyone marry that annoying bitch i'll never know... As far as the groom goes, this is already a same sex marriage" says the first six fucking comments. (Not linking, fuck them).

I don't have much to say at the moment. My wedding day is six months away, and I have a shitload of feminist thought about it. This post is to say, it's coming. Feministe's criticism of the 'Bridezilla' trope is spot-on. Go read it. I particularly enjoyed:

Women are still largely charged with organizing the wedding, because it’s supposed to be their day. Wedding planning, for a lot of couples, is a huge endeavor — for a lot of women, it’s the equivalent of a part-time job on top of whatever they already do for work. But if all that pressure ends up making them crack just a little, they’re crazed selfish biatches.

Not that I’m defending the bad behavior of some women in planning their weddings. Assholes are assholes, and there are a fair number of assholes who eventually get married and, unsurprisingly, act like assholes in the process. The ability to even freak out about your wedding is a function of socioeconomic and cultural privilege.

But when we get to the point where all we need as evidence that a woman is a selfish jerk who thinks of her wedding as Princess’s Special Day is the fact that she’s a woman, I think we’ve gone a little too far down Misogyny Lane.

Star Trek

A bit of geeky subculture, to lighten the tone around here somewhat.

Himself, the Feminist Househusband, loves Star Trek and one of our new TV channels shows The Original Series (TOS) and The Next Generation (TNG) almost every day.

A few days ago, the announcer before the show said 'Next, the crew of the Enterprise encounter a planet run by women... but all is not as wonderful as it first seems'.

Good gravy, I said to myself, I'm not sitting here watching Shatner bed dozens of dictatorial Amazons. Thankfully, it was TNG, so the episode was mostly about touchy-feely issues of personal sovereignty. And Ryker having sex with a dictatorial Amazon, but I can put up with that.

Rape and RTE

One of the key ways a rape culture is cemented is through the media's lens. How a news outlet reports on and describes sexual violence is critical. Sometimes, the mainstream media's refusal to take rape seriously is overt, such as when they report on a victim's sexual history, clothes, or alcohol intake.

In the case of today's bulletin from RTE, 'Gang attacks couples in Co Louth', about a shocking attack on two couples last night, it's a little more subtle. Behold the opening paragraphs:

Two couples were injured when they were attacked by a gang in Co Louth in the early hours of this morning.

The incident occurred in the Townley Hall area between Slane and Drogheda at around 4.30am this morning.

The two couples had been in a car when they were attacked by a gang and beaten up. One woman was allegedly raped.

When somebody is mugged on the street or robbed in their home, when they are pickpocketed in a bar or glassed in a nightclub, the incident is reported as fact. But a woman is allegedly raped. Because she might be lying, of course. Never mind that the rate of false reporting for rape is roughly the same (2%) as for all those other crimes.

I'm not talking, just to be clear, about describing someone accused of a crime. Until a conviction is obtained, it's only right and proper that someone should be reported as 'the alleged mugger' or 'the alleged rapist'. But that's not what went on in this article. In almost the same breath, RTE presented the violent attack on two men and two women as questioned, while the sexual assault of one of those women is only 'alleged'.

We don't pretend that people who are hospitalised by violent non-sexual attacks have made up their assault, or inflicted their injuries themselves. Sexual attacks should be treated the same way.

If one were to be as charitable as possible, it could perhaps be hoped that the RTE newsroom only had confirmation from the hospital of the non-sexual violence, and that the rape had not been confirmed. But this is not a particularly reasonable explanation. Why would the hospital, or the gardai, not confirm all details of the attack at the same time? If the story of the rape is just a rumour, why publish it at all until confirmed? Why permit it to be written about in the fashion above, which suggests that the non-sexual aspects are certain but the rape only an 'allegation'? Treating sexual violence in such a hamfisted manner is inexcusable.

People tries, fails to understand domestic violence

This post uses male abuser/female victim pronouns for ease of writing, partly because that is the most common abuser/victim set-up but mainly because that is the set-up of this particular case. It goes without saying that domestic violence is not limited to female victims, or to straight relationships.

I often swear I'll stop reading People.com, but at the moment I can't bear to give up such a regular source of outrage. Today, they decided to grapple with domestic violence.

The sad saga of a young woman being brutalised by her partner continues to drag on. I had some reservations about posting this. The case is being discussed all over the place and the victim was identified without her consent. One could argue that the inexorable gaze of the public eye might shame the perpetrator and give the victim courage to leave him, but criticism of their abusers often leads domestic violence victims to empathise further with them. "Nobody understands our love", he tells her, and indeed, part of her does love him still, and can't bear to hear him called a monster.

This post is therefore not really about that one case, but rather how People, whose headlines yell out from supermarket checkouts across America, is dealing with it. It's been a mixed bag. In the same article, they both don't shy from the reality of the situation:

"Brown, 19, allegedly battered the "Umbrella" singer on Feb. 8... Brown was booked by LAPD for making criminal threats but the case has not yet been presented to the District Attorney, who will ultimately determine which charges, if any, will be prosecuted."

and suggest that the situation is part of the ups and downs of any celebrity relationship:

[all bolding mine]"The on-again couple are currently spending time together at one of Sean "Diddy" Combs's homes, on Miami Beach's Star Island".

While they collect disapproving quotes from the victim's family, they also have anonymous "friends" saying they are "working through their issues". People used this formulation in their headline, too. Note the plural there. They both have issues, you know. He wants to beat her and she... doesn't want that?

So their latest article is trying to tackle domestic violence head-on. Plus points: they call it what it is, domestic violence. They don't try to blame victims who return to abusers. They try to explain the psychology of abusive relationships. They talk about guilt, blame, and explain the 'honeymoon' period. So far, so good.

And then, oh People, just when I'm nodding along, you come out with this pile of unmitigated shite:

"But it's love, in all its complexities, that can often be the most powerful force for reconciliation for a battered woman. "They have insight into somebody in a way that none of us do," says Mills, who runs a program in Arizona that brings together couples with family members and a volunteer from the community to talk over what actually happened in a domestic-violence event. The process usually goes on for months.

"The ideal might be that we can separate people who are in a violent relationship, but the problem is that that's not the reality," Mills says. "I address the reality, which is that people go back, and they're looking for avenues for the possibility of working through this issue like any other rupture in a relationship, working through this issue to the point where the violence could stop."

Ugh. He hits her because he loves her. They have an amazing special bond. A vicious beating that puts someone in hospital is just like "any other rupture in a relationship". Pass me the sick bag.