Now though, Howard will avoid any prison or jail time at all, and could even have his conviction dismissed if he completes his two- to three-year probation without committing any new crimes or violations.
At least, they didn’t call him “a kid”, just “a student”, but it would be better if they called him a beast or an animal because no human being is able to harm a disabled child!
“Deputy Attorney General Casey Hemmer said it was neither a sex crime nor a hate crime” - then what was it? White boys having a little fun?
That’s real disgrace… Be careful, hide your children….
In first grade, a boy named John— a notorious troublemaker—systematically chased every girl in our class during recess trying to kiss her on the lips. Most gave in eventually. It was easier to give in than keep running. When it was my turn, I turned and faced him, grabbed his glasses off his weasel face, and stomped on them on the hard blacktop. He ran to the principal’s office and cried.
In fifth grade, I was asked to be a boy’s girlfriend over email. It was the first email I ever received. He actually told me he wanted to send me an email, so I went home and made an AOL account. We went to a carnival and he won me a Garfield stuffed animal, and then he gave me a 3 Doors Down CD. A few days later, he broke up with me, and asked for Garfield and the CD back. I said no.
In sixth grade, a girl in my year gave head to an eighth grader in the back of the school bus while playing Truth or Dare.
In the summer after sixth grade, I kissed a boy for the first time at sleep away camp. He was my summer love. During the end-of-the-summer dining hall announcements, where kids usually announced lost sweatshirts and Walkmen, an older girl stepped up to the microphone, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and proudly stated, “I lost something very precious to me last night. My virginity. If anyone finds it, please let me know.” The dining hall erupted into laughter and cheers. She was barred from ever coming back to the camp again, and wasn’t allowed to say goodbye to anyone.
In seventh grade, I told my brother I decided when I was older wanted a Hummer. What I really meant was I wanted a Jeep, but I didn’t know a lot about cars. My mother overheard and screamed at me for “wanting a Hummer.”
In the summer after freshman year of high school, I went to sleepaway field hockey camp with many of my close friends. One of them, named Megan, I had been friends with since kindergarten. One night when I was showering, she ripped open the curtain and snapped a photo of me on her disposable camera. I screamed. She laughed. We both laughed when I got out of the shower a few minutes later. After camp was over, her father took the camera to the convenience store to get it developed. When he gave the finished photos back to her, he said, “Your friend [Anonymous] has grown up.”
Sophomore year of high school, one of my best friends Hilary had a party in her basement while her mom was away. We invited some of the guys in our grade and someone’s older brother bought us a handle of vodka. One of the boys who came sat next to me in Spanish class. His name was Thomas. I remember playing a simple game, where we passed the bottle of vodka around in a circle and drank. I remember being happily tipsy and having fun, to suddenly being very drunk. Thomas and I started chanting numbers in Spanish, and he leaned towards me and kissed me. We kissed in the middle of the party, with all of our friends cheering. Then we went into Hilary’s bedroom.
Hilary’s bedroom was in the basement, on the ground floor, with a large window next to her bed. When someone went outside to smoke a cigarette, they realized it was a front row seat to what was happening in the bedroom. It was dark outside, and the light on was in the bedroom. They called everyone outside to watch. I don’t remember getting undressed, but apparently we were both completely naked in Hilary’s bed. A friend of mine told me later she tried to open the door and stop what was happening, but Thomas must have locked it. They said they pounded on the door. I don’t remember hearing them pounding. I don’t remember seeing everyone’s faces outside the window. I remember Thomas holding my head down, and shoving his penis into my mouth. I remember trying to resist, pulling back, but he held his hands firmly on my head, pushing my face up and down. That’s all that I remember.
The next day, my friends and I went out to dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants. I couldn’t eat anything, and it wasn’t because I was hung over. Every time I tried to put food in my mouth, I felt like I was choking. Anytime a flash of the night before appeared in my mind, I felt like vomiting. My friends sat with me in silence. Then they told me a girl named Lindsey, who had briefly dated Thomas freshman year, had stood outside and watched the entire time. Even after everyone else stopped watching. My friends said they didn’t watch.
On Monday, Thomas and I sat next to each other in Spanish. We didn’t speak. We didn’t make eye contact. I went to the girls bathroom and threw up. I hear Lindsey and Thomas live together, now, ten years later.
Junior year of high school, my teacher for Honors Spanish was named Señor Gonzales. Señor Gonzales had all of the girls sit in the front row. Señor Gonzales called on any girl who was wearing a skirt to write on the chalkboard. Señor Gonzales asked a friend of mine, who had broken her finger playing an after school sport, if she broke her finger because “she liked it rough.” Señor Gonzales was a tenured teacher.
Senior year of high school, I got my first real boyfriend. His name was Colin. He was on the lacrosse team with Thomas. He told me that sophomore year, Thomas told everyone on the team what happened that night at Hilary’s. Everyone cheered. Colin said that, even then, he had a crush on me. Even then, he wanted to punch Thomas.
Colin and I lost our virginities to each other. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have the baby. He didn’t believe in abortion. Colin said if I got pregnant, he would make me have a C-section. Colin said that if I didn’t have a C-section, my vagina would be too loose for him to ever enjoy having sex with me again. Colin said that he wouldn’t let our child breastfeed. He said his mother gave him formula, and that he turned out just fine. I didn’t get pregnant.
Junior year of college, I lived in Denmark for the spring semester and studied at the University of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is one of the safest cities in the world. Guns are illegal there. Pepper spray is illegal there. One night, my friends and I went to a concert at a crowded club in a part of the city I didn’t know very well. I brought a tiny purse with money, my apartment key, and my international cell phone. For some reason it made sense at the time to put my purse inside my friend’s purse. Maybe I didn’t feel like carrying it. We were both drinking. My friend left the concert to go home with her boyfriend. One by one, everyone I was there with left the concert, until I was suddenly alone and I realized I didn’t have my purse, or any money for a cab ride home.
I started walking in the direction that felt right. I walked for a long time. I had no idea where I was, and didn’t recognize the area. It was almost 4 am. I was on a residential street when a cab pulled up next to me. I asked the driver if he could drive me to an intersection down the street from my apartment.
I don’t have any money, I said.
I really need your help, I said.
I will do it for free, he said.
Sit in the front, he said.
I sat in the front. We drove in silence for some time, until he pulled over on the side of a dark street.
I don’t want to do it for free anymore, he said.
He locked the car doors and reached across the center console and slipped his hand up my skirt. He grabbed my vagina. Hard. I pushed his hand away and unlocked the door. I ran down the street and realized he had taken me a block away from the intersection I wanted. I walked to my apartment and threw rocks at my roommate’s window until she let me inside. She yelled at me for waking her up. I escaped. Nothing happened. I was fine.
The summer after I graduated college I helped Hilary find an internship. She was an art major and wanted something for her resume besides waitressing. We found a posting on Craigslist to be a studio assistant for a painter in the Bronx. It was listed as an unpaid internship. The toll for the George Washington Bridge was twelve dollars, plus gas, but she got the internship anyway. She wanted the experience.
The artist was a 38-year-old Canadian painter named Bradley. Hilary was 22.There was another intern there, an art student from Manhattan named Stella. Bradley needed assistants to help him make bubble wrap paintings. Stella and Hilary would take a syringe and fill the tiny bubbles with different color paints until it formed a mosaic. Bradley always had Hilary stay after Stella left to clean the paintbrushes and syringes. He told Hilary she was beautiful. More beautiful than his wife, who he only married for citizenship. He told Hilary they had a loveless marriage. He told Hilary he wanted to have her beautiful children. They began an affair. He told Hilary has wife knew and didn’t care. He told Hilary he was going to leave his wife soon.
Everyday Hilary drove to the Bronx, cleaned Bradley’s paintbrushes, and had sex on the studio floor. Everyday she went home with no money, and everyday she paid the toll at the George Washington Bridge. She needed the internship for her resume, she said. It was too late to find a new job, she said.
I could go on. I could tell you a lot more. About the whistles on the sidewalk, the kids who sat at the bottom of the stairs in high school to look up our skirts, my friend who was a prostitute in South Carolina, the men who’ve cornered me in parking lots and bars calling me a tease, the unwanted grabbing on the subway, the many times my father has called me fat, the time I traveled to the Philippines and discovered Western men pay preteen locals to spend the week in their hotel, the messages on OKCupid asking to “fart in my mouth.” About how I wasn’t sure if I had been raped because I was drunk and kissed Thomas back. How he raped my mouth and not my vagina, so that must not be rape. How easy it was for me to escape the dark street in Copenhagen, and how that made it not matter since “it could’ve been worse.”
Men have no idea what it takes to be a woman. To grin and bear it and persevere. The constant state of war, navigating the relentless obstacle course of testosterone and misogyny, where they think we are property to be owned and plowed. But we’re not. We are people, just like them. Equals, in fact, or at least that’s the core of what feminism is still trying to achieve. The job is not over. We’ve made great progress. There are female CEOs, though not very many. There are females writing for the New York Times and winning Pulitzer prizes, though not very many. There are female politicians, though not very many. But these advances are only on paper. The job won’t be over until equality permeates the air we breathe, the streets we walk and the homes we live in.
I think back to how easy it was for me, in first grade, to feel fearless and strong in my conviction to stomp on John’s glasses. I felt right in reacting how I did, because John’s behavior was wrong. But his was an elementary learning of the wide boundaries his gender would go on to afford him. For me, it would never again be so easy.
The woman on the left had acid thrown on her with no consequences for her husband that did it, while girls can’t wear that shirt in school which problem should be solved first?
You know that we can work on both problems at the same time, right? Giving a shit isn’t a finite resource.
And using the women on the left as a prop to try and tell other women to shut up on the internet is a pretty gross move. Female survivors of violence are not your silencing tactics.
Antifeminists should stop acting like they give a fuck about women in the developing world. They don’t give a fuck that women are victims of acid attacks, they just want a reason to belittle the problems of women in their own goddamn country.
If they really cared about women, they would start with their own culture and attitude. Instead they utilize other women’s experiences to make the bullshit “it could always be worse!” argument.
Who cares about victims of acid attacks? Feminists do.
Officer Andrew Demers worked as a police officer for 26 years with the Maine State Police. He was a so-called good cop. Police supporters trusted him.
He received the “Trooper of the Year” award twice.
He was one of the most highly “decorated” police officers in Maine’s history. He was a model of what faithful police wives have in mind when they say “Yeah but some cops are GOOD!”
This “good cop” has been sentenced to prison for only four years — and may get out sooner because of his statist privilege — for sexually assaulting an innocent child.
We wonder, did he ever shed one tear as he molested this poor child over and over again?
Officer Demers will pay just $5,000 to the child, a tiny fraction of what he made as a police officer, funded by American taxpayers.
Some might question whether Demers feels any remorse for what he did to this helpless child, given that part of his defense case used the excuse that his actions were “out of character” and were caused by all of his stress working as a police officer.
As if he’s the victim.
“Crimes like this come from a dark place within a person that are often buried deep within and unknown,” the judge said.
The child’s parents, however, sat silently on the other side of the courthouse, mourning over what this monster did to their little daughter.
At first Officer Demers was facing 30 years in prison for gross sexual assault. But his attorney was able to get that charge dismissed.
After that the parents wanted a sentence of at least eight years — at least something! — but even that sentence was again reduced. In all Officer Demers will spend only four years in prison.
Hate violence disproportionately targets black transgender women
Deoni Jones was simply waiting at a bus stop at the intersection of East Capitol Street and Sycamore Road NE, in Washington DC’s Benning Heights neighborhood when she was stabbed in the face. She was rushed to a hospital in Cheverly, MD where she died.
“Amanda [Milan] was a transsexual. She was killed because she was a transsexual. Her neck was slashed and her story went unreported because she was Black and a transsexual…The Black community is the worst. They who have suffered from prejudice in this country have treated us worse than any other people.” - Octavia St. Laurent preached at Amanda Milan’s funeral.
23 year old Paige Clay was found shot to death in the West Garfield Park neighborhood in an alley in the 4500 block of W. Jackson Blvd.
Lorena Escalera, a 25 year old black trans woman, garnered attention after her brutal death was sensationalized in media by Time. The article sexually exploited her, sexualized her “curvy” body and basically shamed her legacy instead of even addressing the violence she endured.
Rita Hester was an out African-American transwoman who lived in the Allston/Brighton community west of Boston. A neighbor reported to police a disturbance at Rita’s apartment. Upon arrival, they found her in cardiac arrest, having been stabbed multiple times. She was rushed to Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital but was unfortunately declared dead after her arrival.
On the morning of August 7, 1995 the popular 24 year old hairdresser named Tyra Hunter was on her way to work as a passenger in a car. That vehicle ended up being involved in an accident at the corner of 50th and C streets in Southeast DC. Tyra and the driver had been pulled from the smoking ruins of the vehicle by onlookers and were lying on the ground when fire department personnel arrived at the scene. The neighborhood began gathering to watch as a male firefighter began treating Tyra for her injuries. That is, until he cut open her pants leg and noted she had male genitalia. At that point, according to eyewitnesses, the firefighter, later identified as Adrian Williams stood up and backed away from Tyra. She was semi-conscious, complaining about pain and gasping for breath as he was quoted as saying by one witness, “This bitch ain’t no girl…It’s a nigger, it got a dick.” Williams began joking with the other fire department personnel at the scene as the bystanders pleaded with them to resume working to save Tyra’s life. Tyra’s treatment was discontinued for 5 to 7 critical minutes while bystanders pleaded for them to resume treatment. Finally an EMS supervisor arrived and resumed treating Tyra. She was rushed to DC General Hospital where she arrived at 4:10 PM. But the nightmare was just beginning for Tyra. The DC General Hospital ER staff compounded the insulting neglect of the fire fighters. A doctor refused to treat her and she died of blunt force trauma at 5:20 PM in the now closed hospital’s emergency room.
26-year-old Erycka Morgan, a black transgender woman, was stabbed to death in her home, proving that even in death our identities remain unsettled, Susan Epstein of the New Jersey Star-Ledger opted to ignore industry guidelines and instead report Ms. Morgan’s death with only masculine pronouns and her given name.
A post operative black transgender lingerie model named Victoria Carmen White was brutally shot to death. Victoria Carmen White was pursued by the Newark man who she began talking to earlier that day. She invited him over to talk. Once she told him she was transgender, he was heard yelling “You a dude?” by Victoria’s female friend and female cousin, and a string of gun shots followed.
Police have discovered the body of a transgender woman named Coko Williams in a particularly crime-, drug-, and prostitution-ridden section of East Detroit. Her throat was slashed and there were apparent gunshot wounds as well.
32 year old aspiring actress Domonique Newburn, who was found dead in her Fontana, CA apartment. She robbed of clothes and her computer. Her car was also stolen.
37 Year old Brandy Martell, an outreach worker, was sitting behind the wheel of her car when one or two men walked up and began a conversation that appeared cordial on the surface, Brandy revealing immediately she was a trans woman, a few moments later one of the men became angry and fired into the car at Martell.
Chanel Larkin, 26, was shot three times in the head by a man who allegedly picked her up for sex, and offered her $20 to turn a trick. Authorities contend that Andrew Olacirequi, who was cruising the vicinity for a prostitute, shot Larkin three times in the head when Larkin revealed to him that she was biologically male.
Artegus Madden, 34 year old black trans woman, was found dead in the living room of her Denton County home. She had been hit in the face and shot in the neck.
20 year old Cemia Dove Acoff from Cleveland was found in a retention pond on MacKenzie Road, north of Cook Road, in Olmsted Township, OH, nude from the waist down. She was stabbed multiple times tied with a rope to a block of concrete. She was slandered through out media and misgendered by news.
30 year old Ashley Sinclair was found shot to death in a wooded area on Rio Grande Drive just off S. Orange Blossom Trail in Orange County.
Kelly Young, a 29-year-old black transgender woman, was found shot to death inside a home in Baltimore, Maryland.
20 Year old Ebony Whitaker was found murdered in grass, shot, nude from the waist down.
Just like most black trans women, Duanna Johnson made national news when video footage leaked of her being viciously beat by white officers of Memphis who called her transphobic and racist slurs. It resulted in the officers being fired. Ten months later, Duanna Johnson was found murdered.
Lateisha “Teish” Green, the sweet 22-year old African-American transgender woman who was shot and killed at close range by Dwight DeLee after DeLee uttered anti-gay slurs.
Nakhia “Nikki” Williams was a proud transgender woman, a writer and painter, who was deeply involved in her community. She was brutally murdered in Louisville on August 20, 2008, a few days shy of her 30th birthday.
A 21-year-old out transgender woman who went by the name of Tyli’a Mack was stabbed to death in DC on August 26th, 2009.
Chanelle Pickett, an African-American transsexual woman, was strangled to death at age 23. Chanelle’s murder graphically illustrates the connections between violence and pervasive employment discrimination. After being bashed by co-workers and experiencing discrimination from her job - along with her twin trans sister (after both being outted as trans) and falling on hard times, Chanelle begin dating a man named William Palmer. While William Palmer tried to deny that he knew Chanelle was transsexual, or that he enjoys the company of transsexuals, he’s as familiar to the Boston transgender community that frequented the bar as Norm from Cheers was. He not only knew what and who a transsexual was, he frequently dated them. Chanelle and Palmer had been seeing each other for some time and they had met at Playland on a number of occasions. Friends say that she really liked Palmer and wanted to have a more serious relationship with him. Palmer had written a letter to Chanelle not only expressing his affection for her, but had promised to help her get back on her feet and to take care of her. With this overwhelming evidence, the letters to Chanelle and being seen in the company of her and other transwomen prior to the murder, Palmer’s defense attorney came up with a then new variation of the ‘homosexual panic’ defense.
Stacey Lee’s lifeless body was found by her boyfriend in the South Philadelphia home she shared with her boyfriend.
21 Year Old Islan Nettles was walking down the street with her friends (all trans women of color), while she begin to get cat-called by her murderer who thought she was beautiful. Islan and her friends were trying to walk away to avoid drama. One of his male friends voiced that the group of women were transgender and Islan Nettles was beat to a coma right across the street from the police station. She died.
22 year old Brittany-Nicole Kidd-Stergis was found murdered in a car. The early media reports of course (as usual) misgendered Brittany-Nicole.
These were only some black trans women who have been murdered. So many are unidentified, not reported in news and ignored in general. They are denied employment not only for being black but for being transgender. They are profiled by police not only for being black but for being transgender. They are murdered not only for being black but for being transgender.
[TW: Talk of sexual assault, physical assault, violence and antiziganism.]
I’ve sat here, combating the ignorance individually. I’m done with that. I’m done trying to reach you on a one on one level. You continuously ignore anything from me, you ignore the people I talk to on here who are Roma. You say we’re “Being too sensitive,” that “Gypsy is just a word,” that it stands for “Being free spirited, moving from place to place,” and the best, “I’m APPRECIATING your culture.”
First, gypsy is a slur. No matter what you think, it has been a slur for centuries. It’s where the term “gypped“ comes from. It was believed that the Roma would rip gadje (non-Roma) off for money. Roma who escaped the fate of death at the hands of the SS and their dogs, the ones who weren’t killed right away, were branded with a "Z”, which stood for Zigeuner, the German word for “Gypsy”. They were shipped to death camps, where barely any suvived.
It is a slur still used today. Roma are called “Gyppos” while being beaten, forced out of their settlements, forced to move. They are called this when they are assaulted and even raped. They are victims of forced sterilization, forcible eviction of settlements, harassment by both law enforcement and citizens, fingerprinting simply because they are Roma, they are often ecxluded from schools.
I want you to look at this:
This is from 2009. This is a Roma woman being assaulted WHILE CARRYING HER CHILD in Dublin! This is what the word “Gypsy” stands for.
This is Natalka Kudrikova. She is a little girl who was severely burned when antiziganists threw molotov cocktails into her family’s home:
This is also what the word “Gypsy” stands for. This happened in 2010. Systemic violence against a culture, an ethnicity, that just wants to be treated equally, to not have their way of life treated horribly. You can be sure, as these acts were going on, the word “GYPSY!” was being screamed in a way meant to incite fear and terror in those hearing it.
You dress up in flowy clothing, half-naked or naked except for a shawl. Do you have any idea how insulting that is? It contributes to the fetishization and sexualization of the Roma. Women are assaulted physically and sexually, because of this type of thing. They are raped, simply because they are believed to be “Easy” because of these “Positive stereotypes” you’re so quick to buy into.
It’s damaging to the culture when you treat it as a costume. Do you know the meaning behind the long skirts, or the “head scarves” that you’re so fond of donning? Do you know why the Roma wear these? It’s not for fucking fashion.
When you wear these things without a a care, you take away the meaning of these items. You take away the deep cultural roots the have. The skirt is worn because the lower half of the body is traditionally seen as “unclean” due to marime, or the code that’s followed. That “scarf” is known as a diklo, worn by women when they are married.
When you dress like this, you are spitting in the face of that culture, these people that are treated like they’re less than garbage TODAY. Not centuries ago, this is STILL HAPPENING.
So, before you tag that picture as “Gypsy” or say you want to “Lead a gypsy lifestyle,” look back on this post. Think about what that word means, and what you’re saying. Think about how fucking disrespectful it is. Think about the racism involved with that word. And realize that you are contributing to the ignorance that allows violence like these 2 out of countless incidents that occur. You are turning the Roma into a trope. This positive stereotype allows people to ignore the violence and hatred that Roma are still facing, because everyone thinks that being a “gypsy” is all about freedom, when really, they face oppression daily!
You’re not cool when you do this, you’re contributing to racism and violence.
An 8-year-old African-American boy in Texas is struggling to recover after being shot in the face by a 46-year-old white man, but authorities have not been able to determine a motive.
Dallas police said that Donald Maiden Jr., who had just celebrated his 8th birthday on Sunday, was playing tag outside his apartment complex on Tuesday. According to his grandmother, Maiden ran inside to get some toys and was shot as came back outside.
Witnesses told police that 46-year-old Brian Cloninger had been seen waiving a handgun at people prior to the shooting, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Police reports said that Cloninger was seen standing beside his pickup truck as the boy was bleeding, and a witness asked him if he shot the boy.
“When he ran in I just screamed,” she said. “His mouth was just hanging off and it was just a big hole… I just threw him on the couch and laid him in my arms and put pressure on his mouth with the towel.”
Locklin couldn’t understand why anyone would shoot her child “out of the blue.”
Maiden was in critical but stable condition as of Thursday. He still needed a breathing tube and had a plate in his jaw. He he could wink and nod to communicate, but could not talk. The boy was expected to have more surgeries after swelling from the most-recent surgeries goes down.
Cloninger was charged with injury to a child, and was being held $2.2 million dollar bond.
Take notes “charged with injury to a child” rather than attempted murder.
Today my hometown was struck by a disgusting hardship.
A woman this afternoon was found by a neighbor, bleeding and naked. She was attacked in her home because she was gay. Two or more men broke into her home through the basement and proceeded to tag her basement. They found the homeowner, who is an open lesbian, and stabbed, assaulted, and carved “dyke” into her chest. They attempted to burn her house to the ground, but the gas only sparked. Somehow, this woman (who remains anonymous until she decides to come out on her own time) was able to escape. She was found naked, bound with zip ties, and bloody. She is still alive and in the hospital. A candle light vigil was held in her name tonight, where more than 500 people from Lincoln and surrounding cities and states joined to talk about the hate and to pay homage to the victim.
A recovery fund has been set up to help her cover medical bills and anything she may need. That link can be found here, along with a link from the original news story.
Three men have reportedly been arrested after a brutal crime committed against a woman who beat them in a hip hop rap battle at a house party.
Joey Betrail Garron, 28, Robert Carl Johnson, 23, and Ketorie Glover, 23 all of Columbus, Georgia could not handle losing to a woman in a hip hop rap battle, so they allegedly raped, beat, shot and doused the woman with gasoline setting her on fire before leaving her for dead.
Columbus police reportedly responded to a vacant parking lot where a person was screaming out for help. They found a woman suffering from several gunshot wounds in the vacant lot.
The woman had allegedly engaged in a hip hop rap battle contest outside of a house party on Garden Drive where she was pitted against the alleged men opponents who she apparently defeated and set off anguish.
Apparently the rap battle got heated when one man drew a weapon – a handgun – and forced the 36 year-old victim into her own vehicle as two other men joined.
The woman was taken to the vacant lot where she was found by police at 988 Farr Road, the place where she was allegedly sexually assaulted by all three men, doused with gasoline, set on fire, shot several times and left for dead.
Fortunately, the woman survived her ordeal after being treated for injuries at a local hospital.
The three men have all been arrested and face felony charges of kidnapping, rape, aggravated assault, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated sodomy, arson in the first degree, possession of a firearm, among other charges.
You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Wtf????? She got more talent then yalls sorry ass and Yall fucking bitch ass can’t handle she’s got it???
Two weeks ago a man in France was arrested for raping his daughter. She’d gone to her school counselor and then the police, but they needed “hard evidence.” So, she videotaped her next assault. Her father was eventually arrested. His attorney explained, “There was a period when he was unemployed and in the middle of a divorce. He insists that these acts did not stretch back further than three or four months. His daughter says longer. But everyone should be very careful in what they say.” Because, really, even despite her seeking help, her testimony, her bravery in setting up a webcam to film her father raping her, you really can’t believe what the girl says, can you?
Everyone “knows” this. Even children.
Three years ago, in fly-on-the-wall fashion of parent drivers everywhere, I listened while a 14-year-old girl in the back seat of my car described how angry she was that her parents had stopped allowing her to walk home alone just because a girl in her neighborhood “claimed she was raped.” When I asked her if there was any reason to think the girl’s story was not true, she said, “Girls lie about rape all the time.” She didn’t know the person, she just assumed she was lying…
No one says, “You can’t trust women,” but distrust them we do. College students surveyed revealed that they think up to 50% of their female peers lie when they accuse someone of rape, despite wide-scale evidence and multi-country studies that show the incident of false rape reports to be in the 2%-8% range, pretty much the same as false claims for other crimes. As late as 2003, people jokingly (wink, wink) referred to Philadelphia’s sex crimes unit as “the lying bitch unit.” If an 11-year-old girl told an adult that her father took out a Craigslist ad to find someone to beat and rape her while he watched, as recently actually occurred, what do you think the response would be? Would she need to provide a videotape after the fact?
It goes way beyond sexual assault as well. That’s just the most likely and obvious demonstration of “women are born to lie” myths. Women’s credibility is questioned in the workplace, in courts, by law enforcement, in doctors’ offices, and in our political system. People don’t trust women to be bosses, or pilots, or employees. Pakistan’s controversial Hudood Ordinance still requires a female rape victim to procure four male witnesses to her rape or risk prosecution for adultery. In August, a survey of managers in the United States revealed that they overwhelmingly distrust women who request flextime. It’s notable, of course, that women are trusted to be mothers—the largest pool of undervalued, unpaid, economically crucial labor.
Just last week I happened to be awake at 3 am and heard “go away, stop it” from outside my apartment window. Of course I was worried and wound up going outside with my cell phone and my pocket knife (the cell phone so I could pretend I was on it). I found a woman across the street, 18-20, somewhat drunk and trying to pull away from a guy claiming to be her boyfriend. After walking to the end of the block and back I sucked it up and stopped right next to them and asked her if she was okay. No. I asked if she knew him. Yes. I asked if he was her boyfriend. No. I asked if she wanted to go with him. No. I told her she could come with me. He wouldn’t let go of her arm and kept talking to her with the platitudes women are familiar with - come on baby, I’ll take you home, just hang out with me, we were having such a good time - and eventually he gave in after seeing I had my finger on the dial button, but he was vibrating on the spot and he was pissed. Then he kept talking to me with all the insults women are familiar with - bitch, cunt, stupid fucking slut, etcetera forever. And of course he went after her for “leading him on.” I got her in a cab from my front door and went so far as to make sure I didn’t turn on any lights when I went inside so he wouldn’t know that my apartment was on the basement level facing the street where he was standing.
But this isn’t a problem or anything.
A few months ago I was working late shifts at work and getting off at 3 am. I only live a few blocks from there, so I was walking home. This was when there was a series of attacks against women in my neighbourhood. Not rapes, but escalating attempts to harm women, involving choking. So yes, I was on red alert. A group of five men from the bars saw me walking home. They started calling out to me - again, with all the lines women are used to (that, by the way guys, are not in the least bit attractive) - hey baby, where you goin, come on just stay and chat, a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be going home alone, where do you live. I ignored them and walked faster, and they sped up to keep up with me. Five men in their 20s. Following me home, drunk, and getting progressively angrier that I wouldn’t talk to them. “Why the fuck you being so rude? We just want to talk, quit being such a frigid bitch.” *guffaw guffaw* “Baby come on slow down, have some coffee with us.” I walked even faster, still not talking to them. I have foot and knee injuries, so this was getting really painful and I couldn’t have broken into a run if I’d tried. They thought this whole thing was quite hilarious and quite rude of me, never mind that I’m the one being followed home by drunk strangers. I finally looped a block and backtracked to the main road, which is really well-lit, and plopped myself dead centre in the middle of the ambulance-police combo that is in front of one of the bars every Saturday night without fail.
But street harassment isn’t a problem or anything.
Walking down a bright road in daylight, men lean out of car windows and honk and cheer at me and my friends. This has been happening since I was 14. Many of them are stuck at the same light we are, so we spend a good two minutes listening to them ask us to flash them. “Just show us your titties, we’ll give you each $5!”
Going to a bar and getting my ass groped at the bar as a precursor to offering to buy me a drink. I don’t know if men think this is a demonstration of their sexual abilities, or what, but it happens all the time.
Walking home from Walmart at 10pm and having a guy walk by me say “nice titties” thinking I can’t hear him because I have headphones in. Worst of all, spinning in anger and having to keep my mouth shut, because it could get a lot worse really fast.
Being “accidentally” groped on buses and trains frequently (they say they’re stumbling and that’s where their hands end up, but come on: I’m on the same vehicle, there was no jolt, and even if their was my hands don’t wind up on them), and not being able to complain without everybody thinking you’re crazy.
Dancing at a bar and having a guy slide his hand down the front of my pants. And then getting thrown out for elbowing him and shoving him away from me.
Getting told to smile by strangers (always men), and being told to cheer up, like I owe them a certain mood.
Having a guy you slept with once sit outside your house for seven hours, and then try to follow you inside while you pretend not to notice his car, and then disregard your requests through the intercom to leave you alone. And then, when you finally call the police, having the policeman call you back to say “He’s leaving, but he sounded sincerely sorry. You shouldn’t be so hard on him, he sounds like a nice guy.” Yeah, give him your home address then.
Having male customers look you up and down like you’re on the menu, and not being able to slap the customer who grabs your ass while you’re cleaning tables because you’ll be fired.
Finding out your sister’s employer felt comfortable uttering threats to punch her in the face for accusing him of being unfair, and her not feeling like she could tell anybody.
Having my male boss feel like he can touch me, rub my shoulders, call me honey and sweetheart and baby, and him being right, he can do those things, because everybody calls you oversensitive if you complain about those things.
Being followed home numerous times, both on foot and by car, being forced to talk to the guy who sits next to you on the bus for 45 minutes straight, and since I couldn’t think of a non-threatening way not to give him my phone number, I did so that I could get away. It took him a year and a half to stop calling me. Being told I’m paranoid for carrying any kind of protection, and stupid for not protecting myself, I’m a misandrist for assuming the worst of strange men, and stupid for having a conversation, I’m rude for asking men to leave me alone, and stupid and weak for not being more direct and assertive. Being told to go out and have fun more, stop being so uptight, and having that thrown in my face when something happens, because if I had some morals and didn’t advertise myself as, I don’t know, being alive or something, nothing would have happened. Being told to give him a chance and then being told to stop leading him on. Having to know all of the escape routes on my way home, and sending staff to the dumpsters in pairs. Having it be a fucking brave thing to do to stand next to a girl so she can walk away from the guy trying to bully her into going home with him.
And then having to listen to people say, “You’re exaggerating. Men aren’t like that, quit trying to see the worst in people. Men get harassed too, just ignore them and walk away. It’s the same thing.” Listening to people just step right over the fact that if woman deems a guy creepy, she’s told she’s being too critical and she needs to lower her standards, but if a man deems a woman possessive, controlling, demanding, jealous, bitchy, clingy, psycho, on her period, whiny, or outright dangerous he’s commended on his standards and congratulated on a bullet deftly dodged.
How many women does it take to bring these things to light before people stop thinking we’re crazy, over-critical bitches?
