peggingwithstyles:

thegoddamazon:

super1eklectic:

lyriciss:

Another confused black man in a white man’s world.

his face hahahaha

DONE

WHY DID NO ONE SAY “ASK”??????


girafes:anthropomorphia:


Ethiopian girl guarded from gang rape & assault by three lions.
“The girl had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them. She was beaten repeatedly. Then the lions chased off her captors. The three lions guarded her for about half a day. They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.”
Then, Stuart Williams (the local wildlife ‘expert’) suggests that perhaps the lions mistook the 12 year old girl’s cries for a lion cub. Which seems awfully silly, considering that lions are perfectly capable of telling apart the gazelles they eat from their own cubs, aren’t they?

#and surely if an animal knows rape is wrong people should too

girafes:anthropomorphia:

Ethiopian girl guarded from gang rape & assault by three lions.

“The girl had been taken by seven men who wanted to force her to marry one of them. She was beaten repeatedly. Then the lions chased off her captors. The three lions guarded her for about half a day. They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest.”

Then, Stuart Williams (the local wildlife ‘expert’) suggests that perhaps the lions mistook the 12 year old girl’s cries for a lion cub. Which seems awfully silly, considering that lions are perfectly capable of telling apart the gazelles they eat from their own cubs, aren’t they?

#and surely if an animal knows rape is wrong people should too


"

On a somewhat serious note today because of a conversation the other day:

I am sure every girl can recall, at least once as a child, coming home and telling their parents, uncle, aunt or grandparent about a boy who had pulled her hair, hit her, teased her, pushed her or committed some other playground crime. I will bet money that most of those, if not all, will tell you that they were told “Oh, that just means he likes you”. I never really thought much about it before having a daughter of my own. I find it appalling that this line of bullshit is still being fed to young children. Look, if you want to tell your child that being verbally and/or physically abused is an acceptable sign of affection, i urge you to rethink your parenting strategy. If you try and feed MY daughter that crap, you better bring protective gear because I am going to shower you with the brand of “affection” you are endorsing.

When the fuck was it decided that we should start teaching our daughters to accept being belittled, disrespected and abused as endearing treatment? And we have the audacity to wonder why women stay in abusive relationships? How did society become so oblivious to the fact that we were conditioning our daughters to endure abusive treatment, much less view it as romantic overtures? Is this where the phrase “hitting on girls” comes from? Well, here is a tip: Save the “it’s so cute when he gets hateful/physical with her because it means he loves her” asshattery for your own kids, not mine. While you’re at it, keep them away from my kids until you decide to teach them respect and boundaries.

My daughter is `10 years old and has come home on more than one occasion recounting an incident at school in which she was teased or harassed by a male classmate. There has been several times when someone that she was retelling the story to responded with the old, “that just means he likes you” line. Wrong. I want my daughter to know that being disrespected is NEVER acceptable. I want my daughter to know that if someone likes her and respects her, much less LOVES her, they don’t hurt her and they don’t put her down. I want my daughter to know that the boy called her ugly or pushed her or pulled her hair didn’t do it because he admires her, it is because he is a little asshole and assholes are an occurrence of society that will have to be dealt with for the rest of her life. I want my daughter to know how to deal with assholes she will encounter throughout her life. For now, I want my daughter to know that if someone is verbally harassing her, she should tell the teacher and if the teacher does nothing, she should tell me. If someone physically touches her, tell the teacher then, if it continues, to yell, “STOP TOUCHING/PUNCHING/PUSHING ME” in the middle of class or the hallway, then tell me. Last year, one little boy stole her silly bandz from her. He just grabbed her and yanked a handful of them off of her wrist. When I went to the school to address the incident, the teacher smiled and explained it away to her, in front of me, “he probably has a crush on you”. Okay, the boy walked up to my daughter, grabbed and held her by the arm and forcibly removed her bracelets from her as she struggled and you want to convince her that she should be flattered? Fuck off. I am going to punch you in the face but I hope you realize it is just my way of thanking you for the great advice you gave my daughter. If these same advice givers’ sons came home crying because another male classmate was pushing them, pulling their hair, hitting them or calling them names, I would bet dollars to donuts they would tell him to defend themselves and kick the kid’s ass, if necessary. They sure as shit wouldn’t say, “he probably just wants a play date”.

I will teach my daughter to accept nothing less than respect. Anyone who hurts her physically or emotionally doesn’t deserve her respect, friendship or love. I will teach my boys the same thing as well as the fact that hitting on girls doesn’t involve hitting girls. I can’t teach my daughter to respect herself if I am teaching her that no one else has to respect her. I can’t raise sons that respect women, if I teach them that bullying is a valid expression of affection.

The next time that someone offers up that little “secret” to my daughter, I am going to slap the person across the face and yell, “I LOVE YOU”.

"

taye-bay-bay:

I will never tell my children that if a boy picks on them it means he likes them. I will teach my children that “Anyone who cares about you or loves you would never dream of hurting you. They would want to protect and nurture you.” End rape culture, stop nurturing abusive relationships, by teaching your kids differently.


"At my age, when you’re by yourself and a man comes up to you, that’s scary stuff. Just because he’s a pap doesn’t make it okay, goddammit."
— Perrie Edwards x

"

This unholy marriage of rape culture with the cult of forgiveness means that some people forget that actions should, and do, have consequences for very good reason. Certainly, there are issues with the American criminal justice system (alternatively, the prison-industrial complex). No doubt, forgiveness on the part of victims of horrendous crimes is sometimes helpful to them in their healing process. None of that erases the need to hold people accountable for their actions, and in the case of Steubenville, there is no dearth of documentation proving that a great wrong did not simply occur, but was actively committed by people sure that their actions would never be taken to task. How else to explain the lack of shame, the creation and sharing of evidence proving the crime, the sheer arrogance expressed in said evidence?

Though punishment is not always a deterrent at all, let alone the best deterrent, allowing for the forgiveness narrative to allow people who commit staggeringly heinous crimes to walk away does not exactly send the right message to those who believe themselves to be above the law, or even basic respect for others’ humanity, agency, and bodily autonomy. Most people behave with common decency because they are commonly decent, but they’re not the ones about whom we have to worry.

"

doulaness:handaxe:

Three cheers for our brave bb girl who took the stand to accuse her rapists.

Three cheers for the teen girl who told national media in a courtroom full of her peers that she didn’t want to hold her rapists accountable at first “Because honestly, I was praying that everything I heard wasn’t true. I didn’t want to get myself into drama because I knew everyone would just blame me.

Three cheers for the girl who was shown pictures of her unconscious rape by prosecutors in a courtroom to make her cry on the stand.

Three cheers for the girl who listened as her best friends testified against her and admitted that they were with her the night it happened and terminated their friendship with the girl because she was raped.

I don’t know what else to say. I’m stunned and I’m morose, I’m moved to tears, I’m thinking of her, and I am proud, in the most heartbreaking way that I ever have felt.

I am so proud of her. I am proud of her parents for marching down to the police station with a USB stick full of disgusting evidence and for sticking by their daughter when not all parents would (which is sickening). I am so proud of this girl’s strength. I don’t know if I would have the bravery to do what she did, but I am so, so, happy that she did.


[TW: RAPE]
  • American media on the India gang rape: Omg those barbarians are out of control! Look at us, we're so ahead of the times!
  • American media on the Steubenville rape: Omg look at the lives we're ruining by convicting these 16 year old rapists!

"Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richardson are not the “stars” of the Steubenville rape trial. They aren’t the only characters in a drama playing out in eastern Ohio. And yet a CNN viewer learning about the Steubenville rape verdict is presented with dynamic, sympathetic, complicated male figures, and a nonentity of an anonymous victim, the “lasting effects” of whose graphic, public sexual assault are ignored. Small wonder, then, that anyone would find themselves on the side of these men—these poor young men, who were very good at taking tests and playing sports when they were not raping their classmates."

"

A gang rape happened in Ohio and no one heard about it. A gang rape happened in India and everyone heard about it (as we should). The American media has represented India as a misogynistic country where women need to be constantly wary of the men that surround them. And after that gang rape, large-scale protests blocked the streets and clogged the media. Now, I am in no way saying that rape and domestic violence are not problems in India. As an Indian-American woman who has been to India many times and is incredibly familiar with the culture, I am in no way denying that. Rape, in India, is a serious problem. Rape, especially in lower class areas in India, is an extremely prevalent problem that needs to stop being ignored and taken seriously. Violence against women in India is a serious issue.

But violence against women in America is also a serious problem. Violence against women in South Africa, and Sweden, and Chile, and Thailand, is a serious problem. Violence against women is a serious problem. Period. Full stop. While our media went out representing India as a typical place for these deplorable events to happen, another woman’s similar story went ignored and without subsequent societal action. This country outright refuses to admit that it is a rape culture.

Our media and our country are so obsessed with presenting foreign countries as worse than us or uncivilized or, most importantly, undemocratic, they will blast our radios and timelines and homepages with news of rapes in India, but refuse to acknowledge that the same thing happens here and is happening here.

"

"I am not a young woman today, and I’m glad that I’m not. For any girl growing up who pays attention to the media, it’s a terrifying time to understand what it means to be a girl in society. From Rush Limbaugh, they’ve learned that they are prostitutes and “sluts” for wanting birth control and healthy reproductive options for women. From Todd Akin, they’ve learned that their bodies can magically judo chop any unwanted side effects of rape and that women somehow can be “illegitimately” raped. From Paul Ryan, they’ve learned that rape is just “another method of conception,” which should be news to the makers of the Kama Sutra. And then Rape Culture Super-Defender Mike Huckabee chimed in by saying that “rape can create extraordinary people,” because young women everywhere desperately needed his opinion on this issue. Thanks, Huck."
— Nico Lang, Huff Post “Trampire” (via daniellefab)

"To the skeptics preparing to ask me whether I’d prefer to live in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan since I think the US is so awful, I wonder if you realize the level to which US foreign policy towards certain parts of the world has intensified violence against women. Backing sexist dictatorial rulers, knowingly arming religious fundamentalists who throw acid in women’s faces and forcing neoliberal economic policies that leave small farmers (most of whom are women) and their families starving; these are the policies that define the United States to many women abroad."

"

[TW: Sexual Assault]

His lips crushed mine, stopping my protest. He kissed me angrily, roughly, his other hand gripping tight around the back of my neck, making escape impossible. I shoved against his chest with all my strength, but he didn’t even seem to notice. His mouth was soft, despite the anger, his lips molding to mine in a warm, unfamiliar way.

I grabbed at his face, trying to push it away, failing again. He seemed to notice this time, though, and it aggravated him. His lips forced mine open, and I could feel his hot breath in my mouth.

Acting on instinct, I let my hands drop to my side, and shut down. I opened my eyes and didn’t fight, didn’t feel… just waited for him to stop.

"

Twilight: Eclipse p. 331 (Bella and Jacob’s first kiss)

This is rape culture.

Young women are taught to think of this passage - which describes sexual assault - as erotic. Young men are taught to force their will on young women, regardless of any (non)verbal cues, because sex is conquest and women are objects - not something to be done between two consenting individuals because it’s pleasurable for both people.

The most frightening thing about this excerpt is that many survivors of sexual assault who have disclosed to me describe stories that sound exactly like this one.

(via profeministbro)

The lines before that:

    He still had my chin—his fingers holding too tight, till it hurt—and I saw the resolve form abruptly in his eyes.
    “N—-” I started to object, but it was too late.

And after he assaulted her she punched him in the face but due to his “super human strength” she broke her hand, said “Don’t touch me!” and then:

    “Just let me drive you home,” Jacob insisted. Unbelievably, he had the nerve to wrap his arm around my waist.

    I jerked away from him.

And then:

    When he got in the driver’s side, he was whistling.

AND THEN while he was driving:

    “…There is so much I can give you that he can’t. I’ll bet he couldn’t even kiss you like that—-because he would hurt you. I would never, never hurt you, Bella.”

    I held up my injured hand.

    He sighed. “That wasn’t my fault. You should have known better.”

And then:

    He grinned over at me. “You kissed me back.”

    I gasped, unthinkingly balling my hands up into fists again, hissing when my broken hand reacted.

    “Are you okay?” he asked. 

     “I did not.”

    “I think I can tell the difference.”

    “Obviously you can’t——that was not kissing back, that was trying to get you the hell off me, you idiot.”

    He laughed a low, throaty laugh. “Touchy. Almost overly defensive, I would say.

    I took a deep breath. There was no point in arguing with him; he would twist anything I said.

Then when she gets home, to where her father, Charlie, the police officer, is:

    “Why did she hit you?”

    “Because I kissed her,” Jacob said, unashamed.

    “Good for you, kid,” Charlie congratulated him.

(via wejustkeepswimming)

I didn’t read the citation first. I read the quote. I thought I was reading a woman’s account of how she was about to be raped, not a fucking passage from a romance novel. 

(via karenfelloutofbedagain)


"We are outraged when an Indian police officer tells a rape victim she should marry her attacker but not when a California judge says a woman wasn’t really raped because she didn’t put up enough of a fight. We are outraged at 24,000 rapes in India but not 188,380 in America."

Hoopstatic - First World Problems

I really recommend reading the entire article. Trigger warning for discussion of rape and rape culture - it’s a tough article but very important. 

(Thanks to byunbbi for submitting)

I think this quote also really captures what is happening when one is reported so much more than the other in American media:

“24,000 rapes in one year. That’s an epidemic. Brutal gang rape. Police doing nothing to protect or prosecute. Culture of rape. But something like that would never happen here in America, right? India is dirty and dangerous and overcrowded and backwards and misogynistic and this is just a third world problem, right? A really sad problem, but it would never happen here, right?”

It creates another false dichotomy where “we” feel bad for “them” that they have to live in those “conditions.” Definitely both situations are in need of address, but it’s worth examining why media leaps on framing India and its sexual assault issues as if they are a world different from ours- as if “our people” /culture really act better or respect women and victims more (they don’t.)