Time to Talk About Misogynist Bullying

[ismnotwasm]

The Violence Against Women Act--a federal law covering a wide range of gender violence issues, from domestic violence to rape--was reauthorized this year with a new provision mandating that high schools across the country provide bystander training.

Harvard law professor Diane Rosenfeld teaches the Gender Violence Legal Policy Workshop and has been working for years to push the federal government to fund programs like MVP in schools. "It is definitely in a school's best interest to do as much on the prevention side as possible," she said, noting that the Steubenville event--sensational as it was--was hardly a one-off, but a growing phenomenon among students at high schools and colleges.

Group sex attacks against girls are statistically on the rise. For the last quarter-century, since numbers have been kept, sexual violence has also become more brutal, the age of perpetrators is dropping, and attacks by multiple perpetrators are up. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics provided by University of Arizona Public health professor Mary P. Koss, the percentage of rapes involving two or more offenders went from 7 percent in 1994-1998 to 10 percent in 2005-2010.

Easier access to violent and dehumanizing Internet porn has coincided with the increases, and many observers believe the trends are related.

And it isn't just teenage boys who are complicit. Among the many disturbing aspects of the Steubenville case were the attitudes of the female bystanders, and the haters who took to Twitter to threaten the victim after the verdict.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nina-burleigh/time-to-talk-about-misogy_b_3069764.html


But, but---I was told right here on DU that things are getting better! (Ok, i trashed that thread) And I Should be grateful!

[PDJane]

1. Things got slightly better for a while...........

They're getting worse since the rise of the reich wing.

[seabeyond]

10. i think a lot has to do with late 90's rw/christian/evo macho man period. bushco. i agree.

and the escalation and availability of porn. feeding off. not to mention the dysfunction of society and social media that feeds it and allows like minds. oh... and i can think of more. entertainment media. rape is now our entertainment.

[sufrommich]

2. I honestly don't understand the need to

deny that there is a culture of rape in this country.What is behind it?

[MadrasT]

3. Fear that access to women's bodies will be restricted (n/t)

[seabeyond]

11. so we do not have a voice to address. so people are comfortable in their "all is good" world and

not have to expend energy on hard facts.

it hurts to admit and acknowledge the reality we live. i know it takes up my time, energy, feel good.

and if men do not have to acknowledge any wrongs, why would they have to address their sexist/misogynist behavior? they can keep on keeping on.

[redqueen]

4. Love the opening paragraphs.

If you see something, say something. That paranoid punch line of a public service campaign has worked: nobody looks the same way at a stray backpack on the subway, and we just might call the cops.

Sadly, the same adage doesn't apply to young American men and women watching guys strip and violate a drunken (or sober) female.

By now, we've all absorbed the main lesson of Steubenville: the dehumanization of the female is so pervasive that young people will stand by and not just watch rape, but laugh at it, video it, tweet it, post it to Facebook, and try to cover their tracks when police investigate.

And anyone attempting to address that dehumanization is demonized. Goddess forbid men shouldn't be encouraged to see women as things, as sex objects first and foremost, and women to see themselves that way, through the male gaze.

Hugh Hefner, who has made millions selling access to women's bodies via images, says it outright.
"The notion that Playboy turns women into sex objects is ridiculous. Women are sex objects. If women weren't sex objects, there wouldn't be another generation. It's the attraction between the sexes that makes the world go 'round. That's why women wear lipstick and short skirts."

Flynt is even more direct, sarcastically mocking the women who fight such objectification:

[MadrasT]

5. Wait what? Is that a real cover? Or a parody?

[redqueen]

6. Oh, it's real.

See the stamp? "Last all meat issue"

And men here on DU actually do cheer these 'men'. Probably women, too. Ain't it great.

[seabeyond]

14. my thought too. you would think those that claim to be decent, would at the least, call this out. nt

[redqueen]

7. Here's a reference I found...

http://womensphere.wordpress.com/2009/06/07/womens-groups-fought-a-losing-battle-against-pornography/

...

Few people understood right away that the June 1978 issue of Hustler magazine was an historic moment in the fight for sexual equality in North America.

The cover – showing a woman’s buttocks and legs sticking up from a meat grinder, with ground meat on a plate beneath the machine – was Hustler publisher and self-anointed free-speech champion Larry Flynt’s answer to feminist criticism.

...

That cover mobilized the women’s movement to fight against pornography like nothing else, said Richard Poulin in an interview this week. Poulin, a professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa, will speak today in Montreal, part of a conference on Youth, Media, and Sexualization organized by the Women’s Y.

Unfortunately for society, it was a battle the women’s movement lost, Poulin said, in part because feminists themselves were divided, with some arguing that it was a question of free expression and sexual liberation.

...

The rest of this is really good. Very much worth reading.

$100 billion industry... defended to the death by liberals. Yeah.

[seabeyond]

13. yes... real. and defended. we are the problem that this would piss us off. not the sick fucks

that think it is funny.

[seabeyond]

12. yes. and a group that honors both men. tell me, why would a woman be offended by that picture.

i mean really. why? surely this tells all us how dworkinite we are and how unfair we are to the men. why the fuck would a woman be offended.

[redqueen]

16. It's a reason why I tend to use the word 'progressive' more than 'liberal' to describe my beliefs.

Too many self-described liberals proudly defend those who have made millions off the women they so proudly think so little of.

[seabeyond]

17. i have shifted to progressive myself. nt

[CrispyQ]

8. Yet porn is defended on this site by both men & women, as causing no harm.

Would they allow their teenage old boy to watch today's internet porn?

It seems the hatred toward women is increasing. And this shaming of the victim when it should be the perps who are shamed. How many of the female bystanders participate in the shaming in hopes that they won't be the next victim? What the fuck has happened in this country? How can anyone deny a culture of rape & misogyny in this country?

I don't remember it being this bad when I was younger - the amount of hatred & the denial.

[seabeyond]

15. i find this interesting. when i first started, it was about universal that kids should not have

access, by even the hardest defenders of porn. then it became, well... it is everywhere, what can we do. then recently... kids gotta learn about sex somewhere. and now, they cheer. cheer our boys seeing the crudest of it, cause nature/biology, insists this is who a boys is.

there has been a evolution to this porn for children on du over the last decade.

[seabeyond]

9. i am way behind on my reading. this. i know what we are being shown as fact is in fact, bullshit.

thanks.