Byte Bits for Mid December

With the winter break steadily in motion; I've been left with no choice but to selfishly busy myself with all the links that I've been "someday" bookmarking on my internet browser. 

I just recently viewed a clip of Eve Ensler, the lovely woman known most popularly for her work on the play the "The Vagina Monologues", speaking in snippets about the concept of security for women and the political endeavors that many state governments have undertaken to insure insecure security.

 

Have a good looksie into it if you have the time.

It really cements the beautifully articulated thoughts that Melanie has been writing about in her last few posts.

(*Copy & paste into your browser*)

http://www.ted.com/talks/eve_ensler_on_security.html

Best,

Raisa

Serial Rapist at York University – Failure of Warning Protocols

Recently, while reading the Metro on my way to work I caught a glimpse of a tiny article in the corner of the paper.  

My mental warning signs instantly went off as I read the title of the article to state that police were only ‘warning’ women on campus about the four assaults that took place at the York University Village.  

How on earth Toronto police services could only be warning female students about rapes that have been going on since September of this year really beats me. 

 

Let us please not forget about the rapes which go unreported due to the complexities of legal structures within the university itself...

After this article was published I later learned that only one male was brought into questioning, and is believed to have been charged.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Through the fantastic, passionate work of Jane Doe which began after her disgusting ‘stranger danger’ rape in 1989; it's become a part of standard police code in Canada to have to legally warn women when rapes are a ‘threat to the community.’ 

But who defines this threat? 

Obviously the patriarchal forces of power since women were not warned about this serial rapist in the village until two months after the first rape had been committed.

Why why why is it taking us two months to warn women about a serial rapist? 

Why are we not progressing with these ‘warning’ protocols? 

1989 after all, was 21 years ago.

 

After learning about this information my fellow feministas and I began to conduct some research about rapes to see what, if any, information was available on the Toronto Police website.  

While doing this research, one of my good friends discovered that this was not an isolated event... 

Apparently as of October 8^th 2010 numerous muggings have also taken place on the York campus, some involving a weapon and some without.

As our action item, my friends and I began to poster around campus and saw the shock on people’s faces as they read through this information.   

York security services had not yet posted this vital information onto campus billboards as of yet.

Having said this, within universities, community centers, support groups, conversations, the community (any many more societal structures) we still seem to be looking at violence against women from a crisis prevention perspective, which can be seen in the handing of this serial rapist.   

While I am not denying how great of an impact this work can have; I am not so convinced that this is necessarily stopping violence per say.   

It may be that it's helping those who experience the culture of violence in their lives, but not dismantling it from happening from the breadth of society. 

I think that It's from within this discourse that we see the common conceptualizations of ideas like;

Why don't we teach women's self defense? 

As my roommate would observe, what is going to happen with this a rapist comes up to us and we say, "Stop! I know wen do!"

Then, the rapist will proclaim "Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry I didn’t realize you know self defense, I’ll catch the next one, thanks for your time."  


Why don't we host a discussion forum about the said violence so we could look at what's really going on?


What about writing an article in the newspaper about the prevalence of violence against women?
 
While these methods are incredibly important, I feel that they do not do enough to dismantle the structures of violence.

In order for that to happen, we need to drastically change discourse in and around these cultures.


That is, we need to look at who is raping women. 


We need to look at why women are being raped and live in a culture of rape (i.e. passive gender roles, societal structures etc.,) 


From there, we need to work with all genders (categorical identifications I know but for sake of argument I choose to use it here) in order to change the role sex plays within our society.   


We need to give beings the tools to EMPOWER, EDUCATE, DISMANTLE in order to successfully dismantle cultures of violence.

I think that it is only until feminists, activists, politicians, and the mainstream public begin to look at the construction of this discourse that idea of language will change and dismantling will begin.

We've done all we can within the legal structures.  

Let’s work from the bottom up, from the root. 

Let’s examine what is really going on. 

In Solidarity,

Mel.

Internet Violence Against Women: Have we really come to this?

I’ve literally been disconnected with what is going on in the real world ever since I’ve been away for four months this past summer. 

And let me tell you, there are fucking loads to catch up on.

The one thing I wish I didn’t have to catch up on was overhearing a troubling story with my roommate as we stumbled upon an episode of The Oprah Show yesterday morning.  

It was in that moment that I was able to catch a glimpse of one of the most horrific stories of rape ever recorded within the internet era.

 And it only that took place at the beginning of this very year.

 I use the word internet strategically, because what I really want to suggest is that we are entering into a new medium of violence against women. 

That of internet rape.  

I mention this matter in light of the fact that Sarah Kostonvy’s ex boyfriend most recently placed a false ad on Craiglist in her name claiming that she wanted to be raped. 

Specifically, the ad indicated that Sarah needed an, “aggressive man who had no concern for women.”

As the story went, Sarah later found this ad on Craiglist which she discovered to explicitly contain photographs of her stolen off from her Myspace account.  

Following this discovery, she was followed to her home and violently raped by a man on her living room floor for over half an hour. 

 While she was in the hospital recovering from her sustained injuries, her fiancé went back to her house to collect her belongings. He only got as far as the front door to be able to discern the presence of another man in Sarah’s living room.

Equipped with a video camera.

 Waiting for Sarah to come home.

 So he could rape her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

After doing some research, I was able to discover that it wasn’t just two men set up to rape Sarah but rather 21 “appointments” had already been made to rape her during the course of that week.  

Even more horrifying was the fact that a total of 161 men had replied to this posting online.

While both the internet rapist and the physical rapist received a sentence of life in prison (60 years), media reports failed to mention whether r not the men who had appointments and the men who had replied to the posting received any sort of punishment.  

This fucking scares the shit out of me.

When people post messages on the internet, in most circumstances it is considered public space. 

This renders them nearly no responsibility for their linguistic communication.  

I know there are some laws in place now to ‘protect’ human bodies from internet abuse, but nothing is set in stone when it comes to internet violence against women. 

While it may be perceived by society that she was advertising a rape fantasy, this in no fucking way shape or form is a rape fantasy.

A rape fantasy for some is a fabulous form of eroticism and for those that partake, fuck ya!

But in these circumstances, it is a consensual form of fucking in which a safe word is used in case the person needs their partner to stop, slow down etc.

Even if Sarah herself had posted on the internet that she really wanted to participate in a rape fantasy, no grounds would have been established for  the negotiation of such sexual encounters.

Not only should this lack of consent be highlighted but this rape is furthered confounded by the fact that it was her ex boyfriend that placed the ad claiming that she had this type of fantasy.

He was selling her body to be raped.

Today Craiglist is no longer allowed to have any sort of sexual negotiations online, yet this does not stop such instances from happening on another online social networking site.  

It just seems to me like a more advanced form of violence against women via the internet, a form which is only further made complicated by the fact that society in some cases disconnects responsibility because of the computer sitting between the physical person and words on the screen.

Such violence is something that we need to address as soon as possible so that crimes like what happened to Sarah Kostonvy never ever happens again the future.

Thoughts?

In solidarity,
Mel