Trapped In The Smallest Crack In The Wall

mimi-memek0:

I really like the way this is phrased. It’s so easy for people to dismiss “rape jokes” when they’re referred to as “rape jokes” because it makes rape sound like nothing more than a subject, like there aren’t even any people involved.
“Joke about raping someone” sounds so much more accurate to what people do when they make a “rape joke.” You’re not just joking about some sort of comedic subject. You are joking about one of the most horrific experiences that can happen to someone.
More people need to realise this.

I really like the way this is phrased. It’s so easy for people to dismiss “rape jokes” when they’re referred to as “rape jokes” because it makes rape sound like nothing more than a subject, like there aren’t even any people involved.

“Joke about raping someone” sounds so much more accurate to what people do when they make a “rape joke.” You’re not just joking about some sort of comedic subject. You are joking about one of the most horrific experiences that can happen to someone.

More people need to realise this.

The following day, I attended a workshop about preventing gender violence, facilitated by Katz. There, he posed a question to all of the men in the room: “Men, what things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?”

Not one man, including myself, could quickly answer the question. Finally, one man raised his hand and said, “Nothing.” Then Katz asked the women, “What things do you do to protect yourself from being raped or sexually assaulted?” Nearly all of the women in the room raised their hand. One by one, each woman testified:

“I don’t make eye contact with men when I walk down the street,” said one.
“I don’t put my drink down at parties,” said another.
“I use the buddy system when I go to parties.”
“I cross the street when I see a group of guys walking in my direction.”
“I use my keys as a potential weapon.”

The women went on for several minutes, until their side of the blackboard was completely filled with responses. The men’s side of the blackboard was blank. I was stunned. I had never heard a group of women say these things before. I thought about all of the women in my life — including my mother, sister and girlfriend — and realized that I had a lot to learn about gender.

—	Why I Am A Male Feminist (via newwavefeminism) (via beetleginny)

it took me a long time to cope with what happened to me, and i did it on my own. i honestly don’t recommend that to anyone. please, tell people around you. even if they don’t believe you or blow you off, as it was in my case, keep telling your story until someone listens. hold them by the shoulders and say “i was raped,” because you were.

—	one of the most amazing human beings i know

projectunbreakable:

The poster reads: I was ten. It would have been better if you were good at being bad so I could hate you. But you are not evil. Just flawed. This was the most disempowering thing you said because it made you human. How do I love the sinner but hate the sin? It’s okay. I forgive you.

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Thank you to the reader who submitted this image.

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Can you help Project Unbreakable by donating? Click here.

Want to be apart of Project Unbreakable? Email us at projectunbreakable@gmail.com

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Find us on Facebook & Twitter

My wife and I were at a dinner in Washington DC earlier this year - it was a cancer event - and this woman sat down and said ‘Nice to meet you I’m so and so, and I’m a 30 year cancer survivor’. That wasn’t all that she was, but that was simply part of what she had gone through and that’s why she was there. Our vision is that is that someday someone will be able to sit down at a table and say ‘I’m a survivor of sexual abuse; I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse; I’m a survivor of rape’, and not have the needle skip off the record and have the person sitting across from them not know what to say. Because it’s not what defines them, it’s simply something that happened to them and it’s not their fault and they don’t need to carry the shame. It’s an unjust stigma in the sense that the shame belongs to the perpetrator and not the victim.

—	Peter Hermann, husband to Mariska Hargitay & co-founder of the Joyful Heart Foundation (I loved this too much not to post. I think it’s good to balance some of the difficult posts on the blog with inspiring things.)

I am over rape.

I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.

I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.

I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.

I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don’t have a sense of humor, and women don’t have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really fucking funny. We just don’t think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.

I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.

I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.

I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.

I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.

I am over rape happening in broad daylight.

I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.

I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called “comrades.”

I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.

I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.

And I’m over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.

Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.

I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.

I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.

I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it’s their fault or they did something to make it happen.

I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime — the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.

No women, no future, duh.

I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.

I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters — film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes — while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.

I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?

You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?

I am over years and years of being over rape.

And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old.

And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.

And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.

I am over being polite about rape. It’s been too long now, we have been too understanding.

—	Eve Ensler (via purple-bones)

And if the girl you’ve taken for a drink happens to belong to the ‘25%’ group and won’t ‘spread for your head’, think about this mathematical statistic: 85% of rape cases go unreported. That seems to be fairly good odds. (Uni Lad does not condone rape without saying ‘surprise’).

—	A recent article from UniLad, a decently-sized online lad magazine with a fan base eager to support it. Fuck, that’s terrifying. (via cateematthews) what the fucking fuck?

projectunbreakable:

I photographed this man yesterday. He was the first male I’ve ever gotten to photograph for this project; all the other men have been submissions. Men are slowly stepping forward for this. People are getting braver - showing their faces more, sharing more, and simply even participating. I received piles of emails a day. It’s been incredible to watch this project grow in the media, but that’s nothing in comparison to watching people grow from this project.

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Not sure what Project Unbreakable is? Click here.

Can you help Project Unbreakable by donating? Click here.

Want to be apart of Project Unbreakable? Email us at projectunbreakable@gmail.com

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Find us on Facebook & Twitter

projectunbreakable:

Project Unbreakable: The Video

I am so anxious to share this video with you all. Many, many thanks to the incomparable Nino Gallego for producing, filming, and editing it, and many, many thanks to my dear friend Allie Moss for allowing us to use her song “Dig With Me” in it. You can buy it off iTunes here.

I am a nineteen year old college student with a dream of changing the world. I have so many things I want to do for this project: travel to different areas, hire a professional to answer advice, and overall expand it as far as I can. But I don’t have the money myself to do so, so I am turning to the general public for help. I have created a fundraiser on something called IndieGoGo so I can find a way to be able to help as many survivors of sexual abuse as possible.

If you can donate to it, I am forever grateful. If you cannot but are still willing to share this, I am also forever grateful. We have the ability to make a huge difference.

The fundraiser can be found here: http://www.indiegogo.com/Project-Unbreakable?a=385209

xoxo

womenaresociety:

Jon Hamm Talks About Rape and the Lack of Positive Male Role Models

Hamm was recently a speaker at the Rape Treatment Center benefit brunch in Beverly Hills where he spoke about his pre-Mad Men employment history — which we will refer to as phase one of your ever-deepening affection.

Apparently, the man behind Don Draper is a former high school teacher and also worked at a daycare center. Hamm said he’s always felt very connected to children, which he attributes to being the child of a single parent —and thus spending “the majority of my life in daycare, after school programs, summer school programs,” which brings us to phase two:

Hamm said, “Having gone through what I had gone through as a child…there were no real male role models in any of these places. There were never any dudes. It was a bummer as a young man to, not only not have a father figure in my life, but no real male figures as teachers or as educators or as afterschool program leaders or anything,” he said.

AND THEN —in what is both phase three and also such an important message that is rarely discussed by men, especially in entertainment— Hamm makes a point of talking about how important it is to reach out to young boys and men and educate them on the “lasting impact of rape”:

Hamm made the point to emphasize the importance of the Rape Treatment Center’s educational outreach, especially for boys and young men. “It is an important thing to instill in a younger generation about the impact of rape, the lasting impact of rape,” he said, adding, “Children from grade school to high school to college are incredibly susceptible and incredibly malleable, as we all know. To get them early, to teach them about the facts and figures and other realities of rape is key. It is an important issue to me as not only a man, but as an educator, as a human being and as a person on this planet.”

All lighthearted jokes about love-deepening aside, this is such an important message and I’m so thrilled he was able to send it.

Rape is not a female issue. Rape is everyone’s issue, which is why it’s often an incredibly powerful thing to have a man stand up and say that. Obviously, I’m not saying it’s any better or worse or that one’s ability to be taken seriously has to be tied to gender but in terms of reaching a larger audience of men, I do think that there’s something powerful about a man —especially a widely respected and beloved man such as Hamm— standing up and encouraging other men to educate themselves and their sons on what they can personally do to prevent rape, instead of continuing to simply tell women to protect themselves or “dress differently” (ugh).

I wish we were at the point where hearing this message coming from incredibly strong people of any gender was enough, but I really feel like we need to be hearing these messages from everyone so that people realize that rape isn’t simply a women’s issue or a heterosexual issue. It truly is everyone’s issue.

Hats off to you, Jon Hamm for shedding light on this fact.

*Thanks to Britany for sending this!

ryanmcawesome:

This!

gannetguts:

I can’t remember what I’ve forgotten: Overheard at a cafe today;

pearlconcubine:

hobbitdragon:

catamite:

flirtingwithparadox:

TW RAPE AND VIOLENCE

tahlalaliaaa:

tumblinfeminist:

“I just wanted to say to him:
If its ok for you to rape me because I was dressed like a ‘slut/skank/ho/whore’; then is it ok for me to shoot/stab/maim/kill you because you are a male who looks threatening? Aren’t you asking for it?”

Seriously you guys walking round in big drunken groups, wearing tshirts that show off your muscles that could potentially pin me to a wall, being rowdy at the back of the almost empty 10.20pm bus and making the space around you feel less safe for anyone who is not a white cis man - if I pull out a knife and stab every last one of you “I’m entitled to every inch of space around me” fuckers it’s fine because you were totally asking for it because the way you’re acting and looking fits right into my ideas of a man who could potentially damage me or other women. What do you expect walking around acting like you could hurt someone at the drop of a hat? It’s your fault, I can’t help myself when I see a potential threat, it’s just nature. If you don’t want to be stabbed for looking threatening then cover up, wear something baggy to hide your muscular body, walk around by yourself so you’re less intimidating and keep your head down when I walk past so I don’t think you’re going to target me.

… THIS. This is brilliant.

Yes.

This is possibly the best thing ever written.

I think it’s odd that you can’t joke about rape, when people joke about murder all the time. A lot more people are dying than getting raped. I think it’s a comedian’s job to make everything funny. Nothing is off-limits.

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Donald Glover (via witch-or-not)

All right, I’m returning to this (with statistics!) because I’m so fucking pissed.

Donald Glover,

One in six American women will experience attempted rape or rape in their lifetime. One in thirty-three American men will. Recently, you did a sold-out show on my campus, in an auditorium that holds about 750 students. I’m not going to do the numbers for you, but you can bet your ass that there was at least one survivor in that venue. Actually, there was definitely more than one. Guess what? You just made a joke out of one of the most terrifying, violating, and heinous experiences of his or her life. Feel like a comedian now?

Did you know that 60% of sexual assaults go unreported, and that only one in sixteen rapists will ever face jail time?

Every time you make a joke about rape, you make a joke of the people who have experienced it. You give them reason not to report their assault, because it’s a fucking joke to you, so it probably is to everyone else too, right? The fact that it’s acceptable to joke about rape is the reason why so many rapists walk free. Because low-lifes like you think it’s okay to trivialize it - oh, hey, it’s no big deal, we can all laugh about it. Even worse, by joking about rape, you make any rapist sitting in the audience think that his actions are okay. That they’re not such a big deal. Most rapists don’t attack strangers. So there could be a guy sitting in your audience who hears your joke and thinks hey, when I gave that girl a few too many drinks last weekend and then had sex with her while she was drunk out of her mind, that was no big deal. Maybe I’ll do it again next weekend. No big! It’s funny! Comedians think it’s funny!

You, Donald Glover, when you make light of rape, both trigger survivors in the audience and legitimize perpetrators who hear your jokes. You also act like a complete fucking douchebag. Be a responsible adult and think before you joke next time, okay? Some things are off-limits. (via yellowcars)

The Australian military has been rocked with a new sex scandal, including allegations of assault, child porn, rape and drug-dealing within its ranks.

—	Sex scandal hits Australian military - Asia-Pacific - Al Jazeera English None of those things fall under the “sex” heading. (via sexartandpolitics)

U.S. Broadens archaic definition of rape

I am a Teenage Feminist: Did you guys hear what the FBI did today?

absolutelydefinitely:

boehnertroll:

ginny-wrocks:

youdontlooklikeafeminist:

iamateenagefeminist:

They officially redefined rape to include male and female victims and removed the word “forcible” so that rapes that are not committed via physical force count as rape.

i enjoy...