Friday Fierce Thread: For Reader A...

GOLD STAR for Reader A We occasionally get emails from readers about the sexist stuff they’ve encountered in their lives, with questions like “Did I do something wrong here?”  or “What the eff is wrong with people?”  I just got one last night, and I really wanted to address...

Dodged Bullets...

Much has been made of the recent British survey wherein a majority of respondents blame rape victims for their assailants’ assaults at least some of the time. Whilst most news outlets focus on the fact that women are harsher on victims than men, and feminists explain why, commenters insist that...

Inspired by Mo’Nique’s accep...

In her acceptance speech for her Best Supporting Actress award at the Golden Globes last week, Mo’Nique spoke to victims of childhood sexual abuse, saying “it’s now time to tell.” I support Mo’Nique and think acknowledging childhood sexual abuse is an important, positive...

Sodom and Gomorrah and Uniban...

A group of college students at Bandeirante University (Uniban) in Brazil performed what can only be described as a Biblical skit on Sunday. When Geisy Arruda showed up to class wearing a minidress and “heavy makeup,”  hundreds of her fellow students launched into a sexist panic, gathering...

Rape Rates Against Women and People with...

A 2007 study titled Drug-facilitated, Incapacitated and Forcible Rape: A National Study calls into question the methodology – and findings – of the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which is administered by the U.S. Bureau of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Studies...

You Are What You Eat...

None of us posted on this terrible story last week, but I’m sure many of you have heard or read about it:  A teenage girl was brutally gang-raped for two hours after a school dance in Richmond, CA, as up to 20 bystanders laughed, cheered and shot video of the attack. Some jumped in to participate....

“Women’s bodies being treate...

*Trigger warning* On September 28, security forces in the West African nation of Guinea cracked down on unarmed civilian protesters in the capital’s national stadium, stripping and raping dozens of women – if not more – in broad daylight. The total number of victims is unknown because...

Harpy Droppings: for Your Reading Pleasu...

Via don2g @ Flickr. Via Muslimah Media Watch, NOW Lebanon interviews Arab feminists Dr. Omaira Abou-Bakr and Hoda al-Saadi, after a conference for Arab women in Beirut. Both women are members of an Egyptian NGO called Women and Memory. An Amish woman has been charged with failing to report her husband’s...

Response from the Feminist Majority Foun...

Posted this afternoon on the Feminist Majority Foundation’s blog  in response to the shitstorm over Peg Yorkin’s pro-Polanski statement in the L. A. Times (comments on the FMF’s blog are enabled–I hope you’ll use them). Statement by Eleanor Smeal, President, Feminist Majority...

An Open Letter to Peg Yorkin of the Femi...

Some of the industry’s most prominent women said they believe Polanski, who faces a sentence as low as probation and as high as 16 months in prison for pleading guilty to having sex with a minor, should be freed. “My personal thoughts are let the guy go,” said Peg Yorkin, founder of...

The List of Shame (or Rape-Apologists R ...

It’s really dispiriting–and utterly infuriating–how many Hollywood types have signed the petition to free confessed child-rapist Roman Polanski. I mean, Woody Allen doesn’t surprise me, but et tu, Wes Anderson? SRSLY, Steven Soderbergh? I can only assume they haven’t read...

On the Subject of Roman Polanski...

Kate Harding has really said all that need be said. But I’d like to give a shoutout to commenter “lululemming” on The Awl, who contributes this thought: Here’s a poem I use to remember what constitutes actual rape. It works 100 per cent of the time. Ugly and stranger/ Rape-rape that’s...