Out and Back

The culture of victim-blaming is alive and well

Stepping out from behind my semi-anonymous blogging persona for a moment, I was dismayed (but not altogether surprised) to read a report in one of the local papers about a sexual assault on the Clemson University campus. (My husband is a grad student at Clemson and we live nearby.)

The story reads, in part:

Clemson University police advised students Friday to walk in groups of threes and fours after sunset after a student reported that she was sexually assaulted by two men in a campus parking lot on Perimeter Road early Friday morning.

The student, 18, was exiting her car when one of the men grabbed her from behind and sexually attacked her in Parking lot R-1 about 1:30 a.m., Clemson Police Chief Johnson Link said. She said she was then forced to the ground and attacked by a second man, he said.

She had been waiting in the parking lot for campus escort assistance, Link said. The campus escort is a service offered through the university Police Department that provides an escort for students going across the campus at night.

The student notified Clemson educators several hours later, Link said.

Like a lot of newspapers, the online edition of the Greenville News has a "story chat" feature that allows readers to post their reactions, comments, and thoughts about the various articles, opinion pieces, etc. It makes for entertaining reading a lot of the time, but sometimes the comments that get left are just upsetting. In the case of this article, someone named sillyhunter posted the following (emphases mine):

This story has some questions................Why was this child out in a parking lot this late? Why wait to report a rape later the next morning.....Had enough time to decide if it was a rape or not?? And if she doesn't know about safety in this day and age maybe college is not for her. Sounds like she still needs to be under the watchful eye of a responsible adult. Maybe went to a frat party and had one drink to many and got just a little too loose and had party regrets the next morning??????It's always somebody else's fault never the victim. The difference between a stupid victim and smart person is that one is the victim.

I just about upchucked when I read that comment. I posted my own response (I use the handle "coneydog" when posting to the forums on the Greenville News website) and was heartened to see that someone else posted a response basically telling sillyhunter to shut up.

Yes, dear ones, the culture of victim blaming is alive and well in South Carolina. I guess I'm not surprised, considering how much misogyny still pervades society down here. Any locals who come across this post are probably going to tell me to go the fuck home, Yankee, but I'm not backing down on this one. Rape is an underreported crime, and despite the notoriety of the Duke lacrosse rape case (in which the charges were eventually dropped because the alleged victim kept changing her story and there was no physical evidence linking her to the three players she accused) the number of truly false reports of rape remains quite low. (One reference I found suggested as low as 2% of all reported rapes in the U.S. are false.) And for every rape that is reported, how many go unreported because the victim is ashamed, afraid, or forcibly silenced?

Ladies, it doesn't matter how much you had to drink, what you were wearing, how well you knew the guy, or what you may or may not have done with him in the past. If you didn't want to have sex with him and he went ahead and fucked you anyway, he raped you. It doesn't matter if you fought back or not or if you told him to stop or not, because silence does not equal consent. And to the young woman at Clemson, I hope they catch the pigs that did this to you. For every insensitive creep that calls you "loose" and accuses you of having "party regrets," there are many more of us who care about you and support you without ever having met you. Remember that.

Excuse me while I throw things...

I was dismayed yesterday to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled against the plaintiff (and the EEOC, I might add) in this case.  Here's the gist: according to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, employees who experience discrimination in the work place are required to file suit within 180 days.  The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has argued over the years that "each paycheck that reflects the initial discrimination is itself a discriminatory act that resets the clock on the 180-day period[.]"  Today, the Supreme Court effectively told the EEOC to stick that interpretation where the sun don't shine.  So now employees can't sue for pay discrimination more than 180 days after the discrimination allegedly occurred... which means that employers are going to get away with continuing to pay women and minorities less than their white male counterparts and employees who are experiencing discrimination will have an even harder time getting their cases heard.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened a can of dissenting whoop-ass today, though, reading her dissenting opinion from the bench, which doesn't happen very often.  According to the New York Times article:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the majority opinion “overlooks common characteristics of pay discrimination.” She said that given the secrecy in most workplaces about salaries, many employees would have no idea within 180 days that they had received a lower raise than others.

An initial disparity, even if known to the employee, might be small, Justice Ginsburg said, leading an employee, particularly a woman or a member of a minority group “trying to succeed in a nontraditional environment” to avoid “making waves.” Justice Ginsburg noted that even a small differential “will expand exponentially over an employee’s working life if raises are set as a percentage of prior pay."

Rock on, Justice Ginsburg.  And props to Justices Souter, Stephens, and Breyer for not having their heads up their asses.

In April, the American Association of University Women released the findings of a study it conducted over the course of several years about the pay gap.  Their findings?  The pay gap is real and it gets worse for women the longer they are in the work force.  You can read more about it here.  Then write to your elected officials and tell them to get off their butts and support the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Fair Pay Act.

And it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgement

(Hebrews 9:27)

If there is any justice or cosmic balance in the universe, Jerry Falwell is finally facing judgement.

Here's to Tinky-Winky, Ellen DeGeneres, Larry Flynt, feminists, Jews, women who've had abortions, Muslims, secular humanists, homosexuals, and all the other people (and groups of people) Falwell persecuted during his lifetime.  (And yes, I know I lumped Larry Flynt in there... but I truly wouldn't wish Falwell on anyone, not even on the founder of Hustler.)

Getting a little hot where you are, Jer?

Pot, have you met Kettle?

Get this: Newt Gingrich admits that he was screwing around on his wife at the same time he was going after Clinton over the whole Monica Lewinsky thing.

But he's not a hypocrite, no... because he didn't lie to a judge about it.

Flimsy excuse if you ask me.... if he'd had to testify about his own affair, you can bet the bastard would have perjured himself.  What kind of red-blooded male will actually admit that he's cheating on his wife?  And even if ol' Newtie didn't lie to a judge, he sure as hell lied to his wife at the time. 

I'm not the only who feels this way.... check out this little ditty by Eric Schwartz.  (It's not about Newt, directly, but it does draw a lovely comparison between Clinton and Bush.)

Outrage

Link: PennLive.com: NewsFlash - Columnist says he was suspended for appearing in gay pride parade.

Frank Whelan has been a columnist with our local paper, The Morning Call, for 25 years.  He was selected to be the grand marshal in Allentown's gay pride parade last weekend (an event which was sponsored in part by Merge, another newspaper owned by the Call's parent company, I might add.)

The paper suspended him for particpating in the parade, claiming he violated a code of ethics which prohibits newspaper employees from associating themselves with "causes."

He's planning to sue their asses off.  I'm planning to cancel my subscription.