How mainstream media erases social justice progress

I can't really put into words how much the attitude of "this world is too politically correct these days" or "people really can't take a joke any more" bothers me; it's like trying to explain a colour or emotion to someone.  The closest I can really think of, and it's more of an explanation through example, comes from Byron Clark who ran a little experiment, replacing the term "political correctness" with the phrase "treating people with respect" and showed how off-base political correctness critics are with their comments (a link to an article about this is here).

What I want to write about today, however, is more on how this sort of dialog players out in mainstream media and how I see it ultimately harming any progress that has been made in any social justice movement.  I have seen it play out the same way regardless of what the context is although my primary exposure to this whole thing is around trigger warnings and sexual violence since that's what was my entry point to the social justice movement.

Recently, Amy Poehler's TV show made a very tasteless and harmful joke about child sexual abuse (a link to the article is here) and many people, rightly, turned to social media to voice their frustration.  Now comedy is, and has been, a very touchy topic because apparently there are people out there who think that because we're supposed to laugh at this stuff that it should fall outside the realm of critical analysis.  Part of this, I would imagine, has to do with the fact that comedy is very closely tied to a very normal human need for laughter; there are a fair amount of examples out there of laughter being tied to positive overall mental health.  Moreover, who we find funny and what we laugh at tends to be unique to an individual so critical analysis of whatever it is we're laughing at can feel like a critical analysis of us as individuals.  With that said I'd like to bring in what Anita Sarkeesian has said, repeatedly: it is possible to enjoy a piece of media while still being critical of that same piece of media.  Also, if you find yourself getting defensive because a comedian, show, or piece of media is receiving criticism I'd ask that you check in with yourself and do a little self-exploration into where that is coming from.  After all, you're not the one receiving the criticism, the piece of media you consume is, so there's something else that's really bothering you and I would suggest it has something to do with your own privilege being challenged.

Getting back on track.

Amy Poehler has taken some heat for what happened on the show and I believe that criticism to be completely justified.  "Jokes" about child sexual abuse, sexual assault, or any sexual violence should not be something mainstream media employs as a tool to build character, create suspense, or raise the proverbial stakes in their stories.  Sexual violence, in general, is something that many people have experienced and seeing it trivialized in popular media can being triggering, traumatizing, and provoke victim blaming.  Sexual violence can be shown but a great deal of care and thought must be involved to ensure that what is being depicted is being done for clear and honest reasons, while also ensuring that what's depicted does not sensationalize or eroticize sexual violence.  From what I understand, the child sexual abuse comment in Poehler's show was meant as a way to communicate to the audience that the comic in the show is a particularly inept comic.

If the only way you can communicate that a fictional comic is "inept" is by having them make a "joke" about child sexual abuse then I don't believe you're a very good writer.  This goes for any depiction of sexual violence in the media as well, if you can't make a joke, develop a character, or move a story forward without employing instances of sexual violence I would suggest picking a different career.

Unfortunately, mainstream media loves this sort of thing because it can take legitimate criticism of a very harmful mistake by producers and use it to dismiss and belittle the criticism and it's source.  Amy Poehler has been anointed by mainstream media as a feminist icon, which is something they like to do, and like every other "leader" mainstream media has picked out for feminism they tend to evaluate the merits of feminism by this person and this person alone.  So long as their successful the narrative tends to ignore the feminist support or involvement and does so until this "leader" makes a mistake in some form or another.  Then one of two things tends to happen: they dismiss the leader entirely or they dismiss the criticism as being a sign of a movement being "too sensitive" and prone to "toxic infighting."

With the articles cited above, we're seeing the latter of the two in this case.

Mainstream media is happy to tow the social justice movement's line so long as it's not making anyone uncomfortable (like Emma Watson's UN address, for instance) but the moment some critical dialogue is needed mainstream media cuts bait and, ironically, overreacts.  A large aspect of the feminist movement, as well as any social justice movement (although it's hard to honestly separate them if we consider intersectionality), is accountability.  Accountability is key because it means that at any given time care is being taken to acknowledge privilege and take steps that are being motivated by an intention to dismantle systemic oppression.  Accountability isn't, however, a fun or comfortable thing; in fact, if comfort and fun is a factor then I'd argue that accountability isn't precisely being consciously involved.

Unfortunately for social justice movements, the nuances of accountability are not sexy and are hard to fit into short, punchy, "click-baity" headlines or quick buzzfeed-esque, pseudo-social consciousness raising articles that mainstream media rely on so heavily.  If they can't summarize it in two minutes they're not interested.  Moreover, if they can paint it as in-fighting then they can dismiss the movement and maintain the status quo in one fell swoop.  So, once again, we are seeing critics of Amy Poehler's show being written off as "over-sensitive" and the movements they represent being dismissed as childishly unfocused.

I've often wondered how certain things like how the feminist movement has carried this stigma of being entirely about "man hating" through the decades, well I would have to say that situations like this seem to offer, at least, a partial explanation.

I would encourage anyone who's seen articles on this situation to look a little deeper and read a little more about the criticism.  Mainstream media is lying to you and they are attempting to manipulate you, there's a much more important discussion we need to be having.

You're not edgy for being deliberately offensive and you're not oppressed for being called out either

Two things have sort of sparked this post:

1) An article on the Escapist extolling the virtues of the latest Doom trailer ended with an overly self-righteous cavalcade of word-smithery worthy of any soap-box: "Make exceptions. Make statements. Make what you dream about making, and do it unapologetically. Bring it on, DOOM."

2) An article on the Escapist by a video game reviewer that gleefully exclaims that it's fun to deliberately offend people because the people being offended aren't saying anything worthwhile anyways.

The fact that both of these are coming out of The Escapist, a video game site that I've generally appreciated and respected up until now, is particularly alarming but not all that damning, after all these people only write for them and their views don't necessarily represent the views of the entire organization.  I hope.

Anyway, while both authors have undoubtedly patted themselves on the back for their righteous defense of privileged creators and developers for their right to offend people-righteously defended the already defended against those evil, sensitive, emotional people who would have the audacity to not agree with material that was deliberately meant to offend-I want to address this frustratingly annoying stance that by publicly stating that a piece of media has problems people are being oversensitive and missing the point.

First, though, can we appreciate the irony of getting defensive when people are offended by something that was deliberately meant to offend.

Doom, the game and developers, were not trying to be subversive.  As the author of the article details, and I agree with him on this, Doom was never meant to be a sunshine and rainbows game; it was violent then, it's violent now, that's Doom.  But to hold it up as some righteous crusader for all that's good in video games, as some kind of subversive piece of art, is an embarrassing exaggeration of what Doom is.  I played Doom, hell I grew up on it, and there is a great deal of nostalgia I have for the franchise even though I'm not particularly inclined to play the latest iteration.  I'm not particularly inclined not because the violence has turned me off, but rather my tastes have changed and it, simply, doesn't interest me any more.  It's not my cup of tea, but it's not like I think they should stop making it the way they want to make it.  Want a game to be exceptionally violent? Go for it, but you must realize that not everyone is going to like it and you must realize that some of those people are going to, guess what, *through cupped hands* say that they don't like it.

Seriously, for all the claims being directed at social justice/PC people being "too sensitive" it sure seems like we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black here.

Doom's gameplay trailer was excessively violent, it was intended to be that way because that's what the game is and it's okay that people have pointed that out.  It's also okay to ask the question as to whether or not a game needs to be that violent.  I can assure you that if it were the case that excessive violence wasn't commonplace for video games, and that there were a plethora of other types of games out there, there would be less of an impulse to ask why there needs to be yet another extremely violent game like Doom.  The criticism is a product of the greater discussion in the gaming industry, not an attempt to censor the creators of that specific game.

Doom is not a subversive work of art, defiantly resisting an oppressive regime, because the majority of games are violent, but I seriously don't think the developers of the game had this in mind when they chose to show that trailer or create the game.  Doom can be Doom, but don't try and put it on this righteous pedestal because you don't like people asking for the industry to do better in terms of the variety of games it offers

Which brings me to my second point in this rant.

Being deliberately offensive is also not something that falls into the category of righteousness either.  Again, if you set out to be deliberately offensive then you can't seriously be surprised when people have some negative things to say about the thing you created to be deliberately offensive.  I can't believe we have to walk through this but people are not being over-sensitive when you deliberately set out to offend them, they're just reacting the way people do when someone has deliberately offended them.

In the wake of Charelston (since drafting this there's been another, Lafayette Louisiana) and a devastatingly long list of mass shootings we do not need a game that sensationalizes those types of events and turns them into entertainment; mainstream news outlets do enough of that as they give us wall-to-wall coverage with intermittent advertisements.  We do not need media that deliberately picks at open and healing wounds (real and societal) whose creators misuse "Freedom of Speech" rhetoric to defend their actions.  There are ways to create media that poignantly addresses violence, hatred, and oppression in our world and I would state that we need media like that if we're going to make any kind of change.

However, if you're going to incorporate a topic like mass shootings or sexual violence against women (Game of Thrones is referenced) you can't be careless in how you present it in your piece of media because there are people out there that have experienced what you're using.  That is the criticism that's routinely getting ignored in this discussion, that it's more about how the violence is being sensationalized and eroticized than the violence existing in the first place.  Game of Thrones deserves the criticism it's getting and the amount of fans choosing to opt out of the series because it carelessly used violence against women as a sensationalized plot point as well as choosing to be dismissive of critics.  "Hatred," the game (I use the 'game' term loosely), deserves to be called out because it sensationalizes a horrifying act that is happening in regular intervals in today's society.


Oh and if you're one of those people who is upset that people get mad at you for playing "devil's advocate" on serious social issues like violence against women, systemic racism, heterosexism, cissexism, or any other area of society that we need to be better, then I'll just leave you with this:

Male body image and male privilege

Two articles in as many days have addressed the issue of male body image and part of me is intrigued while another part of me remains dubious.  I remain dubious because of what I've learned about the extent to which women's bodies are policed (just consider all the talk that's been had lately around dress codes in schools) as well as the timing of another article that has made it's way into the mainstream media detailing how an 8 year old girl was told to cover up at a pool.

The headline for the two news bites on male body image are: "Stop ridiculing small penises, says winner of subversive pageant" and "Adam Scott on the naked truth about male body image."  As a male-identified person who has not really measured up to certain male body image standards, I am interested to have a more extensive discussion on how male-identified people feel about their own bodies.  There's certainly some discussion that hasn't been had around this topic and I can tell you, from personal experience, that not having had this discussion has been cause for some frustration and shame.  However, I can't help but notice a difference in how this topic is being approached in these two articles to how body image is approached when were talking about femininity and body image.

It's only in recent months that the discussion around dress codes has taken steps into a more positive direction by focusing on how sexist dress codes actually are because they only ever apply to female-identified people; a quick google search will show that almost all school dress code policies are much more restrictive when it comes to attire that it's traditionally seen as feminine than it is when it comes to attire that's traditionally seen as masculine.  Moreover, the rational for dress codes often cites reasons that generally revolve on "being distracting to male students," which fits into the "boys will be boys" standard that a patriarchal society holds. The assumption is made that the behaviors of male-identified people is not something that can, or should, be looked at, so the responsibility falls to female-identified people to control and manage the behavior of male-identified people.

It's a standard that is blindingly sexist but it has become so normalized that it's difficult to have a discussion around it without falling into patriarchal patterns that invoke rigid, traditional gender stereotypes.  Historically, before the efforts of Feminist activists in this discussion were recognized by mainstream media, the discussion around dress code tended to involve depressingly "balanced" discussion as media folks tried to dismiss the camp that questioned dress codes without looking like they were being dismissive.  It is common practice for the privileged to pit the oppressed group against a voice of the oppressive group and paint the issue as essentially subjective which allows the people of the status quo to dismiss the discussion entirely; when presented with a debate on an issue that has the potential to affect the status quo, people are more inclined to side with the voice maintaining the status quo if they are, or have been, beneficiaries of it.

What we have with these two articles discussing male body image issues, is we have a privileged group finding out, probably for the first time, that there's an issue with how male-identified people view their own bodies.  The winner of the small penis pageant hints at a positive train of thought, although it's not further explored, when he speculates that the reason a woman came up with the idea for the pageant was because women "probably" (his words) have had to think more about body image in their lives.  The narrative is the same in the other article that's an interview with Adam Scott who cites his own personal history with not feeling comfortable with his own body growing up.  There is an awareness that something is wrong and that men do feel insecure about their own bodies, but it doesn't go down the road of discussing why that is and only really stops at "stop making us feel insecure."  These two articles feel more like they're placating the male ego and expressing an element of "me-too-ism" when it comes to the ever growing discussion feminists have been having around how women's bodies are policed.

I should state outright that my issue isn't with the two articles themselves, more so in consideration with the greater context of how mainstream media approaches body image issues these days.  It's hard to be enthusiastic about a topic like male body image, that does need to be discussed in greater depth, when the medium that it's happening in is still running articles that suggest that, for instance, an 8 year old girl should cover up because her body has the potential to trigger arousal in someone else.  The only people to bring up the idea that maybe boys should wear tops as well was the parents of the girl when they suggested that the rule of having to wear tops be applied to children of all genders.

The thing that I'm seeing here is that there's a willingness to talk about the harms of shaming the bodies of male identified people, but an unwillingness to talk about the harm that comes from telling an 8 year old girl she has to cover her body up.  Again, the discussions on male body image didn't invoke a debate between dissenting and assenting voices, while the article discussing the sexualization of a young girl did invoke voices from each camp.  I don't want to suggest that there was any ill intent on behalf of the programmers or editors of the respective publications, I would imagine the best of intentions behind the decisions to run the segments the way they were run.  However, I can't ignore the presence and timing of each of these articles as mainstream media, like everything else, doesn't exist in a vacuum and these articles are evidence of the gendered way in which mainstream media talks about body image.

A further issue I see with how the articles on the Q were carried out revolves around, how to put this, the precedent or context that exists for cis-male body image policing versus cis-female body image policing.  While there would be a particular standard for cis-male people that one could point to, I would argue that there's a lot less active policing going on for cis-male bodies than there is for cis-female bodies.  A cis-male child may feel shame for his body because he has not been able to achieve a certain athletic standard or doesn't look like a cis-male character/celebrity he admires, but he is not being conditioned to monitor his body to the same degree cis-female children are taught to do.  It is not difficult to find examples of young cis-girls feeling pressure to look a certain way very early on in their lives.

Adam Scott is actually proof that cis-males have more than just one type of body to look to as an ideal; there are actually a long list of other cis-male celebrities you could look at (Jack Black, Kevin James, Seth Rogan, Nick Offerman, or Aziz Ansari) who aren't known for having athletic bodies.  Moreover, while there is certainly a celebration of a certain type of athletic cis-male body, cis-men do not need to fit some narrow definition of physical attractiveness to be celebrated.  The story is much different for cis-women.  From politicians, to athletes, to celebrities cis-women's perceived attractiveness is always up for discussion and its regularly used to shame or dismiss accomplishments.

I am all for expanding the discussion on male body image, but any discussion that happens must occur with an awareness of the male privilege that exists around body image

Self-defense, sexual assault, and victim blaming

I've only been working in the sexual violence sector for a short time and even I'm a bit frustrated with how easy it is for traditional sexual assault prevention techniques to gain traction and acceptance in our society, so I can only imagine how frustrating it is for feminists who have been having this discussion for decades might feel.

I don't know how many times I've said this but I'll say it again: there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing things that give a person a sense of safety and give them enough peace of mind to move through the world comfortably. This is not about criticizing those techniques that do give someone a sense of safety nor is this about dismissing the people, themselves, who engage in these techniques.

Having said that, working in the sexual violence sector as an educator has allowed me to learn and understand the pitfalls of traditional sexual assault prevention techniques, as feminists working in this sector have been thinking about them and talking about them in great detail for decades.  There is the greater philosophical, societal issue of the unfairness of putting the onus on female-identified people to prevent experiencing assault because society has deemed male-identified people as not responsible for their actions under the "boys will be boys" clause.  There is the in-practice issue of victim blaming that comes up when someone does experience an assault and begins to think it was their own fault because they didn't do one thing on the impractically long list of things female-identified people have been told they need to do to keep themselves safe.  And there is the issue of practicality in that most "prevention" techniques only apply to very specific situations that mostly involve strangers in dark alleys, whereas the more common sexual assault happens where the person choosing to assault knows the person they're assaulting to some degree (friend, coworker, partner, etc).

For the record, when I say "victim blaming" I am referring to the more subtle ways in which society makes a person who experienced abuse feel like they were partly, or totally, responsible for the assault they experienced.  This is done not in overt "this was your fault" finger wagging kinds of ways, but by unthinkingly questioning the behavior of the person who experienced the assault: "are you sure it was assault?" "what were you wearing?" "did you lead him on?" "you're a guy though, don't all guys want sex?" Questions imply judgement and sexual assault is one of the only crimes where society feels justified in questioning the person who experienced the crime and determining to which degree they participated in the crime they experienced.  This is something we don't do for people who are victims of drunk driving, murder, theft, physical assault, identity fraud, or whatever other crime you can think of.

We engage in victim blaming subconsciously because it is a way of distancing ourselves from the assault in that if we can point to what the person who experienced the assault did wrong, then we can make sure we don't experience assault by not making the same mistake they did.  It's understandable because the alternative means accepting that sexual assault is something that we might experience, and that's certainly a scary thought, but this practice ultimately makes it a more hostile and difficult environment for people who have already experienced sexual assault.  Moreover, it creates an environment where the people who actually have control over whether or not an assault takes place, the people who chose to commit it, are not held accountable for their actions.

These are not new insights.  Feminists identified these a long while ago and have been campaigning for years to try to get this points across to society at large in order to push sexual assault into the same category as drunk driving; a category where there is a social consensus that regardless of how sympathetic we might be with the person who committed the crime, we still hold them fully accountable for the decision they made and the harm they caused.

So when you see criticism being directed at the recent study that came out of the University of Windsor and made it's rounds of various mainstream media sites, know that all that I've discussed above is motivating that criticism.  Know that the criticism is coming from a place of this study being nothing new and know that it is an indication of a growing community of people, who want to take this discussion of reducing sexual assault into a more effective realm of holding those who choose to do it accountable.

What is further motivating the criticism of this study and it's quick, broad acceptance, is that there are way too many unanswered questions; there are any number of reasons one could cite to account for the alleged reduction in sexual assaults.  For my part I can't help but think that the more likely reason there is such difference between those who took the training and those who didn't, is that those who took the training and still experienced an assault would be far less likely to report their assault because there is a much higher likelihood that their behavior will be questioned because they took the training:

"Why didn't you use your training?"

"What was it about the training that wasn't effective?"

"Didn't you know what to look out for?"

Moreover, those who took the training and still experienced an assault are likely asking themselves those questions already having grown up in a society that has normalized "prevention" techniques for female-identified people.

Again, I get the appeal.  Those numbers are certainly attractive.  It would be easy to just accept the result of this study, implement the training, and continue on with our lives.  Unfortunately, this would be a lateral move in the efforts to reduce the number of sexual assaults in our society as this kind of thing gets us no closer to holding the people who choose to assault accountable, which is where we need to go in order to really see some change.

SCOTUS and Normalized Violence Against Women

"Because Eminem said it at a concert where people are going to be entertained..."

This reasoning just makes my skin crawl.

The Supreme Court decided to not to convict a man who posted threatening lyrics from singer Eminem on his facebook because they felt the standard to convict was too low, which gives us yet another example of how our society normalizes violence against women.  People have been critical of Eminem and his views about women for many years now and for good reason; the fact that he would write such violent songs about women and the fact that millions of fans would buy the albums already speaks volumes about how normalized violence against women is in our society.

But now, in this case, because some people find lyrics describing violence against women entertaining, the Supreme Court feels that they cannot considered threats and should be protected under Free Speech regulations.  While the man in question may not have said, explicitly, that the lyrics were in reference to his partner, the fact that he would post them publicly in the context of just having split up is troubling.

At least, it should be...

It's troubling because SCOTUS's invokes 'context' as a way to defend the decision not to convict when it's the context of where and when the man is using the lyric that they should be looking at.  The most dangerous time for women experiencing domestic violence is attempting to leave or immediately after having left the relationship, so for this man to be posting lyrics like this publicly has to, or should, be concerning.

Let me put it another way.

If a friend was posting lyrics that were about suicide, would we ignore them because songs are entertainment and there's no subtext to why someone would post lyrics like that publicly?

Music can be a powerful tool for emotional catharsis and there are a lot of feelings that people can have that can be addressed through listening to certain songs.  We all have songs in our music collection that are for very specific times in our lives when there's more negative thoughts going on than normal and we need a bit of extra help.  Internally identifying, validating, and naming those feelings through music can be a healthy way of addressing them.  But, if we start publicizing certain things it changes the context of the situation.  Again, if we consider the situation where someone is posting media that talks about suicide we'd start to get concerned about whomever was posting the material.

Whenever we make something public, part of our motivation is seeking validation for whatever it is that we're sharing; we're testing the waters to see how people feel or react to something that we think is important.  It can be normal things, like vacation photos, or it can be harmful things, like lyrics containing violence against women.  Now, not everyone who posts something alarming on facebook is guaranteed to act on them in every instance, but it should raise some red flags if we know that there's more to the story in terms of who is posting and it should tell us that there's something that needs to be addressed.

Sadly, though, this is a kind of chicken-and-egg example of normalized violence against women; if violence against women is so normalized that it can be considered entertainment, then it shouldn't surprise anyone that SCOTUS wouldn't identify it as threatening.

Linkage:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/supreme-court-elonis-facebook-ruling/index.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/supreme-court-facebook-threat_n_7470634.html

The discussion we should be having about Josh Duggar

I'm going to be upfront about something.  I had no clue who the hell Josh Duggar was or why everyone was talking about him until there was so many different articles about what went down that I could no longer ignore it.  The Learning Channel was something I stopped watching long before I gave up on cable television altogether so there is a lot that I've missed out on.

Or not, I suppose.

Combing through the various articles detailing the actions of Josh Duggar and the subsequent societal skewering of him, the family, the show, and TLC there's a major discussion that I feel is not being had.

Yes, Duggar's actions are not "mistakes."

Yes, Duggar's actions are criminal.

Yes, the fact that many rushed to his defense is a clear indicator of rape culture.

All of those discussions are good.  However, there is a major problem in how his choices are being talked about and the category of offender that he's being lumped in to.  For the record, I don't have a problem with him being labeled an 'offender' given that he's admitted to his behavior and the choices he made.

He also apologized and recognized how harmful they were...granted only in the context of how those actions could ruin his life, but I'll take anything I can get given the state of things.

The discussion that's not happening is that Josh Duggar is being placed into an 'offender' category, in addition to his religious background, that is starting to 'other' him in the sense that people are not feeling surprised at his actions.  Any time we talk about someone who chooses to abuse children terms are brought in that villainize them, which is a product of the human desire to inflict harm on those that we think deserve it.  The Duggar Family's bigotry makes the catharsis all the more sweet and makes it easier to think of Josh Duggar as a monster who deserves all the negativity we can muster.

However, by turning Josh Duggar into a Pariah we also turn his choices as well as the attitudes & beliefs that motivated them into a Pariah as well, removing them from our life experience.  Once we've done that it's easier to think of Josh Duggar as sick and twisted and his actions are equally perverse and horrific, which allows us to distance them from ourselves and our own actions.  I get the impulse, I share it, but this process is something we're going to have to get away from if we're ever going to start reducing the amount of sexualized violence in the world.

By distancing the attitudes & beliefs, including the behaviors they ultimately motivate, from ourselves we hinder our ability to figure out where they coming from and what is perpetuating them.  Josh Duggar is not a monster from another realm, he is a human that grew up in Western society much like millions of other people.  There is a case to be made for certain mental conditions that some people may have that mean they're attracted to children, but not all of these people choose to act on their desires.  The molestation term is being used in conjunction with Josh Duggar's actions, but regardless of whether or not he has a psychological condition his choice to commit abuse against multiple people is not a product of being unable to control his desires.  Josh Duggar felt that sexually abusing was a choice he was entitled to make; that the boundaries of another person were not worth respecting.  This entitlement is not 'monstrous' it's, sadly, an everyday thing.

From Robin Thicke's "Blurred Lines" to the rampant sexual objectification in movies and video games to Sebastian Vettel being a little disappointed there were no Grid Girls, society tells men that women's bodies are for their enjoyment.  Given Josh Duggar grew up in this world and grew up in a family who has traditionally divided gender roles that give more social standing to male identified people, his choice to sexually abuse five girls shouldn't seem that shocking.

Josh Duggar is an easy target: his family's bigoted views, his choice to sexually abuse young girls, and the fact he's part of a rather unorthodox family mean he's already 'othered' for a lot of people.  Make no mistake, Duggar should be held legally accountable for his crimes, but society is not gaining anything by vilifying the actions of a person who admits that what they did was wrong.  We don't get points for punishing the obvious.  We need to look at the less obvious, the parts of society and ourselves that are the source of sexualized violence.

Until the public outcry is as unified regarding Josh Duggar as it is about Formula 1 Grid Girls (or other normalized sexual objectification), until people are not willing to let professional athletes get away with sexual assault, until the majority of society stops dismissing Feminism, until we start believing people who have experience sexualized violence and not imply that they somehow brought it on themselves, until we recognize that violence against women should not have become a normalized experience, until society really starts looking inward and in places that are personal we're not going to get anywhere.

Entitlement and Sexualized Violence

As activism moves forward trying to raise awareness about sexualized violence you may have heard people talking about sexualized violence not being about sex or desire, but being about power & control as well as a sense of entitlement held by an offender.  There have been a few metaphors or analogies that people have turned to in an attempt to make the concept more accessible to those who have not challenged themselves to think differently about sexualized violence.  A popular one is making it's rounds on twitter and tumblr where the author suggests that if you hit someone with a spade you wouldn't say that the person was gardening.  A similar analogy would be to make the point that if one person hits another with a baseball bat, you wouldn't say that they were playing baseball.  In both analogies, you would say that the person who did the hitting committed an act of assault.

Sexualized violence can, and should, be viewed through the same lens in that what occurs when someone chooses to commit and act of sexualized violence they are committing violent assault, not having sex.  The distinction is important because it reflects what is actually going on and it puts the focus on to the violence of the act.  When acts of sexualized violence are framed in terms of sex and/or desire it minimizes the impact on those who experience it, sets up a situation where the survivor/victim can start to blame themselves, and creates a situation where the offender is less likely to be held accountable for their actions.

When someone chooses to commit an act of sexualized violence they are exerting their will (power & control) over another human being because they feel that it is their right or that the act is something that's owed to them by the person they've targeted (entitlement).  This is not a decision that gets made randomly nor is it something that is as accidental as, say, stubbing your own toe.  Part of the reason feminists and allies call out sexist media, which the uninformed public usually fails to see the importance of, is that they're trying to call attention to the fact that sexist media is one of the factors that influences the development of our attitudes and beliefs.  When a rape joke goes unchallenged on a regular basis, or many different pieces of media make rape jokes, it becomes normalized and soon becomes something the majority of people mistakenly accept as something that is "just part of life."

Moreover, negative attitudes and beliefs about women have been long established in society, which means that by the time someone is exposed to a rape joke they may have already developed some negative views about women in the first place; usually these pre-established beliefs are instilled in the home by parents and other family members.  So because people are growing up in a society that has accepted violence against women as normal and that when they engage with the world they see media that seems to reinforce this concept any negative attitudes and beliefs are further solidified.

Once something like this has been accepted as "fact" then it becomes part of their worldview and or own worldview is a major tool we use to move through our lives and helps us interact with the world.  If a person has negative views about women, for instance (this process shows up in other areas as well: racism, homophobia, etc), and they've incorporated this into their world view then it gets much easier to engage in more overt negative behavior towards women.  And, unfortunately, the easier it gets the easier it will be for the person in question to engage in the behavior more often and, the more often they engage in said behavior the easier it becomes.  This is the point where entitlement starts to creep in.

Now, how this entitlement comes into play is a very complex and there is a great deal to unpack, but for the purposes of this article I want to focus on three specific factors:

1.  No one has challenged the person's behavior

2.  The person has had their attitudes & beliefs validated on a regular basis

3.  For cis-males, their male privilege has further contributed to the entitlement as they've been raised under the "boys will be boys" framework of excusing violent behavior and not holding them responsible for it.

For those that don't know the framework of "boys will be boys" manifests as girls being told that "he pulled your hair or teased you because he likes you" or if boys fight it is written off as a right of passage and not addressed.  While it doesn't directly manifest in sexual violence down the road, it does send the message to cis-males that their behavior towards women can be violent and that violent behavior, in general, is acceptable for them.

With negative attitudes and beliefs about women established and strong sense of entitlement in place, a person can more easily justify acts of sexualized violence, which may first start out as sexual harassment or it could include incidents of sexual assault, like groping.  Once someone is at the point where they are engaging in acts of sexualized violence they have stopped seeing what they're doing as wrong, so when people challenge them on it or, in the case of Paul Nungesser, they choose to report his actions to an authority they are likely to see that only as an act of violence against them.  In their eyes, or in the eyes of Paul, their actions were justified not only by their own attitudes and beliefs, but also by the greater society they`ve grown up in.  Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his choice to commit acts of sexualized violence and Paul`s sense of entitlement contributed to his inability to reconcile how the community responded to him and his behavior.

For Paul Nungesser, he is the only victim in this entire situation.  He was entitled to do what he did and he was entitled to not be held responsible for it.

Source

Slut-shaming and faux-pologies, newest superpowers for the Avengers...

You know, I really thought that with Joss Whedon at the helm of a major, AAA property with a cavalcade of Hollywood talent that we would see action/superhero movies begin to move in a more progressive direction.  At the very least I was hoping that some of what Whedon has been celebrated for saying in terms of his engagement with social justice issues would rub off a bit on some extremely privileged Hollywood actors.

I don't know why I thought this.

Naive optimism?

Probably.

I am legitimately disappointed but I'm not all surprised at the comments that were made by Jeremy Renner and Chris Evans about Black Widow; fictional or not, what they said was hurtful and the faux-pology did not help things.

For the record, I'm not the biggest superhero fan.  I did watch the 90s Spiderman and X-Men as a kid, I thoroughly enjoyed the Nolan Batman Trilogy, and do turn to the marvel superhero movies now and then for a bit of brainless entertainment.  I do like big, overarching, consistent stories and the movies that have come out of the marvel universe have certainly been intriguing in that respect.  I was also very happy to hear that someone like Joss Whedon had been tapped to helm the movies that bring together several different stories and would appeal to a great number of people that probably were not part of the Whedonverse (Firefly, Buffy, Angel).  Joss Whedon isn't without his faults as he's certainly had some questionable and problematic engagements with Feminism and social justice stuff (the whole "why I hate feminist" speech comes to mind), but he's thrown support behind Anita Sarkeesian with regards to bringing more awareness to the harassment she's experiencing.  I also recognize that Whedon had much more flexibility with his own stuff than he does with something as long-established as marvel superheroes, but all of this amounts to nothing more than nice excuses for ignoring the lack of progress being shown.

Black Widow is the only Avenger in the current run of movies, apart from Hawkeye, to not have her own movie about her own adventures.  Moreover, from weird contortions that magically display Black Widow's butt and cleavage simultaneously to extremely sexist questions about Scarlett Johansson's underwear and diet, movie posters, costuming, and panel interviews have revealed all manner of systemic sexism directed at both Scarlett Johansson and the character she plays; she's even being left off of the merchandise for the latest iteration of the Avengers-Marvelverse installment "Age of Ultron."  And now we have some pretty standard slut-shamming coming from Johansson's costars to round it all out.  Awesome...

The usual script for this sort of thing is playing out as I write this: feminists are calling out the comment, anti-feminists/anti-sjws are whining that feminists are too sensitive or just don't get the "satire," fence sitters are, well, sitting quietly on their fence, and mainstream media outlets are rolling with the article in a non-committal way because they know they'll get a couple extra clicks for the next few days or so.  But here's why I'm writing something about this: representation matters.

For millions of girls and women who love comics the comic world, and greater geekdom, really sucks for representation; moreover, anyone trying to change it is subjected to a mob of hateful, ignorant people (who are mostly men, lets be honest here) who feel that sending rape and death threats to the change-makers is a good way to prove that there's not a culture of hatred and misogyny in the community.  Any representation that the millions of girls and women do get within this community is fraught with problems involving body type, sexuality, sexual orientation, objectification/sexualization, racism, and, in many cases, are only incorporated to supplement the story-lines of the white, cis-het, male heroes.  Finally, the representation is often an escape-hatch excuse for people that are actively resisting the efforts to improve representation in the greater geekdom.  It usually shows up like, "the comic industry isn't sexist because [insert name of one of a small number of female led comics] has her own book."

When Renner and Evans make comments like the one they issued the faux-pology for they directly contribute to the problem that girls and women are facing in the greater geekdom.  Their comments maintain the sexist status quo and validates the opinions of the hateful people sending the rape and death threats to those advocating for social change.  For many, what they said probably doesn't seem that bad considering other incidents; however, the fact that something like this doesn't seem like a big deal is part of the problem.

So I was just about to post this when a link to an awesome new tumblr came across my dash and it's in direct response to the comments that have come to light.  It's called #ProjectRomanoff and it's created by the Agent Romanoff fandom as a way to get some positivity going around the character they love, here's the first post:

"Okay all, so as I said last night, I think we need to get some positivity going in our fandom right now. Natasha Romanoff is a mutlifacted and complex character we have all come to love and I think, in light of what’s happened recently, we should spread that Natasha love. God knows I’m sure we all need it.

So I’m proposing #projectromanoff. Often times, female characters are sidelined as love interests, placed in male dominated spaces by their creators, and then blamed at their closeness with those male characters. For so many women, who find themselves in characters like Natasha, those criticisms are hurtful in the real world because so many of us have experienced them in our own lives. When characters like Natasha become the butt of sexist jokes, it can be exhausting for fans because those words hit so closed to home. So lets spread some love, not only for our fav ex soviet assassin but for each other. Tag your works as #projectromanoff, meta, art, fic, playlists, photosets, edits, anything you want, anything Natasha centric, and fill each other’s dashes with Natasha love! "

Sources:

http://www.themarysue.com/grossvengers-age-of-dolton/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/chris-evans-jeremy-renner-apologize-791013

Silent communities perpetuate sexualized violence.

This story is already almost a week old and it didn't have the staying power that other issues of sexual violence being perpetrated by athletes usually has; I'm thinking of Steubenville, Ray Rice, and so on.  I am not at all surprised by this, however, as Canada is still trying to navigate systemic normalized violence and doing this when the perpetrator is of a certain kind of fame.  Moreover, when the offenders happen to be involved in hockey that falls within the stream that sends players to the NHL, people are even less likely to stick with the situations or take a stance that doesn't involve victim blaming.

I found this particular article to be interesting and indicative of how much of society still isn't ready to have greater conversations about sexualized violence and really grasp the fact that the source for this violence is much more complex than they might think.  This article is a perfect example of how the social minds in Canada are trying to reconcile the idea that sexualized violence is bad with the idea that offenders don't fit a "typical" mold.

When I employ the term "typical" here in reference to perceptions of who an offender might be I am referring to the notion of offenders who commit instances of sexualized violence being: older, mentally ill, unkempt or otherwise visually unappealing, preferring to jump from the shadows or bushes, attacking random women, and so on.  The list here is not comprehensive and it is not all of these specific things all at once, more a combination of a few of these traits that comprises what people expect an offender to hold.  Part of the desire to do this falls into a "keeping myself safe" mentality wherein if I can convince myself that offenders are easily identifiable then I can be on the lookout for them and, as a result, avoid experiencing sexualized violence.

The reality, unfortunately, is much less pleasant.

While there are certainly instances of sexualized violence occurring in situations where the offender is not known to the victim/survivor, the numbers coming from reported instances tell us that offenders are much more likely to be people we know and the sexualized violence is more likely to occur in spaces where we might feel safe (homes, schools, dorms, etc).  Considering how unpleasant it is to sit with this fact I can hardly fault people for turning to methods or mindsets that help them feel safer without actually making them safer.

The young men that committed the acts of sexualized violence covered in this article are everything put the "monster" society has taught us to expect in situations like this.  Hockey is a celebrated sport and past-time within Canadian culture to the point where many families build lives around the sport; playing professionally, raising their children in the sport, and so on.  Fandom around professional teams also plays a significant role in Canadian culture as it plays out from things like defining friendships to being the justification for riots after a major loss.

The players themselves, often coming from places of social or financial privilege, gain a special social status within our culture for their abilities and this is not to say that the players don't sacrifice when it comes to pursuing the dream of a professional career.  However, one cannot ignore the red flags of creating a special social status within Canadian Culture for people that are already accustomed to higher levels of privilege.  Male privilege sets up men to develop a strong, harmful sense of entitlement when it comes to how they view other people.  It is also important to point out that while they hold many different privileges, people who are not part of the "hockey community" fall outside of their scope in terms of who is valuable.  Once again, this makes a lot of sense as they devote a major portion of their lives to the sport which does reduce one's scope anyway.

When you consider a few of these facts: (1) That people are not willing to accept that offenders who commit sexualized violence can be people we know and trust, (2) Society creates special privileges for Hockey players, (3) Male hockey players get a double helping of privilege and entitlement, and that (4) women are seen as sex objects that bestow sex on men, you can begin to see some red flags popping up.

For this article, we can see a few things playing out.

First, there's the hesitancy to want to get to the real issue for these players and so the subject matter experts turn to a familiar theme: young boys growing up away from their family.  While this certainly plays a part in why these young men decided to commit sexualized violence it would be naive to think this was the be-all reason for their behavior.  Many offenders grow up in stable families, which, again, goes against the myth that sexualized violence offenders can be easily identified in that offenders had some kind of troubled family life.  In fact, rigid adherence to the gender binary and the subsequent gender roles that come from the binary are more likely to be a factor when it comes to people gaining a sense of entitlement around sex.  Even in cases where one or more of the parents are not present or involved I would look to this being even more relevant; again, if I don't have a parent around me as I grow up I'm going to learn about that absent parent from other sources or I'm going to learn about my gender roles from society.

Another aspect emerging from this article is the cognitive dissonance between a league that "has policies in place" and the fact that this kind of thing keeps coming up.  A major flaw in how we view sexualized violence revolves around a lack of knowledge when it comes to understanding the connection to, what we see as, every day behaviors and the legal definition of sexual assault.  Most people, when asked directly, would say that sexual harassment and sexual assault is wrong; however, the same people probably couldn't identify incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault beyond very obvious, often sensationalized, incidents; I'm thinking specifically of the stranger assaults mass media usually runs with or the way in which sexualized violence is portrayed in popular media (Crime Dramas, Movies, etc).  So, on one hand, people understand and agree that sexualized violence is wrong but, on the other, there is a lack of understanding when it comes to recognizing it in their daily lives.  Moreover, many behaviors that would fall under the umbrella of sexualized violence have become so normalized we no longer really identify them; behavior that gets people to bring the "boys will be boys" sentiment into discussion is the kind of behavior I'm talking about.

And, finally, the way in which the Hockey Community "keeps things in the family," so-to-speak, is also very apparent in this article; the subject matter expert clearly states that when she did attempt a study, she was blocked from getting relevant data by the teams.  It's hard to trust that a league is actually doing something to combat the issue of entitlement and sexualized violence when they don't allow for proper studies/investigations to be conducted that could identify ways to change the culture.  There is a problem, but until the community itself is willing to recognize that they're not going to be able to solve it themselves we're not going to see a change.  More importantly, until they realize that they are partially to blame for this kind of behavior we're not going to be able to implement policies and programs to make a difference.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people within the Hockey Community are of ill intent, maliciously resisting a culture change; however, by not being willing to ask the tough questions they are allowing sexualized violence to continue within their own community.  One need only look at how many people we're involved in covering up Sandusky's child sexual abuse or the sexual assault that was committed by the two football players in Steubenville.  In both cases, sexualized violence was allowed to continue, covered up, and a culture of victim blaming was encouraged; all to protect people that the community thought "couldn't do such a horrible thing because they were good people" and didn't fit the stereotype of a sexualized violence offender.

Power & Control

When this crime made it's way around the world a few years ago I had trouble processing the level of violence.  Now, one of the offenders is being interviewed about that event and I am once again struck speechless as a different level of violence is being directed at the victim of the crime.

Make no mistake, victim blaming is an additional act of violence.

Advocates working to end violence against women often talk about sexual violence as not being about sex or desire, rather the crime comes out of the realm of a need for power and control as well as a sense of entitlement brought about by unearned social privilege.  To commit the initial crime the men, in this case, would need to already have significantly harmful views of women, have justifications already formed in their minds, and only needed one additional factor to finally choose to commit such a violent crime.  As it states in the interview these men believed their actions were justified because, in their view, she was violating a social norm being out past a time they, and society, had set for women to be home by.

The recently released interview further elaborates on how these men view their own actions, the views they have of women, and that they do not feel any degree of remorse for the violent crime that they committed.  

"A decent girl won't roam around at nine o'clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy" - An attitude and/or belief about women.

"Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20% of girls are good." - Another example of their attitudes and beliefs regarding women.

"had a right to teach them a lesson" - A justification.

"She was beggar girl. Her life was of no value." - A justification.

Attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which are then used to inform the actions or behaviors.

It is important to point out that these kinds of attitudes and beliefs do not just manifest randomly and it is even more important to point out that the attitudes and beliefs that became justifications for actions are common in every community.  He very clearly draws a line between notions of "traditional" gender roles and the justifications he and the other men made for their actions.  Not every person out there who is invested in "traditional" gender roles is on the path to commit acts of sexual violence; however, it is important to point out that had these men been raised differently they might have not done what they did.

There is a similar parallel in all sexual violence cases: attitudes and beliefs informing justifications, which guide action.  Harmful views about women and gender roles established early on, reinforced in various ways as men and women grow up, and, if left unchallenged, can become justifications for actions later in life.  This why we need to challenge unassuming aspects of rape culture; narratives like "boys will be boys," pieces of media that normalize violence against women, aspects of culture that enforce traditional gender roles, and so on.

I'm sorry to end on a note that isn't exactly positive, but I don't think it would be appropriate.  In this case to sanitize the message avoids the issue.  We have a problem in our society, we cannot dismiss it as a "one-off" random event.  We need to face it head on.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31698154

http://jezebel.com/delhi-bus-gang-rapist-mukesh-singh-blames-victim-for-fi-1688870998