Too Many Rapes to Differentiate

Trigger warning for rape discussion beyond the cut.

Feminism and Hillary

Hillary Rodham Clinton has been fighting sexism for her entire life.  In an interview with Rebecca Traister posted on The New York Magazine's website, Hillary discussed how women's ambition is dangerous:

“I think it’s the competition,” she said. “Like, if you do this, there won’t be room for some of us, and that’s not fair.” I pushed her: Did she mean men’s fears that ambitious women would take up space that used to belong exclusively to them? “One hundred percent,” she said, nodding forcefully.

This need to compete for the right to participate in what is still seen as a male space has led to a variety of life choices and decisions. Yet no matter how hard she works, she gets questions about whether she prefers diamonds to pearls. Lets face it - all the other candidates are wearing pants suits, but hers are the ones being commented on. She's the one choosing to wear pants suits because she's the only one on that stage who has the option to wear a dress. She's choosing to do what she's done for decades - fight for a space in a male dominated arena. She chose her uniform and gear to fit her situation, and why should we expect her to change it now that women are "allowed" to wear skirt suits and dresses in a political arena?

When Hillary's daughter announced her pregnancy, news sources exploded with questions about how (not if, but how) Hillary's run for president would be affected by being a grandmother. Really? Do you know how many men are grandfathers without their ability to run for office being questions?

Then there's the question of her husband. The never ending question of her husband.  "Hillary and Bill are going to create a second Clinton presidency." "Hillary is power hungry and stayed with Bill." As a presidential candidate, she is being defined as Bill Clinton's wife. She is being defined for her relationship with him, reminding us all that a woman is not an individual but is defined by her relationship to her man.

Staying with her husband is bad for Hillary's political career. People bring up her husband as one of the reasons they won't vote for her. They didn't like his politics, and obviously she and him agree on every detail, which isn't true. Anti-Hillary folks point to the mess that occurred when Bill did show up at one of her rallies and got into a screaming match with Bernie supporters and how his involvement. Bill's recommendations were part of why she lost the nomination in 2008.

Lest we forget, Bill Clinton is also a philanderer. He got it on, and he got caught. There are so many people talking about how she stayed because of her hunger for the White House yet they leave out the details of how staying with him is a count against her. They forget that people stick with their cheating spouses for a variety of reasons. A lot of people either cheat or are cheated on, but because it isn't in the White House the general public never finds out. I was astounded at how many of my own friends stepped forward to confidentially let me know that they'd been cheated on and their marriage survived (or they'd done the cheating) or that their divorce that they'd said was because of (insert reason here) was actually related to cheating. Many people keep it quiet when those things happen. They only told me because I was cheated on and had no problem telling people about it.

Staying with her husband could just mean that Hillary and Bill were able to work through the cheating and that she was ok with her husband being sexual with someone who he had power over. Not everyone is ok with that for a variety of reasons (myself included), but it isn't part of my choice to vote or not vote for Hillary as a political person. I disagree with Bill's choice. Hillary's decision to live with his choice is not my concern - even though it isn't a choice I would have made.

The Democratic party today is different than the party that Bill Clinton was part of, and the politics and social issues have changed and grown. Hillary has had to separate herself from his policies, and she has a platform that isn't a Copycat Clinton Regime.* If she was power hungry to follow her husband's coat tails into the presidency, she'd have dumped him before he could become a liability to her campaign.

 Yet time and again, folks turn around towards Hillary's relationship to her man, her being a mother, her being a woman when they talk about her politics. One of the hotly contested pieces of legislation from Bill Clinton's campaign is his racially targeted crime bill. Bill Clinton was strongly behind it. Hillary supported it. Sanders *voted* for it. Yes, Sanders voted for the crime bill because it included other important legislation that he wanted to see passed.  Yet we spend far more time talking about Hillary supported her man and hearing that she is a cookie cutter creating a third Clinton term.

Times have changed. People are learning and growing. Hillary Clinton has repudiated her former stance on the crime bill as the social issues and ramifications have become more clear. Yet instead of fighting for single-issue bills, which would have made a huge difference in Sanders' decision to vote for the crime bill, we're arguing that Hillary supported her husband.

How many politicians have previous presidential candidates been related to? I honestly have no idea. The first two that pop into my head are the Bushes and the Kennedys. However, it is Hillary who is being presented as a man's husband, as a grandchild's grandmother, as a pants wearing shrew.

It's a load of donkey doo. Disagree with her all you want - in fact, disagreeing with a politician is a right and a privilege of being an American. Just don't forget to sit down and think for a moment about whether your dislike stems from the policies she wants to put in place if she becomes president. Did you have this knowledge before choosing to vote against Hillary? Did you hate Hillary for her mannish ways (a non-nonsense demeanor, i.e. a bitchiness) and her familial relationships, or did you honestly look at her record before making a decision on how you feel about her?

Hillary Clinton is a woman. You cannot forget that. It is an integral part of who she is. Yet judging her as a fit presidential candidate based on her female hormones is absolutely insane.  
 


*  UPDATE 06/07/16: As a friend pointed out, I used the word "himself" when I should have used the word "herself." I have corrected it in the text, but I would like to pretend for a moment that I purposely used the "he is for everybody" grammar rule from days of yore to demonstrate that Hillary is participating in the men's arena, and consequently, the public is fighting back on the personal, female level. "Hillary has had to separate himself from his policies, and she has a platform that isn't a Copycat Clinton Regime."

Misogynistic Troll

There's a lot of discussion right now about the "pro-rape" rallies that are coming up, and I'm not going to link to the articles or the man behind them. There's enough news out there about these jackasses, and I'm not going to add further links to them. If you haven't heard about them, this guy who runs a misogynistic blog and has written "how to pick up chicks" books is holding international rallies to make sure everybody finds out about his cause. Apparently one oft the main causes of the groups is to legalize rape on private property.

http://www.wiu.edu/heather/trolls.php

I've been invited by a few different friends to be part of protest groups surrounding a local event, and I refuse to go. Why? I don't want to participate in the farce this man is creating. He's riling up the public and instigating men, and he's doing it for attention and to push everybody's buttons. I'm sure he knows that the world isn't going to suddenly say, "You know what? You're right. Anybody who spends any time ever on private property can totally be raped because they aren't in public space then they obviously wanted it." By putting that out as the agenda he's calling attention to his books, making sure that haters (and sadly the folks who agree with him) are all out and riled.

This man is looking to push buttons. He wants fights so that he can claim to be the one being victimized: his right to free speech has been taken away, his right to rape at will has been taken away, his right to gather freely with others of like minds have been taken away. He can use all this crap to get people thinking about how if what he says can be banned then what anybody who doesn't go along with the mainstream can be banned.

I'm treating this man's ridiculous message in the same manner that I treat many other things that I disagree with. I'm not going to hear it. I think that everybody should avoid it and him, and they can easily and quietly fade after their one minute of news fame. He wants to be heard. Don't listen.  I bet that his stupid little group was off everybody's radar until he started purposely pulling out this bullshit. He's the worst kind of troll, and we all know that you shouldn't feed the trolls.

Sit or Stand

Ages ago I started a Livejournal account where I rated bathrooms at different establishments I visited. I gave it up years ago because I was, apparently, the only person interested in how different bathrooms in Tucson, Arizona, rated on my scale (based on cleanliness, size of the area, whether or not you had your own private bathroom with your own sink, how good the locks were, etc.).

Nowadays, though, the bathroom ratings would have to include who was allowed to pee where. You know what? I don't really care. The toilet debate is dumb. I don't care what your plumbing is, I'm certainly not going to stop and do a visual inspection on each person who's entering a public restroom, and considering that the trans person is more likely to be hurt by a stranger in public than the cis-gendered person, I think the people who should get the most say in this debate are trans folks.

Why Do People Like Trump?

I need to stop admitting that I know someone who wants to vote for Trump. I'm tired of explaining the reasons someone might have for not seeing that a vote for Trump is a vote for hate and a vote for economic policies that benefit the rich and further screw folks without money.

Seriously, how on earth did I become the "this is why people want an asshat for president" spokesperson? I should have kept my mouth shut! But I couldn't. There are so many people who see why Trump is a bad choice and also don't understand why Trump is appealing to others. So I end up discussing it, explaining the demographic he's going for, and doing everything in my power to not lose the internet war and compare him to Hitler and Nazi Germany's rise to power by heaping hatred on certain peoples rather than actually looking at crappy economic problems that are actually the root cause. Because we all know that once you use Hitler as your example, you lose because you are too stupid to come up with any other argument.

So here are the discussion points I've raised. Please let me know if you have other points I should add to the discussion. The reason I have been agreeing to these discussions is that too many people are dismissing Trump as impossible and not realizing why he is appealing to the audience who loves him.

The Haka: Cultural Appropriation?

I've been reading a lot more about cultural appropriation because Halloween is coming. While much of it was already known, a few pieces that I hadn't considered came into play when a friend told me he wasn't wearing a grass skirt to a Hawaiian luau that was being held at an event we attended last spring. A friend just sent me this article about an American football team, the Arizona Wildcats, doing the Haka.

For folks who don't know what it is, the haka is Maori war dance. The Maori people were the folks who settled New Zealand centuries before the Europeans found their way down to that delightfully beautiful country.

The article is short and appears to make two main points about why it's a problem that the Wildcats chose to do the haka:

1. The Wildcats did it badly. They didn't practice. They didn't learn the proper pronunciation for the words. What would have been said if the Wildcats had actually put effort into it? What if they'd bothered to learn the proper pronunciation and had practiced so that they could perform it seamlessly?
2. The Wildcats stole the haka from the All Blacks, the New Zealand rugby team. Sure one of the first sentences specifies that the haka is a Maori dance, but the entire article focuses on the All Black's performance of the haka before rugby games while saying that Americans are making a mockery of the Maori culture.  So doesn't this mean that the Americans are appropriating a New Zealand cultural dance that had already been stolen from Maori traditions?

Here's the thing - who stole the haka? The Americans? The Europeans?  If someone in a country outside the US wore a Native American headdress because they were being the mascot from the American Football Redskins football team, would they be appropriating Native American culture or would they be copying racist American culture that was based on wildly inappropriate usage of Native American culture?

Kiwis take the All Blacks and their pre-game haka seriously. So I hope y'all understand that I'm simply curious and questioning and not insulting your love of the team. I still have my All Blacks pin!

Ideas? Thoughts?

Let Your Voice be Heard

I normally avoid online petitions.I think that sending letters and emails to my representatives or to organizations is a more realistic way to make sure my voice is heard. However, the White House has a petition page, and making sure that funding for Planned Parenthood continues is on that petition page. The majority of my friends have used Planned Parenthood services directly or indirectly (e.g., gone there for an exam, had an appointment to get contraception for birth control or to control menstrual issues, viewed STI results from a potential partner who had their tests done at Planned Parenthood, watched a family member survive cancer because a breast exam at Planned Parenthood detected a lump early enough to refer that person for a mammogram, etc.).

I've included the link here, but the White House site also has a "how and why" page that says the following:

"The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. We the People provides a new way to petition the Obama Administration to take action on a range of important issues facing our country. We created We the People because we want to hear from you. If a petition gets enough support, White House staff will review it, ensure it’s sent to the appropriate policy experts, and issue an official response.

The idea of petitioning the White House or the government isn’t new, but this online platform is. Since the White House has never featured anything like this, we expect to make some adjustments to improve the platform based on how people use the system and your feedback. We may change the signature threshold so that the workload for responding to petitions in a timely fashion is manageable. You can always view the current signature thresholds on the Terms of Participation page."

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/overturn-defund-planned-parenthood-bill

Model of No-Responsibility

Business Insider talks about Uber and Music.

We've all heard of services like Uber, Airbnb, and Lyft. They are services that hook-up folks with a service with people who need the service.

Uber and Lyft are car services where independent contractors drive around and service apps match customers with drivers. The responsibility is laid completely on the individual, and the company that is hosting and making profits from it all maintains complete lack of responsibility for any problems.

Airbnb works under the same process, but it hooks up folks who want to rent out their apartment with folks who need a place to stay. So if you own a condo in New York City but travel regularly, you could set-up with Airbnb to rent it out while you travel. Again, if anything goes wrong, it's not Airbnb's fault.

I've used both these services, and I like the convenience and lower price they provide. I live in the Boston area. If I call a taxi, it can take 10 to 50 minutes for the taxi to get to the area I'm in. They have to wait not just for a taxi to be empty but for it to get to where I am. Uber has independent contractors trolling all around, so if I request a ride, they just hook me up with the closest person to me. It takes 1 to 15 minutes (usually about 7 minutes) for my ride to arrive.

Using Uber is cheaper than a taxi, and most importantly for me, it's a lot more convenient. I have downloaded the app onto my phone and given it my credit card information. I can request a car, and it comes to pick me up. Uber picks what it will cost in advance based on the route - the driver can't over charge me because of routing me through a bunch of unnecessary streets, and I can just hop out of the car. There's no tipping, and there's no exchange of money or credit card with a random stranger. The driver has their own insurance and is responsible for any problems that might occur, but with at taxi company, the company is responsible for any problems.


Is cheaper better, though?

The Illusion of Safety

Around 1990, I looked up statistics on safety in Newton and Sussex County because my dad's fear of my walking alone after dark drove me absolutely crazy. I wanted to prove to him that my walking down the street at 7:30 pm on a Wednesday was safe to do, so I went looking for the numbers.

What I found were reports stating that we'd had zero murders within whatever the applicable time frame was, and there was a very low number of physical and sexual assaults. These numbers appeared realistic to me because I "knew" as a young teen that I could walk safely down the street after dark.  But why did my dad seem to be so sure that people were being beat up and molested and raped and killed all around me?

So I dug deeper and discovered that local statistics on violence in the area were compiled after removing "domestic incidences." All of those instances of violence weren't counted because there was no stranger-danger in them. After all, if you're looking at statistics to see what your personal chances of being violated are when moving to a new town, what happens in someone else's home won't affect you, right? 

I never was able to convince my dad that I could walk down the street after dark by myself, and to this day I believe that he was extremely over protective for that. However, he was hit by the massive fear of the unknown stranger that is going to kill us all - the shooter at the mall, the guy giving kids candy from a van outside the school.


So the definition of violence that existed back then, where domestic violence wasn't considered "real" violence created a fake sense of comfort. "My daughter will never be hurt if she never walks alone after dark," translates into, "My daughter will never be hurt." It feels so much safer than "My baby girl could be raped and murdered by her future intimate partner."

A bandaid won't fix this problem.

I believe that  false sense of security created by dismissing domestic violence from statistics of violence in the area also created a false belief that the world has become so much worse since domestic violence began being counted as real violence. I don't have current statistics on the safety in Sussex County, but I assume that the numbers are higher than the zero I found years ago based on 1980s data.

If things are "much worse" now, we can also blame the younger generation, the folks who moved from out of town to an area that had been stocked by families who lived there for generations, and everything except the fact that violence has always been a part of life in my old home town..

In the old data's defense, domestic violence was seen as a "family matter" by many people in the past, and even now I meet people who don't believe that it's possible for a married person to rape their partner or that everyone should be allowed to smack their kids around because "that's how I was raised." People believe a woman can't rape someone or that "someone who seems so nice" can't possibly beat their partner.

It's time to face the facts - we all have domestic violence within our families. If it isn't our immediate family home, there are cousins, grandparents, children,whoever , who are directly impacted by domestic violence.

When I was in high school, everybody knew about domestic violence, but nobody talked about it unless something "big" happened, and even then we didn't call it out for what it was; we didn't try to help the people being harmed. For example, one of my friends lived with extremely violent adults. My parents told me she should stay over as often as possible, but I was never allowed to go to her house. She was later removed from her home, and as a clueless kid, I honestly didn't know why. There were other friends and family members who were talked about in hushed tones. People who wondered why this woman didn't leave her horrible husband or tsked about how those children were so neglected and filthy, but nobody tried to help - they just whispered about the problem.

If you were "lucky" people talked about it to your face instead of behind your back. Some people were actually concerned, but most folks who actually talked to you about domestic violence within your family were looking for gossip. For example, when my mother's husband bashed in her skull, people who hadn't even said "hello" when passing me in the halls of my very small high school suddenly started looking for me. With their voices schooled into sounds of concern they asked, "Gosh, is your mother ok? We were all surprised when she came out of the apartment covered in blood. It's good that someone called the cops."

What really hit me when that happened was how everyone was glad that "someone called the cops." Two people went to help my mother. They were nearby, and one rushed to help her while another called the cops. Everybody else was too busy standing around and talking about the situation to actually do anything about it.

The things they had to say were useless, "We've been listening to the fights and the beatings and wondering when someone would do something. Were the other kids in the house ok? Did anybody else get hurt?" Until someone covered in blood came out of a door, everybody just ignored the violence and whispered about "that family" from behind their closed doors. Even then the only two people who helped were family who lived nearby and saw her covered in blood.

There's no "easy" solution to domestic violence (gosh, it would be great if there was!), and I'm thrilled that we've started making strides into counting domestic violence as a crime, but we need to count it in all the ways that it matters. Domestic violence is violence. Partner killing is murder. Don't hedge the words because it makes you feel better. Don't leave it out so that you can be more comfortable.

And really, I believe that's why we do it. If you teach your children to avoid the van giving out candy, make your daughters wear long, loose clothing, and believe that violence is something that's done by the "other" and not by the people who surround you, you can believe you are safe for another day. Not everybody has another day to be safe, though.

This article about mass shootings shows that "only" a small number of mass shootings in the US that are perpetrated by strangers in the public arena. The reality is that mass shootings are far more common than anyone realizes because the majority of mass shootings happen within the home in situations of domestic violence. These stories don't make the national news. Sure, they'll show up in a local paper, but these mass shootings aren't posted all over the national papers because they are just more of the everyday violence that happens in the home - they are a family incident, not a national concern. We are ignoring the danger and fear and violence that is happening next door and instead pour concern, anger, and fear out on the idea of a "crazy person" stepping into a supermarket and opening fire.

If you really want to feel safer, talk about domestic violence. Make sure the people around you are aware of it, give them information or someone to talk to. Educate yourself about what domestic violence is and ways that you can help a survivor. Learn the warning signs of an abusive relationship so that you can help protect yourself and those around you. Find out who you and those around you can go to for help when needed. Make a safety plan. There are local and national resources, hotlines, and a million different places that can be contacted.

This national domestic violence website: http://www.thehotline.org/  appears to have some good information and would be a great place to start learning more about domestic violence.

PRE-POST UPDATE: I was just about to post this blog post when I came across this article about international mass shootings disregards "domestic" settings and gang drive-bys. It does note that the US has 5% of the population and 31% of the mass public shootings, not including these domestic shootings based on numbers going back to 1966. My guess is that to compile the data, domestic violence had to be left out because tracking information in the 1960s routinely ignored in-home "domestic disputes," and the research was looking at long term data.  Of course, this is just my guess!