See the angels rise up, rise up…
The past two days have been a roller coaster ride in the legislative department. First, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, striking down the section that provided for federal oversight of voting regulations and redistricting in places where those measures have traditionally been used to prevent minorities from voting. Within two minutes of the ruling, Texas had passed… Read more →
Disability & Sexual Assault: Breaking Down Internalized Sexual Silence
Editor’s Note: This is our second post in the series – I’m letting people self select, so some people aren’t going to tell a story about rape. But all sexual violence hurts people with disabilities, so these stories, to me – are just as important. For many people struggling with mental illness, they are not believed when they report. This… Read more →
Disability & Sexual Assault: It Hurts Daily
Editors Note: This month I’ll be featuring a number of pieces about sexual assault written by authors with disabilities. If you or someone you know is willing to share their story or their perspective, please use the contact form. Trigger Warning in effect for all posts with this header. This piece comes to us by Lillian Cohen-Moore I was beaten… Read more →
Sexual Assault and Disability: Series Intro
Last night, a new reader shared a statistic with me that did not surprise me, but which scared the living daylights out of me: 80% of disabled women will experience sexual assault. 47% of disabled women who reported sexual abuse were assaulted on 10 or more occasions. Studies have found that anywhere between 40%-97% of sexual assaults against individuals with… Read more →
A Language Bereft of a Future: The Language of Sexual Assault
In the aftermath of Steubenville I think we need to have a conversation about what happens going forward for any Jane or John Doe who lives through sexual violence. The word “victim” has been on my newsfeed more than any other, and it is a word which causes me a lot of discomfort. I don’t identify as a victim. I… Read more →
On Rape Apology
Candy Crowley why, as a woman was your question not “What is the lasting effect of a rape like this on a young woman?” The media reporting on the Steubenville case is nothing short of despicable. Your voices lend support to the theory that the lives of these rapists are worth more than that of the woman they raped…. Read more →
Has Everyone Lost Their Goddamn Minds?
The Anniversary of Roe v. Wade was this week, and with it my attention turns to the legal issues surrounding the fetus. Except that I’m not doing that in the traditional sense this week, I’m doing it in extra special roundabout ways where I feel that my head is turning like the little kid in the Exorcist. In New Mexico,… Read more →
“They’re Trying to Help a Dead Girl”
The hacking collectivist group Anonymous released a video of the Steubenville football players who took a 16-year-old girl from house to house and sexually assaulted her. They simultaneously posted evidence on twitter, pushing the gang rape into the territory of pure unadulterated public torture. Anonymous released this video on the same day the House of Representatives refused to vote to… Read more →
Steps to Prevent Rape
Sometimes, inventions are made because we need them – sometimes they come too late. Today I want to talk to you about an indiegogo campaign that could change a piece of rape culture – combined with another thing I’ve seen bars do. Rape culture is pervasive, and we can’t fix it all by talk. The goal is ending rape, obviously… Read more →