Gosh, on the heels of that disturbing study on the attitudes of children yesterday comes another figure out of the UK, this time from an online poll of over 1000 respondents, that more than 50% of women believe rape victims bear some responsibility for their attack.

The poll was administered by Haven, a safe refuge for female survivors of abuse, and called ‘Wake Up to Rape.’ The responses were startling:

A fifth of the women said the victim was partly responsible if they went back to the assailant’s house and a 10th said taking a drink from a stranger had unforeseen consequences.

Twenty per cent of women surveyed said they would not report a rape to police, with half of those citing shame or embarrassment as a reason.

Furthermore:

One in eight thought a victim who danced in a provocative manner on a night out was also to blame for any consequences.

In a more striking finding, 14 per cent of the women told the surveyors that 14 per cent of women believe most rape accusations were cooked up.

More than a third of women thought that rape victims who’d gone back to a man’s place for a drink were partly to blame for the attack, compared to less than a fifth of the male respondents.

Interestingly, it was mostly women aged 18-24 who espoused these opinions. This is a really frightening social regression after the lengths feminists have gone to to get courts to recognize any form of non-consensual sexual activity to be rape. It’s a bizarre form of self-denial that women put themeselves through to think that it won’t happen to them if they behave in a certain way. The issue is not that women look or act a certain way and put themselves in vulnerable situations. It’s that men choose to rape. It’s that rape, in the words of Susan Brownmiller, is a tool of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear for the purposes of maintaining male dominance.

This wasn’t something I truly grasped until I read the title of Andrea Dworkin’s speech to the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men: “I Want a Twenty-Four Hour Truce During Which There Is No Rape.” Read it! It’s incredibly moving. Here’s an excerpt:

We women. We don’t have forever. Some of us don’t have another week or another day to take time for you to discuss whatever it is that will enable you to go out into those streets and do something. We are very close to death. All women are. And we are very close to rape and we are very close to beating. And we are inside a system of humiliation from which there is no escape for us. We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, “Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way.” That’s true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking.

And it is happening for a simple reason. There is nothing complex and difficult about the reason. Men are doing it, because of the kind of power that men have over women. That power is real, concrete, exercised from one body to another body, exercised by someone who feels he has a right to exercise it, exercised in public and exercised in private. It is the sum and substance of women’s oppression.

It is not done 5000 miles away or 3000 miles away. It is done here and it is done now and it is done by the people in this room as well as by other contemporaries: our friends, our neighbors, people that we know. Women don’t have to go to school to learn about power. We just have to be women, walking down the street or trying to get the housework done after having given one’s body in marriage and then having no rights over it.

The power exercised by men day to day in life is power that is institutionalized. It is protected by law. It is protected by religion and religious practice. It is protected by universities, which are strongholds of male supremacy. It is protected by a police force. It is protected by those whom Shelley called “the unacknowledged legislators of the world”: the poets, the artists. Against that power, we have silence.

I would argue it’s also institutionalised by the socialisation of women to believe in the system. To believe that we play a role in our own abuse. To believe that men have this right – this male sex right – over our bodies, over our actions, over us. Systems naturally want to reproduce themselves and the shit we are fed in the media is for this purpose – the maintenance of patriarchy and women’s subordination. Somehow, somewhere we’re being told we’re to blame for men’s violence and that voice is so pervasive it’s reaching children, who are parroting this belief.

Again… dangerous. Dangerous stuff.

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In one of the most disturbing news stories of the year, the BBC had an article today on research of schoolchildren that has found most students think violence towards women is okay if there is a reason behind it. The examples of times when it’s okay? If the woman has an affair or is late making dinner.

The research was conducted in Glasgow with 94 primary children aged 11 and 12 years. The children were questioned in depth about their attitudes and aspirations towards gender roles and behaviour. The children were asked to consider if it was okay for a man to punch his wife/girlfriend if he found out she had had an affair. Nearly all the children thought this was justifiable. In a second scenario, roughly 80% of the children said a man was justified in slapping his partner because she did not have the dinner ready on time.

Edinburgh Napier University researcher Nancy Lombard says of her findings:

“The children didn’t agree with violence, but gave reasons to try to justify it if the woman had done something ‘wrong’. The old saying of ‘If he pulls your pigtails it means he likes you’, translates into violence in adulthood which girls accept as normal.”

Another disturbing finding of Lombard’s study was that girls expected to modify their behaviour and narrow expectations once they were married and had children.

One of the girls said: “I want to be a dancer or a doctor.”

But she added: “When I grow up I’m going to have two babies and work part-time in the shop down the road.”

Lombard argues that gender role stereotypes are limited girls’ perceptions of life options and their behaviours in order to ‘accommodate’ men and boys. Honestly, while part of me is surprised by these findings, another part of me isn’t. The socialisation of girls to fulfill gender roles of nurturers and carers starts very early, and I think has gotten stronger with the advent of marketing to children. Toys that used to be gender-neutral are now much more gendered, to the point that even Lego blocks are marketed separately towards girls and boys. This has been found to be deeply embedded at all levels of marketing.

What’s the implication? These are stereotypes that reflect male dominance exacerbate social inequalities for women in all areas of their lives, from the workplace to the home. And clearly this is resulting in some sort of perverse regression to fifties-era gender ideal-types and norms of social behaviour. The next generation is clearly growing with expectations that women exist for the sole purpose of serving men.

Dangerous!

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Valentine’s Day is illegal in Saudi Arabia, and the police are out in full force to crackdown on shops selling anything red to ensure nobody in any way celebrates romance or love. Members of the religious police have been scouring shops for red roses, heart-shaped products or gifts wrapped in red.

Interestingly, these items are legal for purchase at other times during the year, but they are not allowed in the vicinity of Valentine’s Day. Apparently the Western notion of romantic love has been corrupting Muslim youth. A statement by the religious police posted in major media outlets read:

“Those who don’t comply will be punished,” the statement said, without spelling out what measures would befall the offenders.

I’m sure there are more than a few Western men that wouldn’t mind seeing such a draconian ban in their own cities. And while the commercialism surrounding any calendar date that can now be commercialised is enough to make anyone react in disgust, it’s clearly an arbitrary violation of basic rights. I could only imagine the reaction should, as happens in so many other Western countries at this time of year, a production of The Vagina Monologues was to open in Riyadh.

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Durex has come out with a series of new print ads featuring sexual acts with the bodies of the heterosexual couple comprised of words that presumably their different body parts are thinking/feeling. Take a look:

Right… apparently while giving head, I’m not only feeling dainty and really into the taste, but am all kinds of satisfied (pleased, contented, happy, smug). And apparently my boobs can’t stop thinking about themselves. And I’m really hungry for… fruit? What? Meanwhile, men’s penises turn into their brains and their entire bodies go into some sort of system failure?

But wait, there’s more:

Here, I am quaking and numb and shuddering and vibrating throughout my whole body (save for boobs, which are still thinking of themselves, apparently) with apparent pleasure, but wait… my head… I’m confused and paralysed and embarrassed. Apparently I’m privately traumatised from my pleasure?

I quite appreciate Katy’s analysis at Jezebel:

The most annoying thing about these ads is that they have the potential to be really good – if they made a little more sense. The female body is shown as a complex textbook of emotions, while men are reduced to one single thought (or less). Naturally, Krahne wants to play up the sexy part of sex, but wouldn’t it be funnier if the oral sex-woman was thinking about “suction,” “teeth,” “knee pain” or if we wanted to be really honest, “this condom tastes like a Fruit Roll-Up that has been sprayed with Lysol.” Also, we appreciate that it takes a certain about of strain to maintain that position for men, but it’s not exactly a cakewalk for us either. Finally, maybe instead of “confusion,” a woman on the brink of an orgasm could be shown thinking “hells yes!” or at the very least “don’t stop.”

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Somewhat good news story of the week: small and stable Central American country, Costa Rica, has elected its first female president and apparently she won by an overwhelming majority, more than 20-points ahead of her nearest contender. The new president, Laura Chinchilla, apparently won on a campaign of continuing economic liberalisation that analysts believe is responsible for the stability of the country that has relatively high standard of living and the longest life expectancy of any country in Latin America.

The 50-year-old protege of the current president, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oscar Arias, promised to pursue the same economic policies that recently brought the country into a trade pact with the U.S. and opened commerce with China.

“Today we are making history,” said Chinchilla, who will be the fifth Latin American woman to be elected president when she takes office in May. “The Costa Rican people have given me their confidence, and I will not betray it.”

The not so good news? Chincilla is a social conservative who opposes abortion and gay marriage. She’s not a woman who represents women or women’s rights. She’s a continuation of the same-old same-old power structures entrenched in Costa Rican society. The Christian Science Monitor mistakenly calls this election evidence of women’s rise in Latin America. But is it really the case if women are only electorally viable if they espouse more conservative values than their male counterparts?

Though there is a growing trend across Latin America of increased representation of women, largely due to affirmative action quotas implemented in more than a dozen countries in the region, I can’t help but feel that if it were up to these women, there would be no quotas or affirmative action. These women sound to me like the Sarah Palins of the Latin region. Is it really progress if, although she’s a woman, she supports and implements more socially conservative laws than we might get from a progressive like Morales or Chavez?

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When I read the headline today, I was immediately reminded of early-century eugenics programs that were so popular across the Western world that they largely informed the Nazi holocaust. Apparently a US organisation is giving monetary incentives to encourage drug addicts to get sterilized.

The organisation calls itself Project Prevention and is headed by Barbara Harris, who intends to pay $300 to drug addicts on the provision they get long-term contraception or seek sterilization. The organisation was founded in 1997 and is funded through private donations and is not-for-profit. So far, it claims to have given funds to over 3200 drug-addicted “clients,” of whom more than 1200 are women who have been permanently sterilized.

Apparently Harris is driven by her own experience, having adopted the four children of a crack-addicted woman in Los Angeles. She says of the second of the four, Taylor:

“He couldn’t keep food down and his eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of his head,” she says. “Noise bothered him, light bothered him, he just couldn’t sleep.

“My husband and I had to take shifts with him. He would sleep 10 minutes, wake up screaming. I was just angry at his mom, I thought how could somebody do this to a baby?”

I admire that this woman has concern for disadvantaged children born into pretty terrible circumstances. However, sterilization is clearly not the solution. It’s not the solution for the simple reason that drug addiction is not a permanent state. And offering money as an incentive to get sterilised is preying upon the vulnerabilities of addicts, whom I hear will take rather drastic measures to get funding for their next hit. Harris understands this of drug addicts and uses their disease against them. Surely this is based on a prejudicial idea about the social capacity of people with addictions – that they can never recover and become productive members of society or good parents. It’s a campaign of social engineering – a way of preventing people with a problem from ever reproducing. Surely these funds could be better used in drug education, awareness, prevention campaigns, or safe-needle houses, or prenatal care facilities for vulnerable and/or disadvantaged people.

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Trust superbowl Sunday to construct a celebration of all that is mainstream misogynist, hyper-masculine with the ads that the world has been abuzz about. In case anyone still harboured romantic ideals that our culture had become more equal and respectful, here’s a mash-up via Feministing:

The ads that don’t make the cut? The ads too unpalatable for CBS? Man with head up own ass, and ‘the gay kiss’ ad:

For great analysis of the above and other ads, check out this piece in the Washington City Paper by Amanda Hess.

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Four years into its mandate, the International Criminal Court has yet to secure a conviction for those accused of committing horrific war crimes since 2002. Yet again, the court has decided to drop charges against an accused war criminal due to lack of evidence. The latest war criminal to escape justice is Abu Garda of Darfur, who was accused of killing 12 African Union peacekeepers in 2007, and voluntarily turned himself in to authorities last year. However, ICC judges have ruled that there is not enough evidence against Abu Garda to support a trial.

According to the press release, the pre-trial Chamber:

“was not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to establish substantial grounds to believe that Bahar Idriss Abu Garda could be held criminally responsible either as a direct or as an indirect co-perpetrator for the commission of the crimes”

This is on the heels of the dropped charges against the Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, the first case to go to trial at the ICC, for the same reason – lack of evidence. I had such high hopes for this institution, created as a permanent international court with the power to punish the most serious violations of human rights. The purpose of the court was to take away the ‘ad hoc’ nature of prosecutions of war crimes, which until the establishment of the ICC relied upon the political will of the international community to agree to the establishment of an international criminal tribunal, like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.

The situation of Darfur was unique for the ICC as it was the first situation to be referred by the Security Council of the United Nations. Other cases have been referred to the Special Prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, by the countries themselves affected. So given the lack of cooperation by the government in Sudan, I can understand the limitations with gathering evidence. However, this is a problem that appears to be plaguing the court.

Understandably, witnesses and evidence is a difficult thing to collect in a guerilla conflict. But is it the case that Mr. Ocampo is just not trying hard enough to gather the necessary evidence to secure a conviction? Or is it that Western legal standards are just unsuitable to trialling international war crimes? We clearly will never get a Law and Order: War Crimes and Atrocities Unit, in which teams of highly specialized forensic technologists scour desert and jungle floors for evidence that this particular armed rebel commited this particular atrocity. I would like to be able to say it should be enough that there is overwhelming evidence proving that you are a person of a particular rank within a particular armed group and that that armed group has been witnessed committing war crimes to convict that person of war crimes. Perhaps there is too much individual agency attributed to violators of international law. But clearly this would be problematic.

I don’t know what solution to offer the ICC and I’m sure their much more qualified legal experts are working hard to address their lack of success. I do hope for a win for the ICC sometime soon, as the institution is quickly losing credibility in the eyes of the international community.

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I wanted to blog on this last week when I first heard the story that ‘baby brain,’ or ‘mumnesia,’ as it is sometimes called, has been found to have no scientific basis, and since the story broke news services around the world have taken a bizarre amount of delight in declaring the myth debunked.

The findings come from researchers at Australian National University Researchers, who say they have evidence pregnant women perform just as well in cognitive testing as they did before becoming pregnant. The ANU researchers had recruited 2404 women from the electoral roll, assessing 1241 in 1999, 1126 in 2003 and 1058 in 2007 in four areas of cognition: speed, working memory and immediate and delayed recall. What women identify as being reduced cognitive ability, the article of the findings suggests, is adaptive, shifting attention to the baby.

Now, I’ve never had a baby nor been pregnant, but I’ve asked several pregnant friends about this phenomenon, as I was sceptical myself of its existence. Without fail, every one of my pregnant friends attested to its veracity. Perhaps this is why women have come out vehemently against these findings.

Victoria Trenouth, a 28-year-old English teacher who became a mother for the first time last month when she gave birth to George Bell, said she suffered from baby brain while pregnant.

”I had a terrible, terrible memory … I couldn’t spell, I couldn’t get my words out, I couldn’t remember what I was saying. I spent 20 minutes trying to have a hot shower and screaming at my husband because I thought there was no hot water and it was on cold and he said try turning the hot tap on.”

The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting opinion piece describing one woman’s experience with pregnancy:

Whether or not baby brain is measurable by tests, there is no doubt that pregnancy and breastfeeding are exhausting and in some case debilitating experiences. And that’s just for the dads. It must be really bad for the mums.

Cathy Warwick of Britain’s Royal College of Midwives told the BBC: “The physical and emotional stresses on a woman’s body from pregnancy can make women feel more tired than usual.

“As we all know, tiredness – for men as well as women – can make us lose concentration and cause us to function less effectively.

“This is why midwives encourage pregnant women to take appropriate rest breaks, at home and at work. Many pregnant women will need this rest, and all of them deserve it.”

I can’t help but think that this study is akin to the numerous scientists who claim to prove the female orgasm doesn’t exist. Apparently a team of researchers at King’s College in London have found “fairly conclusively” that there is no such thing as a g-spot.

Apparently their findings are based on a massive twin study in which, because they could not document that twins both felt the same g-spot sensations in the same place, no G-spot could, in fact, exist.

Some 4600 twinned women were enrolled in the UK research. Of these, 1875 women responded to the sex questions, and of that number, the study excluded women who hadn’t had intercourse and those who identified as lesbian or bisexual (keep those in mind — we’ll get back to them in a bit). They were left with 1800 women aged 23-85 (mean age 55) whose responses were considered in the preparation of their report on the G-spot.

Those women responded to a very interestingly-worded question about the G-spot: They were asked whether they believed they had “a so-called G-spot.” And because too few women said they believed they did, the researchers concluded that the G-spot is a “perception” caused by “non-physical factors” that “heighten sexual sensation.” That is, women may have mental G-spots, but not actual physical ones.

So what do the lead scientists of the study have to say about their findings? Something really ridiculous:

Dr. Spector also has some choice words for women who believe they have G-spots: “This is by far the biggest study ever carried out and shows fairly conclusively that the idea of a G-spot is subjective. Women may argue that having a G-spot is due to diet or exercise, but in fact it is virtually impossible to find real traits.”

Listen to the methodology of this sex study:

The scientists in this study asked women if they believed they had a G-spot, and if they didn’t, the researchers accepted that none was present. They did not ask searching questions that would help them evaluate whether the women’s belief might be backed with experience… in fact, they excluded from their sample those women who were most likely to have had G-spot experience, the lesbian and bisexual women who, the researchers decided, would skew the results by being more likely than the heterosexual women to have used their fingers. Instead they seemed to be grasping for evidence that the G-spot existed in heterosexual women who were less likely (they guessed) than their lesbian counterparts to have sex in a way that’s most associated with G-spot stimulation and pleasure.

Okay, well, this is something that’s been happening to women for centuries – because some men and scientific methods can’t prove something women claim they experience, these men and their science deny the possibility of its existence.

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In a promotional push to become the restaurant for V-Day, Mildred’s Temple Kitchen in Toronto is marketing itself via it’s toilets – encouraging patrons to consider having sex in its bathrooms. According to the promotion, the restaurant hopes to make it to the list of “101 places to have sex before you die.”

On its website, Mildred’s asks: “Have you given any thought to moving beyond the bedroom? “Check out Mildred’s Sexy Bathrooms throughout the weekend of Big Love. You get the picture.”

According to staff:

“We’ve always had little trysts in our bathrooms,” says chef/co-owner Donna Dooher, pointing to lingering weekday lunches as a popular time. “We’re taking it to the next level on Valentine’s weekend.”

Apparently the restaurant has also hired a “French maid” to be stationed in the restroom and ensure things are kept clean (“She’ll be there with her feather duster and cleaning supplies.”). As for those of us whose first thoughts were to health code violations:

Toronto’s Public Health food safety program manager said the restaurant wasn’t breaking any laws as long as there’s no intercourse in the kitchen and the bathrooms are kept clean.

“As far as bodily fluids, it’s pretty much similar to the other human functions going on in there,” said Chan, slightly undercutting the erotic value of the venture.

Apparently the place is totally booked out for Valentine’s Day and CANFAR is donating more than 900 condoms to the restaurant to promote safe sex.

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