rape – Page 5 – Another angry woman

A bra that springs open for true love? Nope.

Content note: this post discusses rape culture

Good afternoon. Have you felt like your day was devoid of pseudoscientific sexist bollocks? Well worry no more. Let me tell you about some fresh nonsense: a bra that will only spring open if the wearer is experiencing true love.

The promotional video opens by demonstrating the sort of men this product is supposed to protect us from, those awful gropey creeps. Fortunately for us, they will no longer have access to our norks, because this bra will not unhook for them–as demonstrated by footage of awful men trying to yank the thing open. You see, SCIENCE informs us that there is some sort of physiological marker for true love based on brain chemicals and heart rates and there’s a graph and everything, so we don’t need to worry that our baps will fly out every time we go for a run (not that the product looks like the sort of bra one should run in, ever). And so we can rest easy. Our tits will only pop out if we’re in love. Hopefully that won’t happen while in the middle of a date, because it would be profoundly awkward finding oneself suddenly topless in Nandos.

I’m going to pretend this is a real product, because the media are treating this as though it is, and even if it were just a conceptual joke, it’s still mostly fucked up for the exact same reasons.

Conceptually, this device is basically a high-tech chastity belt. The key is replaced by some pseudoscientific waffle, sure, but the principle remains the same: we can only be sexual when we are in love. Even the patronising protective language is the same as the underlying ethos of the chastity belt: rape and sex outside of “true love” are constructed as the same thing, and something that we must be defended from with a fortress.

I don’t think anyone needs to point out that a bra that won’t unhook for unwanted attention is hardly going to deter potential rapists, but it also probably won’t deter general creepers because, bluntly put, a guy harassing you in a bar probably isn’t expecting your bra to spring open and whap out your norks right there and then. The problem is more one of entitlement rather than keeping visibility of tits to a minimum. Like a chastity belt, the wearer is provided no means of getting out of the bra (although I reckon a cheeky wank would probably do the job). It subscribes to these two conflicting notions: that of an imaginary true love, but that we’re all sluts who cannot be trusted.

But let’s imagine for a second that we do live in this dystopic world wherein Fort Knox-style breast protection is required to deal with the hordes sacking all available boobies. This thing, as far as I can discern from the Highly Scientific graphs presented, pops open in response to a sustained elevated heart rate which is lower than that caused by exercise. Yes, that can be caused by pleasant social interactions, or being really turned on, or kind of getting giddy over someone. You know what else can cause it? Fear. Anxiety. The gut instinct telling you to get the fuck away from this creep as soon as you possibly can.

And now imagine, when you’re in this horrible situation, that your bra just pops open, and everyone in the room cheers because you’ve found your true love, the key to emancipating your mammaries.

As I said earlier, I have no idea if it is a real product or a satire which perfectly fits in with capitalist patriarchy. It feels somehow inevitable, nonetheless.

Lucifer, literally. Or, yes, I am jealous. Yes, I do want to drag you down.

Content note: this post discusses rape, transphobia, disablism, racism and abuse.

There are a lot of women who I can say make me feel jealous. And there are a lot of women who I would like to drag down to my level of misery.

I envy the women who think a few tweets with four-letter words in them telling them they’re wrong is abuse. I know abuse, both online and offline. Online, even the death and rape threats, the sustained harassment and the attempted doxxings fade into insignificance next to what has happened to me in the meatspace. There’s only one thing that happened to me that I “count” as rape, because it was violent and it involved the word “no” being ignored a lot, but I wonder if internalised rape culture myths have left me discounting other very coercive sexual experiences. There was the emotionally abusive relationship wherein my head was being so fucked with I couldn’t even consent. There were the attempts to somehow correct me. I’ve been manipulated into sex I didn’t necessarily want more times than I can count.

And beyond the physical stuff, there’s all the verbal assaults, the slutbitchdyke stuff which is supposed to keep me in my place, and keep me down. I am simultaneously frigid and fucking too much. These slurs based on my sexuality and on my femininity serve to support and enable the sexual violence.

So yes. I’m deeply jealous of anyone who thinks that a couple of rude words on the internet are in any way comparable with all of this.

I envy the women who believe certain oppressions cannot possibly exist. The ones who believe biphobia isn’t real, so can’t possibly hurt. The ones who believe that I cannot possibly have a disability because I have a job and am capable of articulating my opinions, blissfully ignorant of the fact that if I didn’t have the former I’d starve and die, and if I didn’t do the latter the silence would gnaw away at my soul, and that I’d rather be able to focus on taking care of myself than grind away to survive and defend myself.

I envy those who think transphobia isn’t a real thing, or those who think it’s just a little intellectual squabble, a petty parlour game. I have held someone I love in my arms more times than I care to count, comforting against the vicious assaults. I have dried tears of people I care about as their very existence is questioned, and spent long hours reiterating that mere existence does not make one scum, or a rapist.

I find myself in similar situations with my sisters of colour, talking through racism that has been too often denied, providing support where I can, because there’s a lot of lucky women out there who believe that the only manifestation of white supremacy is a KKK hood or an EDL flag.

I find myself wishing I could be like those other women, the ones who don’t have to see this, the ones who can sit comfortably and believe that nothing is wrong. It must be so nice, having so little to worry about. It must be lovely, not having to check oneself at all, with no knowledge of one’s own complicity in this oppressive power structure. It must be absolutely fucking brilliant, being able to feel like they can actually do things and achieve things because the magnitude of the problem is largely invisible.

And it makes me angry, and it makes me want for them to see what I see. It makes me want to prop open their eyes with matchsticks and scream “LOOK AT IT. FUCKING LOOK AT ALL OF THIS.” It is a miserable thing, seeing all of this, and I want them to be down on my level of misery so we can actually begin to maybe solve these problems.

I am Lucifer, literally. The light bearer, illuminating the injustices that they do not see. And it’s not just me, it is all of us who see it, all of us who have had enough and want to point it out. We shine a light in the direction of just how deep the rot goes, and just how much of a battle we have left to fight.

And of course, this is not a popular position. Nobody wants to see it. I sure as shit wish I couldn’t, but because I do, the only option left open to me is to oppose it, fight it, hope that perhaps one day it will shift and do all that I can to help this on my way.

I want you to see what I see. I know it will hurt. But you need to see it to destroy it.

Thank you, @veidtlemania, for calling me Lucifer. ❤

“I see it too”

Content note: this post discusses gaslighting, a form of emotional abuse

One of the films I find myself revisiting from time to time is Gaslight. It tells the story of a young woman–played by Ingrid Bergman–who marries a villainous man who is out to steal some jewels left in her family home. His search is noticeable, so he tries to convince the woman that she is mad so she will not notice. His evil plan almost succeeds, except it doesn’t, which is why I love this film rather than it being a horrible, miserable experience to watch.

Towards the climax, someone else sees the gaslight dim. Bergman’s acting in this scene is beautiful, going from certainty of her own madness to relief–and almost joy–at reality finally breaking through. From this point on, she is empowered to take down her villainous husband. And, my god, she does it gloriously.

The moment where someone says “I see it too” is often all too precious. I’ve written before about how differences of opinion under an unequal power structure often result in gaslighting, but the problem often goes beyond this. Microaggressions so often mean that someone’s very experience is completely trivialised if they dare draw attention to what is happening. It’s all too easy to be made to feel as though you’re imagining something when all around you people are refusing to acknowledge it.

Yesterday, I blogged about a level of biphobia which is considered acceptable in feminism. I was anxious about posting it, imagining a pile-on of people saying that it was all in my head, that there was nothing wrong with the comments made about me, that biphobia isn’t real anyway. It felt so good to hear that other people saw it too. Indeed, with the exception of literally one comment saying “I’m bisexual and this isn’t my reading”, what happened was overwhelmingly supportive. Other women like me had been feeling this too. Other women like me had been feeling this too, and thought it was only them.

Likewise, sometimes someone will put into words a problem I have experienced that I felt like I was alone in feeling. Another person saying “Yes, I see this. No, it’s not OK. No, you’re not imagining it” always fills me with a rush of relief. It gives me the strength to keep on fighting, knowing I’m not fighting something completely imaginary.

Pointing out that the gas has dimmed is a small act, but one which is deeply meaningful. We spend too much time being told that the truths we perceive are not there, and this is a profoundly draining experience. We are made to feel as though we have lost touch, when in fact it’s not us at all. It shouldn’t be a radical act, saying “I see it too”, but it is, because in doing this we are jamming the system and forming rich bonds of solidarity and sisterhood.

I pay it forward, because I have no way to pay back the gift that others have given me. I make sure I tell women that I see what they’re seeing, and I think it’s awful. I know just how precious it can be, and I want you all to know just how much I need to hear those words occasionally.

I’m bored and I’m tired

Let me tell you something about me. I let you see the flashes of rage, incandescent anger which invigorates me. It comes, it builds, it explodes like an orgasm and I collapse into momentary catharsis. It’s not a good feeling but it’s better than the alternative.

Most of the time I’m bored. I’m bored and I’m tired. It is grindingly wearing simply existing in oh so many spaces. It’s exhausting and tedious having the same fucking arguments time and time again, not managing to chip away at the immovable force.

It happens a lot in anarchist and radical spaces. The men don’t like it when you challenge their supremacy. A few weeks ago, all of this happened, and it was dismissed as nothing. Now we’re being told we should listen to some sort of TV celebrity because he made some vaguely supportive noises on some issues. From microaggressions to outright misogyny, it goes and goes and goes and it repeats and it repeats and it’s just fucking tiresome.

Social justice circles are no better. Too many feminists think they can get away with kicking down, not up and we’re expected not to challenge this because they’re making some vaguely supportive noises on some issues.

It’s a sinkhole of solidarity, that’s what it is. Unidirectional. I will pour my solidarity behind their causes and yet, do they ever have my fucking back? No. I am a trouble-maker, I am a monster, I am a liar.

There are so many privilege metaphors I could think of. I am Ginger Rogers, backwards in high heels and I want to kick off my shoes and sit down. I am being told the game is easy by someone who is playing it on easy mode and I want to throw my controller at their fucking stupid smug head. I am being attacked by an evil invisible zombie horde who are all armed with chainsaws and also invisibility lasers and I am too tired to make up a metaphor which actually makes sense.

I have goals in common with a lot of awful human beings. Why should I be expected to dash myself against the rocks repeatedly to support them while they would never do a thing for me? Why is it that I am expected to undertake so much thankless emotional labour, and if I don’t then I am the unreasonable one? Why is it me who has to do the heavy lifting?

And I know I’m better off than some. At least I’m white. At least I’m cis. At least my disability isn’t too bad. At least I have a livable income. And I try to do what I can to help with the heavy lifting in the struggles of those who get more shit than me. And for some reason, I have more energy for this than I do with the banal struggles of my own. It’s easier to direct my own limited resources into people who need my solidarity rather than the solidarity-suckers with all of their privilege.

What I need is something that I cannot foresee happening. I need for what I am fighting for to be understood. I need to be able to move freely, not to be constantly hampered by the same petty squabbles over what should be a tiny amount of ground. I need those with the capacity to take up the heavy lifting, I need support and to know that others have my back when I challenge the terrible or even just the mundane.

We need a revolution, but before that happens, we need to clean out the shit in our own back garden, because if it’s a tiresome struggle to simply exist amid fellow revolutionaries then it’s not my revolution.

So please, please can we start with the banal, before we expand to the grand? I am aware that for a lot of people, this will be unpleasant, and will require taking on a higher degree of emotional labour than they have ever tried before. But this is how so many of us live day to day, simply to negotiate spaces. It is this dynamic that needs to change, needs a complete inversion.

I know this can happen, because those who I can trust do so. There are some who fight at my side who are supportive and make the fight feel winnable. These few who have my back are unquantifiably precious.

I have seen so many people fall from sheer exhaustion, from being hounded out of spaces. Voices silenced and bodies taken out of the fight because some would rather maintain and replicate hegemonic power structures within spaces rather than challenge them. I haven’t succumbed yet, mostly because I’m fucking stubborn and I don’t want to let the bastards win. But it hurts. It hurts my soul and it hurts my body, and I’m bored and I’m tired.

Your periodic reminder that the system still fails rape survivors

Content note: this post discusses rape and rape apologism

The latest figures suggest that the police are getting increasingly bad at referring rape cases to the CPS, despite the fact reporting is on the rise. This must be absolutely devastating for the survivors who chose to report, finding this route to justice the best.

For me, the official route has never been particularly appealing. I’ve written before about why I feel that way. I feel for those who felt that reporting and the court system was what they wanted; they have been failed so much. Why have the police suddenly decided that so much isn’t worth prosecuting, after gaining the trust of more and more survivors?

The answer is, of course, rape culture. It’s worth noting that this is alive and roaring from the establishment in this situation. Take a look at these two juxtaposed headlines:

This was likely accidental, inasmuch as these things are accidental. Certainly, I don’t think anyone set out this page thinking “I want to associate rape reporting with lies”. It’s just that these associations exist in our minds, because we were all born and raised in a rape culture.

And very few of us see that everything we thought to be true about rape is wrong. So we end up here.

Their intent is not magical, and I do not trust the police, the media, the justice system to deal with rape adequately. They have too much power and too little understanding. Remember just how much they fail us.

Kill the SWP inside your head

Content note: this post discusses rape and rape apologism

Another woman has come forward with an account of her experience of sexual violence within the SWP, and how the disputes committee handled it. My heart goes out to her, as it does to all of the survivors.

Once again, I am filled with rage that this organisation with its inbuilt mechanisms for avoiding accountability for sexual violence continues to exist. I am fucking furious that people continue to be members of the SWP. Once again, I must state that I will never organise with them, or any of their front groups. This is both in accordance with the survivor’s wishes, and is also very much in accordance with my own personal feeling. I want to see them hollowed out and rotting then burned atop a pyre of their own shitty, shitty newspapers.

I will never organise with the SWP, and if you care a jot about sexual violence and its location within a broader liberation struggle, neither should you.

In a way, it is easy to see how the SWP found themselves in this position, and how easily something similar could happen within any radical circle. The ingredients are all there. We were all born and raised into a system wherein even those of us who are not cops absorbed a hell of a lot of cop lies about rape. That the survivor is possibly making it up and it requires investigation. That rape allegations will ruin a man’s life, and therefore ought to be investigated thoroughly. That there must have been some reason, some mitigating factor that made this happen: was the survivor drunk, or giving mixed signals, for example? That evidence is required to conclude the investigations. That the survivor doesn’t know best about what will begin the process of healing, it is a decision for someone else to make.

These lies and myths are ingrained. They are why so many of us will not go to the police, but they are also why so many of us would not report our rapes to our own friends.

These lies and myths need unlearning as a matter of urgency. For things to get better they can be and they must be. They need to be as forgotten as the charred skeleton of the SWP. All of this can happen again if we do not tear the rot out at the roots and let go of these rape apologist beliefs.

So kill the SWP inside your head. Identify which of these beliefs you have swallowed, and unlearn and undo them. Make sure you will not be another disputes committee. Challenge these beliefs in your community. Make sure your community is not just another SWP.

And remember the wishes of the survivor. Do not organise with rape apologists.

The police and instrumentalising survivors

Content note: this post discusses rape

On Saturday night I sat shivering outside a police station with a bag of cereal bars and a friendly smile, waiting for comrades to be released from police custody following their mass arrest for Standing While Antifascist. Police came and went from the station, and eventually a car rocked up full of plainclothes cops, one of whom I’m pretty sure I recognised from actions and so forth; a meat-headed hegemonically masculine fucker.

Unsurprisingly, comrades were vocally critical of the police, particularly as it was a day where more than 280 people had been arrested for Standing While Antifascist. The police were asked what good they thought they possibly served in their role of police officers.

And they went on the defensive with a tired old line I’ve heard a thousand times before. “Tell that to the rape victims [sic],” they said. “Tell them we’re not doing any good.”

I’m not sure why it hit me so hard this time, but I kind of shut down. Full anxiety, unable to form words bollocks. Basically, I knew I would either cry or hit one of those jowly-faced pricks, and neither option was particularly appealing as showing weakness in front of pigs is almost as bad as assaulting one directly outside a cop shop. And so my brain decided to temporarily BSoD.

And now I’m left thinking of what I should have said, what I would have said had I been able to.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have said that as a survivor myself I never wanted to go fucking near the police because who on earth would? I would not want their sausage fingers probing my recently-violated flesh, hands more suited to violence than to aid. I wouldn’t trust the sensitivity of that porcine pair in any of it.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have pointed out the numerous fuck-ups that the police as an institution have made. Losing evidence, dropping cases on purely arbitrary criteria, all adding to unnecessary additional trauma. I could have mentioned how their Sapphire unit seems to be under a near-perpetual state of reshuffle as yet another survivor is let down. I could have mentioned how they continue to pump out propaganda placing blame on the survivor rather than the perpetrator. I could have mentioned how when police officers rape, it is often treated as an internal matter, only misconduct, much like fudging some paperwork (although, often their fudged paperwork happens to help perpetrators). I could have mentioned how they deceive women into sex to collect information on them. I could have mentioned how all of these failings put together paint a picture that suggests they cannot possibly be so awful by accident. I could have asked them whether they think their all-round hideousness contributes to the fact that the vast majority of rapes go unreported.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have asked why they had decided to point at an area where they are mostly contributing to a culture of violence by their inaction, rather than their usual method of actively perpetrating violence; in particular on a night where they were holding hundreds of non-consenting people merely because they had Stood While Antifascist.

I’m thinking of how perhaps I could have said that it is utterly disgusting that they use rape survivors as human shields against criticism. We are people, not an abstract concept which helps the filth sleep at night, that allows them to pretend to themselves that they are somehow doing good. We are not a trump card to be played, nor are we a distraction from the utterly unjustifiable. It is vile to instrumentalise human beings, yet this is what the bastards do time and time again. And it is horrible to see this line trotted out, confirming suspicions that this is all the police think of survivors. A problem to be solved so they have a success story so they can deflect attention away from their own thoroughly inexcusable violences.

I said none of this, because I was scared and anxious and angry and upset through their behaviour. I said none of this because as a woman and a survivor, the presence of gigantic meaty men who position themselves as gatekeepers for justice makes me feel fundamentally unsafe. I said none of this because I do not think it would have swayed them at all: they are incapable of reason, and it was not worth my while.

Fellow feminists and survivors, never forget that the police are not our friends.

Red flags

There are some things that people say that immediately ring the alarm bells, and I know that pretty swiftly they’re going to come out with something awful. These little conversational red flags could, hypothetically, possibly lead to something not terrible, but I’ve never seen that happen in action. What follows is a non-exhaustive list of red flags, the things which set off the Shitlord Klaxon. If you say any of these things, chances are I will jump to the worst possible conclusion, and it’s your responsibility to prove me otherwise. Feel free to pop into the comments and add more of your own red flags!

“Females” TERFs and MRAs alike really love referring to women as females. In the case of the former, it’s because they love dehumanising women into just sex organs. In the case of the latter, it’s because they love dehumanising women into just sex organs. Either way, anyone who says “females” doesn’t respect women or see us as human.

“But… but the false accusation rate for rape…” Never appropriate unless the conversation is actually about the false accusation rate for rape, you derailing rape apologist dickmelon.

“I was just trying to play devil’s advocate” Don’t. Seriously. Don’t pretend you just sent me a big long diatribe as some sort of intellectual exercise.

“I’m just trying to debate this” See above. Liberation and oppression are not abstract intellectual exercises.

“I don’t have privilege because [insert something here]” Go away, be quiet, and learn how sometimes you can have privilege over someone else, even when your life sucks.

[wears V mask] Sorry, mate, but you’re probably a rape apologist with pisspoor politics.

“Explain to me exactly why this was an oppressive statement” I’m not your fucking nursemaid. Also, if this is the first thing you say upon being called out rather than an apology, you’re probably a groaning shitbagel.

“You’re being irrational. Let’s be objective” You know what’s really irrational? Clinging to myths which have persisted since time immemorial. Clinging uncritically to your favourite cherry-picked research. Thinking that research is somehow magically neutral. So stop it.

Cordial reminder: the state is not our friend

Content note: this post discusses rape and victim blaming

Look, I respect your decision to call the cops if you’re feeling threatened–it’s not a choice I’d ever make, but do what works for you. Let’s never take things further than that, though. Let us not continue to step in and ask the state to do shit for us, like porn filtering and new laws and the like. Let us remember that they are definitely not our friends.

Let’s have a look at two stories that have been in the news today. First, we have the sad tale of a woman who reported her rape to the police, was referred to the specialist unit and they ignored her. The rapist was her husband. He went on to murder their two children. The police resisted an investigation into how this could have possibly been allowed to happen. Eventually, a disciplinary happened, and the officer in charge of this… didn’t lose his job, and just got a little slap on the wrist.

Then there’s this story. A thirteen year old girl was abused by a man who owned videos depicting child abuse. The judge allowed him to walk free because the survivor was “predatory” and was “egging him on”.

Ask yourselves. How can you ever trust an institution whose arms have such a pisspoor understanding of how rape and abuse work? You might think they have the potential for change, but these things keep happening again and again. The state is a particular manifestation of patriarchy. The state is not our friend, and it never will be. It is always against us.

My feminism will stand against the state, because it has to.

When #ibelieveher goes out of the window

Content note: This post discusses rape, transphobia, apologism and the effect of not being believed when reporting one’s experiences.

We are seeing a slow shift how we think about survivors, guided by the phrase “I believe her*”. It inverts the status quo; politically siding with survivors, a statement of undoing the way things are by believing the story of a person who we are socialised into not believing. Disbelief in the accounts of survivors of rape, of domestic violence, of child abuse creates the conditions of silence necessary for such abuse to continue. Fear of not being believed is a weapon, wielded by our culture to keep our lips sealed and prevent anything being done about it. It is an attempt to create a safer space.

It is gaining momentum, this culture of believing survivors, and has been broadly adopted by many groups striving for social change. Sadly, while the ethos of believing survivors is perhaps becoming increasingly accepted, the practice itself is often not. We have seen this, for example, too often amid left-wing groups who will happily say they believe survivors until it turns out one of their mates might be a perpetrator, and cognitive somersaults begin in order to justify what is going on.

We see it too when people talk about their experiences of microaggressions. While it’s easy to believe when women talk about gendered microaggressions, those times when we are made to feel less than human by something which is often dismissed as trivial by patriarchal society, this is not extended to women experiencing intersecting oppressions. We see, for example, trans women talking of feeling invalidated and attacked by high-profile cis women to a reboant chorus of dismissal. Far from being believed in these scenarios, trans women end up being on the receiving end of the same old apologist tropes: the victim blaming, the trivialisation, the gaslighting and the flat-out denials. We see similar things happening to women of colour, to disabled women, to sex workers and queer women. Suddenly, it’s not “I believe her”. It’s a demand for a case laid out, meticulous documentation of “evidence”. If evidence is produced, it is thrown as an overreaction or not really evidence at all. Or perhaps everything is explained at the survivor having somehow “brought it on herself” by not behaving exactly according to some unwritten, unknowable, ever-shifting code.

It’s the same tune played on a different instrument. Whatever happened to “I believe her” in these situations?

As a cis white woman, sometimes I find it difficult to recognise where exactly the problem lies. I am not sensitive to some microaggressions, because I am not subjected to them day after day after fucking day. I am never on the receiving end of cissexism or racism, and, as such, sometimes I fail to recognise very veiled abuse. Which is precisely why, when a woman of colour or a trans woman says it is happening, I believe her.

As a cis white woman, it’s not my place to explain that something isn’t racist or cissexist, because I don’t get to define what these things are, and what is crossing a line and what is not. So, when I listen to a survivor, I believe her.

I feel like this is the least I can do. I’ve had experience with not being believed, I’ve had experience of being on the wrong end of victim blaming, I’ve been gaslit and dismissed when I talk about horrible things which have happened to me. I know how awful it can be, that sense that either the world will end or you will, that you’re mad and you’re wrong and you’re twisted and disgusting. I also know that feeling of the light coming in as you hear the magic words “I believe you”. Not being believed hurts like fuck, and being believed makes the pain more bearable, like you might just be able to get through it. It’s helpful when someone else sees the gas go down, too, even if they don’t quite understand it as well as you do.

And so these are the principles I use. I believe those who talk about microaggressive abuse. I believe those who talk about rape. I believe survivors. I believe her.

*This is not to say abuse does not happen to people who use male and non-binary pronouns. Of course it does, and the sense of belief ought to be extended to anyone reporting such experiences. However, this short phrase also encapsulates the gendered nature of such abuse.