TGIF! If you are planning to watch a movie tonight, why not consider putting the film linked below on the schedule. It is entertaining, fast-paced and will definitely give you plenty to think and talk about with your family and friends. I've been actively following the rise of Christian fundamentalism in North America for over a decade, but I was still surprised and shocked by some of the revelations this documentary uncovers. It isn't speculation or fear-mongering. There is minimal editorializing: nearly every word in this film comes straight from the sources' mouths - whether the source is an atheist rally attendee, a Republican legislator, a famous scientist or a Christian fundamentalist. The words of Nate Phelps, estranged son of the notorious Westboro Baptist Church patriarch Fred Phelps, are particularly moving especially considering that as he spoke on the Washington mall that chilly afternoon, he knew he was being watched, judged and hated by the people who should have been closest to him - his own family.
On March 24, 2012, thousands of atheists, humanists, rationalists and social justice activists gathered on the mall in Washington DC for a first of its kind event: a Reason Rally. Estimates of the size of the Reason Rally crowd ranged from 20,000 to 30,000 people. Individuals traveled on their own time and on their own dime from all over the country to attend, to listen to rational speakers and to sound the alarm that the principle of separation of church and state is under attack.
The American Constitution is a precious treasure, the envy of the world. The First Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines the separation between church and state, is the model for secular constitutions the world over and deserves to be imitated the world over.How sad it would be if in the birthplace of secular constitutions the very principle of secular constitutions were to be betrayed in a theocracy. But it's come close to that. Richard Dawkins, Biologist, Reason Rally speech, March 24, 2012.
Unlike the religiously-fueled, corporate-backed rally organized in the late summer of 2010 - where thousands of the approximately 85,000 attendees arrived by the busload, their travel organized and paid for by their churches - the Reason Rally was barely acknowledged by the mainstream media. Beck's scripted and stage-managed "grass roots" event enjoyed enormous media attention and prime time publicity on every major news outlet, while the Reason Rally - which actually was primarily a grass roots event - was largely ignored. Only after the event was over did a few media outlets belatedly mention that it had occurred at all. A few noted with surprise that as many as 30,000 godless Americans had gathered peacefully in one place (although they avoided actually giving publicity to any of the ideas the rally was trying to promote), while most simply stated that a rally had taken place and left it at that.
Fortunately, Scott Burdick was on hand filming, interviewing and working hard to preserve a record of this remarkable gathering. He then went home and began work on this documentary film project which would do justice not only to the rally itself, but which would help explain why this rally was so important.
American society is facing an urgently serious crisis. Radicalized Christianity is not simply a growing problem; it has been a growing problem for decades. Because of our cultural taboo against criticizing religion, Christianism has been mostly flying under the radar doing its organizing, proselytizing, infiltrating and undermining secular government and education while presenting the bland face of tradition to the world. Meanwhile, the moderate majority of Americans has been aiding and abetting religious extremism by refusing to consider that radicalization can happen at home as well as abroad.
We continued to believe that religion is mainly a beneficial part of society and that religious extremism is a very tiny fringe element of a mostly benign cultural treasure even as extreme conservatives began to trickle into higher and higher public offices. We persisted in lying to ourselves that the conservatives we voted for were fiscal conservatives who would not impose their religious beliefs on the public through the power of their elected posts. Then we stood by as these so-called fiscal conservatives began to pass bills spending wildly on corporate welfare and tax paydays for the wealthiest Americans (whose financial support they seem to universally enjoy) while restricting civil rights, limiting personal liberty (especially for women and minorities), scoffing at social justice and denying equal rights to many groups of citizens - all justified by their Christian faith.
Faith is a vice pretending to be a virtue, its lies and errors and frothy nonsense deluding us and distracting us from action. There's no salvation in wishful thinking, only inertia. Faith is the enemy of reason. It's the barren refuge of the vacuous, the fearful, the frauds, and the obstacles to accomplishment. P Z Myers, Biologist, Reason Rally speech, March 24, 2012.
The persistent belief that Christianity is a benign - even beneficial - force in society, coupled with the undeserved deference we all pay to religion, has been the key to preserving an environment in which insurgent, extremist Christian fundamentalism has flourished. We have allowed Christian conservatism to destabilize our political system, gut our social safety net and tear down the wall of separation between church and state. Acting through its political arm, the Republican party, the unholy alliance of corporatism and religion lobbied and succeeded in forcing measures through state legislatures and Congress which have increased ideological polarization in the country and widened the gap between rich and poor to a yawning chasm, while cementing in the public mind a false relationship between providing a social safety net and losing our personal liberty.
Christian conservatism has demonized anyone who dares to suggest that as a society we may have a duty to fulfill a social contract. By falsely equating the ideal of an American society where every man, woman and child can be guaranteed access to the tools to achieve a decent life with some sort of jack-booted nazi-socialist ideology, conservatives have succeeded in making social justice issues political kryptonite. They have demonized non-Christians (and especially non-theists) as the evil perpetrators of that imaginary ideology, forcing anyone hoping to run for public office to evince public religiosity lest he or she be tarred with the "godless, evil" brush, thus circumventing the 6th article of the Constitution which is supposed to protect candidates for public office from any religious test. They have stoked racial tensions and hammered on false linkages between race and crime, godlessness and evil, humanism and nihilism while denying the true link between gross inequality and all of social problems we face today. We are living through a civil cold war - brought about by the rampant social injustice and gross economic inequality which conservative policies have encouraged.
Atheists aren't angry because we're selfish, or bitter, or joyless. Atheists are angry because we have compassion. Atheists are angry because we have a sense of justice. Atheists are angry because we see millions of people being terribly harmed by religion, and our hearts go out to them, and we feel motivated to do something about it. Greta Christina, Writer, Reason Rally speech, March 24, 2012.
Christian fundamentalists despise America. They hate the ideals upon which the American republic was built. They dishonor the founding principles which protected this country from theocracy by establishing a secular government and barring any religion from wielding power over the civil rights of the people. They deny and try to rewrite the history of the revolution that sought to liberate this fledgling nation from the yoke of authoritarian religion thus enabling the closest thing to a truly free society ever known to humankind to be born. They have plotted and worked unceasingly to dismantle everything about America which made it a beacon of hope in the world - the Constitutional protections against authoritarianism - because everything America stands for conflicts with the authoritarian demands of their theocratic ambitions.
The greatest threat to the United States does not reside overseas. It lies in wait within our own borders, deep inside our most trusted communities. The most determined and implacable enemy of American liberty, justice and equality is American Christian fundamentalism. We've been sleeping with the enemy for decades.
It is time to wake up, America!
I have concluded through careful, empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought, giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think and they still love me and I've concluded after careful consideration that this person keeping score is me.Mythbuster Adam Savage, Reason Rally speech, March 24, 2012.
Here is part one of The March of Reason. I will be posting the other four parts as Friday features, but if you cannot wait to see them on this blog, the link to Scott Burdick's youtube site is below the film window. So far, only parts one and two have been uploaded there. I will be following his progress closely as he finishes the rest of the documentary and will post the remaining parts as Friday Features as they become available. Check back here to be sure not to miss them!
Sunshine, birds singing, warm spring temperatures.
Yesterday, we woke up to snow.
Today, we woke up to more snow.
Yay May.
I have decided that my humans must be superhumans.
They work, they cook, they laugh and they give me scritches
in spite of the weather. Yay May.
Superhumans!
Of course they are. They have me.
Thank gods it's FreyaDay!
FebruaryM A Y ?
Winter. Time to eat fat
and watch hockey. In the pewter mornings, the cat,
a black fur sausage with yellow
Houdini eyes, jumps up on the bed and tries Make
to get onto my head. It’s his
way of telling whether or not I’m dead.
If I’m not, he wants to be scratched; if I am
He’ll think of something. He settles it
on my chest, breathing his breath
of burped-up meat and musty sofas,
purring like a washboard. Some other tomcat,
not yet a capon, has been spraying our front door, be
declaring war. It’s all about sex and territory,
which are what will finish us off
in the long run. Some cat owners around here
should snip a few testicles. If we wise
hominids were sensible, we’d do that too,
or eat our young, like sharks. Spring!
But it’s love that does us in. Over and over
again, He shoots, he scores! and famine
crouches in the bedsheets, ambushing the pulsing
eiderdown, and the windchill factor hits
thirty below, and pollution pours
out of our chimneys to keep us warm.
February, month of despair,
with a skewered heart in the centre.
I think dire thoughts, and lust for French fries
with a splash of vinegar.
Cat, enough of your greedy whining
and your small pink bumhole.
Off my face! You’re the life principle,
more or less, so get going
on a little optimism around here.
Get rid of death. Celebrate increase. Make it be spring.
Religious people in the USA will be pushing the National Day of Prayer into your face all day today. Yes, there has actually been a day mandated by Congress for the establishment of (Christian) prayer in nearly every government legislature, offices, schools and businesses throughout the land because, you know, the prioritizing of religious privilege had not been quite blatant enough before. There is another designation for today - the Day of Reason - but unlike the National Day of Prayer, it hasn't been widely publicized on national media or trumpeted proudly by our elected representatives.
There have been a few notable exceptions to the general bowing and scraping before the intimidation of religious power and a couple of mayors even proclaimed a Day of Reason to balance the national day of prayer. Most elected officials, however, refused to risk their careers by daring to champion the foundational principle upon which this country was built - the recognition that the establishment of authoritarian religion as a basis for any society leads to discrimination, injustice and eventually violence and brutal oppression. Instead, nearly all tugged their virtual forelocks, bowed their heads and murmured spells and incantations to one of the skygods in a show of obsequious respect for the dominant, hypervigilant, easily-offended, dangerously powerful Christian evangelical movement.
Those politicians - like non-Christians and non-believers everywhere - recognise the terrible truth. Religious privilege is so total, so oppressive and so vicious that to even suggest that forcing it on the population in the form of faith-based laws and "social services" might cause real harm to some citizens while reducing every citizen's liberty results in hysterical blowback. Fox "news" wasted no time this morning drawing an imaginary line spuriously connecting the Day of Reason to the Holocaust.
Oh, those silly, angry atheists!
Even the mildest criticism of religion unleashes the vitriolic pushback from religionists - usually in the form of mockery (he's an "atheist" angry at God he claims doesn't exist! harhar), followed by the inevitable comparisons between non-believers and monsters of history*. Hyperbolic language like that is not harmless. That kind of demonization of people who do not share the dominant faith in any society has paved the way for progroms, Inquisitions, burnings, genocides and brutal persecution for all of human history. Unbelievers know it and believers know it, too. They deploy this type of language as both a threat and a promise: Shut up and submit to our god-given authority or you will be targeted for the punishment that we believe your kind of evil deserves.
The religious right has been working tirelessly for several decades to seize the kind of absolute political, economic and social power which they have been imperfectly prevented from grasping since the United States of America was formed, largely thanks to the wisdom of the founding fathers who inserted the Establishment clause into the Constitution. But, theocrats are patient. After the social revolutions in the 1960's they experienced a resurgence in energy and an implacable determination to take over the country once and for all, rolling back the clock on civil rights (especially women's rights). The first and most important step in their strategy was to promote the false idea that "secularism" is a religion like Christianity - although naturally secularism is a godless (and therefore evil) religious cult. By drawing a false parallel between "faith" and "godless secularism", they laid the groundwork to polarize society into "good" and "bad" camps, where the price of accepting anything outside of religion as possibly good for society was to be put in the "bad" camp. And those in the "bad" camp, being compared to Hitler and all, might just be righteously punished at some point, amirite?
Just for the record...
Seriously, if you truly believe that a group in your community is really just like the Nazis, then isn't it your duty to neutralize them to prevent them from subjecting innocent people to atrocities? Isn't that the reasoning behind the notion of "just war"? In fact, this is the very rationale behind the murders of health workers who provide abortion services. The far right has moved on to demonizing atheists, humanists and non-Christians of every religious stripe, including people who may think they are Christians but who fail to pass the litmus test of the religious right (many are just not true Christians, don't you know). Religious fundamentalists try to attack all of these people under the umbrella of hated secularism but they fail to realize that secularism is favored by many moderate religionists since secularism is, you know, NOT a religion but a philosophy of how best to ensure a just and free society. Hence, the 'not a true Christian' label is applied followed by increasingly pointed attacks on moderate Christians who are just not Christian enough.
In the past decade, as the destructive power of the Christian theocratic movement finally began to be so obvious that even religious moderates could not fail to notice it, a group of atheists began to push back against religious hegemony. Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins have all written famous (and infamous) books on the dangers of handing unfettered power over to religious believers. Their work started a movement which has grown slowly but surely - containing both non-theists and theists who share a grave concern for the future of this country if theocrats continue to ride the wave of unquestioned religious privilege to the highest seats of political power.
Last year, Richard Dawkins teamed up with another outspoken atheist - physicist Lawrence Krauss - to make a movie about this movement and the vitally important work it is trying to do. The movie's premiere this week in Toronto quickly brought out the usual attacks and insinuations that without religion, human beings are reduced to hopeless nihilism:
Here is the official trailer for The Unbelievers. You need to see this movie!
One final word. It's been true for all of history and is still true today. It doesn't matter what flavor of religion they practice, when they carry their religious beliefs to their logical conclusion, true believers are literally capable of anything:
*I refuse to link to any of the sites which demonize rational, reasonable human beings in this manner, but a simple google search for "evil, atheists" should reveal as much as you need to see to understand that this is a real problem.
''It's really a sense of power that comes from specialness ... anyone who finds himself at the center of the world they're in has a sense of impunity.''
Ken Dryden, lawyer and Hall of Fame goalie for the Montreal Canadiens.
It's the last day of April, the month which has been claimed by several causes to promote awareness. One of those topics which deserves raised awareness is the frightening persistence of sexual assault in society. I published the article below on Secular Woman earlier this month:
In a down-on-its-luck eastern Ohio town, the local high school's star football players were powerful people. As the town's pride and joy - its hope for the future - the young men in Steubenville enjoyed all the privileges of small town princelings, just like millions of young men in millions of small towns all over the world. One of the privileges of that power was that the football players had their "pick" of the town's unattached girls. For star athletes, the privilege of first pick of the most desirable girls is like selecting ripe melons at Kroger. The athlete gets to choose or discard, never the girl.
The moment that a person - usually a female-bodied person - becomes the object of a more powerful person's desire (whether for sex or some desire to exert control), her humanity ceases to matter. She becomes, literally, a thing - "currency" that the more powerful person feels entitled to spend. Human culture is patriarchal: heterosexual men are the only persons whose full humanity is never questioned, while women - and men who are suspected by other men of not being the right kind of heterosexual man - are treated by every society on earth as less than fully human. Their existence and worth is measured almost exclusively within the context of their relationships with and effect upon heterosexual men. Heterosexual men are persons whose living, thinking and taking action defines who they are, while women are men's accessories: their mothers, their girlfriends, the mothers of their children. It is the thing that they are to men which defines what women are.
Pick a girl melon, any melon girl,
young football princelings!
The young woman who was carted from party to party in Steubenville that August night was little more than a ripe melon - or a piece of meat - to those football players. They treated her like a plaything as if there was no human being inside that unconscious body because, on a deeply primitive level, for some young men there is no human being inside a female body. And when she somehow gathered the courage to press charges against the young men who raped her, she became the thing which her town raged could unfairly (!) ruin their princelings' lives. Having also grown up swimming in the rape culture that still permeates nearly every human society, the rape victim feared she would be blamed and vilified for reporting the crime or pressing charges and she was right. She had to be persuaded to go forward with the case, but she finally did - courageously, and in the face of vicious condemnation from her former friends and neighbors. (trigger warning for sexual assault) The girl was completely naked on the floor, laying motionless on her side, not far from where she'd just puked out of the side of her mouth. By her side was one of his teammates, Trent Mays, who Westlake testified was fully exposed and smacking his penis on the girl's hip. Laying behind her was another player, Ma'lik Richmond, whom Westlake testified he saw penetrating the girl with two fingers, "halfway to the knuckle." "It wasn't what I expected to see," Westlake testified Friday at the Jefferson County Justice Center here in this old Eastern Ohio mill town, where Mays and Richmond stand trial for rape. "I wasn't really sure what to think." Why didn't you stop it, special prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter asked? "Well," Westlake said, "it wasn't violent. I didn't know exactly what rape was. I always pictured it as forcing yourself on someone." Let's ignore the obvious point that you don't need to "force" yourself on a girl who is incapacitated by alcohol. Instead, let's simply ask what did Evan Westlake do? "I said my goodbyes," he testified. Goodbyes? And what exactly was the response from Mays and Richmond after having someone walk in on them in the middle of that moment – even if, as the defense is arguing, it actually was consensual? "They said, 'I'll see you Monday at football,' " Westlake said. Prosecutors may get conviction in Steubenville rape trial, but it will come at a cost. Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports, March 16, 2013.
How is it possible that a modern, educated teenager does not know what rape is? If inserting objects and body parts into the body of an unconscious person is not "forcing yourself on someone", then what is it? How could it be that in a society which claims to abhor rape, a young man stood a few feet away while a rape was being committed, felt surprised but apparently undisturbed by what he was witnessing, then casually "said his good-nights" and walked away. He walked away without the slightest sense that a crime was being committed. The sight of an unconscious girl being casually violated by two young men aroused not a scintilla of basic human compassion in him. None at all. Three football teammates casually said, "see you Monday at football" while two of them were still raping an unconscious, vomit-spattered, urine-soaked girl and Evan Westlake was not sure what to think! How could he not know what to think about that?
One has to wonder: would Evan Westlake have known what to think had the unconscious victim been one of his male teammates? If his buddies casually said "good-night" to him as they shoved foreign objects and body parts into the anus and mouth of an unconscious 16-year-old boy lying naked on the floor right in front of him, would that have seemed a little more surprising to him? Disturbing, even? Would the nature of the criminal behavior have suddenly been a little easier to discern?
Although most people strongly protest that they would never condone rape, the reality is that most people actually do condone rape. Like Evan Westlake, they condone rape because they believe that most kinds of forced sex arenot really rapeas long as the recipient of the forced sex is female-bodied. Most people think that opportunistic or coerced sex, which is the modus operandi in the majority of sexual assaults, is normal, understandable or justifiable thanks to a culture which normalizes and excuses men who rape women.There may be a general rueful admission that "taking advantage" of a drunk woman or pressuring a date into sex may not exactly be polite, or the smoothest, coolest way to operate, but it is still after all just a guy doing what comes naturally when he wants something and that thing is apparently right there for the taking. If the object of his interest is incapacitated after drinking too much, her failure to say "no" can be taken for a "yes"- at his discretion. If the thing he wants is not 100% clear about her refusal (at least in his own mind - remember boys: no means maybe and maybe means yes!), then a guy feels justified in assuming that he has her consent and society backs him up on that. In essence, society hands over a woman's 'right to consent' to men, who are permitted - even encouraged - to apply it according to their own interpretation of reality, however influenced that may be by anger, alcohol or unreciprocated sexual arousal.
Consider the following rape apologia:
"What did she expect to happen when she went out dressed like that?"
"What did she expect would happen?" reasonable people ask, "If she didn't want to have sex, she ought not to have sent the wrong signal by getting drunk. If she has regrets in the morning, it was her own stupid fault."
"If she didn't say "No', then she probably meant "Yes". She wasn't clear! How is a guy supposed to know, anyway?"
"Why should some poor man go to jail because of some lying slut who only got what she was asking for?"
"If something happened that she didn't really want, then she ought to have thought of that before going on that date/accepting that drink/asking him in for coffee/smiling and flirting/trying to enjoy full rights to free citizenship while being female..." - pick any scenario because they all lead to forced sex somewhere every day.
And of course, the ever-popular "If men don't pursue women aggressively, the human race will go extinct!" which both excuses male aggression and denies normal, healthy female sexuality in one astonishing stroke.
These are common excuses given after a sexual assault. Some rapists may admit that it was not quite consensual sex, but they vehemently deny that it was rape. It does not matter if the woman did not want sex. Too many men feel that if the man wants sex - if he has interpreted anything about the woman from her style of dress to her behavior as some sort of sexual invitation - then he is entitled to force sex on her. In his mind, it is not forcing sex, though; he has been encouraged by rape culture to tell himself that she "asked" for it (even if she actually said "no"; even if the "invitation" was all in his own imagination).
With very rare exceptions, notquite consensual sex is seen as the inevitable result of mistakes made by women (leading men on, dressing like sluts, asking for it, needing to be put in their place, expecting to enjoy the freedom to go places and do things that men enjoy, etc) and not as rape committed by a man. When made by a very young girl or teenager (who is still assumed to be a virgin), these "mistakes" are considered foolish but innocently regrettable (though the sexual assault is still the girl's own fault). In the case of non-virgin women, the use of the word "mistakes" is a transparently insincere way of describing what is clearly believed by the culture to be calculated, provocative behavior on the part of a lying female who later regrets her own bad behavior but who inexplicably still wants to draw attention to it by accusing an innocent man of rape.
She must have led him on - how was he to know she only wanted to enjoy a flirtatious evening and then go home alone? Obviously, she didn't - she just changed her mind after the fact!
Having internalized these attitudes thanks to the pervasive rape culture, most people are uncomfortable labeling such incidents "rapes". It strikes people as somehow unfair to call a man who merely uses a woman's body without her explicit consent a rapist. Most of the time, people agree, women only get what they deserve!
Then, there is the myth which goes something like this: the only real rapists are monsters. When they are not leaping out of bushes to attack a woman with a weapon, rapist monters are hanging out at bars creepily stalking stupid women. Even so, it isn't a crime to be a creepy guy - innocent nice guys are sometimes called creepy and just think of that slippery slope! If women weren't so stupid, they would not provoke real creeps to stalk and/or attack them! But, the handsome, normal guy who won't take "no" for an answer after a date is nothing like those monstrous rapists. Maybe he paid for a nice dinner date and she's been smiling at him all night - so he can't be blamed for having expectations! and anyway his making a move is a natural red-blooded male reaction to female provocation. People ought to give him the benefit of the doubt because he is such a nice guy but they should have a healthy skepticism about the honesty of the girl or woman. A man should be thought innocent until proven guilty; a woman should be thought a liar until she proves she is telling the truth. Reasonable people should always be extremely cautious about casting doubt on a person's character - it could haunt him for life! - so trashing a woman's reputation instead is the only reasonable response to a rape accusation. The accused man is a person - a fully human being whose life could be ruined by the accusation that he is a rapist monster! - the accuser is merely a woman - just a female, and everyone knows how they lie...the question of whether her life might be ruined by whatever transpired is hardly worth asking. Females are, after all, made to be used by men, so why are feminists making such a big deal over this?
Another popular justification for rape apologia is the pretended even-handedness of criticizing young men for walking alone in unsafe places or getting drunk in situations where they might be assaulted and criticizing young women for walking alone in unsafe places (just about anywhere away from male protectors - and even then not so much, but that is for another post) or getting drunk in situations where they might be assaulted.
"Holding a girl responsible for her own stupidity is not victim-blaming! I'd criticize a guy, too, if he stupidly put himself in danger by getting drunk with the wrong crowd or hanging out on the dodgy side of town!"
But here is where this false equivalency breaks down: even if we accept the claim that society really does accuse young men of bringing crime on themselves because of their appearance or their behavior (something so rare that even a determined google search can find little evidence of it - with the notable exception of too many cases which are suspiciously limited to young men of color or other marginalized groups, but again, that's another post in itself), the difference is that no one ever suggests that because of a male victim's stupidity, his attackers should not be held accountable for their crimes.
In no other assault scenarios are victims routinely blamed for inciting envy, fear, rage, a desire to hurt or control or any other emotion in their attackers. Only when girls or women are attacked - and in particular when they are sexually assaulted - is the onus for the crime placed upon the victim. It is not even sexual assault itself that is the exception but specifically sexual assaultagainst women and girls which is reserved for this special 'victim-caused' category. Rapes of boys and men are not generally dismissed as "he was asking for it". One only has to point to the recent public hue and cry over the sexual crimes committed by priests in the Catholic Church to see that this is true.
The rape of a child or teenager - or indeed any person who is in a subordinate position to an authority figure - is unconscionable and deserves to be prosecuted vigorously. However, the deliberately vague term "child rape" that is always used to describe these clerical crimes obscures the fact that most of those victims were not just "children" but specifically underage boys. The stark truth is that it is because the majority of these crimes were committed against boys and young men that society is as horrified as it is by them, and it is because this fact is obfuscated by the coy usage of "child" instead of "boy" that society can continue to pretend that it treats all rapes - of both male and female victims - as equally terrible. The truth, however, is that similar abuses have been visited upon girls and women in far greater numbers for all of human history - at least 1 in 4 girls and women are raped in their lifetime by clerics, teachers, family members, neighbors, boyfriends, employers, husbands and sometimes even strangers - but this ugly feminine reality has never elicited universal societal condemnation like the outrage over the recently uncovered sexual abuse of boys by priests. On the contrary, rape, forced pregnancy, assault and battery of girls and women has been protected all over the world for most of human history by patriarchal social mores and laws, often justified by 'respect" for religious freedom. Rape and male oppression is accepted as the way things are for women. Boys and men, on the other hand, are never supposed to be the targets of this kind of abuse. When it happens, it is considered an intolerable blight in society.
In first world countries, most women gained citizenship, the right to vote and legal recognition of their human rights over the last century. Nevertheless, most societies still do not accept that the majority of rape claims by women are really rapes. The hyper-vigilance over "false accusations" is not because assaults have not occurred, but because society denies that those alleged sexual assaults are equivalent to 'forcible rape'. There is always a justification, always an excuse for why it was understandable for that man to force that woman into a sexual act.
The Rape Culture that pervades all human societies ensures that women are still considered less than fully human - even in the first world - so that abuse of their autonomy and consent is tolerated and condoned even by the justice system. By and large, the reality in most societies is that while there may be laws on the books criminalizing rape, society actually refuses to recognize most forms of sexual assault on women as legitimate rape, and in practice most societies regard nearly all women as unrapable. When the fault lies with the alleged victim, there can have been no crime committed. Rape culture reinforces the idea that women, by their very existence, are always sexually tempting men, always at fault, always to blame. Women make men force sex on them, so it is never rape.
In many parts of the world, rape is accepted as an everyday occurrence, and even a male prerogative. In 1991, at a coed boarding school in Kenya, seventy-one girls were raped by their male classmates, and nineteen died in the ensuing panic. The deputy principal reassured the public: "The boys never meant any harm against the girls. They just wanted to rape."Michael Parenti, "The Global Rape Culture", The Culture Struggle, 2005.
Rape culture serves up a double whammy to women - it not only dismisses the assault of women and girls as justifiable based upon the feelings of their attackers, but it also holds the victims responsible for those feelings. Young men raised in rape culture are accustomed to judging the morality of their behavior toward women according to their own emotions and desires - how they feel around a woman justifies their behavior toward her - and at the same time they are encouraged by rape culture to hold women responsible for how they, men, feel. Rape culture tells men that they are entitled to satisfy their own urges at a woman's expense. Many, if not most, men who assault women believe that what they feel has been deliberately caused by the women they target and therefore the women are responsible for whatever "happens". Surprisingly frequently, especially if charges are laid against him, a rapist will actually claim (and actually believe) that he is the victim in the situation. Plenty of evidence supports the contention that society - steeped in rape culture misogyny - usually agrees with him.
Rape Culture is an environment in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is normalized and excused in the media and popular culture. Rape culture is perpetuated through the use of misogynistic language, the objectification of women’s bodies, and the glamorization of sexual violence, thereby creating a society that disregards women’s rights and safety. Rape Culture affects every woman. The rape of one woman is a degradation, terror, and limitation to all women. Most women and girls limit their behavior because of the existence of rape. Most women and girls live in fear of rape. Men, in general, do not. That’s how rape functions as a powerful means by which the whole female population is held in a subordinate position to the whole male population, even though many men don’t rape, and many women are never victims of rape. This cycle of fear is the legacy of Rape Culture.(Rape Culture, Marshall University Women's Center.)
Many women unwittingly support rape culture by taking comfort in the mistaken belief that rape only happens to a certain kind of woman and they themselves can avoid it by living properly (whatever they think that means). What they fail to realize is that by promulgating rape myths, they actually strengthen the rape culture that makes them more likely to be victimized. Rape myths provide cover for those who actually commit the majority of rapes: seemingly ordinary men who also believe the myths of rape culture and who thus believe that in many situations the consent of a woman can be considered implicit based upon how he interprets her behavior. If he feels that what she is wearing or where she is or how much she has drunk or how much she has flirted is an invitation to him, then it is an invitation to him regardless of whether the woman ever had any thought of issuing an invitation. What she thinks or feels simply does not matter because the possibility that she actually has real thoughts and honest feelings like he - a fully human person - does, simply does not exist. Many rapists have so thoroughly absorbed the poison of rape culture that they truly believe that they are entitled to take what they tell themselves women are offering and therefore whatever they have done, it is not rape.
Thanks to the warped view that rape culture propagates of what is normal sex, many men feel genuinely threatened by the idea that any non-consensual sex might be called 'rape'. Most of these very concerned men consider themselves nice guys but some are uncomfortably aware that they may have skated over the consent line at times. Defensively, they insist that there are grey areas in the mating landscape.
Women are hard to read! Sometimes 'maybe' can mean 'yes', not "no" Why should any red-blooded man accept that ambivalence is a form of "no" and be forced to hope lamely that on another occasion she will give enthusiastic consent?Why should women get to have the upper hand in sexual matters?
They argue that parsing the meaning of a woman's "It's getting late", "I'd like to go home now" or "It's not a good time" is a complex problem and that consent is a very vexing and elusive concept.
Women jerk men around! Why would she say 'maybe' if she means 'no'? Maybe 'maybe' means 'yes'! Why shouldn't a guy interpret her ambivalence as 'yes'? Everyone knows women want to be swept away. But if she doesn't want that, then she should be clear about it. Who can blame a guy for pressing the issue? If he doesn't press, he might never have sex!
They worry that to criminalize all nonconsensual sex is a slippery slope which could unfairly bring innocent men down with the (very, very few!) guilty ones.
Consent can be very ambiguous and difficult to determine! When she accepted the date/flirted/drank too much, who can blame a guy for thinking she was giving tacit consent to more? How dare she cry rape in the morning just because she regrets her slutty behavior of the night before!
Ignoring for now the constant underlying thread of misogyny that runs through all rape apologia (which can be boiled down to: women lie, they lie constantly and they enjoy lying just to hurt an innocent man for the evil pleasure of it), there is an interesting inconsistencyhighlighted by this claim that sexual consent is difficult to decipher.
At least one study has shown that human beings are perfectly capable of recognizing both verbal and non-verbal refusals, even when the word "No" is not used at all. In every other sphere of human interaction, human signals for 'no' - for refusal - are widely understood by both men and women and yet men who rape persist in special pleading that it is difficult to be sure in just one specific situation: when a woman is saying 'No' to sex. Rapists prefer the emphasis to be on whether a woman said "No" clearly enough because they know that there will be wiggle room for them to pretend that most forms of verbal and nonverbal "no" secretly mean "yes" when it comes to female sexual responses and, unfortunately, society allows them to make - and win - that argument.
It really is very simple.
"Did she say 'yes'? "No." "Then your answer was 'No'." "But she said, 'Maybe'!" "But, did she say 'yes'?" "No." "Then your answer was 'No'." "But she seemed like she was not sure, maybe she wanted to consent!" "Did she say 'Yes'?" "No." "Then your answer was - undeniably, unambiguously - 'No'."
In spite of the best efforts of women's groups working to reduce sexual assault, no large-scale social movement to accept a working definition of consent such as "Only an unequivocal 'Yes' means 'Yes'" has been forthcoming. Many men - who definitely do not see themselves as rapists - prefer the pliable, male-interpreted "No" because it would be much harder for those Nice Guys to kid themselves about their own opportunistic behavior - and harder for society to excuse them, too - if the only acceptable green light for sex was an unequivocal "yes". "'No' means 'No'" (except when Nice Guys™ think it means 'Yes' to them) has been massaged by the rape culture to suggest the possibility of ambiguity and that leaves the door open for not-so-nice-guys to cash in on the sexual aggressiveness of a few men.
Thanks to the fact that women live in fear of sexual assault, less sexually aggressive men can still benefit from the rape culture which provides cover for more blatant rapists. By pretending to be confused by "mixed signals", a so-called Nice Guy can pressure a woman into sex she doesn't want by telling her that she made him think she had promised him something. More aggressive males pave the way for the Nice Guys because a woman's fear of male anger if she refuses to honor this bogus "promise" seals the deal. By shaming women for being reluctant to trust that their intentions are honorable (even when they are not), Nice Guys often succeed in coercing women to engage in unwanted sex. By accusing women of teasing because they have interpreted a sexual invitation from a little light-hearted flirting, Nice Guys can and do frighten women into agreeing to unwanted sex because women have learned to fear the consequences of being labeled a "tease" (a "tease" can either put out what she has been "promising", or have it taken from her forcibly, which society will judge she deserves). Nice Guys never do anything overtly aggressive, but they trade on the fear of male aggressiveness to manipulate and coerce women into unwanted sex. In other words, Nice Guys do rape, too.
The patriarchal culture which teaches men to view women as simultaneously both lying temptresses and sexually submissive subordinates ensures that self-aware rapists know they need not fear any negative social consequences as they continue to victimize women and girls. It will always be the woman's fault. Meanwhile the self-deluding "nice guys" observe society's acceptance and normalization of male aggression toward females, admire what they see not as rape but as other mens' sexual conquests and regard their own sexual opportunism as perfectly normal and reasonable within that context. This is the reason why many men sincerely believe that false rape accusations are a real thing. If they - normal, nice guys! - have felt and done these things (or think it's OK to do these things), then it cannot be rape! Only monsters commit rape and these nice guys are not monsters!
The Steubenville case, the Rehtaeh Parsons case, the UCLA water polo player case and countless other sexual assault cases, both reported and unreported, starkly illustrate how rape culture ensures that many young men and women really do not believe that forcing sex on a woman without her consent is always rape, especially if she was initially flirting or drinking at a party or has had sex before. A rape victim's recovery from sexual violation is horrendous enough, but rape culture ensures that the society which is supposed to protect her will victimize her again through victim-blaming, slut-shaming, sympathy for the perpetrator and even erasing the victim from discussion of the impact of the crime which is viewed - like almost everything else in patriarchal culture - not from the female victim's perspective but from the male's. Isn't it time that we took concrete, effective steps to dismantle Rape Culture once and for all? We've tried the ridiculously ineffective tactic of urging women not to get themselves raped. Perhaps, at long last, we can begin to urge men not to rape.
The first step is to raise young men who understand and respect that women are human beings whose feelings and wishes are as important as mens'. A man's feeling of entitlement to use a woman's body because he felt that she was offering it does not trump her feelings or her right to refuse consent or even to withdraw consent at any time if she becomes uncomfortable with the man. We need to change the sad reality that, because of our rape culture, men's sense of superior entitlement is protected at the expense of women's humanity. His feelings are of paramount importance, while it is often barely acknowledged that she has any legitimate feelings at all. She is a thing that causes uncomfortable feelings in a man. When rape happens it is deemed justifiable by society because of however the man felt (he felt he was led on, he misunderstood her "mixed signals", he felt she had provoked him, etc) while the woman is held responsible both for whatever he was feeling and for the consequences when he decided not to exercise any self-control over those feelings.
Obviously, rape culture creates a win-win situation for would-be rapists. Unfortunately, it also creates an environment where the dehumanization of women is so normalized that even some nice, decent men ultimately perceive virtually every woman as "unrapable" in most contexts. In other words, because of the constant stream of misogynist rape apologia in our culture, too many boys and men unconsciously form the belief that almost nothing that they can do to a woman can ever be called rape - even though they still honestly believe that they consider 'real rape' a heinous crime.
The second step is to make men understand that the behavior that many of them do not consider "rapey" is, in fact, rape. That the women whom some men tell themselves were "asking for it" or whose consent some men believe they can assume because of how they, men, are feeling are not there simply for them to take. That when a man decides that because a woman has put herself in one situation willingly (a party, date or whatever) therefore it is perfectly reasonable for him to presume she has given her consent for anything else he expects the evening to lead to - even if he has to push it a little - that is rape.
Below is an ad aired in the UK which addresses Rape Culture in a gut-wrenching, all-too-common scenario: a party, drinking, the initial trust of the young woman, the expectations of the young man, and the eventual rape. This ad underlines the truth that rape occurs whenever one person coerces another person into sexual activity against the second person's wishes. The only thing that will prevent rape is if rapists stop raping.
Teaching men how not to rape: Hey, it's so crazy, it just might work!
Indeed, it is the only thing that will work.
TRIGGER WARNING! Please be aware that this ad portrays a common scenario where a rape occurs, and though very well-done, it may be painfully triggering to some viewers.
For many NiftyReaders (not to mention, yours truly), it's been an almost endless winter. Some of us are contending with raw, wet, cold days and some are even still dealing with snow. The garden looks so sad, like it's mid-January not nearing the end of April.
I toyed with the idea of reposting the wonderful remix The Garden of Your Mind featuring wonderful classic video of Mr. (Fred) Rogers, but then I found another wonderful offering that I think makes the perfect Thorsday Tonic for the weary reader.
This is a remix that features another TV personality, Bob Ross, the beloved PBS artist who gently invited a generation of viewers to explore their inner artist. The soft-spoken painter honed his craft of quick painting while in the Air Force. During that period in his life, Ross promised himself that if he ever got out of the military, he would never yell or scream again - and by all accounts he kept that promise.
This autotune captures the essence of a gentle man and an artist, and I think it inspires any kind of creativity. Whether you dream of painting, writing or making music - or any other creative endeavor from dreaming up new mathematical theorems to designing cool toys - I think Bob's words are meant for you: "Believe that you can do it...'cause you can do it."
I believe...I believe...
every day's a good day when you paint.
I believe...I believe...
it'll bring a lot of good thoughts to your heart.
Let's build a happy little cloud.
Let's build some happy little trees.
There are no limits here.
You start out by believing here.
You can almost paint with anything;
all you have to do is practice.
There are no limits here.
You start by believing here.
This is your world...you're the creator.
Find freedom on this canvas.
Believe that you can do it...'cause you can do it.
Give it a little touch; give it a little push,
make love to the canvas
give it a little touch; give it a little push,
caress it very gently,
grab it, lift it, fluff it,
you can go on and on and on,
back and forth, back and forth,
layer after layer after layer.
Relax. Let it flow.
Think like water.
Relax. Let it flow.
You can go on and on and on.
We don't make mistakes,
we just have happy accidents.
You can do anything that you want to do.
Total power.
Sing along. Have a good time.
This is your world. You're the creator.
Find freedom on this canvas.
Believe that you can do it...'cause you can do it.
To mark this Day of Silence, Cyndi Lauper's anthem True Colors
True Colors
You with the sad eyes
Don't be discouraged
Oh, I realize
It's hard to take courage
In a world full of people
You can lose sight of it all
And the darkness inside you
Can make you feel so small
But I see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors
Are beautiful like a rainbow
Show me a smile then,
Don't be unhappy
Can't remember when
I last saw you laughing
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
And I'll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
Your true colors
Are beautiful like a rainbow
(Can't remember when I last saw you laughing)
If this world makes you crazy
And you've taken all you can bear
You call me up
Because you know I'll be there
And I'll see your true colors
Shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors
True colors are shining through
I see your true colors
And that's why I love you
So don't be afraid to let them show
Your true colors
True colors
Are beautiful like a rainbow
I have concluded through careful, empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought, giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think and they still love me and I've concluded after careful consideration that this person keeping score is me. Mythbuster Adam Savage, Reason Rally speech, March 24, 2012.
