Have you all finished House of Cards yet? BECAUSE I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT IT. So it may or may not be the truth that I watched the entire second season in 3 days #noshame. So I don't want to give away too many spoilers, but the thing with Frank, Meechum, and Claire? Did not see that coming. Also, I have to talk about the rape sub-plot. Things I like about it:
It brings sexual assault (especially sexual assault in the military) front and center in one of the biggest shows right now.
Claire realizes how she can use her and Frank's influence for good and creates a coalition to get legislation passed for better protections for victims in the military.
Things I didn't like so much about it:
When Claire tells Frank about it in the bathroom, she ends up comforting him. Really, bro?
She uses the rape as an excuse for abortion. I understand she's a public figure and so is held up to strict public scrutiny, but women shouldn't have to give an excuse to get an abortion other than, "Hey, I can't really have a baby right now." Period. I believe in abortion in cases of rape. I also believe in abortion in non-rape cases. It's sad that she has to hide behind rape to explain to the public why. And still she's shamed for it.
It's VagMo Season! For the fourth year, I'm in Drake's VagMos (aka Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues)! And this year, I talked the group into making IowaCASA the beneficiaries. WOOT WOOT. Plus, I'm starting Des Moines' first community VagMo and I'm hoping to make it mostly women of color and maybe even have several monologues in different languages. We've identified that there's a huge need for a space for women of color to express their feminism and I hope that this helps that. Yay!
Sherlock
So, I'm late to the game here, I know. Sherlock has been all over tumblr for years and I've just been like, ummmkay...? But after I finished binge-watching HOC I was searching Netflix forlornly trying to find something to fill the gap in my soul, and decided to give Sherlock a try. It was a weird transition from HOC to Sherlock, but gaaaaaaah *FANGIRL MOMENT* it's good. Yea, it's good. What I'm most excited about? That I can now partake in all of the tumblr Sherlock madness.
The Butler (TW-Again, sorry)
So my mom was in town this past weekend and we Redboxed The Butler. Heard of it? It came out a few months ago and got nominated for like, a ton of awards. I've been wanting to see it, so Ma and I grabbed it on our way home. So no one told me that there's a rape scene within the first 5 minutes. I wasn't really liking that. So yea, just warning ya'll about that. But overall, the movie was powerful. It explored racism, classism, sexism, the Civil Rights Movement, Black Panthers, Freedom Riders, Vietnam, national politics, education and more.
Plus, I had no idea all the big names in it. First of all, Forest Whitaker, Oprah Winfrey and David
Oyelowo are the three main characters. Add to that Mariah Carey, Jane Fonda, Yaya DaCosta (ANTM, anyone?), Lenny Kravitz, Alan Rickman (another fangirl moment when he first came on screen), James Marsden, Terrance Howard, even fucking Robin Williams. Who knew Lee Daniels could get such a kick ass cast?
So last week, a Lieutenant General Franklin was like, "Hey Air Force Pilot, so I know that you were convicted of aggravated sexual assault last November, but I'm gonna like ignore that and overturn the conviction using something called 'convening authority' and like, let you go free, cus I like, have the power to do that, or something."
A spokesperson for Franklinfuck said he "declined to approve the conviction because he
did not think that there was enough evidence to say that he was guilty.” Even though 4 service-members convicted him...
This (rightfully) outraged some peeps in Congress. Senator McCaskill (D-MO) said:
"The military needs to understand that this could be a tipping
point. I question whether, after this incident, there's any chance a
woman assaulted in that unit would ever say a word. ... There's a
culture issue that's going to have to be addressed here. And what this
decision did - all it did was underline and put an exclamation point
behind the notion that if you are sexually assaulted in the military -
good luck."
In a letter to the Air Force Secretary and chief of staff
she said:
"His decision shows ignorance, at best, and malfeasance, at
worst. I strongly urge you to undertake an immediate review of his
conduct and consider removing him from his leadership position."
Ha. Haha. Right. Like that's ever gonna happen.
Military justice for rape victims-you're doing it wrong.
So a few weeks back, I watched the award-winning documentary The Invisible War on Netflix. If you haven't watched it, you should. If you're in the military, you should watch it. If you're not in the military, you should watch it. Here's the trailer:
So I watched it and was infuriated and heartbroken. So I took to Facebook:
So I realize that I just called the military broken. That's like not a little thing. But hey, guess what! RAPE IS NOT A LITTLE THING. So then a girl in my sorority commented:
To which I responded:
The thing is, when I (and others) post stuff like this, immediately someone comments about how not everyone is bad. And this stuff happens everywhere, so you can't blame everyone. But I don't. I don't blame everyone. I only blame those that perpetrate the crimes and those who allow it to continue...which, apparently is like 70%. Yea, the rapists are at fault, but guess what - so are those who let this continue to happen, those who sweep it under the rug, those who defend the rapists and allow them to stay in the military and keep fucking raping people. So by trying to deflect and defend, you're only taking the focus away from the victims and the problem. Instead, why isn't your first reaction - "Wow! Rape! How awful! This is a problem! What can I do to help?" But let's be real, that's not gonna happen.
This documentary opened my eyes. I mean, I'm pretty aware of the sexual assault situation in this country. I worked at a sexual assault coalition. But jesus fuck is it so much worse in the military. We think victim-blaming is bad in civilian life? It's so much worse in the military. We think justice is hard to come by in society? You've got basically .01% (That's probably not statistically accurate, but I'd bet it's pretty close) chance of justice if you're a victim of military sexual assault.
So one of my best friends is going into air force officer training this summer. She's like a badass feminist unicorn goddess, she's so awesome. And good for her-it pays well, they're taking on her school loans, she gets to travel, it's cool beans. But is it worth it? Is serving your country worth it when in all likelihood a brother-in-arms may get to serve himself of you, and nothing will be done about it? Why are we treating our soldiers like this? Our soldiers deserve nothing less than the best, but we're telling the nearly 100,000+ rape victims that they're not worth fighting for. I'm disgusted by it.
Here's the thing - I'm a rape victim. Many of my friends are rape victims. In all likelihood, yours are too. And by telling us that what happened to us was our fault, by ignoring us, by not giving us the rights and justice and help and support that we desperately need and deserve, is only re-victimizing us again and again.
So yea, I insulted the military system. How dare I! We must defend the sanctity of our military! Well guess what, I'm pretty sure the military can defend itself against little ol' me with the guns and tanks and shit it has at its disposal. But insult a rape victim by depriving her of the insurance she needs just to fix her jaw that was dislocated during the assault and then promoting her rapist? No biggie guys.
A few weeks ago, there was a Thought Catalog article (yes, another one) titled "What if We Responded to Sexual Assault By Limiting Men's Freedom Like We Limit Women's?" Indeed...how would we respond? Reading the article and thinking about it I was reminded of a few analogies:
Here's a favorite of mine:
Let’s imagine a world in which women cut men’s dicks off. Like,
frequently. To the extent that one in five men has had his dick cut off
by a woman or had a woman attempt to cut his dick off.
Sometimes it’s a clear-cut case where a woman attacks you in the
street, out of nowhere, and cuts your dick off. But more often it’s a
situation where you actually know the woman, maybe you trust her, maybe
you think everything’s okay, and then one day she cuts your dick off.
Okay, now let’s also say that the shame and guilt around having your
dick cut off is so strong that many dick-cuttings go completely
unreported. After all, someone is likely to raise the question of
whether or not you were “asking for it” in one way or another. And if
you do accuse a woman of cutting your dick off, you can expect to see
people (quite naturally) rally to her defense and slander your character
in response.
You can expect to see her friends … who are maybe also friends or
yours … shrug their shoulders and say “Well, I don’t know, it’s
complicated … it sounds like something was just happening between the
two of them and maybe it got out of hand. I dunno. But I know that
Sarah’s not a bad gal. I know she would never, like, MALICIOUSLY cut a
dude’s dick off.”
Now imagine every time it says "cut a man's dick off" replace it with "rape" and you'll see why I get really pissed off when people don't take sexual assault seriously.
"Male Marines listed being falsely accused of sexual harassment or
assault as a top concern in a survey about moving women into combat
jobs, and thousands indicated the change could prompt them to leave the
service altogether."
News Flash: Female (and male) Marines fear ACTUALLY BEING SEXUALLY ASSAULTED
Let's think here for a minute, which one should be a bigger concern for military officials? Placating alleged rapists, or protecting their service members from being raped?
