WOMEN & THE STIMULUS: How the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act addresses women’s needs (PDF).
TESTING THE PREMISE: Are gays a threat to children? An impressively in-depth look at homosexuality, child molestation, and how the actual facts fly in the face of right-wing anti-gay talking points.
BEYOND CHRIS AND RIHANNA: A youth perspective on domestic violence, and the social and media narratives that play out (or don’t) when women and genderqueer people of color are the survivors. Written by two members of Females United for Action, which is a part of Women & Girls Collective Action Network. (More about them here).
DREAMS DEFERRED: A new film looks at the murder of a 15-year-old lesbian of color, Sakia Gunn, who was stabbed to death after she and her friends refused the sexual advances of a man in downtown Newark. Her murder garnered almost no media attention. During the murder trial, the maker of this documentary was the only person with a camera in the entire court room.
WHAT IS THE “STATUS QUO”? A Washington Post columnist proclaims Obama’s appointments to be “Good news for the status quo” because the picks trend towards old white guys with elite educations from Eastern states. Notably, though, Obama has appointed more people of color and more women than Bush or Clinton (and, I assume, more than any other previous president). And I’m not sure I find it all that objectionable that he’s appointed a fair number of academics — it’s certainly better than the cronyism we saw in the last administration, where jobs were doled out to incompetent pals.
TEENS AND SEXUAL HARASSMENT: Teenagers routinely face sexual harassment at work. Maria Hinojosa covers it for PBS.
WHEN A PICTURE IS WORTH NO WORDS: The Wall Street Journal covers genetic counseling, a field dominated by women (96% of genetic counselors are female). They illustrate the story with a picture of a dude.
LOVELEEN WHO? Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle is getting all kinds of praise and accolades (not to mention Oscars). Turns out the film was co-directed. Loveleen Tand, the co-director, cast the film, translated the script into Hindi, filmed much of the Mumbai footage, and shaped the film to be culturally appropriate and accurate. In other words, she made the film what it is. I didn’t actually watch the Oscars, but word is that Boyle didn’t even bother to thank her. And in most of what I’ve read, he’s been getting most of the credit, while her contributions have been ignored. Think that would be the case if she weren’t a woman and of color? (Thanks to greeneyed fem for the link.)
MEETING SURVIVORS’ NEEDS: Marcella walks us through a multi-state study of domestic violence shelters, and points out that the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, which was the primary federal funding source for domestic violence shelters, expired last fall. Head over to her place to learn about how you can flood the inboxes of everyone in DC to get this vital funding reinstated.
WHY I BECAME A FEMINIST: Because I’m past my prime of sexual excess. Aww.
WORDS MEAN THINGS: Do we really need to put the word “raped” in scare-quotes when a 13-year-old kills herself after being raped by a 39-year-old man? And considering that other under-age girls have come out and said that Paul Nicholls raped them, “pedophile” might also be an appropriate term to throw in the article. (Thanks to Cindy for the link).
On the last item, I don’t think those are “scare-quotes” as much as anti-libel quotes. They can’t just flatly assert that the rape accusation is true before a verdict is reached. Actually, the Daily Fail is a pretty ghastly publication, but the BBC articles on the case use quotes in a similar way. I think it’s common in the UK press to put quotes around criminal accusations, similar to how the US press would add “allegedly” or “according to”.
Re: Words Mean Things. “A schoolgirl who killed herself after having sex with her 39-year-old flying instructor saw the encounter as rape, a court heard.”
Well yes. She was 13. That wouldn’t be her ‘having sex’. That would be rape.
It really fills me with despair when editors allow this kind of misuse of language to be printed in this way.
I cannot articulate how incredibly disgusted I am about that last link. :: puke ::
My impression is that the Loveleen controversy is based on a misapprehension. There’s a long post about this over at The Script Reader. Relevant quote:
“A co-directing credit is something somewhat different from a standard directing credit. Traditionally it has been assigned to people who help direct animation or who second unit work and often work with big crowds. In this case Tandan did the latter and helped with questions of Indian culture in addition to casting the film and Boyle thought she was so wonderful that he gave her a co-direct credit, from what i read because he thought she’d make a great director and wanted to credit her up so that she would have a little more cache with which to possibly direct her own film. Again, co-direct is a different thing than director credit, as is assistant director credit, second unit director credit, etc. If he’d chosen to share his directing credit (which would have been odd since she didn’t direct any first unit stuff and didn’t work on the project in the development stage at quite the same level as Boyle), she’d be listed next to his name with an “and” in between, as is the case with the coen brothers or any others who really do share directing tasks. Instead, she’s got her own title card because she was instrumental in making the film but she wasn’t it’s director. ”
http://filmindustrybloggers.com/thescriptreader/2009/01/12/post-holidays-post-golden-globe-blog-of-controversy/
Boyle gave Loveleen a co-director credit because he was trying to raise her profile – and she’s directing the next film she’s working on. It seems counter-productive to pillory him.
From what I understand, Obama has less women in his actual CABINET than EITHER Clinton or Bush, though women might have more positions otherwise in his administration.
Obama currently has 3 women in his cabinet, and 3 other women in cabinet-LEVEL positions, which is not the cabinet.
Bush had 3 women in his original cabinet, 4 in his final cabinet.
Clinton also had 4 women in his final cabinet.
Sorry if that doesn’t fit with the ‘change’ Obama narrative.
Funny. I became a feminist in the prime of my sexual excess.
Okay, I get that rape might be in quotes because of libel laws, but did you see that caption?! “Suicide: Cherrell Evans, 13, committed suicide after an alleged sexual affair with 39-year-old Nicholls”
A 13 year old girl does not, and cannot, have a sexual affair with a 39 year old. Period.
Should I be appalled that they published the victim’s name and photograph in the WORDS MEAN THINGS linked article? I mean, I am appalled. I just… is there anything positive about that? Making it more personal will make people pay better attention? I feel like I’m grasping at straws.
I am feeling bleak for many reasons, but that seemed particularly horrifying.
Thanks for the link, Ignotus. I was the one who sent in the tip about Slumdog Millionaire, and it’s good to have some clarification. I’ve sent your link on to everyone who I sent the original story to.
but did you see that caption?!
No, I missed that – pretty bad. As I said though, the Daily Mail is a despicable rag… what really surprised me is the BBC caption: ‘Fling’ row over suicide girl, 13
I second MikeF’s comment about the BBC. Not only was the headline of their coverage disgusting, but the original article DID NOT use the word “rape” ONCE, with or without quotes. Instead, it continuously used the phrases “had sex with”, “had an affair with” etc. Expected from the Daily Mail, but really BBC? Everyone should please email them regarding this issue.
From the article on Sakia Gunn’s murder:
[T]he defense [argued that] the circumstances leading up to the crime were unlikely to recur and that Mr. McCullough was unlikely to commit a crime again.
Um…what?
How were the circumstances “unlikely to recur”? Is this guy so irresistible to teenage girls that only a lesbian would reject him?
I know we need a defense bar, they’re a mainstay of the system, they keep police and prosecutors honest, etc. But honestly, how do some defense lawyers manage to look at themselves in the mirror long enough to shave or put on makeup?
I agree with MikeF – the UK has extremely restrictive libel and slander laws, so strict that the fact that something is true isn’t even sufficient defense. They would be on the hook for thousands of pounds for using the word “pedophile” before the trial was over.
I took the quotation marks in the headline to mean that they were using one of the survivor’s own words, letting her tell her own story – nearly all of the text was direct quotations from her testimony. Given British libel laws, the linked story actually seemed quite respectful.
unrelated – have you seen the new commercial for Dixie disposable cups? It just ran on NBC and I was appalled. Man in suit going to work, woman all dolled up and making breakfast, other woman pushing child in stroller while man gets in car to go to office, where there are three more men, a token woman, and some kid.
Do we really need to put the word “raped” in scare-quotes when a 13-year-old kills herself after being raped by a 39-year-old man?
In the UK, a man of 39 who has sex with a girl under 13 has, in law, committed rape no matter what the circumstances. If the girl is over 13, and she consented to sex, the crime is called “unlawful sexual intercourse”: if she did not consent, the crime is rape. But, the girl was over 13, is now dead, and the man’s testimony is that he didn’t have sex with her: the evidence that he raped her is the testimony of the younger girl’s friend, a 16-year-old, who says that the man had sex with her, too, which the man also denies, though he admits to trying to have sex with her.
It all comes down to whether the jury decide to take the word of the 16-year-old girl against the 39-year-old man. If the jury finds that the 16-year-olds evidence is insufficient to convict the man of rape, even given the additional evidence of the text messages and the tragic fact of the younger girl’s suicide, then once the man has been acquitted, using the word “raped” without scare quotes would be libel: and while the trial is continuing, most newspapers will indicate with scare quotes that they are just quoting the evidence, or add cautiously “alleged”.
If the younger girl were alive and able to say for herself to the jury “He raped me”, then that would in and of itself probably carry considerable weight – though again, the older man would undoubtedly simply deny the sex and his defense lawyer would present both girls as liars out to get revenge. But because she is dead, the only testimony that she did describe sex with the older man as rape, is the word of her friend – hearsay evidence.
The air cadet instructor’s admission that he did try to have sex with a 15-year-old air cadet, the 13-year-old’s friend, is enough to make him look horribly sleazy: unless, of course, his defense lawyer can present him to the jury as the victim of a designing bitch .
A 13 year old “had an affair” with a 39 year old man? Humbert Humbert must be pleased. Got to show those nymphets what for, eh?
Okay, seriously. Everyone wants to talk about libel, but why could they not just say “accused/alleged rape”? As in “Schoolgirl air cadet killed herself after alleged rape by instructor” without the scare quotes around the word rape?
Really, because if I’m missing something, I’d love to know about it. It seems like there is a perfectly logical move out of this situation whether it involves someone who could have not possibly given consent or not. But instead, I just see the word in scare quotes constantly.