The Rotherham case sent shock waves throughout England when it revealed the systematic abuse and exploitation of around 1500 teenage girls and young women, while those in authority refused to believe it. We need accountability from those who let it happen, but tha's not all. The patriarchal culture is what made it possible, and that's what needs to change:
Professor Alexis Jay, who wrote the report that detonated a media bomb, was brave enough to mention the macho culture within Rotherham Council that made it so hard to question the lack of action. However, the misogyny wasn't limited to elected representatives. She pointed out that the police usually viewed the young women involved with utter disdain, which meant they were colluding with the perpetrators. Social workers often held victim-blaming attitudes, thinking that the young women involved didn't deserve help.
Here's a
long, heartbreaking rundown by Echidne. There have been some attempts at blaming the authorities' failures on "political correctness," claiming they couldn't act because much of the abuse took place within the Pakistani community. Hugh Muir
calls bullshit:
I know that if called to account, I’d much prefer to say, “I wanted to intervene but was terrified by political correctness”, than “I messed up”, “I didn’t think it was that serious” or “I couldn’t be bothered”.
In no other sphere does PC and its terrors prevent the authorities taking action against minorities. We’re over-represented in courts and prisons at one end of the social scale, overdisciplined and marginalised in the professions at the other. If it is true that political correctness prevented the authorities from using their powers against minorities for fear of giving offence, that’s a scandal. It would also be a first.
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The good, the bad and the ugly below the orange coat of arms.
Reproductive Rights:
A federal judge struck down a number of abortion restrictions in Texas, which would have closed clinics over surgical capabilities, ceiling height, or even parking spaces. Appeals will continue, but for now the clinics stay open.
Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis made headlines last year in her 13-hour fillibuster trying to forestall those same anti-abortion laws. Her new memoir reveals that she herself had two abortions, one of which was for an ectopic pregnancy that endangered her life. The other happened when doctors delivered bad news in her second trimester of a much-wanted pregnancy:
After a later exam revealed the brain defect, Davis said she sought out opinions from multiple doctors, who told her the baby would be deaf, blind and in a permanent vegetative state if she survived delivery.
"I could feel her little body tremble violently, as if someone were applying an electric shock to her, and I knew then what I needed to do," Davis writes. "She was suffering."
A Montana woman who was just 12 weeks pregnant has been
criminally charged with child endangerment for taking drugs.
With no clinic anywhere near them that could perform an abortion, and no insurance coverage, a Pennsylvania mother helped her teenage daughter get abortion pills off the Internet. The mother, Jennifer Ann Whalen, is now going to prison.
Violence and harassment:
A victim of harassment found other victims of the same person, and they exposed the behavior that finally got him fired - and the victim suffered guilt and self-doubt that made it difficult for her to go to work.
Cerberus gives a lengthy, snarky, angry rundown of the recent harassment issues in the gaming community.
A CDC study on violence has the grim findings you'd expect:
In the United States, an estimated 19.3% of women and 1.7% of men have been raped during their lifetimes
An estimated 43.9% of women and 23.4% of men experienced other forms of sexual violence during their lifetimes, including being made to penetrate, sexual coercion, unwanted sexual contact, and noncontact unwanted sexual experiences.
An estimated 15.2% of women and 5.7% of men have been a victim of stalking during their lifetimes.
Severe physical violence by an intimate partner (including acts such as being hit with something hard, being kicked or beaten, or being burned on purpose) was experienced by an estimated 22.3% of women and 14.0% of men during their lifetimes [Caveat: I could not find anything about aggression vs. self-defense in this section.]
ISIS is
selling captive Yazidi women into forced marriages to militants.
The hacking and publication of celebrity nude photos is one more form of online harassment of women. I'm already overdosed on "they should have known better than to take private photos" and slut-shaming. I wish we saw half that much shaming aimed at the guys who download those photos when they're well aware it isn't consensual. Now an art gallery is getting in on the act, re-victimizing the victims by showing the photos with a laughable rationalization about how it's a "commentary" on privacy violations.
A Chicago city worker was fired for sexual harassment (including rape threats)...and re-hired by a Democratic Alderman.
Cycling to end the cycle of family violence, with a stunning speech from a Take Back the Night rally. (Hat tip to ramara.)
Miscellaneous:
A Florida 15-year-old was told her skirt was too short for the school's dress code, and forced to wear a shame suit.
The Washington Post says that Evangelicals are headed for a "showdown" over gender roles. (Liberal Christian Fred Clark asks: When since 1850 has that ever not been true?)
Update to earlier story:
Shanesha Taylor was the impoverished mother who left her two children in a car while she went to a job interview. She has received a flood of donations, and has regained custody of her children.
Good news and action items:
The Oakland Raiders came to a $1.25 million settlement with the Raiderettes for failing to pay minimum wage.
Tell the governments of Algeria and Tunisia: end the loophole that allows rapists to go free if they marry their underage victims.