The story behind this, via Feministing, is that the South African Equality Court has handed down a ruling labelling the following statement, made by ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, as hate-speech and discrimination against women. This means that, in future, this will not be tolerated without legal ramification.

Here is the infamous quote that started this off:

“When a woman didn’t enjoy it [sex], she leaves early in the morning. Those who had a nice time will wait until the sun comes out, request breakfast, and ask for taxi money.”
-ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema, speaking to a group of 150 University students last May on why South African President Jacob Zuma’s rape accuser must have enjoyed having sex with him.

As Feministing Lori’s says: “These are the words of a rape apologist. They are the words of someone seeking to shame, embarrass, humiliate, and de-legitimize a woman who dared to take legal action against her alleged rapist- the president of a nation.”

 Here’s a comment from the Sonke Gender Justice Network, a South African organization that supports men and boys to act against domestic and sexual violence:

“In a country where it is estimated that one in three a women is raped, we need to take strong action to counter myths and stereotypes which can lead perpetrators to believe that they can act with impunity, and which can dissuade rape survivors from seeking health care or justice.”

Following a fantastic week of International Women’s Day activities, a colleague popped into Borders Melbourne Central to buy a book. Imagine her surprise when she was paying at the counter she noticed the following ‘gift’ for sale. 

“Control A Woman Remote Control“

From the product description: “Tell me about it! Control a woman? Good Luck! ‘No’ just a joke, these remotes are really fun, make her do what you want! Would you like her to stop “Nagging, Moaning, Calm Down”?

“How? Just point the remote at the subject [woman] and push any button on the remote, and then hope for the best.”

“These commands are among a few of the features of this ultra-handy new remote control for the hopeful, the manufacturers make no claims for the performance of this item however….10 points for trying! $13.95 inc GST within Australia.”

She asked the salesman why Borders were selling it, particularly just after International Women’s Day. He shrugged and appeared embarrassed.
 
Some of you may believe that the ‘Control a Woman’ Remote control is intended to be funny. Maybe it’s just me, but this week in particular highlighted the stunning range of statistics relating to domestic violence and gender inequality that continue to prevail here and overseas. I find this “gift” downright distasteful.
 
As a snapshot, around the world, at least one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime. Among women aged 15-44 years, violence accounts for more death and disability than cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war put together (World Health Organisation, 2005). It is estimated that, worldwide, one in five women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. Violence against women during or after armed conflicts has been reported in every international or non-international war-zone. Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the conflict in Bosnia in the early 1990s. In Australia, 38% of women over 15 will experience physical and/or sexual violence in their lifetimes. Several global surveys suggest that half of all women who die from homicide are killed by their current or former husbands or partners. In Australia, Canada, Israel, South Africa and the United States, 40%-70% of female murder victims were killed by their partners, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In Colombia, one woman is reportedly killed by her partner or former partner every six days. Hundreds of women were abducted, raped and murdered in and around Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, over a 10-year period. And women are most at risk at home and from men they know, usually a family member or spouse.

The idea that woman can or should be ‘controlled’ by their partner is at the root of the global epidemic of violence against women.
If the senior management at Borders want to know more about why control of women by men is not an appropriate subject for a novelty item of this kind, have a look at http://www.un.org/en/women/endviolence/pdf/VAW.pdf.

Maybe then they might appreciate why the ‘Control a Woman’ ‘novelty item’ is so offensive and completely inappropriate for an organisation that values its public standing.  We doubt the ‘toy’ manufacturers will – they came up with the idea in the first place.  But Borders should know better.  And by removing the item from their stores today, Borders will significantly impact the commercial value of the item, and this may in turn influence the manufacturers.

As one impressive woman commented to me this week, ‘It will take more than $13.95 to control this woman.’ Damn right. 

Joanna Shaw 

Strategic Partnerships Coordinator

International Women’s Development Agency Inc.
T  +61 3 9650 5574
W www.iwda.org.au

The approximate quote came from researcher Nina Funnell, who spoke to Kevin Rudd after he gave a speech about the ‘crisis’ of Australia’s aging population and the various economic challenges we will face as a result.

Arguments were made about superannuation and the strain on healthcare. But there was a deeper message: young people (women in particular) are failing in their civic duty to reproduce. Apparently, gen Y is to blame for the inverted population pyramid. (Source).

Then, after the speech, came this wonderful sentiment from our glorious leader. Women, of course, have an obligation to have children. Education and a fulfilling work life are all very well, but what about the babieees??

Some people have concluded that Rudd was joking and I wish this were true. It should be a joke. But let me remind you that Rudd has been shown to have a complete absence of humour. Unless it includes ‘ocka’ references to barbies. And that really should never be classified as humour.

On a more serious note, whether it is couched in pseudo-economic language or religious dogma, treating women as though they are only baby incubators is incredibly paternalistic and misogynistic. Everyone knows that leader of the opposition Tony Abbott is a manipulative fundamentalist Christian, who most likely would love to legislate against women’s rights if he ever gets into power. But this is our supposed alternative? Remind me why I live in this country again?

Nina Funnell notes that not many people go on to complete PhD’s, and the majority of those people are men. So either Rudd has a wildy exaggerated view about the amount of people completing their doctorate or he believes that the small proportion of women in academia should, what, get back to the kitchen?

Funnell puts it nicely,

Why do we assume it is the obligation of all women to reproduce? And why do we label them as selfish when they don’t? We never label career-driven men as selfish.

Unfortunately, Rudd is articulating yet another embedded patriarchal idea that stipulates that men have more a right to a career and an education than women. Say this to enough people and you are sure to get the response, “but women are more naturally suited to look after children, it’s in their nature to want children.” People never seem to realise how insulting this is to fathers. It takes more than breasts to be a good parent.

People also never seem to get the concept that what is true for one person is not necessarily true for another. Many people find reproducing to be a very fulfilling experience. Some do not. According to Anne Summers’ book The End of Equality, 25% of Australian women will never have children. For some, this will be because of problems with infertility, but for others it will be a choice. And a completely valid choice too.

Whenever I have told older people in my life that I do not wish to have children, I am greeted by condescension. “Just you wait”, I hear, “you’ll change your mind.”

And, to be fair, I might. But I also might not. It is not anyone’s place to assume that a person’s desire to refrain from procreating is a whim. Nor that a life without producing children is somehow less valid than a life with them. Or, in Rudd’s case, to deem it the economic duty of young women to put children above all other desires.

I have one word for you, Mr Rudd. Immigration. We have no need for an increase in fertility rates in an already overpopulated world. Of course a lot of people immigrating to Australia could be from other ethnicities, but surely Saint Rudd, the paragon of anti-racist multiculturalism, could not have a problem with that… (/sarcasm).

The amazing science fiction and fantasy writer Terry Pratchett was recently invited to give the Richard Dimbleby Lecture in England, which is given each year by an influential public figure. Pratchett, well known for his ferocious wit, sharp tongue and, more recently, for his diagnosis with a rare form of early-onset alzheimer’s disease, chose to speak on the right to die. His speech is powerful – all the more so because he himself was not able to read it, and had to rely on friend Tony Robinson to read it on his behalf.

Pratchett promotes the idea of a euthanasia tribunal, comprised of medical practicioners, legal experts and social workers, which could assess whether a person with an incurable illness is fully able to give consent to choose to die.

Unforunately, you cannot watch Pratchett’s speech in its entirety unless you are in the UK (use BBC iplayer), but you can read and watch most of it in this Guardian article and Youtube video:

Here is one of my favourite passages:

Let us consider me as a test case. As I have said, I would like to die peacefully with Thomas Tallis on my iPod before the disease takes me over and I hope that will not be for quite some time to come, because if I knew that I could die at any time I wanted, then suddenly every day would be as ­precious as a million pounds. If I knew that I could die, I would live. My life, my death, my choice.

  Here are some wonderful quotes from Pratchett’s Discworld series. If you haven’t read these books already, now is the time to start!

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it” (Diggers) 

“God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a dealer who won’t tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.” (Good Omens). 

“Give a man a fire and he’s warm for the day. But set fire to him and he’s warm for the rest of his life” (Discworld). 

 ”For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.”

 ”An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on” (Hogfather)

“It was so much easier to blame it on Them. It was bleakly depressing to think that They were Us. If it was Them, then nothing was anyone’s fault. If it was us, what did that make Me? After all, I’m one of Us. I must be. I’ve certainly never thought of myself as one of Them. No one ever thinks of themselves as one of Them. We’re always one of Us. It’s Them that do the bad things” (Jingo).

The decision stemmed from the legal battle between conservative non-profit corporation Citizens United and the US Federal Electoral Commission over an anti-Hillary Clinton film, called “Hillary: The Movie,” that the corporation planned to sponsor.

The court’s main rationale for this decision is that to limit corporations’ political spending would be a “classic example of censorship,” as quoted by Justice Anthony Kennedy. It also relies on two legal ideas: that corporations are people and money is speech… which are patently ridiculous when applied to the real world.

The idea that corporations are people (also known as corporate personhood) originated in the 1886 case, Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad. In response to this case, the Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a natural person, entitled to the same rights and protections as human beings under the Bill of Rights. (See the wonderful film The Corporation for the juicy details).

But, as Corpwatch succinctly puts it, “Corporations are state-created entities, not real people. They do not have expressive interests like humans; and, unlike humans, they are uniquely motivated by a singular focus on their economic bottom line.”

The idea of money as speech has been applied extremely selectively in the US legal system – usually when it suits the capitalist system for it to be done so. For example, money-as-speech was ruled to be invalid when the courts limited Hare Krishna leafletters from seeking donations in airports (their form of ‘speech’), labelling their behaviour as ‘disruptive’ and an ‘inconvenience’.  Or as Slate’s David Kairys puts it “In other words, in the court’s view, some people’s money is speech; others’ money is annoying.”

Back to the present day, the Citizens United decision overrules two important precedents: Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, a 1990 decision that upheld restrictions on corporate spending to support or oppose political candidates, and McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, a 2003 decision that restricted campaign spending by corporations and unions.

Corporations still cannot give money directly to federal candidates or national party committees, but last week’s decision will be far-reaching – because the decision is made on constitutional grounds it will apply at a federal, state and local level.

It’s worth noting, however, that although last week’s decision is devastating, corporations have been slowly undermining political independence in the US, and worldwide, over the years and more than half of US states, including California, Washington and Virginia, already allow corporations to make independent campaign expenditures. The battle has just become more evident with this decision.

Interestingly Obama has joined civil rights activists in condemning the decision, saying “The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

David Kairys again puts it perfectly: “The court’s invalidation of campaign finance reforms over the last few decades isn’t about censorship or suppressed speakers or viewpoints. At its core, this line of cases is about dominance of the political and electoral system by wealthy people and corporations and about legitimizing a political and electoral system that is unrepresentative, money-driven, corrupt, outmoded, and dysfunctional.”

For more info, check out feministing’s analysis of the ways in which a win for capitalism is often a loss for women, or read Naomi Klein’s wonderful book “No Logo”.

1. Feministing (my favourite website of all time)

Young women are rarely given the opportunity to speak on their own behalf on issues that affect their lives and futures. Feministing provides a platform for us to comment, analyse, influence and connect. This blog is the queen (or should I say, immediately recallable representative) of all feminist blogs. The main page is run by a team of great bloggers and has both US-centric and worldwide feminist news and analysis. The community section of the blog is unique – anyone can post an entry, or comment on someone else’s entry, which creates a wonderful space for debates and support.

2. XY Online

“XY is a website focused on men, masculinities, and gender politics. XY is a space for the exploration of issues of gender and sexuality, the daily issues of men’s and women’s lives, and practical discussion of personal and social change.”

3. Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog

“This blog is an information resource, for both feminists and those questioning feminism, concentrating on typically disruptive questions/assertions which frequently arise in online feminist discussions.”

4. Fugitivus

A very good blog with posts about rape and what men can do to stop rape.

5. Feministe

Feministe is one of the oldest feminist blogs designed by and run by women from the ground up.

The main idea that has resonated for me throughout this research and the forum itself (which was a big success) is that men and women cannot be equal in a society in which rape and sexual assault are at the levels we are seeing in Australia today. For anyone doubting the presence of the patriarchy or an inherent sexism in our society I challenge you to take a look at the statistics surrounding rape conviction rates and commonly held beliefs about rape (“she was wearing provocative clothing” etc) and still defend that doubt.

Here’s my speech for the night and my references. This is an issue that has been allowed to slip away from the spotlight, but we cannot allow it to stay this way.

Growing up as a young woman in this society, you learn to be afraid of sexual assault and rape from an early age. People tell you: don’t wear revealing clothes, don’t go out at night, don’t drink alcohol. But after a while you begin to wonder, why is rape and sexual assault such a danger to women? Why should one group in our society be so disproportionately victimised by another? And the answer is simple, sexism.

Now, to give you an idea of the prevalence of rape and sexual assault in Australia I’m going to give you three statistics: 

• One in seven girls and young women aged 12 to 20 (14 per cent) have experienced rape or sexual assault (National Crime Prevention 2001).
• One-third (33 per cent) of young women knew someone who experienced rape or sexual assault (National Crime Prevention 2001).
• At least one in three Australian women at some stage experiences violence at the hands of a man. Violence outstrips obesity, smoking, drink-driving and breast cancer as the leading contributor to death, disability and illness for women in the prime of life. – VicHealth (2004) The Health Costs of Violence: Measuring  the burden of disease caused by intimate partner violence.

 This is the situation we are confronting at the moment. What this tells me is that I have a reason to be scared. But let me tell you this: Rape and sexual assault are not inevitable. They rely on a society that allows women to be viewed as lesser than men. Rape is not something that ‘just happens’, it is a conscious choice on the part of the rapist to dehumanise another person. And we can do something about them. We, as a society, have created these ideas about sexuality, power, masculinity and femininity – and we can change them.

Two levels of change: cultural and institutional

Cultural change – rape and sexual assault do not happen in a cultural vacuum. We still live in an unequal society and this is reflected in the way some young men view women as they grow up. The media highly sexualizes girls and presents the idea that young women are constantly sexually available. These messages need to stop and be replaced by true respect for women if we are going to see a decline in sexual violence.

Our biggest challenge is changing the way Australian people think about rape. We have had legal and governmental reform in the past, but this is useless if people’s ideas and attitudes towards rape and sexual assault do not change with them. 

• 14 per cent of young males, but only 3 per cent of females, agreed with the statement, ‘It’s okay for a boy to make a girl have sex with him if she has flirted with him or led him on.’ (National Crime Prevention 2001).
• Fifteen percent agreed that women often say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’ and (testimony that the complainant said ‘no’ is unlikely to convince jurors with this belief that she did not consent)
• Seven percent of males and four percent of females agreed that women who are raped often ask for it
• Forty-four percent of males and 32 percent of females believed that rape results from men not being able to control their need for sex (responsibility for rape is therefore removed from men because it is not within their control).
• Above statistics from: Taylor N & Mouzos J 2006. Community attitudes to violence against women survey 2006: full technical report. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 

Sexuality Binary: goddess/slut

 One of the key problems, I believe, that we have to overcome if we are to see drop in rape and sexual assault, is the way our society views sexuality, particularly young women’s sexuality. Young women get all these messages: act sexy, but not too sexy. You must look this way. Must be this size. Or you’re nobody. Women’s magazines illustrate this perfectly. Placing female celebrities on a pedestal and then berating them for any weight gain.

 However, when young women take on these messages and dress or act sexually they often seem to cross some imaginary line and are now ‘sluts’, who are asking for it. Is anyone else confused? And we also get strange messages about male sexuality. Men must be sexually aggressive. They must ‘get’ sex to be popular, to be one of the cool crowd. Is it any wonder that we are so many myths about rape and sexual assault when we expose young people to all these potentially damaging and contradictory ideas?

 The circle of rape and sexual assault myths seem to go like this: men need sex, you should give men sex because they need it, why, it would be cruel not to, women are the keepers of sex, women sometimes mean yes when they say no, even if a woman does not consent, it is acceptable to have sex with her. Which in the real world is called rape.

 Now, of course, the majority of rapes and sexual assaults are planned: the place arranged, enticement used, or the victim deliberately sought and coerced into sexual relations. While sexual attraction may be influential, rape is primarily about power, control and anger. The woman involved is not viewed as human. It is these ideas, though, that allow people who rape or sexually assault women to justify their actions and believe that they are ‘normal’ and ‘allowed’.

 The good news, though, is that we, as a society create these messages and reinforce them. The way we talk to each other about sexuality, masculinity and femininity tells those around us what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. At the moment, these negative ideas are normal, but we have the power to change the norm and reduce rape and sexual assault.  

 Key to this is change in the way we view male and female sexualities. We need a new masculinity – which isn’t about sexual dominance or sex as a method of gaining social status. We need a new femininity – which allows women to be equally sexual with men and for us to assert consent or lack of consent to sexual acts.

 Rape culture

 ”A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.”

 ”Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman.”

“Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defence as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.” (Source: Shakesville Blog)

 Institutional and legal change – government action and legal reform also have a role to play. As it currently stands, the legal system sends a message to potential rapists that if you rape a person, you have a high likelihood of never being convicted. While this is the case, some people will always seek to take advantage of this negligence. 

 Rape conviction rates

 The legal system deals with rape and sexual assaults in a number of stages:

• First, the assault has to be reported to the police – between 70% and 85% of sexual assaults are never reported to the authorities (CASA).
• Next, the police have to decide whether to prosecute the case – in a Victorian government study of reported rapes from 2000-2003, Police did not proceed with more than 60 per cent of investigations.
• After this, the case is transferred to the courts, where we have yet another set of hurdles to leap through.

 Now, all of this means that out of every 100 rapes that occur in Australia, there will be 1-3 convictions. Let me repeat that, out of every 100 rapes that occur in Australia, there will be 1-3 convictions. This is not good enough.

 Now there is some justification for these figures. Rapes and sexual assaults often occur indoors and in private, so in some cases it can be one person’s word against another, which is a tricky legal situation. But there are also areas in which we can improve:

• Cases that resulted in No Further Police Action were typically more likely to involve: younger victims; victims who were acquainted or who had a cursory relationship with the offender; and, victims who had consumed alcohol or other drugs around the time of the offence. See aforementioned study.
• In a study, about one quarter of men and women disagreed that false claims of rape are rare (if a juror starts with the assumption that women often lie about rape, this will influence the way s/he interprets testimony). Even though only 2.1 per cent of reports were designated by police as false in a Victorian government study.
• Where a matter does proceed to trial, evaluations of trial transcripts consistently show that many complainants are: accused of lying or making false reports; asked questions about behaving in a sexually provocative way; asked about alcohol intake on the day of the offence and asked about the way they were dressed at the time of the offence (NSW Department for Women 1996; Young 1998).

 This level of interrogation of victims in unheard of in other criminal trials.

 The legal system in the UK has recently begun a review into how rape complaints are handled from when a rape is first disclosed until the court reaches a verdict. I think it is only fair, given the information we’ve heard, that we demand the same from out government.

 ”There will never be proper female equality and appropriate dignity afforded to one-half of the population if it’s possible to rape somebody and get away with it,” said British Solicitor General Vera Baird.

 Equality is not a concept. It’s not something we should be striving for. It’s a necessity. Equality is like gravity. We need it to stand on this earth as men and women. And the misogyny that is in every culture is not a true part of the human condition. It is life out of balance, and that imbalance is sucking something out of the soul of every man and woman who is confronted with it. – Joss Whedon.

Here is a quote about what prompted Jonathan to make the piece:

Over the course of the film Edward is in turns patronizing, condescending and just downright creepy. He spies on Bella, he stalks her (for “her own good”), he sneaks into her room to watch her sleep (without her consent) and even confesses to a deep, overpowering desire to kill her. We marveled at how the film attempted to present this behavior as sweet and deeply romantic – and how the larger pop culture discussion continued that framing for millions of young Twilight fans. At several points during the film Anita and I found ourselves asking each other: “What Would Buffy Do?” (Source)

Ahhh Bill Bailey, if only there were more men like you… I love this one of his jokes: ”Three women walk into a pub and say, `Hooray, we’ve colonised a male-dominated joke format!’”

Hopefully he will come to the Melbourne Comedy Festival this year!