I really, really like the design of this T-shirt, I have to say before I say anything else. It’s brilliant. Really captures the sense of shame that rape victims have, a sense of shame that, in a just world, would be the property of rapists, who are all too often belligerently unashamed of what they did.
In a fair world, saying you were raped should cause you no more shame than saying, “I was mugged,” or “I was carjacked.” In our world, however, it’s a crushing thing to talk about. I feel guilty bringing it up on this blog that it’s happened to me, though I know intellectually that it’s very important for those of us who can talk about to talk about it, to get the message to other victims: You aren’t alone. Which of course is the main attraction of this T-shirt designed by Jennifer Baumgardner as something of a sequel to her controversial “I had an abortion” T-shirt. (Hat tip.)
I appreciate the idea that visibility is critical to getting people to understand that women who get abortions or rape victims—two groups dehumanized and demonized in an effort to strip them of their rights—are human beings. I was in full support of the “I had an abortion” T-shirt, because to me, it’s not complicated. The anti-choice movement tries like hell to erase women’s existence, or at least our individuality, and the T-shirt undermines that. It also clarifies that abortion is nothing to be ashamed of. For me, “I had an abortion” should be as morally loaded as “I had a Pap smear”. The underpinnings of the moral angst about abortion—the idea that a woman has no right to pry loose a flag a man has planted in her (even if he agrees with her decision, as most men in this case do), or that she should be punished for having sex—offend me to the core, and that many women go through anguish over getting abortions depresses me. They shouldn’t feel bad for having sex or having autonomy. In fact, they should be proud of themselves for taking care of themselves despite all the misogynist messages out there that women don’t have a right to take care of ourselves. People balked at the idea that the “I had an abortion” T-shirts smacked of that mortal female sin of pride, but I applaud it. Women should be proud of doing right by themselves in a world where that’s socially disavowed.
But while I think visibility is a major issue in the discussion about rape, this shirt rubs me the wrong way, even though I love the design. It’s a T-shirt, for one thing, where you put positive messages as a rule. The band you like, a funny cartoon, a political cause you support. Abortion is about self-care, and taking care of yourself is something to be proud enough of that you put it on a T-shirt. But rape? Rape is just Teh Suck. This statement in the article is what bothered me, I think.
What was she going for? A shirt that would let rape victims “own the experience,” she says, and would help chip away the cone of silence that surrounds a crime with humiliation at its core.
By definition, you don’t own the experience of being raped. The reason it’s so traumatizing is that your ownership of yourself is totally robbed of you, and you’re the toy in someone else’s power fantasies. At best, you can own the recovery process or you can own the process of pressing charges, but what you faced when you’re raped was the evil that men do, and you faced it in a very intimate way, and we can’t Oprah our way out of that. Pressure to “own” a rape probably doesn’t do rape victims a bit of good, because that puts it back into the dominant narrative about rape, which is that it’s a woman’s fault if it happens to her. Honestly speaking, I found it best to deal with the trauma by not making myself some sort of center or agency in the story. The rapist did it, and he did it for his own reasons that didn’t actually have much to do with me. I was a convenient target, no more, no less. And once I told myself this, pressing charges seemed very important, because that meant he was sure to do it again to someone else if not held accountable. I didn’t “own” the situation, because it wasn’t my fault and I had nothing really to do with it in terms of agency or ownership.
I’m also afraid that this shirt would attract more sexual abuse if you wore it out and about. If you cross paths with a man who enjoys the power trip of sexual abuse and assault, and he reads that you’re coming at him pre-victimized, what’s he likely to do?
So nay on the T-shirt. But I’m open to hearing arguments about it, though. Especially from anyone else who has survived sexual assault and has a grasp on the internal games you play with yourself when your autonomy is stolen from you for however long the assault occurred.
102 Responses to “You know who needs to take ownership for rapes? Rapists.”
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I agree with everything you’ve said. While the design is creative, I don’t think encountering a woman in this shirt (they only come in women’s sizes) will make some douchebag re-think his blame-the-victim mentality. In fact I think he’d probably by an XL for himself and wear it “ironically” to a frat party.
If individual rape victims think they could gain something by wearing this shirt, more power to them. What I’d really like to see is a shirt for rapists, reading “I’ve committed rape.”
SarahMC - Just a Tshirt? Nah, how about a big tattoo all the way across their face? “I am a rapist”. That way we’d all know in advance to stay the hell away from him and it might make men think twice.
RE: the above Tshirt, I can see how wearing it would be valuable in certain situations, such as anti-violence against women rallies or fundraisers. Otherwise, yeah, I think it would be the subject of a lot of jokes and opportunities for women to be re-violated, verbally, if not physically. Haven’t we all heard enough about how funny rape is?
I’m ultimately not sure whether I agree with Amanda or not, and as somebody who’s never experienced a sexual assault, I wouldn’t feel comfortable making a firm statement one way or the other. But I think that this shirt is about owning the recovery process. It may not be included in the text of the shirt itself, but the very fact of wearing it says, “I’m not ashamed of this thing that happened to me. It was not my fault.”
This is a sort of random analogy, but I have a very distinct memory, when there was major flooding of the Mississippi in 1993, of seeing a bunch of “I survived the flood of ‘93″ T-shirts around, and this seems like a similar sentiment. You could also look at a lot of the costumes/floats from NOLA Mardi Gras parades in the last few years. Or maybe a better analogy would be a T-shirt identifying yourself as a cancer survivor. Cancer, like rape, is something that attacks you from outside yourself, and takes away something you thought you owned. Claiming to be a “rape survivor” would be a bit confusing, since it implies that death is a common outcome of rape, but I think this shirt is communicating essentially the same thing.
once I told myself this, pressing charges seemed very important, because that meant he was sure to do it again to someone else if not held accountable.
How about a t-shirt reading “I prosecuted my rapist,” or “My rapist went to jail.”
I also think people will read the shirt and think, “Hey, rape can’t be all bad. She brags about it on her shirt! Hehehehe!”
It will reinforce some people’s backwards viewpoint that rape is a compliment.
I love how you hit the point. Rape is not the woman’s fault. There is no shame in being the victim. People will often agree with this, publically, but in their mind and secret behaviors, we see how they too might feel if the woman had “used better judgment” she wouldn’t have been raped.
“My rapist went to jail.”
now THAT shirt i could get behind.
OhioBoy: But the shirt doesn’t say, “I survived a rape.” Which I think would put it more in that category that you describe.
I, too, have not experienced sexual assault, so my response is theoretical. I agree with Amanda that an instruction to “own” someone’s assault on you is pretty troubling and takes this sort of self-help thinking a step too far.
After reading OhioBoy, I was reminded of a bumper sticker I’ve seen a few times: “Someone I love was murdered.” But then I compared my reaction to those bumper stickers (a very sobering shock in the middle of whatever mundane errands I was running, a reminder of the evil in the world, a desire to call my parents, hug my son, tell my husband I love him) with what I think would be the reaction of some (not all, but too many) people to someone wearing the “I was raped” t-shirt. I think the reaction would be either very uncomfortable (why don’t you just keep that private) or a disgusting purient interest. I know part of the point of the shirt is to shift those attitudes, but I’m not sure it would have that effect. And it makes me very sad because thinking about the different reaction the two things provoke makes me realize just how much people do blame the victim.
I think initially quite a few men will only see it as a joke (”the safe got raped”) and not think about the wearer at all. Hey, funny shirt! Where can I get one?
I think all Amanda’s points are valid. I also think the t-shirt can work as the designer intended. And I think it has some level of free speech/artistic value attached to it; in the best case it will generate thoughtful discussion. Finally I think it would take a particularly strong person to literally wear their victimization on their sleeve like that. Just as it does to post it on a blog under their real name.
I clicked over and read the comments at the story in the NYT. There are some very good comments on both sides from victims of sexual assault, but there is a trend through the whole thing that this shirt is just a vain plea for attention or a way to play the “victim card.” Basically, it’s “why are you forcing me to think about unpleasant things, get over yourself already.” It’s pretty depressing.
Among the more succinct:
I have to agree with BadKitty’s assessment of what typical reactions to such a shirt would be. I hear enough rape jokes wearing a plain shirt, wearing something like that would be painting a big target on myself. Yeah, it might be okay to wear at a Take Back the Night march or something, somewhere where the environment is supportive…but elsewhere, no.
I overall agree with what Amanda said.
However, it took me a few minutes to understand the shirt. For some odd reason I thought the safe was a microwave, and that just didn’t make much sense.
I think that this design — with the tiny note inside a safe — would work better as a poster or a card, for the reasons Amanda says. Maybe in some spaces the notion of letting out something that’s usually hidden would work, but in general public use I’m not sure it would. If you’re going to say “I was raped” in public, it seems to me (also not talking from experience) more effective to take ownership of the fact that you’re making a statement.
“Owning the experience” could easily be conflated with “owning up” to having been raped, especially in a culture that will seize on any excuse to blame the victim.
I think there are better ways to express the underlying idea. The problem is that society is undermines rape victims’ authority to interpret their own experiences.
We trust people to recognize robbery and battery when it happens to them. If someone says they were robbed, we don’t second-guess their ability to differentiate between gift-giving and theft, or explain to them why their iPod belonged to the mugger all along.
If you think you were robbed, you’re entitled to say so without being stigmatized. You aren’t accused of deliberately ruining the alleged mugger’s life.
Sure, it’s serious to accuse someone of stealing–but we take it for granted that someone who beleives they’ve been robbed has a right to publicly air those charges. Their account may or may not constitute proof beyond a reasonable doubt, depending on the circumstances–but even if it doesn’t, we don’t assume that the victim is deluded or malicious.
Without sounding overly simplistic, I think we need to be very mindful in remembering that because so many of us are and have been raped, how we heal, how we speak out, how we break silence is incredibly diverse.
When Jennifer asked me to take part in this with her, and suggested she felt Scarleteen was a good place for some funds from these to go, I agreed because both as a survivor of more than one abuse and assault and as a counselor and advocate, it struck me as one way of many — though how many is often sorely limited — for survivors, like myself, like a lot of the young women I counsel through rape and abuse, to be able to voice what happened to them, especially those who are not quite at speaking it verbally, or those who already have and want to be more visible.
I know for me, it is important for me to own these experiences, because it took me so long to have to fight against others denying they even happened to me at all, to fight people around me not wanting to use the word rape, etc. With one of my rapes, not only was I not able to get any justice, at the age of 12, the police called wouldn’t even allow me to file a report (alas, I was one of those who also didn’t cry appropriately, as one is supposed to, but instead was in a state of very quiet shock and confusion), but instead told me they felt my shorts were too short, and that I should just go home and reconsider how I dressed in 90-degree weather next time. So, for me, personally, being able to say I was raped and having that be something which I did not allow to be refuted and spoke plainly has been a very big deal throughout my life. And no: I never asked for any of this, and those who assaulted me are responsible. But what happened is part of my life, and thus something I do have interest in feeling like I own, and doing that is a big part of owning my survival, too.
I was really pleased when I saw the design, and I think it can speak to (especially considering that already today, I have an email box quickly flooding with positive responses and thanks) some survivors. Not all, but then I’m not sure what can. Might it not always meet with positive responses? I’m quite sure it won’t, and I’m also quite sure that it won’t always be met with understanding or respect. But IMO, even in those kinds of responses, I see an opportunity for any of us to face them head on and be able to voice how wrong we think they are, or what they miss, perpetuate or discount.
As well, already, it’s spurred a lot of conversation, and I think that’s a Very Good Thing.
Oh, Christ Almighty, I thought it was a microwave.
I thought it was a microwave.
Excellent point. Because the dial isn’t that obvious, the safe should be square, or even taller than it is wide, to avoid looking like the inside of a microwave.
I haven’t read the other comments, but I would be less bothered by the shirt if the language it used wasn’t passive. I realize that all gender combinations can be either rapists or rape survivors (male-on-female is just most prevalent and most relevant to this site), so a shirt that said “he raped me” wouldn’t be sufficient, but adding one that said “she raped me” would be used as a joke.
I also agree with your point that to a certain breed of predator will just take the shirt as an invitation. So nay on the shirt from me, too.
“…but what you faced when you’re raped was the evil that men do,…”
An Iron Maiden reference?
You people have some funny microwaves.
I think the artwork is brilliant, but I have similar misgivings about putting it on t-shirts. Not necessarily because I think it would be an invitation, but just because it’s the wrong canvas.
Me, I’d go for billboards. Lots and lots of billboards.
the other trouble with putting it on t-shirts is that in these days of “ironic” t-shirts and bands with overly precious-looking artwork, people might not take it at face value.
Speaking as someone who has not been a victim of sexual assault, I think the shirt is pretty much a no for the reasons that Amanda puts forth.
I can only imagine my own response to women (or men) wearing the shirt. It would be immediate aversion of my gaze–out of uncertainty as to how I should respond. Do I mention the shirt? Do I ask for more details? Do I tell the person wearing it that I am sorry? Will it cause me to instantly stigmatize that person as a “victim” when I would otherwise treat him or her like anyone else?
I think of friends who have shared their experiences of sexual assault with me, and it often took years or at least several stiff drinks to have those experiences to come out. I don’t know that a shirt is the way to break the silence, and I don’t know that a rape victim would *want* to break the silence in every context.
The other thing I wanted to say is that I’ve been reading this blog for about a year and a half now, maybe two years. I can’t recall when I first learned that Amanda was the survivor of a sexual assault, but it is something I often “forget” in corresponding with her. I personally like the fact that I forget this detail.
But I also like when Amanda returns to this subject, and I am not sure why. Perhaps because there is an “everydayness” about the way she does so. Or actually, it’s not an “everydayness” at all, but a sort of de-stigmatizing matter-of-factness.
By contrast, I find the shirt a tiny bit “theatrical,” like it is waiting for an audience. And I am not sure how I feel about being visually confronted with a knowledge that I do not necessarily know how to respond to, at least not until I know the person better.
I love the art, as art. It makes a statement.
However, I would sooner facilitate my daughter leaving the house with no shirt than wearing that shirt.
I tend to respond to this sort of idea from the perspective, Would I want my child to ________? (have to beg the pharmacist for Plan B, need my permission to get a surgical abortion, drink so much that she doesn’t know who raped her, etc.) While this perspective engages my emotions, it also frees me up from a lot of the socially imposed judgment that triggers victim-blaming (for which obviously IBTP).
I mention this because I mean that in the most supportive way: My child could never deserve to be raped, and therefore no one else does either. The secrecy surrounding rape is a mystery that must be punctured then burned, but this is not how I’d want my child doing those necessary hard things.
It’s an amazing graphic–really does put into visual terms the idea of someone taking the first quiet step to say, “Yes, this happened to me. This exists and it wasn’t my fault.”
I agree with the people who think it would make a better postcard or poster (or even a billboard). I can envision it on cards that a person could give out if they wanted to, or as the front cover of an informational pamphlet, or on an anti-rape poster.
If a rape survivor does want to wear the shirt, who am I to say that’s a wrong tool in their recovery? There are people who will find it useful. I don’t think (if I had been raped) I would be brave enough to wear it on a shirt. It would be too scary. But some people will feel differently.
So I think the graphic should be available in other media. It is worth at least a 1000 words, and may spark some.
{the other trouble with putting it on t-shirts is that in these days of “ironic” t-shirts and bands with overly precious-looking artwork, people might not take it at face value.}
exactly what i thought. see threadless.com for more of an explanation. id have thought it was a comment on the economy in an ironic way before i would think it was about actual rape.
I, too, would be afraid of a woman going around in the shirt. I think a visual representation of many rape victims, say, gathered in Madison Square Garden would be a statement, but going around alone might invite trouble. I think a T-shirt saying DEAD MEN DON’T RAPE would be more like it.
I also don’t think that the passive voice works well in this T-shirt. “I was raped” places more agency on the victim. But if a victim does find this shirt helpful, that’s great. Sometimes just even acknowledging something bad happened helps. Although I do think that a person wearing this shirt would become a target. I think “Someone raped me” would be better, as would “I survived being raped”.
Though “I was raped, and all I got was shamed into silence, harassed, ridiculed, blamed and no justice because my rapist walks free” would be closer to the truth.
For me, “I had an abortion” should be as morally loaded as “I had a Pap smear”. The underpinnings of the moral angst about abortion—the idea that a woman has no right to pry loose a flag a man has planted in her (even if he agrees with her decision, as most men in this case do), or that she should be punished for having sex—offend me to the core, and that many women go through anguish over getting abortions depresses me.
Amanda, is that really what you believe about the “underpinnings of the moral angst,” or is it just what you are claiming that you believe so that you won’t have to address what you know to be the true underpinnings? As one of many millions of people who have issues with the morality of abortion, and not for anything close to either of the reasons you describe, I’m having trouble believing that you could possibly be so obtuse. (Hint: I don’t believe a fetus is a “flag.” And no, I don’t believe abortion should be against the law. And no, I’m not male.)
It does your pro-choice cause nothing but harm, in the long run, to play such a half-assed game of denial about the opposing point of view.
I would not wear this T-shirt.
First, I wouldn’t wear it for the same reason I wouldn’t wear the “I got an abortion” T-shirt. As much as I’m not ashamed of my abortion, my career depends on the subjective opinions of my colleagues, who have a diverse set of political viewpoints. I just can’t afford to piss off the conservatives. So my abortion remains a secret known to only a few close friends (and the entire Intertubes, with this pseudonym).
But with the rape it’s even more complicated. I don’t want to talk about it in public. Or with most people. My rape (well, the one of the 2 and one attempted that I’m dealing with now), was the more common type, a friend, lots of alcohol, and I didn’t react stereotypically or press charges. In other words, not rape at all in the opinions of many. And I don’t want to have to re-defend myself and re-define rape over and over again to whatever assholes think they know more than I do about what happened in that room. And there’s too many of those assholes out there everyday for me to risk putting it out their on a T-shirt
I find it interesting that most folks in this thread are assuming that because it’s a tee shirt, that means that someone who wore it would wear it casually, like any other tee shirt. My own guess is that most folks who bought them would be very selective about where and when to wear them — at marches or rallies, for instance (like BadKitty and Genevieve suggested), or at conferences, or in other environments where they wanted to make a very specific statement.
What if someone wore such a shirt to a college class where rape was going to be discussed, or to a class where rape had been discussed in a problematic way in the past? It’d take a lot of guts, and you’d need to plan in advance how you were going to deal with any questions that came up, but I can see it potentially having a powerful positive effect.
Sorry, ma’am. If it was really about “babies” and that wasn’t just an excuse layered over discomfort with female sexuality, then you’d find people who were anti-abortion who were anti-war (which kills babies), pro-universal health care (which saves babies), and pro-choice (because contraception and abortion rights are the main way to lower the abortion rate).
Actually, anti-choicers tend to have a set of beliefs that points to discomfort with sexual freedom and women’s rights(social conservatives who are anti-feminism, anti-health care, pro-war, and tend to get up in arms when pro-choicers attempt to reduce the abortion rate by spreading education and contraception), whereas people who actually value human life are liberals that are generally pro-choice.
In other words, you’re projecting, Miss. It’s you who are lying about the motivations of anti-choicers, and me who has a more accurate view of the landscape. To be fair, I accept that you might be lying to yourself. A lot of anti-choicers are, because they grasp, in their pea-brained way, that it sounds better to talk about babies than up depriving women of their shoes and of opportunities to leave the kitchen.
I think I’m missing something huge here. I saw that design and it bothered me a lot, in the “sex is a thing that women have and men take” kind of way. Why else would it be a safe?
“The anti-choice movement tries like hell to erase women’s existence, or at least our individuality, and the T-shirt undermines that.”
So the t-shirt undermines the erasing of individuality?
How?
By having a bunch of people wear the same t-shirt? By turning post-abortion women into some sort of block?
Do you think for even two seconds before you write this crap?
“Sorry, ma’am. If it was really about “babies” and that wasn’t just an excuse layered over discomfort with female sexuality, then you’d find people who were anti-abortion who were anti-war (which kills babies), pro-universal health care (which saves babies), and pro-choice (because contraception and abortion rights are the main way to lower the abortion rate).”
Um, I’m pro-life, anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-universal healthcare, and pro-Obama, even though he’s pro-choice, because I think the good he’ll do will far outweigh his ability to promote a more pro-abortion environment.
You should do some research on folks like the Seamless Garment. Or else, you’ll continue to spout ignorance.
Abortion is a wedge that is used to divide people who truly care about the human condition, and you’re just a jack hammer driving the wedge in deeper.
100 years from now abortion will be lined up with slavery in the hall of shame.
pro-life, anti-war, anti-death penalty
Of course you are. War and the death penalty have the potential to hurt men.
100 years from now abortion will be mandatory for all pregnancies not authorized by the Fertility Board.
I think the idea is that victims keep the fact that they’ve been raped “locked up,” secret.
You can deny it all you want, but comparing abortion to slavery erases women’s bodies, women’s needs, and women’s agency. It’s a particularly disgusting comparison given that in the U.S., enslaved women were raped and “bred” to produce more slaves.
There is nothing emancipatory about having babies against our will. There is nothing emancipatory about deciding for someone else whether and when she will have children. There never has been.
I don’t like the “flag a man has planted in you” language when it’s used to suggest that that’s what pregnancy inherently is, but the mass of pro-lifers absolutely do treat it as related to male ownership of women.
“100 years from now abortion will be lined up with slavery in the hall of shame.”
Are you kidding me? Do *you* think before you write???
That is not only sexist but racist, and I don’t think you were trying to be either one of those things, which is what really bothers me!
“Of course you are. War and the death penalty have the potential to hurt men.”
That is, by far, the dumbest thing I ever read. Thanks!
Oh Amanda. Did you read what I wrote? Did you see that I said I am not anti-choice? Are you capable of understanding any nuance or subtlety at all other than the silly dual categories in which you are busily wedging all of humanity? Well . . . clearly not.
Honey, you have no idea whatsoever what you are talking about. I am quite clear on the difference between believing that a fetus has human value and being . . . whatever form of woman-hating you think people must believe who don’t think that a fetus is a flag. You rolled out so many stereotypes in such a big hurry that I can’t keep track of ‘em all. (Has it occurred to you that slightly more than half of fetuses are female? Or do you only support MALE fetal abortions?) In any case, whatever you may imagine, I am very much in favor of female sexuality, having found it to be quite a lot of fun so far in many decades of life. Also, and not in the least in contradiction, I am deeply bothered by abortion. I do not think it should be illegal, but I do think that in most cases it’s immoral and people shouldn’t do it. Check out any poll and you will find that a large majority of Americans from all political points of view agree with me. They’re all — unlike you — capable of actually thinking, not just stereotyping.
I didn’t think you could be so obtuse. My bad. You can!!
“100 years from now abortion will be mandatory for all pregnancies not authorized by the Fertility Board.”
No, by insurance companies. But then again, if Universal Healthcare is dictated by the bottom line, then the merger of the military-industrial complex with a health apparatus will be the same thing anyway.
“You can deny it all you want, but comparing abortion to slavery erases women’s bodies, women’s needs, and women’s agency. It’s a particularly disgusting comparison given that in the U.S., enslaved women were raped and “bred” to produce more slaves.”
This is akin to a reverse Godwin’s law. I’m not comparing slavery and abortion at an essential level, I’m comparing the inhumanity of both. Does it lessen Slavery to put it on a list with the Holocaust as an atrocity? Of course not.
And by the way, one of the points of genocide at the Nuremberg Trials was abortion, and, not forced abortion.
“There is nothing emancipatory about having babies against our will. There is nothing emancipatory about deciding for someone else whether and when she will have children. There never has been.”
But there certainly is something emancipatory about ripping living humans out of wombs and freeing them into toilet bowls, right?
“I don’t like the “flag a man has planted in you” language when it’s used to suggest that that’s what pregnancy inherently is, but the mass of pro-lifers absolutely do treat it as related to male ownership of women.”
I absolutely agree with you. The argument is politicized and owned by a patriarchal system that really does view the womb as a place for crafting workers and heirs.
But I believe that abortion is in fact the ultimate in patriarchal control, and that the illusion of choice in fact serves the goals of the corporations and politicians.
“Are you kidding me? Do *you* think before you write???
That is not only sexist but racist, and I don’t think you were trying to be either one of those things, which is what really bothers me!”
Oh please.
The issue of slavery is beyond race, and the issue of abortion is beyond gender. God, and you call yourself Foucalt?
I think you need a new gearbox for your shifters.
“The issue of slavery is beyond race, and the issue of abortion is beyond gender. God, and you call yourself Foucalt?”
No, ass-clown, the abortion issue is certainly not beyond gender. It’s fundamentally rooted in gender: a woman’s right to choose what she wants to do with her body and her fetus, versus anyone else who stands in the way of that decision.
And unfortunately, in a historical context and in a contemporary context. the issue of slavery can never be “beyond race,” fuckwad. That is because the vast majority of enslaved peoples have been racialized, whereas the vast majority of slave-owners have been white.
Now that you have exposed yourself as a total ass-hat, you might as well give up the “I’m for Obama” crap. He would surely be disgusted to know that someone like you supports him, and that you deny the simplest historical facts.
Go rally for Cheney, he seems more in step with your “true colors.”
How is the issue of abortion beyond gender? How? Foetuses aside, it is female bodies that get pregnant. How is this “beyond” gender?
As for slavery being beyond race, that sounds a lot like claiming that we’re all equally victimized, or the same.
But there certainly is something emancipatory about ripping living humans out of wombs and freeing them into toilet bowls, right?
This is an appeal to emotion, not an argument. Yes, it is emancipatory for women (you know, those fleshy containers for wombs) to be able to decide when we’re going to give our bodies to the creation of other people and when we’re not. It is emancipatory for us to have access to safe surgical and/or chemical abortion. Surgery is always somewhat disgusting (although no, medical waste does not get flushed down the toilet).
I absolutely agree with you. The argument is politicized and owned by a patriarchal system that really does view the womb as a place for crafting workers and heirs.
But I believe that abortion is in fact the ultimate in patriarchal control, and that the illusion of choice in fact serves the goals of the corporations and politicians.
This doesn’t follow. If the patriarchal system can benefit from pregnancy carried to term (more heirs and workers) OR from abortion (fewer dependents), how is abortion any more “patriarchal control” than birth?
I expect you’re referring to the fact that many women feel pushed into abortion by economic circumstances. I agree that that’s a problem. However, I also believe that some women choose abortion because they genuinely do not want to bear or parent children at that time.
The answer is not to restrict choices further.
@ Mrs Whatsit 41:
Is this supposed be one of those arguments that means “Abortion hurts women”? Do you really equate ‘female fetus’ with ‘woman’?
I’m not sure if you are a regular reader here at Pandagon or troll*, but Amanda is one of the least obtuse people on the interwebs. You’re the one being obtuse here by insisting that in order for someone to even have temerity to talk about abortion they must make a list of caveats that encapsulates every possible shade of moral concern about abortion. Amanda is spot on to point out that abortion politics is entirely about patriarchal control of women’s bodies; your moral concerns don’t matter at all in this question. In fact, your moral concerns don’t matter to anti-abortion politics either. Whatever shade of gray you adopt in your moral posture, that gray is going to get co-opted by the wingnuts that control the debate.
I for one listen much more closely to the moral arguments that anti-abortion folks make when they also support the other stuff that actually makes real people’s lives better (health care, anti-war, etc.). So, I respect you for that. But let’s not be naive here–that doesn’t matter for shit when it comes to the politics of liberating or controlling women’s bodies and lives.
* I think by definition you are a troll at the moment for taking the thread completely off topic.
“The issue of slavery is beyond race, and the issue of abortion is beyond gender. God, and you call yourself Foucalt?”
“No, ass-clown, the abortion issue is certainly not beyond gender. It’s fundamentally rooted in gender: a woman’s right to choose what she wants to do with her body and her fetus, versus anyone else who stands in the way of that decision.”
You’re assuming number one a continuum of gender as a fixed state. Which I find immediately reprehensible at both a scientific and a philosophical level.
“And unfortunately, in a historical context and in a contemporary context. the issue of slavery can never be “beyond race,” fuckwad. That is because the vast majority of enslaved peoples have been racialized, whereas the vast majority of slave-owners have been white.”
Really, fuckwad? Is that necessary? Your “point” of course depends on your definition of slavery. But we’ll for argument sake talk about the historical facts of the African slave trade. You are aware that the first, and primary, movers and shakers in the slave trade were Muslim, no?
“Now that you have exposed yourself as a total ass-hat, you might as well give up the “I’m for Obama” crap. He would surely be disgusted to know that someone like you supports him, and that you deny the simplest historical facts.”
Oh please. Again, Foucault is arguing from historical facts? I contend that the biopower in fact encourages abortion and the illusion of choice for eugenic/economic reasons.
You’re just another grad-school clone without a conscience or an intellect.
So now…let me get this straight. Saying that abortion has to do with women and women’s rights is…transphobic?
But we’ll for argument sake talk about the historical facts of the African slave trade. You are aware that the first, and primary, movers and shakers in the slave trade were Muslim, no?
Are you trying to make a broader point about human nature, or what are you doing here?
I contend that the biopower in fact encourages abortion and the illusion of choice for eugenic/economic reasons.
This is a red herring, unless you are arguing that all abortions, everywhere, are at some level coerced (even if the woman believes she’s making her own decision), whereas all pregnancies that are carried to term are carried to term of the woman’s will (even if she believes she’s being coerced).
That’s the only way to justify your position (anti-choice, i.e. in favour of a government ban on abortion) in terms of women’s freedom.
We don’t generally ban things outright just because some people experience them in abusive ways; if that were true we’d have no families, no sex, no work…
Dear trollish assholes:
This thread is about RAPE. not abortion, RAPE.
Once again the discussion of an issue about harming women has turned into an argument about how many rights the government should take away from women.
in the words of the immortal ed asner, CUT IT OUT.
sorry, Ms. Marcotte, if I’ve stepped on your blogular mod feet. I just hate to see people steal every. damn. thread to grind their most condescending axes.
“I just hate to see people steal every. damn. thread to grind their most condescending axes.”
…so say we all…
:)
Of course biopower encourages abortion. It also encourage not getting abortion. Biopower simply is the form of power in which we live. It’s not ‘good’ or ‘bad’, it simply ‘is’. It takes a rather dull reader of Foucault (the philosopher, not the one here) to think that because the word ‘power’ is in the term it must be a bad thing. Power is the way that subjects get created and thus constructs the conditions for both obedience and resistance. The fight for and against abortion rights happens in the field of biopower, so whatever we mean by ‘abortion’ we mean in terms that biopower creates, which includes the discourses of eugenics. You have to be an ass-clown to think that means pro-abortion=pro-eugenics and anti-abortion=anti-eugenics. Because our subjectivities are created by biopower (some folks think we’re not in the age of biopower anymore, I disagree) we cannot help but contest questions of control and liberation in terms of the population statistics that are the centerpiece of biopower.
So, dink, stop being a dink and learn how to read.
I haven’t read the comments, and the post above the box I’m typing in makes me glad. Go away, trolls.
I wanted to say, excellent post Amanda. I also wanted to say
*DISCLAIMER: this post written by a man who wants to be told if he’s getting this wrong**
that I think that you write very eloquently about the problem of rape dialogue. Rapists (and more generally, the culture of rape) wants to make rape not that big a deal, or at least mostly the fault of the woman who has been raped, so that they can continue with their raping ways. And yet, at the same time, rape must be a horrible, emotionally crushing experience, not only during the rape but long after, to discourage sensitive and intelligent dialogue about the very real problem of rape. Again, so rapists can continue to rape.
If you ask me, this is totally fucked up. If you are raped, it is horribly traumatic. Possibly worse than death. What are you doing talking about it? After all it was your fault for dressing provocatively/being mouthy/being in this place at that time of night.
I’ve said before that this seems way unhealthy. But Amanda, you’ve pointed out to me that it is not just unhealthy, it is a powerful force in maintaining a rape culture. It’s fucked up, but it’s not supposed to be good for you. It’s supposed to be good for rapists. So, thank you. A lot. I hadn’t gotten this part of the picture, at least not clearly, before.
Maybe I have another discussion with another man about why we say that all men are sexist, I should bring this shit up. Without it, it seems like I’m missing part of the explanation.
How is the issue of abortion beyond gender? How? Foetuses aside, it is female bodies that get pregnant. How is this “beyond” gender?”
Well, I think we’re rapidly, if not already in, a post-gender paradigm. To fix abortion to femininity is like fixing ethics to the ten commandments.
“As for slavery being beyond race, that sounds a lot like claiming that we’re all equally victimized, or the same.”
In the early part of the 20th century, the only people considered “white” were Anglo-Nordics. Race is an invention of politics.
But there certainly is something emancipatory about ripping living humans out of wombs and freeing them into toilet bowls, right?
This is an appeal to emotion, not an argument. Yes, it is emancipatory for women (you know, those fleshy containers for wombs) to be able to decide when we’re going to give our bodies to the creation of other people and when we’re not. It is emancipatory for us to have access to safe surgical and/or chemical abortion. Surgery is always somewhat disgusting (although no, medical waste does not get flushed down the toilet).
Agreed. Cheap shot. As for emancipatory, the idea that emancipation comes in the form of a medical operation that is only available to relatively wealthy women is about the height of existential horror I can imagine.
“This doesn’t follow. If the patriarchal system can benefit from pregnancy carried to term (more heirs and workers) OR from abortion (fewer dependents), how is abortion any more “patriarchal control” than birth?
I expect you’re referring to the fact that many women feel pushed into abortion by economic circumstances. I agree that that’s a problem. However, I also believe that some women choose abortion because they genuinely do not want to bear or parent children at that time.
The answer is not to restrict choices further.”
I agree that some abortions are the result of a woman not wanting to have a child at a certain time. But I can’t think of one example of that that wouldn’t have an economic motivation: even if it is just generally related to the “spirit of capitalism.”
If someone who has been raped wants to wear this shirt, more power to them but I’m not sure what my reaction would have been if I had seen this in public before seeing it here. I probably would have thought it was some kind of joke, in line with a lot of the crude t-shirts I see.
As far as some of the comments above, I dont understand the statement that “historically most slaveowners have been white”. Are we only discussing the last few centuries and only in the states? I would pretty much guarantee you, based on how many actual slave owners there were in America, that historically there have been more slaveowners in Africa as taking slaves goes back thousands of years there, ditto the near, middle, and far Easts.
Fine.
How ’bout we fix abortion to the people with the biological prerequisites for requiring one?
A transwoman has as much a right to an abortion as any woman does, it’s just that, you know, she probably isn’t going to need one. The point still being, it’s a call for the WOMAN to make. It’s her body, therefore the decision is “fixed” to her. Get it?
… exactly.
This is why feminists want more accessibility for EVERYONE. It is indeed a horrible thing if anyone is forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will. It is every bit as bad when someone is prohibited from getting an abortion by an economic barrier as it is when someone is prohibited by a legal barrier.
A note, in my above comment, I’m obviously not trying to mark a dichotomy between transwomen and women. I’m including transwomen as a subset of women. Ciswomen with the biological capacity to conceive are also a subset, as are ciswomen without the capacity to conceive, and anyone else who identifies as female but I’m leaving out.
Dink said:
“You’re just another grad-school clone without a conscience or an intellect.”
At least I can get into grad school, fuckwad. You are clearly too stupid. And your comment about Muslims being one of the primary movers and shakers of the slave trade only advances my point: Egyptians enslaved Jews on *racial* grounds, because they viewed them as a different and subhuman race. Slavery is almost always rooted in racial or gendered divides: one dominant group (usually white and male) perceives another group (usually racialized and/or female) as inferior, and enslaves them on that basis.
Your anti-capitalist arguments also indicate that you are someone who does not have a lot of money, and hence has an axe to grind at those who do. Go get a real job, loser. Then you, too, will be able to afford an abortion.
It’s too bad that alot of the really interesting threads that I have read in the last few days have been totally taken over by trolls.. Their ranks are apparently on the move.
Really great post, I’ve been pondering it since yesterday and I appreciate all of the sincere and thoughtful comments that have been made.
This seems like a more important discussion now than ever.
As for the shirt, I like the poster, protester, billboard, card idea myself (rather than casual wear), but who am I to say what a person can do, what might help them heal?
Rape is shockingly common. I have found that the older I get the more friends, family members (my husband included), coworkers and acquantences tell of their rape and are sometimes painfully blase about it…
Anything we can do to discourage the rape culture must be a good thing.
you’re acting like biopower is the natural state of all political-economies from the history of time, and that it’s impossible to posit a system wherein it isn’t predominant. but i do posit one different, and claim further than anything that leads to the creation of anything approaching our modern systems of government sucks.
timber.
“but i do posit one different, and claim further than anything that leads to the creation of anything approaching our modern systems of government sucks.”
You impoverished social rejects are all the same: complain complain and deny reality. Call us when you save enough to buy rubbers so you can fuck your girlfriend.
#35: If you’re the rare anti-choicer who actually is a liberal, then you probably need to really think about why it is that you’re suddenly willing to sacrifice health and well-being of women when you are otherwise a smart person.
I don’t know you, and it’s technically possible you are that very rare bird. But honestly, I haven’t met a person who was perfectly fine with orgies in the street but still anti-choice. You scratch the already-rare person who says, “I’m a liberal ‘pro-lifer’” (even though a genuine liberal would realize that banning abortion doesn’t reduce the abortion rate), and usually you find someone harboring odd ideas about sexual freedom (they don’t like it).
But dink? If you think it’s bad, you do realize you’re free not to have an abortion, right?
NM, the way dink easily erased women’s humanity in this thread shows that he’s not the liberal he claims to be, but just your usual anti-choicer, harboring ill feelings about women and sexuality. Still batting 1.000.
Which makes sense. No person that’s really being reasonable thinks abortion is a gray area. If you really think about it, free from misogyny and prejudices about sexual behavior, then there’s no argument against a woman’s right to choose, especially in the long period when a fetus has no brain to speak of. Any argument that you could muster pretty much automatically puts a brainless fetus over a living, breathing woman, and that’s indefensible to thinking people.
The abortion debate is contentious not because it’s full of shades of gray, as people claim. It’s because it’s not. It’s one of the rare black and white issues. The right to choose—to bodily autonomy—is so critical to women’s equality, that as long as you actually believe in women’s equality, it’s a non-argument. The reason it’s contentious is because of the same reason that religion or other kinds of woo are contentious—the anti-choicers are on the side of unreason, they they have to throw up a lot of smoke and bullshit. Because there are not two reasonable sides, or three, or whatever, but just one, it’s not a debate at all. More a mud fight.
This thread is a perfect example. Anti-choicers threadjack it, and they can’t make a reasonable argument, so they toss a bunch of smoke bombs, but have nothing of value to say that you can even argue with, since it makes no sense.
Dink, you must really be confused if you believe someone who calls themselves ‘Foucault’ thinks that forms of power are ahistorical/natural. You are really confused if you think that because power changes you can therefore *posit* a new form of it. If Foucualt’s body of work means anything, it means you don’t get to make up your own reality because it gets made for you. STFU.
Sorry for acknowledging/participating in a thread hijack. I’ll quit.
Amanda, I’m 100% with you on this post. As myself someone who was raped when I was very young, I think it is important to view it as something that happened to me and not as something I have to own or be branded with. I feel free to talk about my rape as candidly as possible, and the only reason I don’t write about it more on my own blog is that it’s painful for my mother, because she blames herself, and she reads my blog religiously.
That said, I know for some it’s important to see it as an identity — rape survivor — as a member of a community of people who have endured sexual trauma, a political identity, as a context in part of the healing process. It was for me too, for a time, especially as someone who was unable to bring law enforcement into the picture or have any kind of justice outside of talk therapy.
Anyway, I’m skeptical of the t-shirt because of a few reasons: 1) the precious t-shirt phenomena, as some have already mentioned, and 2) the potential to be further hurt by the bullshit opinions of outsiders who react to it. Nevertheless, I can imagine the power in a group of women wearing the shirt en masse to a political event.
“If you’re the rare anti-choicer who actually is a liberal”
I never claimed to be a liberal. Being anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-universal health care, anti-poverty, are certainly not the patented domain of liberals, but are instead the direct emanations of Catholic theology.
You folks try to co-opt them, and then somehow marry them to “orgies in the streets” and abortion, which are as illiberal and anti-human as you can get. If anyone has weird ideas about human sexuality, I would have to nominate you.
But I take it you were neither a history nor a philosophy major at your community college of choice.
“that forms of power are ahistorical/natural”
In your zeal to be an ass, you of course missed the point of my post which was that BIOPOWER IS NEITHER AHISTORICAL NOR NATURAL, BUT DIRECTLY ROOTED IN TIME AND ENABLED BY TECHNOLOGY.
As for the further pessimism, I’ll flush it down the toilet with Baudrillard and D&G, as I don’t believe that the end result of human understanding is/will be nihilistic, but for now all the intellectual appartus can summon is despair. Which is why that system should be demolished.
“But I take it you were neither a history nor a philosophy major at your community college of choice.”
…no, I believe Amanda is just an English major with a degree from a Catholic university.
But I’m sure her “weird ideas about human sexuality” serve to discount her education in your eyes…
Ironically, in my experience, Catholics in general seem to have more “weird ideas about sex” than many groups. But I’m sure it’s a lot easier to see the speck in Amanda’s eye than the 2x4 in your own…
“And your comment about Muslims being one of the primary movers and shakers of the slave trade only advances my point: Egyptians enslaved Jews on *racial* grounds”
No, I’m talking about the recent African slave trade. The most powerful slave traders were Muslim. Read up on the Belgian Congo. Stop being a doofus. You’ll like it better. The Europeans and then the Americans bought the slaves from the Muslim slave sellers. Then read about how King Leopold used the uprooted African tribes who had been trained as Slave Traders by the Muslims as his Fore Publique. And the read about how they were still trading slaves well into the early part of the 20th century, and probably ’til this day.
The fucking Egyptians were Muslim?
“Ironically, in my experience, Catholics in general seem to have more “weird ideas about sex” than many groups. But I’m sure it’s a lot easier to see the speck in Amanda’s eye than the 2x4 in your own…”
And it’s a lot easier for you to spout off a half-assed attack than to see that Amanda tried to obviate my otherwise “liberal” cred by saying that I probably harbored “weird ideas about sexuality” like “not supporting orgies in the streets.”
“Your anti-capitalist arguments also indicate that you are someone who does not have a lot of money, and hence has an axe to grind at those who do. Go get a real job, loser. Then you, too, will be able to afford an abortion”
Also, read some Goofus and Gallant.
Hint: You don’t want to be like Goofus.
“This is why feminists want more accessibility for EVERYONE. It is indeed a horrible thing if anyone is forced to carry a pregnancy to term against her will. It is every bit as bad when someone is prohibited from getting an abortion by an economic barrier as it is when someone is prohibited by a legal barrier.”
You miss my point. My fault. Very simply:
I believe it’s not only impossible, but illogical to try and proclaim a natural right that must be augmented by technology.
This includes but is not limited to: surgery (and therefore abortion and sex change operations), driving an automobile, and skydiving.
If a “right” needs a technological component that is not pre-existing in nature, than it cannot by default be a natural right, and, therefore, it is ridiculous to try and tie the “emancipation” of 1/2 of the world’s population to that “right.” Abortion only exists in the vacuum of science and medicine, which exist only the the vacuum of humanism and capitalism/socialism.
Let me put it this way: if somehow an electromagnetic pulse from some unknown cosmic explosion destroyed all of the circuitry on the planet, we would be left without modern technology. The only thing that makes abortion physically (to whatever extent it is safe) safe is the modern medical system, antibiotics, etc.
If those things were stripped away, would you expect that abortion would still be the great equalizer? That it is the ONLY AND BEST key to equality?
Now let me propose another far-out scenario: Haiti.
Haiti might as well have been hit by a cosmic pulse, for it’s lack of any real modern medical care, hospitals, and technology. (I’m speaking from limited first-hand knowledge of a trip there and personal anecdotes from folks I met, but I think it is a pretty good representation of life there.)
How exactly does one introduce Abortion, the great equalizer, to the Haitians? Does one first dismantle the Roman Catholic hegemony? How do you do that? Then, how do you actually pay for the machinery, doctors, medication? Tax the Haitians on their $2 a day income? Force other countries to pay to bring safe abortions there?
Or is it better to have unsafe abortions until conditions are better? How long is tolerable for those “back alley” abortions?
To me, this is as ridiculous as claiming that all we need to do is build McDonald’s in Iraq and peoples will begin a dancing.
Everyone else on here has been incredibly rude, but I’ve enjoyed this conversation with you. Peace.
“And it’s a lot easier for you to spout off a half-assed attack than to see that Amanda tried to obviate my otherwise “liberal” cred by saying that I probably harbored “weird ideas about sexuality” like “not supporting orgies in the streets.””
Actually, I’m pretty much just fed up with your stupid posts.
However, let’s examine how we got here, shall we?
dink: “Um, I’m pro-life, anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-universal healthcare, and pro-Obama, even though he’s pro-choice, because I think the good he’ll do will far outweigh his ability to promote a more pro-abortion environment.”
Which sounds like it might be liberal…
Amanda: “I don’t know you, and it’s technically possible you are that very rare bird. But honestly, I haven’t met a person who was perfectly fine with orgies in the street but still anti-choice. You scratch the already-rare person who says, “I’m a liberal ‘pro-lifer’” (even though a genuine liberal would realize that banning abortion doesn’t reduce the abortion rate), and usually you find someone harboring odd ideas about sexual freedom (they don’t like it).”
…Amanda says she doesn’t think so, using an extreme scenario (in obvious jest) to make her point…
dink: “I never claimed to be a liberal. Being anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-universal health care, anti-poverty, are certainly not the patented domain of liberals, but are instead the direct emanations of Catholic theology.”
dink says (de facto) ‘my church says I need to be against war, the death penalty, and poverty, and support access to healthcare, so I am - but that doesn’t make me a liberal, just a Catholic.’
And then in a typical Reichwing attempt at distraction, you seize on the “orgy” comment and use that to make it seem like Amanda is some kind of sex-crazed dirty fucking hippie feminazi, who in your mind doesn’t have the bona fides (“But I take it you were neither a history nor a philosophy major at your community college of choice.”) to talk to you. Or something…
And of course, none of this has anything to do with the original discussion of the anti-rape tee shirt, but instead stems for your derailment by bringing up abortion.
All in all, classic Reichwing troll behavior.
Good show! Now, how about you toddle on and leave us libruls to wallow in our ignorance…
Yeah, dink. I realized after I wrote that you were basically positing a liberal identity to incorrectly characterize my opinion—that anti-choice attitudes are based in sex-phobia and misogyny—and then you proved that you were being disingenuous and are as much a misogynist as any anti-choicer. I’m batting 1.000. All y’all are fucking nuts. So far, no exceptions to the rule. Any anti-choicer who is sane immediately decamps to the pro-choice side when they are presented with the logic.
“I never claimed to be a liberal. Being anti-war, anti-death penalty, pro-universal health care, anti-poverty, are certainly not the patented domain of liberals, but are instead the direct emanations of Catholic theology.”
Yes, you did claim to be liberal by linking yourself to Obama. I called it right the first time: you vote Dick Cheney and call yourself “dink” because you don’t bathe and smell like a penis.
Secondly, since when did the Catholic Church do what its theology espouses? Clerics in general and the Catholic Church in particular are historically famous for stealing from the poor, for killing or helping to kill thousands of innocent people (during the Inquisition, for one but also during the Holocaust), and for sponsoring wars.
Some people deserve a right to die: rapists and killers on death row; the Terry Shiavos of the world; fetuses whose mothers don’t want them (although these are not actually “people”); and so forth. I would add to the list the politicians who start unnecessary wars.
Let me reply to your non-sensical argument with my own logic: “I, dink, do not have anything to offer and therefore hereafter and so forth I contest the authority of the virgin Mary who drinks margaritas in the streets and has orgies with Jesus and the whore of Babylon. I smoke crack and see purple dragon flies on my ass and posit a new world order that will embrace life. But in order to have life, I will support the deaths of women and anyone who doesn’t want life the way I want it.
Go fuck yourself, you sick sack of shit.
MIKEESS
I Quote:
AMANDA:
If you’re the rare anti-choicer who actually is a liberal… it’s technically possible you are that very rare bird. But honestly, I haven’t met a person who was perfectly fine with orgies in the street but still anti-choice.
You scratch the already-rare person who says, “I’m a liberal ‘pro-lifer’” (even though a genuine liberal would realize that banning abortion doesn’t reduce the abortion rate), and usually you find someone harboring odd ideas about sexual freedom (they don’t like it).
And so:
Amanda is the one who claimed that being liberal must include being perfectly fine with orgies in the street.
“Actually, I’m pretty much just fed up with your stupid posts.”
And to quote Amanda again:
Then you don’t have to get an
abortionread my posts.Boy I hope that strike works.
Too bad someone didn’t abort YOU! I bet your mother wishes she had received some abortion counseling prior to your birth.
“Then you don’t have to get an
abortion read my posts.“I would love to read somebody else’s posts here, but you seem to have driven everyone else away. Which I assume was, at least in part, your intention when you started derailing the thread.
Since I see all posts on Pandagon with my RSS reader, your name just keeps popping up, over and over again. So it’s a little difficult to avoid your “wisdom”.
Actually, I’m hoping Amanda will just bunnify you, disemvowel you, or ban you for being boring.
But, I defer to our blogmistress’s judgment…
“Too bad someone didn’t abort YOU!”
Retroactive abortion?…
Since I see all posts on Pandagon with my RSS reader, your name just keeps popping up, over and over again. So it’s a little difficult to avoid your “wisdom”.
Yes, I want to drive everyone away. It’s a vast right-wing conspiracy to destroy Amanda’s rape t-shirt blog post.
But as for the RSS thing, I feel your pain.
And,
I wouldn’t mind being banned, as I have read this blog religiously for many months and been either outraged or bowled over by the zealous ludicrousness of basically every post. And could certainly make a habit of pointing out those things I find outrageous or ludicrous. And then get into long thread lines where people say I’m a retarded fuckwad and I say “no, I’m not” and waste more time that I don’t have on pointless exchanges with faceless people. So a banning would most probably be a big favor.
I have been banned, so far, from Media Matter, Little Green Footballs, Daily Kos, Townhall, a few Catholic blogs, and I’m sure some other ones as well that I can’t remember. And I have banned myself from Digg, reddit, many blogs (mostly “libertarian” where people would yell the same crap at me as you folks do here.)
However, I don’t think that I deserve banning, as for the most part I’ve been cordial if in disagreement, and have only returned insults in kind )if less vulgar/childish.(
Anyway, you should kill your RSS reader as it probably distracts you from doing important stuff.
“Too bad someone didn’t abort YOU! I bet your mother wishes she had received some abortion counseling prior to your birth.”
Yes, it is too bad. She was going to, but she didn’t have enough money. And my dad beat her all the time after he found out. Which may be why I have brain damage. After me, she got a hysterectomy. Which was more because of the initial beatings my father gave her, ironically, BECAUSE she got pregnant. It was like a Cunt 22.
Anyways, in retrospect, aborting me would have been a good idea. I’m 45 years old, weigh 340 pounds, and have never held down a real job. I have type 2 diabetes, and have to rely on government support. I’m a leech.
So, all I do is write posts on blogs and dream about what life is like outside of my basement apartment.
“I wouldn’t mind being banned, as I have read this blog religiously for many months and been either outraged or bowled over by the zealous ludicrousness of basically every post.”
Dear god… if your “religious” reading is anything like your “religious” politics, then I can’t imagine why your are obsessed with Pandagon. Is it that opposites attract, or are you secretly hoping that someone somewhere, perhaps some young woman, will respect the nonsense garbage that you spew?
I think you deserve to be crucified upon a hill of rabbits.
And then retroactively aborted and flushed into a river full of acid rain. But I am a little harsh…
Okay dink,
I don’t know if you are telling the truth about yourself or making up more crazy stuff, but if it’s true that you are the product of an extremely abusive family, then I have changed my mind about crucifying you on a hill of rabbits.
I still think you might be making things up to ward off the imminent bunnification that may await you, but you have my best wishes and apology. When faced with people who make little logical sense, I throw out my own best ass-hat arguments.
I didn’t mean it that you should have been aborted. And blogging, thinking, and interacting with others is hardly the most useless thing one could do with their life.
Dink, your continued ranting here is for naught. You demonstrated you are a dishonest person. You tried to say, “Nuh-uh, some anti-choicers are DIFFERENT” and then proved, no actually you’re about the same. Contemptuous of women, unable to argue coherently, and dishonest at best, an open liar at worst. I’m afraid that you aren’t worth reading, but you did manage to get us going for a couple of comments, before the fact that you are a liar came out.
Contemptuous of women:
There is 0 evidence of this, other than my being anti-abortion.
Unable to argue coherently:
Whatever.
And dishonest at best, an open liar at worst:
Where does this come from?
Amanda:
sink back into the whole that is your paranoid non-imagination.
that’s enough of this nonsense.
i bunnify this whole site. to the hosts file you go!
this is the part where the echo chamber says ” don’t let the door hit you in the ass” and returns to sniffing and eating each others excrement.
and foucault, i shall miss thee.
between this site and this one: http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=9506, I have now found the two dumbest sites on the internets.
fare thee well.
“and foucault, i shall miss thee.”
Oh, great… it’s always the trolls who get all smoochy in the end. I was cleaning off my keyboard just now and noticed these little symbols when I looked up: + +
Somehow my computer unwittingly made the sing of the cross at you!
I think this is an favorable omen. If you really mean it that you are signing off from Pandagon, or if you really get banned from here, then I hope you will find happiness and fulfillment elsewhere. (I hear Ann Althouse is fun).
Anyhow, I am truly sorry for the mean spirited things I said to you. But you must admit it was a little rude to take over a thread about rape and turn it into pro-abortion hour. But in the end, take care. It was interesting conversing with you, and I learned some new things about slavery in its non-white contexts, though I still think you are mistaken that one can ever divorce slavery from race, since even your Muslim slave owners view black Africans as a different and less human “race.” Just look at Sudan to see what I mean…
Well… not having read comments yet, let me suggest a possible meaning for the idea of helping a woman take ownership of the rape.
It could refer to accepting that it happened, that it was out of her control, that it was awful, that it was real. It can mean not trying to deny it, and more importantly, not trying to question the reality of it. It could refer to owning *having been raped*… not “having had a bad sexual experience” or “having had sex with a jerk” or “having had a terrible misunderstanding”.
Other than that, I don’t disagree with what you’ve said; the issues you raise are about a different kind of ‘ownership’, and are perfectly valid.
I watched Stardust, the life of Bette Davis yesterday (because I LOVE Bette Davis), and wow, she had an abortion too, when a pregnancy would have messed with her art.
I love Bette Davis, she broke down a lot of barriers, took on the Hollywood tycoons, and welcomed the integration of blacks into the army.
Hopefully I won’t ever have to do it, but I would not burden my body with the pregnancy when I don’t want the child, and I’m not going to bring a child into this world for adoption when the world is so horrible and the foster system is fucked. It’s galling how the fundies, the ones who are faking it, would strive to save the fetuses and neglect the children who are already here. If god gave them brains they are sinning by their neglect of it.
Amanda, the fact that you are blind to shades of gray does not actually convert the world into black and white. Your perception is not anybody else’s reality. As I’ve read through your stuff I’ve realized that you have an extraordinary need to impose dualities on everyone and everything. Each person must be either pro-choice or anti-choice, liberal or conservative, and once those categories are imposed, all else follows automatically — the anti-choicer Must Be socially conservative, woman-hating, Republican, etc etc ad nauseum. Anyone who tries to point out individuals who differ is a Liar. That duality is the most telling one — anyone who agrees with Amanda is a truth-teller; anyone who disagrees, LIES!
It’s not thinking, Amanda. It’s not admirable. It’s got nothing to do with reality. And it’s not worth my time to read any more of it.
I’ve only read to this point. Dink, you truly can’t fathom that a woman with enough money to care for a child might simply decide she doesn’t want to bear one? The idea that all women want babies, deep down, is pretty sexist.
Dammit. On topic, I don’t care for the t-shirt because I don’t think it will have the desired effect. I’m certainly not going to tell another woman she shouldn’t wear it, though.
Or, possibly, she wants to highlight those dualities to make people think about them. To oppose abortion is to insist that women undertake a heavy burden, and significant medical risk, not because they choose to do so, but because some people find there to be a great immorality in the destruction of a single cell[1]. Unless one recognizes how this is harmful to women, unless one sees how it looks like complaining about uprooting the sperm-flag a man planted inside a woman, then one can’t understand the full nature of the battle.
[1] either one must accept that a single cell is a full person with more rights (but strangely, none of the responsibilities) than anyone else, or must accept that there is some point in time during a pregnancy when abortion is perfectly acceptable. This was the start of the “life begins at conception” meme.
“The spirit of capitalism”? Oh barf. This is boring-ass 1960s Marxist crap about how wanting self-determination is bourgeois (but only for women).
How about your insistence that women who want abortions are brainwashed by the “spirit of capitalism”? How about your referring to abortion as ripping a child out of a “womb,” as if the womb didn’t belong to anyone?
As for rights that involve technology, read up. Women have been inducing abortions (successfully and unsuccessfully) for centuries. Abortion is no more or less a product of technology than shelter.
Anyway, enough of this. I see Heather Corinna’s point about the shirts, but I think they’ll only have the desired effect among particular groups of people — the kind of people to whom most victims would already be comfortable “coming out.” I wish it were otherwise.
argh. my horrified reaction to the idea of ever wearing this shirt, ever, was kind of instructive. Is that not part of the point? LIke, just imagining everything that would happen and the godawful conversations you’d have to have and the way people would look at you… even if no one ever wears one, these shirts are making an excellent point about shame and victim blaming. Especially because hardly anyone will ever wear one.
also, the troll is monumentally boring. The shirt conversation was interesting, and it died too young.
The Department of Justice needs to create a special department within itself that spcecifically focuses on sexual assault and rape investigations. Just like the Justice Department has the Drug Enforcement Agency for illegal narcotics investigations, it needs to have a special department for sexual assault and rape investigations. Present statistics are a s follows: An average of 1 in 6 women report being raped every year. However, seeing as how most rapes are not reported, it is estimated that actually 1 in 4 women are raped every year. And, in the rape cases that are reported, the conviction rate is about 5 or 6 percent. That is deplorable conviction rate! I believe this low conviction rate is why many women don’t report their rapes. They know there will probably be no conviction, so why bother? If men were being raped with such frequency and the conviction rate was that low, I believe most of the Justice Department’s investigative resources would be geared toward bringing those rapists to justice. I believe that if the Department of Justice created a special agency for investigating sexual assault and rape, state and local law enforcement agencies would follow suit, just as they have done with illegal narcotics investigations (i.e. the drug task-forces they have set up). Think of a woman in your life; your mother, daughter, wife, sister, aunt, niece, etc. In our society today, she stands a very good chance of being raped and very little chance of being served any justice for that rape. The Justice Department needs to do much more to stop sexual assault and rape.
The Department of Justice needs to create a special department within itself that spcecifically focuses on sexual assault and rape investigations. Just like the Justice Department has the Drug Enforcement Agency for illegal narcotics investigations, it needs to have a special department for sexual assault and rape investigations. Present statistics are a s follows: An average of 1 in 6 women report being raped every year. However, seeing as how most rapes are not reported, it is estimated that actually 1 in 4 women are raped every year. And, in the rape cases that are reported, the conviction rate is about 5 or 6 percent. That is deplorable conviction rate! I believe this low conviction rate is why many women don’t report their rapes. They know there will probably be no conviction, so why bother? If men were being raped with such frequency and the conviction rate was that low, I believe most of the Justice Department’s investigative resources would be geared toward bringing those rapists to justice. I believe that if the Department of Justice created a special agency for investigating sexual assault and rape, state and local law enforcement agencies would follow suit, just as they have done with illegal narcotics investigations (i.e. the drug task-forces they have set up). Think of a woman in your life; your mother, daughter, wife, sister, aunt, niece, etc. In our society today, she stands a very good chance of being raped and very little chance of being served any justice for that rape. The Justice Department needs to do much more to stop sexual assault and rape.
Hector B.’s suggestion:
How about a t-shirt reading “I prosecuted my rapist,” or “My rapist went to jail.”
Far more effective than the currently message, IMO.
I agree with many of the reasons expressed for why this shirt is best-suited for rallies and in safe spaces. It just seems so unlikely that the message will be taken seriously.
And that’s what struck me most: This is issue is far too important for a t-shirt. Something as casual as a t-shirt being used to broach conversation on a very serious problem that burdens us all gives the appearance of treating rape as a casual subject. Nope, I’m not down with that personally.
Great discussion!
Hector B.’s suggestion:
How about a t-shirt reading “I prosecuted my rapist,” or “My rapist went to jail.”
Far more effective than the currently message, IMO.
I agree with many of the reasons expressed for why this shirt is best-suited for rallies and in safe spaces. It just seems so unlikely that the message will be taken seriously.
And that’s what struck me most: This is issue is far too important for a t-shirt. Something as casual as a t-shirt being used to broach conversation on a very serious problem that burdens us all gives the appearance of treating rape as a casual subject. Nope, I’m not down with that personally.
Great discussion!