there's our catastrophe

radicallyhottoff:

starhen:

Front page of the Chicago Tribune website, illustrating just how seriously we [our law/judicial systems] take crimes against women and girls.  And yet the same argument about “smear campaigns” and “discrediting” continue to bubble up from the swamp to justify dismissal.

[Relevant stories circled: “teenager who killed herself a week after accusing a University of Notre Dame football player of sexually attacking her suggest that the campus police conducted a superficial investigation of their daughter’s allegations.”; “First one girl, then another: Light punishment and lack of treatment allow a repeat offender to stay on the streets as his behavior escalate”; “WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange to be freed”]

ok—this is really frustrating to me. I don’t follow the person who made the original comment so I don’t know what context this post is being made in. But I *do* know that the argument that “julian assange’s case is just proof that we don’t take rape charges seriously” is a common one right now—so I’d like to address that argument made in context of liberal reformists—who seem to be arguing that if we *just take the charges seriously* that would fix things. in context of this post—if we just took rape charges seriously, a rapist wouldn’t have been on the streets to rape and a rape victim would still be alive.—the argument being presented here is that the question is one of “if we get everybody to take rape charges seriously, then the system will work better.” If we get people to take rape charges seriously, rapists would not be on the street. he’d be in jail forever. If we took rape seriously, capus police would’ve conducted a *serious* investigation.

the solution to fixing (or reforming) the problem is “making people take rape charges seriously.”

My question: is it?

Or: in context of the current situation—is organizing to make Michael Moore apologize (i.e. take rape charges seriously) going to  improve the treatment of either survivor in this picture? 

Will it keep rapists in jail longer? And let’s unpack that sentence a little bit. Jail is where 1 out of 20 prisoners are raped. Does prison end rape? Or encourage it? 

What is the expected outcome of taking rape seriously? Longer prison sentences? An increase in rape investigations? 

There’s something called samsara (a buddhist concept)—which is the idea of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting to get different results. I am not sure if this term can be or should be applied to what is going on here, but it’s all I can think of, regardless. 

The wrong question keeps being asked. Over and over and over again. How can we get people to take rape seriously?

It’s the wrong question. The real question is: what can we do to end rape (and all forms of violence) in all of its manifestations everywhere?

I think people are resistant to the real question *especially* online because the internet is so heavily grounded into the news cycle rather than the historical rape cycle. That is—we operate from a position of 3-4 days on a story rather than the reality that rape has been an integrated tool of white supremacist heteropatriarchy for centuries. A problem that old does not end in a news cycle. And it doesn’t end because we figured out how to accomplish a perfect world where everybody takes rape seriously. 

It ends because we figure out how to imagine and build a new structure that *doesn’t* depend on rape for its survival. Which, as I’ve mentioned numerous times before, radical women of color and queer/LGBT communities have been leaders in doing. 

So if we come back to the internet community—what would an approach to the current situation look like a long term goal of ending rape was kept in mind? Would there have been outreach to feminist/anti-rape organizations in Sweden? Would there have been outreach to smaller communities that may have access to what the women in the Assange cases need? Would there have been a transnational partnership whereby feminists in Europe and the US worked together to declare a condemnation of the various governments involved, demand protection for the women, and insist on global rules of reporting on rape? 

We all understand that the internet can be an amazing tool for “educating”—educating people about rape, for example. What I think we forget when we believe to passionately in liberal reform rather than radical change is that the internet can be a tool for organizing as well. Organizing that is not based on education. 4Chan has shown us this. Indy media has shown us this. Anarchist have shown us this. 

Anyway. I’m engaging in my own form of samsara at the moment. i always *always* get on my “movement making professor” garb and start lecturing. I’ve been typing and pressing delete all day. I’m going to click “reblog post” on this one. Consider it my one last bow to “hope.” 

i’ve bolded the parts I wanna think about specifically. 

I do think you have to be strategic about any activist campaign and “raising awareness” is (presumably) not a goal, it’s a tactic, which may or may not work the way you want it to.  like, most girls are brought up to be highly highly aware of and fearful of rape, and have been since forever, but that hasn’t ended rape, it’s just heightened its power as a tool of social control. 

something I think about a lot is the hostility between prison abolition movements (which have tended to focus primarily on men) and the mainstream movement to end sexual violence (which focuses primarily on convicting and imprisoning violent men).   there are so many reasons it’s desperately important that we work towards effective and reliable community-based alternatives to the criminal justice system for people experiencing sexual violence.   obviously the most important one is justice and healing for survivors of sexual violence.  but I also think it’s really important for movement building, for making the space for solidarity between these movements. 

also, quibble: what is the deal with donating to RAINN (the NATIONAL network.  national. US.) rather than a Swedish or international organisation working against rape?  I’m sure they do amazing, life-saving work.  but assange is australian and the women he raped are swedish.  i dunno, I just think it’s kind of ill-thought-through if your goal is to stand in solidarity with the women in question.  it’s probably not gonna benefit them.  I don’t think US-centrism is oppressive to non US folks per se, but I think it tends to cloud everybody’s judgement. 

um, I tried to find links to swedish anti-rape groups but the whole internet is just swamped with stuff about the women who were raped and the details of the rapes and how they’re all bitter hard-line feminist plotters who should be ashamed and it’s really gross and it makes me want to cry.   that’s why I don’t have a real blog, incidentally.  so yeah, disclaimer, sometimes I realise I’m living in a bubble and in many ways it’s an incredible privilege to be able to pause and think about strategy and critique. 

(via so-treu)