Linklog

[tinyjo]

Two links from my friends page which caught my eye.

First, No pity. No shame. No silence. Personally I've never been a victim of violence, sexual or otherwise, which makes me very lucky. I still found the post very affecting and I want to support the idea of bringing the scope of this into the light. I've seen a few people on my friends list make this declaration and I want to bear witness.

Secondly, and completely unrelatedly, http://www.electoral-vote.com/, which is a predictor of the electoral college results, based on polls in all the states. I thought the graph of how the votes are shifting was particularly interesting - I noticed that the democrats actually took a dip after Farenheit 911 came out.

Third and last, a rant by swisstone about the King Arthur film and Arthurian scholarship generally. I do plan to see the film but the historical Arthur? Come off it!

Comments

Re. F911 (which I have finally seen)

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

My take on this is that it's more likely to mobilize existing votes than to change minds - for those who have seen it, and they, by and large, would not be tribal Republicans anyway.

On the other hand, a lot of conservative (small 'c') voters who *haven't* and *wouldn't* see the film felt threatened by its very success (anything the cheese-loving surrender monkeys like, etc... yadda yadda).

As time went on you get word-of-mouth about the film (which seemed very carefully done so as to avoid any suggestion of Not Supporting The Troops) and the Democrats not suddenly turning into anarcho-communists overnight, the fear dies down, and people start thinking about "how much this war is costing" and "how are we going to do without all the reservists we employ" and so on - and bingo! Up goes the Democrat vote again.

did you read the director's manifesto piece?

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

I quote: "the British need for Arthur and his Knights to be indigenous is akin to people who need to find aliens at Roswell no matter what"

oh dearie me.

No pity. No shame. No silence.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

I too have been reading posts about this subject on my friends list today. I can't imagine what it must be like to have your life affected by sexual violence.

I guess I have been a victim of sexual violence, once, but I'm wary of speaking out about it because it just seems so small and petty, and I don't want to seem like I'm equating it with the serious stuff that other people go through. One time when I was walking home alone at midnight when I was about 16 a guy came up behind me, grabbed me and managed to get his hands up under my T-shirt before I fought him off. I think he was intending to rape me, but I stabbed him with my keys and screamed really loudly, so he ran off.

I know how lucky I was. The incident left me feeling not much more than a bit silly for having been caught walking home alone. It certainly wasn't traumatic and hasn't affected my life at all compared to what other people have experienced.

[eudaimonia-nz.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to the King Arthur rant - quite interesting.

Rather than being 'historical' I would call King Arthur an intelligent war movie. Although I am usually not gun-ho (sic) about such things, I thought the way they clearly portrayed the battle tactics was clever and significantly added to the film. No sham "heroic" generals were required to explain the battles, as tactics were clear from watching the battles on screen.

Re: No pity. No shame. No silence.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

" don't want to seem like I'm equating it with the serious stuff "

Faulty thinking. It's all part of a continuum. The line: don't sweat about the small stuff, oh and it's all small stuff also applies in the opposite direction. The fact that this wasn't "so serious" doesn't remove the seriousness of the intent -- and some of the things I've heard described as not really serious beggar belief.

" not much more than a bit silly for having been caught walking home alone "

You had been asked/told by your parents not to at the time, I take it? A lot of teenaged girls don't report sexual violence because it occurs while they are doing things their parents have forbidden -- come to think of it, the worst incidents I recall happened at an extremely forbidden teenage party.

hmmm. It's a funny old world.

Re: No pity. No shame. No silence.

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

" not much more than a bit silly for having been caught walking home alone "

You had been asked/told by your parents not to at the time, I take it?

No, when I say "caught walking home alone" I mean it happened when I was walking home alone. My parents hadn't forbidden me to do so.

hmmmm

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

then you mean that *you* were silly for walking home alone? Come on!

... sorry, this is one of my pet peeves; that for some reason a woman (or worse, a girl) is inviting violence or harassment by walking around on her own. The acceptance of this as a "fact" (despite statistics reflecting that the victims of street violence are usually male) I think actually makes the harassment more likely to happen, as people feel it is commonly accepted or understood that under these circumstances men behave this way and women should expect it.

When in fact the harassers are an aberrant minority when you tot up how many times it hasn't happened compared to how many times it has in your mind.

Re: hmmmm

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

which isn't to say I haven't had some nasty moments, of course.

Re: hmmmm

[greengolux.livejournal.com]

then you mean that *you* were silly for walking home alone? Come on!

... sorry, this is one of my pet peeves; that for some reason a woman (or worse, a girl) is inviting violence or harassment by walking around on her own.

Yes, I did feel silly for walking home on my own. But I didn't think it was silly because I was a girl. All of us, girls and boys, knew we should be careful about walking alone on the streets late at night. In actual fact, I walked my male friends home more often than they walked me home, because we'd heard the figures about young men being the most likely victims of street crime.

One of my male friends from school refused point blank to walk alone on the streets after dark. If there was no one available to walk him home he called his parents, or made sure to leave while it was still light. He took more precautions than me or any of my female friends.

Re: hmmmm

[littlegreenboat.livejournal.com]

I agree with the point that (as I understand it) Cleanskies was making. If you really couldn't afford to walk home alone, that wasn't because streets, or lateness, are intrinsically dangerous, that was because some people some of the time act very badly. And the less the rest of us let them get away with it, the better.

In degrees of separation

[applez.livejournal.com]

This is probably the 3rd or 4th rape I've heard of, and perhaps the 8th or 12th sexually-related assault tale I've heard, most closely associated to me.

I would like to think that these sorts of experiences are still in the minority for women as a whole, but I worry how prevalent it all is...whether ranging from the grope to the rape.

Re: In degrees of separation

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

I served on the jury for a rape trial earlier this year, and I believe a significant factor in the low conviction rate is that many people do not, at some level, believe it happens (particularly when the victim knows the attacker). It's related to the "it can't happen to me" syndrome - there's an essentially unreasonable part of human psychological makeup that flatly denies Bad Things Happen in the face of the evidence.

The more victims who speak up the more this denial is challenged: the first time someone tells you they've been raped, it might be hard to take in, but not the third or fourth time. Once the denial stops then it becomes possible not only to handle the aftermath better, but also to educate people to recognize dangerous situations so that they can evade predators. The public thinks theft is real enough. They take measures to protect their property. If someone is accused of theft, jurors take a realistic view of any defence on the lines of "but I really thought they gave it to me!".
Roll on the day when theft of personal sexual privacy in any way is treated the same!