“4.5% of the men in the United States is an incredibly high number – that translates into over six million men.
If you added up every US citizen who was officially unemployed or looking for work in 2001, that would be less than the total number of rapists.
If you added up every US citizen who is Jewish, that would still be less than the total number of rapists.
If you added up every teenage boy who had any sort of job – an afterschool job, a summer job, working full-time after dropping out, including all of those – you’d still have over a million fewer people then the total number of rapists.
There are twice as many rapists in the USA as there are single mothers.
For every drunk driver who is in a fatal accident this year, there are over 500 rapists.
If you take every doctor and nurse in the United States; and you added them to every librarian, every cashier, every cop, every postal clerk, and every bank teller in the whole country; you still wouldn’t have as many people as the number of rapists in the United States.
(Think of that a second – think of how often, in your daily life, you’ve seen cops and cashiers and all those other folks. Odds are, you’ve run into rapists more often than that).
To paraphrase Tim Wise: In short, “only” 4.5% of the male population is a lot of people, so that even by the most optimistic assessment of how many men are rapists, there are literally millions out there who not only would but have raped a woman. When combined with those who are less vicious – those who haven’t raped, but would be willing to in the right circumstances, and those who would make excuses for why other men rape, it becomes clear just how real a widespread a problem rape and rape-supportive attitudes are among men today.”
—
http://amptoons.com/blog/2004/05/05/how-many-men-are-rapists/
Source via afronaut
In reaction to San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s sexual harassment lawsuits below is a gif set of Stephen Colbert demonstrating his own anti-sexual harassment system using his “don’t touch” screen (you need to ask the screen first).
This is just another reason why I like Stephen Colbert so much. My source for the gif’s is below.
Source: http://sandandglass.tumblr.com
"From 2006 to 2010, 148 women [in two California prisons] received the procedure called tubal ligation which prevents the woman from having any more children…in direct violation of prison rules. Former prisoners and advocacy groups are calling the sterilizations coercive and reminiscent of eugenics."
And that’s just what was uncovered by one minor journalistic investigation into two women’s prisons in California.
Press Release regarding a petition to the governor to investigate
How to e-mail the governor’s office directly (facebook, twitter)
How to contact the state’s Attorney General (facebook, twitter, tumblr)
Interesting dialogue taken from tumblr, reblogged on my account and I decided to add it here.
Source: daughterofmulan:
Take a facet of crime, and then look at television shows/movies that feature those criminals as protagonists.
White mobs.
White pirates.
White serial killers.
White political corruption
White drug dealers
I mostly want to talk about this as a TV phenomenon, but pick a crime, any crime, and Western media has probably made a movie/TV series/play/etc. with a white person that romanticizes the criminal activity. No matter what, a white person can do whatever terrible crimes and still have a TV/movie fanbase that loves them.
When you see black or brown people committing crimes on screen, you are to see them thugs and criminal masterminds and people to be beat down.
When you see white people committing crimes on screen, you see a three-dimensional portrait of why someone might commit that crime, how criminals are people too, and how you should even love them for the crimes that they commit because they’re just providing for their families or they’ve wronged or they’re just people and not perfect. This is particularly a luxury given to white male characters, since there few white female criminals as protagonists.
If and of the above shows were about black or brown folks, there would be a backlash of (white) people claiming that TV and movies are romanticizing criminals and are treating them too much like heroes and that it will affect viewers and encourage violence and “thuggish" behaviour. And yet fictional white criminals get to have a deep fan base who loves these white criminals, receive accolades and awards, get called amazing television that portray the complexities of human nature. Viewers of these characters see past the atrocious crimes and into their humanity, a luxury that white characters always have while characters of color rarely do. The closest that mainstream TV has come to showing black criminals as main characters is probably The Wire, and even then, the criminals share equal screen time and equal status as main characters as the police trying to stop them.
The idea that crime can be so heavily romanticized and glorified to such a degree is undoubtedly a privilege given to white characters. The next time you hear someone talk about Dexter Morgan or Walter White in a positive way, it may be an opportunity to rethink how white people can always able to be seen as people no matter what they do, while everyone else can be boiled down to nothing but a criminal.
I always felt extremely uncomfortable with this trope because, not only is it racist, but it tends to feed into the already too common propensity society has to humanize, romanticize and exonerate irrevocably terrible white men. Like if you’re a white man and you commit awful crimes, you will likely go down in history as a legendary celebrity and historical figure
Dustin Hoffman on playing a woman in Tootsie (1982)
“If I was going to be a woman, I would want to be as beautiful as possible. And they said to me, ‘Uh, that’s as beautiful as we can get you.’ And I went home and started crying to my wife, and I said, ‘I have to make this picture.’ And she said, ‘Why?’ And I said, ‘Because I think I’m an interesting woman when I look at myself on screen, and I know that if I met myself at a party, I would never talk to that character because she doesn’t fulfill, physically, the demands that we’re brought up to think that women have to have in order for us to ask them out.’ She says, ‘What are you saying?’ and I said, ‘There’s too many interesting women I have not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.’ It was not what it felt like to be a woman. It was what it felt like to be someone that people didn’t respect, for the wrong reasons. I know it’s a comedy. But comedy’s a serious business.”
This is a man in tears when he came up against the experience of being a woman in a misogynist society, and realizing what it means for them, and for him, too.
Source: aboysbestfriendishismother
“A friend of mine was recently cornered in her building doorway, late at night, by a total stranger who “just wanted to take her out for a drink”. She said “No” several times, in increasing alarm, and finally he grabbed her arm and asked “Why not?”. She said, “Because you’re obviously not listening when I say no right now, so I can’t expect you to listen to anything else I say no to.”
To her total shock, he looked appalled, let go of her, apologized, and left. As far as she could tell, it had not occurred to him that cornering a stranger, grabbing her arm, and insisting she go get a drink with him might be seen as the sort of thing a rapist would do.”
—
from the comments @ #481: My parents acquired a friend for me (with a gross, moldy congealed side of stalking). | CaptainAwkward.com (via notemily)
“When I –- and presumably a lot of other people who think that Tosh, Morril, and the rest of the rape-jokes-are-hilarious crowd are assholes -– get upset about the jokes, it’s not that I’m offended. I’m really hard to offend. It’s that I’m mad that the person had a mic in their hand, and a whole room full of people listening to them, and they decided that the way they were going to make them laugh was to tell a joke that would made a rapist feel better about himself.
When we talk about pushing boundaries or being edgy or testing taboos or whatever -– when we bring names like George Carlin and Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor into this discussion -– what people who argue the pro-rape-joke side miss is that, in a country in which 54 percent of rapes are never reported, telling rapists that what they did isn’t a big deal isn’t pushing any limits at all. It’s the damn status quo.
Ultimately, the question of comedians making the sort of rape jokes that comfort rapists isn’t really a matter of can they make those jokes, or even a question of should they. It’s your mic, man, you can do whatever you want to do while you’re holding it. The question is, if you’ve got that mic in your hand, why do you want to use it to make rapists feel better?”
—
What Do Rapists Think About Rape Jokes? | xoJane (via brute-reason)
I found this on Tumblr. I liked how it escalated really quickly, with people adding pictures and reblogging. Also, its pretty funny that at the end between Sherlock’s Mrs. Hudson and Harry Potter’s Prof. McGonagall there’s a picture of the Queen.
“You fight like a girl.”
I’m sorry
I didn’t
realise
that
was
a
bad
thing
Reblogging because I’m sure the comic readers out there could add some more.
yeah
so sorry
i can’t hear you
over the sound
of me crushing my enemies
This list
was looking
a little
white
so here you go
watch the
bodies hit
the floor
Source: penchant-for-raising-c
“As long as women’s natural body hair is called disgusting and inappropriate while men’s isn’t, I am a feminist.
As long as I can’t watch an episode of a popular sitcom without having to sit through multiple sexist comments or “jokes”, I am a feminist.
As long as women have to face the rational fear of being sexually assaulted every time they walk home past dark while men don’t, I am a feminist.
As long as misogyny exists in any country in this world, I am a feminist.
As long as women are being raped, then stoned to death or forced to marry their rapist, I am a feminist.
As long as companies promote men to manager when there are women who are equally as or better qualified, because they find that men look more authoritative, I am a feminist.
As long as women (her choice of clothes, her friendly nature, her weakness, her choice to drink alcohol) get blamed when men rape them, I am a feminist.
As long women’s opinions on online social networks are dismissed with phrases like “tits or gtfo”, “get back to the kitchen”, “are you pms’ing?”, I am a feminist.
As long as dressing like a women is degrading for men and as long as men are insulted with phrases like “you throw like a woman”, clearly implying that being like a woman is shameful, I am a feminist.
As long as both men are women are expected to work, but taking care of children and the household are still largely considered a woman’s job, I am a feminist.
As long as boys and girls are treated differently, expected to act differently, and surrounded by different toys and colours from the day they are born, I am a feminist.
As long as topless women aren’t allowed in public unless they’re on the cover of a men’s magazine, I am a feminist.
As long as women who have sex frequently are generally told they are “sluts”, “lacking self-respect” and “lacking morals” by both men and women, while men who frequently have sex are “just being men” and it’s “natural for them”, I am a feminist.
As long as there are places where women have to pay more for health insurance than men, I am a feminist.
As long as men experience situations with equal gender representation as female-dominated, and don’t consider a group discussion equal unless there are significantly more men then women participants (as has been proven), I am a feminist.
As long as there are men who think it’s their wife or girlfriend’s duty to have sex with him whenever he wants, I am a feminist.
As long as the word feminism (“the movement aimed at equal rights for women”) has a negative connotation, I am a feminist.
As long as misogynist people exist, I am a feminist.”
—
LE CHRYSANTHÉME: I am a feminist. (via psychedelicpaisleyprincess)
Source: livefromplanetearth
