Rape

Flowers In The Cellar As mentioned previously, there's a 56-year-old man currently on trial in the UK who is being called the British Josef Fritzl because he allegedly raped his two daughters consistently during a 25-year period, during which he impregnated them 19 times in total. According to the Guardian, "His younger daughter told of the frightening habit her father had of putting her head next to the flames of their gas fire and that when she struggled to get away on certain occasions she burnt her eyes." For a timeline of this story, click on the picture at left. [Guardian, Guardian] MORE »

97 comments
career criminals
Jeffrey Marsalis: Proof That Sexual Assault Still Isn't Taken Seriously
We've covered the sickening case of serial rapist Jeffrey Marsalis before, but Self magazine has followed up and given it a little more context. That context is, of course, that date rapes remain extremely hard to prosecute or get convictions on, as 8 of Marsalis's 10+ victims already know... and hopefully one more is not about to find out. More »

4:30 PM on Fri Nov 21 2008
By Megan
9,399 views, 170 comments

Most discussed yvanehtnioj: "To a juror, a rapist is a guy who jumps out of the bushes and throws a woman to the more »
Prepare to get angry: A recent survey of Australian boys and girls between the ages of 12 and 20 reports that 1 in 3 boys think it's "not a big deal" to hit a woman and 1 in 7 boys think "it's OK to make a girl have sex with you if she was flirting." Meanwhile 1 in 7 girls surveyed had experienced sexual assault or rape with almost a third of girls in Year 10 (roughly sophomore or junior year in American education terms) experiencing unwanted sex. A possible reason for these disturbing trends? A survey of young people in South Australia revealed that 22% had witness male-on-female domestic abuse in their homes. [The Advertiser]

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girl on girl crime
Helen Mirren On Rape Is A Royal Ignoramus
Earlier this fall, in an interview with GQ, Helen Mirren said that if a woman is date raped, she shouldn't press charges because if she's voluntarily in a man's room with her clothes off, that's something to be "worked out between them." Yesterday, in a jaw dropping interview with the Times of London, Mirren was quoted saying that women are sexually competitive with other women, and as a result, they are less likely to convict rapists when on a jury. "In a rape case the courts in defense of a man would select as many women as they could for the jury, because women go against women," Mirren says. "Whether in a deep-seated animalistic way, going back billions of years, or from a sense of tribal jealousy or just antagonism, I don't know." More »

9:30 AM on Mon Nov 17 2008
By Jessica
11,493 views, 213 comments

Most discussed Anointynointy: She does have a point, kind of. In my experience, some women are very judgmental of rape victims and are more »
women are the foundation of society
Darfur: When Assault Becomes A Case For Genocide
Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, has pressed charges against Sudan's President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir for a variety of things and is awaiting the decision of 3 judges on what basis, if any, they will issue a warrant for his arrest. One of the many charges Moreno-Ocampo has asked be brought against Bashir is for the use of rape as a weapon on genocide. If the court agrees, it will be the first time that anyone has been charged with using mass rape to commit genocide. More »

6:00 PM on Thu Nov 13 2008
By Megan
2,522 views, 39 comments

Most discussed Gingerlime: It should be a case for genocide, and the sentence should be death. So says Empress Gingerlime. more »
A man in New York tackled and held his girlfriend's rapist, whom he found on top of her in the vestibule of their Fifth Avenue apartment on Saturday evening. The boyfriend had buzzed the woman into their shared apartment, but when she didn't arrive in the residence, he decided to go look for her. [NY Post]

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Foreign Affairs
Ashley Judd Is Not Just Another Tinseltown Disaster Tourist
Newsweek writer Christopher Dickey recently interviewed Ashley Judd, who visited eastern Congo about six months ago with Population Services International, and witnessed the tens of thousands of refugees there. "Goma," says Judd, "is a shithole." Writes Dickey, "the description is perfectly accurate." There are no paved roads, there are giant potholes, there's rubble and dust, and there was a volcanic eruption not that long ago. More »

12:20 PM on Fri Oct 31 2008
By Dodai
5,578 views, 78 comments

Most discussed BeckySharper: Note to self: do not complain about your life EVER. more »
From the Dept. of Internet Assholery (only slightly larger than the Dept. of Internet Misinformation, and much less fun than the Dept. of LOLcatz) comes this gem: "Advice 4 Women: How to NOT Get A "Deserved" Raping." See, for a guy, a woman's flirtation "is akin to finding out about a sale at your favorite shopping store [...] wouldn't you be a bit pissed off if, upon the day of the "advertised" sale, you discovered that instead of lowering the prices by half, they actually INCREASED the costs of their goods by double or triple? It would almost make you want to say "screw this" and rob the store to get your promised discount, wouldn't it?" You heard it here first, ladies — sexual assault: just like bargain shopping. [Shakesville]

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Woman Warriors
VA Report: 1 In 7 Deployed Female Soldiers Suffer From Sexual Trauma
According to data just released by Veterans Affairs researchers, one in seven women deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan report being sexually harassed or assaulted during their military service. In addition, these sexually assaulted women (like former Air Force cadet Jessica Brakey, pictured) are almost 60% more likely to suffer from mental health problems than the average veteran, according to USA Today. Rachel Kimerling of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA center in Palo Alto tells the LA Times, "If you think about military service where you are living and working so closely with the same people, that even if it is not sexual assault ... it is possible that severe sexual harassment is just as traumatic." More »

9:30 AM on Tue Oct 28 2008
By Jessica
2,401 views, 54 comments

Most discussed jfk1624: "Next year, according to USA Today Whitley will be launching an effort to educate 18- to 24-year-old men about assault more »
the pen can be mighty
In Argentina, Using Words To Change Attitudes
Argentina, which elected Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to be its first woman President last year, is like most countries in that it has a problem with violence against women. Via Feministe, a group of more than 100 Argentinian journalists came together a wrote a manifesto describing their commitment to changing the way they report about gender violence. Their commitment, and what the U.S. media could try out, are after the jump. More »

5:20 PM on Mon Oct 27 2008
By Megan
2,735 views, 31 comments

Most discussed Kali Mama: Totally cosign with not calling rape sex. It's even used in molestation cases, such as "he had sex with that child". It's more »