nine photographs portraying quotes said to sexual assault survivors by police officers, attorneys, and other authority figures
more info about project unbreakable here
original tumblr here
previously: nine photographs portraying quotes said to sexual assault survivors by their friends/family
The fact that these were responses from authority figures is so deeply disturbing.
“Our heads hang in shame when we hear about rapes. Why can’t we prevent this? When a daughter steps out, parents demand to know where she’s going. But when a son returns home, does anyone dare ask where he is coming from? He might have been with the wrong people, doing wrong things. After all, a person raping is someone’s son. Why don’t parents apply the same yardstick of good behaviour for their sons as for their daughters?”
Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India, used his first Independence Day speech to call on parents to take responsibility for the actions of their sons, saying the country is shamed by sexual violence. (via guardian)
“
TW: rape
Society has allowed rapists to define what resistance is: screaming, crying, scratching, pushing, kicking, biting, punching. I didn’t resist like that. My resistance was to wriggle a bit, turn my head away when he tried to kiss me, try to stop his hand going into my bra and knickers, push him ineffectually, talk about wanting to get my cab; all things which normal men recognise as not being enthusiastic participation when they are engaging with women but pretend it’s a grey area when they talk about rape. Rapists have managed to get society to believe, that what I did, was consent.
Because I didn’t resist in the way rapists - and society - say that women should resist, they define our non-participation as consent.
”A section of the article “How I became a rape victim”
A section of the article “How I became a rape victim”
(via sociolab)
BOOM, rape culture at work… Can I also add, when you are in a situation that involves rape or you think might involve rape or looks like it might involve rape in a few minutes, its usually pretty scary to scream and kick… Especially if you know this person and sometimes might even care about them and think they care about you too. It is much more likely that you’ll say “No.. Lets stop.. I don’t want to right now..” etc
(via jojoholmes)
“For [rape culture] to stop, boys have to be educated. Does our society educate boys to be misogynistic? It probably doesn’t value girls and women as much as it should, and boys probably see that as a signal that they can get away with things like devaluing women. And what they think of as playfully or comically threatening, they do need to be told that it’s wrong.”
Stephen Colbert for Ask a Grown Man
A Woman Wore A Hidden Camera To Show How Many Times In A Day She Gets Harassed.
At 3:17, a woman describes an assault on a subway. You really should hear what she says so you can learn how horrific this is for many women on a daily basis.
Wow I’ve been thinking of doing that hidden camera thing for forever but never got around to it. These ladies are so brave.
“If a female student got drunk and had her car stolen the university would call the police. If she got drunk and had her computer stolen, they would call the police. If she got drunk and had her phone stolen, they would call the police. The fact that she was drunk would not even be factored in when assessing if a crime had been committed. But if she gets drunk and has her body invaded and her humanity stolen, school administrations are perplexed about what to do.”
International Human Rights Activist Michael Simmons offered these words (via Facebook) in response to the May 3, 2014 New York Times’ “Fight Against Sex Assaults Holds Colleges to Account” article (via unmaiden)
“I repeat: these stereotypes are dangerous. Reducing Asian women into a sexual object is not funny, it is not flattering. It is perilous. We can see this when Asian women are subject to race-targeted sexual violence. The racist nature of the crimes go unrecognized and unpunished, as if there is nothing wrong with choosing a rape victim because she is Asian.
In Spokane, Washington, two white men and a woman specifically hunted random Japanese women in an elaborately planned scheme to kidnap, rape, sodomize, torture and videotape them. Their motivation? According to police reports, the rapists had a sexual “fantasy” and “fixation” about young Japanese women, who they believed were “submissive.” (The very same beliefs so blatantly bandied about by Gawker and some of its readers.)
During a one month period in Autumn 2000, the predators abducted five Japanese exchange students, ranging from age 18 to 20. Motivated by their sexual biases about Asian women, all three used both their bodies and objects to repeatedly rape - vaginally, anally and orally — two of the young women over a seven hour ordeal.
In Spokane, one of the attackers immediately confessed to searching only for Japanese women to torture and rape — and eventually all pled guilty and were convicted. It clearly was a racially-motivated criminal case. The victims also believed they were attacked because of their race, the prosecutor told me.
What is astonishing, however, is that the district attorney failed to bring an additional charge that would have tagged the crimes as motivated by racial bias. The police also neglected to report the crime as a “hate crime,” as demanded by the Justice Department to keep accurate statistics of all bias-driven crimes. Although the attackers all received long sentences, an important opportunity to raise the nation’s consciousness was lost. We, as a society, were told that it’s not a hate crime to rape an Asian woman because of her race.”
Jaemin Kim, Asian Women: Rape and Hate Crimes (via globalpoetics)
Fetishization isn’t real though…right? My ass. Fetishization kills. Asian fetishes kill. Everyone needs to wake up. This isn’t the first or last story to be told.
(via fucknofetishization)
“
We were grabbing a bite of lunch at a small cafe, in a mall, right across from a booth that sold jewelry and where ears could be pierced for a fee. A mother approaches with a little girl of six or seven years old. The little girl is clearly stating that she doesn’t want her ears pierced, that’s she’s afraid of how much it will hurt, that she doesn’t like earrings much in the first place. Her protests, her clear ‘no’ is simply not heard. The mother and two other women, who work the booth, begin chatting and trying to engage the little girl in picking out a pair of earrings. She has to wear a particular kind when the piercing is first done but she could pick out a fun pair for later.
“I don’t want my ears pierced.”
“I don’t want any earrings.”
The three adults glance at each other conspiratorially and now the pressure really begins. She will look so nice, all the other girls she knows wear earrings, the pain isn’t bad.
She, the child, sees what’s coming and starts crying. As the adults up the volume so does she, she’s crying and emitting a low wail at the same time. “I DON’T WANT MY EARS PIERCED.”
Her mother leans down and speaks to her, quietly but strongly, the only words we could hear were ‘… embarrassing me.’
We heard, then, two small screams, when the ears were pierced.
Little children learn early and often that ‘no doesn’t mean no.’
Little children learn early that no one will stand with them, even the two old men looking horrified at the events from the cafeteria.
Little girls learn early and often that their will is not their own.
No means no, yeah, right.
Most often, for kids and others without power, ”no means force.”
”from “No Means Force” at Dave Hingsburger’s blog.
This is important. It doesn’t just apply to little girls and other children, though it often begins there.
For the marginalized, our “no’s” are discounted as frivolous protests, rebelliousness, or anger issues, or we don’t know what we’re talking about, or we don’t understand what’s happening.
When “no means force” we become afraid to say no.
(via k-pagination)
from “No Means Force” at Dave Hingsburger’s blog.
This is important. It doesn’t just apply to little girls and other children, though it often begins there.
For the marginalized, our “no’s” are discounted as frivolous protests, rebelliousness, or anger issues, or we don’t know what we’re talking about, or we don’t understand what’s happening.
When “no means force” we become afraid to say no.
(via k-pagination)
“Too many young girls don’t know how to act when someone’s being inappropriate with them. They giggle or they try to brush it off. Don’t do that. Tell them to go fuck themselves - be a bitch. If someone’s being disrespectful to you, be disrespectful right back. Show them the same amount of respect that they show you.”
Wise words from my mom