Dear Naomi Wolf,
Imagine our relief today upon reading your letter to Interpol defending Mr. Assange over the allegations against him. Those Swedes just don't understand. C'mon -- what's wrong with "using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner"? Or "deliberately molested...in a way designed to violate her sexual integrity." She must have asked for it.
That's why we are so fortunate to have women like you, Ms. Wolf, who 'get it'. It's so important that we maintain our culture of victim blaming here in the U.S. When women dress suggestively, drink alcohol, or show up at a party or bar, they are asking for it. We know that.
And I'm sure the men of University of Texas particularly appreciate your help. Especially after that recent, gratuitous study by the U.S. Department of Justice citing 1 in 4 college women will be the victim of sexual assault before they graduate. That's why it was so awesome that your piece made fun of Julian Assange's victims. What better way to discourage young women from reporting attempted or successful rapes?
We are also grateful that you singled out that pesky little state of Rhode Island. Rapists hate Rhode Island, the first state to implement mandatory dating violence training for young adults.Yeah, RI Attorney General Patrick Lynch is a real buzz kill. He's even one of the 75 participants (along with The New Agenda Foundation) tomorrow in all day radio show It's Time to Talk Day designed to encourage greater public dialogue about domestic violence. Don't those national organizations know that awareness will hurt rapists and abusers?
They just don't get us like you do Ms. Wolf. We're so glad to have a feminist on our side, phew -- we thought they hated us. For now, let's just keep this our secret.
Hugs,
The Rapists
Follow Amy Siskind on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AmyTheNewAgenda
Naomi Wolf: Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police
Randy Susan Meyers: Ignoring Signs of Domestic Homicide
Wolf's article was incredibly hurtful, incredibly destructive, and as you note, incredibly contributive to rapeculture. Here is the consequence of the attitude she is promoting: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/28/republicans-abortion-rape_n_815395.html
HE is innocent until proven guilty.
SHE must be taken seriously, no matter what the context.
Accusations of rape, in any of its forms, are very serious. He can be a heroic freedom fighter for information liberation AND a complete jerk. If he is, he needs to face the consequences for being a complete jerk. OR he could be being setup and framed by powers that want to discredit him, in which case he needs to be exonerated.
Personally, this doesn't sound like the kind of setup the government would use, in that it creates more conversation around the whole thing and prolongs it. If the government were pulling the strings, Assange would be down the hall from Manning. But I don't know the answer and neither does anyone else posting here, which is why we should use the legal system properly.
And regardless of the context, the legal systems involved should be praised for taking a woman's allegations seriously, and encouraged to do so more often, in all the cases that are not so high profile.
See? Easy peasy.
Additionally, the study itself is 10 years old! Hardly a reflection of the current situation on campus.
This shows a complete lack of intellectual rigour, by both investigators and those citing these figures, and serves only to further trivialises this very important issue.
I think you'll find that just because they don't completely succeed in raping you, you will still consider it a sexual assault in your mind and feelings about that moment.
While there may be a better or more up to date study, and there certainly should be, dismissing attempted rape and "psychological coercion" as forms of sexual assault is asinine and insulting.
Wait until you've been coerced or been a victim of attempted rape before you decide it isn't "sexual assault."
Today, a British group campaigning for more rapists to be punished questioned the "unusual zeal" with which Assange, an Australian citizen, was being pursued over the allegations of sexual assault in Sweden.
In a letter to the Guardian, Katrin Axelsson from Women Against Rape said it was routine for people charged with rape in the UK to be granted bail. Assange is yet to be formally charged by the Swedes. Axelsson also said Sweden had a poor record bringing rapists to justice: "Many women in both Sweden and Britain will wonder at the unusual zeal with which Julian Assange is being pursued for rape allegations … There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety."
Wanna write them a letter too?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/08/julian-assange-extradition-attempt?CMP=twt_fd
And it's not like we've seen anything like that happen before, eh? Think ACORN.
It's too bad that, despite all these times of intrigue and subterfuge that we obviously live in, some people still allow themselves kneejerk reactions. Maybe Assange did what he was accused of; maybe he didn't. But does the Swedish government routinely prosecute cases such as this? I took that as the point of Ms. Wolf's article.
BTW, never believe anything until it's been officially denied.
The problem with those people that instantly go to their hero's defense is that they are refusing to weigh both sides, they're dismissing the accusations of one party because they know for a fact that women lie about rape charges. For reasonable people to step back and say, "now, just try and examine both sides..." will do nothing, how are they ever going to believe a lying, vindictive woman? The way to deal with such charges is through education of rape culture and victim blaming.
Can you imagine the first question you hear on reporting a robbery being "what were you thinking going to that neighborhood dressed like that?" (no matter where you were or what you were wearing) "well, here's how you could have avoided being mugged" being the first thing you hear from everybody, in every single conversation?
Nobody wants to think "I could be raped," so we tell ourselves this fairytale that rape is something that only happens rarely, to careless people, especially suggestively dressed drinkers, who "don't deserve it, but..." or in faraway lands populated by racially marked Others. (Sound familiar?)
The claim that "so many false accusations of sexual abuse get to court" is a myth.
It is very difficult to get a conviction, or even prosecution, for anything but forcible rape at random by a stranger, because of that myth and because people expect a rape case to conform to the depictions on "special victims" murderporn shows. That isn't the reality-- the reality is that only 20% of rapists are strangers.
People deplore "rape" in the abstract, but the individual rape case before them doesn't seem like "real rape" to them. People don't blame "victims" but "this person could have..."
"The first complainant, a Miss A, said she was the victim of 'unlawful coercion' on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Assange was alleged to have 'forcefully' held her arms and used his bodyweight to hold her down. The second charge alleged he 'sexually molested' her by having sex without using a condom, when it was her 'express wish' that one should be used. A third charge claimed Assange 'deliberately molested' Miss A on 18 August."
Ms. Siskind, if you will please refrain from assuming Assange is guilty ... ?
... then I will refrain from questioning the sanity of a "victim" who claims she was held down and sexually molested by Assange on August 14th ... and then "deliberately molested" by the same man FOUR DAYS LATER.
Thank you.
US government lobbies Russia on behalf of VISA and Mastercard.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/246424
He has victims?
So he's been convicted then?