who killed LaVena Johnson?

These are the dots I want people to connect:

Tailhook
Aberdeen Proving Grounds
The Air Force Academy scandal (the resulting report can be found here)
The case of Pvt. Steven D. Green
This NYTimes series on violent death among Iraq War vets
This Feminist Law Professors post
Jamie Leigh Jones and the 'rape problem' with military contractors

To that string of dots, add one more: LaVena Johnson

I think a primary value of feminist work is its ability to uncover women's hidden history, the stories of our existence that tend not to fit neatly in our national or cultural, patriarchal narratives. The stories of women in our military, as well as the women connected to associated industries that support or benefit from the military's work, are taking shape before our eyes and a repeating thread in this narrative is one of sexual assault and brutal violence against women.

(This isn't to say men aren't assaulted; they are, at much smaller numbers. I'm just not writing about sexual assault against military men right now.)

From the testimony of the women at Tailhook after the first Gulf War to the stories from KBR contractors in this latest Iraq conflict, the lives of women linked to the military - as family members, government employees, soldiers, or contractors - is bracketed by sexual or domestic violence. Perhaps, as the Times series sugggested, we can attribute some of this violence to inadequately treated combat trauma. In the Frontline site for the Tailhook investigation, some male officers and attendees attributed some of the behavior by the aviators and officers to post-Gulf combat relief; in other words, they were 'blowing off steam' - and what better way to blow off combat stress than violating women's bodies?

It's clear the military, despite lip service to the contrary after every sexual assault scandal at their proving grounds, academies and bases, has no capacity to deal with the needs of military/civilian women who've been assaulted or harrassed within, or by, the military. Their reporting structure is broken, their punishment structure is an utter failure and their treatment/prevention capabilities seem to be non-existent, despite their best intentions.

About these intentions: after the worst stories broke (especially the Air Force Academy scandal) there was an attempt to improve the military's metrics on sexual assault. Sexual assault trainings and awareness programs were implemented; oversight committees were formed; victims names would be kept anonymous, cutting down on the threat of reprisals; greater efforts would be made to collect and analyze evidence and counseling supports would be made readily available to victims of assault. These improvements seem to send a strong message that sexual assault in the military is unacceptable. But the chances that such a message will drift down to service members is slim. Frankly, it's not in the military's nature to change.

What is it that makes the military what it is, that allows it to do what it does? The military accepts violence as a suitable human, cultural and national response; it creates an environment that feeds on a sense of overweening Masculine privilege; and what makes all of this aggression and privilege acceptable and not merely psychotic is the body of a woman. Whether it is the feminized 'body' of the nation they invade or the bodies of assaulted female soldiers or civilians left in its wake, our military clearly requires the Othered, violated bodies of women to keep a grip on its GI Joe identity. The subjugation of a woman in order to retain the fiction of masculine 'wholeness' is, to me, a function of patriarchy.

(If this sounds familiar, it's because I said something like it in a post about Joe Francis and the Steven D. Green case here.)

In the stories patriarchy tells of us, a woman's position is primarily prone. We serve patriarchy either on our backs or we prop it up by conveniently and quietly dying. LaVena Johnson's death was not quiet. She was raped, beaten, tortured, murdered and her body burned. Despite physical evidence to the contrary, the army still calls her a suicide, a bootstrapped Dido. Her family is being lied to about the circumstances surrounding her death and the wall of silence around her murder is not just about the military's need to maintain a modicum of public relations discipline (though that's certainly part of it.) The military's silence is also the silence of complicity and it needs to be broken, cracked into pieces for the sake of justice.

(If you want to know what to do about LaVena Johnson's murder, visit ColorofChange.org here.)

I used to think that whatever men could do, women could do, too. But LaVena Johnson's rape and death, along with all the other military women's deaths and rapes, prompts me to ask a potentially un-feminist and problematic question: Why should we? Why should women even serve in the military when it's clear the eminent danger they face isn't from combat but their male cohort?

on the bus

I am an observer. Or voyeur. Whatever. I like watching. Pervy? Sure; I blame my mother. She would sit on the couch and watch our neighbors like she was getting paid to do so.

She'd flip the blinds a little and say, "Hmph. Mrs. Jones is spending a lot of time at home."

"So are you, mom."

"Hmph."

Anyway, my genetically inherited practice of keeping an eye out on the world kicked in yesterday when I was riding the bus down Michigan Avenue. It was morning, one of those gorgeous robin's egg blue mornings, and the bus was not yet full. I stood by the rear exit since I was just riding up to the river and an older man sat to my right, in the seat closest to the aisle.

Halfway up the avenue, a dark haired young woman rang the bell for a stop and de-bused. (Like 'de-planed,' see?) As soon as she hit the sidewalk to transfer to another bus, the older man to my right slid quickly to the window, pulled off his sunglasses and pressed his face to the window where he began to devour that woman with his gaze.

(That's a phrase I used to read in my mother's old romance novels - 'he devoured her with hungry eyes' - and I could never picture what that looked like until now.)

I'm not kidding. He ate her up. Think of the look a person gets on their face when they pass a shop window and see something they want. I see it when I pass the Bentley dealership and a man is bumping his head on the plate glass to get closer. The man on the bus was like that. He kept his face pressed to the window, turning to keep her in view as the bus slowly pulled away. Then, when the woman was no longer visible, he just put his glasses back on and slid back to his original seat.

His face immediately fell back into the stoic, blank expression he was wearing before the woman got off the bus and he stared straight ahead, his eyes now hidden behind his glasses. He didn't even care that I had watched him do it. It was past since his object was gone.

I've seen this before. Just a week or so ago, I was standing at a LaSalle bus stop during lunch hour next to a short man in a gray suit. It was a hot, bright day. The street was crisscrossed with people rushing to and from lunch. I noticed the man had a pattern. He'd step into the street, look for the bus, grumble at his watch then, if a woman was approaching his location, he'd grow still, track her with his eyes, and as the woman passed, he'd turn on his heel and stare at her until she disappeared.

I did this with him a few times. It was creepy. It was like he was in a cuckoo clock and this is how he marked the minutes passing.

When you're a woman, you train yourself to be blind to these things. If you registered every gaze, every stare, or leer our brains would explode. It doesn't matter if we're pretty, old, young, plain, fat or thin. We still feel the eyes on us all the time.

It's maddening.
...
In related news, it was reported that "Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment, a survey showed Thursday.

The forms of harassment reported by Egyptian men, whose country attracts millions of foreign tourists each year, include touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women."

No, it's not about culture. It's about patriarchy.

Shocking, yet not really: the Spitzer thing

The Eliot Spitzer Stuff - New York Times

On the way home yesterday as we were listening to NPR run down the whole sordid Eliot Spitzer scandal, Roomie and I were wondering why public officials just can't keep it in their pants. Or, rather, why male public officials can't keep it in their pants. What is it about a lonely hotel room, solitary hours and public scrutiny that leads to really ill-advised phone calls to sex workers?

This profile seems to lay it all at the feet of being 'reckless.' Perhaps. Maybe it's the high pressure of being a guy with power. But weird how we don't see scandals about women in power getting caught in sexually compromising positions. Or maybe not so weird. Their scandals are about illegal nannies or covering up hubby's bad business practices or tax evasions. Interesting how women in power have scandals still linked to domestic disturbances while men in power seem to get in trouble for making public service a libidinal pleasure dome.

give me a break: anti-military or asking hard questions?

When Strains on Military Families Turn Deadly - New York Times
War Torn: Slideshow
War Torn: The Cases
Criticism of War Torn (follow the links)

This particular part of the series makes me feel like a voyeur peeping into the seamy scenes of mental instability, pain and violence. But it's valuable in pointing out a dangerous lack in the military (one that I've written about again and again): the military's increasing inability to address issues like mental health, violence against civilians (although the articles reveal that these soldiers also turn against one another) and particularly domestic violence.

While I can understand criticisms of the series' methodology (I'd think they'd also want to look at those crimes of violence that weren't big enough to warrant a newspaper story) I think it's a narrow view to say that this series is 'anti-military.' (It's also hyperbolic to say that the article is 'lying.' There are no untruths here, only really uncomfortable and stark realities - some of the men and women coming back from our 'war on terror' come back damaged.)

So, here's a question to ask our pro-war candidates this election cycle: if they're going to commit our men and women to a 100-year war on terror, what are they also going to do to address the real human cost of such a war?

Now, that's not being anti-military, is it? Heavens, no.

WTF?!?

this is utterly unbelievable - except i believe it because haven't we heard (some version of) this story before?

if you haven't already received the MoveOn alert, here it is:
...
Jamie Leigh Jones was a 20-year-old woman working in Iraq for a subsidiary of Halliburton when she was drugged and brutally gang-raped by several co-workers.
The next day, Halliburton told her that if she left Iraq to get medical treatment, she could lose her job.1
Jamie's story gets even more horrific: For the last two years, she's been asking the US government to hold the perpetrators accountable. But the men who raped her may never be brought to justice because Halliburton and other contractors in Iraq aren't subject to US or Iraqi laws. They can't be tried for a crime in any court.2
This is one of the most disturbing stories we have come across in a while. We're calling on Congress to investigate Jamie's case, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law so this can't happen again. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out against this outrageous story, we can force Congress to take action.

Can you sign the petition? ... Clicking below will add your name.
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4019649-L9cSbn&t=3

After you sign, please forward this email to friends, family and colleagues—we all need to speak out together.

When you get an email from us, it doesn't usually include a graphic description of a brutal attack. But when we heard this story, we knew we had to do something about it.
Here's how Jamie described what happened after the attack:
I awoke the next morning in the barracks to find my naked body battered and bruised. I was still groggy from whatever had been put in my drink. I was bleeding... After getting to the clinic and having a rape kit performed...I was locked in a container with no food, no way to call my parents, and was placed under armed guard by Halliburton.3

Jamie's attackers aren't the only ones exploiting a legal loophole to get away with their violent crimes. Another female employee of Halliburton says she was raped by her co-workers in Iraq.4 Employees of Blackwater, another private contracting firm in Iraq, were accused of killing innocent Iraqi civilians, and that incident turned into an international scandal. Worst of all, they may never be punished.5
Private contractors in Iraq are making massive amounts of money, operating above the law and are accountable to no one. This has to stop.
Congress needs to act now to bring these contractors under the rule of law. If they don't, nothing will prevent a case like Jamie's from happening again. No man or woman working in Iraq should have to fear that they can be attacked without consequences.

Please sign on to the petition: "Congress must investigate the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones and others, hold those involved accountable, and bring US contractors under the jurisdiction of US law." Clicking below adds your name:
http://pol.moveon.org/contractors_accountable/o.pl?id=11800-4019649-L9cSbn&t=4

Thanks for all you do,
–Nita, Wes, Karin, Marika, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Friday, December 14th, 2007

Sources:
1. "Halliburton hit in rape lawsuit," New York Daily News, December 11, 2007
2. "Victim: Gang-Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR," ABC News, December 10, 2007
3. Jamie's Journal, The Jamie Leigh Foundation
4. "Female ex-employees sue KBR, Halliburton—report," Reuters, June 29, 2007
5."Blackwater Probe Narrows Focus to Guards," Associated Press, December 8, 2007

PAID FOR BY MOVEON.ORG POLITICAL ACTION, http://pol.moveon.org/Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

wow.

At Jets Game, a Halftime Ritual of Harassment - New York Times

unbelievably crass and tacky. hundreds of men line the ramp at Gate D and chant to women to expose their breasts.
stadium security thinks it's not their problem and the Jets don't think it's their problem.

is it a free speech issue or a threat to the safety of women?

more on rape and the military

Feminist Law Professors » Blog Archive » Sexual Assault and the Military

the folks at FLP have done the hard work for me. they've compiled some depressing stories tracing the (lack of) progress made re: rape in the military.

it's an interesting and sobering collection of stats and stories and forces me to ask my question again: Should women serve in the military with men when it's clear that women are in danger from their male cohort?

is that an unfeminist question to ask?

what is rape compared to war?

in a previous post i hinted that women may look at war differently than men. for men (pundits, commentators, strategists, etc.) war might just be a 'political' situation, an intellectual problem or some theoretical exercise in national identity. for women caught in the crosshairs of war, either as civilians or soldiers, war can sometimes mean something else entirely: rape, sexual violence, and sexual exploitation.

the following article is a patently clear example of what war, or any civil conflict, means to women in these areas.

BUKAVU, Congo — Denis Mukwege, a Congolese gynecologist, cannot bear to listen to the stories his patients tell him anymore.
Every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at his hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.
“We don’t know why these rapes are happening, but one thing is clear,” said Dr. Mukwege, who works in South Kivu Province, the epicenter of Congo’s rape epidemic. “They are done to destroy women.”
Eastern Congo is going through another one of its convulsions of violence, and this time it seems that women are being systematically attacked on a scale never before seen here. According to the United Nations, 27,000 sexual assaults were reported in 2006 in South Kivu Province alone, and that may be just a fraction of the total number across the country.
“The sexual violence in Congo is the worst in the world,” said John Holmes, the United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs. “The sheer numbers, the wholesale brutality, the culture of impunity — it’s appalling.”

one of the consequences of such widespread rape is that sexual assault against women and girls (the doctor has said that his youngest victims are 3 years old) has become normative in society.
While rape has always been a weapon of war, researchers say they fear that Congo’s problem has metastasized into a wider social phenomenon.
“It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.”
Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized.

so, what are 'women's issues' compared to war?
apparently, they aren't very much.

Rape Epidemic Raises Trauma of Congo War - New York Times

what the military needs: more porn

i can get the snark tone coming from archpundit. what's porn compared to a frakked up politically motivated war? i get it.

but...is it such a bad idea to protest more porn in the military?
i mean, considering the military's already frakked up record with sexual violence against women (both within their ranks and outside of them), is this really a bad idea? i don't think we should pooh pooh it.

of course, there's the question of whether porn contributes to an environment of misogyny and sexual violence? well, it doesn't necessarily encourage the porneur (my word: porneur - one who reads or watches porn) to see women in ways other than a wet pink hole in the service of masculine power and sexuality, so i'd say yes - porn contributes to misogyny and sexual violence.

and, of course, one needs to ask if porn, misogyny and sexual violence is less important than war?

well, if you're a woman in the military, already keeping your head down from all the sexual harrassment and covered up rapes going on, and you're surrounded by all these guys reading hard core porn - or if you're an iraqi girl just minding your own 14-year old business surrounded by a bunch of drunk, angry soldiers reading porn that strongly suggests there's nothing better to solidify male bonding than a gang bang of a barely legal hot chick - then i'd say that you would find the situation pretty damn important.

historically, where soldiers are so exists rape, porn and/or a sex industry where women's individual or collective empowerment has never been the object. in the crimean war and as the british empire spread and british soldiers were stationed in far off 'exotic' colonies, so proliferated the creation, sale and dissemination of pornographic postcards, pamphlets, stories and pictures that reinforced the notion of british masculine hegemony and the racially marked 'whoredom' on the part of those colonized which offered an excuse to the occupying military for raping 'native' women; the existence of forced prostitution and camp bordellos for german officers, soldiers and collaborators during world war 2; japan's use of 'comfort women' and the enslavement of asian women for forced prostitution, also during world war 2; and during the vietnam war it was estimated that 400,000 prostituted women in thailand were procured for american soldiers on leave, as well as the now confirmed stories of american soldiers raping civilian women. more recently, the stories of soldiers raping civilian women during the serbian/croatian conflict, the ensuing trafficking from that conflict or even the current events in darfur as woman are raped by rebel soldiers?

what's porn compared to war? for women who are unfortunate to get caught in a male fantasy of control via sexual power over a woman's body, porn is war.

this is offensive, tom ford

in a move that demonstrates that being an A-gay does not automatically translate into being a feminist, tom ford's latest ad for his men's cologne hammers that point home:

you know. just in case you didn't get it the first time:

[thanks, Feministing!]

not just for the nfl: even pastors beat their wives

edmontonsun.com - World - Hubby charged in minister's beating

so. bishop thomas w. weeks (the 3rd) put the beat down on his wife, gospel singer/televangelist, juanita bynum in a hotel parking lot. he chokes her, 'stomps' on her, flees the scene, she ends up in the hospital, he's arrested and released on $40,000 bail, and then he goes to church.

his supporters, instead of fleeing from a so-called spiritual leader who has poor impulse control, have instead chosen to circle their wagons around him and say totally sheeplistic, insane things like:
"There are three sides to every story. Nobody has the right to judge anybody. God is in the midst of that and will work it out."
"We all make mistakes. He deserves another opportunity."
"Let's love and pray they stay together! It may be a blessing to us all!"

and then there's this love letter from a commenter on an aol board:
"He might have a short fuse. He was obviously tryna walk away from the situation and SHE followed him. A man can only take so much from a nagging ass wife."

ah, yes. the 'nagging ass wife.'
the mouthy, back-talking, sassy, 'don't know her place' emasculating jezebel that all men must beware.

according to church folk, here's the lesson for all you single church gals out there:
if your man has a 'short fuse,' it's no one's fault but your own nagging ass self for making him stomp you so hard in the face a parking lot attendant has to pull him off you.

i hate ignorance. i really really really do. and ignorance crossed with self-hatred and misogyny?
even worse.

[shudder]
sorry; i'm having a flashback to my old church where attitudes like this grew like rotten fruit on a tree.

ah, geez. and this morning, i came across a piece discussing Christian Domestic Discipline.
i really can't take church people's lame excuses for smacking a woman. (and there is a huge difference between consent and acquiescence. one implies enthusiastic participation, the other implies coercion.)

maybe that's what bishop weeks was practicing - just some good old christian domestic discipline.

dogs v. women: not even dogs safe

Vick Apologizes, Vows to Redeem Himself - The Huffington Post

but when will he apologize to the dogs??

i think i like this quote best. it sums up why nothing will change in pro sports re: criminal behavior, least of all the invisible crime of violence against women by professional athletes:

"We cannot tell you today that Michael is cut from the team," [Atlanta Falcons owner] Blank said. "Cutting him today may feel better emotionally for us and many of our fans. But it's not in the long-term best interests of our franchise."

ahh. of course.

more on women and dogs: the clueless need to get a clue

Sara Whitman: Michael Vick: You Should Have Been Beating Women Instead - Living Now on The Huffington Post

her column is, granted, a little loose and baggy. the sports writers i've read on the same issue had a much sharper way of making their point. i also think her comment about race distracted her readers - clearly, they didn't get what she was saying at all. (it's not about the action itself, it's about the reaction in the media! two separate things!) once you imply there's a racial double standard, folks are either going to agree with you (rare) or they're going to reel back in denial that such a thing, and their participation in it, could ever exist.

anyway, her commenters are interesting. they remind me of the creepy guys who work really hard to define exactly what rape is so they'll know what to do the next time some girl gets drunk at a party. ("is it rape if she's totally drunk but we were flirting earlier and i know she would have wanted to do it even though i never actually heard her say the words? what about if she's ... blah blah blah rape apologist rape apologist")

i did a few hours research yesterday at work (because i think i'm going to write about it in our next newsletter) and it was stunning what i found; in most cases charges had been dropped, dismissed or, in the rare case a conviction was ever made, the athlete usually got a slap on the wrist. a fine, a paid suspension, a few hours community service. if ever someone was actually fired or dropped from a team it was because he was on his way to prison, or the assault was so bad it was undeniable and was going to be a PR nightmare. in other words, the franchise couldn't ignore it anymore.

(or their attempt to smear the victim failed.)

here are notes on a sampling of what i found (and the more you dig, the more of a chain of out of control male behavior you uncover. totally reprehensible.) questions in brackets are details i didn't have time to confirm, yet:

Carolina wide receiver Rae Carruth conspired to murder his pregnant girlfriend. Nonetheless, a jury found him guilty in 2001, and he's serving a 19- to 23-year prison term.
February 2007 - Pacman Jones - Tennessee Titans was involved in an incident at a Las Vegas strip club that led to the shooting of three people, including a guard who is now paralyzed from the waist down. [suspended for 2007 season; must reapply for reinstatement]
mid-1990s - Lawrence Phillips - Nebraska college football star pleaded no contest to trespassing and assault after allegedly beating his girlfriend, who said he dragged her by her hair down three flights of stairs. 2005 - wanted in connection with two alleged domestic abuse incidents in san diego and one other domestic abuse incident in los angeles; [suspended from nebraska college team; went on to play for rams, dolphins, 49ers, european and canadian football teams until 2003; guilty in 2006 of assault with deadly weapon ]
2003 - Kobe Bryant - (nba) LA Lakers - accused and arrested for sexual assault; charges dropped when accuser refused to testify; matter settled out of court
1999 - Bobby Chouinard - (mlb) Arizona Diamondbacks - hit his wife and held a loaded gun to her head and served a one-year sentence — but in three-month increments during off-seasons. [now with Colorado Rockies]
2006 - Brett Myers - (mlb) Phillies allegedly dragged his wife around by the hair on a Boston street in front of witnesses. He still pitched the next day at Fenway Park, and was later granted a paid leave of absence. [wife dropped charges]
2004 - Michael Pittman - Bucs - was indicted three years ago on two counts of aggravated assault for intentionally ramming his Hummer into a car carrying his wife and 2-year-old son. It was the fourth time Pittman had been arrested on domestic-abuse charges, but his wife, Melissa, told police there were 30 or 40 others that she never reported. Pittman got a three-game suspension.
mid-90s, Christian Peter - Nebraska, then an All-Big Eight defensive tackle, arrested eight times at Nebraska, where he was twice accused of brutal rape — charges resulting in one out-of-court settlement and another conviction for sexual assault. Patriots gave up draft rights to Peter, but he would eventually play for three NFL teams.
Summer 2007 - Former Seahawk Chad Eaton was arrested for investigation of domestic violence.

2007 - Lionel Gates - Tampa Bay - placed in a pre-trial intervention program and ordered to take anger-mgmt courses after being arrested for an altercation with a pregnant woman in March
1996 - Lamar Thomas - Tampa Bay - rammed pregnant fiancee's head through a window; later released from team
May 2007 - AJ Nicholson - Bengals - arrested on domestic violence charges; suspended from FSU while accused of sexual assault
2005 - Brad Hopkins - Tennessee Titans - arrested and charged with domestic assault for allegedly choking his wife
2005 - Samari Rolle - Tennessee Titans - wife needed stitches above her eye; released from Titans, re-signed with Ravens
2001 - Jason Kidd - (NBA) NJ Nets - guilty of spousal abuse; no punishment
2007 - Ron Artest - (nba) Sacramento Kings - fighting in the stands and arrested for domestic assault in March; received a 2-game suspension and $600 fine
2006 - Bretty Myers - (mlb) Phillies - assaulted wife on street and charged with assault and battery; 'off-field' incident not punished by MLB
2005 - Reuben Droughns - Cleveland Browns - arrested for domestic violence (3rd degree assault and harassment); [charges dropped; currently playing for NY Giants]
2006 - Santonio Holmes - Steelers - arrested for domestic violence and assault; judge dismissed charges
2006 - Markus Curry - Chargers - domestic assault [dropped by team]; 2002 - while at UM, pleaded guilty of assault on girlfriend
2006? - Rob Reynolds - Titans - domestic violence, charges reduced and pled guilty to misdemeanor; suspended for one game?
2006 - Randy Starks - Titans - domestic violence [punishment by league?]
2006 - Sean Locklear - Seattle Seahawks - alleged assault on girlfriend (grabbed around her neck); [result?; punishment by league?]
2007 - Brandon Marshall - Broncos - arrested for false imprisonment and domestic violence
2000 - Patrick Roy - (nhl) Colorado Avalanche - domestic violence [result?; punishment by league?]
2007 - Elijah Dukes - (mlb) Tampa Bay Devils - violating domestic violence injunction
1986 - Darryl Strawberry - (mlb) NY Mets - domestic assault and battery; eventually suspended for drug abuse, not violence against women
2007 - Julio Matteo - mlb/Seattle Mariners - beat, kicked and bit wife's lip; knocked down to Triple-A and suspended for 10 days without pay; traded to Phillies and Double-A

this is just through 3 hours of research, tracking names mentioned in columns written by sports writers who are disgusted that pro athletes are basically being told it's OK to assault a woman. when there is no consequence for hitting a woman, they'll keep on assaulting us; when fans twist themselves into knots to excuse behavior that would otherwise land their best buddy in jail (for at least a night), they're telling pro athletes that it's ok; when advertisers turn a blind eye to these charges and incidents, they're saying it's ok.

so fuck vick and his dogs. i don't care if a guy's found with a funeral pyre in his backyard full of dead animals.

these guys, these batterers, should have been in jail and shame on all their fans and supporters who collaborate with them.

women v. dogs: dogs win

ChicagoSports.com: The greater outrage
kudos for rick morrissey for writing something that more men need to say. and not just sports writers.

last night Roomie and i were watching the daily show where stewart (love!) ripped on the nfl for their reaction to the vick/dogfighting thing.

Roomie looked over at me and said, ' you know, dogfighting is bad but i don't get all the fuss.'
'i think it has something to do with his role in the dogfighting. he wasn't just a participant but he was, like, crucially involved. the ringleader or something.'

'oh. but i still don't get it. i mean, they're dogs. awful but they're dogs.'
'i know. i think about every pro athlete that's been arrested for beating the shit out of their girlfriends or wives or raping some woman and no one gets all twisted like this.'

Roomie said, 'exactly. bizarre.'
i snorted, 'typical.'

it's typical of an all male bastion of privilege and money protecting itself. oh sure, the big bad men might get a pass for knocking a few teeth out or blacking some woman's eye. he might pay a fine and serve some community service hours but nothing really happens to him. however, kill a pooch and then he loses his fancy contract and serves jail time.

just goes to show you where women are on the big manly patriarchal chain of being, huh?

other stuff:
this is also a pretty good article about pro athletes and the pass our culture gives them when it comes to domestic or sexual assault. this is a better article from the village voice.

in fact, if you want to see some good stuff, just google 'NFL domestic assault' and see what comes up.

and these are some recent news articles that have noticed the deafening silence when women are on the receiving end of some pro athletic pulchritudinous punching.

this is a non-profit formed to educate the public and support women who have been assaulted or raped by college or pro-athletes.

justice for iraqi girl

G.I. Gets 110 Years for Rape and Killing in Iraq - New York Times

the prosecution of the rape and murder of the 14 year old iraqi girl, abeer qassim al-janabi, and 4 members of her family seems to be drawing to a close, with 3 soldiers convicted and sentenced; the ringleader, steven d. green, is scheduled to be prosecuted in federal court. his cohort is going to testify against him and i can only hope he gets the death penalty.

vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
but sometimes justice gets served here on earth.

Soldier Testifies in Rape - Slaying Case - New York Times

although this story has dropped into the memory hole the trials against the american soldiers who raped and killed an iraqi girl (also killing other members of her family) continues.

i'd think that this trial alone should give us pause about our 'mission' over there and call us home.
but i guess not.

what's a little rape and murder when we're defending freedom?

baby daddies are dangerous

first, did you know that the second biggest injury-related killer of pregnant women is homicide?
amazing.

i'm sure you've read the news stories about that pregnant woman in ohio, jessi davis, who was killed by her boyfriend and found in a field. and then about that woman and her kids killed in illinois by her husband. what's up with men?? you have issues and the first thing you do is murder your girlfriend and kids?

it boggles the freaking mind. these stories of murdered women build up and sometimes it makes you look at the other half of the population all aslant.

this woman wrote her boyfriend a note in response to these latest stories of domestic violence against women:

If for some reason I am pregnant, and you suddenly realize that I am just days away from delivering, don't kill me. I know you might not be "ready" to be a father, but there are better ways out of it. Of course I would prefer it if you were a loving and supportive husband and father, but you might freak out. Maybe you're having an affair. Now being a man, you won't think things through. Killing me is NOT an option. Counseling IS an option. You do realize you would be the first person police questioned if I were to go missing right?

If you must be rid of me, just up and leave. I'll go home to live with my dad, or find solace in the arms of a best friend. But I will be alive, and that's the clincher. I'd rather be a single mom on welfare than found murdered in the wilderness.

...
when my dad was visiting, he got embroiled in a rather heated group discussion with my girlfriends about our singleness. (because we are all speaking english but busing it differently, it's a futile conversation; but we keep having it and my girlfriends are gracious enough to indulge.)

but his constant refrain, which kept puzzling us, was "be a woman."

we had no idea what that meant. i mean, we have ovaries. we're women. there's no escaping that simple, biological fact.

oh, be 'feminine!' that's what he means!
well, i have an issue with that, too.
a girl friend told us (including my dad) the story of walking her dog in her 'hood. she passed this guy also walking his dog and he just got all aggressive on her and called her a dumb bitch and got in her face; she got back in his. my dad said that the correct response would have been to go soft and demure. uh, no. here in the city, you come at me, i come at you back.

if i took my dad's advice i guess i should have let that drunk guy bust in on me in the bathroom at a party some years ago. i should have let him intimidate me and publicly humiliate me. i should have gone all soft and giggly while he physically threatened me instead of defending myself while hurling a wooden brush through the air and knocking him on his ass.

but to look at the larger culture, i guess 'being a woman' also means 'being killed.'

thanks, i'd rather not.

[post corrected to be more accurate - thanks, lilith!]

men and violence against women: a new poll

this was really interesting. it studies men's attitudes toward sexual assault and domestic violence.

some findings:
Men recognize the prevalence of domestic violence/sexual assault
More than half think a woman they know will be a victim
Many men believe they can make a difference in addressing the problem of violence against women
Most men are willing to get involved in efforts to address the problem of domestic violence/sexual assault
Many men are already getting involved by talking to children about healthy, violence-free relationships
Many men are willing to express their disapproval when individuals - either friends or celebrities - make jokes or demeaning comments about women or exploit them
Men do not give any institutions high marks for doing enough to raise awareness and address the problem of domestic violence and sexual assault
Men broadly support employer-based efforts to address domestic violence and sexual assault

if you follow the link you can find the study itself and check it out.
...
in other news, my summer dating project is getting off to a great start.

heh.

when it comes to women getting killed, the MSM is a little slow on the uptake

this is the front page story of today's paper: Iraqi girl's horrific death | Chicago Tribune.

this is the story when i first read about it on may 8 - on feministing. in between these two stories are 10 days of virtual silence - 10 days for a horrific stoning of a girl to make it to our mainstream, 'the pussycat dolls are feminist,' eyes.

in the trib article we have this reaction:

"Kurds, who include Yazidis, suspect Sunni Arabs of circulating the gruesome images to fuel anger against Yazidis and undermine the Kurdish community, which exercises a degree of autonomy in northern Iraq and is seeking more.

"It seems they are trying to make it big for political purposes," said Mohsen Gargari, a Kurdish member of parliament.

In an interview, he and two other Kurdish lawmakers condemned Aswad's killing. But they noted that in February a Sunni woman had been killed by relatives for having a relationship with a Yazidi man. "Nobody talked about it. Nobody filmed it or turned it into a big issue," he said."

in other words, it's 'normal' for this to happen, it happens all the time (over there), it's what happens to women and it's not about how women are still invisible and vulnerable and killed in our world because they're women, but about political power structures scoring points off other political power structures. it's about those people and their culture.

but 10 days before this article, samhita at feministing had this take and put the focus right back on the issue at hand - it's not about culture or religion, it's about patriarchy:

"Violence of this kind is a production of male ego and woman-hate and this truth is pitifully disguised when justified through religious or cultural circumstances. There is no cultural defense when it comes to mob mentality, woman-hate and violent murder. Unless, you want to talk about the global culture of patriarchy.

As I browsed articles, questions of whether or not the woman had converted to Islam, or whether or not it was just an honor killing, or if she fell in love with the wrong man, were used as possible explanations. As though any of those reasons can justify such a hideous display of violence."

i spoke with a hate crime investigator a couple of weeks ago and he said he didn't understand why crimes against women weren't called hate crimes. he said, 'i go into a neighborhood and this woman has been attacked by her husband or a boyfriend or a guy off the street - we've been called but there's nothing we can do. her being a woman doesn't give her the protection that the other categories of discrimination would give - even though we see crimes against women surging and we know they're targets because they're women.' i was surprised at his reaction. i honestly didn't think a man would get it. i wish more got it.

one of the demonstrators in the kurdistan protest carried a banner that said honor killings were terrorist acts against women. i wonder what the world would look like of women the world over began to fight against this kind of terror.

when law school students run amok

fascinating.
i wonder how you'd design an experiment to see how fast it takes for a group of guys to totally devolve into a pack of Lord of the Flies-ish anti-semitic, misogynist racists with rape fantasies.

i mean, does the transformation from clean cut ordinary dude to spittle-covered savage take an average of 24 hours? two weeks? a year? or, is it just something that occurs instantaneously whenever a bunch of them gather on an anonymous chat board?

Bitch Ph.D. writes about it here.

and if any of my law grad friends are out there, have you even heard of this board? what's up with that?!