Illustrating the Hypocrisy

A great political cartoon by Steve Sack of Slate Magazine (where you can find more cartoons of a similar persuasion):



(H/T FMF's Choices Feminist Campus Blog.)

Target Women: Broadview Security

Sarah Haskins' latest Target Women is spot-on. I've been watching these crazy Broadview Security ads for months and wondering, "What the hell?" (I mean, really, who would ever, ever turn on their security alarm in broad daylight when they've just come inside for lunch?) Way to make the world look like an evil, scary place with lots of men in black out to assault women, Broadview. An evil, scary place only your security system can protect us helpless women from, right? Rape fables, indeed.

Schroedinger's Rapist

I want to share with you all a guest post at Shapely Prose by writer Phaedra Starling that I found not long ago which has put a lot of my thoughts about public interactions with men into words. It's not a short post, but I really recommend reading the whole thing, especially if you happen to possess a penis.

The post discusses how, when one approaches a woman in public, it's really important to be aware that she does not know whether or not you're a rapist. An excerpt:

Consider: if every rapist commits an average of ten rapes (a horrifying number, isn’t it?) then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty. That means four in my graduating class in high school. One among my coworkers. One in the subway car at rush hour. Eleven who work out at my gym. How do I know that you, the nice guy who wants nothing more than companionship and True Love, are not this rapist?

I don’t.

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.

Fortunately, you’re a good guy. We’ve already established that. Now that you’re aware that there’s a problem, you are going to go out of your way to fix it, and to make the women with whom you interact feel as safe as possible.

Now, there have been some negative reactions to her tone. I think, given the subject matter, that it's called-for, although perhaps her condescension is unhelpful. If you can disregard the talking down just for a minute, though, and if you hear all the dismal statistics and despair at the state of affairs, if you wonder how you can successfully approach a woman without being a creeper, or if you're just really awesome, read the rest of the article. It's worth it.

Cross posted at Paper Cuts and Plastic.

Three Things for Tuesday

In order to not get too terribly depressed about Stupak and the attendant health care debacle, I went out seeking mindless entertainment today. Good things (some poignant, some funny, some crazy fun) were found. I thought I would share.

Poignant: Emma Thompson on The View speaking out about sexual slavery.

(H/T Melissa at Women in Hollywood

Funny: Sesame Street does Mad Men.

(H/T my good friend Gloria)

Crazy Fun: Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video

(H/T FanGrrl Magnet)