Bush Administration Promotes Discriminatory Practices Related To Birth Control

From the New York Times:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control. [...]

The proposal, which circulated in the department on Monday, says the new requirement is needed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.” The administration said Congress had passed a number of laws to ensure that doctors, hospitals and health plans would not be forced to perform abortions.

This reference to not supporting coercive or discriminatory practices is interesting since the proposed change would explicitly allow medical providers to morally coerce patients and to discriminate against girls and women who want or need a service or a prescription which they are allowed to have by law.

I don't believe the Bush administration truly believes in their rationale for this proposed change. If they did then employment rules would apply to all areas where people don't want to perform certain tasks for moral reasons.

Think about the government contractors who have faced allegations of taking actions which show no respect for human life.

Blackwater guards have been accused of shooting innocent bystanders in a systematic pattern of overly aggressive response to threats -- real or imagined. KBR has faced accusations related to rape committed by their employees and they have been accused of performing faulty work which resulted in 13 soldiers being electrocuted while showering because of ungrounded wiring.

If their employees are asked to perform a task they see as immoral they should be able to refuse to do that task with the federal government's full and explicit protection.

Despite congressional hearings about the conduct of various defense contractors I have not seen any proposal by the Bush administration designed to ensure that federal money does not “support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law.”

Apparently the only morals which the Bush administration recognizes is the one which opposes abortion and birth control. Otherwise, those who work for an organization which gets federal money have no right to bring their morals to their jobs.

This proposal's hiring section seems designed specifically to allow people to apply for jobs they don't want to do per the job description, but which they don't want others to do either. The goal then of this proposal is to help people and organizations deny patients their legal rights.

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.” [...]

Indeed, among other things the proposal expresses concern about state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims who request it.

How dare states ensure rape victims are given their legal rights! Don't those states know that pregnancy through rape is a gift from God?

This concern about state laws reveals that while the Bush administration supports states rights to restrict abortions, they do not support states rights to permit abortions or even birth control. States either have the right to pass laws and constitutional amendments on a particular matter or they don't.

This proposal is therefore based on nothing more than the desire to deny people their legal rights -- even rape victims. Any framing which makes this proposal one that does nothing except protect people's rights is a lie.

Unfortunately, this deceptive packaging too often works on people who see the PR which focuses on values and who have learned to dismiss critics as being radicals who don't care about other people's rights.

This value message is contradicted by the decreased value of life used by the EPA.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted. [...]

The EPA made the changes in two steps. First, in 2004, the agency cut the estimated value of a life by 8 percent. Then, in a rule governing train and boat air pollution this May, the agency took away the normal adjustment for one year's inflation. Between the two changes, the value of a life fell 11 percent, based on today's dollar.

So the adminstration which markets itself as pro-life has discounted the value of all American lives. If it the effects of pollution rather than birth control which prevents a woman from carrying to term that's not a problem.

Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Patty Murray jointly issued a press release on Wednesday expressing their opposition to this proposal.

Hat tip: Safer

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

Security Staff Cuts Planned For Hospital Housing Sex Offenders

From Star Tribune:

ST. PETER, Minn. - More than 50 security jobs at the Minnesota Security Hospital in St. Peter are expected to be cut due to a budget crunch.

That has some lawmakers worried, because the hospital houses the mentally ill and sex offenders and it's near the Gustavus Adolphus College campus.

I don't have much to say about this story other than to hope that the state legislature reviews this plan to make sure that civilly committed sex offenders won't find it easy to walk away from the hospital.

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

Victims Partly To Blame For Nurse's 20 Year Pattern Of Sexual Abuse?

From the BBC:

David Britten, 54, a former manager at the Peter Dally Clinic in Pimlico, central London, preyed on patients over a 20-year period.

Claims by patients of sexual misconduct emerged after his dismissal from the clinic in 2002 over unrelated issues.

The NHS launched an inquiry in 2006 into how he escaped detection.[...]

The investigators blamed poor management, missed opportunities and the reluctance of his victims to come forward as the reasons for Mr Britten "grooming vulnerable patients".

The report described Mr Britten as a "manipulative predator who represented a clear danger to women".

Alison McKenna, who led the inquiry, said: "The effect of David Britten's abuse of these vulnerable women cannot be overestimated.

What I find striking is the contradiction between the idea that the effect of this man's abuse cannot be overestimated and how the blame for this man's serial abuses included the reluctance of his patients to come forward.

Britten was an eating disorder specialist and there are no criminal charges pending due to insufficient evidence in this case which involves 23 patients. Some jurisdictions have criminal statutes which specifically address this type of violation by health professionals so that consent cannot be used as a defense, but I don't know if England has any such laws.

Since the first official complaint came after Britten was dismissed for other reasons, it looks like there was a pervasive sense that until that happened these complaints would not have been taken seriously or complaints would put the complainant's health at risk because that health center would likely become hostile territory.

This blaming of victims wrongly makes victims equally responsible for what was done to all subsequent patients. This habit of making victims scapegoats when they don't report immediately helps mask or excuse systemic problems. The most obvious systemic problem is having other employees fail to take note of any behavior which crossed or neared an ethical line. If abused patients had the sense that the clinic accepted Britten's sexualization of them why would they believe that their complaints would be welcome?

These systemic problems unfortunately create a predator-friendly environment where abuse can easily flourish and patients are protected by luck alone.

I can't imagine an inquiry into a serial practitioner of a blatantly unsafe medical practice -- which was done in front of the patients harmed -- which would list those patients failure to report that unsafe practice as one of the factors to blame for the continuation of that unsafe medical practice.

It's definitely worth noting that patients didn't speak up, but that notation shouldn't be under the category of blame.

This silence on the part of patients only shows that patient outreach is important to give patients tools which they can use before, during or after something happened which harmed them. Any outreach program would be putting patients in danger the minute the medical facility started depending on patient reports to keep the staff from committing unsafe medical practices.

Most members of the public would be outraged at the idea that they could be blamed after a family member died because of an intentional lethal drug injection administered in their presence. A nurse who was a master manipulator would work to convince the family member that the lethal action was appropriate. If the medical system didn't recognize the true cause of death that family member might naturally say nothing until they learned that nurse was fired.

We need to see inquiries into sexual misconduct which blame the victims with this same outrage.

A family member's silence is not complicity with the crime and it does not prove that no crime occurred. The same is true of victims of sexual abuse within medical settings.

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

If You Are Killed After Testimony Will Your Voice Be Heard?

With all of the uproar after the US Supreme Court's ruling on the death penalty for child rape, another important ruling was largely ignored.

The case is Giles v. California, where the defendant, Dwayne Giles, admitted shooting his ex-girlfriend, Brenda Avie, but claimed he shot her in self-defense. She was shot 6 times and before the last shot was fired into her analysis of the crime scene indicated that she was on the ground. Allegedly he had his eyes closed the whole time.

Three weeks before Avie was shot to death, she told a cop investigating a domestic violence report that after Giles choked her, he threatened to stab her. These statements are what was at the center of the ruling. They were admitted into the murder trial even though the defendant's attorney was denied the right to cross-examine her.

Yes, you read that right. The defendant was denied the right to cross-examine the women he himself killed.

Here's more information on this case from the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court yesterday threw out the conviction of a man accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend because the defendant could not challenge an incriminating account she gave the police weeks before her death. [...]

The case revolved around the Sixth Amendment, which affords people the bedrock right to confront and cross-examine witnesses who give testimony against them. At issue is whether defendants forfeit their confrontation rights by doing harm to people whose statements are introduced in judicial proceedings.

Typically, courts have carved out few Sixth Amendment exceptions, giving leeway only to deathbed statements and to accounts by witnesses who are kept away from the courthouse by defendants seeking to thwart the judicial process.

For me the question is who really denied him those rights. His defense team admitted that it was him. For that reason I absolutely disagree with this court ruling. It wasn't the court who denied him the right or the ability to cross-examine the victim in his murder trial.

Since Giles admitted to shooting the woman whose testimony was thrown out, he will most likely be retried. Unfortunately, this Supreme Court ruling will inspire other criminals and put more lives in danger.

Hat tip: Feministing

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 51

Welcome to the July 15, 2008 edition of the carnival against sexual violence.

Thank you to everyone who nominated a post or who wrote a post against sexual violence whether it was nominated/selected or not. Nominations that came in after the nomination deadline will be considered for the next edition of the carnival.

If you support the purpose of the carnival, you can help get the word out about it and all of the posts included in the carnival.

Here are the selections for this edition of the carnival against sexual violence:

gender

In Getting Coffee, Getting Stereotypes posted at Feminist Law Professors, we get a discussion of an opinion in the Eastern District of PA where the judge dismissed the plaintiff’s sexual harassment claim by noting that serving coffee "is not, by itself, a gender specific act."

In Just Because They are WOMEN posted at BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS, we get a discussion about how often women are treated as things and how men who do this rationalize the situation until they are better people than the women they use.

legal

In Kyle Payne and Screening For Sexual Assault Advocates posted at Change Happens: the SAFER blog, we get a discussion about how lack of funding for college sexual assault programs can allow dangerous students to volunteer to work with rape victims.

In "Advocate" Turns Abuser posted at The Curvature, we get a discussion of anti-violence blogger, Kyle Payne, who was arrested and charged with assaulting an unconscious woman and who recently pleaded guilty to attempted burglary and “invasion of privacy.”

In Stuck in Legal Limbo posted at Sex Crimes, we get a discussion of a sex offender who can't go home from the hospital because he can't find housing that doesn't violate local law that also has handicap accessibility.

In The Death Penalty as Punishment for the Rape of Children posted at elle, phd, we get a discussion of the recent US Supreme Court opinion and the notion that victims of child rape are "destined" to be miserable.

In This is Not the Right Type of Equality posted at Shakespeare's Sister, we get a discussion of a case where a 13-year-old boy was raped by a 26-year-old women and the negative comments made by the defendant and her defense team about the victim.

In Abusive Stalking Using the Courts posted at SANCTUARY FOR THE ABUSED, we get a discussion about how ex-partners who have restraining orders against them which forbids them from seeing their victim, sending them a letter or calling them can file numerous claims as a way to stalk victims of domestic abuse.

In Effective Backlash Against Rep James Fagan's Treatment Of Child Rape Victims posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss the reactions to a defense attorney who said that minimum sentences for child rape would cause him to go to trial and to try to destroy the victim on the stand.

media watch

In Is "pregnancy pact" the new MSM code for child rape? posted at Hoyden About Town, we get a discussion of news coverage of a case which was initially made out to sound like a bizarre and exploitative, but mutually agreed upon surrogacy arrangement between mother, stepfather, and 15 year old daughter.

In "Very Young Girls" posted at Feminist Law Professors, we get a discussion of a documentary film that chronicles the journey of young women through the underground world of sexual exploitation in New York City.

In Sports Rape Culture Keeps On Thriving posted at The Curvature, we get a discussion sparked by an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald which looks at the history of rape cases involving sports teams.

In Keeping Watch posted at ~Enola~, we get a discussion of a novel by Laurie R. King about a Vietnam Vet who, after the war, kidnaps children (and sometimes women too) who are abuse victims, gets them safely away with other family members, adopted families or into a safe house.

In Revictimization As Dangerous Game Of Chicken posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss the use of anonymous sources and speculation in stories about the allegation of rape against 4 English rugby players and contrast that against a story which goes into more details about the allegations.

personal stories

In Admitting It: When a Woman is the Rapist posted at James Landrith is...Taking The Gloves Off, we get a discussion of one man's experience of being raped while unable to consent and then being raped again out of fear of what would happen if he resisted.

In Anniversary posted at Mortality's Thoughts, we get a discussion about the anger felt at the 2nd anniversary of rape and the wish to be able to let go.

In Looking over your shoulder?. posted at Holy Buck, Fatman!, we get a discussion sparked by reactions to the murder of Domestic Violence advocate Jana Mackey by an ex-boyfriend.

raising awareness

In Rape Stats. posted at An Open Letter by a Feminist, we get a discussion of the historical change in rape statistics.

In Embedded on My Body posted at rmott62, we get a discussion of the feeling of being a sex object where there was no separation between rape and the creation of porn.

In Sexual Violence Among NYC Teens posted at Change Happens: the SAFER blog, we get a discussion of a preliminary report by the New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault about sexual and physical violence experienced by NYC high school students.

In It's not about "sexual temptation" posted at Stop Baptist Predators, we get a discussion about how churches think about clergy sexual abuse.

In Why I Hate the Word “Incest” posted at Blooming Lotus, we get a discussion about how child rape is softened by calling what happened incest.

In Who's to Blame? posted at The Nerd, we get an allegorical story which highlights how our courts and our citizens have the habit of not taking cases of sexual assault seriously when the perpetrator is known to the victim or the victim is described as enticing.

recovery

In PTSD Hurts So Damned Much posted at rmott62, we get a discussion of how living with PTSD means living with the ghosts of those who committed violence.

In AFTER ABUSE posted at HELP FOR ABUSE - STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, we get a discussion about how to deal with the long term effects of domestic violence during the journey to return order to the survivor's life.

That concludes this edition of the carnival against sexual violence. Thank you for taking the time to visit this carnival and thank you to the authors of all the posts included in this edition.

The next submission deadline is Jul. 29 at 11 pm and the next edition will be out on Aug. 1.

To nominate a post (your own or someone else's) to the next edition of carnival against sexual violence, use the carnival submission form. If you have any problem with the form, please let me know so your submission can be considered for the next edition.

Links to everything related to the carnival can be found on the blog dedicated to this carnival, http://carnivalagainstsexualviolence.blogspot.com/

Marcella Chester

Technorati tags: carnival against sexual violence blog carnival rape crime politics sexual assault feminism sex

Linguistics And Meaning Of "Why Did She Stay?"

In response to Feministe: Why did she stay? which I commented on here there is a post Rambling On: Feminist language, where Lottie writes:

My perspective, is that feminists typically blacklist questions that they don’t have answers to. Why do victims of domestic violence stay? There isn’t a nice, neat, blanket response to that. Domestic violence crosses every border imaginable. It is not restricted to race, age, economic status, social status, level of education, (dis)ability, religion, sexual orientation, gender, genetics, blood type, name, rank or serial number. Domestic violence is an equal opportunity social problem. This being the case, how can we possibly answer the question of why? There doesn’t seem to be an answer at the moment.

Feminists can’t fix it, and so they quell the question.

Language control is directly related to thought control. If feminists (or anyone else) can control our language, they can control how our thoughts are perceived by others. This also allows them to control the dialogue which, in turn, helps create the illusion that they have all the answers, simply by eliminating some of the questions. They stifle the flow of discussion and exchange of ideas, under the guise of supporting women and minorities, and more specifically to this topic, victims of domestic violence.

Lottie is right in saying that there is no dominant answer to, "Why did she stay?" but I see that lack of a common answer as being meaningful and educational. This lack of a dominant answer contradicts much of the mythology about domestic violence.

There is much more commonality and meaning in the answer to, "Why did he (or she) abuse or murder someone that person had a relationship with?"

Therefore the only general meaning which can be derived by looking at why victims stay is to examine failed prevention steps and to look at the barriers which prevent domestic violence victims from leaving safely and the barriers to their safety if they don't leave for whatever reason.

With that in mind the better questions would be, "How do we more effectively help victims and potential victims of domestic violence remain safe?" and "How can we more effectively reduce the harm done by abusers?" These questions both involve commitment on the part of the questioner.

It makes sense to begin by getting a broad grasp of the problem. A CDC study found that 23.6 percent of women and 11.5 percent of men have experienced intimate partner violence.

From Endabuse.org:

In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.

Since the problem of domestic violence is systemic -- and more so against women than men --then much of the solution needs to be systemic as well.

Hennepin County, Minnesota put together a Fatality Review Report "to provide in-depth case reviews of the events and circumstances surrounding domestic homicides to identify responses and strategies to prevent similar tragedies in the future."

Another systemic approach which focuses on child victims of domestic abuse is the National child protection training center in Winona, Minnesota. The idea is simple. Have professionals make mistakes in training rather than on the job. This will help identify abuse sooner and then result in a more effective response.

As Lottie said, language reflects thought. Otherwise requests to reframe our language couldn't be a form of thought control. That means those who hear about murdered anti-violence advocate, Jana Mackey and react by focusing on her decisions are communicating how they think about crimes such as this by their choice of words.

Here is one of the comments which people reacted to as falling into the "Why did she stay?" trap, this one written by Jane:

I don’t understand how someone so involved in the fight against domestic violence ended up in such a dangerous situation herself. I’m sure it’s an extremely complicated answer.

What an extraordinary woman. I just wish I could understand why people–and I think most people do this at some point–afford others the kindness they can’t or won’t extend to themselves.

This comment definitely takes a strictly individual view as it passes judgment on the murdered woman. It isn't my interpretation or oversensitivity which makes me see this.

Here's the claim: A murdered woman couldn't or wouldn't extend kindness to herself by avoiding a dangerous situation.

It's important to note that this comment does not actually ask any questions despite 2 declarations of not understanding the behavior of victims of domestic abuse.

What is a dangerous situation for women? Dating? Marriage? Breaking off a relationship? How wide of a net do we throw when judging the decisions of those who become victims of domestic violence? And what of those who make these same decisions but who never get abused?

If someone has made a bad decision prior to becoming a victim of domestic violence shouldn't we judge all those who make the same bad decisions equally whether or not they are subsequently abused or murdered?

If we don't put the violent at the center of our talk about "Why?" that says that the only thing which can be done is to change the behavior of the abused. But this isn't true. In the Hennepin County study I mentioned earlier in this post they referenced a 2005 change in Minnesota law so that strangulation during domestic abuse became a felony.

Here is a section of a story about Mackey's ex-boyfriend who committed suicide while in police custody because of her murder:

It wasn’t until after [Sally] Piller [owner of a Lawrence gallery where Garcia-Nunez exhibited his paintings] agreed to have a show for Garcia-Nunez’s work earlier this year that she learned about his criminal past. He was sentenced in 2005 on assault and burglary charges, was incarcerated and released on parole in August 2006.

The Lawrence Journal-World reported that prosecutors charged Garcia-Nunez after he assaulted a 29-year-old former girlfriend in her home in 2004. The police report stated he choked and beat her, and then cut her arm with a knife before she was able to flee.

With this history of violence shouldn't those who want to know "Why?" focus on how a man who was sentenced for assault and burglary against an ex-girlfriend could be released the very next year. If the criminal justice system treated his 2004 crime this lightly why should we expect private citizens to view this person as a potential murderer?

From the description of the violence in 2004 that previous victim may have avoided being a murder victim by only a small margin. If the original sentence were in line with the seriousness of the crime he committed in 2004, Garcia-Nunez would still be imprisoned today and Mackey would still be alive.

Where was the criminal justice system's kindness to victims of domestic violence in the handling of Garcia-Nunez's 2004 crime?

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

Guest Blogging At Feministe July 13 - 26

Jill at Feministe invited me to guest blog over there for the next 2 weeks. My introductory post went up this morning, check it out.

I'll keep up my blogging here during my stint as a guest blogger, but like the introductory post not everything I write there will be posted here.

Professor And Pastor Explains Why Men Abuse And Why Jesus Was A Girly Man

I am going to modify one detail in my quoting of the beginning of a story in Ethics Daily to help illustrate the deep and obvious flaw in a scholar's teachings.

One reason that men abuse their children is because children rebel against their father's God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar said Sunday in a Texas church.

Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., said children desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their fathers because of sin.

"And fathers on their parts, because they're sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches," Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.

Can anyone imagine many Christians openly accepting that Christian fathers will either abuse their children or opt out of their role as a member of the family the moment their children rebel? Can anyone imagine the premise that some or all abusive fathers wouldn't abuse if only their children were free of sin?

No?

It's harder to get away with blaming the victims of abuse when those victims are children than it is when those victims are wives.

It's no surprise to me that I could easily substitute "children" every time Ware writes "wives" and substitute "fathers" for "husbands" in this quote since in Ware's worldview both wives and children are or should be ruled by men. If a man rules by an iron fist and terrorism, according to Ware he's likely doing so because his wife and/or children drove him to it. Likewise, if a man largely checks out as a husband or father that too is likely caused by his wife and/or children.

This means that under this model of thinking the only way for men to be successful husbands and fathers is for them to have wives and children who are aware of the danger of questioning or challenging Christian men in any way. This positions Christian men not as leaders but as fragile, puppet leaders who need to be supported with the illusion that they are genuine and compassionate leaders.

What he is describing isn't based on people's sinful natures it is based on a combination of lack of skill and the feeling that the unacceptable (abuse) becomes acceptable when the person abused is viewed by the abuser and others as being disruptive or bad. That's a selfish and lazy rationalization.

Those who view Ware's position as evidence against Christianity are making the same mistake that Ware makes. The first time this mistake clicked for me was when a pastor said that rather than accepting that we are created in God's image, many people want to accept that God is created in our image. That helps people justify what cannot be justified any other way.

This habit is seen in Christians and it is seen in people who follow other religions. It is also seen in those who seem to reject all religions and who justify what cannot be justified by talking about evolutionary biology.

Ware wants to minimize and justify Christian husbands abusing their wives when these abusers start being treated by the criminal justice system as criminals so he looks for Biblical justification.

Ware reads Genesis and sees that Eve made Adam fall, I read Genesis and see that humans have a long history of trying to pass the buck. There is no substantial difference between, "the snake made me eat the apple" and "Eve made me eat the apple" so those who use scripture to position women as inherently more sinful than men demonstrate that they are reading their sexism into the Bible.

Ware said gender is not theologically the most important issue facing the church, but it is one where Christians are most likely to compromise, because of pressure from the culture.

The problem with this premise is that Ware assumes this has not been true since the day Rome became a Christian empire. The Romans didn't change their view of gender when Rome became a Christian empire. The non-Christian Roman view of women became the Christian view. Those Christians who didn't hold this view were likely ignored or viewed as heratics.

The pre-Christian Romans owned slaves so the ownership of slaves became an acceptable Christian position. Ware's desire to go back to purer Christian roots would mean going back to slaveholding. After all, it was only pressure from the culture which caused many Christian slaveholders to stop owning slaves. Rome fell. The US southern states lost the civil war.

It's too bad that so many Christians did not give up slave holding without the need for external pressure. Yet by Ware's logic any pressure from the culture is bad and is never good. That means he doesn't have to bother looking into his heart to see where he has been clinging to sin because that sin provides him with a nice payoff. If he grew up with a preacher saying something was acceptable because he was a man then that something is by his definition Christian.

This is the jaw dropper:

Ware also said male/female relationships are modeled in the Trinity, where in the Godhead the Son "eternally submits" to the Father.

Ware and others have amazingly turned Jesus into the woman in the holy Trinity. So men are like the part of the Trinity which smote people dead and women are like the part of the Trinity which walked the Earth, performed miracles and preached to all who would listen.

The Holy Spirit gets left completely out of this model which is supposedly modeled in the Trinity, but hey who's counting.

Using this model presented by Ware it goes against God's order to ban women from the pulpit since Jesus preached. If Ware is opposed to women preachers, he does so by viewing himself and other Christian men as demigods free to make up their own rules.

Rather than playing a game of Simon Says, he's playing a game of Christian Man Says.

If he's in the wrong when it comes to how Jesus viewed gender, he doesn't want to be right. And that is supposedly the Christian way?

Hat tip: Feministing

Technorati tags: rape crime politics sexual violence sexual assault feminism

Why Gendered Warnings About Safety Hurt Men

I've lost count of the number of times that I've seen or read men calling women who are abducted after accepting rides "stupid" or "asking for it." I've seen the same labels applied to women who are sexually assaulted after going out drinking.

These comments almost always come with a feeling of smugness from the man making this judgment. This man might drink or even get drunk, but he and other men like him aren't putting their safety or their lives at risk. They are never "stupid" or "asking for it" like these women who identify themselves as "innocent victims" do.

Sometimes a woman who did something which gets described as "stupid" or "asking for it" is judged harshly enough for the man to decide that no charges should be filed despite undeniable evidence. To these men it was the woman who caused what she describes as a crime. If she hadn't been "stupid" or "asking for it" no crime would have occurred.

By getting into a car with a man or by drinking she has consented to whatever was done to her. If she didn't want to be hurt, she wouldn't have taken the action which got her labeled as "stupid" or "asking for it." This response directly feeds the rationalization of rapists. It allows the sexually violent to tell themselves and others that they were not the true instigators of the sex crime they are accused of.

Because of negative judgments against women who are alleged or proven victims, whatever story the alleged rapist comes up is given more credibility than it deserves by those who harshly judge women.

These judgmental men listen to the stories provided by accused men and their lawyers with sympathy and a desire to see this person as wrongfully accused. Most of these men will be quick to remind people, "women lie about rape," and, "innocent until proven guilty."

If a defendant claims that the alleged victim's undeniable injuries happened not because there was a violent assault but because the alleged victim consented to a rough sex game those who rush to judge women will consider the story plausible or at least cause for reasonable doubt.

After all, since there were no other witnesses, it's a "he said, she said" situation so we can never know what really happened. This excuse can get used even when there are multiple victims. This occurance often serves to do nothing for these judgers except to allow them to complain about man-hating conspirators.

If this sort of victim-blaming comment came only from men who have no relationship to the criminal justice system it would be bad enough, but this sort of comment can come from a judge about the victim in a case he is overseeing. These types of comments can also come from women -- even women who claim to be feminists.

Implied in all of these types of comments I've encountered is that men who drink and men who accept rides are not stupid because those actions are not making them vulnerable to violent criminals. Sometimes this idea isn't implied and is stated boldly.

However, once this premise can be disproven then all of the judgments made against so-called "stupid" or "asking for it" women who report being crime victims must be made against men who report being crime victims after taking similar actions.

If the double standard remains then this double standard has been shown to be illogical and it exists for no reason other than to excuse men who are violent toward women.

Here's a case from the AP which disproves the gendered premise:

WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wis. (AP) -- Authorities in central Wisconsin are re-examining unsolved missing-persons cases to see if any are connected to a man accused of kidnapping two young men and sexually assaulting them.

Wood County Sheriff Thomas Reichert said his agency will dig into Edward Lanphear's past and cross-reference him with other missing-persons cases. Other law enforcement agencies likely will do the same, he said.

Lanphear, 46, of Saratoga, is being held on $1 million bond after police said he held two men in his house, stripped them, beat them and sexually assaulted them several times. Police say that after one of the men managed to escape, officers found the other in Lanphear's basement.

Either these 2 men were "stupid" for getting in Lanphear's vehicle -- one was then allegedly hit in the head and the other soon allegedly passed out -- as the victim blamers call many women who are abducted in similar ways or people need to acknowledge that there are dangerous people out there who will use any opening they can in order to commit acts of sexual violence.

The decision to search missing person records is interesting because I have not seen announcements of similar actions being taken when the victim who escaped and/or rescued from a similar abductor and rapist was a woman.

The gender of these 2 victims seems to have given their account of what happened more initial credibility with police. The negative stereotypes about women who drink and get into a man's car aren't there to distract investigators.

That in turn causes the police to view Lanphear as more dangerous than other police forces have when the victims were 2 women. Too often the police see their assessment as being based on unbiased credibility and don't see how gender stereotypes can influence their assessment. From there the police can under respond to similar abductions of women or they can assume that the report is a hoax when it is not.

Men who take the same actions as "stupid" women are safer only because they are targeted in this way at a lower rate by sexual predators than women and because of attitudes about these predators which can help get certain criminals caught and prosecuted.

Make no mistake, men can be wrongly assumed to be non-credible if their reports are assessed based on stereotypes about them.

All reports should be taken seriously and investigated fully so that no predators are provided with external reasons to view themselves as having done nothing wrong.

The problem is with the predator not the prey. But every time someone focuses on characterizing or judging victims they deny this reality.

Those who describe certain women as "asking for it" directly support the rationalizations and projections of predators who want to view themselves as people who are doing nothing really wrong.

Update: Lanphear has been charged with 12 felonies.

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