“The list exists as way to warn women that these are men to watch out for,” writes Toronto comedian Nick Flanagan. “Men living in Toronto, eating nice food, partying and enjoying life with their friends (maybe with you), living it up while having created awful feelings and memories in others with their actions. The only reason this became more than hearsay is because a photo of it was taken and shared on Facebook. You can say ‘where is the evidence?’ or ‘innocent until proven guilty’, but a community is different than a court. People can be acquitted from crimes for a variety of reasons, even if they committed the act in question. If bad behavior goes unchecked, it continues. And this goes way beyond ‘bad behavior’. Don’t excuse predators because they’re your friends. You have no need for a code of silence. You are not in the mafia. You are a barista.”

I think it is safe to say most people agree rape and other forms of sexual assault are wrong. Yet, this socially accepted fact seems to go out the window when the offender is someone we like.

June’s North by Northeast (NXNE) lineup for the Yonge-Dundas Square performance in Toronto did not include misogynistic rapper Action Bronson as originally planned.  NXNE was less than graceful in their statement, “We are not moving the Action show because we believe in censoring him or any other artists. In fact, we find the limiting of artistic expression distasteful.” The Change.org petition describes some of this expression in one of Bronson’s videos: “The artist cooks a meal over a woman’s dead body, rolls her up in a carpet, throws her in his trunk, and proceeds to violently stab her when he discovers she’s still alive.” Too bad for NXNE’s good time, community members were not OK with hearing rapey messaging.

The Casualties

We’re now approaching the end of summer and punk band The Casualties had an unsuccessful Canadian tour. Many in the punk community know the lead singer, and only member of the band’s original line up, Jorge Herrera, as someone who’s been accused of sexually assaulting teenage girls. After one woman, Beth, came forward publicly via blog post, many others have shared their stories. “Incidents like this involving this dude have been sadly talked about since the late ’90s,” wrote one person.

Many venues cancelled their scheduled shows with The Casualties after communities stepped forward in protest. At least two venues continued with the show, but took The Casualties off the bill and donated proceeds to women’s charities. Such moves have prompted complaints from fans who believe they have a right to see the band play. See, for instance: “That’s your opinion, let me see my favourite band play”—as if human rights and rape being wrong is a matter of opinion.

In her post “I Won’t Apologize For Being Assaulted,” Beth writes:

“I totally bum people out because I happened to have been sexually assaulted by the singer of a band they like .. I know, I know. I should have tried harder for a band just begging to be rejected and ridiculed so it wouldn’t ruin your iPod rotation but hey, then again, it really wasn’t my choice. But man, what a total inconvenience to poor you to know something bad about a band you love. Just ignore the facts, I mean it WAS a long time ago. It’s not like I can still remember I was wearing cargo camo shorts and a v-neck white Hanes t-shirt… an outfit TOTALLY putting off do-me vibes with my freshly shaved head and not shaved legs.”

This story has also sadly resurrected the “But why didn’t she go to the police?” narrative. Yet, let’s remember that, asa YWCA fact sheet about violence against women reminds us, cases of sexual assault are among the most under-reported crimes—in fact, the majority of such cases go unreported. One of the reasons for this is because of the type of victim blaming that is currently happening. Another is the trauma victims are forced to relive throughout the court process. And while not every venue welcomed The Casualties, some continue to firmly support the band, like Toronto’s Virgin Mobile Mod Club. The show’s promoter, Inertia Entertainment, cancelled the show, but only after continued public pressure. The Facebook cover photo for the cancelled event was changed to a picture of a witch hunt. Inertia’s response on the matter continues to blame Beth, the victim, and calls her supporters illogical.

Sexual assault—rape—is still a disgusting and violent act even if someone popular and “cool” does it.

Beth, is celebrating her birthday by raising money for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. You can donate here.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her second year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

I’m tired of this sad trend—the one in which it isn’t inherently oppressive social institutions being questioned, but the victims of them. Victim blaming is a lot easier than changing things. Attempts at discrediting feminism are made because admitting that gendered oppression exists would be an admission that things need to change. Attacks on feminism are a large-scale version of victim blaming: the oppressed are blamed and everything is done to justify the oppressor’s actions.

There’s this socially constructed illusion of choice that everyone can succeed, monetarily and in earned respect, if they just work hard enough. However, as we know, that equality will never exist without equity; this pull your life up by the bootstraps mentality does no one any good. Rachel Fudge writes about this in her essay “Girl, Unconstructed” published in Bitch magazine’s 2006 collection Bitchfest. Fudge is critical of the Girl Power movement in contrast to the Riot Grrrl movement, zeroing in on the confusion between equality and equity: “[Girl Power] turns the struggle inward, depoliticizes and decontextualizes the cultural messages about gender and behaviour … If, as Ann Powers wrote so hopefully nearly a decade ago, girls are seen as ‘free agents,’ they have only themselves to blame for their failures.”

The all-about-personal-choices rational excuses crimes such as rape and forcing individuals to live in poverty. If you don’t want to get raped, don’t dress like a slut. If you don’t want to be attacked, carry a weapon and don’t walk outside after dark. Don’t have a baby if you want to succeed in your career. This messaging tells us there rules are to be followed—forget changes in accepted behaviour amongst genders and middle to upper class nepotism within the workplace. The rules women are expected to follow are especially highlighted by mainstream media, school dress codes, court rooms—and almost everybody—when it comes to sexual violence.

“Victim blaming is not just about avoiding culpability—it’s also about avoiding vulnerability,” Dr. Juliana Breines writes in a 2013 article for Psychology Today entitled ‘Why Do We Blame Victims?’ “The more innocent a victim, the more threatening they are. Victims threaten our sense that the world is a safe and moral place, where good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people.”

Bad girls are the ones that don’t follow the rules. They may have sex, be working class, be queer, have an addiction, live with mental-based illness and/or be a person of colour. In Canada, notably, the dehumanization of Aboriginal women also persists. A recent example being the case of Cindy Gladue, a sex worker who was brutally murdered, and whose alleged murderer was initially found not guilty until a recent appeal. Stephen Harper has said that Canada’s missing and murdered Aboriginal women is not an epidemic and not on the Conservative’s radar. Aboriginal women are dehumanized the same way other racialized women are when it comes to sexual violence. Black women must live with the hypersexualized Jezebel stereotype used to justify sexual violence because—so the horribly misogynistic and racist theory goes—being women of colour, they are inheritably hypersexual and animalistic. You’d be forgiven for thinking the only time powerful white folks seem to care about women of colour who are victims of sexual violence is when is when the crime is committed outside of western society.

This month, for instance, a horrific story has been making headlines. A 10-year-old girl living in Paraguay, who was raped and impregnated by her stepfather, is being denied her right to an abortion. This is undeniably a huge injustice. Nothing like that would happen in North America. Like, in 1988 when Stephen Friend, a representative in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, said it is almost impossible for a woman to become pregnant through rape, because her body will “secrete a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.” OK, that was 27 years ago. But only three years ago Republican Todd Akin said that from what he understands from doctors, “If it is legitimate (emphasis mine) rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”

Akin apologized for his comments, but then retracted his apology in his 2014 paranoid titled book Firing Back: Taking on the Party Bosses and Media Elite to Protect Our Faith and Freedom. Here in Canada, during the same year as Akin’s comments, Rob Ford’s niece, Krista Ford reiterated the rules for women in a tweet: “Stay alert, walk tall, carry mace, take self-defence classes & don’t dress like a whore. #DontBeAVictim #StreetSmart.” Her famous uncle is no better.

But even though media headlines and interviews with neighbours glorify the good girl—the straight-A, virginal, young, white girl—the courtroom does not award the same spot on the pedestal. Alice Sebold, author of Lucky and The Lovely Bones, was raped in 1981 and has fought inside and outside of the courtroom to prove this. In a 1989 piece for The New York Times, she writes about how not only did the justice system fail her but even her own father could not figure out how she was raped if she did not want to have sex: “When I was raped I lost my virginity and almost lost my life. I also discarded certain assumptions I had held about how the world worked and how safe I was.” As we see with Gladue’s case, 26 years later, not much has improved. In her book Men Explain Things To Me Rebecca Solnit writes, “Credibility is a basic survival tool.” How does a victim gain credibility when they live in a world that denies bad things happen to those that don’t deserve it?

“When bad things happen to good people, it implies that no one is safe,” Breines writes. “That no matter how good we are, we too could be vulnerable. The idea that misfortune can be random, striking anyone at any time, is a terrifying thought, and yet we are faced every day with evidence that it may be true.”

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

While writing my reading piece “She Asked For It” I was thinking about all the bystanders who watch their friends/sisters/peers get physically and verbally abused by their partner, or the adults who don’t stand up for abused children. I was thinking, too, about the public backlash women receive when coming forward about abuse, especially publicly like in the cases of Jian Gomeshi and Bill Cosby. There is this strange obsession to defend the most popular and charming, and this terrifies me. Almost as much as public speaking.

Here is the written piece read that evening:

She Asked For It

It seems so obvious to the outsider, get hurt, you go.

And that’s what makes them outsiders: the dichotomy of you and them.

So when that person makes those fists – just like dad used to make – and they tell you it isn’t just you and them, it is the two of you against the world, that’s all you got.

White trash can’t get hurt.

As Other, they can not feel.

The beatings and mockery vye for what hurts most, but don’t dare take first place from isolation.

Teachers ignore signs of quiet and retraction amongst bouncy, vibrant peers.

The church keeps secrets hushed behind decorated doors.

The police don’t write up, they write off.

Nurses say, “We don’t use the word rape here.”

A distance is created.

Friends don’t want to believe it.

She asked for it.

They watch and do nothing.

Drinking buddies before hoes dominates so-called progressive punk rock mantras.

Left alone, seeing your valueless and disposability, even you can’t stand being by yourself.

Prosecutions doled by class bracket dictations.

So, you have this guy – who makes fists just like dad used to make – who makes it both of you against the world that doesn’t want you.

You latch.

It’s all you got.

A former This intern, Hillary Di Menna is in her first year of the gender and women’s studies program at York University. She also maintains an online feminist resource directory, FIRE- Feminist Internet Resource Exchange.

Over 1,000 people walked from Nathan Phillips Square to Queen’s park this past Saturday. Some identified as feminists, some identified as sluts and others called themselves allies. SlutWalk Toronto 2014 was the third for the city since it began in 2011. Now, SlutWalk has become an annual event in 200 cities world over.

The first SlutWalk Toronto was held at Queen’s Park April 3, 2011, with a few thousand participants. It began as a protest in response to what a Toronto police officer told a group of students while speaking at York Univeristy’s Osgoode Hall Law School.”I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this,” said Constable Michael Sanguinetti at the time. “However, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.”

Not only did he say it, he was trained not to, and did it anyway, raising questions about how Toronto police are trained to help victims of sexual violence; perhaps explaining why only six percent of sexual assaults are reported.

Today, the walk is about ending sexual violence, slut shaming and victim blaming, as well as anti-oppression, urging us to think critically about how power dynamics and privileges impact individuals, communities and larger systems.

On June 12, after participants walked chanting things like, “Yes means fuck me, no means fuck you,” they settled at Queen’s Park to listen to speakers like NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo who spoke about trans rights bill Toby’s Act (Bill 33) and White Ribbon Campaign facilitator Jeff Perera, “Male-identified people, young men and boys, need to hear these everyday stories and experiences,” he said. “Saying ‘not all men’ is not helpful. We need to listen and we need to reflect.”

Other speakers included Maggie’s Toronto coordinator Monica Forrester, “As a trans woman I’ve always experienced slut shaming. My body is beautiful and I’m proud,” she told the crowd. Kira Andry spoke about the injustices for trans survivors in the legal system, despite the rainbow coloured triangle sticker in courtrooms shallowly proclaiming a safe space.

The Canadian Mental Health Association reports, “An Ontario-based study of trans people found that 20 pe cent had experienced physical or sexual assault due to their identity, and that 34 percent were subjected to verbal threats or harassment.”

Among those who also spoke were: Blu Waters, an elder on the York University campus; GRIND Toronto founder Akio Maroon; Flo Jo, a sex worker speaking out against Bill C-36 ;and SlutWalk cofounder Heather Jarvis. Queer writer and comedian Catherine McCormick acted as MC.

The afternoon was educational in intersectional feminism and feminist issues, some that have been unresolved for decades: “Forty-four years ago I was marching here as a feminist with a sign that said ‘Our bodies Our choice,'” DiNovo told those gathered. She doesn’t want to be doing the same thing another 20 years from now.

Aside from the educational aspect, it was an empowering gathering of empathy and solidarity, a time when one can point at a fellow walker’s sign, telling their own story of assault, and say, “Me too.”

As for the name, re-appropriation of “slut” has never been necessary to support the walk. It is about throwing a word—in a world where so many hateful words against women exist in many different languages—back at those who use it like venom.

“We’ve started a lot of conversations surrounding sexual violence, victim-blaming and rape culture,” says SlutWalk Toronto organizer Natalee Brouse. “It’s now up to us to use this platform for more nuanced conversations about who is affected by sexual violence, how we as a culture and society harm rape survivors, and what we can do to change that.”

For a long time, many Canadians never wanted to talk about rape. Some still don’t. When the nation finally started talking about it, people believed rape was only executed by strange, unknown men to an unsuspecting women. Some still do. Now we’ve moved on to knowing rape can happen to men, to trans women, to trans men, and to women who know their attacker. But maybe hearing the cases and “knowing” is not the same as understanding.

Thirty years ago, This Magazine discussed the ever controversial meaning of rape. Much has changed, but sometimes I have to squint to spot the difference. From our August 1984 issue by Anne Innis Dagg, “Rape’s Progress”:

From avoiceformen.com

Both a Voice for Men (AVfM) and its sidekick organization Men’s Rights Edmonton deserve a WTF post of their own. The hate groups aren’t so much about men’s rights, like the name might suggest (because cis white hetero males have no rights whatsoever), as they are about hating women. One line in the Men’s Rights Edmonton blog, for instance, says feminists have abortions because pregnancy is inconvenient, while another says feminists have children to steal from taxpayers. Also, women have sex to trick men into getting them pregnant—because only women have access to birth control. These are cold, hard, MRA “facts”—so easily dismissed, you may never have wasted time on its misogyny-fuelled web presence.

However, recently Men’s Rights Edmonton started posting AVfM hate speech all over town. In response to Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton’s (SAVE) three-year-old anti-rape campaign, called Don’t Be That Guy, AVfM made a similar styled rape-apologist, victim-blaming, slut-shaming campaign called, creatively, Don’t Be That Girl. The organization uses SAVE’s images, but with different slogans. Instead of the picture with a girl holding a drink and the caption, “Doesn’t mean she wants sex. Sex without consent = sexual assault,” the group has used, “Just because you regret a one night stand doesn’t mean it wasn’t consensual.”

Thankfully, those posters are now gone. In an e-mail, professor and the chair of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Alberta Dr. Lise Gotell says she never saw the posters herself outside of social media, though she later learned they went up over the weekend of July 6. The University of Alberta Protective Services contacted her after someone spotted them on campus July 9. The posters were taken down around campus, as per University regulations.

AVfM seems to be shocked it is being brought to court for copyright infringement—even though that’s arguably what it did. A July 14 AVfM post reads, “On July 11th, A Voice for Men received an email from a law firm claiming to represent a noxious hate group in the Edmonton, Alberta area of Canada calling themselves Sexual Assault Voices of Edmonton.”

If the group was really about human rights, like they claim, those behind it wouldn’t be so offended by the notion of a message saying, “Don’t rape women.” Their argument is that women lie about being raped more than they actually are—because, apparently, it is so great living as a rape victim. I think members also want to bring light to male rape victims but it is hard to figure out through both sites. All I really see in the messaging is: women are evil and ruining the world.

In a July 10 CBC News report on the campaign, false rape accusations were brought up: “Police officers who investigate sexual assault cases say false accusations are ‘extremely rare.’”

“’I was sexual assault detective for four and a half years and in that time I only dealt with one, and I dealt with numerous files. Many, many, many files,” acting Insp. Sean Armstrong from the serious crimes branch of Edmonton Police told CBC.

And yes, sincerely heartbreakingly, males do get raped. Statistics shared by the Rape Victims Support Network says one in four girls, and one in eight boys, are sexually abused by the age of eighteen. Instead of wasting efforts on creating rape apologies, though, the male rights groups’ energy could be better spent on campaigns urging males to report rape. Or looking into why people think male rape in prison is so funny when it is beyond terrible. There are issues that need the focus but sadly, MRA groups seem to prefer trolling feminist blogs, lumping all different feminist types together, and bashing them by making fun of women’s physical appearances, or their assumptions of such, like how we all wear army boots.

The reason there is so much focus on sexual assault against women is because, statistically, such things happen more often to them. Every 17 minutes a woman is raped in Canada. Out of every 17 Canadian women, one has been raped at least once in her lifetime; the most likely victims are 15–24 years old. The SAVE campaign did not demonize men; in fact it welcomed men into the discussion. It didn’t say males don’t get raped or that all men rape. AVfM showing a picture of a woman Nazi doesn’t prove anything. (Side note: why is Nazi even a colloquial term? A stickler for good grammar is in no way the same as the evil carried out by those monsters.)

A Men’s Right’s Edmonton blog post from June 29 says (in one giant sic), “Seems to me, if our message was so distorted, and our arguments so weak (as feminists continually say they are), feminists wouldn’t try so hard to make sure nobody even has a chance to see them. & by the way, ripping down our posters only broadcasts to the world your fear of our message, so we will happily continue putting more up.”

Ideally, the continuation of the posters will only serve to prove why few take the group’s  message seriously. However, as Dr. Gotell says, “I am most concerned about the integrity of the Don’t Be THAT Guy campaign and about how the altered posters may dissuade police reporting.”

The post begins with 17 years worth of good things—Parsons love of animals, a box he planned to give her full of childhood crafts—before Canning recounts the heartbreak his daughter felt the last 18 months of her life. The Nova Scotia family says that Parsons was raped, at 15, by four boys. Pictures of the gang rape circulated social media sites, the teen received text messages from strangers asking for sex, and was bullied even after changing schools. The authorities said there was not enough evidence to charge the boys. Only after she killed herself, has the case been reopened.

“Rehtaeh Parsons thought the worst outcome for her case would be no charges against the men who raped her but we all know better. The worst thing that could happen would be charges,” Canning added, directly addressing the Justice Minister of Nova Scotia. “That they would be found guilty, and that Rehtaeh would sit on a court bench and listen in utter disbelief as they were given parole, or a suspended sentence, or community service. All for completely destroying her life while they laughed.”

Unfortunately, Canning’s not exaggerating the possiblity of light punishment. “Nova Scotia has the highest rate of sexual assault and some of the lowest charge, conviction and sentencing rates in Canada,” Liberal MLA Kelly Regan told the legislature April 9. The rest of Canada isn’t so great, either. Consider this: two years ago Kenneth Rhodes served no jail time after he raped a woman because a Manitoba judge said the victim’s wardrobe—a tube top—suggested, “Sex was in the air.” With such bleak facts and the added confusion to an already life-altering situation, it is no wonder only 10 per cent of sexual assaults against women are reported.

Oshawa-based Luke’s Place is the only Canadian support centre for abused women and their family going through the court system of its kind. Founded in September 2003, the centre helps victims connect with emergency shelter, lawyers and other social services. Its staff also offers help with court paperwork, guidance through the court system, counselling, information resources and provides someone to attend court with the abused.

In addition to such on-the-ground work, the organization also brings public awareness to the issue of violence against women. This includes sexual, physical, psychological and economical abuse. Their website provides six Ontario-based research reports on over 132 abused women and their experiences in the courtroom. In the reports, women detail any combination of: feeling threatened, fearing retaliation, not being able to find representation, reliving abuse, and not being able to afford court expenses.

Many also said they were frustrated with court policy interfering with their cases—such as the sparse contact between family and criminal court. In one example, a man was sentenced to a month in prison for strangling his partner; this information was not relayed to the family court responsible for determining child custody. Sixty-two per cent of women said they wished judges and lawyers had a better understanding of the impact of such violence.

In many ways, it seems justice comes down to money. Women make up the majority of lone parent families and have an average annual income of $30,000. Legal Aid will not be rewarded until all assets are sold and savings are spent. Even then, Legal Aid can run out, and legal bullying can extend the process. Examples of this include: when the accused brings forward motions or appeals even when it’s likely they won’t be successful, or when the accused changes lawyers just to extend the court process—causing victims more pain.

If the judicial system is so intimidating for victims, important case evidence can not be brought to light, restricting any true justice.