Apr 18, 2011 | Battered Women's Support Services, Events, Violence against women
Urban Women’s Anti-Violence Strategy
Sexual violence, it seems, is the one crime where we blame the victim and not the perpetrator. Frequently, women who are attacked are told, “You should have been more careful,” or, “You shouldn’t have put yourself in that situation.” Routinely women who have been raped are asked the questions “WHAT were you wearing?” “What did you drink?” “Who were you with?” “Why couldn’t you sense a potential attacker?” Research tells us that sexual violence perpetration is a heavily gendered crime. Approximately 98-99% of sexual violence – reported to police or anonymously reported in research – is perpetrated by men. And we don’t ask the question “Why do men rape?”
Recently, there have been several instances where public officials have publicly exposed victim blaming sentiments and have faced consequences:
In Toronto, Students and staff at Osgoode Hall Law School are demanding an apology and explanation from the Toronto Police Service after one of their officers suggested women can avoid sexual assault by not dressing like a “slut. http://www.torontolife.com/daily/informer/city-sindex/2011/02/17/toronto-cop-reportedly-tells-students-to-avoid-sexual-assault-by-not-dressing-%E2%80%9Clike-a-slut%E2%80%9D/
In Winnipeg, protesters call for resignation after judge allows victim blaming sentiments inform his sentence of a convicted rapist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBxodavkiJc
In Manitoba ‘No woman asks to be raped’: Victim slams judge’s decision
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/02/25/no-woman-asks-to-be-raped-victim-slams-judges-decision/
In Vancouver, BC, Women Respond to Comments by Reverend Ric Matthews of First United Church
http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/newsrelease/6496
In Surrey, BC, Green Party Candidate resigns over rape comment
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/974569–green-party-candidate-resigns-over-rape-comment-on-facebook
The New York Times was blasted by readers after this article:
Cleveland Texas Rape Case
Igniting a response with analysis like this :
MS Blog
Forcing the New York Times to print this :
Without Balance
In the US, an alliance of men have spoken out against victim blaming and issued a call to other men
http://www.kevinpowell.net/blog/2011/04/men-speak-out-about-sexist-coverage-of-rape-a-call-to-action/
This year, Urban Women’s Anti-Violence Strategy an alliance between Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter, Act II Safe Choice, Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW), YWCA Munroe House and Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) have teamed up again to focus on sexual violence against girls & women.
To participate in the conversation and to take action check out BWSS Battered Women’s Support Services Facebook page BWSS Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter here Ending Violence
Prevention of Violence Against Women Week – April 18 to 25, 2011.
Urban Women’s Anti-Violence Strategy
Over the years, Vancouver and the province of British Columbia has experienced a death by a thousand cuts as services and the network of support for women survivors of violence are being dismantled. Further the pursuit of liberation and equality for women remains elusive as systemic policies and practices are regressing while violence against girls and women continues as an epidemic.
In 2009, in unprecedented form, the feminist women’s organizations in Vancouver joined together to raise awareness by holding events and mobilizing direct action during Prevention of Violence Against Women Week in April.
We’re working to provide critical and essential support services, while working to end violence against girls and women.
To join our work email us at endingviolence@bwss.org.
Urban Women’s Anti-Violence Strategy 2010 Death Does NOT Become Her
Urban Women’s Anti-Violence Strategy 2009 Critical and Essential Services
Mar 27, 2011 | Violence against women
In this compelling blog post, Lexie Kite and Jennifer Shewmaker present statistics and analysis that expose how porn has permiated pop culture.
The authors argue that their article “is not just a feminist argument calling out all the harmfully objectifying messages we are exposed to every day in the name of female equality. This is a fight for male and female mental and physical health, for safety, for meaningful relationships, for women’s worth, for the power to recognize and reject these proven harmful influences if we want to. The power of pornographic images — presented to us as normal and natural in the last decade of our lives – is REAL and is worth fighting against.”
Read the entire blog post here.
Mar 27, 2011 | Violence against women
After much research on perceptions of women’s health, Lindsay Kate started looking into the Body Mass Index (BMI) and how it came to be the standard scale for judging a healthy weight. What she learned was shocking…
- The vast majority of girls and women now perceive underweight bodies and extremely low body weights as being ideally healthy
- Even underweight and average-weight females are striving for weight loss using dangerous and unhealthy means, such as disordered eating and abuse of laxatives or excessive exercise
- According to studies done in the last five years, 66 percent of adolescent girls wish they were thinner, though only 16 are actually overweight.
Read More Here
Mar 26, 2011 | Men Stopping Violence, Violence against women
Men’s Work—To Stop Male Violence
by Paul Kivel
“WHY DO MEN BATTER WOMEN?” “Why do men rape women?” “Why do men stalk, harass, exploit and mistreat women?” To answer such questions we must first of all discard the easy answer:
“They’re monsters.” In fact, research shows that most men who batter, rape, or harass women are very ordinary and not much different from most other men. In all too many “normal” households, workplaces, congregations, and schools, violence is a common family secret. Nor are they crazy. Most of these men are sane, rational, and lead socially acceptable lives.
Read the entire article by Paul Kivel here.
Mar 14, 2011 | Violence against women
Shattered Hearts
Prepared by Alexandra (Sandi) Pierce, Ph.D. for the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Minneapolis MN
© 2009 Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center
The topic of this report is the commercial sexual exploitation of Native American women and girls in Minnesota, including but not limited to sex trafficking. In 2006, the Legislature passed Minnesota Statute section 299A.79 requiring the Commissioner of Public Safety to develop a plan to address current human trafficking and prevent future human trafficking in Minnesota. By 2008, Minneapolis had been identified by the FBI as one of thirteen U.S. cities having a high concentration of criminal activity involving the commercial sexual exploitation of young women.
To develop a comprehensive plan for addressing the complicated issue of trafficking and the needs of trafficking victims, the commissioner created, per Minnesota Statute section 99A.7955, the Gerald D. Vick Human Trafficking Task Force. The task force is to advise the Commissioner on a statewide trafficking assessment and on the commissioner’s plan to address human trafficking and prevent future trafficking in Minnesota. The Task Force would assist the Commissioner of Public Safety and local authorities in two statutory actions:
- Collect, share, and compile trafficking data among government agencies to assess the nature and extent of trafficking in Minnesota
- Analyze the collected data to develop a plan to address and prevent human trafficking2
Prepared by Alexandra (Sandi) Pierce, Ph.D. for the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Minneapolis MN
This report is organized to tell a story. For any story, there is always a setting, a context within which the story unfolds. Therefore, Section I briefly describes the historical experiences of Native American women in the U.S. that have made them uniquely vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation, and unique in the ways that such exploitation impacts their well-being.
Section II describes the methods and sources used to produce this report, and our definitions for the terms we use to describe the experiences of commercially sexually exploited Native women and girls.
Section III provides information about the prevalence of Native women’s and girls’ involvement in the sex trade in Minnesota, across the U.S. and in Canada.
Section IV describes Native women‟s and girls‟ patterns of entry into commercial sexual exploitation.
Section V is a summary of the risk factors that have been found to facilitate Native women‟s and girls‟ entry into commercial sexual exploitation, and of current data describing the representation of Native women and girls in those facilitating factors in Minnesota.
Section VI provides information about barriers and challenges to helping Native women and girls to escape commercial sexual exploitation.
Section VII contains our conclusions and recommendations.
After a woman disclosed her own experience, MIWRC recognized that other Native women coming to the agency for housing, domestic violence, and sexual assault services might have similar stories. Staff contacted other Native-specific housing and social service agencies in Minnesota to ask what their caseworkers were seeing in terms of sexual exploitation of Native women and girls. Several reported an increasing number of Native women and girls coming in for domestic violence and sexual assault services, later acknowledging that their assailant had trafficked them for prostitution.
Police reports from Duluth showed that Native girls were being lured off reservations, taken onto ships in port, beaten, and gang-raped. Tribal advocates in South Dakota and Minnesota had also begun raising red flags, reporting that Native girls were being trafficked into prostitution, pornography, and strip shows over state lines and internationally to Mexico. In Canada, research studies were consistently finding that Canada‟s indigenous women and girls are hugely over-represented in the sex trade. One report described Canadian Aboriginal and American Indian youth as being at greater risk than any other youth for sexual exploitation and trafficking. Read the report here: Shattered Hearts
Mar 1, 2011 | Violence against women
Instead of working to make the First United shelter safe for women, segregating predators, or creating women-only spaces, Reverend Ric Matthews blames the victims:
“Some women put themselves at risk because of the way they dress or undress or move around the building, they draw attention to themselves.” – Reverend Ric Matthews on the sexual assaults at First United Church Shelter in the Downtown Eastside (source: The Province)
The coalition of DTES women’s groups continue to advocate for solutions that increase safety for women.
