Steubenville

I don’t have time to write a lengthy post about the aftermath of the Steubenville rape trial and to be honest, I’m not in the mood for it right now. I wanted to share a couple links though. Last week I wrote a post about rape culture that critiqued a Yahoo/Good Morning America article that was openly sympathetic to the rapists. In the aftermath of the guilty verdicts, there has been much more of this kind of thing in the media and the worst offender by far is CNN. See this analysis from Gawker about what happened — there is a video from CNN embedded in this post that will serve as a great case study for Women’s Studies and journalism courses well into future. I watched 2.5 minutes of this video and switched it off because I was so disgusted. Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow, CNN reporters/handmaidens for the patriarchal corporate media, are consumed with sympathy for the rapists. Harlow (which must mean “idiot” in some language) says watching the boys get convicted was “incredibly difficult” for her.

Just to remind everyone of what happened in this case, here is a photo of the boys with their victim:

Their defense was that the girl never said “no.” As you can see here, she is passed out. These are the boys that CNN are sympathizing with. Candy Crowley and Poppy Harlow are worried about the boys’ futures. In light of the boys’ convictions for RAPE, this is what CNN is worried about. I think we’d all be better off if CNN vanished from the airwaves forever.

Moving on…

See this Tumblr post for a compilation of some comments from Twitter and Facebook that blame the victim in this case.

There are a lot of great blog posts and articles out there about what is happening. I recommend Twisty’s take on this. Here’s a snippet:

Since yesterday’s sentencing of the Steubenville rapists, we’ve seen some truly breathtaking examples of virulent misogyny and male supremacist wagon-circling, in the shape of

• An endless loop of footage of the rapists collapsing in court. Their self-absorbed weeping is repeatedly mistranslated by a nation in denial as “I now grasp the enormity of my crimes and I’m just as sorry as can be.” In fact, as anyone who has ever been 16 knows, the rapists are simply bummed by the unexpectedly harsh consequences of having been caught.

[...]

• The requisite airing of the List of Shit Women Do To Confuse Dudes Into Raping Them. They’re drunk. They leave the house. They’re girls. These conditions still pass for consent in a rape culture.

[,,,]

We must try like mad to adjust the common perception of rape, as well as outdated ideas of “consent,” to something a little more in line with women’s reality. Specifically: that stopping rape requires men to stop raping, not women to stop drinking, walking, dancing, smiling, wearing an outfit, or attempting to simply exist, like men do, as sovereign entities.

I recommend the whole post, which also contains a link to a petition against CNN.

And that is all for me. I need a break from thinking about this.