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  • Ridiculing Human Limitations, Odious Interests and Ill Manners: Seriously Funny, Caricature Through the Centuries

    The Dawdlers of the Rue Cocque

    Artist: Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret, French, 1782–1863; Printer: Peter Frédéric André, German, ca. 1804; 
    France, 1802–9,  The Dawdlers of the Rue du Coq; hand-colored lithograph, ca. 1804

    Seriously Funny: Caricature through the Centuries on view until January 27, 2019, celebrates the Yale University Art Gallery’s recent acquisition of several important 19th-century French caricatures and satirical prints. In the second quarter of the 19th century, well-known artists in France such as Honoré Daumier, J. J. Grandville, and Charles-Joseph Traviès crafted compositions that humorously responded to the political climate, social mores, and fashions of their day. These riotous prints lampooned their audiences’ foibles and famously tested limits with their visual commentary on France’s monarchy and government. As artists and publishers capitalized on the relatively new lithographic process — and the ability to quickly produce an abundance of impressions that could be rushed to a ready market — the popularity of these caricatures turned lithography from a once-fledgling medium into a flourishing one.

    Seriously Funny aims to contextualize these French lithographs within the larger comedic graphic tradition in Europe and America by installing them alongside prints, drawings, paintings, and sculpture from the 16th to the 21st century. The 35 works on view are drawn largely from the Gallery’s collection with several exceptional loans from the Yale Center for British Art and private collections. With its jocularity often mistaken for triviality, caricature has long been misunderstood as inferior to artworks created in the classical Grand Manner, the large and imposing academic easel paintings that artists were trained to emulate. Though caricature may lack the refinement and lofty messages of so-called high art, its unique objectives and ambitions imbue the genre with its own power.

    In its earliest incarnation, caricature was not wholly separate from high art; rather, both were products of the artist’s studio. Whereas painters and their apprentices aspired to create idealized portraits, landscapes, and religious and historic scenes, the practice of exaggerating physical features for a caricature proved to be a crucial exercise in imagination and artistic license. As caricature evolved as a genre, though, it progressed beyond the mere exaggeration of facial and bodily features. Just as Titian and Guercino — the creators of two of the earliest caricatures in the exhibition — manipulated the perfect bodies that had been a staple of their serious-minded repertoire as painters, soon other artists upended the heroic and moral subjects of Grand Manner art, creating decidedly more unconventional compositions that ridiculed human limitations, odious interests, and ill manners.

  • National Archives Document for Today, October 17th: Verdict in United States of America v. Alphonse Capone, October 17, 1931

    Today’s Document from the National Archives

     

     

    Verdict in United States of America v. Alphonse Capone, October 17, 1931; Records of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division at Chicago, Consolidated Criminal Case File 22852 and 23232/22852; Records of the District Courts of the United States; Record Group 21; National Archives.

    In June 1930, after an exhaustive investigation by the federal government, notorious Chicago gangster Al Capone was indicted for income tax evasion. During a highly publicized trial, the prosecution documented Capone’s lavish spending and proof that Capone was aware of his obligation to pay federal income tax but failed to do so. After nearly 9 hours of deliberation, the jurors found Capone guilty of three felonies and two misdemeanors. Capone was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison and to pay $80,000 in fines and court costs. 

    Read more in American Originals…:

    On April 23, 1930, the Chicago Crime Commission issued its first Public Enemies List; there were 28 names on it, and Al Capone’s was the first. Capone headed an enormous crime organization that netted huge profits from the illegal liquor trade and he became a legendary symbol of the violent gangsterism of the Prohibition era.

    For years Capone remained immune to prosecution for his criminal activities. In June 1930, after an exhaustive investigation by the federal government, Capone was indicted for income tax evasion. One of the most notorious criminals of the 20th century — the man held most responsible for the bloody lawlessness of Prohibition-era Chicago — was imprisoned for tax evasion.

  • #MeToo Has Changed Our Culture, Now It’s Changing Our Laws.

    By: Rebecca Beitsch, Stateline, Pew Trusts

    The #MeToo movement has touched almost every industry in the past year, and state legislatures have been under growing pressure to curb sexual assault and harassment in private workplaces and within their own chambers. But has the reckoning had an impact on the law?Gov. Jay Inslee

    Early signs point to yes.

    Sure, the resignations have been plentiful as credible allegations of sexual harassment have toppled lawmakers. A Stateline review found at least 32 lawmakers who left office, or lost influential positions in legislatures, in the face of such accusations.

    Governor Jay Inslee, (Washington State)

    Some states have placed limits on nondisclosure agreements (NDAs). Legislators also have cited the #MeToo movement in passing legislation to improve the testing of rape kits and to extend the statute of limitations for victims who want to file civil lawsuits against their abusers. And nearly every legislature in the county has reexamined its own policies for dealing with workplace harassment.

    Legislators say serial sexual harassers have used nondisclosure agreements to continue to abuse victims, primarily women. Movie producer Harvey Weinstein, whose downfall last fall largely prompted the #MeToo movement, and a number of politicians have used nondisclosure agreements to continue to harass multiple victims over long periods of time. In many cases, the agreements were folded into financial settlements designed to compensate former employees while barring them from speaking about the harassment and abuse they experienced.

    Tweaking nondisclosure agreements to limit how they may be used for harassment claims is an area of law previously untouched by lawmakers, yet six states (Arizona, Maryland, New York, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington) now have something on the books.

    “Obviously the #MeToo movement has had a huge impact on our conversations and that’s been terrific, but I’ve been concerned that many movements that are dialogues and open conversations don’t necessarily produce real change, so I wanted to make sure we were seizing the moment,” said Washington state Sen. Karen Keiser, a Democrat who sponsored NDA legislation enacted this year. “The only way I know how to do that in any substantive way is to pass a law.”

    While nondisclosure agreements have been a new and popular target in state legislatures this year, approaches to curbing their use have varied widely.

    None of the new laws ban the use of nondisclosure agreements for sexual abuse and harassment outright — proponents say some victims might want to protect their privacy after an incident. But some laws do bar using the agreements at hiring, and others ensure NDAs can’t stop victims from coming forward in criminal proceedings.

    In Washington, state lawmakers approved a package of bills targeting NDAs that cover sexual abuse and harassment, and employers there will no longer be able to require people to sign them as a condition for employment. Existing contracts will be considered void.

    “People were astounded they had waived their right when they signed all that paperwork for that job,” Keiser said. “Most people just skim things over, click the agree button, and go over to the next page. Secrecy is the big bugaboo of sexual harassment and allows it to continue.”

    In Arizona, the law enacted this year says the agreements cannot stop victims from participating in criminal proceedings that relate to their abuse, but it doesn’t stop employers from using them at hiring. State Rep. Maria Syms, a Republican who sponsored the bill, said the case against Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar showed how NDAs were being used to silence victims, with one gymnast facing a $100,000 fine for testifying against him in court.Maria Syms, State Rep

    “Obviously in the most egregious circumstances where you have sexual predators like Nassar and Weinstein, we need to consider a compelling public safety interest at stake here,” Syms said. “This is why the Arizona law is narrowly tailored to further those public safety interests without compromising the constitutionally protected right to enter into agreements.”

    Maria Syms, Arizona State Representative

    The law also bars sexual harassment agreements reached with public officials from including a nondisclosure agreement if victims are paid with tax dollars.

    “If you use your own private dollars, that’s your prerogative,” Syms said, “but if you’re going to be using public tax dollars, the public has the right to know the details of any settlement where their money is being used.”

    Syms’ law doesn’t bar public money from being used to settle sexual harassment claims, and employment lawyers have argued against doing so, saying that requiring lawmakers to pay out of their personal pockets could limit the chance of victims actually receiving payment.

    Rape Kits

    This year also saw the passage of a number of bills dealing with rape kits, prompting states to either test their backlog of kits or set forth new procedures for making sure they are tested in a timely manner.

    Pushed by survivors whose cases have languished, many state audits of evidence lockers have revealed a staggering backlog of untested rape kits. Research from the Joyful Heart Foundation, an advocacy organization that tracks state testing of the kits, found that state audits of inventory show there are at least 155,000 untested kits, though in a dozen states it is unknown how many kits sit untested.

    Ilse Knecht, director of policy and advocacy for Joyful Heart, said victims have felt empowered to come forward in an environment that seemed more open to addressing sexual assault.

    “It’s part of the same puzzle,” she said. “The rape kit backlog or a rape kit sitting on a shelf is a symbol of a survivor that’s been disregarded, so that certainly has to fit into this #MeToo moment, and it’s a very tangible problem.”

  • “Nothing Is as Powerful as a Idea Whose Time Has Come”; How Quickly the Issue of Sexual Assault Went Viral

     
     
    “Nothing is as powerful as a idea whose time has come …”Victor Hugo
    One of the most striking aspects of the protests against putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court was how quickly the issue of sexual assault went viral.  There are many reasons to not want Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court but that’s the one that caught fire.
     
    Another striking aspect was that 90% of the people who turned out to protest, at least in DC where I participated in those protests, were women. They were mostly older women, not the younger ones who usually populate protests.  
     
    As I finally realized after listening to a lot of women (and a few men) tell their stories, pretty much all women have been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives. Older women have lived longer so the probability is greater.  They were raised during an era in which no one talked about it, because it was so normative.  Now it’s coming out. Women, especially older women, are resurrecting buried memories.
     
    Those assaults were not necessarily as bad as the ones that have made recent headlines, but women lived with the fact that they could be groped and grabbed at any time.  When I was young I heard jokes about the casting couch.  Women who got ahead in their jobs were assumed to be sleeping with the boss.  A common cartoon showed a male boss chasing a female secretary around the office desk.  No one said “isn’t this horrible.”  It was normative.
     
    Why is that changing now?
     
    Having studied social movements for decades (as well as participating in a few), I know that they come in surges of rapid change preceded by long periods of slow development.  One cannot predict when a surge will happen, but when it does, you know it.
     
    Complaints about sexual harassment have been poking their way into the public consciousness for many years.  Initially, public complaints by women were not taken seriously, or were dismissed as idiosyncratic.  After “#MeToo” emerged in 2006 more women spoke out.  More men in high places were accused not only of acting like “boys” but of abusing their power in order to do so.  When sexual abuse by priests of boys became public, it highlighted how pervasive it was in places where it was least expected.
     
    Social movement surges are usually sparked by a precipitating event, sometimes more than one, which encapsulate people’s experiences in a particularly egregious fashion.  The precipitating event for the civil rights movement was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy in Mississippi, and the acquittal of his killers.  The early women’s liberation movement was started by a series of small crises in different places.  There were too many to list here, but some are mentioned in my 1975 book.  
     
    The current surge against sexual abuse was precipitated by electing as President a man who bragged about grabbing pussy.  The idea snowballed into several million people, mostly women, marching and protesting all over this country, indeed all over the world.  While many issues were raised, the signs carried by marchers highlighted the importance of putting a man into the highest office who thought groping women was perfectly OK.
     
    Where this will lead is hard to say.  The movement will spread to other issues and other groups — that always happens.  But changing practices specifically about sexual abuse requires changing attitudes.  That’s harder.  We don’t need more laws.  There are plenty of laws in the penal codes prohibiting different types of sexual contact.  We need to change the culture.
     
    Not all men grope and grab women (or other men).  But all exist in culture in which such actions are accepted as normal behavior (“boys will be boys”).  By way of analogy, a hundred years ago, when lynching was common, only a small portion of the population actually participated in a lynching.  But they existed in culture which looked the other way when it happened and came up with rationalizations to justify it when it did.  It was a cultural change that reduced lynching to a rarity.  And it’s a cultural change that will persuade males not to paw females.
     
    There’s no easy way to change a culture.  It’s a little like moving a refrigerator — by hand, without wheels or a dolly.  You tug a little on this corner, then push a little on that one.  And slowly, you move it across the floor.  Of course moving it up or down stairs, without a dolly, and without its falling over — maybe on you, is a lot harder.  For that you need help.
     
    When Donald Trump mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford for what she told the Judiciary Committee about her experience with Brett Kavanaugh, it was like Trump was sitting on the refrigerator.  Support in high places for bad behavior, and demeaning those who talk about it, make cultural change harder.  But it doesn’t make it impossible.
     
    We can do it.  And we will.  
     
     

  • I Almost Died Last Week; Now I’m Looking Forward to Self-Driving Cars! And What Are the Individual State Requirement for Older Drivers?

    by Rose Madeline Mulaself-driving Waymo car

    Yes. It’s true. I really did almost die last week. I usually write humor, but there was nothing funny about this, though at my age it wouldn’t have been tragic — and certainly not premature.  Anyway, here’s what happened:

    A friend (whom I’ll call Zelda because that is in no way similar to her real name, and because I’m currently re-reading F. Scott Fitzgerald) picked me up to go to lunch at a nearby restaurant.  As she carefully pulled into a parking spot at the restaurant, her car suddenly accelerated and crashed through a stone wall.

    Fortunately, it came to a stop just before we reached the very busy street beyond the wall, inches from what could have been a fatal collision.  Because the wall was one with no mortar holding the beautifully-balanced stones together — and because we were both still wearing our seat belts — we survived the impact with no physical injuries.

    Above, photo credit: Waymo, Fiat/Chrysler Cars

    Within minutes, a group of solicitous bystanders who had witnessed our unexpected space launch surrounded us, pulling out cell phones to summon an ambulance.  While assuring them that wasn’t necessary — that, miraculously, we were unhurt — the shrill of sirens announced the arrival of swarms of policemen and firemen, red lights flashing from their vehicles.  

    Meanwhile, people started picking up from the ground large pieces of what used to be the front end of Zelda’s car, as she sat, dazed, answering the police interrogators’ questions. Selfishly, one of my first feelings was relief that I hadn’t been the driver, because I easily could have been.  I had a similar experience about a year ago — minus the stone wall, the busy street, the crowd of eyewitnesses, and the police and firemen. I had gone to visit a relative in a nursing home, and as I pulled into a parking space, I was suddenly airborne as my car lurched forward — luckily harmlessly into some shrubs.  Like Zelda, I had no recollection whatsoever of pressing the gas pedal instead of the brake. I would never do that, I still firmly believe. In fact, to this day I tell myself that a mechanical glitch could have been at fault. But I know that this is most likely wishful thinking and that I simply don’t want to admit that I could be one of those erratic elderly drivers I read about all the time.  (Zelda, by the way, is over twenty years younger than I.)

    I still feel very confident behind the wheel, and I truly believe I could drive across country — provided there are enough potty rest stops along the way.  Others, however, clearly don’t agree with me. For instance, I am no longer allowed to drive to visit family in Vermont, just a bucolic 150 miles away. Instead, they insist on picking me up.  They have not yet decreed that I shouldn’t be driving at all, but last Christmas one of their presents to me was a generous Uber gift card. A hint?

    This whole experience has made me re-examine the wisdom of continuing to drive.  Yes, I can use Uber to go to the grocery store, the hairdresser, the post office… But how would I empty my trash?  Would I have to call Uber to take me to the trash compactor which is at the other end of my complex’s parking lot since I can no longer walk that far without the fear of falling?  I’m sure one of my wonderful neighbors would take my trash, but just the thought of imposing on them is completely contrary to the strong independence I have always maintained. And what about my doctors, who are twenty miles away?  

    Also, as I have aged, my horizons have shrunk to the point where my social life now consists almost exclusively of meeting friends from near and far for lunch. Sure, the money I would save on car lease payments and insurance would certainly finance Uber for these excursions; but it’s not the same as just spontaneously hopping in the car when I want to go somewhere. It would be a constant reminder that I’m no longer young.  Very depressing.

  • Listen to What the Concerned Scientists Union States: Hurricane Michael Threatened Gulf Coast Homes and Military Bases: Update: Thomson Reuters Foundation Film: Home Beyond the Water

    Hurricane Michael

    Editor’s Note: My husband was stationed at Eglin Air Force Base when he returned from a year in Vietnam. We lived on Okaloosa Island, part of Santa Rosa Island in Florida, now affected by hurricane Michael.  Do I believe in global warming? Of course. 

    Louisiana ‘islanders’ find a new home beyond the water

    by Nicky Milne and Valeria Cardi | @vlr_crd
     
     

    Standing in the long grass on the land where he was born, with the sea now lapping just meters away, Chief Albert Naquin remembers Isle de Jean Charles as a wonderful place to grow up.

    “It’s like night and day — we were totally self-sufficient here. Now you have to go off the island to survive,” he said of his community in southeast Louisiana — one that is being dispersed by the encroaching waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

    Since the 1950s, the small strip of land – once 11 miles (18 km) by 5 miles (8 km) – has lost 98 percent of its mass, according to the U.S. Land Remote Sensing Program. It is linked to the mainland by a road flanked by water on either side.

    The fear is that the “island”, as it is known, could wash away in the next big storm.

    For more on this story click “here”; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRL6HnJHn34

    Hurricane Michael Threatened Gulf Coast Homes and Military Bases

    by , CLIMATE SCIENTIST | OCTOBER 9, 2018, 2:21 PM EDT

    After a summer of scorching heat waves, deadly wildfires, flooding, flooding, and more flooding, we were weary. Fall’s bitter battle for the Supreme Court brought us not a refreshing crispness, but a renewed sense of the brittle fragility of the bonds that hold our country together.

    And now, emotionally wrung out, we’re watching as Hurricane Michael rapidly gains strength on its way toward the Florida Panhandle. Using the most recent storm surge prediction for Michael — released by NOAA at 11 am Eastern today — and property level data provided by Zillow, our preliminary analysis indicates that nearly 50,000 coastal properties are at risk of storm surge inundation, though many more could be affected by flash flooding and heavy rain throughout the southeast.

    Three of the region’s critical military installations — Tyndall, and Macdill Air Force Bases and Naval Support Activity Panama City — are also at risk, with 22, 19, and 13 percent of their usable land area predicted to flood from storm surge, respectively, according to our calculations. While only 1 percent of Eglin Air Force Base is predicted to flood with Hurricane Michael, many routine operations on the base have been suspended and the installation’s facilities on Santa Rosa and Okaloosa Islands are particularly at risk. These bases are supported by thousands of military and civilian personnel who will likely be drawn into the response to and recovery from Michael.

    So Panhandle residents cannot afford to be weary, as now is the time to heed the warnings of local officials, to make any final preparations ahead of the storm.

    But nor can storm-tormented residents of the Carolinas afford to be weary, because recovery efforts from Hurricane Florence in September have barely begun and Michael threatens to bring yet another round of heavy rain. Dozens of roads and bridges in South Carolina are still closed because of the storm. Hundreds of people remain in shelters in North Carolina, and many more are unable to return home. Final data on the extent of Florence’s flooding only became available last week, and I hadn’t even finished my blog post about it before it was time for the next storm.

    Puerto Ricans cannot afford to be weary either. Though electricity was restored—it took a full nine months after Hurricane Maria hit in September 2017–homes remain shockingly unlivable, and it’s clear that rebuilding will be a long and difficult process. Beyond the physical and financial difficulty of rebuilding, the ongoing fight for recognition of needs, of lives lost, and of rights, requires an emotional strength beyond that normally required of storm victims. Mental health struggles persist and deepen.

  • Self-blame and Not Recognizing Rape as Rape: Why Many Sexual Assault Survivors May Not Come Forward for Years

    People holding protest signs in support of sexual assault survivors

    Photo: Flickr/Fibonacci Blue
     
    Leading up to the Nov. 6 midterm elections, Journalist’s Resource will be focusing on some of the controversial issues that divide the United States. Allegations of sexual assault loom large in the political news narrative right now. As always, we’re on a mission to inform the narrative with peer-reviewed research.  
     
    Please check out Chloe Reichel’s article explaining recent research on stalking, as well as her roundup of research on the health effects of sexual harassment and assault — published a year ago, shortly after #MeToo went viral.

    By 

    Over the past year, as the #MeToo movement has grown and national figures such as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein have faced allegations of sexual misconduct from women they knew years ago, one question has continued to surface:

    Why would someone claiming abuse wait so long to come forward?

    Research indicates the answer is complicated. There are a wide range of reasons people don’t report their experiences with sexual harassment and assault to authorities and, oftentimes, even hide them from friends and family members.

    One reason is self-blame, said Karen G. Weiss, an associate professor of sociology at West Virginia University whose research focuses on sexual violence.

    “The public may not realize just how many victims of any crime blame themselves for their own victimization,” Weiss told Journalist’s Resource in an e-mail interview. “Self-blame is often reified by ‘well-intentioned’ confidants to whom they disclose. Seemingly innocent questions from family and friends can trigger self-doubt and prevent victims from reporting to police. They may also question what they did wrong and believe it was their fault.”

    Another reason: Many people who have been raped don’t recognize it as rape, even when it fits the legal definition, a finding revealed in a review of 28 academic studies.

    Below, we’ve gathered and summarized a sampling of peer-reviewed research — including two academic articles from Weiss — that investigates why many people don’t report sex crimes. This list includes studies that look at factors that discourage or prevent reporting among specific groups, including teenagers, college students, prison inmates and women serving in the military.

    ———– 

    “Meta-Analysis of the Prevalence of Unacknowledged Rape”
    Wilson, Laura C.; Miller, Katherine E. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, April 2016.

    Laura C. Wilson, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Mary Washington, led this review of 28 academic studies to estimate how often women who’ve been sexually assaulted do not label their experience as rape.  The 28 studies focused on the experiences of a total of 5,917 women who had been raped at some point in their lives after age 14.

    Across the studies, the researchers find that 60.4 percent of women, on average, did not recognize their experience as rape even though it fit the definition — an unwanted sexual experience obtained through force or the threat of force or a sexual experience they did not consent to because they were incapacitated.

    “This finding has important implications because it suggests that our awareness of the scope of the problem may underestimate its true occurrence rate, depending on the type of measurement,” the authors write. “This impacts policy reform, allocations of mental health services, survivors’ perceptions of their experiences, and society’s attitudes toward survivors.”

    The authors stress that their results may not generalize to men who have experienced sexual assault or to women who experienced it before age 14.

     

    “’You Just Don’t Report That Kind of Stuff’: Investigating Teens’ Ambivalence Toward Peer-Perpetrated, Unwanted Sexual Incidents”
    Weiss, Karen G. Violence and Victims, 2013. 

    In this study, Weiss investigates why many teenagers who experience unwanted sexual contact from other teens trivialize those experiences as unimportant or normal. She relies on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, administered each year to tens of thousands of individuals aged 12 years and older. Weiss examined information collected on sex-related incidents between 1992 and 2000.

    According to survey data, 92 percent of teens who say they experienced some form of unwanted sexual contact are girls, 81 percent are white and 13 percent are Hispanic. Just over half of these incidents — 53 percent — involved sexual coercion such as rape and attempted rape while 47 percent involved other contact such as groping. Almost half of teenagers — 44 percent — said the perpetrators were other youth between the ages of 12 and 17.

    A key finding: Teens who experience unwanted contact rarely report it. Five percent of incidents were reported to police and 25 percent were reported to other authorities such as school officials or employers.

    Weiss finds two common reasons why teenagers don’t report perpetrators who are teenagers: 1) uncertainty that the incidents are real crimes or worth reporting and 2) adaptive indifference, which she describes as “an avoidance response that allows teens to do nothing, thereby remaining loyal to their friends, dating partners, schoolmates and peer groups.”

    “Ambiguity reflects the difficulties of recognizing crime due to cultural messages that trivialize certain situations (e.g., sexual coercion by dates and unwanted sexual contact by schoolmates) as normal or as an inevitable part of youth,” Weiss writes. “Indifference reflects the social pressures for teens to ‘do the right thing,’ which often means conforming to group norms that discourage reporting to police. In this manner, ambivalence protects teens, at least temporarily, from social disapproval and interpersonal conflict associated with disclosing peer offenses.”

     

    “Too Ashamed to Report: Deconstructing the Shame of Sexual Victimization”
    Weiss, Karen G. Feminist Criminology, July 2010. 

    In another study from Weiss, she “deconstructs shame as both a culturally imbued response to sexual victimization and as a much taken-for-granted reason for why victims don’t report incidents to the police.”

    Weiss analyzed statements made by men and women as part of the annual National Crime Victimization Survey. She examined their responses to a survey question asking them to describe what happened to them. She also examined structured responses to questions about sex-related incidents. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics allowed her to access photocopies of information collected from survey respondents between 1992 and early 2000. The sample for this study consisted of 116 females and 20 males, most of whom were under age 25.

    What Weiss found was that many respondents expressed shame as part of their description of what happened and why they didn’t go to the police. Thirteen percent of incidents made some reference to shame. For example, a 19-year-old women stated that she was ashamed and felt partly to blame for a male acquaintance raping her because she couldn’t stop him.

    “Foremost, women’s shame narratives draw upon cultural assumptions about how ‘good girls’ should behave and how ‘bad girls’ will be judged after rape or sexual assault,” Weiss writes. “Women fearing they will be blamed, disgraced, or defamed are often too ashamed to report sexual victimization to the police.”

    Shame also was a strong deterrent for men.

    “Acknowledging crimes that are not supposed to happen to men, or at least real men, may threaten their masculinity, and challenge their sexual identities,” Weiss writes. “Unwilling to risk emasculation or exposure, men are choosing to remain silent rather than report sexual victimization to the police and others.”

     

    “Barriers to Reporting Sexual Assault for Women and Men: Perspectives of College Students”
    Sable, Marjorie R.; Danis, Fran; Mauzy, Denise L.; Gallagher, Sarah K. Journal of American College Health, 2006. 

    For this study, a research team from the University of Missouri-Columbia surveyed students at a large, Midwestern university to better understand what they perceive as the biggest barriers to reporting rape and sexual assault for men and women. Of the 215 students who participated, 54.7 percent were female and 83.6 percent were white.

    Students rated “shame, guilt and embarrassment,” “confidentiality concerns” and “fear of not being believed” as the top three perceived barriers to reporting rape among both men and women. However, students rated shame, guilt and embarrassment as a much larger barrier for men than women. Another major barrier to reporting for men, according to students, is the fear they could be judged as being gay.

    “Compared with women, men may fail to report because reporting is perceived to jeopardize their masculine self-identity,” the authors write. “The high score that being judged as gay received by the respondents may acknowledge society’s consideration that male rape occurs in the gay, not the general, community.”

    Among the barriers perceived to be much larger for women than for men were “lack of resources to obtain help,” “cultural or language barriers to obtaining help” and “financial dependence on perpetrator/perpetrator interference in seeking help.”

     

    “Reporting Sexual Assault in the Military: Who Reports and Why Most Servicewomen Don’t”
    Mengeling, Michelle A.; Booth, Brenda M.; Torner, James C.; Sadler, Anne G. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, July 2014. 

    For this study, researchers interviewed women who had served in the U.S. Army or Air Force and acknowledged at least one attempted or completed sexual assault while they were in the military. Of the 1,339 women interviewed, 18 percent said they had experienced sexual assault while serving on full-time active duty. Meanwhile, 12 percent said they had experienced sexual assault while serving in the Reserves or National Guard.

    Among the key findings: Three-fourths of servicewomen did not report their assaults. Eighty percent of women who said they’d been assaulted identified the perpetrator as U.S. military personnel. The researchers found that sexual assaults were more likely to be reported if they occurred on base or while on duty or if they resulted in a physical injury. They also found that enlisted women who had never gone to college were most likely to report.

    The most common reasons women gave for not officially reporting their assault were embarrassment and not knowing how to report. Other common reasons included worries about how reporting might affect their careers and whether confidentiality would be kept. Some women believed nothing would be done and some blamed themselves for their experiences.  A few women said they did not report because the person they had to report to was the perpetrator or a friend of the perpetrator.

    “Study results reinforce earlier work showing that servicewomen continue to significantly underreport SAIM [sexual assault in the military],” the authors write. “For many servicewomen, the disadvantages of reporting outweigh the advantages.”

    This photo, taken by Fibonacci Blue and obtained from the individual’s Flickr account, is being used under a Creative Commons license. No changes were made.

  • Kavanaugh Protests Continue: “Sexual Predators on the Court, Hell No, We Don’t Support” and “November Is Coming”

    Protest T-shirts by Jo Freeman©Photograph by Jo Freeman

    By Jo Freeman

    Protests against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to become a Justice of the Supreme Court resumed on Thursday, October 4, and continued through Saturday. While still mostly women, more young women were seen than in September, dropping the average age of the protesters by at least 15 years.

    When these protests were planned, it wasn’t clear that the anything official would happen on October 4, and indeed it didn’t. Thursday’s protests captured the Kavanaugh news cycle, though it was shared with the release a day earlier than expected of the FBI report on what Kavanaugh allegedly did while young.

    The thousands of people coming to DC were told to rally at the federal courthouse where Brett Kavanaugh was then a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals — considered to be the most important of the 13 Circuit Courts. However, when hundreds showed up for the standard pre-protest training at a nearby hotel, they were told that the real action would be on the steps on the east front of the U.S. Capitol. Shouting “Sexual Predators on the Court, Hell no, We Don’t Support,” they role-played getting arrested and discussed how much resistance or non-cooperation to offer. In September’s protests, arrestees had co-operated with the police, getting up when asked and going where led.

    Scheduled for 12:30 p.m., the rally at the federal courthouse didn’t last long. Thousands of people began to march toward and around the Capitol while DC police blocked streets. However, when they made the turn on First St. NE around 1:30 they weren’t led up the path to the Capitol. Instead, they gathered in front of the Supreme Court steps where they had rallied many times during September. The Supreme Court police stood at the top of those steps to make sure that no protestors ascended them.

    For an hour protestors listened to speakers that they could not see, who were on the same level as the audience and surrounded by people. They perspired in 90-degree heat and humidity or huddled in what little shade there was across the street on the Capitol grounds. They cheered when told that Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) had announced her opposition to Kavanaugh’s confirmation. She was one of two Democrats running for re-election in red states whose vote was uncertain.

    At 2:30 the crowd was told that the Capitol cops had barricaded the Capitol steps to keep protestors from occupying them. They were told to go to Hart atrium instead. An hour later a fraction of those thousands had gone through the security screeners. The cops told them to roll up their signs and banners so they weren’t visible as they were brought inside. Those with more solid signs that couldn’t be “hidden” had to leave them outside.

    While most gathered in the atrium, others visited Senator’s offices and many simply left. Women flown in from Maine and Alaska visited the offices of Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, whose votes would decide whether Kavanaugh would be confirmed. The women in the Hart atrium became more and more raucous. Along with a few men, they chanted loudly, waved signs and banners and generally made enough noise to disturb anyone trying to work.

    Hundreds of police slowly gathered. They gave the requisite three warnings to leave if protesters didn’t want to be arrested, but let those who stayed to protest for about 15-20 minutes before beginning the removal process. Others retreated to the many balconies facing the Hart atrium where they watched the action below. Some held signs or dropped banners from those balconies which were generally ignored by the cops. Several offices, probably of Democratic Senators, also displayed signs in their windows saying such things as “We Believe Survivors” and “Kava NO.”protestors on october 6

    Photo by Cronkite News

    Due to the many arrests the preceding month, the cops had almost run out of white, plastic handcuffs. Instead, they attached colored wristbands to one wrist, with the arresting officer’s number written on them. That way that officer could be identified if any of the protestors actually went to court — which was unlikely. Because one arm was free, arrestees raised their fist as they were escorted to the back entrance of Hart and out the door.

    Sheer numbers precluded transport to the regular processing centers. As was done on September 4, prisoners were led to the upper Senate Park where they sat on the grass until the time came for their charge to be written up. They had 15 days to bring exactly $50 cash bail to the USCP building across the street. Once paid, the bail was forfeited, and they were free to go.

    While some had to take chartered buses back to NYC, Philadelphia and other places, many came back on Friday for more protesting.

    Senate leaders had scheduled a vote on a motion to end the debate for 10:30 on Friday morning. If passed, the Senate would have 30 hours in which to vote to confirm Kavanaugh to be a Justice on the Supreme Court, or not. At that hour Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) both gave speeches stating their positions before calling the roll. The count was 51-49 to end debate. Of the four undecided Senators, both the Republicans and the Democrats split, with Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) not voting with their party.

    Pretty much everyone who could find a Senate office to sit in was watching the speeches and the vote. (I was in Chuck Schumer’s office).  As soon as the result was announced a cheer went up from Hart atrium. Of course, it was the ‘pros’ who won, not the ‘antis’ who had been hanging out in the Hart atrium for most of the last month. Indeed a group of ‘pros’ had congregated in one corner of the atrium for a photo-op, displaying signs. This was an arrestable offense, but they weren’t there long and the cops left them alone. Most of the ‘pros’ were now wearing white T-shirts, which made them easier to distinguish from the ‘antis’, who were still favoring black.

  • The Nobel Peace Prize: For Efforts to End the Use of Sexual Violence as a Weapon of War and Armed Conflict

    Nadia Murad

    The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018 to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Both laureates have made a crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, such war crimes. Denis Mukwege is the helper who has devoted his life to defending these victims. Nadia Murad is the witness who tells of the abuses perpetrated against herself and others. Each of them in their own way has helped to give greater visibility to war-time sexual violence, so that the perpetrators can be held accountable for their actions.

    Nadia Murad, right, illustration by Niklas Elmehed, © Nobel Media

    The physician Denis Mukwege has spent large parts of his adult life helping the victims of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Since the Panzi Hospital was established in Bukavu in 1999, Dr. Mukwege and his staff have treated thousands of patients who have fallen victim to such assaults. Most of the abuses have been committed in the context of a long-lasting civil war that has cost the lives of more than six million Congolese.

    Denis Mukwege is the foremost, most unifying symbol, both nationally and internationally, of the struggle to end sexual violence in war and armed conflicts. His basic principle is that “justice is everyone’s business”. Men and women, officers and soldiers, and local, national and international authorities alike all have a shared responsibility for reporting, and combating, this type of war crime. The importance of Dr. Mukwege’s enduring, dedicated and selfless efforts in this field cannot be overstated. He has repeatedly condemned impunity for mass rape and criticised the Congolese government and other countries for not doing enough to stop the use of sexual violence against women as a strategy and weapon of war.

    Nadia Murad is herself a victim of war crimes. She refused to accept the social codes that require women to remain silent and ashamed of the abuses to which they have been subjected. She has shown uncommon courage in recounting her own sufferings and speaking up on behalf of other victims.Mukwege

    Nadia Murad is a member of the Yazidi minority in northern Iraq, where she lived with her family in the remote village of Kocho. In August 2014 the Islamic State (IS) launched a brutal, systematic attack on the villages of the Sinjar district, aimed at exterminating the Yazidi population. In Nadia Murad’s village, several hundred people were massacred. The younger women, including underage children, were abducted and held as sex slaves. While a captive of the IS, Nadia Murad was repeatedly subjected to rape and other abuses. Her assaulters threatened to execute her if she did not convert to their hateful, inhuman version of Islam.

    Denis Mukwege, right, illustration by Niklas Elmehed, © Nobel Media

    Nadia Murad is just one of an estimated 3,000 Yazidi girls and women who were victims of rape and other abuses by the IS army. The abuses were systematic, and part of a military strategy. Thus they served as a weapon in the fight against Yazidis and other religious minorities.

    After a three-month nightmare, Nadia Murad managed to flee. Following her escape, she chose to speak openly about what she had suffered. In 2016, at the age of just 23, she was named the UN’s first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking.

    This year marks a decade since the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1820 (2008), which determined that the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict constitutes both a war crime and a threat to international peace and security. This is also set out in the Rome Statute of 1998, which governs the work of the International Criminal Court. The Statute establishes that sexual violence in war and armed conflict is a grave violation of international law.  A more peaceful world can only be achieved if women and their fundamental rights and security are recognised and protected in war.

    This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is firmly embedded in the criteria spelled out in Alfred Nobel’s will. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad have both put their personal security at risk by courageously combating war crimes and seeking justice for the victims. They have thereby promoted the fraternity of nations through the application of principles of international law.

    Oslo, 5 October 2018

  • Pew Trust: Voter Enthusiasm at Record High in Nationalized Midterm Environment

    Top voting issues: Supreme Court, health care, economy. With less than six weeks to go before the elections for Congress, voter enthusiasm is at its highest level during any midterm in more than two decades. And a record share of registered voters – 72% – say the issue of which party controls Congress will be a factor in their vote.

    Voter enthusiasm rises – especially among Democrats

    Opinions about Donald Trump also continue to be an important consideration for voters. A 60% majority views their midterm vote as an expression of opposition or support toward Trump – with far more saying their midterm vote will be “against” Trump (37%) than “for” him (23%).

    The new national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted among 1,754 adults, including 1,439 registered voters, finds that the Democrats have several advantages at this point in the campaign.

    First, Democrats hold a 10-percentage point lead over the Republicans in the generic ballot. About half of registered voters (52%) say if the election were today, they would vote for the Democrat in their district or lean toward the Democratic candidate; 42% say they would support the Republican or lean Republican. In June, the Democrats’ lead in the generic ballot was five percentage points (48% Democratic, 43% Republican).

    Second, while voter enthusiasm is relatively high among voters in both parties, it is somewhat higher among voters who favor the Democratic over the Republican candidate. Overall, 61% of all registered voters say they are more enthusiastic about voting than in past congressional elections, higher than at any point during midterms in the past two decades, including at later points in those elections.

    Two-thirds of Democratic voters (67%) say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, compared with 59% of Republican voters. The share of Democratic voters who express greater enthusiasm about voting is substantially higher than at comparable points in three prior midterms, while enthusiasm among GOP voters is slightly higher than in September 2014 (52%) and about the same level as in October 2010 (57%).

    Third, more Americans view the Democratic Party than the Republican Party as more concerned with people’s needs, more honest and ethical and more willing to work with leaders from the other party.