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By jemima • 11 years ago

Don’t victimize sex workers.

A SYTYCB entry.

or how to hide your prejudices behind an unnecessary law.

Currently legislators in Northern Ireland are trying to pass a law making it an offence to pay a prostitute for his or her services*. They are lauded for their activities by articles like this one in the Londonderry Sentinel. Lets ignore for a moment it’s reliance on the anecdotal and the throwing around of numbers** without any evidence to support them and look at a few of the more lurid claims.

YOUNG women are being locked in filthy cell-like rooms in Londonderry and forced to have sex with up to 40 men a day, DUP MLA Jim Wells has claimed.

Those women are forced to have sex with 20, 30 or 40 men a day. A representative of the Police Service of Northern Ireland showed a graphic picture of a disgusting, filthy room, which was almost a cell.

On the wall were the marks left by a young woman who had frantically tried to scratch her way out of the living hell that she was in. The police took DNA samples from those scratch marks and were able to identify the woman.

“They know that she was trafficked into Northern Ireland and that she was removed very quickly from that room, but they have no idea whether she is alive or dead.”

It is indeed terrible, almost as if there are no laws against rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment or slavery. As if there were not a whole body ...
By jemima • 11 years ago

Enough to put you off cornflakes for life…

A SYTYCB entry

This morning I listened as men confessed to wife beating, although confessed suggests remorse, even perhaps an understanding of the harm they had done. They were not in the least apologetic. In fact they had phoned a radio show to tell the presenter of the crimes they has committed. The phone in was prompted by another man, a politician video blogging about how it was not that bad. After all who hasn’t gone out, had a few beers and done something they later regretted?

The host was sympathetic as the men gave quite intimate  details of their offences, even laughing and pointing out they were still married and if what they had done was that bad then surely their wives would have left them? The ...

A SYTYCB entry

This morning I listened as men confessed to wife beating, although confessed suggests remorse, even perhaps an understanding of the harm they had done. They were not in the least apologetic. In fact ...
By jemima • 11 years ago

People like us…

A post for SYTYCB

Todd Akin showed that it is easy to combine victim blaming, ignorance and misogyny in one soundbite.

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin said, referring to conception following a rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”

The condemnation was fast enough to make him make that most mealy-mouthed of apologies. ”I mispoke.” Which basically means “It is what I think ...

A post for SYTYCB

Todd Akin showed that it is easy to combine victim blaming, ignorance and misogyny in one soundbite.

“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Akin said, referring ...