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Are Women in Danger at the #Occupy Protests?

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I have no idea why there are fewer women at the #Occupy protests. I’m not even sure it is, indeed, the case that there are fewer women, because all of the footage I’ve seen of the protests seems very balanced in terms of gender representation. But suggesting that women don’t join the protests because they fear being raped or sexually harassed sounds completely bizarre.

We’ve already heard baseless and offensive suggestions that #Occupiers are anti-Semites, looters, litterers, and criminals. Now we are hearing they are all potential rapists. And the really shocking thing is that I found this appalling and unsubstantiated suggestion at a progressive blog. It kind of annoys me that progressive news sources are so bent on convincing women we should be afraid of being politically active because any appearance in a public space will supposedly get us raped. I thought this was a tactic normally adopted by the anti-feminists.

Does anybody need to be reminded that the place where women get raped most often is not a political protest but, rather, their own home?

P.S. And I just found yet another progressive blogger who gushes over the protests and then suggests women don’t join them because they are afraid of being raped. Have these bloggers even tried consulting the statistics? According to every study on rape, the best thing women could do to avoid being raped would be to stay away from home and spend time with strangers.

20 responses to “Are Women in Danger at the #Occupy Protests?”

  1. Jennifer Frances Armstrong Avatar
    Jennifer Frances Armstrong

    From a self defence perspective, going anywhere safely alone has a lot to do with attitude, maturity and awareness. I wouldn’t discount the variable of appearance, either, although a relatively youthful look can be counteracted by strong awareness and social maturity.

    When I was much younger, in my late twenties, I used to like to go for a run on a nude beach. I was not doing much martial arts training in those days and weighed just over 50 kilos. I used to run with my car keys poking through my fist, like a knuckle duster. It was a bit daunting, but I never got attacked by any of the strange male nudists, lurking in the area.

    These days, I am built like the proverbial brick sh-t house, and I have the attitude to match, so I can go anywhere, any time.

    A lot of it is down to training, much down to attitude, and also there is nothing about me that LOOKS particularly naive, these days.

    Please enjoy Swanbourne nudist beach (my frequent haunt):

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  2. Politicalguineapig Avatar
    Politicalguineapig

    I didn’t go because.. well, I had much better things to do. Like learning the Dewey Decimal system. That said, there was a certain frat-house air about the various Occupy movements that kind of worried me. Though the one time I was down there at the local movement, to meet a friend, it was a lot more diverse and quieter than I was expecting. I thought the union rally I attended was a bit more effective in terms of conciousness raising- and certainly a lot more fun!

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I agree completely about the union rallies being better and more effective. the last one I attended in support of Wisconsin was really great, informative, respectful, and fun.

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  3. kinjal Avatar
    kinjal

    “Does anybody need to be reminded that the place where women get raped most often is not a political protest but, rather, their own home?” or college, if a lot of studies are to be believed. Here’s one provocative piece that takes the opposite view, btw : “http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_1_campus_rape.html” This is unrelated but do you have an opinion about the “campus rape industry”?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      The one-in-four statistics has been debunked a long time ago. The author of the article is prevented from making a useful point that could be made based on this material by a very American priggishness.

      Hey, you asked for my opinion. 🙂

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      1. Tim Avatar
        Tim

        “The one-in-four statistics has been debunked a long time ago.”

        It has? When did that happen? Also, why does it still get cited every half hour?

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  4. profacero@gmail.com Avatar
    profacero@gmail.com

    Some type of pundit is always saying you’re going to get raped. If you stay in your office late, if you walk anywhere, if you drive alone on the Interstate, no matter what you do besides sit home (where they want you to be, it seems) you are going to get raped.

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  5. ptiderman Avatar
    ptiderman

    If there are less women, it is probably due to their fear of the lack of adequate facilities, rather that a fear of being raped. That’d be my guess…

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  6. Miriam Avatar
    Miriam

    I went to Occupy Chicago a few weeks ago and found that, not only were there plenty of women, but that nobody so much as looked at me the wrong way, and I generally felt safer than I do on my own campus.

    Really, I think that many feminist women just like trying to find reasons why everything is anti-women in some way.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I think you are right. We don’t have any #Occupy protests close to where I live or I would have certainly gone. But I’ve been to plenty progressive protests and marches and sexual harassment was never even remotely an issue.

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  7. Jennifer Frances Armstrong Avatar
    Jennifer Frances Armstrong

    Also.I’m so not American so I can’t really fully engage with this sort of dialogue, but this is a very good blog to give me some perspective of things, so I hope I am permitted to engage, as it were, on the periphery of these issues.

    I want to add that there is a lot of happiness and freedom to be gained in a certain amount of low level risk taking.

    When I went on my “explorer safari” in the nowhere parts of Zimbabwe, after a hard day’s riding, I showered naked, at night time, behind some kind of three quarter straw enclosure, in the rain. I had a torch pointed at me so that I could see anything at all. It was very pleasant indeed, and if I had not had a whole glass of chardonnay on an empty stomach, I would have remembered it better. I was so exhausted that my mind was taking mental short-cuts and I lost my spectacles at the shower and then lost my airline pillow (from around my neck) when someone was helping me look for it. After that, my friend saw the airline pillow in the dirt and thought that witches or wild animals had attacked me.

    I would expect that OWS poses less danger than that — although the ever present real danger with me is that of going insane. (It hasn’t happened yet.)

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Of course, you can and should engage as much as you like. People have been telling me how much they love (and often copy to a separate file for inspiration) your comments.

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  8. A. L. Avatar
    A. L.

    duh. to me it seems like a classic catch22-situation (i can be either a “hot-chick-of-OWS” or whatever)
    me ? i am e.g. not keen on military-grade-pepper-spray being sprayed at peaceful protesters at less than the recommended 15ft distance (like at UCDavis) even though i currently don’t live in the US or northamerica as such, these “para-military-style-interventions” are very “normal” at current/peaceful protests where i live. so for me it is a safety-issue, not a gender-issue.

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  9. bloggerclarissa Avatar
    bloggerclarissa

    Tim :

    “The one-in-four statistics has been debunked a long time ago.”

    It has? When did that happen? Also, why does it still get cited every half hour?

    Serious scholars and feminist thinkers don’t cite it, unless they want to ridicule it. Elisabeth Badinter explains in a lot of detail how this ridiculous statistic was arrived at. The questions were formulated in a way that aimed to maximize the number of “victims.” This is horrible because it trivializes rape completely.

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    1. SL Avatar
      SL

      I haven’t read the famous Koss study, or Badinter’s criticism of the one-in-four statistic, but I have read people criticizing the Koss study say that it included emotional pressure as rape, when it didn’t. Also, the one-in-four statistic, at least in Koss’ study, measured the amount of rape and attempted rape, not just rape. I’m not sure if this addresses Badinter’s criticism in any way, though:

      To Roiphe, this “one-in-four” statistic “is measuring something elusive. It is measuring his word against hers in a world where words hardly exist.” She cites the study as her prime evidence that the definition of rape “has stretched beyond bruises and knives, threats of death or violence to include emotional pressure and the influence of alcohol.”

      In fact, Koss does not include “emotional pressure” in the definition of rape; she has a separate category, clearly labeled, for women who have experienced non-criminal “sexual coercion.” The definition of rape she used in her survey came not from “campus feminists” but from the Ohio penal code, which (like many other state’s laws) defines rape as sexual intercourse when “the offender purposely compels the other person to submit by force or threat of force [or] for the purpose of preventing resistance the offender substantially impairs the other person’s judgment or control by administering any drug or intoxicant to the other person.”

      Under this legal definition of rape, Koss found that 15 percent of women had been raped, with 28 percent experiencing either rape or attempted rape. Eleven percent of women had been raped through force or the threat of harm, with 19 percent indicating either completed or attempted forcible rape.

      As Koss points out in her report, these findings match those of other scientific surveys of the issue. A 1989 study at the University of Illinois reported that 16 percent of women students surveyed had been victims of criminal sexual assault, as defined by state statutes. In a federally funded nationwide survey conducted by the National Victims Center in 1992, 14 percent of women reported a completed rape, not counting cases where the victim was unable to consent.

      http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1218

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  10. FD Avatar
    FD

    I’ve not been paying attention, but I had vaguely thought that the ‘OMG you might get raped!’ type articles were coming from the anti-OWS side of the street. Is that not true? I mean, I’m not a fan of the ‘ignore any problems in our movement lest we go off message’ type ideology but given that I doubt the chances of being assaulted are measurably higher at the protests than they are in daily life, I’m not sure that this is an issue that needs dealing with.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Not anymore, it seems. My blogroll is populated with articles by progressive bloggers (I don’t really read any other kind) who keep repeating this mantra about women running the risk of being raped by joining OSW protests.

      “given that I doubt the chances of being assaulted are measurably higher at the protests than they are in daily life, I’m not sure that this is an issue that needs dealing with”

      -That’s exactly how I feel. There are many criticisms one can aim at the protesters but accusing them of being rapists or more likely to rape because they are engaging in a political protest is just outrageous.

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  11. Jennifer Frances Armstrong Avatar
    Jennifer Frances Armstrong

    bloggerclarissa :
    Of course, you can and should engage as much as you like. People have been telling me how much they love (and often copy to a separate file for inspiration) your comments.

    Cool. I will continue to be riffing and tangential then. It would be very hard for me to relate to the mainstream even if I was in it.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “It would be very hard for me to relate to the mainstream even if I was in it.”

      -I love this one. It’s another great header for a blog.

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  12. N G Avatar
    N G

    I think that you need another post with the title, “Are #Occupy Protests in Danger from Women?” 🙂

    “A friend of mine sent me this link claiming that UC Davis chancellor “Chemical” Linda Katehi, whose crackdown on peaceful university students shocked America, played a role in allowing Greece security forces to raid university campuses for the first time since the junta was overthrown in 1974. (H/T: Crooked Timber) I’ve checked this out with our friend in Athens, reporter Kostas Kallergis (who runs the local blog “When The Crisis Hits The Fan”), and he confirmed it–Linda Katehi really is the worst of all possible chancellors imaginable, the worst for us, and the worst for her native Greece.”

    This is a quote from a post on the NC blog, a well respected site, regarding the UC Davis chancellor. Once the thread begins to unravel, it’s interesting to see how far it goes. Never put yourself under the microscope of bloggers and especially well connected ones!

    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/11/mark-ames-how-uc-davis-chancellor-linda-katehi-brought-oppression-back-to-greece%e2%80%99s-universities.html

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