And before I forget

[trinityvixen]

A little bit of feminism for your day, and let this be a lesson for the future:

When someone breaks into another person's apartment, anything they do in there is a crime. It is not a joke, it is not funny, and it's not some misunderstanding or merely "inappropriate" behavior. If they touch any one living in that home, it could be perceived as assault, and, under some circumstances, excuse for the invaded to react with deadly force.

So, when a man breaks into an apartment through the fire escape's access to a window and gets into bed with the female occupant and starts touching her that is not "inappropriate touching." That is molesation. She has been molested. Fortunately, that was the worst that happened, but that is still sexual assault, given the nature of the attack, the target, and the place where it occurred (you can't tell me a criminal got into bed with a potential victim with no intention of launching any kind of sexual assault).

Please, kindly refer to such incidents correctly in the future. Columbia, I'm looking at you. I don't care how much you stress that this wasn't in one of you buildings. Morons.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

I think it's something even more serious than sexual assault, but I don't have my copy of the New York Penal Law available right now. I'm fairly sure invading someone's home increases the offense level in New York. Indeed, shame on Columbia.

[bigscary.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, it's still Sexual Assault. It's just that NYS has a significant number of degrees and types thereof.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

... but how is it feminism, specifically? In this case I'm not really sure the genders matter. If a woman broke into a man's home and did the same thing it would still be molestation (though honestly, that's an icky word and I can sort of see why they'd rather use a more tactful term. It's why people say "sexual assault" instead of "rape" - because some words are such hot-buttons that they are jarring to read.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

though honestly, that's an icky word and I can sort of see why they'd rather use a more tactful term.

But that's what it is. Inappropriate touching is what you get when you go out to club where the possibility of looking for sex or sexual attention at least exists. At home in your bed, you are not looking to be touched period, and anyone who does touch you--be it on the wrist or on the breast--is molesting or sexually assaulting you. When you use euphemisms, you downplay the severity and the charged nature of the incident. Which, as most victims would tell you, is like being assaulted all over again because it is their word, their emotional response being mitigated so others can enjoy a squeamish-less day. It's not tact to tell an assault victim that she was "inappropriately touched"--it's condescending.

Basically, these words should be jarring to read. In the case of this warning, which was put up in elevators and on every floor's bulletin board, the point was to jar people so that they'd take notice and be sure to lock windows on fire escapes and such.

As for how this is feminism? It would be molestation no matter the players. However, there is a definite bias in reporting crimes, especially those of sexual abuse/assault nature, against women with lighter turns of phrase than men. There was a recent case where a university, in Michigan, I believe, fired its president for hushing up what was a brutal rape and murder on their campus. There was an actual effort to deny that any foul play occurred, which is an extreme, yes, but it's not the only example. A judge in the midwest has banned the word "rape" from a rape trial for the same reasons you stated--they were unnecessarily shocking/potentially biasing. It's ridiculous, and I want it stopped. I want to see reporting on incidents reflect the severity of the occurrence and I don't want to pussy-foot around terms that accurately describe the experience of the victim. If we don't say, "So and so departed this world" when someone is murdered in the news, then we don't say "so and so was inappropriately touched" when they were assaulted.

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I can't say any more without getting further into my own personal experience on this than I'd like, but honestly? Tact is just as much there for the sake of the victim as for anything else.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Planned Parenthood always says what the woman coming in for an abortion says. If they say they're terminating a fetus, that's what they call it. If it's a baby to the woman, then it is a baby. I understand the impetus for not pressing one's own idealism on someone in a difficult position or who has been victimized, I do. And I certainly don't advocate yelling the words "Sexual assault!" at victims who are uncomfortable with accepting that idea.

However, there is a kind of power in the words. Being able to recognize and say that you were assaulted, that great harm was done to you, can help crystallize your feelings, your reaction to the event because you can reconcile the whirlwind of emotions and lingering effects around the notion of just how bad what it is was done to you. The power in the name, in other words. And I think that until you can assess the incident and recognize the crime by its explicit title, you'll have a hard time ever healing from it. That's just my point of view and experience, so I don't belittle your preference not to do so, but I know that it would not work for me to go "Oh, it was bad touch" and be done with it had this event happened to me.

[ivy03.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what this is in reference to.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Yeah, ditto. I presume there was an incident of some sort that Columbia was somehow involved in?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Columbia put up fliers in the elevators and on floor bulletin boards to inform their community that there was an incident at a non-Columbia building. They stressed how non-Columbia the building was better than how awful the crime was.

I just don't like their "Something happened bad to someone in our community--BUT WE ARE NOT TO BLAME! IT WASN'T US!" attitude. I'm not leaping to blame them when I hear about crime in the neighborhood, and I still won't if they actually tell me what that crime was.

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. If you want to yell at another asshole, you can find him here (http://stop-him.livejournal.com/39403.html). Le sigh. Don't know why I responded, and I didn't do a very good job, except it was more fun than writing a sales proposal.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I read your response last night, and I think you were very well phrased, actually. I'm going to read over all the points made, see if I need to jump in.

But he's such A Nice Guy(TM), I'd feel bad if I hurt his widdle feelings. ::mutters:: condescending asshole. If he wants to know why some crazy feminists don't seem willing to meet fanboys halfway, he should look in a mirror.

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I couldn't even respond to the other guy who wrote back to me, saying that women don't get raped that much in comics. Haven't like 95% of comics heriones been raped at one point or another? Just because it's not happening every month doesn't mean that's not a lot.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I am trying to find the list. There was one. It was pretty brutal.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're thinking of the women-in-refrigerators list. If I'm remembering it correctly, there were relatively few rapes, but a large number of de-powerings, assaults or incredibly-out-of-character stupidity for the female characters.

Actually, I personally can't recall very many rapes in comics. Sue Digby in Identity Crisis is the only one that jumps to mind as particularly unnecessary and "there for shock value".

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the Silk Spectre.

And, no, I'm not arguing there are many rapes. That's what the misogynist-apologist is arguing. He thinks rapes are underrepresented (oh boy), but he misses the point that sexual violence of any stripe is overrepresented. I just made that point.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily sexual violence, but violence doled out or defined by basis of sex. Does that make sense? The characters aren't being sexually assaulted. They're being assaulted because they're women.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think both occur, actually. Violence against women because they are women and violence against women of a sexual nature. It doesn't matter whether there's sexual intent or not--assault is, first and foremost, about power. Sexual assault only adds sexual power to that.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I do my best to avoid the feminist/fanboy comic debates. Frankly, I think Gail Simone is the genius who will prove both sides to be tilting at windmills: She writes good comics featuring strong/non-exploited female characters that sell well to both feminists and fanboys. If you don't like what's being published, write something better and convince an editor it'll sell. That's how you win.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's a sound theory. Honestly, I'd just like to see no more current titles fall back on abuse for the quick score on the sympathy meter. Otherwise, I've always excused comics because they are, besides their lousy score on sexual abuse, equal opportunity ogle-fests.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I think you can make a good story that involves abuse. I think you can make a realistic story that involves abuse, that hits buttons and really makes you feel for the characters. I think you need to be a very good writer to do it. I trust Alan Moore, or Mike Carey, or Gail Simone. Maybe even Rick Veich or Bill Willingham. That's about it, though.

I'd also love to see one of those writers do a story in which a male character gets put through a horrible ordeal and has emotional consequences other than rage/thirst for revenge. (Actually, Willingham's been doing that quite well in Fables.)

The other option, of course, is to make rape (as it once was) verboten in superhero comics. Kinda like the way Archie lives in a world where sex simply does not exist.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd also love to see one of those writers do a story in which a male character gets put through a horrible ordeal and has emotional consequences other than rage/thirst for revenge. (Actually, Willingham's been doing that quite well in Fables.)

I'd like that, too, if only to prove two things. One: you don't have to go on revenge/rage quests to fix the thing. Two: that such incidents of abuse neither call into question masculinity nor necessarily depend upon homosexual abusers to occur. That would be big of them.

No, I don't want comics censorship. I want comics to have some level of imagination that doesn't rely on the quick and easy no-one-will-be-able-to-question-us-if-we-say-they're-just-unsympathetic-to-victims-of-abuse angle.