violence against women in high fantasy art

The so called "Triumph of Ferocity".
This image has sparked off a debate among players of Magic: The Gathering, some of whom include my friends and acquaintances. It shows a provocatively dressed woman (Liliana Vess) being pinned down by the throat be a hulking man (Garruk) who is about to punch her in the face.

In the story, (the story is extremely important to M:TG fans and the issue of violence against women is hard to separate from the story) Liliana is pretty damn evil, has killed lots of people and has put a terrible curse on Garruk. He's out for revenge.

Does she deserve to be killed? (Does she deserve to be punished?)

Personally, I'd say she deserves to be punished, but not killed.

I've seen people question the sexualisation of the image (ok, wow, are you missing the heaving bosoms, his-knee-between-her-legs and suspenders?), question the "rapey"-ness of it, question thoughtfully (hard to tell with this guy, tbh) can it be depicted in another way and if not, what does that mean for female characters in these franchises...


What the hell is wrong with fantasy art? What's so wrong about fantasy art?

On one hand, there is so fucking much wrong with fantasy art and it's depiction of women and men. And the violence.
But hell, it's fantasy! It's not real!
I guess my umbrage is when you get fans of fantasy art talking about women they don't like as "whores" and "bitches". And when they trivialise the fact that violence against women (glowing spells not required) is a REAL WORLD problem and they're perpetuating rape culture by consuming and validating artwork and themes like the Triumph of Ferocity.

And man, it really fucks me off when they mansplain me and ask me enormous questions that boil down to changing all of rape culture right now. God damn it, I'm just trying to change YOUR mind.

what is this i don't even

DSK sexual assault case to be dropped because Manhattan cops say Diallo lied to them.

Two men accused of luring a teenaged girl to an empty house to sexually assault and film her cleared of all charges.


What the hell. What does this say to women who are rape survivors? Oh by the way, we think you're a liar trying to get money out of a rich man and even if you do go to court, you'll have a trial by media and people are just going to think you're a dirty slut anyway.

That's what it says to me.


WTF.

NZ Media asking for it.

Well, asking for a blog post.

It occurs to me that Tracey Barnett is a complete twit.


Why?


Her latest column at the Herald is titled "SlutWalk confuses rape message".

Ok, so first of all, it should be an anti-rape message. And no, SlutWalk isn't that hard to comprehend.


Rape myth:

If you dress like a slut, you'll get raped. Just by being out in town "dressed like a slut" (which is what, exactly? high heels? tight skirt? showing cleavage? spangles? a combination of the above?), you set yourself up as a target for rape.


Myth busted:

a) This is called victim blaming, and it is bullshit.
b) It doesn't matter what you wear if a man decides he will rape you.
c) Most women are raped in places they felt safe by men they thought they could trust. So there is no real correlation between being out on the town (while dressed like a slut) and being a rape survivor.
(Kudos to Scuba Nurse for reiterating that women who are raped are not victims)


So Tracey Barnett's column this week should be called "the media confuses SlutWalk anti-rape message".

Also, what the hell is a "proud non-slut"? Get off your high horse, Tracey. If you've slept with more than one man, that makes you a complete trollop in the eyes of Islam.

And one more thing:
"I could give a whore's thong over whether the word "slut" should be "reclaimed"."
Um, yeah, grammar fail (I could not care less, vs I could care less, same format), and sex worker prejudice in one fell swoop. Also, "queers" have "reclaimed" the "word" for "themselves", so "why not" "sluts" too? Patronizing much?

So yeah, the NZ Herald are a bunch of ninnies. Situation normal, then.


By contrast, the Dom Post has an article from Deborah Russell which spells out the reasons for SlutWalk perfectly. The comments look like a shitstorm though. Just a heads up.

murder and victim blaming

Reading this article. Having a think as I go.

The name of the woman who was murdered was Marice McGregor. The man who is accused of killing her is named Dean Richard Mulligan.


"Murder victim met men for sex"


"Yesterday, the defence had three statements from NZDating users who arranged sexual encounters with Ms McGregor, to show she did not always keep the safest company."

Is having sex intrinsically unsafe for women? Or is it just if we arrange a hook up via the internet? Clearly all the other men she met didn't murder her. Just one.

Victim blaming seems to be the first port of call for defence lawyers. Stephen Ross is the defence lawyer for Mulligan...and he's full of shit. It shouldn't matter if Marice McGregor met a hundred men on the internet and cybered with them all. I think the defence, and by association, the media, is just trying to cook up some "slut-who-deserved-it" image of her.

respect and love

What do you do when the people you love do and say things that you can't respect?

I've had a falling out with my godmother, because I called her on her racism and close-mindedness and she got in the last word by saying "I have lost all respect for you".


I can't help but think that...she didn't really know my thoughts well enough to respect them in the first place! I don't think she could be friends with the people that I am friends with, because she couldn't see them as equal to herself.

It's so hard to talk about the important things like gender and race privilege with someone who is set in their views...more so when they are someone you care about. Those arguments hurt!

But, I think that we probably do have to call people on their bullshit. Regardless of whether they are people we love, or people we love to hate.


I'm learning that my feminism involves sticking up for people. Telling people about privilege and trying to help them to see it and understand it.


I don't think I won the war last night. But I think I won a victory for myself, and my own ability to understand.

who dares wins?

But no, really, how DARE they??

I refer to the front page of Friday's Dom Post World Section, and the appalling investigation by Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers into the life of the woman taking him to court for molesting her.

The third paragraph reads "Their mission is to unearth anything in the background of the 32-year old woman that would erode her claim to have been the innocent victim of an unprovoked attack."

"The ideal would be to find that the victim had previously made false accusations against a man or demanded money in connection with a sexual relationship."

Sorry, what was that? If by money for sex, do you mean prostitution? Is that an excuse for rape in your world? Because in the real world, it sure as hell isn't.


This is a disgusting example of what happens to rape survivors when they go for justice. It is part and parcel of the system.

Everything about their life is examined to see if they are anything less than virginal. If it's not our clothes that encourage rapists, it's our drinking, if it's not our drinking, it's our sex life (don't have a one-night-stand, it could mean you're a slut who was asking for it).

This is not justice. I can't imagine that this woman's lawyers are going to scurry around sniffing out all the indecent behaviour Strauss-Kahn may have been involved in.

Fuck no. Rape culture doesn't allow that. Rape culture says it has to have been her fault somehow, that she deserved it.


I feel so badly for her. And so angry. I want her to win, and I want Strauss-Kahn to go to jail for a long time. I want him to pay lots and lots of his precious money to the woman he hurt, and all the rest of it to Refuges and Crisis Centres. I think that would be justice.

rape is just not permissible. ever.

Wallace Chapman, you are a fuckwit for even daring to ask someone if women in short skirts could be "asking for it" (rape)
Paul Quinn, you are also a fuckwit, for answering that it's down to drunkenness and their behaviour.

It is not a woman's fault she gets raped. There are no excuses for rape.


Damn it, I've been having intense conversations with my male friends over the last couple of weeks that have left me stressed and on edge trying to explain to them what rape culture is and not to crack jokes that promote it. (Including, but not limited to "it's not rape if you say "surprise!"...)

Listening to one young man explain how he was accused of rape and then hearing the horrible details of what happened the next morning, and trying to find sympathy for both people. It ended up in front of the cops and neither of them got counselling.... Christ, sometimes it just isn't as black-and-white as you'd like it to be.

I've got one mate who insists that all rapists should be killed. I still don't know if he quite understands what that would mean. (Obviously, a helluva lot less men.)

I've explained that most of the time, women who are raped aren't out in a dark alley at 3am wearing a miniskirt and heels. That they're at their home or a friend's house, somewhere they felt safe, and were with a man they thought they could trust.

I've told them that when they call women sluts, skanks, whores, bitches, it pisses me off personally. (Especially "whore", because not one of them has had any experience of who prostitutes are and what they do.)

I've even told them the short form of Kate Harding's "that guy thought you were on his side". Yeah, that one shut them up.

Some of them seem to get it. I don't know if they're getting it because I'm there calling their crap, or if they actually have had their thoughts shaken up. But this is all down to the SlutWalk. Hearing about it, reading about it, and planning to be there.