Sexual Violence | VivirLatino

Posts Tagged ‘sexual violence’

Lunes Libro : Hey, Shorty!

7:55 am By Maegan La Mala · Books|GLBT|New York City|Violence|Women · 2 Comments

16 May 2011

As a mother with a teenage daughter about to enter the NYC Public High School system, as a woman of color with daughters of color living in New York City sexual harassment and violence is always somewhere on my mind. Sometimes these thoughts determine how I dress, what time I go out, where I go out to, and what streets to walk through or not. As a radical tutor who works with young women of color who are learning inside the NYC public school system and as a daughter who clearly remembers walking home from school in my neighborhood feeling a gauntlet of eyes and words against my body and the shame I felt when receiving my first piropo/catcall while walking with my mom, I was excited and feeling grateful for the release of Hey, Shorty! A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment ad Violence in Schools and on the Streets by Joanna N. Smith. Mandy Van Deven, And Maegan Huppuch of Girls for Gender Equity.

The book follows two paths. One is a narrative path that looks at the process of organizing young woman, primarily of color, first in a public school in Brooklyn and later NYC wide around the issues of sexual harassment and violence experiences daily from the moment they leave their homes to go to school until they return home. The second path, which crosses and overlaps with the first, contains concrete strategies for understanding, confronting, and preventing sexual harassment and violence.
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Seeking Justice for Campus Rapes

11:25 am By la Macha · Violence|Women · 3 Comments

4 May 2010

I’m haven’t finished listening to all of these, but I thought I’d post them anyway–NPR did a whole series about rape on college campuses, including following one young woman who reported a rape and face almost insurmountable problems trying to get justice.

NPR News Investigation: Margaux was a freshman at Indiana University when, she says, another student living on her floor raped her. The local police refused to prosecute, so Margaux took the case to the campus justice system. In the end, it seemed to Margaux’s family that the entire system was designed to just make the victim go away, to pretend the crime never happened.

The entire series is incredibly important, I hope you find the time to make it through all the reports. I do have to say though, I wonder at how race plays out in campus rapes (or sexual assaults). For example, I wonder if sexual violence against obviously Latin@ people has increased in Arizona post SB 1070?

Woman shot by man after refusing to give him her phone number

12:23 pm By la Macha · Violence|Women · 2 Comments

3 May 2010

Can this world possibly be a little more frightening? I watched this video about a woman who was shot because she refused to give a man a phone number with no small amount of apprehension.

It reminded me of how very rare it is for so many people to say “no” in safety.

Women Workers Organizing Against Sexual Harassment

8:35 pm By la Macha · children|Family|Immigration|Violence|Women · 1 Comment

2 Mar 2010

I watched this video about women farm workers with a lot of pride and interest. They have been organizing against the sexual harassment a seventeen year old girl was subjected to and the retaliation experienced by those organizing against the abuse. The video is of these organizers turning in a petition signed by over 16,000 people showing support for the workers.

It made me especially think of my co-blogger Mala’s many writings about the subject of the mamihood and organizing. Mami’s are organizing against the same violence and horror that Feminists With A Big F are organizing against–sexual violence, gender discrimination, etc–but we are doing it with a baby asleep on our shoulder and in Spanish. And without all the resources that Feminists With A Big F have.

These women are a tremendous inspiration–and deserve our continued support!

Roman Polanski: The Illegal?

1:26 pm By la Macha · Celebrities|children|Immigration|race|society · 3 Comments

29 Sep 2009

roman Anybody who follows the immigration debate knows the tired old explanation as to why undocumented immigrants are really “illegals” or “aliens.” They committed a crime! They are here illegally! They deserve the label!

Well, as I am sure many of you have heard, director Roman Polanski is currently in the news because 30 years after committing the crime of raping a 13-year-old girl, he was arrested in Switzerland and is awaiting extradition to the U.S. He has continued his life since his arrest and admission of guilt in a pretty unadulterated way. He works. He lives in multiple houses. He won a prestigious award. He has friends and supporters. And he lives (and has lived) quite openly as a man who likes to fuck young girls.

In short, if the U.S. really wanted him, the U.S. could’ve gotten him. And yet…it didn’t. And as I mentioned, after committing a crime, Polanski received no small level of support from others, up to and including “liberal” presses like NPR calling his crime “sex with a thirteen-year-old” rather than “rape.”

So, you have the case of families coming to the U.S. to get a job and help support families here and in other countries–and those people are no longer people. They are illegals. They are aliens. They deserve what they get.

You have the case of a man who *admits* to drugging and raping a thirteen-year-old child, and you have a “troubled genius” who, well, maybe isn’t that bad. I mean, not a rapist rapist. Just a regular rapist. A not bad rapist.

What is up with this difference? Why isn’t Glen Beck going after this scumbag? Why isn’t Lou Dobbs? Why isn’t the U.S. mobilizing an entire department to go after all the rapists? The illegal rapists? Why don’t we have an entire system of detention centers set up exclusively for all the rapists and their families to sit in until we can figure out what to do with them? If the rapists didn’t want their children locked up, they shouldn’t have raped, right?

I am not the only one who notices the differences in standards here. What I am wondering is will any of the “they are illegals” troupe be brave enough to account for the differences? And lest men think they are not the problem here, will any men be brave enough to account for why crimes against women and girls are so easy to forgive?

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