Posts by Jolisa
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If you went under 40kph (the new Ponsonby Rd speed limit), this is what it said:
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I loved the speed-measuring device set up on Ponsonby Road for the duration...
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Hard News: Narcissists and bullies, in reply to Kracklite,
I’m hoping that this affair provokes sceptical discussion of the rape culture epitomised by “Willie and JT”, but my hopes aren’t high.
Looks like the sceptical discussion is well under way, in this and many other places. It's really quite heartening. So many unsung people over so many years have done the extremely hard yards of articulating what rape culture is, theorising about it and raising consciousness about it, with patience and grace and very little thanks. And now ordinary people are empowered to see it, name it, and fight it, in ordinary everyday language, in daylight. We're not all the way there yet, but it's starting to feel like a turning point...
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Haha, Mick-rolled! One of my favourite North American Halloween memories is of walking through the darkening streets with hordes of dressed-up little ghouls and ghostbusters, scooting from jack-o-lantern-lit porch to porch while the wind sent mischievous whirlwinds of dry leaves scuttling down the gutters...
... and then suddenly hearing that unmistakable beat, that familiar werewolf howl, a snatch of lyrics - "it's after midnight" (even though it was more like dinnertime)...
...and then seeing the source: a NHPD cruiser crawling up the street, with a grinning, moustachioed member of New Haven's finest behind the wheel and his uniformed pal in the passenger seat, nodding along to the beat of...
THRILLER!
...blasting from their PA system. Even cops love Halloween.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Nat D,
both are outcomes of the SAME DAMN THING.
Thank you for this, and all of what you wrote. Thank you!
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I've been thinking about those ads (can't find the reference, alas) that addressed campus binge-drinking culture by publicising the actual average number of drinks students were having in any given session. Changing the assumed notion of "normal" changed people's own behaviour as well as their expectations about other people's behaviour.
And I've been thinking about those breast cancer ads that show partners and children and friends, to make it clear that breast cancer doesn't just affect women (and yup men can get it too even though they're way less likely to, so it's a useful analogy in that sense as well - the odds are against it but it's extra lonely when it happens, for that very reason).
If Dylan's point about not willy-nilly seeming to tar all blokes with the rapist brush stands, then it's all the more important to have, among other things, some blokes *speaking to blokes* and saying "don't rape/don't make rape jokes/ don't catcall/ whatever"... precisely because that one really busy rapey guy (TM John Russell) is giving all the good guys who are kind to cats (I love you Bart) a Bad Name. Men expressing their own stake in helping fix a fucked-up situation.
The equivalent of making it normal to be that bloody legend who takes the car keys off the drunk friend. To be a passenger who speaks up when the driver's being weird and it's not funny. To normalise the right to say no to more beersies. To externalise that complicated situation in your head and see what everyone else is thinking, instead of assuming you're the only one with doubts and confusion.
If solidarity and shifting the conversation is what we're after, those would be great places to start.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Megan Wegan,
But we all have these stories.
Word. I wanted to add that I have so much aroha for everyone who has told their stories in this thread and elsewhere, and that the whole of your comment was powerfully put, not just the bit I pulled out for reply.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Morgan Nichol,
one disposition he does have: to argue the subtleties of some tangential point past the time anyone else is still interested.
Ah then, put an "almost" in front of the "anyone", and he's come to the right place :-) Long past the point other discussion joints would have gone completely nuclear, Public Address continues its patient Talmudic mission to fix the world, one long-fought debate at a time.
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Hard News: Rape and unreason, in reply to Megan Wegan,
I understand that you think that a message that men are violent makes the situation worse. I’d ask you to try to understand that from our perspective, the situation already is all the things you’re trying to avoid.
Nicely put. Hard to think how it could be worse. Ergo, the only way is up, which is at least vaguely encouraging. </pollyanna>
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The "raping people is not okay" conversation is transparently one that needs to be happening, and the linguistic finessing of how we have that conversation is no small matter. It IS pretty much the whole matter. I'm glad we're talking about it here with passion and holding each other to account with generosity. Yeah, it's a hard conversation to have, but personally, I think living with the results of not having that conversation are much much harder.
As a mother of sons, I found this example particularly compassionate and practical and encouraging, a way to have exactly the kind of conversation we're talking about, but without raising the (straw man?) spectre Dylan is worried about.
Also, I find it heartening that the discussion is being publicly advanced in many, many creative ways - mostly, as far as I'm aware, fronted by women, viz this week's chillingly satirical "It's Your Fault" video (NB content will disturb). It'd be bloody excellent to see more examples in which men speak directly to men on this subject. I live in hope.
