Women’s Space

The fact that under Sarah Palin’s watch as Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska in the late 1990s, rape victims were required to pay for their own rape kits is a centrally important issue for us as feminists.  I don’t think the change in policy had to do with the fact that Palin is anti-abortion, as some are suggesting, nor do I agree with Feministing or the reference Ann at Feministing cites that Palin doesn’t think the government is obligated to help rape victims.   Consider that on March 18, Palin issued a proclamation as Governor of Alaska making April 13-18, 2008, “Crime Victims Rights Week,” stating in relevant part:

WHEREAS, according to the 2006 Reported Crime Frequency Alaska Crime Clock as contained in the Uniform Crime report published by the state of Alaska, Department of Public Safety, a violent crime occurs in Alaska every one hour and 57 minutes and a property crime every 22 minutes, 49 seconds. A murder occurs every 10 days 17 hours and 38 minutes, a robbery every 14 hours and 52 minutes, and an aggravated assault every 2 hours and 36 minutes. Alaska has the highest incidence of reported forcible rapes in the country.

…NOW, THEREFORE, I, Sarah Palin, Governor of the state of Alaska, do hereby proclaim April 13-19, 2008, as Crime Victims’ Rights Week in Alaska, and reaffirm this state’s commitment to strive to reach the goal of justice for all by ensuring that all victims are afforded their legal rights and provided with assistance as they face the financial, physical, and psychological impact of crime; and express our appreciation for those victims and crime survivors who have turned personal tragedy into a motivating force focused on improving our response to victims of crime and build a more just community.

In addition, in July of 2007, Palin signed two bills into law that widened the protection of victims of domestic violence in Alaska:

HB 213, sponsored by Rep. Andrea Doll, D-Juneau, provided for the imposition of greater sentences, up to the maximum for the offense, for crimes committed on the premises of a domestic violence shelter. “People who come to domestic violence shelters need to know that they are safe and protected,” Governor Palin said. “They need to know that they are not in harm’s way when they come to a shelter.”

HB 215, sponsored by Rep. Anna Fairclough, R-Eagle River, establishes the Task Force to Review the Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault. This task force would prepare and present a report to the full Legislature by March 1, 2008 – and then will be repealed on April 16, 2008. The task force would bring members of the Legislature and administration together with members of the public to have frank and comprehensive discussions about the council and the issues it addresses.

Some, including NOW, have suggested Palin’s firing of Wasilla Police Chief Irl Stambaugh is further evidence of Palin’s lack of concern for rape and domestic violence victims, because, they say, Stambaugh had a good record in these areas.  I’m not remotely buying that.  For one thing, after Stambaugh was fired, he sued the city, accusing Palin of “gender discrimination”:

[Stambaugh's lawsuit against the City of Wasilla] also claims Palin fired Stambaugh in part because he is a man.

”Plaintiff Stambaugh is a male, standing well over 6 feet tall and weighing more than 200 pounds . . .

Stambaugh had been informed that Mayor Palin felt intimidated because of his size,” the suit says. ”Stambaugh, being sensitive to the Mayor’s concern regarding his sex, size and height, made particular efforts to sit in a chair whenever discussing matters with Mayor Palin and talk in a quiet soothing voice to the mayor.”

”Stambaugh’s size is a result of his sex. Stambaugh was terminated because of his sex . . . an unlawful employment practice,” the complaint says.

The suit requests compensatory and punitive damages.

This is hardly someone I would consider a pillar of feminist or woman-centered consciousness.  Of course, the court ruled for Palin.  What a dude.

Fables of the Reconstruction, on the other hand, has a good and thoroughly-researched analysis of the issues around rape victims having to pay for their own rape kits, including reasons this practice likely had nothing to do with Palin’s anti-abortion views and what all of us can do to make sure this isn’t the practice where we live. I think everyone should take a moment to read this information.

No matter what, Palin should have attended to issues around the treatment of rape victims as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

And in the same way, John McCain, Barack Obama and Joe Biden should similarly attend to issues around the treatment of rape victims.   I’m not going to spend any time documenting McCain’s lack of interest in women’s issues.  I doubt anyone who reads here needs to be convinced or persuaded that this anti-choice, conservative Republican candidate is not centrally committed to our issues.  But I do have some thoughts about Joe Biden and Barack Obama.

In the 1980s the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, USDOJ, sponsored research into sexual, pornographic and exploitive imagery of children in magazines like Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler.  I wish I could post some of the cartoons featured in the resulting lengthy Executive Summary and report, and maybe I will scan some in when I get home, though the images are triggering.  A Playboy cartoon from 1974 depicts a small child in bed with a bearded old man.  She is talking on the phone.  The caption reads, “Everything’s fine, Momma.  Uncle William and I are  playing a game called consequences.”  This is Playboy, not Hustler, not some hardcore rag.  Another Playboy cartoon from 1971 depicts an old man in a bathrobe in a back alley facing a small girl child.  Hands on her hips, she is saying to him, “You call that being molested?”  In a 1972 cartoon, a little girl with a big bow in her hair and a teddy bear in her bed with her is talking to a man standing over her bed with his pants unzipped.  She’s saying to him, “But first of all we have to ask Teddy’s permission, and that costs $40.”   A 1979 Penthouse cartoon depicts the little match girl of the fairy tale in a snowstorm, asking an adult couple, “If you nice people don’t want to buy any matches, how about a menage a trois?”  There is also a full page of “Chester the Molester” cartoons from Hustler magazine.  The report features lengthy analysis of children as depicted in these magazines and concludes:

…the depiction of sexual and nonsexual child abuse has not been limited to “hardcore” pornography.  …Since May 1954 children have been documented as desiring of and unharmed by adult sexual interactions in these “softcore” magazines.  Moreover, the present research found children depicted as viable targets of both sexual and nonsexual physical abuse, documenting a trivilization of child abuse.  …

An unforeseen finding may be the estimated 27 percent of Playboy, 33 percent of Penthouse, and 47 percent of Hustler cartoons and illustrations identified as “Child Magnets”… features which are generally unique to the children’s world of entertainment…and known to attract child readers/viewers.  …the unique quality of Child Magnets may be viewed as a technique both catering to and attracting a juvenile audience.

The body of research on sexual arousal suggests that acts of child molestation by some vulnerable juveniles or adults are precipitated if one achieves orgasm via fantasies of sex with children.  Similarly, the body of research on media and aggression documents depictions of violence as precipitating aggressive responses in certain vulnerable viewers.  …it appears of compelling public concern that the present research documents a contextual association of three discrete stimuli:  1) adult female nudity and graphic female sexual display; 2) neutral, sexual and violent child depictions, and 3) depictions of crime and violence.  The magazine genre evidences a unified culture and world view which incorporates all three stimuli:  pairing the arousal to an adult sex object with child sexualization and crime and violence.  Thus it is not unlikely that some vulnerable juvenile and adult receivers may fuse child depictions with arousal to sex and/or arousal to violence.

…Arguments supporting mature age-of-consent parameters for sex industry employees appear to be reasoned and compelling…

…a voluntary moratorium of child depictions (in cartoons, illustrations and/or photographs) by all sex industry publications, is urged until such time that sophisticated research techniques yield adequate data on the harm factor.(1)

The principal investigator for this report, Judith Reisman, Ph.D. – widely attacked, slandered and lied about, as all anti-pornography feminists similarly are — reported in an e-mail I received today that she “met with Joe Biden and staff, providing [this] clear pictorial evidence of Playboy pandering child sexual abuse, incest, and child pornography,” and that Biden “deliberately obstructed getting this information, or even the issue, to the public”.  (E-mail from Judith Reisman, Ph.D. to the DIGNITY Listserv.)

I can appreciate Biden’s work on the Violence Against Women Act while simultaneously feeling completely and utterly betrayed by his rejection of this report (which I will forward to anyone who requests it via e-mail).   Blowing off, minimizing or ignoring the significance of incest and rape imagery in wildly popular, widely-circulated men’s publications, keeping the information OUT of the hands of the general public, does not indicate a concern for victims of rape and incest!  Had Biden acted on this information 30 years ago, he might never have needed to co-author the Protect Our Children Act in an attempt to stem a raging tide of internet child pornography and sexual predators.

Then, interestingly, the state of Illinois — Obama’s state — is the only state in the United States that, save for one city, Rockford, does not report “forcible rapes” to the FBI under provisions of the Uniform Crime Reporting Act, also see here and here.   Wasilla, Alaska does report its forcible rapes. A footnote to the “forcible rapes” column for the State of Illinois reads, “The data collection methodology for the offense of forcible rape used by the Illinois state UCR Program (with the exception of Rockford, Illinois) does not comply with national UCR Program guidelines. Consequently, their figures for forcible rape and violent crime (of which forcible rape is a part) are not published in this table.”   According to the Uniform Crime Reporting Offense Definitions, forcible rape is defined this way:

The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Included are rapes by force and attempts or assaults to rape. Statutory offenses (no force used — victim under age of consent) are excluded.

But the state of Illinois does not differentiate between rapes of women and other kinds of sexual assault, including men raping men and statutory rape.  From the Illinois Compiled Statutes:

Sec. 12‑13. Criminal Sexual Assault.
(a) The accused commits criminal sexual assault if he or she:
(1) commits an act of sexual penetration by the use of force or threat of force; or
(2) commits an act of sexual penetration and the accused knew that the victim was unable to understand the nature of the act or was unable to give knowing consent; or
(3) commits an act of sexual penetration with a  victim who was under 18 years of age when the act was committed and the accused was a family member; or
(4) commits an act of sexual penetration with a  victim who was at least 13 years of age but under 18 years of age when the act was committed and the accused was 17 years of age or over and held a position of trust, authority or supervision in relation to the victim.

I think the State of Illinois’s failure to specifically report the numbers of female persons in Illinois raped under the Uniform Crime Reporting Program erases Illinois rape victims, who are overwhelmingly female.  As a result of the Illinois definitions, figures for women forcibly raped in Illinois are zero, zero and none, except in Rockford.   I could not find any evidence that Senator Obama has ever made any statement about this practice.  To me, this evidences a lack of concern for the welfare of women raped in the state of Illinois.

Where is the candidate who will stand for female persons, who will make women and our issues central?  That candidate is not a Republican, and neither is that candidate a Democrat.

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