First order of business: If you haven't voted, VOTE! It's the most important thing we can do for ourselves and for all women in the U.S. A Senate of a Republican majority would be an unceasing of War on Women.
I'm going to do five topics:
Gamer Gate
Street Harassment
Ph.D. Costume from Amazon
Ray Rice Halloween Costumes
Sexual Assault on Campuses
I know there are a great number of additional issues and I thank ramara for sharing sites. Follow me past the orange filligree.
Gamer Gate
I hate the "gate" business but the issue of the harassment of women in this part of the electronic community has worked past insults to threats of physical violence. So we'll start with Mark Fiore. It's funny and sad at the same time. The woman whose comments seemed to ignite the macho game warriors wrote in New York Times Opinion.
Street Harassment
Here I'm just going to refer to the Ten Hours of Catcalls diary. The diary has links to the criticism of the original video which to some appeared to be racist as well as links to other commentary. For those who want to dig deeper into the topic, a friend, Sharon Crowley, has started a bibliography of research on street harassment and why and where and how it occurs. There are many interesting articles in the bibliography and it is definitely worth a look. Another discussion is in a Slate article assessing the racial component.
Ph.D. Costume on Amazon
This is a personal issue for me. The Costume is discussed on Salon. Why it's personal is that I am a professor at a university and I've been through a lifetime of what I think of as Honorific Assault. Students at research universities think men are in charge and in fact men outnumber women at the higher ranks. When students come to the university, many tend to call all female professors "Mrs," perhaps a leftover from high school. I've had teaching evaluations that said I should be fired for being a feminist about the honorific issues. I earned the rank of professor and the classroom is no place for social honorifics. When I directed a program in my department, my chair at the time was an MFA. Students would write both of us and call him "Doctor" and me "Mrs." GRRRR. So for women who worked hard to earn their rank the costume is so insulting.
Ray Rice Halloween Costumes
Honoring domestic violence? That's right up there with the Macho Gamers. Feministing provides the discussion for us as well as Janay Rice herself on Colorlines. She says:
.@TMZ it's sad, that my suffering amuses others
Very sad indeed. The adults costuming themselves as the Rices are as racist as fraternity black face are on campuses. But these are adults?? Dressing your child as Ray Rice? In the same article on Colorlines, Keith Olberman asks if anyone has called child services. Halloween seems to bring out the worst in some people.
Sexual Assault on Campus
At a time when the Department of Education is investigating [78 schools for Title IX violation related to sexual assault, MIT does the unusual. MIT surveyed its students to determine the extent of Sexual Assault at its campus. The results are not comforting in any way. The dual system--campus justice and criminal justice--leaves many campus women still going to school with the person who assaulted them. The story in The New York Times (actually a video) shows the personal dimensions of the problem as well as confirming the DOE Title IX investigations.
All of these issues show that the War on Women continues in some very personal ways. I'm hoping for a Democratic Election Day. And I hope our diaries in the next few weeks are not about legislative plans to make unceasing War on Women. I'll sign off now. That's my version of This Week in the War on Women.
Vote!