One place where everything comes together
Reading Time: < 1 minute I didn’t want to get all jokey about sexual assault so this isn’t my typical video but I wanted to say something, especially about one particular aspect of this whole shitshow that’s been chapping my ass.
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Reading Time: 5 minutes The hearing was a celebration of male anger ― the power of anger to bring men together, to reinforce their certainty about what is owed to them as men and, of course, to sweep women’s anger and pain to the side. Kavanaugh and the Republican senators rarely addressed Blasey or her credibility directly; rather confusingly, the party line was that she, too, was a victim, and that they bore no ill will toward her.
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Reading Time: < 1 minute We asked for your thoughts on the hearing and the testimony given by Ford and Kavanaugh. The response was overwhelming. Several VICE News followers shared their own stories of surviving sexual assault. We’ll continue to share more of your reactions in the coming days.
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Reading Time: 4 minutes This week I heard a sexual assault victim recount that as her coworker voiced his doubt about the veracity of Dr. Ford’s story, she’d spoken up that she had a similar experience. Her co-worker’s response was “Oh! Well, I believe you, I just don’t believe her.” Not surprisingly this is painfully reminiscent of the people who said they absolutely would vote for a woman president, “just not that woman”. It’s so much easier to doubt “that woman” when she isn’t standing in front of you. But “that woman” is not just telling her story, she is telling our stories.
Our stories are believable, and that is exactly why a misogynistic society will always be determined to destroy our credibility because as long as our stories can be framed as lies the behavior of rape culture can continue.
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Reading Time: < 1 minute On Wednesday, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York delivered a scathing speech on the Senate floor, criticizing her Republican colleagues for their “disappointing” response to the sexual-assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
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Reading Time: 10 minutes We heal this collective trauma by confronting it, understanding it, releasing the pain of it, and transcending it, as a group. And not just a group of women, but as a society. The first step is to confront it.
Like Salman Rushdie, the Islamic writer observed after the fatwa was issued against him, “Those who do not have power over the story that dominates their lives, power to retell it, rethink it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change, truly are powerless, because they cannot think new thoughts.”
Regardless of the gender you inhabit, the times we live in demands that you confront your story about “women,” our bodies, our identities, our sexuality, our value, our stereotyping and our debasement. We do this by taking power over the story. Examine it. Interrogate it. Name it. As a leader, you have an obligation to make sure that you explore your story around women.
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Reading Time: 7 minutes Pay attention and listen. Evaluate your relationship. I am trying to help you out.
You know how there is nothing you can do to make her happy? Sex is not fun anymore? She recoils at your touch sometimes? Maybe she is never physically satisfied with sex? Maybe she has packed on more weight than looks attractive to you? Yeah, all of that. Have you ever considered that maybe she herself was a victim of rape or sexual assault? Yup. Maybe.
So what now, right?
Back up and listen closely. Time for you to learn, brother!
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Reading Time: 4 minutes Black and brown people are lazy. They would rather lay around collecting government benefits and having babies than work. Thus, the primary goal of poverty policy should be forcing them to work. This song has been playing on repeat within American politics for a couple decades.
Politicians use these stereotypes, or dog whistles, on the campaign trail. They are associated with some significant baggage. Perceived differences have historically prevented some white workers from joining in common cause with people of color in fights for living wages. They have otherwise prevented some white Americans from working with people of color in ensuring our government works for us all.
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Reading Time: 19 minutes Female candidates signed up to run not just for school boards — though yeah, those too — but for all kinds of elected positions. So far this year, record numbers of women have secured nominations in state legislative, congressional, gubernatorial, and senate races, including more than a hundred teachers who entered primaries from West Virginia to Oklahoma to Arizona, states where teachers, many female, led strikes this spring.
Meanwhile, high-school students, women prominent among them, started a widespread movement for gun control, calling powerful people out on their BS and promising a revolt against a gun lobby that has held America in its grip for too long. On the opening day of the Kavanaugh hearings, it was a Women’s March leader, Linda Sarsour, who was the first to stand and yell — and she and a co-leader, Bob Bland, were among those arrested.
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Reading Time: < 1 minute Sarah Huckabee Sanders went from her father’s failed presidential campaigns to being the lead defender of Trump’s most bizarre and harmful ‘alternative facts.’ Comedian Catherine Cohen explains how Huckabee Sanders went from delivering pies for Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris to attacking CNN’s Jim Acosta for the Trump Administration.
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