Why do we support exploiting women for their fear?

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• published: 28 Apr 2016
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This speech was originally presented at the Simon Fraser Advocacy for Men and Boys #Sheforhe event on April 3rd at the Vancouver City Simon Fraser Campus. Link to the livestream of the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IctICCVw3WU Sources Note: I used anecdotes to illustrate--not PROVE--the common sense observation that our society uses women's fear to motivate. Please don't treat illustrations like citations. And if you "call me out" on my improper "citations" please first state that you disagree that society uses women's fear to motivate. Sexual abuse in prisons: This is the last report that reported on the gender of perpetrators: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/svpjri0809.pdf 69% of male prisoners abused by staff were abused by female staff; 72% of female prisoners abused by staff were abused by male staff, however, proportionately more male prisoners(2.5%) were abused by staff(1.8%) and the total number of male victims exceeds female. When I originally researched Just Detention International in 2014 it was after hearing this statement by it's Executive Director Lovisa Stannow: LS: In my mind, the work to stop rape in prisons is directly related to the broaden prison’s rights movement but also a broader movement to end sexual violence generally. There is a very clear link that we see every day in our work — rape in prison, misogyny, and homophobia. LS: Most of the people that we work with are men — given the fact that 93% of prisoners are men. Sexual abuse rates are more or less comparable with what happens outside the facilities. What we see so clearly is that the prison environment tends to be a hyper masculine environment. Where anyone who is perceived as being feminine or weak or somehow not living up to the hyper masculine ideals becomes vulnerable to abuse. We see that the sexual abuse that occurs between inmates in a male prison is a mirror image of the sexual abuse that occurs in the community, perpetrated by men with women as the survivors. We see that once you have been raped in prison you have technically been considered a woman. this is not just true in the United States, this is what we see represented in our work in South Africa as well. http://feministing.com/2014/03/15/the-femi nisting-five-lovisa-stannow/#more-77451 This statement by an EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of a prison rape group completely misrepresents prison rape both in kind--majority being male victims of female guards--and in culture--male rape victims of male inmates or "punks" aren't disrespected because they're feminine, they're forced into a feminine role against their will to humiliate them. Male inmates who voluntarily chose to be feminine either as transexuals or trans women are called "fishes" and often respected because they can be tough and aggressive. In conjunction with Stannow's pig ignorance of the statistics regarding prison rape and prison culture, Just Detention International's site, at the time, emphasized female testimonials of being raped by male guards. I accessed the JDI site in March of 2014, here's a link to the wayback machine's archive of the JDI site in January of 2014: https://web.archive.org/web/20130927200134/http://justdetentioninternational.org/en/survivor_testimony.aspx Although when I accessed it there were more female testimonials, let's start here. On the original SPR, there were dozens of testimonials from male prisoners with only one or two from female. Reflecting the greater number of male victims. Most of these men were heterosexual, as most men are heterosexual. These 20 survivors on the JDI site break down as follows: Six female, all of whom were abused by male staff with one trans woman also abused by female staff. Women are far more likely to be abused by other women in prison. 14 male, 7 of whom are gay. 3 of them report being abused by staff. Male prisoners are far more likely to be abused by female guards in prison than other male prisoners. Once again, when Executive Director Stannow made her ignorant comments about prison rape, the site itself was overemphasizing female victims of male staff and ignoring male victims of female staff. Since then--and I'll note this is after men's rights activists called JDI out publically--there seems to have been a bit more balance. They even included ONE story of the most common form of prison sexual abuse, female guard on male inmate! Autism When I was looking at the stats in the nineties the number of girls suffering autism was 1 in 9, I believe scope creep on "autism spectrum disorders" has increased that to 1 in 5 or 4. According to The Interactive Autism Network in the distribution of autism in 2013 is approximately 85% Boys and 15% girls. Want more of these events? Become a Patron! http://www.patreon.com/honeybadgerradio