Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
No such thing as rape culture?
(Trigger warning.)
I guess these young boys are just jocks. Or future frat boys. Or probably super religious. Yeah, there's got to be something else to blame, it can't be an insidious, widespread problem with society. No, that's just not possible.
Precocious Fifth Grade Psychopaths Conspire to Rape And Murder Female Classmate
Two fifth grade boys, aged 10 and 11, have been ruled competent to stand trial in juvenile court for conspiring to rape and kill their female classmate, and possibly murder other students as well. They were arrested after a classmate saw them playing with a knife on the school bus and reported it to a teacher.
...
There are no words to describe how abjectly depressing, terrifying, and infuriating it is that we live in a world in which a pair of fifth graders is capable of planning — and arming themselves for — a potential mass murder, in which two boys aged 10 and 11 have already learned to value girls' lives, bodily integrity, and dignity so little that they have no qualms about violating and murdering a girl for being "rude." While I understand that they're too young to fully appreciate the gravity of what they had planned, that doesn't diminish the atrocity of the fact that a 10 year old was able not only understand the gendered power dynamic inherent in rape, but also to plan to use it as a punitive measure against another child.
It should be unimaginable that someone so young could internalize such an extreme, hyper-aggressive, and violent understanding of rape culture. Tragically, it is not. Children and adolescents are constantly exposed to the insidious ubiquity of patriarchy and rape culture, in which violence is eroticized, male sexual agression is affirmed, and assumed male access to women's bodies is normalized. Lacking the discursive tools to understand that these things are not "just the way the world works," they can easily absorb misogynistic values, which they re-circulate and reinforce through seemingly "mild" actions such as slut-shaming, victim-blaming, homophobic remarks meant to denigrate boys who exhibit feminine qualities, body shaming, etc., as well as through committing sexual harassment and assault. All of this behavior reflects and reinforces sexual attitudes that are toxic and degrading to women and men alike. Thus, although this case may be the most sickening, severe case of an adolescent absorbing and acting upon misogynistic values in recent memory, it's far from an isolated incident.
http://jezebel.com/5993282/precocious-fifth-graders-conspire-to-rape-and-murder-female-classmate
Two fifth grade boys, aged 10 and 11, have been ruled competent to stand trial in juvenile court for conspiring to rape and kill their female classmate, and possibly murder other students as well. They were arrested after a classmate saw them playing with a knife on the school bus and reported it to a teacher.
...
There are no words to describe how abjectly depressing, terrifying, and infuriating it is that we live in a world in which a pair of fifth graders is capable of planning — and arming themselves for — a potential mass murder, in which two boys aged 10 and 11 have already learned to value girls' lives, bodily integrity, and dignity so little that they have no qualms about violating and murdering a girl for being "rude." While I understand that they're too young to fully appreciate the gravity of what they had planned, that doesn't diminish the atrocity of the fact that a 10 year old was able not only understand the gendered power dynamic inherent in rape, but also to plan to use it as a punitive measure against another child.
It should be unimaginable that someone so young could internalize such an extreme, hyper-aggressive, and violent understanding of rape culture. Tragically, it is not. Children and adolescents are constantly exposed to the insidious ubiquity of patriarchy and rape culture, in which violence is eroticized, male sexual agression is affirmed, and assumed male access to women's bodies is normalized. Lacking the discursive tools to understand that these things are not "just the way the world works," they can easily absorb misogynistic values, which they re-circulate and reinforce through seemingly "mild" actions such as slut-shaming, victim-blaming, homophobic remarks meant to denigrate boys who exhibit feminine qualities, body shaming, etc., as well as through committing sexual harassment and assault. All of this behavior reflects and reinforces sexual attitudes that are toxic and degrading to women and men alike. Thus, although this case may be the most sickening, severe case of an adolescent absorbing and acting upon misogynistic values in recent memory, it's far from an isolated incident.
http://jezebel.com/5993282/precocious-fifth-graders-conspire-to-rape-and-murder-female-classmate
9 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
There isn't enough ink on the internet to write down ALL the t.v. programs glorifying the torture of women and girls.
May the Goddess help us all.
