Content warning: this article contains mention of rape, rape culture and legal proceedings involving the two Jaws drop in living rooms across the city. Commuters, reading newspapers and getting their news on smart phones, shake their heads in disgust: How did he get away with it? What was the jury thinking? Why did the judge…
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Spike Lee has come up with a solution to America’s college rape epidemic – or so he thinks. The film director recently spoke with Stephen Colbert, and argued that ending sexual assault begins with women denying men sex, stating, ‘I think a sex strike could really work on college campuses where there’s an abundance of…
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A few weeks ago, a teenage girl was reportedly raped by three adolescent males, while two other female adolescents recorded the event on a mobile phone. This footage was forwarded to a journalist who quickly passed it on to local police. Her location remains undisclosed. The police response was lacklustre at best, insisting nothing could…
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*Trigger warning: rape, violence* As I recounted the detail of his expression – cold and determined – I felt the room slip away. ‘Was he looking at you?’ ‘No. It was like he was looking through me, to something else.’ I remembered his eyes for the first time, piercing the bedhead behind me. He was…
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Last week shocking and shameful statistics emerged from a survey conducted by VicHealth. The results showed that one in five Australians believe that if a woman is raped while drunk or under the influence of drugs, she is partly to blame. One in Five. Duck, duck, duck, duck… Goose. Although the majority of those 17,500…
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**Trigger warning** Discussion of rape and sexual assault Rape myths are harmful. Not only can they seep into a society’s collective cultural consciousness but they can seep into law and policy too. Moreover, instead of holding a rapist to account, myths about rape seek to, in some way, hold a victim of rape to account…
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Late last month, police in Thunder Bay, a small city in northwestern Ontario, Canada charged two students from the University of Ottawa hockey team with sexual assault. Both men, David Foucher, 25, and Guillaume Donovan, 24, were in Thunder Bay for an away game against Lakehead University when they allegedly assaulted a 21-year-old woman. The…
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Two girls hanging from a tree in India: gang raped, murdered. On the internet, images of the teenaged cousins from Uttar Pradesh in the country’s north have gone viral in recent weeks. The images, which contravene India’s media laws about identifying the victims of rape, have caused international outrage. But just as concerning is the…
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How do I paint this picture, in ink strokes that become words, of how all three of my closest friends were separately raped before any of them turned twenty? Not one of their attackers was ever brought to justice. It serves as little wonder then, why I — as the only one amongst them who…
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I want to start this article with a Serious Trigger Warning. If trigger warnings are something you watch out for, then this article is likely not for you. Otherwise, I would encourage you to follow this link. But be warned it will leave you feeling deeply uncomfortable. That’s how I felt afterwards.When you’ve finished with that…
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‘What is comedy? What is a joke? What is rape?’ asks Adrienne Truscott. The American comedian informs us several times in between swigs of canned gin and tonic, that she ‘is new to this’ (stand up) but she knows the rules; black people can joke about black people and Jews can joke about Jews….
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**Trigger warning: discussion of rape and rape culture** This just makes me incredibly angry. In an open, anonymous letter to Harvard, a student has shared her story of sexual abuse by a fellow schoolmate that has, at this stage, been ignored by the school itself. The student, who has been diagnosed with depression and has…
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US Secretary of State John Kerry announced last Tuesday that the United States will ban any perpetrators of sexual violence from obtaining US visas. The ban was announced during discussions on sexual violence in war zones. As part of these talks, Secretary Kerry met with British Foreign Minister William Hague, the US Ambassador at large for…
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An 89-year-old woman from Edgewood nursing home in Minnesota has been through a horrifying ordeal after being raped by one of her carers. Her nursing assistant, Andrew Scott Merzwski, sexually assaulted the woman after giving her narcotics that he knew would render her mentally incapacitated. The victim notified her daughter the next morning, who then…
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