The FixedIt Poject: Fixing Headlines About Violence Against Women

Invisible Murderers, Rapists and Blameable Victims

Why don’t men who murder women make headlines? Why does the media sway the title to focus on the victimized instead of the victimizer?

It would seem publications that do this, are subconsciously (or perhaps consciously?) sustaining the widely held belief that women are responsible for the crimes committed against them. When a woman is raped, she is often blamed because of what she was wearing, the time the crime took place in some weird and twisted countries, for provoking a man by being sexy. These justifications skip over the plain simple bottom line:

Someone CHOSE to rape.

Period.

So when crimes against women occur and newspapers decide to report them, the question begs, why are the victims the main subject of headlines but the violent aggressors aren't? 

This focus on the victim extends to children as well. Why are children described in the media as "having sex" or being in "a sexual relationship" with an adult? Children, by definition, cannot have sex with adults. It's not sex, it's rape and it's sexual abuse. There is no gray area here. Most important, sex with children IS A CRIME.

No one who has been raped or murdered has ever said anything, worn anything, done anything to cause the crime committed against them. There is only one thing that causes rape or murder and that is the decision to commit rape or murder. Nothing else.

Publicly released crime stats will tell you a lot about the victims. Their age, where they were when they were attacked, their relationship to the offender, their gender, sometimes even their occupation. The same information could be available for offenders, but it’s rarely part of the public release. The process to retrieve offenders information can include contacting the police, waiting however many weeks for the info, and paying a fee to obtain said stats.

With all this, the info is often lacking.

Journalists and editors have a responsibility to the truth. Headlines that blame victims for violence enacted against them is not journalism, it’s deception.  The ideology that women and children are responsible for the violence committed against them by men is not only absurd, but dangerous.

Here's how it usually works.

John raped Mary.

John is the subject and the focus of the sentence (John committed the rape), Mary is the object (the rape was done to her).

Mary was raped by John.

John is still the subject, but now Mary is the focus of the sentence; John is trailing off at the end.

Mary was raped.

Mary is now the subject and the only focus of the sentence; John has vanished from the discussion.

Mary is a rape victim.

Not only is Mary now the only subject and focus of the sentence, the rape has become who she is, not what was done to her. Her very identity has become the cause of the rape. John is no longer involved in what happened.

Violence against women.

Violence is the subject, women are the object, and the perpetrators of the violence aren’t part of the discussion.

Jane Gilmore has spent years fixing these headlines with the FixedIt Project.

She redirects focus and blame in headlines to perpetrators, NOT victims. By changing these headlines, she's exposing bias and exposing how headlines are spun by media.

Donations are highly encouraged to help Jane keep the project going. Funding will help her provide daily updates, international publications, more public speaking and will help her finish her FixedIt book.

You can Donate HERE

It's beyond important to change the way men’s violence against women, children and other men is reported and understood.

By placing blame where it's accurately due and not subliminally programming people to blame victims, we might be able to reduce the amount of victims in general. 

Here some examples of the FixedIt Project at work:

FixedIt: Violent abuse of women and children is more important than property damage"Arsonist". Because a violent, abusive man who nearly killed a woman and two children is defined by damage he did to property.

This report on a man charged with torture, rape and assault after allegedly holding a woman against her will for three days.

Police raided the residence last Friday, before charging the 26-year-old with torture, possession of drug utensils and two counts each of rape, assault occasioning bodily harm and common assault.

It is alleged he knew the victim and held her against her will between October 9 and October 12.

Despite the horrific nature of the charges, the man accused of these crimes is erased from the headlines, he simply doesn’t exist. The victim of the crime is the subject of the sentence.

This report is on a man who appeared in court after he allegedly stabbed, choked, kicked and punched his partner was a comprehensive article that detailed the alleged crimes and quoted police on the context of increasingly severe domestic violence in the region.

But, yet again, the headline completely erases the alleged perpetrator from the story. He’s invisible. In all honesty, the headline doesn't mention if it's a "he" at all. He hasn’t yet been tried so editors do have to be careful about not assuming guilt, but they can and should report that he was arrested and in court. They can and should be clear that police do not think this woman assaulted herself or that some indiscernible entity is accused of committing the assault.

FixedIt: Murder is not how you end a marriage
Posted on November 7, 2017 by Jane Gilmore

Here's a reporting on a man who murdered his ex wife and her new boyfriend.

I don’t think there’s any need for commentary here, the fix is pretty much self explanatory.

Jane talks about the FixedIt Project

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Allure: Dispelling Beauty Myths, Aging with Grace

I like this video.

I've met two of the women featured. One I won't say anything about, and the other was Norma Kamali.

The word that best described her was PRESENCE.

She didn't have to say a word. Her energy. Her confidence. Her self-assuredness.

All these traits proceeded her into the room.

Not to mention you could sense the money. You could just feel that this woman was wealthy.

But that's not the point here. :-)

I consider myself a pretty tough crowd and I liked this video.

I mean, I really liked it, lol. I hardly like anything!

With that being said, please ladies, grow older the way YOU want. Don't take suggestions from a youth obsessed society.

I know I'm not.

Love ya with a capital LOVE.

WTS.

Pick-up Artists: Women on Women

I had a dream this morning that I was standing with a bunch of girls, waiting for a famous singer to arrive. We were leaning on wall, and a famous female singer comes out of the room we were waiting in front of. She sees one girl, tells her how pretty she is, then tries to kiss her. The girl covered her mouth with her hand before the singer's lips could touch her. She didn't want to be kissed by a woman because she wasn't gay.

The whole thing was weird. I don't know why I dreamt such a thing except that it perhaps mirrors my own sentiment as of late. A few days ago, a very aggressive bull-dyke woman hit on me. She was worse than most guys. She creeped me out, asking if I "wanted to get finger-popped."

This:

+

=

How I felt.

*Sidenote: And who still says "Finger-popped?" I haven't heard that in a thousand years. #yuck

I was grossed out by the experience. If I did wanna get finger-popped, it certainly wouldn't be from a woman who looka lika man. I can only wonder what happened in her life that made her so determined NOT to be feminine. I love my femininity. I would never want to hide or shun it. I embrace my masculine sides, but not in a sexual way.

Or wait, maybe I do a little bit. *TeeHee*

The video below is of a woman trying to pick up other women. Some are shocked, some are like sure, and some play the "I have a boyfriend" card. In any case, not one time did the 'picker-upper' use the word "finger-popped."

Thinking about that gross woman-man, I'm still like

But whatevs.


Ladies, what would you do if an attractive woman on the street randomly stopped you and asked you for a date? (and you thought no one was looking). Would you give her your number? Would you try her out? Tell the truth, no judgments here. In the meantime,

Roll tape! -WTS

52, and Still Working the Streets

It's been said that "pimpin ain't easy."

Well, hoe'in is harder. 

Barbara Terry has been a prostitute for more than 30 years. One can only guess the mileage accrued on her vagillac-cadillac. Disease, shame, fear and just the overall element that would pick up a street hooker, one can only imagine why she chose to stay in that field for so long. No judgment, but with realistic occupational hazards that include dangerous men, rape, murder and jail, surely there must've been safer ways to pay the bills. The good news is that she survived. She was always her own boss, and even managed to buy a house and put two children through college.

Sounds like some damn good hoe'in. 

By COREY KILGANNON

LIKE many single mothers, Barbara Terry, 52, scrounged for baby sitters and leaned on her own mother while raising her four children and working the night shift.

But Ms. Terry is a prostitute who has worked nearly her entire adult life on the streets of Hunts Point, in the Bronx.

“When they were old enough to understand, I would tell them the truth,” said Ms. Terry, whose daughter and three sons are now grown. “I’d say, ‘This is how I’m supporting you.’ For me, it’s a business, a regular job.”

Yes, she said, she was arrested more than 100 times, sometimes landing at Rikers Island for several days or weeks — but that never deterred her from returning to this area of industrial warehouses and repair shops off the Bruckner Expressway.

By day, heavy industrial traffic fills the streets. By night, the traffic comes for other reasons. Years back, this prostitutes’ “track” bustled with working women, and Ms. Terry was front and center in garter belts and high heels and fur coats.

“It was beautiful out here then,” she said. “There was so much money out here, you wouldn’t believe it.”

The area is less active now than in the 1990s, when HBO made its “Hookers at the Point” documentaries, in which Ms. Terry appeared under a street name, Cleo, and flashed a youthful, toothy smile.

Those great teeth are gone, lost to diabetes, Ms. Terry said. She mostly works days now and dresses more conservatively. “Most women don’t make it to my age out here,” she said. “I call myself the last of the survivors.”

While it is impossible to corroborate all the details of an eventful life in a profession often synonymous with drug abuse, violence and tragic outcomes, the Correction Department confirmed that Ms. Terry had been jailed many times for prostitution over her career.

Today, Ms. Terry lives nearby in the Bronx, but she hopes to retire in a year or so to a house she bought upstate, she said on Tuesday at her usual spot on Whittier Street. She had a supply of condoms in her purse, a plastic cup of vodka and orange juice in her hand and a cellphone for steady customers.

Those customers, dates or tricks, can be lawyers, city workers, husbands, fathers or truckers heading in and out of the sprawling Hunts Point food markets.

Then there are the psychos. All the women out here have had friends attacked or cut or dumped dead somewhere. Last year, a man was arrested, and recently sentenced, for terrorizing prostitutes in the Bronx with a razor.

“I’ve survived because God was with me,” Ms. Terry said. “Every Sunday, my mother and grandmother prayed for me out here.”

She has shown younger workers the ropes: how to jump in a Dumpster to hide from the police, and how to stay alive. First, never enter a car with more than one person in it, and never let someone drive you out of the area. Get your money up front — Ms. Terry charges $50 or $100 — and try to work with a buddy.

“You look for weapons, you check the back seat, and you go by your vibes,” she said. “If they look strange, you stay away.”

There have been close calls, like the time a trucker locked her in and tried to rape her.

“I never did drugs and never worked for a pimp for protection,” she said. “What protection? If I’m in someone’s car, about to die, ain’t no pimp in there helping me.”

“I never carried a blade,” said Ms. Terry, who grew up in the Red Hook Houses in Brooklyn before her family moved to North Carolina for her teenage years. “My fists were my weapons. I learned to fight growing up with nine younger brothers.”

Ms. Terry said she completed two years of college, training to be a medical lab technician, but by the time she was 21, her husband had left her and she had two children to support. All she knew about prostitutes was what she saw on “Starsky & Hutch,” but she knew about the Hunts Point action and came out on her own. She admits she became addicted to the stimulation of the street life.

“I love the excitement of coming out here and seeing all these beautiful people I know,” she said. “Even my dates are a comfort. This place has made me strong. It keeps you young.”

But she has slowed down. A year ago, she was in a bad accident and was hospitalized with a broken jaw and neck injuries. Her children, two of whom she says she put through college, beg her to get off the street.

“I’m the mother, so they can’t say anything,” she said. “When I’m ready to get off, I’ll get off.”

Not a career I would advise, but some women work hard for the money. A little too hard. 

-WTS

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