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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10 Ridiculously Sexist and Dangerous Laws From Around the World

The War on Women continues globally. From legalized domestic abuse to bride kidnappings, laws made to oppress women are still firmly in place in many parts of the world. The best protection, (other than a firearm and a steady hand) is AWARENESS. Many of these absurd legal conjectures are hidden knowledge to most of the women they apply to. I doubt married women in India raped by their husbands, would fail to call it rape simply because of their age.

According to their government however, if they're married and over the age of 15, it's not rape. I'm not sure which is sadder in this instance. The fact that the law won't recognize rape or that this law only "protects" brides under 15.

Um...Why are they under 15 and married in the first place? 

In any case, we have to keep protecting ourselves and all women. With the archaic and dangerous belief that women are mens' properties, laws and practices like these will continue. We have to keep pushing, keep educating, and keep kicking oppressors in the balls..

But if they're over 15 years old, let's not call it assault. - WTS.

Once in a while in the U.S. we hear about a bill or a law that seems like it must be a joke. For example, in Florida it is illegal for a single woman to parachute or skydive on a Sunday. This week in Montana, a legislator explained that he seriously wants to make it illegal for women to wear yoga pants in public.

These examples might seem silly and inconsequential, but even so, at their core, they speak to very discriminatory ideas about gender, authority and rights that manifest themselves in much more dangerous ways all over the world, including in the United States. Last year in California, an appeals court overturned a rapist's conviction after a judge cited a standing 1872 law stating only married women could legally be raped. Last December, a legislator in Missouri proposed a bill reading, "No abortion shall be performed or induced unless and until the father of the unborn child provides written, notarized consent to the abortion." And, because I promised myself I'd repeat this every single chance I have until it's not true, it is still legal in more than 30 states in the United States for a rapist to sue his rape victim for child visitation and custody if his forcible insemination resulted in a pregnancy. 

WOW.

As ridiculous as these sound to some of us, they were not included in a top 10 list of misogynistic laws compiled in a report released today by women's rights advocacy group Equality Now. The report describes laws maintained by more than 50 governments. Many reflect the institutionalization of men's entitlement to rape or beat wives and to "own" children. Others limit women's movements and ability to work based on what husbands want.

Here are the top 10:

1. Saudi Arabia maintains its 1990 Fatwa prohibiting "women's driving of automobiles" as "a source of undeniable vices".

Last week, in a TV talk show, an historian defending this prohibition suggested that foreign female drivers be imported wholesale to avoid the shame that the rape ("not a big deal" for a woman) would bring to the family. Of course, Saudi Arabia is only one of a handful of countries, including The Vatican, where women cannot vote. Saudi women are also, effectively, electronically tagged... if they try to travel out of the country their guardians are automatically contacted.

2. A 2013 Indian act confirmed the legality of marital rape... "Sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape."

India has the world's highest number of early marriages and while fewer girls younger than 15 are being married (18.2 percent), the rates for girls ages 15-18 has increased to 29.2 percent. Waiting a year eliminates "rape."

3. In the U.S., a child born outside of marriage can only be granted citizenship in certain cases relating to the father.

For example, when "a blood relationship between the person and the father is established by clear and convincing evidence" or "the father (unless dead) agreed, in writing, to provide financially for the person until they reach age of eighteen. Somehow, I doubt that millennials, for whom out-of-wedlock births are the norm, know that this might be the case where they live.

4. Likewise, Yemen's 1992 act says that a wife "must permit [her husband] to have legitimate intercourse with her when she is fit to do so."

No age limit. Fourteen percent of girls in Yemen are married to adult men before they are 15. (R. Kelly should move to Yemen, huh?) Periodically, the news cycle is interrupted by a sad and enraging story about girls and women assaulted, sometimes to death, by their husbands. While efforts are underway to change the legal age of marriage to 18, marital rape is a separate issue. In either case, Yemen is in the process of falling apart as I type.

5. In Malta, a kidnapper "after abducting a person, shall marry such person, he shall not be liable to prosecution."

This may seem like a strange law to some, however bride kidnappings are a real problem in many countries and common in certain cultures. (A post on this to come soon).

6. In Nigeria, violence "by a husband for the purpose of correcting his wife" is just fine.

It is difficult for some, however, to live in a country where this is true and then move to another where it is not. Sahara Reporters' Abidodun Ladepo wrote about multiple cases of Nigerian men beating and killing their wives in the U.S. These women are among the three who die each day here at the hands of their spouses.

7. Women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where during the war an estimated 48 women were raped per hour and where rape, including rape tied to intimate partner violence, continues at horrific rates, "is obliged to live with her husband and follow him wherever he sees fit to reside."

Marital rape is not a punishable offense.

8. In Guinea women are not allowed to have "a separate profession from that of her husband" if he objects.

9. Kenya's 2014 Marriage Act legitimizes polygamy.

"A marriage celebrated under customary law or Islamic law is presumed to be polygamous or potentially polygamous." This law is one thread in a very thick and complicated cloth. Women's rights groups in the country seemed torn. Some applauded the law because polygamy is so widely practice and the law extended vital protections to all wives that were previously denied.

10. A Bahamian act dating from 1991, two years before the last U.S. state outlawed marital rape, defines rape as anyone older than 14 "having sexual intercourse with another person who is not his spouse."

In addition, married Bahamian women cannot pass their nationality to children, with foreign fathers, born outside of the country. This is not true for children born to Bahamian men. It's also easier for men to get citizenship for spouses.

Rape laws, laws governing movement or work or children's nationality are reflections of deeply held and rooted ideas about women being men's property. The common law history of rape laws in particular show that rape was, and in many cases still is, not about a woman's human rights being violated, but about a man -- her father, brother, husband -- having his property stolen. They were never meant to actually protect the raped, but rather defend these property rights. Rape, domestic violence, control of movement -- these are, by many men and the countries they govern, understood as entitlements. Men surveyed in the largest global study of gender-based violence cited "entitlement" as the "primary reason" that they sexually assaulted women.

Women living in countries where they face multiple forms of legal discrimination are rendered exceptionally vulnerable to both spousal and state abuse. If they marry foreigners, or bear their children abroad, they constantly fear deportation of their families if they "get out of line." Because they are women, their families are economically disadvantaged in terms of property ownership and access to financial tools. When women cannot pass nationality on to children or their spouses it also frequently means their families have no access to public services. Their children have no automatic and equal right to be educated in public schools, and their families might not have access to national heath care. If they are in abusive relationships they are much more likely to fear the loss of their children, who can be used to extort and control them. The inability to pass nationality on to male spouses and to children puts women at risk. Combined with other discriminatory laws, it hurts them and their families every day.

Equality Now has, for several years, led a global campaign to end sexism in laws governing nationality. In the wake of the newly released report, they are pursing country-by-country #unsexylaws campaigns, which include opportunities for interested people and organizations to support grass-roots activists.

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The Best Twitter #cosbymemes

Oh Bill Cosby. Bill Bill Bill. What were you thinking? Your challenge for Twitter followers to meme you is a prime example of the aloofness of Hollywood icons. You believe the hype. The constant adoration. The bright-eyed fans, beaming upon finally meeting their idol. The starstruck celebrity, greeting one of their greatest career influences in person. All of the praise, worship and fanfare can make a person truly believe they're the Hollywood god people make them out to be. With all of the special treatment and obese bank accounts, self-absorbed celebs forget about (and can't escape) one teensy-weensy aspect of celebrity life:

TWITTER.

The honest, unrelenting and un-paid off folks of Twitter can pop any ego. They can bring any head in the clouds down to earth rather quickly, and most important, without the need of any PR translator, Twitter can let the world know where any celebrity stands in 140 characters or less.

Yes folks.

Twitter can definitely be a feeling-hurter.

No directors. No special effects. No scripts. Simply pure, unadulterated opinions of what the 'little guy' feels about you. Bill should've known better. One could suppose that because Hollywood has basically remained mum on the rape topic, he wasn't aware of true public opinion. He was under the assumption that everyone had swept his rape allegations under the rug. Nope! Hollywood, a town in which he's a legend in the "untouchable" category, under unspoken instruction has said nothing about his 14+ rape allegations. If he didn't know before, Mr. Cosby should be well aware that Twitter ain't Hollywood. The allegiance paid to pudding pop titans is not guaranteed in Twitville. He thought he was going to get memes of good ole' fashioned family fun.

He couldn't have been more wrong. The meme generator was a terrible move.

Dems' the breaks Bill. That's what you get for being a rapist.

Here are some of the funniest memes from Twitter (that weren't immediately pulled and deleted).:

It's amazing how a man who created and produced a television show that had so much integrity, could secretly be such a disgusting, victimizing creep.

Barbara Bowman was one of his alleged victims, claiming Cosby raped her when she was a 17 year old starving artist. Her story is here: Barbara's Story

There are also court documents filed by past victims. Cosby's prior allegations

14 allegations over 20 years. Women who've never met, living in different states. Some paid off, some not. The one thing they have in common are their stories. All accounts of rape were almost identical. Are you proud of yourself "Dr." Cosby?

Neither are we. Karma's real eh?  Shame on you.

#noloveforrapists

WTS.

B*llshit Bondage Chair

I don't like this chair. I get that some bondage fanatics might find this cool or interesting, but uh..

I'm no bondage fanatic. 

Tie me up like some kind of rodeo hand and when I get loose, let's just hope you can run faster than me.

The thought of a woman being positioned like this so someone can have a seat?

Anyone who thinks this chair is appropriate doesn't need a seat. 

What they really need is..

Serious slappage.

G-String clad cowboy optional.

This "bondage chair" was created by Allen Jones ca. 1969. Apparently, there's a Black version of it as well.

The woman perched on the chair in this photo is Russian socialite Dasha Zhukova. The online magazine Buro published this, and due to the uproar it caused, has since been cropped.

It's still bullshit though. 

What say you? Would you feel comfortable sitting on this? What would you think if you saw this in someone's house? What would you think of the PERSON who would buy this?

I'd be like..

I guess that's just me though.

SMH.. what a world we live in, no?

-WTS. 

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Veteran's Day Secret: Sexual Assault in the Military

Yes, I'm insanely late, but here's my contribution to honor of Veteran's Day.

Allow me to make the disclaimer, that I don't give a fuck if any one's offended. Instead of standing in front of a flag, hand over heart, blind patriotism in the mind, proud and grateful for the military "fight for freedom.."

I choose to acknowledge a less glorious aspect of military life. One that affects women especially.

Yes, military personnel are supposed to "protect," but whom are they protecting exactly? If you're a woman in the military, you're 4 times more likely to get raped than if you're not.

And it doesn't begin and end with women. Men also file claims of sexual assault at the hands of their bullet armed brethren.

Unwanted sexual advances, rape, sexual harassment and other forms of sexual assault occur daily in our armed forces. Given the way these facts are under-reported and routinely swept under the rug..

Maybe they should start calling themselves masked forces?

The perpetrators often are living in the same barracks, not some enemy camp.

WTS salutes veterans, and especially female veterans who fight for their safety on the battle field, and off. The military deems you a hero should you go to battle, but apparently, chooses to ignore you and your trauma should you survive it.

SMH. WTS.

New data show unfair treatment at the VA for survivors of sexual assault in the military.

Veterans whose post-traumatic stress disorder is caused by military sexual trauma are much more likely to be denied disability compensation than other veterans diagnosed with PTSD.

This Veterans Day, veterans struggling with the devastating mental health effects of military sexual violence who turn to the Department of Veterans Affairs for help will instead find discrimination. Their claims for disability compensation will turn out differently depending on their gender and where they live. And the VA will expect survivors to submit documentation that often does not exist—like official reports of rape or the results of pregnancy or STD tests—while taking veterans who claim benefits for many other forms of trauma at their word.

The accounts of veterans like Navy veteran Ruth Moore have shown the impact of the VA’s hostility to disability benefit claims related to rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment. It can be devastating. Moore was raped twice by her Navy supervisor, but the VA repeatedly denied her claims for disability compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder, requiring extra evidence because her claim was linked to military sexual trauma. The VA’s discriminatory demand left Moore without compensation, homeless, and suicidal; it took her more than two decades to finally get the benefits she deserved. 

Now, after years of litigation, the VA has released data on military sexual trauma claims that show a pattern. Veterans whose PTSD is caused by military sexual trauma are much more likely to be denied disability compensation than other veterans diagnosed with PTSD. 

Our report “Battle for Benefits: VA Discrimination Against Survivors of Military Sexual Trauma” shows that each year from 2008 to 2012, the VA rate for granting claims base d on sexual trauma-related PTSD lagged behind other PTSD claims by between 16 and 30 percentage points. This disparity is particularly disturbing because sexual assault is more strongly correlated with PTSD in veterans than any other trauma, including combat trauma. The numbers make clear that many military sexual trauma survivors who suffer from debilitating mental health conditions are not getting the disability benefits they need and deserve.

Female veterans suffer most frequently from the VA’s discrimination, because their PTSD claims are more often related to military sexual trauma than are the claims of male veterans. But male veterans suffer a form of sex discrimination too: When they make claims for PTSD caused by military sexual trauma, they have a particularly hard time getting their claims approved. In 2011, for example, the VA granted nearly 49 percent of PTSD claims from female survivors, but only 37 percent of claims from male survivors. This is particularly disheartening since, according to the Pentagon, men made up over half of the military’s sexual assault survivors in 2012.

Finally, and perhaps most alarmingly, in a country that should treat all its veterans equally, our report reveals that veterans’ access to disability compensation depends on where they happen to live. Veterans submit disability claims to one of 58 VA regional offices. The data show huge disparities among the rates at which claims of PTSD based on sexual trauma are granted at different offices. For example, in 2012 the VA granted 57 percent of all of these PSTD claims nationwide. The regional office in St. Paul, Minn., however, granted only 26 percent of these claims, while the Los Angeles office granted nearly 88 percent.

Clearly, the system is flawed. To fix it, the VA must start by changing its regulations so that it no longer holds survivors of military sexual trauma to higher standards than other veterans with PTSD. The VA has repeatedly denied the need for this commonsense change, but the data make clear that it is necessary. The VA must also continue to improve its training efforts surrounding military sexual trauma, targeting claims processors and management in regional offices that have discriminated most egregiously. 

Despite years of pressure from veterans’ advocates and survivors themselves, the VA has been unwilling to make these urgently needed changes on its own. It’s time for Congress to step in. Survivors of military sexual trauma have waited long enough.

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The Monster Will Finally Die: Ariel Castro

HOW??

In handing down a sentence of life without parole plus 1,000 years in prison, Judge Michael Russo told the kidnapper there was no place in the world for his brand of criminal.

"You don't deserve to be out in our community," Russo told the defendant, explaining he would never leave prison. "You're too dangerous."

Castro pleaded guilty last week to 937 counts, including murder and kidnapping, in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table. The charges stem from his kidnapping, rape and assault of three women: Knight, abducted in 2002; Georgina DeJesus, abducted in 2004; and Amanda Berry; abducted in 2003.

the House of Hell

"All the sex was consensual," Castro told the judge. "The girls were not virgins. They had multiple sex partners before me.

Chains used ot hold the women

"I heard I can file for parental rights," Castro told the judge.

The room Amanda Berry gave birth in

Witnesses including police officers and medical experts revealed the terrifying details – including that more than 90 pounds of chains, measuring nearly 100 feet, were recovered from the home.

Weapons used on the women

“I am not a violent person. I simply kept them there without them being able to leave,” Castro said.

An alarm system Ariel Castro set up

“We had a lot of harmony going on in that home,” he said.

One of the bedrooms in the House of Hell

Of his young daughter who was born in captivity, Castro said: “She’ll probably say, ‘My daddy is the best daddy in the world.’ Because that’s how I tried to raise her in those six years. So she wouldn’t be traumatized or anything like that.”

Workbook pages of Amanda Berry and her daugter

“There were a number of modifications to the interior of the home to fortify certain areas,” Burke said. “There were divisions between spaces in the house that were again designed not only to make the house more secure for its occupants but also to hide, I think, the existence of additional rooms in the house.”

Another bedroom

There are many breeds of evil and sickness. This is a story of all of them. I know this sounds awfully judgmental, but for the sake of humaity, he needs to hurry up and die.


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