Padaviya

Several new rape-humor pages have already popped up on Facebook in the days since the original pages were removed. Several more were never taken down in the first place, reports the Huffington Post.

The newly created pages include such “jokes” as “you know she is playing hard to get when she resists the chloroform” and “you know she’s playing hard to get when you use another roll of tape.”

Obviously, it would be next to impossible for Facebook to prevent these pages from being created. But there’s also little cause for optimism that once the pages are reported, Facebook will be diligent about deleting them.

When Facebook removed some of the offending pages last week, it made no official comment or clarification of policy. Activists responded by calling for the company to issue a formal statement that rape is never funny and that such pages will be deemed a violation of Facebook rules (which bar speech that is “hateful, threatening or incites violence.”)

Instead, Facebook has done just the opposite: released a statement clarifying that in the future, such pages will be allowed to remain as long as they are clearly labeled as humor.

If Facebook thinks this is all about a misunderstanding, they have not been paying attention. The problem has never been that feminists missed the point that the pages were intended as jokes. We never mistook them for a serious call to go out and commit rape. Our point is that sexual violence is not funny and that reducing it to a punch line perpetuates rape culture.

Statistically, someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes in America (though it is difficult to ever know the accuracy of such statistics in a society that renders so much assault invisible). Many women are harassed or assaulted in some way so regularly—from catcalls to being groped to enduring suggestive innuendo or worse from co-workers to being date-raped—that these things have become normalized as an inevitable part of the experience of being a woman. This is what it means to live in a rape culture. 60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported, often because they assume they will not be believed or taken seriously. This is a culture that allows sexual violence to happen in large part by silencing victims and treating their tales as jokes.

I’ve never met a feminist without a sense of humor, though we are often accused of never being able to “lighten up and take a joke.” This is just one way in which women are silenced in our culture–by being labeled as uptight and prudish when we actually attempt to point out misogyny. In fact, I am a huge believer in both the power and the importance of humor. Satire can be an extremely potent, especially when it takes risks. I have seen laugh-out-loud funny Onion headlines that manage to drive home a point better than any serious journalism I have encountered on some subjects.

But the fact that humor has powerful potential does not mean everything labeled as humor has an inherent value. And when so-called humor uses violence against a specific race, gender, sexual orientation or ethnicity as its punch line, at some point it crosses a line and becomes hate speech. Misogynist, racist or homophobic jokes are never “just jokes.” They reflect and reinforce actual hateful attitudes. When do we say “enough is enough”? If Facebook is bombarded by a multitude of “jokes” about violence against people of a particular race or ethnicity, will a note in the headline that this is meant to be “humorous” make those jokes okay?

Facebook’s belief that you can nullify the harms of hate speech by labeling it a “joke” is simply a cop-out. The corporation’s behavior so far has been condescending and dismissive of women’s concerns. And so we continue to call on Facebook to issue an apology and take a firm stance against the promotion of sexual violence. Anything less is simply unacceptable.

You can add your name to this Change.org petition to let Facebook know that we won’t let up until takes a firm policy against sexually violent hate speech: (click through to sign)

After more than three months of complaints from users, a grand total of over 200,000 petition signatures (186,000 of them on a single Change.org petition), a Twitter campaign, the withdrawal of several major advertisers and an outpouring of harsh criticism from a multitude of feminist activists and writers, Facebook has finally removed rape-humor pages from the site. Surfing Facebook, you will no longer find a page titled, “What’s 10 inches and gets girls to have sex with me? My knife.”

At least for today. Facebook’s capitulation appears to be grudging: The social media behemoth has given no indication that it will remove such pages if they reappear. Nor has its apologized for its three-month failure to act. Facebook has not even recanted its initial response to the campaign, which was to refuse to take any action against the pages, dismissively comparing them to “rude jokes” that “wouldn’t get you thrown out of a local pub.”

In response to Facebook’s apparent lack of willingness to take a firm stance against all content that endorses sexual violence, the partners behind the petition, such as Women’s Views on News, are demanding that the networking giant:

1. Make a public statement that rape is never acceptable; that promoting sexual violence and violence against women is repugnant; that Facebook will remove content that advocates rape, sexual violence, and violence against women; and that the Terms of Service/Community Standards will be updated to specify this.
2. Address in a public statement that the previous “pub joke” defense was poorly stated, explaining that alleging humor does not give a free pass to promote any hate content; that Facebook does not consider promoting violence against women or sexual assault to be a joke or funny; and that such content will be held to the same standard as any violence against any other group or individual.
3. Ask for Facebook to be transparent about the content monitoring process; to state publicly if and how many pages are removed that promote sexual violence or violence against women; and to establish relationships with experts in sexual violence and violence against women who will help identify content that needs to be removed.
4. Update the Terms of Service/Community Standards to specify that: “Content earnestly promoting violence against women or sexual violence violates Facebook’s terms of use and will accordingly be removed whenever reported.” In addition to the internal reporting system, provide a public contact email for users to register complaints about content that violates the terms of service/community standards, that will acknowledge receipt and respond with a decision on whether or not to remove.

It’s a relief to see the pages gone. But the victory means very little without a commitment from Facebook to take sexual violence seriously in the future.

And what’s all the more frustrating is that this partial victory should not have required such a massive effort. It should not have taken Facebook a second thought to realize that “jokes” about rape should be counted as speech that is hateful, threatening or incites violence–i.e., speech that is banned under Facebook’s Terms of Service. But because we live in a culture that accepts, condones and makes light of sexual violence, those conclusions are—for many people—not so obvious. And that’s why we have to keep asking the larger question: What does it mean to live in a society where it is this difficult to convince people that jokes about rape are simply not okay?

You can add your name to this Change.org petition to let Facebook know that we won’t let up until takes a firm policy against sexually violent hate speech:

I traveled to Silsbee, Texas five times in the past six months, with conservative blogger Brandon Darby, to investigate why, despite the volume of evidence, a grand jury did not indict two football players accused of raping a high school cheerleader (who was later kicked off the squad for refusing to cheer for one of them).  The case is a troubling example of what many victims experience when they dare to report their rape and proceed with a prosecution.  In this post, I’d like to highlight the community reaction.

Hillaire was found half-clothed and crying under the pool table, saying she’d been raped.  She reported that Rakheem Bolton, a star high school football player, raped her while another football player, Christian Rountree, held her down. Three students outside the room heard her cries of “stop” and broke through the door, only to find that three of the four athletes in the room had fled out the window, breaking it in the process.

As Bolton ran off, Stacy Riley, the homeowner, heard him yell:

I didn’t rape no white girl.  I wouldn’t use anyone else’s dick to fuck her. I didn’t put my dick up inside her. I don’t know if she has AIDS. I don’t even know that girl.

Bolton would later admit to penetrating Hillaire.

This was not a he said/she said situation and you can read the evidence in more detail in the full report at my blog. Suffice to say: Witness statements from the police report confirm that Hillaire was raped. An inexperienced drinker, Hillaire was exceedingly intoxicated after drinking a beer and six shots and could not legally consent. Before her friends cut her off, Hillaire made out with a guy in the living room and was egged on to kiss a female friend by a group of ogling young men. Bolton and his friends arrived late to the party, and, seeing an intoxicated and flirtatious Hillaire, isolated her in the pool room.

Hillaire spent the early morning hours after the rape at the police station and at a nearby clinic.  Of the four guys in the room, Bolton and Rountree were charged with “child sexual assault” (because Hillaire was a minor and they were “of age”) which carries a prison term of two to twenty years.

Hillaire assumed this crime would be fairly prosecuted. Instead, she faced intense mistreatment from her peers, many residents of Silsbee, school officials, public officials prosecuting the case, and the local press.  When she returned to school she faced a chilly environment from her peers and school administrators. School officials urged her to take a low profile, and the cheer squad wanted Hillaire to skip homecoming because, according to a fellow cheerleader, “Someone from another city had called and threatened her. If she cheered at another game, they were going to shoot her.” Hillaire went anyway, and some students painted Bolton’s and Rountree’s jersey numbers on their faces to protest their removal from the football team. Students also chanted “free tree” (referring to Rountree) at the homecoming bonfire within earshot of Hillaire.

Many in Silsbee bought the “slut” defense – that Hillaire was to blame for what happened that night because she made out with several people at the party. Describing Hillaire’s sexual behavior at the party, Sarah [name changed], a fellow student and cheerleader, told me that she believe Hillaire was raped and that “a majority of the school felt this way.”  Hillaire was called a “slut” several times to her face.

An anonymous letter to Hillaire’s family laid bare the “slut” defense that so many in Silsbee seem to hold:

These boys are nice respectable boys and you can’t tell me that there were no other girls that wanted to be with them so they raped your daughter (please).  Just think how you have ruined these children [sic] lives and your daughter gets to carry on and be a cheerleader after drinkingherself and going against your family values… This makes your daughter [sic] reputation look very bad and if you think people will forget, remember we live in Silsbee. Someone will always remember!  (Don’t think she won’t be talked about).

A toddler approached Hillaire at a town parade shortly after the rape and called her a “bitch.”

Hillaire’s status as a popular cheerleader at the high school couldn’t compete with the popularity of high school sports that grants the best male players special privileges. The high school stadium seats 7,000—equal to the town’s population—and it’s full on game days. Celebrating high school sports is ingrained in Southeast Texas cultures, so it’s no wonder that many in Silsbee rallied behind Bolton and Rountree.  A common argument, articulated to me by one student, is that Bolton wouldn’t rape anyone because “he was popular. A lot of girls wanted to be with him.”

Bolton and Rountree did not receive the same chilly treatment as Hillaire. In a taped interview with The Silsbee Bee, Rountree’s mother thanked “all the members of the Silsbee community that have supported us; all the love and prayers that have been sent out. We’ve had a tremendous, just a tremendous outpouring of support and we just appreciate everyone and thank you for believing in these boys.”

The local paper, The Silsbee Bee, favorably covered the accused, even publishing an article titled, “Sexual Assault Prosecutions Cost County Nearly $20,000.” It was hard to miss the implication that this was money ill spent.

Later the editor of the Silsbee Bee would resign.

In many ways Hillaire was the perfect victim.  She’s pretty, white, and underage; a cheerleader in a football-loving town. She went to the police and the health clinic immediately after her assault. In addition to the physical evidence that was collected, she brought into court the testimony of witnesses and a threat from her rapist.  Detective Dennis Hughes, the officer assigned to the case, told Hillaire’s father that, given his four decades of police experience, “This is a slam dunk case. There’s more evidence than we see in most sexual assault cases, and we’ve got lots of witnesses.”

Still, despite all of this, the community turned against her. It’s no wonder that rape victims are reluctant to report their assaults; how much evidence, and how much privilege, does one need to get justice?  Three months after the rape, a grand jury dismissed the case.  Later Bolton would plea guilty to assault, a misdemeanor.

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For more — including ways to help Hillaire and protest her treatment, as well as details about the role of the NAACP and highly suspicious ties between Bolton’s family, the police, and the district attorney – see the unabridged reporting on this story here.

Silsbee Superintendent Richard Bain told H.S., a 16-year-old student cheerleader, that she would either cheer for her rapist or be kicked off the squad. When she was harassed by other students and called a “slut,” school officials told her to avoid the cafeteria and lay low. This is clearly unacceptable and despicable treatment of a student rape victim — but H.S. is the one stuck paying the school district tens of thousands of dollars. Where’s the justice in that?

Earlier this month, H.S.’s final appeal of her First Amendment case was denied, letting the lower court ruling stand that cheerleaders are nothing but a “mouthpiece.” (NFL cheerleaders have spoken out against this.) Student who pick up those pompoms lack any free speech rights, including the right to refuse to cheer for a player that has assaulted them. Furthermore, the courts decided that arguing a high school girl has the right to refuse to cheer for her rapist — “Two, four, six, eight, ten! Go Rakheem. Put it in!” — amounted to such a ridiculous claim, H.S. should have to pay the school district’s legal fees, to the tune of more than $35,000 (some media has reported a higher figure, but a Change.org investigation into the documents has revealed discrepancies and a filing error, which has yet to be officially resolved).

This is tens of thousands of dollars school officials are taking from a student rape victim they wronged.

Last fall, when H.S.’s story first broke, with an investigation pushed by the Ms. Magazine blog, nearly 20,000 outraged Change.org members took action demanding that the school make amends. But the school district has never done so, and we must continue to speak out. The failure of the courts to protect a rape survivor does not justify the school’s treatment of her. Tell the Silsbee School District to refuse to take money from a student rape victim, apologize, and protect future survivors.

H.S.’s father has been pushing to have the school implement sexual assault prevention programs — such as Take Back the Night, Coaching Boys into Men, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and Students Taking Action for Respect (now the Texas Peace Project) — providing hundreds of pages of information that has been steadily ignored. He told Change.org that while he cannot undo what happened to his teenage daughter, “if there’s one more kid out there” who he can prevent from getting the same treatment at the hands of school officials, his struggle is worth it.

Yet Silsbee school officials have shown zero concern for the well-being of student survivors of sexual assault. Support H.S., her father, and future survivors by signing this petition.