Today’s Lady News: 15-Year-Old Girl Gang Raped After Homecoming Dance
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
news
5:30PM, Tuesday October 27th 2009
A 15-year-old girl was gang raped, beaten and robbed by as many as seven people after a homecoming dance at Richmond High School in Richmond, CA. Police say the girl left the dance and was invited by a friend to join a group drinking in a court yard near the school, where she consumed “a large amount of alcohol.” After being sexually assaulted, she was left semi-conscious near a picnic table and eventually found by someone who alerted the police. A 19-year-old and a 15-year-old have both been arrested, but cops say five others may have been involved. [MSNBC]—This incident would be sad enough if it hadn’t happened just last week at a school dance in the U.K., too.
Scholastic school book fairs are censoring a children’s book because one of the characters has same-sex parents. Scholastic sent a letter to Lauren Myracle, author of Luv Ya Bunches, asking her to change her plot so character Milla’s parents are heterosexual. When Myracle refused, the company decided not to include the book in their fairs. [School Library Journal]
This clip makes me so queasy I can barely watch it. A couple competing in the “Amazing Race” had to slide down a giant water slide which terrified the woman. That didn’t stop her boyfriend from yelling at her, grabbing her, and trying to shove her down the slide while she’s shrieking, “Help me! Help me! Don’t make me do this!” Meanwhile, a water slide attendant stands there the whole time doing nothing. [Hoyden About Town]—I guess winning a million bucks is worth assaulting your girlfriend?
Oh, the crap that John Edwards is feeding his wife, Elizabeth Edwards, after he cheated on her with Rielle Hunter and possibly fathered a child. “John said, ‘Perhaps [it’s] not the great love story that we hoped, but maybe a great love story nonetheless,” Elizabeth told a local news station. Of course he did, hon. [NYMag.com]
A British man was sentenced to four years for raping a woman who conked out after taking medication and the man’s lawyer told the court his client “misread the situation.” Um, how is raping someone who is unconscious misreading a situation? [BBC]
At a UN Population Fund meeting, health ministers from around the world agreed that the maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate are unacceptable. Most agreed that family planning, i.e. contraception, is the best way to curtail deaths. [BBC]
A 20-year-old woman is seeking financial restitution from anyone who possesses child porn of her, which was filmed by her uncle when she was 8 years old. The woman, known as “Amy,” wrote to a Virginia court seeking money from Raymond Highsmith, who was convicted of downloading videos of her, in order to cover costs for her psychiatric help. [UPI]
Blogger Jill Filipovic has a great blog on Feministe about women changing their names after getting married and giving children the mother’s name, too. “You can bet those kids are getting my last name as well,” she wrote. I couldn’t agree more. [Feministe]
Gail Collins, one of two female op-ed writers for The New York Times and editor of the paper’s op-ed page, spoke with Jezebel about why women don’t advance further up the masthead in journalism and why her husband refuses to learn how to use an iron. [Jezebel]
Driven batty by Disney princesses? This blog is buggin’ on them too. [Sociological Images]
Joanne Lipman, the former editor-in-chief of the business magazine Portfolio, took to the New York Times op-ed page on Friday to lament women haven’t come nearly as far as we would have predicted 25 years ago.” Lipman wrote, “Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled. And attitudes have taken a giant leap backward.” Do you agree? [New York Times]
Check out this cool new site, The Girl Effect, which raises money for girls who live in the developing world. Scary facts? Seventy percent of the 130 million kids in the world who don’t attend school are girls and pregnancy is the leading cause of death among girls age 15 to 19 worldwide. [The Girl Effect]
Tags: feminism, todays lady news, rape, sexual assault, gang rape,
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lea322
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 04:46 pm: [report]
re: The Disney Princess: Actually, Belle and the Beast fall in love after getting to know each other over a period of time, despite the fact that she thought he was a big hairy beast, not a prince. Seems like a decent message, at least compared to the rest of them.
The other ones aren’t bad representations, though.
SouthOC
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 04:53 pm: [report]
I read about the poor girl who was gang raped at her H.S. dance on CNN. I hope they catch all of these guys and put them away for a very long time. The most shocking and tragic thing is that nobody tried to help her.
Perceptible
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 05:32 pm: [report]
Wow. Lots of info here.
Re: the gang rape story. Sickening and sad. Why can’t we have harsher punishments for rapists? Like the death penalty. Can these dregs of society really be rehabilitated? No.
Re: the feministe story on keeping your last name AND giving it to your children. Hooray! I’ve been saying this for years and catch a lot of flack for it. It’s about damn time! Don’t get me started on the name changing thing, and it’s a natural lead-in to giving the children the MOTHER’S name. It’s our body for 9 months, plus recovery. And it’s usually us that raises them after the (inevitable) divorce. And let’s get rid of the whole Mrs. Miss crap while we’re at it. Why don’t men have salutations that denote their marital status but women do? Argh!
ChoJinn
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 05:36 pm: [report]
Ahh, statistical misrepresentation: where would angry people be without it? The cited-to Unicef study says:
“At least 60,000 adolescent girls die from health problems related to pregnancy and childbirth each year. Pregnancy-related complications are the leading cause
of mortality among adolescent girls in many countries.”
whereas the referring Girl Effect “fact sheet” says
“Medical complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide.”
Um, no? So 60,000 is the number representing the number of adolescent girls killed by the leading cause of adolescent-girl death? This seems terribly low. While nobody generally argues that people dying is a bad thing (though, there are many people who definitely need to cease existing), the semantic discrepancies between the two statements illustrates how anyone, or any organization, can use sets of facts to say almost anything.
Did you know 100% of TheFrisky readers use the internet! We better do something! Who do I write a check to? Take my money! j/k
Karlene
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 08:06 pm: [report]
Now people will probably bite my head off for this but I watched that Amazing Race video and I didn’t see assault. I think what that was a stressful situation getting out of hand not assault. Did he go too far, yes. Should he have tried to push, shove or pry her hands off those bars. No. But he let her go, and he didn’t push her down the slide. What we also have to take into account is that these shows are set up to catch moment just like that one and to make them look ten times as bad as they are. I just think we need to take things like that with a grain of salt instead of jumping on the “people should of helped” and “Its just a sign of how women are…” bandwagon.
Ciao99
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 08:31 pm: [report]
The gang rape is sickening. But I’ll play devil’s advocate here. Does society give boys this age proper images and role models? Especially in the inner city. No, instead we have MTV glorifying the gangsta lifestyle on them. Add that most of these young men have no male role models. Lastly, we have civil libertarians insisting that to correct their poor social skills makes us racist or elitist. It’s a recipe for disaster.
CheeeeEEEEse
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 08:33 pm: [report]
Yay my princesses link made the presses!
Here is the followup princes picture!
http://imgur.com/6B1Ln.jpg
hannahsguy
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 09:07 pm: [report]
Re: The gang rape
I have nothing to say. This is beyond conversation. If I were in a crowd we’d all be looking at each other going “WTF???”
The 1st world is also the 3rd world.
hannahsguy
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 09:10 pm: [report]
Ciao99…any particular race in mind?
*sam*
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 09:24 pm: [report]
@ChoJinn: your statistical knowledge makes my heart flutter
impoddity
wrote on October 27 2009 @ 09:32 pm: [report]
@leea322: I saw a documentary about how kids, namely young girls, internalize the Princess messages. I remember one little girl saying how she interpreted B&B as no matter how “mean” a male interest is to you, you should just wait it out because he’ll come around.
I was in shock that a child actually came to this conclusion about a cartoon movie. It really helped me realize that what we, as adults, take for granted or find unrealistic entertainment, kids are taking as fact. I’ll have to find that docu though….
java82
wrote on October 28 2009 @ 07:23 am: [report]
RE: gang rape. It was apparently witnessed by 20 or so people. (As per CNN article I read last night.) Am really disgusted with, and sadenned by, humanity right now. :( Hope that poor young girl gets justice and any help and support she’ll require.
joyy
wrote on October 28 2009 @ 08:56 am: [report]
@impoddity - that’s scary.
gujugrlunv
wrote on October 28 2009 @ 09:50 am: [report]
Not only is it SAD that a bunch of IDIOTS sat around and watched this heinous crime being committed, now that poor girls health insurance will also be taken from her. This is our justice system at its best…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/21/insurance-companies-rape-_n_328708.html
SEXXYBUTTERFLY
wrote on October 31 2009 @ 05:20 pm: [report]
THAT IS SO SAD!! I HOPE THEY CATCH EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM!!!