Today’s Lady News: After Homecoming Dance Gang Rape, City Struggles With Blaming The Victim
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
news
5:40PM, Monday November 9th 2009
- The city of Richmond, California, is struggling to deal with the horrific gang rape of a 15-year-old girl, which allegedly had up to 20 witnesses, outside a homecoming dance. For some in Richmond, this means blaming the victim and criticizing the “snitches” who put seven of the alleged rapists in jail. [NY Times]
- A study of 13,000 high school students found girls who play team sports are less likely to smoke, be depressed, and use marijuana. Unfortunately, it also says boys who play team sports are more likely to behave violently and binge drink. [ABC News]
- Officials at a public school in Utah balked when 12-year-old Suzannah Pabla, whose father is a Sikh from India, came to school with a nose piercing. Pabla said she was trying to express her school’s cultural heritage but her school said she violated the “no piercings” dress code. [Washington Post]
- Seven of the 11 female victims found in the Cleveland backyard of convicted rapist Anthony Sowell have been identified. Families of many of the victims say that because their loved ones had drug abuse problems and criminal histories, police did not take families seriously when they went missing. [CBS News]
- New York governor David Paterson has called legislators to the state capital tomorrow to vote on a bill legalizing same-sex marriage. [New York Times]—Paterson’s push for a vote in New York comes on the heels of Maine voters overturning a same-sex marriage law last week.
- A recent poll by the Los Angeles Times and USC found a small majority of Californians support same-sex marriage. However, Californian voters also opposed putting same-sex marriage on the ballot box yet again. [L.A. Times]
INTERNATIONAL LADY NEWS
- Brazil’s Education Ministry is demanding an explanation from Bandeirante University after it kicked a 20-year-old female student out of class after offending the school’s “ethical principles, academic dignity and morality.” Her crime? Wearing a short, pink dress to class. [AP]
- A Somalian man was recently stoned to death for adultery by Islamists, and his girlfriend will likely be stoned to death as well, once she gives birth to the couple’s child. [BBC News]
- Underground women’s shelters in Iraq are helping women escape domestic violence. [Ms. Magazine via Utne Reader]
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automisterleon
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 08:01 pm: [report]
I’m glad that all the rapist in this case been sentenced to jail…but the trauma is there with the girl, she should have some therapy.
lewomack
wrote on November 9 2009 @ 08:10 pm: [report]
WHAT!?! A 16 year old girl was raped and it’s HER fault!? Some people have it ass backwards, I swear.
Alexa
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 01:27 am: [report]
@lewomack you act like that is something new. Victim blaming for rape victims has been around for eons and continues to this day.
spatula
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 08:39 am: [report]
@lewomack…read up on that case, it’s absolutely awful.
As for the Utah thing, it seems like a pretty clear case of dress code violation to me. I realize that she was trying to express her cultural heritage, but rules don’t work unless they apply to everyone. I actually don’t think they should have let her come back until she removed it.
PinkRanger
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:05 am: [report]
Interesting statistics about team sports. I can only assume it’s because of the different treatment that is usually given to female athletes and male athletes. At my highschool, male athletes were school celebrities, and female athletes were just another club. But that was just my school. I’ve heard that groups of male friends are more likely to be into binge drinking in highschool than groups of female friends in general. I would really like to read more about that…..
joyy
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 09:18 am: [report]
@PinkRanger - this also echoes the difference between how after school jobs affect teens. For girls, it’s a protective factor, for boys it’s a risk factor. My school wasn’t as bad about the celebrity/non thing, but boys’ teams were always taken more seriously, and no sport got more funding or support than our habitually defeated football team
spatula
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 11:18 am: [report]
also, can we talk about that picture of Marilyn Manson below the post? bahahahaha
lewomack
wrote on November 10 2009 @ 01:44 pm: [report]
@Alexa - The shock of reading this led me to type what first popped into my head.
As for the Brazilian student, really? I’ve seen girls on my campus who wear 10x more revealing things.
Mint
wrote on November 11 2009 @ 03:59 am: [report]
Seems like students in that school need to be educated better. Some of them are just making outrageous, ignorant, callous, evil minded remarks about the rape. I realize that teens could be insensitive, but those comments blaming the victim is just outright stupid.Their parents need to raise them better. Hate to think of these idiots growing up and being dumb-ass adults.