#marital rape loopholes

[rapeculturerealities]

Michigan House votes to end 'marital rape loophole' for drugged spouse

Right now, a person who drugs and rapes his or her spouse could be protected from prosecution under a controversial exemption in Michigan criminal law. But the state House of Representatives voted unanimously Tuesday to do away with this provision, ending what many have described as a "marital rape loophole."

The lower chamber voted unanimously to take away the exemption for a spouse whose victim is raped while "mentally incapacitated," which includes being drugged.

"It's important to note that while sexual assault in general is an underreported crime, this is even more pronounced in cases of marital rape," said Rep. Laurie Pohutsky, D-Livonia, who sponsored the bill.

"Sexual assaults that take place within the confines of a marriage or relationship are difficult enough to prove and disclose without our state adding another cruel obstacle."

#Michigan #Marital rape #Consent

[rf-times]

I wanna start this by start this by saying I'm not from west. I understand how imperialism is bad for us. I understand how it would affect economy and makes people poorer and obviously result in more women in poverty. I know foreign soldiers kill civilians and rape local women and military intervention is not good for women. And I completely agree with your point about racism of imperialism advocates and the west being sexist too.

but can you elaborate on how WOC facing worse sexist oppression than white women is only because imperialism?

for example percentage of abused women is considerably higher than many western countries and marital rape is legal and not counted as abuse in official stats so the real rates of male violence are even higher. how is this form of women oppression being worse here than west result of imperialism? how does non-white men beating and raping their non-white wives result of white men's intervention? I mentioned legality of marital rape and that law is based on religious law that existed for over a millennia and is not a new law installed by westerners (and even if it was our men didn't have to exploit that and use it to their advantage). not to mention some sexist cultural practices that were common in certain places but didn't exist in others. so how is this long history of misogyny in that goes back to centuries before European colonialism happened and before US was even created, result of their actions, and not the men who created the sexist traditions, religions, etc?

Marital rape was legal everywhere until about a century ago (with the Soviet Union being the first to criminalise it, I believe) and the movement to truly criminalise it not taking off much until the 60's. My country, Australia, did not criminalise it in every state until the 90's. Even now many legal loopholes exist in the west that downgrade the crime and it is rarely prosecuted, as all rapes are rarely prosecuted or reported. Every patriarchal religion justisifes marital rape and marriage being a way for men to treat women as property. If marital rape is legal in countries as diverse in culture as Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Tuvalu, China, India and Ethiopia, it is clearly not one religion or culture. My point isn't that all misogyny is caused by the west directly bringing their specific ideals, but that the difference in scale and extremity is largely influenced by imperialism and a difference in peace and economic opportunities that influence women's respective abilities to organise and the extremity of religion. If we look back to before the widespread colonialism of the past centuries, there isn't that massive disparity between how women were treated across cultures.

Likewise other laws of abuse have been similar across vastly different cultures. But even many laws based on religious extremism have indeed been influenced by imperialism. Many honour killing laws were influenced by "crimes of passion" laws brought in by French colonisers. Against White Feminism by Rafia Zakaria goes into a lot of detail regarding how imperialism has shaped religious extremism and misogynistic cultures.

#imperialism #feminism #radical feminism #culture #misogyny

[ablackwomansurvivingrape]

Consent Belongs in Marriage Too. Your marriage license does not…

This is something that should be automatic knowledge but there are still people, namely very religious people, who believe a woman waives her bodily autonomy the moment she signs that marriage certificate, I shit you not.

This is a sentiment held by the Christian majority in my country, The Bahamas, and other countries around the world and has only been changed in the 20th Century in the United States.

Rape within a marriage is still rape, men, you do not own your spouses’ bodies, I don’t care what your religion says. Here’s why.

The History and Prevalence of Marital Rape

Wikipedia states that Marital rape or spousal rape is the act of sexual intercourse with one’s spouse without the spouse’s consent. The lack of consent is an essential element and need not involve physical violence. Marital rape is considered a form of domestic violence and sexual abuse.

Although, historically, sexual intercourse within marriage was regarded as a right of spouses, engaging in the act without the spouse’s consent is now widely classified as rape by many societies around the world, repudiated by international conventions, and increasingly criminalized. — Source

In 2006, Approximately 10–14% of married women are raped by their husbands in the United States. Exactly one-third of women reported having ‘unwanted sex’ with their partner. To reiterate, historically, most rape statutes read that rape was forced sexual intercourse with a woman, not your wife, thus granting husbands a license to rape. — Source

In fact, as late as 1992 marital rape was still legal in the United States and only became illegal in 50 states in 1993.

In 20 states, the District of Columbia, and on federal lands, there are no exemptions from rape prosecution granted to husbands. However, in 30 states, there are still partial exemptions given to husbands from rape prosecution.

In most of these 30 states, a husband is exempt when he does not have to use force because his wife is most vulnerable (e.g., she is mentally or physically impaired, unconscious, asleep, etc.) and is unable to consent. Women who are raped by their husbands are likely to be raped many times — often 20 or more times.

They experience not only vaginal rape but also oral and anal rape. Researchers generally categorize marital rape into three types; force-only rape, battering rape and sadistic. — Source

Fast forward 13 years later, October 2019, Refinery29 published an article during National Domestic Violence Awareness month on marital rape. The updated statistics show 17 states still have existing loopholes for marital rape including Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington, and Wyoming.

The law exempts prosecution of spouses who rape their wives while they are incapacitated, drugged or otherwise mentally impaired or unconscious. Other facts stated in the article about marital rape show that 1 in 10 women still experience rape at the hands of their spouse. Marital rape remains 4 times more prevalent than stranger rape women are more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know.

#martial rape #rape #consent #force-only rape #battering rape #sadistic rape #multiple assaults #marital rape loopholes

[sayruq]

Aside from the gratuitous sexual violence, the sexualization of young girls, and the horrible portrayal of woc, how do you think grrm does with his portrayal of women in asoiaf?

i think he has some of the best female characters in fantasy but grrm relies on misogynistic tropes, often without examining or subverting them- the evil queen trope for example. his secondary and tertiary female characters often fall into a small number of categories and they have shallow characterisation and they impact the plot less than secondary and tertiary male characters. 

even the main female characters are restricted. grrm is willing to break the rules for male characters (bloodraven gaining so much power despite being a disabled bastard, jon becoming lord commander at 16, etc.) but female characters rarely gain the opportunity to take different roads than the ones grrm has decided for them. there’s a strong sense of ‘what if grrm fleshed this aspect of her character or fleshed out any aspect of her character? what if grrm decided to let __________ go to_________ or do________?’ the possibilities seem endless to us but not him. 

i wish he wasn’t so set on the idea that because of the patriarchy, female characters can only do a small number of things because in our world, even in the most traditional society, women break rules- yes even so called well behaved women. in order to survive in the patriarchy, women have had to find loopholes and even outrightly defy expectations. i just think it’s weird that you have so many forced marriages and only lyanna made the choice to escape. 

it comes down to grrm not doing his research. for example, joining nunneries was something many women wanted to do for centuries. in asoiaf, becoming a septa was a punishment. you would think a man who kind of understands marital rape would see why, for some women, becoming a septa would be liberating. misogyny is a pretty big deal in asoiaf so you would think grrm would read books by women explaining gender based violence but no, he met second wave feminists in the 70′s and hasn’t updated his knowledge since.

i do think grrm is better than many male authors and even some female authors but he still fucks up a lot.

#asoiaf meta #asoiaf criticism #song of ice and fire #Anonymous

[scottbcrowley2]

Some states seek to close loopholes in marital rape laws - Sat, 04 May 2019 PST

Some 350 years after rape inside marriage was declared legally impossible, efforts are underway in a handful of U.S. states to erase the last vestiges of the so-called ‘marital rape ... Some states seek to close loopholes in marital rape laws - Sat, 04 May 2019 PST

#Spokesman.com: Latest stories #Some states seek to close loopholes in marital rape laws - Sat #04 Ma

[omg-riyasharma12]

Adultery – An unpopular viewpoint

The adultery law in India defines Adultery or anextramarital affair as a criminal offence. Adultery is defined as a married man engaged in consensual sexual intercourse with another married woman. She could be any woman who is not his wife without the knowledge of his wife.

What are your opinions?

Let’s give this unpopular viewpoint a direction and see what the nation wants. Recently

extramarital affairs law

has been decriminalized by the supreme court stating that,

“Husband is not the master of the wife”

. But was this really what this country needed?

Who challenged the Law?

An Indian Businessman who lives in Italy, named Joseph Shine, petitioned the Supreme Court to eradicate the

extramarital affair law.

His argument was based on the discrimination posed by law against men by only staging them liable for extra-marital relationships or

extramarital affairs

while treating women like objects. The

adultery law in IPC

mentions that a man committing adultery “should be penalized with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to either five years, or with fine, or both.”In cases of

extramarital affairs,

the wife shall not be punishable as a partner in the act. Similarly, an unmarried woman shall not be prosecuted for adultery. According to the adultery law in India, the felony of an extramarital affair committed by a man against another man who is married. To understand better, let’s have a detailed view of the reasons behind the law.

Why is extramarital affair law Decriminalized?

Primarily, the reason behind decriminalizing the adultery law in IPC was that it invested rights only in the hands of the husband. Someone whose wife shared a consensual sexual relationship with another married man. Although the wife of such married man has no right to complain. Would we term this inequality? Or mere patriarchal law!Do you think it had to end or there was any second option? Decriminalizing the adultery laws in India was the only option? What rights does a partner have now when their spouse undergoes adultery? This article is not for expressing the grievous folly that the judgement has done but for inviting thoughts on the issue. An opinion that might be unpopular among a lot of people, but instead of decriminalizing the whole section, there could have been a better solution. Maybe, giving equal rights to the married woman to complain against her partner who commits adultery, whether with a married or unmarried woman, would have been one of the solutions.

What could be the approach?

Even that solution might have a number of loopholes, but adultery is not just a crime in the books of Indian penal code. It is a crime of emotions, a crime against the trust, it’s a crime against love, loyalty. According to me, it should not remain completely unpunished.The petitioners wanted to throw light to the following issues related to Section 497:

The petitioners look forward to making Section 497 a gender-neutral law. The law suggests punishment to man only. And no recommendations are there for a woman.

According to Section 497 the adultery law in IPC, a woman cannot complain against her husband who has committed adultery with another woman. The law has no provision for such acts but shouldn’t there be any consideration for her feelings, emotions, faith and trust?

Why it is called the Anti-woman law?

To add to it, the

adultery law in IPC

treats a woman as an object. Setting man free to involve in a sexual relationship without the knowledge or consent of his wife. As per Section 497, the act not considered a crime if the husband of the woman has no issues with the incident. Hence it has been called an anti-women law. This decision against adultery laws are considered socially progressive, which one might not deny, but punishment to such dishonesty should be inevitable under the books of law. Provide rights to both gender equality for such crimes. “A couple may part their ways if either cheat. Attaching criminality to disloyalty in marriage is going too far,” the Chief Justice said. There is no data to support claims that elimination of adultery as misconduct would result in “disorder in sexual morality” or an increase of divorce.

An expert view!

Chief Justice wrote: “How married couple deal with adultery is clearly an issue of their privacy at its peak.

Marriage

does not mean surrendering autonomy of one to the other. Ability to make bodily choices is important to human freedom. In personal and private life everyone should be able to make choices. Society imposes unbearable virtues on a woman. Raises the bar of expectations from her. Limits her to certain criteria. Portrays her to be pure. But society has no discomfort to rapes, honour killings, sex-determination and infanticide, Justice Chandrachud rebuked.Concluding my post, this is just an opinion, to raise questions, to know why decriminalizing was the only solution. Adultery is a social issue and it should not go unpunished. It is not just about sexual choices but also about emotional needs.

#AdulterylawinIPC #adulterylawsinIndia #ExtramaritalAffairs #ExtramaritalAffairsLaws

[nationaldvam]

Saturday, April 13, 2019                  

"Jenny Teeson was in the middle of a divorce when she found a video of her husband sexually assaulting her in her sleep. The discovery turned her into a leading advocate for overturning archaic laws that can make it nearly impossible to prosecute men for marital rape.

The footage appeared to have been shot two years earlier, on Jan. 1, 2015, hours after the couple had hosted a New Year’s party at their Minnesota home. It showed her husband forcibly penetrating her with an object as she slept in their bed, their 4-year-old son asleep beside her, according to a criminal complaint. She was motionless as he attacked her. She believes she had been drugged.

Ms. Teeson, now 39, told the police about the video when she found it. But under a state law known as the 'voluntary relationship defense,' some of the most serious sex crimes charges cannot be brought against an accuser’s spouse or domestic partner. Her husband ended up being charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony.

While marital rape has been a crime in all 50 states since 1993 — a milestone achieved after years of dogged campaigning by women’s rights activists — the overwhelming majority of states still have loopholes on the books that can make it difficult, or even impossible, to prosecute such cases, according to data compiled by AEquitas, a nonprofit in Washington that assists prosecutors in gender-based violence cases.

Those loopholes can take many forms, involving the statute of limitations, use of force, age or the victim’s capacity to consent. In Minnesota, sex with someone who is physically helpless, as Ms. Teeson was, cannot be prosecuted as rape if the two people are married or domestic partners.

Though she was devastated to learn of the arcane law in Minnesota, Ms. Teeson quickly threw herself into the fight to change it, meeting with lawmakers and testifying at the State Capitol.

In February, her campaign scored a major victory. A bill to repeal the voluntary relationship defense unanimously passed the state House. Lawmakers gave Ms. Teeson a standing ovation.

'It felt very powerful to be able to speak, because I’ve been silent for so long,' she said."

Read the full article here.

#VAWnet #Marital Rape #rape #women #law #rewrite law #nrc #new #news #nrcdv

[rapeculturerealities]

Jenny Teeson was in the middle of a divorce when she found a video of her husband sexually assaulting her in her sleep. The discovery turned her into a leading advocate for overturning archaic laws that can make it nearly impossible to prosecute men for marital rape.

The footage appeared to have been shot two years earlier, on Jan. 1, 2015, hours after the couple had hosted a New Year’s party at their Minnesota home. It showed her husband forcibly penetrating her with an object as she slept in their bed, their 4-year-old son asleep beside her, according to a criminal complaint. She was motionless as he attacked her. She believes she had been drugged.

Ms. Teeson, now 39, told the police about the video when she found it. But under a state law known as the “voluntary relationship defense,” some of the most serious sex crimes charges cannot be brought against an accuser’s spouse or domestic partner. Her husband ended up being charged with a misdemeanor, not a felony.

While marital rape has been a crime in all 50 states since 1993 — a milestone achieved after years of dogged campaigning by women’s rights activists — the overwhelming majority of states still have loopholes on the books that can make it difficult, or even impossible, to prosecute such cases, according to data compiled by AEquitas, a nonprofit in Washington that assists prosecutors in gender-based violence cases.

read more

#marital rape #consent #voices #Teeson #minnesota

[mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker]

Let’s debunk this shit.

First off...why should we, on the topic of Spider-Man, actually place stock by the guy who has in the past argued Sins Past is as, if not more, bad than One More Day when anyone with an ounce of knowledge of how writing craft works would realize this is abjectly false. As a story the flaws in Sins Past amount to it inserting something into the past that doesn’t fit at all. One More Day by contrast not only does this but needs to violently ignore 45 yrs of established characterization to even function and even then it fails since it needs to contradict its own narrative.

  Oh and you know MovieBob is the guy who said ‘That Spec cartoon wasn’t as good as people make it out to be. People like it more for what it could be than what it was.’...WTF was he even watching.

 But let’s dive into some more specifics of Bob’s argument.

 “OMD ‘needed’ to happen.”

 This is objectively untrue.

 Let’s give the benefit of the doubt and say what Bob meant wasn’t so much that Spider-Man needed to make a deal with the Devil but rather it was necessary to get rid of Spider-Man’s marriage.

 I can’t bring myself to do a 3000 word essay on why the latter alone is idiotic, sexist, myopic and utterly false but here is a cliffnotes version.

 There are 2 fundamental problems with Bob’s line of thinking.

 The 1st is that to end the marriage you needed to outright alter Spider-Man’s history via a soft DC style continuity reboot thus creating in a literal sense an alternate universe version of Spider-Man who’d just never been married in the first place.

 Put simply Spider-Man’s marital status could’ve been ended in universe through numerous methods that avoided that. He could’ve gotten divorced. The US government as some kind of petty revenge upon Spider-Man turning on the Registration Act could’ve legally annulled his marriage along with certain other legal aspects of his life. There could’ve been a reveal that due to a legal loophole nobody realized at the time technically speaking Peter and MJ had never been married in the first place despite believing they were.

 None of this would’ve fixed the most egregious contrivance of OMD and OMIT, that by simply never having been married magically this = Peter and MJ would break up. You still need to justify THAT separately which OMD didn’t even attempt to do. OMD in isolation erases their marriage but it doesn’t explain or justify why doing this would mean they are now no longer in a relationship. OMIT tried and miserably failed to do that because once again it required the abject ignoring of decades of established (and logical) characterization.

  But what should we expect from the guy who in another video once said Superman would be a jerk if he married Lois Lane because of the stress and dangers it’d expose her to, specifically comparing it to real life people who’s jobs offer comparable examples. ‘Superman would never put Lois Lane through that’ said Bob (though I am paraphrasing I admit.

  Why?

  If REAL people do that then why WOULDN’T Superman OR Spider-Man do so?

 It’s a line of thought which amounts to Bob saying those people shouldn’t have marital relationships. And that is gross.

 The 2nd problem with Bob’s ‘it needed to happen’ assertion is the notion that CREATIVELY it was necessary for the health of Spider-Man.

 Let’s ignore how creatively (and financially) Superman has been on the up and up since 2016 when he got his marriage BACK.

 Instead let’s consider for a moment...why?

 Why CREATIVLY does Spider-Man need to not be married to work? Why does he need to be single for his long term creative/financial health?

 There is no answer because the truth is he isn’t. Spider-Man’s love life is relevant only in so far as the series follows his life and not being asexual romance is a part of that. At which point if you are arguing for his long term creative health he needs to be able to swap out the women he’s going to be romantically/sexually involved with why then does that not also apply to literally every other character connected to every other part of his life?

 It doesn’t.

 It’s a bullshit argument born of an ignorant lack of questioning. It’s born of “Well it’s got to be this way because it’s always been this way and it’s worked that way.” Ignoring how it doesn’t and how you know...Marvel comics itself exists off the back of saying “Maybe it doesn’t have to just be this way. I don’t like that way in fact, I like the idea of trying it this other way.”

 Spider-Man being single keeps Spider-Man stunted and in a state of doomed to failure. It literally renders his love life redundant because every reader (and this applied before 1987 when he got married, but applies a thousand times more now) knows his romances will never amount to anything and that they are glorified Bond girls. And I’ll be honest the substance (such as there is) in the Bond movies NEVER lies with the Bond girls with the sole exceptions of those few movies where they tease you with the idea that he has deeper feelings for them.

 Then you have the fact that marriage as a part of most people’s lives and a responsibility is outright tailor made for the character who’s core concept is entwined around the interconnected idea of responsibility and being a (relatively) normal person. It’s not different to him graduating from High school or moving out of Aunt May’s house or getting a job.

 But let’s look at the franchise in the wake of OMD creatively and financially has it been doing better than before?

 LOL NOPE!

 In 2016 we had the Power Play arc. This arc was THE Spider-Man event of the year. It tied into the previous Spider event of 2015, Renew Your Vows by introducing the incredibly powerful villain Regent who’s powers were that he had the powers of EVERY other hero virtually and in RYV took over all of NYC following killing the X-Men and Avengers on his own. It guest starred fan favourite Miles Morales, the first substantial appearance of the character in Amazing Spider-Man since his migration into the 616 universe. It also guest starred lead character of the MCU and (then) Marvel comics poster boy Iron Man fresh from his hyped up run under Bendis, the biggest name in comics of the previous 20 years. It also teased the appearance of the newest team of Avengers, a brand that has been huge since 2012 for obvious reasons. Oh and it featured the return of another fan favourite Mary Jane who was once more being used to tease the possibility of her and Spider-Man’s romantic reunion which had been a surefire way of raising hype for a story since 2008 onwards. Oh and it was clearly a tie-in to the international blockbuster and critically acclaimed movie, Captain America: Civil War.

 And of course you had much promotion from the Marvel hype machine, Dan Slott interviews and the usual variant cover artificial sales inflation gimmick that had become common to Marvel.

 Safe to say that this story was a big, big deal and sure to sell well right?

 Well....it actually sold less than a barely promoted, run-of-the-mill ASM arc from 2005 by J. Michael Straczynski that featured in the first issue Tony Stark sitting on a chair sans armour and beyond that no guest stars....oh and there were no variant covers....and btw Spider-Man was married in it

  . ...Oh....

  But hey what about some OTHER Spider-Man stories since OMD. Haven’t THEY been creatively enriching?

 I mean we had classics like:

 The Lizard ruins the interesting humanizing aspects of his character when he becomes a cannibalistic monster who eats his own son and maybe rapes someone

 Black Cat’s characterization gets flushed down the toilet so she can be an indulgent juvenile sexual fantasy for Joe Kelly who believes Spider-Man is fundamentally a man child Black Cat’s characterization gets shot to shit again by her ripping off Catwoman by becoming a gangster, something she has never held aspiration for before and seems to want to get involved in now for no reason at all beyond being angry that Spider-Man imprisoned her and exposed her identity that wasn’t even secret in the first place

 Dan Slott who likes Doc Ock more than he likes Peter Parker decides to say screw it and make Doc Ock Spider-Man thus invalidating the entire reason he was hired, which is to write about Peter Parker. He proceeds to make Doc Ock a villain sue and cause readers to wonder if he’s this smart and this dangerous he lost so many times in the past at all? Also he tries to rape Mary Jane in issue 2 and then succeeds in maybe raping Spider-Man himself in the same issue and definitely succeeds in raping the only dwarf character in Spider-Man’s canon.

 Spider-Man becomes like Iron Man thus invalidating the entire point of his character and reasons people like to read about him.

 A mystery surrounding the Green Goblin’s identity that turns out to be the twist that he was Norman Osborn all along meaning this was a pointless mystery the whole time.

 Ben Reilly finally comes back after 20 years but doesn’t act even a little bit like the character people knew and loved causing people to wish he’d stayed dead

  Betty Brant is physically assaulted and Spider-Man tracks down the assailant but when he finds him lets him go (thus enabling him to assault other innocent women) because Aunt May guilt tripped him by saying he was a jerk at age 15 for allowing her, a 50+ year old adult and his parental guardian, to cope with Uncle Ben’s death alone on the night of his death.

  Fan favourite Mayday Parker has her character now defined by the death of her father invalidating the entire point of her character which was the ongoing relationship between herself and her Dad

  Every spider person ever fights a bunch of one note cosmic vampires across alternate niverses who are variant action figures of another one note cosmic vampire villain. The story is utterly reparative and makes Spider-Man play second fiddle to all the other characters cramming for panel time.

 I could go on but I won’t.

 To count the creative successful and enriching Slott and the post-OMD Spider-Man stories is a far easier task than to count the ones which are for the most part mediocre-God forsakenly terrible and miss the whole point of the various characters involved (most of all you know SPIDER-MAN himself!) because the latter is the norm post-OMD.

 Tellingly both volume 1 and volume 2 of Renew Your Vows a book BUILT around the concept of a married Spider-Man have (when judged appropriately given their out of continuity status) garnered perfectly respectable sales (especially in volume 1) prior to their recent time skip (an ill advised move regardless of what the series was about) and critical acclaim. And critical acclaim from people besides Marvel/Spider-Man sycophants like CBR who have vested financial interests in positively reviewing the stories.

 In fact there is a very strong argument in favour of Slott being the single most creatively damaging Spider-Man writer in history. The list of things that need to be FIXED because of his idiocy and incompetence is vast.

 Moving on to Bob’s other points:

 “Peter and MJ being together was a dumb stunt when the did it in the first place”

 If Bob had you know READ the stories leading into the wedding he’d know

 a) That relationship and marriage was being built up since 1984 albeit with the initial intention being Peter stranded at the altar.

 b) A stunt isn’t rendered invalid merely because it is a stunt. A Stunt can make sense and with the build up the wedding had this was one such example

 “The marriage generated very few decent stories that wouldn’t have worked just as well without it”

 Here is a list of a FEW decent or above stories which in some significant way make use of the Spider marriage between 1987-2007

 Kraven’s Last Hunt

 Venom

 ASM #400

 Revenge of the Green Goblin

 A Death in the Family

 ASM volume 2 #49-50

 ASM volume 2 #51-54

 Sensational Spider-Man volume 2 #32

 Sensational Spider-Man Annual 2007, the only Eisner nominated Spider-Man story ever

 Spider-Man unlimited volume 3 #2 Story 2: Making Contributions

 Eleven Angry Men and One angry Woman

 Parallel lives

 Spider-Man: the Final Adventure

 Web of Death

 Revelations the end of the Clone Saga

  Spectacular Spider-Man #241

  Spectacular Spider-Man #242-245

 ASM vol 2 #39

  Ultimate Spider-Man Anthology book: Five Minutes

  I Heart Marvel Web of Romance #1

  Spectacular Spider-Man #199-200

  Spectacular Spider-Man #250

  The Tombstone arc

  Peter Parker Spider-Man volume 2 #14

 Marvel Knights Spider-Man #1-12

  Hmmm...it’s almost like Bob sucks at mathematics and story evaluation or something. Then again he did say there was no problem with Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi so you know...I should know better.

  Oh and btw the whole ‘those would’ve worked JUST as well without the marriage’ argument is a double edged sword since there are literally less than 20 Spider-Man stories post-OMD that WOULDN’T have worked with a married Spider-Man and only one of them is good...and only if you also take entirely in isolation of Spider-Man’s wider history. Every other story with tweaks could work AS if not MORE effectively with a married Spider-Man.

  If the argument is there should be no elements in a story that do not actively contribute to it then shit....why should Spider-Man’s SINGLE status be in a book? Why should Aunt May, Jameson or shitton else be multiple stories across the decades of Spider-Man? Hell by this logic Aunt May or Betty Brant are superfluous to ASM annual #1 which inspired part of Spider-Man 2.

   “The Spider Marriage left the franchise spinning it’s wheel for a very long time.”

 This is another lie. After Peter and MJ got married there was precious little wheel spinning. Almost immediately we jumped into ongoing stories involving Betty Brant, Joe Robertson, Peter going to school again, MJ and Peter’s finances taking a hit when MJ lost her job, Jameson being impersonated by Chameleon, Black Cat dating Flash, Peter’s parents returning and THEN you got the Clone Saga FFS.

  Following that we got Norman Osborn running the Daily Bugle followed by the true wheel spinning garbage of the Mackie/Byrne run which was bad BECAUSE they axed the marriage. Following that when JMS took over his wheel spun for maybe 5 months tops? The rest of the time he reconstructed Peter and MJ and Aunt May’s characters, thrust forward with his Spider totem storyline and then began the slow build up to OMD starting with Peter becoming and Avenger.

  There were few months were NOTHING was really happening and the number of issues where that was the case owed much more to the fact that the writers needed to pad out FOUR monthly titles each month!

 “By contrast BND and Slott’s run has been good”

 By objective writing standards this is a fallacy and Bob is offering no proof to this. He just says ‘it’s been good’. Except Bob’s word isn’t proof unto itself despite how much he must like to think so.

 “Peter and MJ are more interesting now”

  This is the proof Bob is not a...I don’t want to say he isn’t true fan. I rarely use that term. It’s more that he...isn’t an informed fan.

 Anyone who knows any legit shit about Spider-Man could tell you Spider-Man is far from more interesting now than he was prior to BND.

  Pre-OMD Spider-Man was the sum of 45 years of experiences. A 30ish average guy who’d been through Hell and a lot of battles and survived them and coped with that pain. He was a competent hero and a flawed human being who was just trying to look out for the little guy and take care of his family.

  MJ meanwhile was a woman who’d also lived through Hell but demonstrated sheer steel by surviving it in spite of having no powers to fall back on. She’d gone from a carefree party animal who was seemingly selfish, to a hero in her own right who had an endless well of inner strength.

  In contrast post-OMD Peter Parker is a man-child fuck up who illegally invades foreign nations with his giant G.I. Joe action figures whilst often playing second fiddle in his own fucking book to whatever guest stars want to steal the limelight. And he’s not believable anymore. He isn’t a grounded guy who copes with the shit thrown at him. He’s the guy who just shrugs off being killed, having his body stolen and his life upended by his enemy and then losing a year of his life.

  That isn’t more interesting unless you are arguing being a Saturday morning cartoon character is inherently more interesting than being....welll actually inherently more interesting than being a certain character Stan Lee and Steve Ditko invented in 1962.

  Which Bob plainly isn’t arguing because he’s also listing MJ as ‘more interesting’....how?

  MJ isn’t even IN the book regularly any more so HOW could she be more interesting. Worse when she WAS in the book she had 2 roles. Ship tease the fans by being Peter’s friend and confidant (i.e. something she used to do BEFORE BND) or being a blind idiot in Superior which is NOT more interesting.

 So what the fuck is he talking about?

 I don’t know WHAT he’s talking about. But when you make a statement like: ‘on balance this story that eviscerated and betrayed everything about who Spider-Man is and invalidates his motivation from now on because he sold out in the biggest way possible, was on balance worth it because we got t see Doc Ock as Spider-Man try to rape people’ I certainly from WHERE he is talking from.

  And the sun don’t shine there son.

#moviebob #bob chipman #Spider-Man #peter Parker #One More Day #Brand New Day #MJ Watson #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker

[rf-times]

I agree that a country having anti-misogyny laws doesn't mean cultural misogyny is non-existence and a lot of things are technically illegal but rarely punished by law (like rape).

but I'm from a third world country and It can't be denied that misogyny is worse in a lot of aspects. legal misogyny that exists here (like marital rape being legal) doesn't exist in more progressive countries. or for example the rate of domestic violence is nearly twice the rate of DV in US.

So if saying our culture is more accepting of misogyny is wrong and saying our men are more misogynistic is considered racist and wrong (even though these men are the ones hurting non-western women), what exactly is the reason that situation of women in non-western countries is worse than western women?

I'm not saying we're not allowed to criticise misogyny in all cultures (and understanding how different cultures perpetuate misogyny) or that it's racist to do so. I'm arguing against the idea that it is specifically western culture and values that facilitate women's rights.

Virtually every culture in the world today is misogynistic, every culture expects women to put their families, cultural values and communities above themselves. Feminists have always had to actively fight against their own cultures or adapt/dilute their arguments to suit their culture or both.

Western feminists have had success in getting various legal rights due to a variety of factors, but it has never been because western culture is just inherently enlightened and feminist. Many of the rights women have won have been as a result of women using legal loopholes (i.e. finding ways that these laws could technically affect men/a different issue to women’s rights and arguing on the basis of this. Roe v. Wade wasn’t about women’s inherent right to make choices about their bodies, it was about patient confidentiality, the right to open a bank account as an unmarried woman came about because a clause was snuck into an anti-discrimination bill) or at worst directly appealing to misogynistic white supremacist values (many of my country’s early feminists argued they should be given rights as ‘white mothers’ as their role would be to birth a white Australia while advocating for sterilisation and stealing children from Indigenous women).

There is no possible way for the west to be considered a neutral basis of comparison for us to measure cultures against to see who is the closest to female liberation by seeing who is the closest to the west, because the west is not neutrally feminist and is not neutral in its effect on other cultures. Colonialism is one of if not the most damaging institution of male supremacy, its harm done to women and women’s liberation around the world cannot be understated, both in direct harm to women and then long term impact on women’s ability to organise. The rape, genocide, stolen land, institutional abuse, political instability, famine, murder and torture the west has caused is very relevant to feminism and must be addressed in our analysis.

I’m not saying we can’t criticise cultures and religions and their misogyny, I’m saying we shouldn’t be criticising them for not being western and implying that if western culture and values were just to be spread then women would be liberated everywhere: that shit is just “White Man’s Burden” 2.0

[kdemarino772]

Book Review- From Rhetoric to Reality: The policy and practice of women's rights in Italy (Montoya-Kirk, 2005)

Source: Andrew Medichini | AP

Italy is best known for its beautiful architecture, scenery, food, and wines. The country is also known to have a strong connection with the Vatican, making its societal norms more traditional than the rest of Europe. One conservative value many Italians share with the Catholic Church and the Pope is the traditional role of women as domestic workers, the denial of abortion and contraceptives, and turning a blind eye to violence against women. Celeste Montoya-Kirk, a political science and gender studies professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, has taken it upon herself to analyze the women’s rights legislations of Italy compared to western Europe and internationally. Here, we find that even though Italy’s women’s rights policies are exemplary compared to the rest of the world, the implementation of said policies has tarnished Italy’s status as the most progressive in women’s reproductive rights. Montoya-Kirk has written a handful of texts consisting of women’s rights, feminism, and how certain countries compared to the rest of the world in terms of women’s rights policies, making her an ideal scholar to analyze such a topic. The text is named ‘From rhetoric to reality: The policy and practice of women’s rights in Italy,’ published in 2005. The text is a dissertation written in a book form, with six chapters.

                  There are three main themes of this dissertation. The first theme is that the author argues that the formation and creation of women’s rights policies are not a good measure of improved gendered discrimination and women’s rights because these policies are being created for other reasons, not to see the improvement in women’s rights. For example, many countries, including Italy, have passed women’s rights policies so that they are conforming to the global norms found in other countries. Another major theme in this book is women’s rights policy legislation. Women’s rights legislation in Italy is, as Montoya-Kirk puts it, exemplary compared to the rest of Western Europe. Italy has passed anti-discrimination laws, as well as positive action policies and reconciliation provisions (Montoya-Kirk, 2005). Reproductive rights policies allow for the creation of state-provided family planning counseling, free contraceptives, and free abortions for several reasons. Violence against women in Italy has become more comprehensive in terms of domestic abuse, sexual assault, sex trafficking, and marital rape policies. Italy has become relatively progressive in terms of women’s rights policies, especially with the Catholic Church’s heavy influence on the government and society. The third theme of this reading is that even though Italy has passed progressive women’s rights policies, the implementation process of these policies is not exemplary. The implementation of these policies is deemed “inconsistent and problematic,” (Montoya-Kirk, 2005). For example, Law 903 was passed in December of 1977. The law was named “Equal Treatment for Men and Women as Regards Employment.” This legislation put Italy in compliance with the European Union’s Equal Pay and Equal Treatment Directives. This is a prime example of a country creating a women’s rights policy due to global norms- not because they want to see change. This act prohibits any discriminatory acts because of a person’s sex, marital status, and pregnancy. Though this law was a good starting point for equality in the workplace, the law is “vaguely written and provides loopholes for interpretation,” (Collins, 1992). The themes of this article are that the creation of women’s rights policies does not always mean society has completely fixed gender discrimination, even if the country- like Italy- has exemplary policies.

The dissertation developed its theory and arguments in a unique way. She begins by defining women’s rights and feminism. She then begins to explain the framework for women’s rights policy, including how social norms frame women’s rights. Montoya-Kirk also introduces her data and sources before starting her in-depth analysis of Italian women’s rights and policies. Once she has defined and explained how she framed her work, she begins a cycle of history behind each women’s rights issue (employment rights, abortion/contraceptive, and violence against women), the types of different policies for each women’s rights issue, how the international, European, and Italian sphere deals with the women’s reproductive rights agenda, and finally what policies Italy has implemented to better employment rights for women, abortion and sex education, and violence against women. Each chapter in the book looks at one specific women’s rights issue and continues the cycle explained above at the start of each chapter, using other scholars and other data to verify and justify her claims. 

This text helps us understand how social norms affect social and public policies. Italy has close connections with the Vatican, which tends to have very conservative views on women’s rights like abortion and contraceptives. The Catholic Church, along with Christianity and Islam, believes sexual intercourse should only be between a married couple- specifically heterosexual couples. On top of this idea, the Church also argues there should be no use of physical contraceptives during sex. Abortion was written in the first penal code of the Italian Republic as murder, which took after the Catholic Church’s view as abortion is murder. On top of this, Italy has created state-run family planning centers that can provide safe and free abortions, as well as contraceptives. However, there are limitations to abortion. Abortion is only legal for the first trimester of pregnancy. After the first trimester, the only reason a woman can get an abortion is if she is at serious risk physically or mentally. The woman must submit a request for an abortion to the state-run family center or go to a primary care physician. 7 out of 10 primary care physicians and gynecologists in Italy refuse to perform abortions, which is an issue when there are only 3,000 state-run family centers in Italy (NBC, 2016). The close bond of Italian citizens, government, and the Vatican cause the societal morals of Italy to take over instead of the public health of pregnant women. Italian culture also heavily emphasizes family, with the mother at the center of it. Women in Italian culture are seen as maternal and need to be protected. They are valued as homemakers, not as a worker.

Another reason this text is important is this text helps us understand the effects political parties in power have on policies involving women’s rights. For example, during the Olive Branch Coalition, led by Romano Prodi, there were massive amounts of change and progress for the women’s rights movement. For example, more women were elected to office, women were put in charge of important ministries like the Home Office, Health and Social Affairs, and the Minister of Equal Opportunities. Then, when Italy rescinded back to Berlusconi’s leadership, there was a decrease in progress for this movement. Berlusconi disbanded the National Commission for Equality and Equal Opportunities, which was a major committee dedicated to spreading awareness of inequality in the workplace. The dissertation helps to show how social norms, political parties, and Italian culture affect social and public policies.

I do believe this book achieves its goal of finding out if progressive women’s rights policies showcase improve gender discrimination and women’s reproductive rights. Though Italy has some of the most progressive women’s rights policies in Western Europe, the country has not been able to implement the policies effectively. This failure to implement has caused Italy to fall behind in terms of gender policies in the rest of Europe.

I believe the book adds value to understanding important issues. Societal norms play a massive role in how society views a certain social/public policy or issue. Due to the largely Catholic, patriarchal society Italy has, many Italians believe that women’s rights issues are not a prominent or urgent issue to fix. Abortion is one of the most controversial women’s rights issues in terms of these social norms, as the Catholic Church and its active followers argue that an embryo is a human soul that needs to be protected by the evils of abortion. Another way this book adds value to these issues is using comparing Italy to other European countries and European Union policies. The comparison of these countries to Italy helps portray Italy as exemplary in the creation of women’s rights legislation but also portrays Italy as a poor implementer of these legislations. Finally, another important issue this book helps add value to is the length of time Italian women, and women in other countries as well, have been advocating for their rights. The first feminist wave was in the late 1800s, with the second and much more aggressive wave in the 1970s. During the 1970s, women across the world advocated for their right to equality, their right of choice, and their right to not be discriminated against. To this day, nearly 130 years later, Italian women and other women have been fighting to get the same pay wage as their male counterparts, to be seen as equal to their male counterparts, and for their right to choose what they can do with their body or how they want to parent (or even have) their kids.

The strength of this book is how well organized and in-depth the book is written. With sections clearly labeled with titles that provide a brief overview of the section, it is easy to understand and interpret what is being analyzed. The depth of this book is, I argue, its greatest strength. The author not only looks at Italy’s women’s rights legislation, organizations, and politicians, but also investigates the European Union’s women’s rights legislation as well as international women’s rights legislation so the reader can fully grasp just how exemplary Italy’s women’s rights legislations are. Also, the breakdown of each type of approach to women’s rights issues and definitions of each helps the reader fully understand what exactly feminism, abortion, women’s rights, violence against women, and employment in the workplace truly are.

The weakness of this book is that it gets repetitive in terms of how it's organized. The need for defining each women’s rights issue the author talks about, the approaches she is going to take in analyzing it, and the repetitive use of the same scholars make it hard to stay focused on the reading. 

This book was well-crafted and impactful. Like I said above, the way it is organized is very helpful and well-crafted- even if it is repetitive. This book was impactful as it gave me more positive insight into Italy’s politics and society than the populist leaders of Italy have shown me. The fact that Italy is one of the most progressive in women’s rights legislation was a breath of fresh air compared to the constant corruption, crimes, and racism seen by populist leaders like Matteo Salvini and Silvio Berlusconi. 

Overall, this book was well written, well defined, and analyzed crucial parts of Italy’s women’s rights policies and movements. The use of European Union policies to demonstrate how Italy is considered progressive compared to other countries in the EU and the comparison of different political parties and their effect on women’s rights legislation helps to better understand Italy, its societal norms, political differences, and religious background.

­

[aculturalphenomenon]

This article discusses a story about a woman who could not file rape charges against her husband for threatening to rape her because marital rape isn't illegal in India. Statistics show that about 30% of Indian women aged 18-49 reported having experienced spousal violence. The average Indian woman is 17 times more likely to face spousal sexual violence than anyone else.

These statistics make me sick. Just because a husband might be "closer" to his wife than a stranger or a friend, it does not believe he is not capable of taking advantage of her. This makes me believe that if a man is crazy enough, he would marry a woman just to rape her legally to avoid repercussions.

I think having this law is only detrimental to everyone involved. It doesn't make the women safe and it teaches the men nothing.

#women #india #indian women #women's rights #marriage laws

[wesconsortiumcanadainc]

Marital Rape Is Criminalized But Not Upheld

Marital Rape Is Criminalized But Not Upheld

Source: Photo by kat wilcox from Pexels Marital rape is more prevalent than we know even though it has been criminalized by every state since 1993, owing to the on-going efforts of women’s rights groups. However, in many states, there are legal loopholes pertaining to sexual assault laws that leave married women unprotected from forcible rape by their spouse. One such loophole is a woman raped…

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[thefeministherald]

It's worth reading all of this

It was referred to by some as a rapist's "right to finish" and it never should have been the law in North Carolina for a day, let alone for 40 years. But Thursday, the state finally did away with that unbelievably regressive loophole in its sexual assault law, which said a person could not legally withdraw their consent for sex once it's underway — even if the other person turned violent and abusive.

Such loopholes were not abstract legal points: Men were acquitted, had their charges reduced or were never brought to court because the courts recognized their "rights" rather than those of the person saying no.

I spoke directly with women whose allegations match all three of those scenarios.

One of them is Aaliyah Palmer, 21, who for years had been explaining to the media and the justice system how she'd agreed to have sex with a man she met at a party, but asked him to stop after he became violent during the act, even tearing out chunks of her hair. He didn't.

She thought it was "common sense" that what happened to her was illegal. But upon immediately reporting it to police, she discovered the incident wasn't considered rape in North Carolina since she had initially consented to having sex. It didn't matter that all of it — his violence, her withdrawal of consent, her distress — was reportedly captured on video by a group of men outside the bathroom where the assault occurred.

The law made an outlier of North Carolina — which was also the last state in the country to outlaw marital rape in 1993. And it wasn't the only absurdly evil consent loophole that had remained on the book until last week: Another held that it was perfectly permissible to have sex with an incapacitated person, if that person can be said to be responsible for their own state of incapacitation.

The loopholes were created through court rulings, and not through legislation — but the Legislature was slow to close them. The so-called "right to finish" had been around since 1979, and the incapacitation law since 2008.

They hadn't persisted due to inertia, however. State Sen. Jeff Jackson introduced legislation to end the loopholes four times over several years before something finally passed Oct. 31. No lawmakers ever admitted to supporting the "right to finish," but time after time, his bills would not be brought up for a vote or language to close the loopholes would quietly be stripped from bills in which it had been included.

Behind the scenes, the consensus is that resistance to change came from the evangelical community, which has a strong hold on North Carolina's politics. An evangelical pastor I spoke to in the state, who asked not to be named, told me that it wouldn't shock him to learn that religious conservatives were simply supporting the perceived party line.

But the larger reason he believes the loopholes persisted was because of a hesitation within the faith community to talk about the reality of consent because "it's during a sex act. If you repress that and call it something secret and shameful, to talk about it with any kind of specificity is just kind of taboo."

But survivors kept talking about it. And advocates kept channeling their voices. And the media kept collecting and amplifying them. "If it weren't for those stories, this would not have passed. Full stop," Jackson said. "It was not an inside-the-building strategy that prevailed. It was an outside-the-building strategy."

"We've really had to do a lot of education," Skye David, a staff attorney for the North Carolina Coalition Against Sexual Assault, told me. "Especially when you're talking about an older generation of lawmakers, nobody wants to talk about it," she added.

North Carolina's consent rules became a national news story in 2017, after a piece in The Fayetteville Observer went viral. But it was less the attention from national media or social media fire that moved the story forward than local reporting and reporters, who banded together to form a statewide media collaboration investigating the state's abysmal record on sexual assault and uncovering shocking statistics, such as the fact that in 33 of the state's counties there had been no rape convictions at all in the last four years.

At a time when so much of the national conversation around consent revolves around whether it's worth it for women to come forward, the legal victory — powered by the women of North Carolina and lifted up by local media — presents a compelling case in the affirmative.

One woman I interviewed said that when her drunken ex-husband showed up at her apartment demanding sex, she initially consented because she feared for her safety — which is technically coercion. Thanks to the loophole, his second-degree rape charge was reduced to a misdemeanor assault, and he served just 10 months in jail.

Another woman I spoke to, Jasmine Madjlessi, got her ex-boyfriend dismissed from their college for his alleged nonconsensual violent sex acts, but when she went to police about it, she said she was told what happened to her couldn't be prosecuted because she'd consented to being with him in the first place, and continued dating him.

"One of the things we heard was, 'I don't think this is a real thing that is happening,'" said the NCCASA's David about her organization's decades-long fight to eliminate the loopholes. "I know that's not true and now these legislators know that's not true too, because they heard personal stories."

This sort of storytelling has a long history in feminist circles, from the socialist-feminist demonstrators of the 1960s who told the world about their abortions, and in doing so helped pave the way to legal abortion, to the women stepping forward now as part of the #MeToo movement. And now, the women of North Carolina have made history by telling the stories that only they could — and which hopefully the women after them will never have to tell again.

#feminism #feminist #metoo #sexism #time's up #politics #women #consent #north carolina