article on young women, club culture and rape has the feminist blog world hopping mad." />
Feminist Blogs Respond to Club Culture and Rape Article
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"Underage Women Sidle Up to Barroom Risks," originally published in Women's eNews and reposted on AlterNet as "How Bars Exploit Underage Women as Commodities" is being criticized by the feminist blogosphere for citing dubious "experts," shaming women for commonplace socializing, and for implying that young "scantily clad" women get what they ask for.
Below is an edited selection of responses from the feminist blogs. (Full disclosure: Liz Funk, the article author, wrote a less-than-favorable Huffington Post piece about me and my blog late last year.)
Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon responds:
Please, god, let people stop getting enamored of the idea that the most important battle of all time for gender equality has got to be getting rid of the small perks of being female in the club scene. Yes, yes, it's true that ladies' night is discrimination against men, but for some reason anyone who complains about it doesn't want to hear my solution, which is that women pay 76% of the price men pay on every item until pay equity is reached. This fair solution that addresses all horrible injustices, from ladies night to actual injustices, just doesn't seem to be a marketable idea for some reason.
I bring this up because Liz Funk has stepped in it again with her latest article bemoaning the fact that because men basically run the nightclubs and women are desired to be seen in them, women get a secondary power of being able to manipulate male power for small favors. You know, like those horribly unjust 25 cent well drinks. To make this entire situation worse, Funk quotes Gary Miller in the story, who is mainly an expert in being a douchebag, as we learned when he got into a big war with Jill at Feministe and the fine folks at Gawker, who didn't appreciate his bizarre fantasy-masquerading-as-editorial of legions of club sluts crying into their hangover coffee because they keep getting the fuck-and-run. From this bizarre fantasy, so you know I'm not joking:
You just dance. Then you meet a guy, he buys you drinks, you go home with him, then you wait by your phone the whole next week; but he doesn't call until he's really drunk at 3 a.m. the following Saturday. So you analyze every detail of your encounter with your friends. You start to think maybe he's just busy. But really, you're just the slut from last week.Women think every guy they have a one night stand with wants to marry them. Gary knows, because he saw it on the teevee. And the teevee will never lie to you about how people really act in order to reinforce stereotypes, now would it?
"Bar and club owners definitely exploit women," said Miller, who wrote an article in November headlined "Girls exchange dignity for attention in trendy clubs" in the Washington Square News, New York University's student newspaper. "Women become a commodity of the establishment that owners use to draw male patrons in. I think the reason most men go to bars and clubs is to find women. This is why they'll pay a cover charge while women get in free; they're paying for the women inside. Bar and club owners know this. They know the success and appeal of their establishment depends on the quantity and attractiveness of the girls inside."There are two major problems here, apparently:
Over 70,000 alcohol-related date rapes a year are committed among students aged 18 to 24, according to "Reducing Underage Drinking: A Collective Responsibility," a 2004 report from the National Academies. The report also finds that 29 percent of those between 15 and 17, and 37 percent of those between 18 and 24, said that alcohol or drugs influenced their decision to do something sexual.
Two months after Jennifer Moore's murder, the speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn, promised the participation of the City Council, nightclub owners and police officers, among others, to make "sure that New York City has the most exciting -- and safest -- nightlife in the world." They hope to have legislative plans in place by next year.
Some grassroots initiatives try to help women out on the town get home safely.
In New York, for instance, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit called Right Rides provides free car service for women on Saturday nights who don't feel safe taking the subway and don't have alternative means of transportation.
But even with laws and initiatives and special public precautions in place, Quinn acknowledged that young people "who go out at night remain at risk until they get back home."On this thread the other day, it was repeatedly mentioned how anti-rape discussions tend to fall into victim-blaming, and the people who have the real power to stop rape--men who rape--are rarely mentioned as a target group for actually curtailing rape. Problem is that telling women to give up freedoms in order to stop rape is just more oppression of women. Liz clutches her pearls earlier in the article in shock that underage women have more access to alcohol than underage men where clubs are a little more lenient, but then she plays coy when she says that drinking is a factor in rape by just using the words "people" and "alcohol-related". This weaseling is important to make this article come together, because the truth is that alcohol is a factor not just if the victim had some, but if the rapist did.
"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it … whose fault is it, the cats or the uncovered meat?"
"The uncovered meat is the problem."The sheik then said:
"If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."I doubt very seriously that Liz Funk or Gary Miller or the editors at Women's eNews think that it's appropriate to tell women that rape is their fault if they don't wear a hijab, so why do they think it's appropriate to lay the same guilt on women for wearing a miniskirt to the club?
Dear Rita Henley Jensen,
As a long time reader of Women's eNews, I was deeply disappointed to read "Underage Women Sidle Up to Barroom Risks" by Liz Funk, an article that seemed to serve no other purpose than to fuss over young women having the audacity to go out and have fun dancing and drinking in the clubs as if they were, shocker, young women. The article went from merely irritating and disappointing to outrageous, though, when Funk finished the article by implying that the cause of date rape is women behaving like this. Since when is it feminist to blame rape victims for being too seductive or free in their movements? Rape is caused by rapists, end of story. If you're interested in chastising someone for partying behavior that leads to rape, save your vitriol for young men who drink and use that as an excuse to commit rape. Feminism is about more, not less freedom for women. Shame on you for engaging in the ancient tradition of blaming the victim for rape.Dr. Violet Socks writes: Number One Cause of Rape: Rapists
"Bar and club owners definitely exploit women," said Miller, who wrote an article in November headlined "Girls exchange dignity for attention in trendy clubs" in the Washington Square News, New York University's student newspaper. "Women become a commodity of the establishment that owners use to draw male patrons in. I think the reason most men go to bars and clubs is to find women. This is why they'll pay a cover charge while women get in free; they're paying for the women inside. Bar and club owners know this. They know the success and appeal of their establishment depends on the quantity and attractiveness of the girls inside."Miller dresses his lament up in feminist blue-jeans and comfy shoes, but we know the score. In the article Funk references, Miller insists that "girls" go to clubs just to dance (and implies that they're looking for a husband), "guys" go to clubs to get laid. Thank you for telling me about my sexuality and desires, Gary. It's so nice when a young pissant lecutures me, 'cause "girls" never just want to get laid, and guys never want to go out and dance (and they aren't being had by the nightclubs as so much tempting meat either--I mean, all that eye-candy AND willing to spring for drinks):
You just dance. Then you meet a guy, he buys you drinks, you go home with him, then you wait by your phone the whole next week; but he doesn't call until he's really drunk at 3 a.m. the following Saturday. So you analyze every detail of your encounter with your friends. You start to think maybe he's just busy. But really, you're just the slut from last week.And Mr. Miller knows this. . .how? Cause his cousin's best friend's sister had this experience? Or "lots of girls" do? Or what? I mean, it's not as if people go to clubs to hang out and dance. We all know that men are genetically engineered to hate dancing and women never think about sex, it's all about the ring. Just ask Steven Pinker.
See, the club is like a discount brothel. A guy pays a $20 cover charge, plus drinks, plus labor, to convince a girl to go home with him, instead of paying $200 up front for sex. It's a lewd circus, and you girls are oblivious. I just try to see it for what it is. So, keep donating your bodies to the profit of "the club," and keep parading around with your air of VIP prestige. Just remember that it goes hand in hand with a lack of dignity and self-awareness. Have a great four-day weekend.Let's turn it on its head: See, the club is like a free brothel for women. A "girl" pays next-to-nothing for cover and drinks, gets guys to buy her drinks, gets guys to beg her to go home with him, and gets to have sex without having to pick his socks up off the floor and listen to him yelp with his friends over the football game the next day. Why buy the bull when you can get the rodeo ride for free, after all? It's a lewd circus, and you boys are oblivious. So keep donating your cash and your bodies to the profit of the club, and keep parading around with your air of he-man machismo. Just remember that it goes hand-in-hand with a lack of dignity and self-awareness.
While there are no statistics or national studies about the incidence of bars breaking laws and doing what they can to attract young and underage women, Gary Miller, a senior at New York University, said it's an open secret. The secret burst into the new York City headlines, however, in July 2006. In a second homicide that summer in the city involving a young woman who had been drinking to excess, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore left one of the city's most exclusive lounges intoxicated. Walking alone in the early morning hours along the city's West Side Highway, she was abducted and raped. Two days later she was found disemboweled in a dumpster in Weehawken, N.J.She should have known better! If she'd just stayed at home like a good girl, this never would have happened. Of course home can be dangerous, too. As can friends/boyfriends. More dangerous, in fact, than being out alone at night:
Contrary to the belief that rapists are hiding in the bushes or in the shadows of the parking garage, almost two-thirds of all rapes were committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger - 38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative.Maybe Funk should read this hair-raising account of a rape and inform us how abstaining from clubs, dancing, and alcohol would have helped this woman. A woman who was forcibly sodomized by her boyfriend, then hectored and lectured by his friends and family during her hospital stay. He felt so very sowwy! He was on suicide watch! It was her duty to forgive him even though she had told him several times that anal was a deal breaker for her. Instead of respecting this, he forced the issue and raped her. But it's okay, because he's sowwy and he feels terrible. And it's all about him and how he feels, you see.
In a second homicide that summer in the city involving a young woman who had been drinking to excess, 18-year-old Jennifer Moore left one of the city's most exclusive lounges intoxicated. Walking alone in the early morning hours along the city's West Side Highway, she was abducted and raped. Two days later she was found disemboweled in a dumpster in Weehawken, N.J.She was abducted and raped and she was found disemboweled in a dumpster, all because she had been drinking to excess and was walking alone while intoxicated. No trace of the person who actually abducted, raped, and murdered her anywhere. He is absent while his crime haunts the article like an menacing specter. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you're going to write an article about minimizing the "barroom risk" of assault against women, perhaps you ought to consider actually discussing the assaulters, too.
But even with laws and initiatives and special public precautions in place, Quinn acknowledged that young people "who go out at night remain at risk until they get back home."If she had done some very basic research, she would have discovered that home is often more dangerous than being out at a bar...
See more stories tagged with: feminism, rape
Jessica Valenti is the executive editor of Feministing.
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