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Alyssa

‘Game of Thrones’ Recap: Second Sons

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 20, 2013 at 9:02 am

This post discusses plot points from the May 19 episode of Game of Thrones.

If last week’s Game of Thrones was a meditation on what makes for a good relationship between romantic and sexual partners, or between friends, this week’s episode narrows its focus to ask what makes a good friend. It’s a question that gets introduced in a conversation between Arya, who’s sulking that her attempt to run away has lead her into the custody of a man who’s on her kill list, but who she doesn’t quite have the courage to try to take out. “There’s no one worse than you, she tells the Hound as they ride towards a river so placid that it seems the war has never touched them. “You never knew my brother. He once killed a man for snoring,” the Hound tells Arya, before moving from the specific to the general. “There’s plenty worse than me. There’s men who like to beat little girls. Men who like to rape them. I saved your sister from some of them.”

“Second Sons” has many reminders that the men from that terrible day in King’s Landing aren’t alone, and the bloodlust that griped the crowd isn’t the only thing that can move men to downgrade consent. Mero, the commander of the Second Sons, the sellswords hired by the Yunkish slavers to keep Dany out of their city, immediately moves to try to make Dany feel powerless by sexualizing her. First, he tells Dany he’s sure that he had sex with her in Lys—and suggests that she’s a prostitute, not a leader of her own people. “Take your clothes off and come and sit on Mero’s lap and I may give you my Second Sons,” he tells her jovially, then asks to see her vagina as the measure of whether she’s worth switching sides to support. He sniffs at the genitals of Missendi, Dany’s translator, and warns both Dany and the younger woman that “The Second Sons share everything. Maybe after the battle, we’ll all share you. I’ll come looking for you when this is over.” Sex for someone like Mero isn’t just preferable when the woman doesn’t really have agency. It’s a way to deny women agency in the first place.

And Essos mercenaries aren’t the only people who downgrade the consent of the women they have sex with. “I’m a mistake,” Gendry reflects of his parentage on Dragonstone. “I’m only here because my father grabbed my mother instead of the next girl in the tavern.” And Robert Baratheon’s son in name if not by blood shows off his nasty streak again at Sansa Stark’s wedding to Tryion Lannister when Joffrey tells Sansa that his engagement to Margaery Tyrell hasn’t shifted his interest from Sansa, and makes clear that her marriage to Tyrion Lannister doesn’t bring her under protection meaningful enough to give Joffrey pause. “Congratulations, my Lady,” he tells her in a sickening tone. You’ve done it. You’ve married a Lannister. Soon you’ll have a Lannister baby. It’s a dream come true…It doens’t really matter which Lannister puts the baby into you. Maybe I’ll pay you a visit tonight after my uncle passes out. How’d you like that? You wouldn’t. That’s all right. Ser Meryn and Ser Boras will hold you down.”
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Security

Lawmakers Urge Obama To Bypass Congress To Confront Sexual Assault In The Military

By Hayes Brown on May 17, 2013 at 10:30 am

(Credit: AP)

The military’s sexual assault crisis has been in the headlines consistently for the past two weeks, leading two members of Congress to call on President Obama to take executive action and fix it.

Sen. John Tester (D-MT) and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) introduced the Ruth Moore Act of 2013 earlier this year to help the victims of sexual assault receive benefits once they leave the military. At present, the burden of proof for victims of rape and sexual assault to qualify for disability benefits for conditions related to their trauma, including treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, is shockingly high, leaving many men and women unable to receive the care they need. A scheduled hearing on the bill was meant to take place on Wednesday, but has instead been delayed until June 3.

Rather than waiting for the Ruth Moore Act to pass, the bill’s sponsors sent Obama a letter on Thursday calling on him to use his authority as president to act now:

We commend your willingness to work with Congress to address the prevalence of sexual assault in the military. However, given the increasing rate of these assaults and the dramatic implications they are having on our service members, veterans, and their families, we strongly urge you to take further action to confront this crisis. In particular, you have the ability to provide justice for thousands of survivors of service-related sexual trauma by calling for more fairness in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) disability claims process, and increasing their ability to access the benefits they desperately need. [...]

Our legislation continues to garner support in Congress and has been endorsed by every major veterans’ service organization. Legislation, however, is not necessary to keep faith with these veterans. In 2010, the VA relaxed evidentiary standards to make it easier for combat veterans suffering from PTSD to get the disability benefits they need. It is past time the VA make a similar regulatory change for MST survivors. And you can direct them to do so.

Sexual assault and rape culture in the military has reached a tipping point in the last two weeks, with multiple stories about officials in positions to prevent assaults being charged or investigated for sexual assault themselves. “We’re losing the confidence of the women who serve that we can solve this problem,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey said on Thursday. “That’s a crisis.”
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Health

Yale University Faces Fine For Violating Federal Law And Underreporting Sexual Assaults

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 17, 2013 at 9:20 am

A seven-year investigation into Yale University’s sexual assault policy has resulted in a $165,000 fine for the prestigious university, which failed to accurately report the number of sexual crimes on campus. Underreporting rape cases is a violation of the Clery Act, which requires colleges to disclose those crime statistics to the U.S. government.

The U.S. Department of Education first began investigating Yale in 2004, when a Yale Alumni Magazine article brought the mishandled sexual assault cases to the attention of the community. The resulting investigation verified that the university failed to report four cases of sex offenses on its campus in 2001 and 2002. Over the past several years, Yale has worked with the Department of Education to improve its reporting policies — but federal officials maintain that those efforts don’t eliminate the seriousness of the university’s past failings, or the need for some kind of punishment. Yale is being fined $27,500 for each of the unreported crimes.

“This is a serious violation because current and prospective students/employees must be able to rely on accurate and complete crime information,” Mary Gust, the director of the Department of Educations’s Administrative Actions and Appeals Service Group, said in a letter to Yale. “Yale’s correction of the crime statistics only after the department alerted the university of its obligations in 2004 does not excuse its earlier failure to comply with its legal obligations.”

The situation on Yale’s campus mirrors similar issues at other universities across the country that are continuing to grapple with rape culture. Particularly at elite institutions, administrators are often accused of sweeping sexual assault under the rug in order to maintain their school’s prestigious reputation. Amherst College, Swarthmore College, Dartmouth College, and Harvard University are just a few of the universities that have made recent headlines for allegedly creating a hostile environment for survivors of sexual assault.

Some college activists are beginning to mobilize to push for change on their campuses, and there has been some gradual progress recently. But as Yale demonstrates, that change can be painfully slow. The university is only now being fined for violations that occurred over a decade ago — and since then, students brought forth another complaint in 2011, and the rate of sexual assaults on campus soared to “historic levels” this year.

Justice

Teenagers In Adult Prisons More Likely To Be Sexually Abused By Staff, DOJ Finds

By Aviva Shen on May 16, 2013 at 4:30 pm

(Credit: Columbus Dispatch)

Teenage inmates in adult prisons endure higher rates of sexual abuse by staff members than adult inmates do, according to a new study from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Because of the vast under-reporting of such abuses, the true number is likely to be much higher.

 

While 1.8 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds in adult prisons reported being assaulted by another inmate, 3.2 percent were abused by staff. Gay and bisexual inmates were abused at even higher rates. Inmates diagnosed with serious psychological distress were also prime targets for victimization by staff members and inmates alike.

The Prison Rape Elimination Act, passed in 2003, created the first national standards to curb sexual violence in prison. Because teenagers are considered prey in adult prisons, PREA stipulated that minors should be removed from all adult jails and prisons. Ten years later, the October 2013 deadline for state and local prison facilities to certify compliance with PREA is just a few months away. Yet inmates, primarily those who are 16 and 17 years old, continue to live under constant threat of rape in adult prisons. Three-quarters of sexually victimized youth in the DOJ study reported they were abused more than once, and nearly half said staff used force to get what they wanted.

One former juvenile inmate who was raped and abused in prison explains that the horrors they experience spill over into society at large:

Placing juveniles in adult facilities has devastating consequences not only for the youth but also for the communities from which they came. Eighty percent are released before their 21st birthday, and 95 percent are released before they turn 25. They’re coming back into society indelibly marked by what they’ve experienced — either traumatized by sexual assault, or hyper-violent from having learned to fend off the threat.

Critics of PREA note that the bill has no way to enforce its standards to curb sexual assaults and is completely dependent on self-reporting by the agencies holding the prisoners. Anecdotal evidence suggests the true number of assaults is suppressed by youths who are afraid to report. It’s no wonder many choose not to report, as a 2005 DOJ study found that few prosecutors are willing to prosecute cases that cannot prove staff members threatened overt physical force to rape inmates because the penalty is so low. Staffers who are charged will often be released on low bonds or receive short sentences because their victims were inmates. Even when staffers were clearly caught sexually abusing prisoners, only about 56 percent were referred to prosecutions.

Security

Armed Forces Sexual Assault Crisis Reaches New Heights

By Hayes Brown on May 15, 2013 at 10:00 am

(Credit: Getty)

Ahead of possible major actions from the Pentagon and Congress on sexual assault in the military, the U.S. Army is forced to confront yet another instance of a member of the armed forces involved in a shocking sexual assault scandal.

In the latest incident, the Department of Defense revealed on Tuesday a sergeant first class in the U.S. Army stationed at the Ft. Hood, TX military base is under investigation for sexual assault. Along with allegedly sexually assaulting two of his peers, the the sergeant is being investigated for possibly forcing a subordinate into prostitution. Making matters even worse, the soldier under investigation was assigned as the Sexual Harassment/Assault Response and Prevention (SHARP) program coordinator for an eight-hundred person battalion stationed at the base.

The investigation draws a parallel to a case just last week in which the head of the entire Air Force’s sexual assault response program was himself charged with sexual battery in Arlington, VA. No charges have yet been filed against the individual at Ft. Hood, but Pentagon spokesman George Little issued a statement about DOD’s response to yet another alleged instance of rape culture in the military:

I cannot convey strongly enough [Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's] frustration, anger, and disappointment over these troubling allegations and the breakdown in discipline and standards they imply.

Secretary Hagel met with Army Secretary McHugh this morning and directed him to fully investigate this matter rapidly, to discover the extent of these allegations, and to ensure that all of those who might be involved are dealt with appropriately.

To address the broader concerns that have arisen out of these allegations and other recent events, Secretary Hagel is directing all the services to re-train, re-credential, and re-screen all sexual assault prevention and response personnel and military recruiters.

Lawmakers quickly lined up to add their voices to the long list of those condemning the latest outrage and sexual assault in the military writ large. “These allegations only add to the mounting evidence of the need to change our military justice system to better hold perpetrators accountable and protect survivors of sexual assault,” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said in a statement. Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) head of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement he was “outraged and disgusted” by the latest reports from Ft. Hood, pointing to his own granddaughter in the Army and the “feelings of worry and doubt” many feel when family members join the service.

Much as last week’s case came just days ahead of the Pentagon releasing its annual report on sexual assault in the armed services, Tuesday’s story broke with major implications for the military on the horizon. Wednesday is the deadline for branches of the armed services to provide their plans for how to integrate women into combat units to the Pentagon. Last year, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told reporters that the move could help reduce the number of sexual assaults in the military in the long-run as “the more we treat people equally, the more likely they are to treat each other equally.”
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Health

No, You Cannot Substitute ‘Sex’ For ‘Rape’

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 13, 2013 at 3:45 pm

(Credit: Change.org)

On Friday afternoon, the Associated Press ran a story about a young woman in Washington state who alleges that her high school’s officials failed to protect her from a 16-year-old boy who raped her on school property, and even allowed the boy to remain in the same classroom with her after her guardian reported she was being harassed by him. The school continues to deny most of her claims, and she is seeking at least $400,000 in damages.

In its headline about the story, the AP chose to characterize the encounter — which took place in a bathroom at the high school — as “restroom sex”:

The AP story goes on to note that a police investigation didn’t determine whether or not the sexual contact was consensual. The girl didn’t want to press charges; instead, she requested a court order to maintain distance between her and her alleged attacker. Regardless of the conclusion of the police investigation, however, the AP’s headline is irresponsible. Describing the alleged assault as “restroom sex” implies that the encounter was consensual, and therefore frames the AP’s entire story as if the girl’s allegations aren’t true.

Using the terms “rape” and “sexual assault” to describe acts of non-consensual sexual violence is an incredibly important journalistic distinction — particularly in light of our society’s pervasive victim-blaming rape culture that often obscures the gravity of those crimes. Across the country, victims of sexual assault are being told that they’re not telling the truth, or they’re the ones at fault for the crimes perpetrated against them, because they somehow “asked for it.” Pretending that “rape” is interchangeable with “sex” is a subtle method of furthering this attitude — especially because rape is about power, not necessarily about sex.

This isn’t the first time that mainstream media outlets have been criticized for glossing over the crime of rape by failing to choose their words carefully. During the Penn State child abuse scandal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times were criticized for writing that Jerry Sandusky had “sex” with boys. And during the Steubenville rape case, prominent media outlets furthered rape culture by painting a sympathetic portrayal of the two perpetrators — focusing on their promising football careers and the devastation wrought by the guilty verdict — while emphasizing that the victim was drunk.

(HT: Jeff Emanuel)

Security

Female Veterans Blast Military Leadership For Failing To Address Ongoing Sexual Assault Crisis

By Tara Culp-Ressler on May 12, 2013 at 10:51 am

Reps. Tulsi Gabbard and Tammy Duckworth (Credit: Politico)

On CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning, two female Iraq War veterans currently serving their first terms in Congress sharply criticized the military for its failure to address the increasing number of cases of sexual assault within its ranks.

Reps. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) — who continue to serve in their reserve unites now that they have been elected to public office — are advocating for a measure that would remove sexual assault cases from the military’s chain of command. As the two Congressmembers explained to host Candy Crowley, changing the way that the military currently handles rape cases would empower women to speak up without fear of repercussion from their commanders, as well as ensure that their complaints are handled objectively and fairly.

The Pentagon has traditionally opposed dealing with sexual assault complaints outside of the traditional chain of command. But, according to Duckworth and Gabbard, that drastic change is necessary because the military leadership has failed to adequately diffuse the victim-blaming rape culture that pervades the male-dominated armed forces:

DUCKWORTH: It’s absolutely unacceptable, Candy. I want the military to be a place where women can succeed and thrive the way I was able to. And the military leadership at this point have shown that they have not been capable of fixing this problem.

GABBARD: There are no excuses. It’s not enough just to say this is not something we’ll stand for, we’ll hold these people accountable unless you’re providing a system and process to actually do that. And I think there are two things we really need to look at. What is the core reason why this hasn’t really gotten better over the years? One being we have to make sure it’s a victim-centered response, from the moment the victim makes that report all the way through to the point where the perpetrator is prosecuted, charged, and punished. And secondly, making sure we are investigating those who are retaliating and abusing their positions of command or power.

DUCKWORTH: This issue is a power issue, it’s not a sex issue… The military, because it’s built on power and rank, has the ability to fix it based on that same tradition of power and rank. Commanders can put an end to this. And I am very, very disturbed that they have not been able to do this… We need to do something and we need to come up with a different system.

Duckworth and Gabbard agreed that the current sexual assault crisis signals that the military justice system has failed women. Ultimately, Duckworth explained, “this goes back to empowering the female service members to stand up, to know that when they speak up that they will be listened to and they will be treated fairly.”

Earlier this week, the Pentagon released a report that revealed there were an estimated 26,000 incidents of sexual assault in the military last year, as well as an alarming spike in sexual crimes that went unreported. President Obama called the rate of sexual crimes in the U.S. military “an outrage” and pledged to stand with victims of sexual assault. “I want them to hear directly from their commander in chief that I’ve got their backs. I will support them,” Obama said. “And we’re not going to tolerate this stuff and there will be accountability.”

Security

Pentagon: Estimated 26,000 Sexual Assaults In Military Last Year

By Hayes Brown on May 7, 2013 at 12:00 pm

(Credit: Service Women Action Network)

Just one day after the Air Force’s chief of sexual assault prevention was arrested for sexual assault himself, a new Pentagon report shows a sharp increase in the estimated number of assaults in the military annually.

The report from the Department of Defense’s Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office for Fiscal Year 2012 found a 6 percent rise in reported assaults over the last year, for a total of 3,374. But much more troubling is the estimated number of sexual assault incidents that were never officially reported. In last year’s report, there were an estimated 19,000 instances, but this year the number has jumped to an unprecedented 26,000 instances of assault, leaving thousands unreported.

The disparity in the total number of instances of Military Sexual Trauma (MST) compared to those fully reported — where the victim fills out an official report and action is taken — can be seen as being due to victims’ fears of retaliation, including possible discharge from service or being overlooked for a promotion. The new results line up with those seen in a 2011 Pentagon health survey released in April. According to that report, more female service members were willing to come forward about sexual abuse and assault, with roughly one in five women saying they were victims of unwanted sexual contact from another member of the military, but under reporting remains a serious issue.

“Sexual assault has no place in the United States military,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said in a statement released Monday night in reponse to news that Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski, the Air Forces’s chief of sexual assault prevention, had been arrested on charges of sexual assault. “The American people, including our service members, should expect a culture of absolutely no tolerance for this deplorable behavior that violates not only the law, but basic principles of respect, honor, and dignity in our society and its military.”

Despite that pledge, assault and abuse in the military has been under increased scrutiny in recent months, following a series of high-profile scandals. In February, Lt. Col. James Wilkerson was reinstated into service after an Air Force general overturned a jury, voiding Wilkerson’s sexual assault conviction. In 2012, Lackland Air Force base saw 12 instructors investigated for sexual misconduct toward 31 trainees, with at least one trainer sentenced to twenty years for rape and sexual assault. Army Gen. Jeffery Sinclair was likewise charged in 2012 with sexually assaulting a female subordinate, then threatening her career if she went public.
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Alyssa

‘Veronica Mars’ Television Club: National Black Velvet And Urkel

By Alyssa Rosenberg on May 6, 2013 at 5:03 pm

This post discusses episodes 13 and 14 of the first season of Veronica Mars.

“I thought being a private eye was about shooting dudes and making out with sexy widows,” Wallace teases Veronica in “Lord of the Bling,” the thirteenth episode of the first season of Veronica Mars. “The widows come later,” Veronica promises him, but these two episodes of the show are about what happens when people refuse to conform to the tropes that they’ve been assigned to. First, there’s Bryce Hamilton, the son of Percy “Bone” Hamilton, a hip-hop producer, who sets up an elaborate scheme to prove to his father that being good at science doesn’t mean he’s “soft.” And in the second, there’s Carrie, “the gossip queen of Neptune High,” who uses her acute understanding of the high school rumor mill to take the brunt of a student-teacher relationship scandal for the girl who really got pregnant, an act of courage that demonstrates how Veronica, who normally keeps her detective’s toolkit sharp and clean, succumbs to bias when her own social milieu is the subject of an investigation that rubs up against her own sore spots.

“Lord of the Bling” traffics fairly heavily in stereotypes, but it gets away with its cliches with some deft attention to the extent to which stereotypes are useful to the people that embody them and to code-switching, and by making those stereotypes the subjects of the case itself. “You know that boy could stand to get hit in the head with a dodge ball or two. Toughen him up,” sighs Percy when we first meet him, signing a waiver that will let Bryce get out of physical education so he can pursue an independent study in science. “How did a man like me end up with National Black Velvet and Urkel?” Percy’s identity, as we’ll learn throughout the episode, is a creation rather than a natural outgrowth of his personality. “He didn’t advertise the fact that much of his success was due to his comfortably upper-middle-class Jewish attorney,” Mr. Bloom tells Keith Mars. Later, Yolanda, Percy’s daughter, whose disappearance is what prompts Percy to seek Keith out to look for her, explains that she’s disgusted by the way her father treated the drive-by shooting that left Mr. Bloom using a wheelchair. “You let everyone believe you ordered it because it gave you cred,” she tells him, after running off with Mr. Bloom’s son. His wife even teases him in the opening about his insistence that Bryce isn’t tough enough. “And the street was tough and you lost a lot of homies. But this is Neptune,” she tells her husband, suggesting that Percy is clinging to a trope that may have outlived its usefulness for his family.

But clearly, Percy’s attachment to that stereotype has done real damage to Percy’s family. Bryce—though he turns out to be the architect of the ransom demand for Yolanda—is bitter that his father is resorting to a private detective, rather than calling the police, a gesture he believes is meant to protect Percy’s reputation as not cooperating with the cops, rather than to expedite the search for Yolanda. “He’s been in jail a third of my life, but I’m the embarrassment? State science fair winner three years in a row but I’m the one that’s soft,” he tells Veronica, in what turns out to be the motivation for his hoax. When Veronica and Keith catch Bryce and march him back to his father to explain, Bryce tells Percy, “You can be mad, Dad. But you can’t call me soft.”
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Security

Air Force Officer In Charge Of Sexual Assault Prevention Arrested For Sexual Assault

By Hayes Brown on May 6, 2013 at 4:05 pm

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski's booking photo (Credit: ARLnow.com)

The officer in charge of the U.S. Air Force’s response to sexual assault was himself arrested for sexual battery this weekend, drawing attention yet again to the extent of rape culture in the armed services.

Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski is accused of assaulting a woman in an Arlington, VA, parking lot early Sunday morning. According to the police report of the incident, Krusinski approached the woman in question after a night of drinking:

On May 5 at 12:35 am, a drunken male subject approached a female victim in a parking lot and grabbed her breasts and buttocks. The victim fought the suspect off as he attempted to touch her again and alerted police. Jeffrey Krusinski, 41, of Arlington, VA, was arrested and charged with sexual battery. He was held on a $5,000 unsecured bond.

Krusinski is the head of the Air Force’s branch of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Program, a Department of Defense initiative to combat sexual assault in the ranks. A spokesperson for the Air Force confirmed to local blog ARLnow.com the man described in the police report is in fact Lt. Col. Krusinski, but gave no further comment. ARLNow also confirmed that the woman and Krusinski did not know each other prior to the encounter.

The Air Force’s response to sexual violence was last scrutinized following a controversial case involving an Air Force general overturning a jury’s sexual assault conviction. That case launched a review of the military’s approach to cases involving sexual assault, resulting in Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel sending Congress a series of recommendations for them to pass into law. As it stands, however, an estimated 19,000 instances of sexual assault occurred in 2011 alone.

(HT: Graham Jenkins)

Update

Wired’s Danger Room is reporting that the Air Force has removed Lt. Col. Krusinski from his role as chief of the Sexual Assault and Prevention Response program.

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