In the late 1960's I lived in Tucson, in a dormitory on the campus of the University of Arizona. I was one of a roughly 10,000 student class that would have graduated four years after we began there.
In a sea of humanity that large, there was a lot of room for diverse opinions.
In that sea of humanity, I knew more than one young woman who was raped in my class of roughly 10,000 students. I didn't know of more than one young woman; I personally knew more than one young woman. I don't mean that I sought them out after the had been raped and got to know them. I knew these girls before they were raped. One lived on my floor. Another was in one of my classes and we'd been a table apart in lab.
Neither of those young women *deserved to be raped. Neither deserved assault and sexual penetration. Neither "provoked" anyone. The facts I know as I know the sound of my own breathing are this -- men who rape women are assaulting a symbol of something that threatens their individual image of themselves as being in control of their lives, of being competent, of being acceptable to others. Since most men needn't violate other human beings to achieve a good self image, no man need commit that kind of assault and in the same vein, no woman need submit to it and no woman ever deserves to be raped. In point of fact, insert the word "person" in there, and the rationale is not only the same, it's more widespread. But I digress (as usual).
More than 40 years later, the U of A campus still isn't all that safe for women students and there's a fundamentalist religionist student majoring in classics and religious studies who preaches that the women who get raped deserve it. He chose to foist his mindset onto the behavior and lives of others on the eve of a public awareness event meant to make the campus safer from rape for women.
Two articles have been published, back to back in the Daily Wildcat, the University of Arizona daily paper, about this git and what he's doing. Wednesday, the Wildcat reported hate speech (sermon, as well as signage) committed by a nasthy little junior at the University, when in the course one of his free speech exercises he committed verbal assault in the form of hate speech about women. He hatebombed women telling those who are raped that they deserve to be raped; in other words, he encouraged their rapes, he advocated their rapes, he approved of their rapes, even if he didn't specifically CALL for or ORDER each rape.
http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/...
http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu/...
IMO that's hate speech. It threatens violence against others. It demeans others. It encourages the violence against them. It gives the green light to violence against others.
I think the dean of students is wrong in saying that because it didn't target a specific person or threaten or call for violence against a specific person, it is protected speech.
No, Interim Dean of Students, Kendall Washington White, university Junior Dean Saxton's telling women that they deserve rape is hate speech... it is directed specifically at a group of women he expects to control (as his *right as male, i'm willing to gamble that he thinks). He doesn't like their clothing or something about them, so he says they are fair game for rape, deserve it, should expect to be raped and that their rapists are right in having at them with impunity (i.e. no penalty to anyone who sexually violates them, i.e. forces them violently with regard to sex).
He may have the right to think that, to believe that, to fantasize that, to ejaculate over that -- but he doesn't have the right to call for it where others are concerned.
I'm not thought police. I'm pissed at his actions. He can fantasize rape all he wants. he can rape women morning noon and night in his mind. What I do not think he should do is create the climate in which it is going to happen to others.
I think and dream all sorts of mayhem... real nasty and physical violence, on gits who disrespect others; however, I've never picked up a carpet knife in my life, except to trim a segment of carpet I was laying. As tempting as it would be, I won't before I die, either.
One of the things that moves me to indignation at my age is how little any real changes have been effected.