Silence is the Enemy

Have you seen Ethan Siegel? He's the blogger behind Starts with a Bang. The guy has got a lot of hair! And he's offering to shave his head if 100 unique commenters each give at least $10 dollars or 4 hours of their time to the charity of their choice. What a great way to give people a little kick in the butt to do something good. Ethan's post reminded me that I still hadn't completed our promised giving for the Silence is the Enemy project. Alice and I promised to double the amount we were paid for clicks in the month of June. We gave half of that money to Doctors without Borders (MSF) and…
Today is the last day in the month of June, and so the last day that you can click on these awesome blogs, and have the proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders. So click once, or twice, or many many times! The IntersectionOn Becoming A Domestic And Laboratory GoddessAetiologyNeurotopiaBioephemeraThe Questionable AuthorityAdventures in Ethics and ScienceDrugMonkeyBlog Of The Moderate LeftSeattle Grassroots Examinerthe rugbyologistSciencewomen And of course, a huge thank you to the many, many blogs who helped spread this around. Sci hopes that this is just the beginning, that we will be able…
[Contributed by guest blogger, Katherine Broendel] The last time I posted, I wrote about the effects pornography and violent pornography may have on viewers' perspectives of women and sexual violence. Rather than stating an opinion, I provided a brief review of some of the studies I read as preliminary research for my thesis. On a related note, I want to explore the topic of sexually violent video games, or, rape simulation video games. A couple weeks ago, an AAUW colleague and fellow AU grad student, Mandy Toomey, wrote an interesting blog post about rape simulation video games. I have…
Have you ever bought an album and discovered a song so dark, so sad that it makes you physically uncomfortable to listen to it? What do you do then? Can you stand to hear it or do you skip the track in favor of something a little lighter? For me, the songs that twist my stomach in knots are the ones with stories of domestic violence, child abuse, or rape. And when I find one of those songs, I force myself not to delete it from my playlists and I pay attention when my iTunes shuffle pops it up. The singers recorded those songs for a reason - to tell us that terrible things are happening…
Recall that for the month of June, a group of bloggers are trying to draw attention to the horror of violence against women and girls across the globe. Along this theme, I could write about sex tourism in Mombasa (a direct result of increased regulations in Cambodia) or the conversations about legalising sex work so that sex workers can organize , or a continuation of the discussion on mass rapes in Liberia, or the case of a waitress in China who, in self-defense, stabbed a man who, prosaically, "was trying to force himself on her". (What the hell does that mean, anyway? Talk about…
[Contributed by guest blogger Katherine Broendel] Before I begin writing about what my research has found regarding the framing of sexual violence in the media, I'd like to take a moment to define some of the parameters of my research. I focused my attention on sexual violence committed against women. I recognize that approximately 10% of sexual violence victims and survivors are male, and I do not discount their experiences. However, considering the vast majority of the violence is aimed at women and girls, I chose to focus my study on women. In addition, I'd like to note that I did not…