Soapparently at Wizard World, someone grabbed and force-kissed Chris Evans. This is generally not okay as a rule, but Chris apparently has some social anxiety and this really bothered him. He apparently had to stop and run back stage to calm down. (And the rest of the Avengers cast at Wizard World stopped to go back and check on him. Aww…)
I think the Chris Evans fanbase should officially condemn this. Very vocally. Because IF this is okay, then they’ll have to raise security and do less shows. It ruins everything for everyone.
I hope the fallout of this is that Chris instead finds out how much his fans care about him and will defend him. He should feel safe around his fans, shouldn’t he?
If a guy had done this to a female actress, it would have been just as deplorable.
Call it what it is. It’s sexual harassment/assault.
Female fans need to understand that it’s disgusting and rude to shout sexual obscenities, and inappropriately physically interact with their favorite stars.
IDK what it is about the hype of being in fandom spaces offline that makes people more likely to act manically when they’re around fellow fans or even the actors/creators/contributors to their fandom
They’re people too. Being treated this way affects them too, just like it does to us. The same way that a strange man catcalling us or putting his hands, lips, or any other body parts on us would make us feel.
That’s what happened to Chris Evans. And what probably happens to other male stars like musicians, other actors, and even cosplayers.
It is not okay, and it’s disgusting. Men can be sexually assaulted by women too. Don’t be one of the disgusting women to do that.
Support for victims should be universal!
While I support the message about not being an abusive asshole at cons, it should be noted that this story is fake.
For a long time, Joanna Espinosa struggled to make sense of it all.
Yes, he was her boyfriend. No, he hadn’t pinned her down, or threatened violence. But Espinosa insists that he coerced her, psychologically and physically, into having sex against her will for most of their three-year relationship. She resisted, told him no, pushed him away. More often than not, he persisted and she gave in “just to get it over with,” she says.
“I knew that it was sexual assault, but at the time, I felt extreme shame and was not ready nor willing to fully accept what was happening,” said Espinosa, 24. “Like most unpleasant truths, I buried it until the end of my relationship, when I realized I was holding onto a relationship with a man who was abusive.”
The relationship came to an end in February 2013. The next month, Espinosa filed a sexual harassment claim against her former boyfriend with her school, the University of Texas-Pan American, where some of the incidents occurred.
She says she went to the school first because she thought that without concrete evidence law enforcement would not take her seriously – a common experience among people who report rape to law enforcement, experts say. Besides, she knew that colleges and universities are federally mandated to investigate sexual violence under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that guarantees students the right to an education free of sexual violence, which is considered a form of discrimination.
Indeed, when she went to the city of Edinburg Police Department a few days later, she says they told her that her case would be difficult to prove and took her phone number. She never heard back from them, she says.
Her experience with UTPA administrators was no better, she says. At various stages of the investigation, they questioned why she did not come forward sooner with the abuse claims, suggesting she was acting out as a spiteful ex-girlfriend. In one meeting, she says, administrators asked whether their relationship was “Facebook official” or whether there was a “promise of marriage.”
It took five months for school administrators to reach the conclusion that Espinosa’s complaint was “unsubstantiated.” They did, however, conclude her ex-boyfriend abused his access to university facilities, and placed him on disciplinary probation for the remainder of his academic career, according to documents provided by Espinosa.
Espinosa’s voice quivers as she recalls the ordeal, which led her in 2013 to drop one class in the first summer session and request an incomplete in the second.
It was a punch in the gut after sleepless nights and constant self-doubt, she said. She believes the school violated her civil rights by mishandling the complaint and creating a sexually hostile environment.
A UTPA spokeswoman said the school had not seen Espinosa’s complaint, but noted the school does not comment on pending investigations.
Espinosa’s complaint makes UTPA the latest school to face criticism for its handling of a sexual assault report. So far in fiscal year 2014, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights says it has received 16 complaints that included Title IX allegations specifically related to sexual violence.
Those numbers come on the heels of a marked year-to-year increase in complaints the department received, from 17 in 2012 to 30 in 2013.
The U.S. Department of Education laid out minimal requirements in a 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter for schools to follow in responding to reports of sexual harassment, or risk loss of federal funding.
The 19-page letter reminded schools that under Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, colleges and universities must apply a “preponderance of evidence” standard to reviewing rape cases, which means they must operate under the assumption that “more likely than not that sexual violence occurred.”
Now, many are under scrutiny from the federal government. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has 35 pending Title IX investigations involving allegations of sexual violence at schools such as the University of North Carolina, Princeton, Harvard, Swarthmore, the University of Southern California, Dartmouth and Occidental, a Department of Education spokesman told CNN.
Rape is a longstanding issue on college campuses, but the latest movement, led by student activists, survivors and faculty, recasts sexual violence as a cultural problem on campuses nationwide – not just a series of isolated incidents.
Students are taking matters into their own hands, filing complaints en masse and speaking out publicly.
They’ve flocked to advocacy groups such as End Rape on Campus and Know Your IX, which sprang from grassroots activism around university handling – or mishandling – of sexual violence.
The bravery of students who’ve spoken out – and their ability to connect to each other through social media – has sparked a paradigm shift on campuses, said Gina Smith, an attorney who has consulted with schools around the country on sexual assault policy.
“What we’re seeing is a demand that schools treat complainants with compassion,” Smith said. “Schools are stepping up and taking notice.”
From one campus to the next, the concerns are mostly the same, said sexual assault policy consultant Leslie Gomez: lack of clarity, students being mistreated, complex procedures and insufficient training among those leading the processes.
At the UTPA, Espinosa appealed the decision in her case, but the administration upheld it. She reached out to advocacy group End Rape on Campus, and a member of the group helped her file a complaint with the federal Office of Civil Rights.
“I’m not sure I would’ve come forward if all these people hadn’t done it before me,” Espinosa said. “I needed the validation. I needed someone to confirm, ‘You’re right you’re not blowing things out of proportion.
"It was a relief to hear someone tell me, 'You have a case, and they shouldn’t treat you this way.’”
Here are just some of the students and activists trying to change the way their schools handle sexual violence – for good. CNN does not name survivors of sexual assault, but is doing so in this case because these people, including Espinosa, chose to come forward in the hopes of holding their schools accountable and encouraging others to speak up.
Sarah O'Brien, Vanderbilt University
Despite an ongoing, high-profile rape case involving four football players, Nashville’s Vanderbilt University community hasn’t exactly rallied to change campus culture, alumna Sarah O'Brien, 22, said. But that hasn’t stopped O'Brien and others from working with administrators to clarify the school’s policies around sexual violence, and raise awareness of how the school can help.
“Our campus is not liberal and it’s not activist, so when a group of students come together around an issue it stands out,” says O'Brien, who graduated from Vanderbilt in December.
In 2010, an acquaintance raped her while she was drunk, she said. A series of frustrating encounters with school administrators led O'Brien to come out publicly as a rape survivor in fall 2012.
One administrator attributed her PTSD to the stress of being a student athlete; another told her a statute of limitations prevented her from reporting the rape.
She later found that Title IX gave her the option of seeking academic leniencies due to her PTSD diagnosis, but such provisions were not laid out Vanderbilt’s policy, she said.
“I just felt that university failed me in a lot of ways,” O'Brien said. “As I started talking to other women [at Vanderbilt], it became a common complaint.”
After going public, she organized a Take Back the Night event and began working with student athletes and survivors. She reached out to Know Your IX’s founders, culminating in a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education accusing Vanderbilt of violating of Title IX and the Clery Act, a federal law that requires public disclosure of crimes on campus.
The same month, campus group Vanderbilt Students of Nonviolence delivered an 11-page list of demands. Students asked the school for a single office focused on sexual assault prevention and treatment; a website that pulls together all campus resources and protections afforded under Title IX; posters around campus discouraging sexual violence; inclusion of students on boards related to campus life and sexual assault policies; and more training in sexual assault prevention for people on those committees.
It’s what O'Brien looked for and couldn’t find after her alleged assault, she said.
“The last thing you want to is dig through a bunch of websites and contact administrators who don’t know even know the policy when you’re dealing with a sexual assault,” she said.
Already, changes are under way. The campus hosted an open forum on sexual violence led by a lawyer.
In an e-mailed statement, Beth Fortune, Vanderbilt’s vice chancellor for public affairs, said posters are up that say, “Sex without consent is sexual assault." The Project Safe website is live and the office is underway, among other efforts.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for victims of sexual misconduct to get the services they need,” Fortune said.
Since graduating, O'Brien is still involved with Vanderbilt Students of Nonviolence. She’s also working to build a shelter for survivors of sexual violence in Nashville.
“I think change will be a slow process,” she said, “but we’re starting to see it.”
John Kelly, Tufts University
Rape is something anyone can experience, regardless of gender or sexual orientation. It’s something John Kelly knows firsthand, and wants others to remember.
In just 18 months, the 20-year-old Tufts University student has gone from admitting to himself he had experienced partner rape to becoming a leading LGBTQ voice on education policy about sexual assault.
Like many survivors who go public, he did so out of frustration with his school’s adjudication process. Kelly believes the Massachusetts university let his attacker off easy – he was suspended, rather than expelled – because the school didn’t consider oral sex to be rape.
“It was really traumatic, trying and poorly executed,” Kelly said of Tufts’ adjudication process.
But other parts of the process revealed where Tufts “did a fantastic job.” The Title IX office performed a thorough investigation and advocated on his behalf when he was hospitalized after a suicide attempt, Kelly said. It facilitated a no-contact order for his attacker, arranged therapy and made sure he could return to classes.
“I saw the potential for Tufts to have a really strong policy,” he said. “We were halfway there; the problem was in the punishment phase.”
Kelly ran for student senate and got involved with the campus group Action for Sexual Assault Prevention. It teamed up with another group, Consent Culture Network, on an April 2013 letter to Tufts officials, calling for eight major policy changes.
A Tufts University spokeswoman said the school began to “take a deep look at all of its policies and procedures regarding sexual misconduct,” after the 2011 U.S. Department of Education letter, and continued those efforts in 2013, when the university president convened the Task Force on Sexual Misconduct Prevention.
School officials would not comment on Kelly’s case, and he has not filed a Title IX complaint against the school. He says he is trying to make headway by working on a task force subcommittee addressing prevention through policy and campus culture.
He’s also working with the national organization Ed Act Now, which drew more than 175,000 signatures on a petition urging Education Secretary Arne Duncan to hold schools accountable for failing to comply with Title IX and Clery laws.
Kelly and others met with Duncan and others from the Obama administration and Department of Justice. He now serves on the Department of Education’s Negotiated Rulemaking Committee on the Violence Against Women Act, helping to shape the regulations surrounding recent changes to the law.
“We want to make things more survivor-centered, make sure support systems are in place to increase students’ mental, emotional and physical safety,” he said.
Sofie Karasek, University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley was Sofie Karasek’s dream school, a progressive campus, perfect for an activist like herself. She never imagined she’d be advocating for herself.
Karasek said her path took a detour one night in her first year, when she was sexually assaulted at an off-campus event. Ashamed, she told just a few others, and buried the incident – until she learned the same person had assaulted three other students. In April 2012, they met with administrators to tell their story. The following month, Karasek and two others filed a report against him with the school, and waited to hear back.
Six months later, Karasek said she heard through a mutual friend about the resolution: He would be graduating early. No investigation had been conducted as far as she knew; at least none involving her or the other women.
“I gave them the benefit of doubt,” she said. It turned out they weren’t talking to anyone except him, she said, “to resolve it on his terms.”
The school responded to Karasek’s request for an update two days before his December 2012 graduation, saying that he had been found in violation of the student code of conduct and that the case was solved through an early resolution process, she said. The school only confirmed in September 2013 that he had graduated in December, she said.
UC Berkeley did not respond to requests for comment.
Karasek was emboldened to speak out about her experience. With the help of students from other universities, she and eight other students filed a Clery complaint against UC Berkeley in May. But instead of filing the complaint silently, she and another student issued a press release while attorney Gloria Allred held a press conference to announce that complaints had been filed against Berkeley, Dartmouth, Swarthmore and the University of Southern California.
The experience has launched Karasek into the activist spotlight. She testified at a joint legislative committee hearing in August 2013, leading the state legislature to order an audit of sexual assault policies at UC Berkeley and three other state schools. The results are expected in April.
In December, an aide from California Assemblyman Mike Gatto’s office reached out, asking whether she would testify on behalf of a bill requiring universities to report all sexual assaults and violent crimes to local law enforcement. Karasek suggested modifying the bill to require that that all violent crimes be reported except in cases where survivors request otherwise. He listened and introduced the amended bill to the state education code with her suggested caveat.
But progress at UC Berkeley has been “lackluster,” Karasek said. In September, the school introduced an interim policy that allows survivors to appeal their cases, among other changes. But Karasek wishes more meaningful improvements would come, including more staff dedicated to the issue, as well as Title IX coordinators, and for the “preponderance of evidence” standard written into UC Berkeley’s policy.
Really, what Karasek wants is the school to implement a process for formal hearings and investigations in sexual assault reports – something that was missing from her experience with the reporting process, she said.
But a Title IX advisory committee convened by the school chancellor to review policies that she sits on has only met once, she said. Otherwise, nothing much changed, she said.
“The people who are dedicated to changing policy are students,” she said. “We’re recognizing the snowball effect that comes from speaking out.”
Caroline Heldman, Occidental College
Caroline Heldman remembers how it feels to go to bed hungry or cold. She grew up poor in rural Washington state, and remembers the “pain of people looking down on you,” of being the first person accused when something went missing, and being shunned and teased. Still, her father’s Pentecostal leanings ingrained in her a duty to serve others and the view that “someone else’s suffering is my own suffering,” she said.
Heldman, an Occidental College professor, has become one of the leading faculty figures helping students file federal complaints involving the handling of sexual assault cases.
“There’s not a single school that isn’t thinking about this,” Heldman said.
Heldman and colleague Danielle Dirks helped 37 students and alumna file a Title IX complaint in 2013. She served as a faculty advisor to End Rape on Campus, which connects survivors with resources for treatment and options for holding schools accountable.
This past week, in a Google Hangout, she walked Espinosa, the University of Texas-Pan American student, through the process to file her complaint.
“My work is very much driven by the fact that we don’t live in a meritorious society and some people are more likely to experience pain and suffering than others,” she said. “A lot of us are very comfortable acknowledging that given certain circumstances, we could be in the same bad situation as someone else. But it’s more than that – it’s about seeing yourself in others.”
As a young idealist, Heldman thought she could fix everything that was wrong in the world – from the headlight ordinances she argued for as a child in Washington to the social justice causes she took up as an undergrad.
As a full-time professor with tenure at Occidental, Heldman feels a responsibility to speak up about how schools treat victims of sexual violence. Many educators have less freedom to speak out about controversial topics, she said, which puts her in a unique position to help.
“Power in colleges has shifted dramatically in recent years to the administrative side,” she said.
“Those of us who are tenured need to use our academic freedom because we’re the only ones at institutions who have power to speak out when administrations mistreat students.”
Anusha Ravi, Emory University
As far as Anusha Ravi is concerned, how a school deals with sexual assault is a reflection of the entire campus community – and it’s everyone’s job.
As more schools made national headlines with students’ allegations of mishandling of sexual assault reports, Ravi began to wonder, how are handling these kinds of things at handled at her school, Emory University in Atlanta?
That’s why the 20-year-old political science student joined the student group Sexual Assault Peer Advocates. The group provides training to undergraduate and graduate students about how to talk to sexual assault survivors.
It’s a skill most college students will need at some point, Ravi said. She has not personally experienced sexual assault, but she knows people who have. Understanding how to talk about sexual assault fosters a climate of openness within the school community, she said.
Because sexual assault affects women more often than men, she said, a school’s mishandling of sexual assaults projects a sexist image, and for better or worse, so much has to do with image.
“It doesn’t look good for higher education in general and doesn’t make an institution look good,” she said. “As a college student, I do believe that when people are evaluating their own education, they’re not only looking at classes, but campus culture and safety.”
So far, Ravi is satisfied with Emory’s approach.
After the 2011 Department of Education letter, Emory created a university-wide sexual misconduct policy and adjudication process in 2013, a university spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
The school now has Title IX coordinators for each college and supports groups such as Sexual Assault Peer Advocates in its efforts to improve campus culture.
The group has trained more than 1,000 people, from fraternity groups to residence advisers, Ravi said.
“Nobody wants to be the school that treats people poorly, especially sexual assault survivors,” she said. “We all have a role to play.”
People were led to believe that Trump wrote his eerily nationalistic Inaugural speech after posting this photo on Twitter a few days before the Inauguration:
Butaccording to The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s speech was written by his two aids: Steve Bannon (executive chairman of the extremely right-wing “news” page Breitbart) and Stephen Miller (infamously worked for racist Jeff Sessions who may be appointed for Attorney General).
We can’t trust a word Trump (or his wife) says to the public.
I don’t trust Bernie Sanders(which is your icon) more than Donald Trump.
@secondlake: Well it’s sad that you believe in a man who lies more than half of the time
And when he is saying the “truth,” this is what he says:
Source: PolitiFact
This is saddest post I have ever seen because you think PolitiFact’s judges of “Truth or False” are all right. Although I checked Trump’s False page which PolitiFact tells us, I thought a lot of those false judges are just their judges about Donald Trump. As a source and the media, PolitiFact has no value. As an addition post, “Truth or False” pages which PolitiFact used from Trump’s twitter posts are just their choices. This is not fair.
@secondlake: I guess you are just another believer of Kellyanne Conway’s use of the term “alternative facts” as justification for all the false statements Trump spews out on a day to day basis.
Even a Pulitzer Prize winning website that uses credible and various sources to prove their “judgments” have no standing with Trumpians. But the judgments of a reality TV star (that has declared bankruptcy 6 times) who has made a following based off his constant demeaning of others who don’t look or agree with him is more knowledgeable than any expert who confronts him on his divisive and demagogic tactics.
Guys I did not forget, I know it’s been a while but I’ve been going under major changes in my life. It started with my dog dying, me getting a promotion as manager, losing my friends and loved ones, going full time to college while working a full time “part time” job as manager at a major grocery store, the pandemic hitting, and finally getting some freedom from people being near me(social anxiety). Suddenly people started to come back and I went into psychosis, could function at my job but had mental breakdowns to the point they were going to fire me if I didn’t get help. Met with a therapist who threw me into multiple psych wards, deemed me a danger to myself and others, had a whole group of mental health professionals try and tackle my issues with intensive out patient. I started to gain weight, hate my body, take medication, lose my thoughts, get detained by police at my job because my therapist deemed me a threat to myself and others again and again and again. Lost my position as manager, they threw me back into the store where I hated, gave me a new job there which was alright but they didn’t understand I was so desperate to leave there because I had stalkers.
Once again, I was harassed by my therapist because I’m atheist and she told me I was condemning myself to hell. She made me cry constantly because I do not love myself and have more love for others in need than “pitiful”old me. Finally had enough of her bullshit, got in touch with some old acquaintances and thought everything was good. Finally got my drivers license and a car. Ended up getting in multiple accidents with parked cars cause my therapist would talk to my psychiatrist since they used to work together and had me drugged up the ass without having any warnings on the labels saying “do not operate vehicles once taken”. Had a boyfriend who treated l like shit and raped me after constantly asking him to pull out because it hurt and telling him I didn’t want to do it anymore. Grew more and more suicidal to the point I told him to get the fuck off of me and broke up with him the same day because I was just a cumdumpster and a cab to him. My ex-fiance came back into my life and we remained friends but it was always on and off. A “friend” then sexually assaulted me multiple times while I was still heavily medicated. Got sent to the psych ward again and finally got a great therapist who’s a criminal psychologist and can deal with my homicidal ideation and not deem me as a threat because he knows I would never act upon it. Got a different job, and they fired me because I wanted to go back to school and work fewer days which they agreed to but suddenly changed.
Changed my major from nutrition to mortuary science, went back into school, And was struggling to pay bills, feed my companion animals, and pay for my medication and appointments. Now I have a steady job as a caregiver, only have two clients but they adore me and I adore them. Able to pay for my stuff again and lost 25 pounds but still struggle with my body dysmorphia. I got rid of the people who hurt me and now I’m lucky enough to have 3 people I consider friends. Now I’m almost done with my prerequisite for MS and no one is abusing me but my parents still. I’m not happy, I’ll probably never be, but right now I’m in a decent spot. Sorry for the wait, this will be completed. I’m not too sure if I will do a voice-over tier list but I will still definitely do the tier list. For those who need stuff right now here’s the hookup. Please eat and stay safe
The government-commissioned report from Louise Arbour, who also served as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, came during a wave of sexual misconduct allegations against top military leaders that have rocked the armed forces and eroded public trust.
“The exposure of sexual misconduct in the [Canadian Armed Forces] has shed light on a deeply deficient culture fostered by a rigid and outdated structure that did little to modernize it,” Arbour wrote in the report.
A danger of the military’s operating model, she wrote, is a “high likelihood that some of its members are more at risk of harm, on a day-to-day basis, from their comrades than from the enemy.” She said the crisis “has caused as much damage as defeat in combat would have to demoralize the troops and shock Canadians.”
Among the report’s 48 recommendations were calls for sexual harassment complaints to be turned over to the Canadian Human Rights Commission and for officials to explore whether there should be an alternative to military colleges, which Arbour wrote “appear as institutions from a different era.”
US actor Kevin Spacey has been charged with four counts of sexual assault against three men, Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said on Thursday.
Spacey was also charged with one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent, the CPS said.
The charges relate to two alleged incidents in London in 2005, another two in 2008, and a further incident in Gloucestershire
I’m sure this person is referring to the torture I went through these past couple years, and not passive aggressively accusing me of something they have zero evidence of but have decided I deserve to die for, other than fellow QAnon cops conjecturing about what it must be like in Thailand, although none of them have lived there and wouldn’t know.
My good friend Eva ( @smashbike, or @/culturre on Instagram where she’s more active) has started a survey to see just how many congoers are being harassed at cons. She has gotten an overwhelming amount of responses already but we’re still begging you guys to fill it out! Even if you haven’t had an uncomfortable experience at a con you should take it for statistics sake. Eva plans to use the results and share them with large cons in hope that we can do something more about this. Please take the survey and share this, thank you!
As a verdict is possibly hours away, a sense of dread has been building in my stomach for what it will mean for Amber’s future, as well as all victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), particularly as women’s basic rights continue to be under attack in the United States. Like many people who are following the case, I have personal experiences with abuse. Much of my research focuses on IPV, specifically, the disparities in resources and services that are available for survivors to leave their abusers, such as economic, social, geographical barriers. It’s a topic which is deeply tied to my own personal experiences and academic career.
I initially was ambivalent to Amber Heard. Before I began to research the case, I was firmly in the “they both suck” camp, having only briefly glanced through articles. I started to pay more attention to the media coverage over the past six weeks and was really staggered by how Heard was being portrayed as a lying, crazy, gold-digging woman through narratives that were not only going unchallenged, but were heavily perpetuated in the public discourse. Even worse, that the abuse she experienced had been capitalized on by “true crime” junkies and mocked in TikTok videos and Youtube compilations. So I began watching the trial live and found that there was far more evidence and far more substantial evidence which shows that JD was the perpetrator of abuse within their relationship.
Is she guilty of fighting back? Absolutely. Shenever liedabout doing so, even dating back to her 2016 deposition. However, fighting back against a man who has beaten you, sexually assaulted you, controlled your career, finances, and who you can associate with does not equate to being an abuser. It’s simply surviving. And yes, I’ve heard those audio tapes, the in which she’s expresses her incredulity at him for stating their fights were fair when she feared he would kill her.
His case has relied upon deeply misogynistic narratives to discredit both her claims and her character. She was after his money all along, even though she refused the 30 million dollar fortune she was legally entitled to, as there was no prenup. She painted on bruises, even though a makeup artist testified to covering up her swollen lip and two black eyes. She cut off his finger, even though multiple texts and even an audio recording showcase him admitting to doing it in the midst of a bender. She didn’t donate her money, even though she and the organization created a 10 year plan for her to make yearly payments (in my personal opinion, what she does with her money either way is nobody’s fucking business). Also worth noting, an ACLU representative testified to her being ahead of schedule until Depp began suing her. She made up a hoax, because she documented her abuse - as we advise all people who are in abusive situations to do. She’s a liar, because women are inherently deceitful liars.
I don’t know whether Amber Heard will win her case. We’re witnessing a radical right-wing political swing to control and criminalize women’s bodies with Roe v. Wade under attack right now. To be blunt, I have very little faith in the justice system and that a jury - in Virginia of all places - will rule in favour of an abused woman over her charismatic, powerful ex-husband. However, I think it’s important to remember that Amber did everything right, that is, everything we tell women to do. She documented her abuse, left her abusive partner, and was granted a restraining order - and she’s continuing to be punished for doing so. If Amber, a privileged white woman with access to economic resources, is still struggling to escape her abuser, how can we expect women without those privileges to?
“You have two realities to choose from. In the first reality, I am part of a group of friends who show solidarity against people who have committed sexual assault. That’s something you should be supporting.
In the second reality, I have 37 women who I can take to a TV station and tell them that your college is actively sabotaging a method women use to keep things safe because it ostracizes sexual abusers.
aaron taylor johnson and charlie heaton were both groomed by older, more powerful women when they were new to the industry. terry crews spoke of being sexually harassed by an executive. brendan fraser was sexually assaulted and the experience was so horrible for him that it spiraled him into a depression, affecting his career. his assaulter never faced charges. the kevin spacey trial is coming up where he is being charged for sexual assault.
if you GENUINELY care for male victims, at least famous ones, you’d make some noise about these cases. however, these past few months, i have hardly seen a bolstering of these cases. instead i see a campaign of inappropriate memes and edits being made. is that your way to show you “care about male victims” lmao?? by making a mockery of a case discussing dv topics?? i think people like to hide behind the guise of caring about male victims when it’s really just an excuse to engage in inappropriate, obscene behaviors.
Let me just list all the wonderful things Donald Trump has said about women.
1991, Esquire Magazine, about female journalists: “You know, it doesn’t really matter what [they] write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
1992, New York Magazine, about gold-medal winning Olympic ice skater Katarine Witt: “Wonderful looking while on the ice but up close and personal, she could only be described as attractive if you like a woman with a bad complexion who is built like a linebacker.”
1992, New York Magazine: “You have to treat ‘em like shit.”
1993, Newshub, about his image as a womanizer: “I don’t enjoy that image. Yes I have that image. I think women are beautiful - I think certain women are more beautiful than others, to be perfectly honest – and it’s fortunate I don’t have to run for political office.”
1994, ABC News: “I have days where, if I come home — and I don’t want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home and dinner’s not ready, I go through the roof.”
1994, ABC News: “I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing. Unfortunately, after they’re a star, the fun is over for me. It’s like a creation process. It’s almost like creating a building. It’s pretty sad.”
1997, Trump: The Art of The Comeback: “There are basically three types of women and reactions. One is the good woman who very much loves her future husband, solely for himself, but refuses to sign the agreement on principle. I fully understand this, but the man should take a pass anyway and find someone else. The other is the calculating woman who refuses to sign the prenuptial agreement because she is expecting to take advantage of the poor, unsuspecting sucker she’s got in her grasp. There is also the woman who will openly and quickly sign a prenuptial agreement in order to make a quick hit and take the money given to her.”
1997, Howard Stern, about buying the beauty pageant Miss USA: “They said, ‘How are you going to change the pageant?’ I said ‘I’m going to get the bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher’. If you’re looking for a rocket scientist, don’t tune in tonight, but if you’re looking for a really beautiful woman, you should watch.”
1997, Howard Stern, about Princess Diana: “I think I could’ve [had sex with her].”
1999, New York Daily News: “I have a deal with her. She’s 17 and doing great ― Ivanka. She made me promise, swear to her that I would never date a girl younger than her. So as she grows older, the field is getting very limited.”
2003, Howard Stern: “You know who’s one of the great beauties of the world, according to everybody? And I helped create her. Ivanka. My daughter, Ivanka. She’s 6 feet tall, she’s got the best body. She made a lot money as a model—a tremendous amount”
2004, the Daily News: “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me - consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected.”
2005, to a female candidate on The Apprentice: “I bet you make a great wife.“
2006, Howard Stern: “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
2006, Entertainment Tonight: “Rosie O'Donnell is disgusting, both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television? If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby but Rosie’s just worse than most of us. But it’s not the chubbiness - Rosie is a very unattractive person, both inside and out. Rosie’s a person who’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend, why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?”
2007, Trump 101: The Way to Success: “Beauty and elegance, whether in a woman, a building, or a work of art, is not just superficial or something pretty to see.”
2007, Larry King’s CNN Show, about Angelina Jolie: “I really understand beauty. And I will tell you, she’s not - I do own Miss Universe. I do own Miss USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s not.“
In 2007 he pitched a TV show called ‘Lady or a Tramp?’ This was reported to be a reality show, in which ‘"out of control” party girls were sent to charm school to learn some manners.
2008, Howard Stern: “They’ll walk up, and they’ll flip their top, and they’ll flip their panties.” He claims to be attracted to women who are 'a bit chunky’ when Stern asks if he’s ever 'reduced himself’ to sleeping with a 'fat woman’. Trump also says he’s 'been with women with extraordinarily bad breast jobs’ and 'pancake tits’. He adds that any woman who has a breast reduction is 'insane’.
2008, Access Hollywood, about Anne Hathaway’s divorce: “So when he had plenty of money, she liked him. But then after that, not as good, right?
2009, a quote by beauty queen Carrie Prejean about how Trump would have girls parade in front of him: “Many of the girls found this exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after [he] left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began . . . it was as though we had been stripped bare.”
2011, Trump was in court testifying in a deposition over a failed Florida real estate project when lawyer Elizabeth Beck asked to take a break to breastfeed her three-month old daughter. The property mogul and his team objected, so she pulled out her breast pump to prove it. In an incident that Trump “does not dispute”, he walked out of the room, telling Beck she was “disgusting”.
2011: After New York Times columnist Gail Collins wrote about rumours of Trump’s bankruptcy, he sent her a copy of her own article, with her picture circled and “the face of a dog!” scrawled across it.
2012, When transgender Miss Universe contestant Jenna Talackova was kicked out of the contest for not having declared her trans status in her entry, Talackova’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, angrily said that no one had asked Trump to “prove” he was a man by showing his anatomy. In response, Trump called in to TMZ Live and said of his penis: “I think Gloria would be very impressed.“
2012: Huffington Post editor and co-founder Arianna Huffington is a regular target of Trump’s. But instead of attacking her liberal views, he tends to criticise her looks and make jokes about her divorce.
2013, The Wendy Williams Show, when asked what he has in common with his daughter Ivanka: "Well, I was going to say sex, but I can’t relate that to her.”
2013, Former Playboy playmate Brande Roderick was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in the US. During a tense boardroom battle, she knelt in front of Trump to ask him whether she could be the next project manager. After a six-second silence (an eternity on TV), during which Trump presumably willed some blood to return to his head, he said: “It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knee.“
2013: When he blamed sexual assault on cohabitation
2015, Des Moines Register, about his u-turn on his stance on abortion: “In thinking about it over the years, I’ve had instances, and one instance in particular, a friend had a child who they were going to abort, and now they have it, and the child is incredible. And the man, he changed his views also because of that.” He’s also said he’d be willing to shut down the US government to defund non-profit reproductive health organisation Planned Parenthood.
2015, Twitter: he said Hillary couldn’t ‘satisfy’ her husband and therefore couldn’t satisfy America.
2015, Twitter: he called Megyn Kelly a 'bimbo’ after the first Republican debate because she gave him a tough time. Later in an interview with CNN he said: "You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.”
2015, New York Times: “Heidi Klum. Sadly, she’s no longer a 10.”
2015, Rolling Stone Magazine, about Carly Fiorina: “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next next President? I mean, she’s a woman, and I’m not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?”
2015, during an election debate, Trump singled out his female Republican rival, conveniently ignoring the fact his male rivals were also talking over one another: “Why does she keep interrupting everybody?”
2016, MSNBC, referring to women who would defy the abortion ban: “There has to be some form of punishment.” Trump reversed his position two hours later, with a statement saying that he would punish doctors who performed abortions but not the women themselves.
2016, at one of his rallies he accused Hillary Clinton of being an enabler of her husband’s affairs: “Bill Clinton was the worst in history and I have to listen to her talking about it? Just remember this: She was an unbelievably nasty, mean enabler. And what she did to a lot of those women is disgraceful. So put that in her bonnet and let’s see what happens.“
2016, when Megyn Kelly confronted him about calling her a bimbo and suggesting she was menstruating after she took him to task over sexist comments: "Did I say that? Excuse me. But over your life, Megyn, you’ve been called a lot worse, wouldn’t you say?”
2016, when Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton 25 times during the first 26 minutes of their first TV debate before saying: “She doesn’t have the look. She doesn’t have the stamina.”
2016, Fox News, after the first debate: “I was going to hit her with her husband’s women and I decided I shouldn’t do it because her daughter was in the room.“
2016, Howard Stern, about 12-year-old Paris Hilton: “Now, somebody who a lot of people don’t give credit to but in actuality is really beautiful is Paris Hilton. I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12, her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into the room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’” Stern asked: “Did you wanna bang her?” To which Trump responded” “Well, at 12, I wasn’t interested. I’ve never been into that … but she was beautiful.” He went on to admit he’d watched her sex tape.
2016, Access Hollywood: “I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.“ "I did try and fuck her, she was married.” “Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.” “Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.”
2016, old Entertainment Tonight footage, when he leered at a 10 year old girl: “I am going to be dating her in 10 years. Can you believe it?”
