Prospect Magazine asks, How can we stop the trade in stolen porn?
Feminist philosopher Jennifer Saul, University of Sheffield, and others reply.
See http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/blogs/prospector-blog/the-big-question-stolen-porn-jennifer-lawrence-celebrity-hacks.
23 students have complained that Columbia University fails to take proper action when students file complaint about sexual assault. They include the senior art student, who says she was raped in her sophomore year. She has created a performance art work, which consists in her carrying around the mattress on which she was raped.
Readers may well have seen posts about this situation on Facebook. But there are features of the story that are worth highlighting. Because I want to get this up reasonably soon, I am making really pretty obvious observations. Please add in if you want.
One thing to notice is that the situation offers the victim no good resolution. Emma Sulkowicz experiences a conflict between self-care and persistence in prosecuting her rapist, and she has dropped the latter. Such a reaction is very common. It has long seemed to me a mark of abuse that it leaves one with no good alternatives, but in saying this I am envisaging having to act pretty much alone, as is so often the case. And is the case here. Maybe close friends believe a victim, but a lot of people don’t. And who wants to go up against such an institution on a friend’s say-so? Because we still can’t count on institutions to act on the preponderance of evidence.
The preponderance of evidence seems clear here. Two other young women have accused the same man.
Another pretty awful feature is how some people react. If you can bear it, read the comments to see what you can expect.
I’m asking because I just came across this line, in a critique of The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism, a book about slavery in America:
Almost all the blacks in his book are victims, almost all the whites villains. This is not history; it is advocacy.
[Edit: I was so stunned, I forgot the link. Here it is.]
Feminist Philosophers 