Anne Theriault2013-05-24T09:02:05-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.ca/author/index.php?author=anne-theriault-Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Anne TheriaultGood old fashioned elbow grease.13 Ways to Survive a Hangovertag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32883672013-05-17T07:53:00-04:002013-05-17T07:53:03-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/How Should A Person Be? and highlight the passages that you feel specifically apply to your life. Eat too many cookies. Let your cat lick your face clean, but stop her when she tries to groom your eyebrows.
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2. Practice your humble-yet-flattered face in the mirror. Smile with genuine warmth, but look down bashfully. Shrug nonchalantly and say thank you, then quickly change the subject. Remind yourself that this is what you should be doing when people compliment you, instead of rolling your eyes and making a self-deprecating joke.
3. Don't answer the phone. Don't turn on the news. Don't read any articles whose headlines contain the words government, statistics or attachment parenting.
4. Make a list of potential titles for the memoir that you might someday write, e.g. My Heart Is An Autumn Garage, Everything Is Overrated, or The Blunder Years. Wonder why no one appreciates your clever Salinger references or your hilarious puns.
5. Write a letter to Simone de Beauvoir that begins,
Dear Simone,
I wish you were still alive so that you could teach me to do my hair like yours. You always looked great.
Listen, I'm sorry Camus was such a dick to you, but let's be honest, between him and Sartre, he was the better writer.
6. Look at pictures of baby otters.
7. Make a list of underused words that you love, and pledge to include them more often in your everyday vocabulary. These words might include bivouack, erstwhile, mawkish, hullaballoo, skullduggery, caterwaul, quotidian, skedaddle, peripatetic, zeitgeist.
8. Resist the urge to think about the future, dissect your failings or re-evaluate your life choices.
9. Invite your sister over. Drink fancy tea together. Watch Stand By Me and discuss what it would be like to a) live in 1950s America, b) have testicles, and c) discover a giant leech attached to said testicles.
10. Allow yourself wallow in whatever form of misery you currently feel like indulging in, for example self-pity, hopelessness or despair. Sure, your pain is self-inflicted, wallowing won't help anybody, and you should just buck up and do something productive, but let's be honest: that's not going to happen today. And giving yourself permission to feel like crap is better than being angry at yourself for feeling bad, and also still feeling bad.
11. Hide your favourite pants, which now smell of gin, olives and regret, at the bottom of the laundry basket so that you don't have to gag every time you walk by them.
12. Read your old journals. Marvel that your 20-year-old self wrote the following:
This is the kind of love where you can be sitting watching a movie with someone and look over at them only to find them looking back at you, and you know in that instant that they were going to say exactly what you were going to say, so that in the end no actual words have to be exchanged. Maybe it's not the most exciting kind of love, but sometimes it's all that we've got.
And this:
If you can't make it good or beautiful, at least make it interesting.
And this:
I'm lonely here, and I'm not tough enough for this neighbourhood - its inhabitants can see right through my translucent skin to my uncertain heart.
13. Swear that you will never, ever drink again.
This post originally appeared on The Belle Jar blog. ]]>Your Ten Dollar T-Shirt Is Not The Problemtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.32260772013-05-07T12:10:28-04:002013-05-07T12:20:31-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/
I've heard stuff like: "Well, where did you think your ten dollar t-shirt came from?"
And: "Major clothing brands should refuse to do business with manufacturers in Bangladesh."
As well as: "Why do we even make stuff overseas anyway? It's all crap."
There are a lot of problems with these types of statements. For one thing, the price of a piece of clothing is not at all indicative of the working conditions of its manufacturer. For another, implying (or outright saying) that there is something morally wrong with paying ten dollars for a t-shirt is incredibly classist. And finally, saying stuff like this shows a serious lack of understanding about how the garment industry works.
So let's debunk a few of these myths, shall we?
1. Expensive, high-end brands are ethically preferable
This is not at all true. Spending more money on an item of clothing doesn't guarantee that the factory worker in Bangladesh who made it is earning a higher wage. It doesn't even mean that the quality of the garment is any "better" than something you could buy for half the price. The truth is that when brand names charge higher prices for their items, that extra cash usually goes to two places: into the pockets of CEOs and other higher-ups, and into the company's advertising budget.
Even buying clothing with a "Made in Italy" or "Made in the USA" label doesn't guarantee that that piece of clothing was made by people working in decent conditions. In Italy, for example, labelling laws are extremely lax. A product can be almost totally manufactured elsewhere, but so long as it's "finalized" in Italy (adding leather trim, for example, or sewing on buttons) it can be labelled as "Made in Italy." As well, it should be noted that just because something is manufactured in Western Europe or North America doesn't mean that the factory employees who made the item were paid a fare wage -- illegal immigrants are often hired and paid under the table, meaning that employers can pay them whatever they like and the employees believe that they have no recourse for action. In Prato, Italy, Chinese immigrants were found to be working in garment factories for as little as €2 an hour.
But even when companies do pay their workers minimum wage, it's often not enough. In many countries, minimum wage is not a living wage, especially if you live in a big city.
2. Our society's desire for cheap clothing is exploitative and unsustainable. People should be willing to pay more money for their clothing.
First of all, let's talk about how classist this assumption is. I mean, if you're well off, then sure, you can probably afford to pay more than ten dollars for a t-shirt. But if you're making minimum wage and living below the poverty line, then cheap clothing is the only type of clothing you can afford.
Take Toronto, for instance. Ontario's minimum wage is $10.25 an hour, and the average cost to rent a bachelor apartment in Toronto is $840 per month (this figure most likely does not include utilities, phone/internet, or parking). If you're making minimum wage, then you're only bringing home $1,640 monthly before taxes. If you're paying the bare minimum in income taxes (so, no union fees or anything like that), then you'll be taxed $236.38 a month (according to this calculator on a government website), leaving you with $1,403.62. After paying rent, you'll have $563.62. That $563.62 has to pay for everything other than rent: your phone, internet, food, transportation, utilities, clothing. And those are just the basics -- what about entertainment? Things like going out to see a movie, or having a few drinks with friends at a bar?
And all that is assuming that you're single, childless and living in a bachelor apartment. Imagine how little would be left if you were the only breadwinner in a family with several dependants.
At that point, even a ten dollar t-shirt starts to seem astronomically expensive.
3. Major brands should just stop doing business with manufacturers in Bangladesh.
And this would solve what, exactly? It certainly wouldn't improve working conditions in Bangladesh factories. In fact, it would probably lead to a loss of employment opportunities in Bangladesh, meaning that the few companies that still hiring would be able to pay their employees even lower wages if they chose. People would be scrambling and competing for jobs, and would have to accept whatever came their way, no matter how badly it paid.
The other thing is that no matter what country those companies are manufacturing their goods in, so long as they are trying to keep their wholesale prices as low as they are, the manufacturers will have to cut corners, pay their workers substandard wages, and skirt safety regulations in order to satisfy the companies' demands.
Here's what major brands actually should do: cut CEO salaries. Seriously. In the US, the average multiple of CEO compensation to rank-and-file employee is 204. Yes, you read that correctly. A CEO earns, on average, two hundred and four times what their retail employees earn. And let's not even get into how much more a CEO earns when compared to one of the employees in their overseas factories.
How is that even a little bit ok?
Imagine how inexpensive clothing could be if we cut CEO wages. Imagine how much we could improve working conditions in countries like Bangladesh if CEO salaries were cut in half?
Companies also need to institute frequent, surprise inspections of the factories that manufacture their goods. They need to find ways to ensure that their goods are being made by employees who have fair wages and decent work environments. They need to actually take responsibility for how their business is being operated.
4. Why do we even make stuff overseas? Why not manufacture more stuff in North America/Europe/elsewhere?
The truth is that manufacturing clothing in North America and Europe is becoming more and more difficult. It's less expensive to manufacture in Asia for a variety of reasons, and not just because labour is cheaper there. Another important cost factor is that many of the raw materials are now more readily available overseas than they are here. For example, China is the leading grower of cotton in the world, meaning that even if an item of clothing was sewn in Canada, the used would most likely come from overseas. Is there really a difference in how "ethical" your clothing is if the finished product is made here but the raw materials are harvested and processed by underpaid workers overseas? How ethical is it if the water used to grow those raw materials (cotton, for example, is a notoriously water-intensive crop) is partly responsible for major water shortage in China? How can we ever make sure that every person who has somehow contributed to making our clothing is treated fairly?
Look. The garment industry is screwed up, and major changes need to happen. Factories need to be unionized, workers need better conditions, and CEO pay needs to be cut. Here at home we need to increase minimum wage to a livable wage. We need to figure out a way to make sure that everyone who participates in the garment industry, whether they're an employee in a retail store, a worker in a factory, or a small child whose water supply is being used to water cotton crops, is getting a fair deal.
I don't have all the answers. I'm not sure how we can make any of this happen, or what the world would look like if these changes were to take place. But what I do know is that the way that we live now is not sustainable, not by a long shot. I know that we need more accountability from the companies that make our clothing, and more tools like Good Guide to hep us figure out where to spend our money. We need to make more of an effort to educate ourselves about how and where our goods are made.
Most of all, though, I know that the ten dollar t-shirt is not the problem. It's just a symptom of the problem.
]]>Rape Culture Knows No Borderstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31632932013-04-27T07:50:09-04:002013-04-29T10:33:14-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/Trigger warning for rape, sexual assault, abduction, torture and murder.
A reader from India asked me to blog about this at the end of last week. At the time, I told her that I was feeling burned out, but promised to write about it on Monday or Tuesday. I've been procrastinating, though. As much as I know that this is something that's important to talk about, I've had a hard time bringing myself to read about it, let alone write about it.
But I promised that I would. And it's important. So let's do this.
Her parents say that the police ignored their reports that their daughter was missing.
Her parents say that the police offered them money to keep quiet about their daughter's rape.
She is now in critical condition in the hospital.
She's five.
When I was five, my biggest upsets in life were that I couldn't wear my party dresses to kindergarten and that I wasn't allowed to have chocolate milk with every meal.
And, you know, here I sit in my privilege saying that I'm too burnt out to read her story, that it's too hard for me to write about.
Of course, for other people, other women, this type of story is the daily reality that they have to live with. They don't have the ability to tune out and think about other things the way I do.
This girl, this five-year-old girl, is fighting for her life, in part because the police weren't terribly interested in finding her. Because she's just a girl. Because she's disposable. Because she was born in a country where sex-selective abortion is so common that, in some provinces, 126 males are born for every 100 females.
This, on the heels of the brutal gang rape in India that happened back in December. In that case, the victim wasn't so lucky - she died of her wounds several days after her attack. The most brutal of her rapists, who was sixteen years old, received a sentence of only three years in a "reform home" because of his status as a minor.
All of these rapes happened within a week's span. All of this is in just one country. And these are just a few select stories I pulled -- there are more, so many more. Not just in India, but everywhere.
There are people who want to dismiss this as a problem with the way that Indian culture treats women. There are people who say that, sure, this type of thing happens over there, but it would never happen here. Maybe India has a culture of rape, but here in the West we sure don't.
But, of course, we do.
Rape culture knows no borders, and while it might be worse or more obvious in certain parts of the world, the truth is that it's everywhere. We all live in it. We all participate in it.
In fact, just today, a university student in Arizona was photographed holding a sign that said, "You Deserve Rape." This man, Dean Saxton, is well-known for delivering "inflammatory sermons" on the University of Arizona campus. Today's sermon was about how women who dress like "whores" are responsible for being raped or assaulted.
It just seems so relentless. Every day there's a new story of some kind of horrific sexual assault, every day I hear about police and politicians who don't care, every day there are men and women spreading the message that rape is somehow the victims fault. It just feels like it never ends, and it's sometimes so hard to keep fighting in the face of something that's so unbelievably pervasive and overwhelming.
But we need to keep fighting. That much is obvious.
I want to share with you guys the message that my reader sent me, because her words are more powerful than anything that I can come up with right now:
The last time it happened, I signed petitions with friends for severe punishment to those rapists who raped a 23-year-old, I wrote articles, protested, debated. But the second case, that happened just yesterday has shattered me so much I seem to have lost my voice In India, we all protest and then our voices just die down. No kind of internal pressure makes the government take strict decisions. Rather, in the December 2012 case, a religious leader came up with the hideous statement that had the girl begged for her life from the rapists and called them her brothers, they would have stopped and she would have survived. One of the leading female politicians said, "Women shouldn't go out after 9 at night or dress provocatively." We scream, we shout and the police bashes up innocent protesters and social workers and students. Our voices die down within the country and awareness is blindfolded by our own leaders.
I am writing to you to beg you to talk about these women just like you talk about those who are close to home. Perhaps international pressure and shouts for justice would reach the deaf ears of our religious and political leaders and the pathetic, perverse men who don't think twice before doing this to us women. Why should we dress modestly? Clothes provoke them, no clothes provoke them, we get raped in a sari, in jeans, in skirts, in salwaar kammeez and even if only our face shows. We get raped in the morning and at nights. If they can't control their desires after 9, shouldn't the men be locked up after 9? A lot of people blame the victim back home and not the criminal. How is that fair?
Indian women today are aware, enlightened and educated but far from safe. We are scared to go out and work and we're scared to stay inside. Who knows what familiar face would be the Big Bad Wolf? And he strikes us at any age, at 23, at 45, at five!
So as a woman to another, this is a plea to support our protest because even though we may speak different tongues and belong to different nations, we suffer the same abuses.
Please raise your voice. Help spread the word about this. Join us in this fight. Because together, we are much stronger. Together, we can beat this.
We have to.
A few inspiring images from the protests in India:
]]>A Love Letter to Bostontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31226612013-04-21T20:45:08-04:002013-04-21T20:45:17-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/
I've never visited you.
I know that that's a strange way to begin, and of course I don't mean it as a slight against you. I'm just stating a fact: I've never visited you.
I've always wanted to, though, and that must count for something, right? I've heard great things about you. A bunch of people whose opinions I really respect have highly recommended you. I've planned a fantasy vacation (which my husband has nicknamed The Dead Author Tour of New England) that involves you.
I don't really have any great reasons for not having visited you, to be honest. It just never seemed to be the right time, and our vacations often get eaten by visiting various family members, and travelling with a toddler isn't exactly optimal.
But still, I've always meant to visit you.
The truth is, I think that you might be partially responsible for my existence on this earth. And as much as this life can sometimes be a rocky ride, I'm still grateful that I'm here. I'm the type of person who occasionally likes to consider of all the things that somehow coalesced so that I, this particular me, could happen to be born into this particular time on this particular planet, and the thing is, Boston, you play a small part in that story.
Let me explain.
My great-grandfather, William Cave, had what would be considered by most standards to be a pretty miserable childhood. He grew up poor in Halifax's north end, living in a flat with his parents, his two sisters, and his grandmother. Things were tough but manageable until the cold, damp climate, inadequate nutrition and limited access to healthcare began to take their toll on his family. When my great-grandfather was nine, his sister Agnes Pearl, aged 11, died of tuberculosis. The next year, his sister Annie Florence died, also of tuberculosis, at the age of sixteen. In 1915 his mother, Louisa, died, and in 1916 his grandmother, Mariah, died -- both of tuberculosis.
My great-grandfather rarely spoke about his childhood. I've seen photographs of Agnes and Annie, and I've visited their graves, but beyond that, I don't know much about them. In the picture of Agnes that my grandmother has, she's very blond, her hair tied back in an enormous bow, and sits in a chair clutching a doll. Annie is older in her picture, and is standing in front of a white fence wearing a long black coat; she has dark hair and eyes that slant upwards like mine.
In 1917, my great-grandfather was 14-years-old. On the morning of December 6 of that year he was getting ready to start his first day of work at a nearby newspaper plant. He happened to be running late. This fact would prove to be incredibly lucky.
Halifax, like many port towns, tends to profit during wartime, what with all the troops and ships and military big-wigs passing through. On the morning of December 6th, 1917, the harbour and the Bedford Basin were full of big boats, each one crowded with dozens, maybe even hundreds, of crewmen and soldiers on their way to the front. Halifax's waterfront was packed with people, either working or hurrying to their school or job. Some were just out for a walk, enjoying the nice weather and taking in the excitement of all the ships' comings and goings.
Every account I've ever read of that day has said that it was bright and sunny, the sky clear and the air sharp and bracing.
In order to get from Halifax Harbour into Bedford Basin, a ship has to pass through a strait called the Narrows. On the morning of December 17th, two ships, the Norwegian Imo, which was bringing relief supplies to Belgium, and the French Mont-Blanc, collided in the narrows. The Mont-Blanc caught fire.
What very few people knew was that the Mont-Blanc was a munitions ship carrying TNT, picric acid, benzol and guncotton. Once fire was added to that mix, she became a floating bomb. The captain ordered his crew to abandon ship, and they fled in lifeboats to the Dartmouth side of the harbour. The Mont-Blanc drifted towards Halifax and came to rest at Pier 6, which lay at the bottom of Richmond Street.
As black smoke filled the sky, even more people flocked down to the harbour to watch the ship burn. A few of the dock workers knew what kind of cargo the Mont-Blanc's was carrying, and tried to evacuate the waterfront, but they were unsuccessful.
One sailor made his way to the Richmond Railway Yards to tell men working there, Vince Coleman and William Lovett, about the coming explosion. Lovett fled, but Coleman realized that there was a train due in the station within minutes. He stayed behind to send a series of urgent telegraph messages to the train, saying,
"Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys."
At 9:04:35 am, the Mont-Blanc's highly volatile cargo exploded. The ship disintegrated, and the blast travelled at more than 1,000 metres per second. A mushroom cloud rose into the air and hung over the city. Tremors from the blast were felt as far away as Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island. The harbour floor was briefly exposed, then a tsunami formed as water rushed to fill the void.
Halifax was devastated.
The north end was levelled, with huge brick factories reduced to little more than rubble and wooden houses flattened as if smashed by a giant's hand. Fires raged everywhere, sometimes consuming entire city blocks. Hundreds were blinded by shards of glass as thousands of windows were shattered by the shockwave.
Fireman Billy Wells, who was thrown and stripped naked by the force of the explosion, described the immediate aftermath:
"The sight was awful, with people hanging out of windows dead. Some with their heads missing, and some thrown onto the overhead telegraph wires."
That night there was a terrible snow storm, and many people who had survived but been left homeless by the blast had nowhere to go. A city of canvas tents was set up in the Halifax Commons, but the shelter they offered was meagre at best, and anyway, there weren't enough to go around. People froze to death in the city that had, up until a few hours before, been on fire.
It's estimated that 2,000 people died in the Halifax Explosion and its immediate aftermath, and 9,000 people were injured, 6,000 of them seriously. Nearly 2,000 homes were completely destroyed, and 12,000 homes were badly damaged. More Nova Scotian residents were killed in the Halifax Explosion than died in combat during World War I.
And my great-grandfather? Well, he was late for work, which meant that he was out in the middle of the street when the blast happened. As it turned out, this was the best place for him. The newspaper plant where he was supposed to be working was destroyed in the explosion, and his house was a pile of rubble. Had he been in either building, he likely would have died.
His aunt and uncle died, and so did all of their children. A few of his neighbours died. Many of his friends and family were badly injured. He couldn't find his father after the blast, and had to wait until the next day to learn whether or not he was safe. Miraculously, his father didn't have a scratch on him.
So what does any of this have to do with Boston?
Well, Boston was the first city to send relief to Halifax. The Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee in particular collected money and supplies to send to Halifax. They didn't care that the victims of the explosion weren't Americans; they didn't care that they were in the middle of a war and resources were tight. They did it anyway, because it was the right thing to do.
And when I imagine my great-grandfather in the aftermath the explosion, homeless and shivering in the sudden storm, alone and not knowing whether his only family member was still alive, I can't help but think that Boston must have somehow helped him get through that long night. Boston must have been a part of what kept him going through the days and weeks that followed, as he and his father tried to put their life back together.
Boston, who clothed and fed and sheltered Halifax when they were in need.
Boston, who sent help without a second thought.
Boston, the city that now needs our help.
Halifax has a long memory. This is a trait that is, in my experience, both charming and irritating. It means that after you've lived in Halifax for a few years, everyone in the city knows your all your business and remembers every single stupid thing you've ever done. You can never live anything down in Halifax. If you stay there long enough, an act as simple as walking through its streets becomes tricky, because you feel like even the buildings and trees are passing judgment on you.
But sometimes Halifax's long memory is lovely. Halifax doesn't forget the awful things you've done, but it doesn't forget the good ones, either. And Halifax has never forgotten that Boston was there to help first, before even the rest of Canada was able to respond. Halifax sends a Christmas tree to Boston every year, and that tree is lit on the Boston Common. Haligonians traditionally cheer for Boston sports teams. Halifax calls Boston its sister city.
And now, Nova Scotia, the province that can barely afford to feed its own residents, has pledged to donate $50,000 to the Boston Children's Hospital. While announcing this, Nova Scotia premier Darryl Dexter said,
"When we were in need, Bostonians were there. There is a border and hundreds of miles between us, but Massachusetts is always close to the hearts of Nova Scotians. We will do everything we can to support our neighbours and friends in their time of need. Boston's resilience and fighting spirit will persevere."
And he's exactly right. About everything.
So I guess, Boston, what I really want to say is thank you. Thank you for helping us when we were down. Thank you for saving my great-grandfather. Thank you for my life.
I've never met you, but I love you.
The days and weeks ahead of you will be really fucking tough, but I just want you to know that we're up here, cheering you on. We're here to help if you need it. We know that your spirit will only grow stronger in the face of this adversity. We know that you will fucking beat this.
And also, we haven't forgotten.
Hope to see you someday soon!
Sincerely,
Annabelle
My great-grandparents on their 65th wedding anniversary
]]>We Are All to Blame for Rehtaeh Parsons' Suicidetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30469992013-04-09T20:04:10-04:002013-04-10T09:57:26-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/
A teenage girl goes to some kind of get-together, maybe a party.
She is raped by multiple assailants.
The rape is photographed and distributed via social media.
The girl is subjected to horrifying acts of bullying and shaming. She is branded a slut. Her life becomes a living hell.
This girl is not Steubenville's Jane Doe, although their stories bear a remarkable resemblance. This girl is Rehtaeh Parsons, a 17-year-old from Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, who hanged herself on April 4th, a year and a half after being raped. Her family took her off life support this past Sunday.
Reading the account of what happened to Rehtaeh is like watching a deadly accident slowly, methodically unfolding in front of you. And there are bystanders, plenty of bystanders, who had any number of opportunities to step in and do something, but none of them do.
And, in many ways, you are one of these bystanders, too. I am, too. We all are.
Rehtaeh did not have a rape kit done because she was too ashamed to tell anyone about her rape until several days later, at which point it was thought to be too late to retrieve medical evidence.
The boys (there were four of them) accused of raping Retaeh were not interviewed until long after the family tried to press charges.
They were not separated for their interviews; they were interviewed together, meaning that they were easily able to corroborate each others' stories.
The investigation took over a year. In the end, it was decided that there was insufficient evidence of sexual assault, no charges were laid, and the boys got off scot free.
No legal action was taken with regards to the photographs of the rape that were distributed through social media. Rehtaeh's mother was told that this was because there was no way of proving who had taken the pictures.
Rehtaeh struggled to survive for 17 months. She moved to Halifax, unable to cope with the fact that her rapists were also her high school classmates. She checked herself into the hospital when she felt suicidal and stayed there for six weeks. She made new friends. She saw a therapist. She fought to live. She fought hard.
And then one day, she couldn't fight any longer.
And when I read her story, I can't help but wonder:
Where the f**k were all the grownups?
Where were the grownups who were supposed to love her and protect her? Where were the grownups who should have kept her safe? Where were the grownups who were supposed to make sure that she received some kind of justice for what she suffered?
And I don't mean her parents, because it's clear that they, too, have been struggling for the past 17 months, doing what they can to try to help and advocate for their daughter. I mean where the f**k were the school officials, the members of the law enforcement, the people who should have made sure that she had adequate follow-up mental health care after her hospitalization? Where were they, and why didn't they do anything? Or if they did do something, why didn't they do enough?
Rehtaeh's rapists are still out there. They are still in high school, they are still going to parties and they are, quite likely, still raping. Why wouldn't they? They got away with it once, didn't they? Rehtaeh's rapists are still living normal, untroubled lives, and she is dead.
She's dead, but even in the wake of her suicide and the attention her case has gained, government officials are refusing to review why the RCMP refused to lay charges against Rehtaeh's rapist.
"As a community, we need to have more dialogue with our young people about respect and about support to educate our young boys and our young girls about what's appropriate behaviour, what's not appropriate behaviour...We have to make sure that we're cognizant about what gets online and what doesn't get online and what the impacts are, so it's having that dialogue...That still doesn't take away the fact that we've lost a beautiful young woman ... and I'm very upset about the loss."
Saying that we need to educate boys and girls about appropriate behaviour is victim-blaming. Saying that this wouldn't have been a problem if the pictures hadn't ended up online is like saying that rape is fine, but publicly broadcasting it isn't. Calling Rehtaeh's death a tragedy because we've lost a beautiful young woman is a joke - seriously, what bearing does her appearance have on how sad her death is? And since Landry is refusing to open an official review into how the RCMP handled this, isn't he basically saying, "I think she was lying about the rape, but gosh, she sure was hot"?
All of this, every single word of this statement, all of the things that Rehtaeh endured, every single detail presented here is rape culture.
This is rape culture. This is our culture.
I never thought in a million years that I'd be saying this, but I wish that Rehtaeh's case had had the same outcome as Jane Doe's. Because while Jane Doe had to endure some spectacularly vile, awful shit, at least she made it out alive. At least her rapists suffered consequences. At least her case actually made it to trial.
]]>15 Assumptions You Should Make Todaytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29461652013-03-26T10:09:54-04:002013-03-26T11:15:19-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/
2. Assume that those who love you find some kind of value in you and the things you do.
3. Assume, however, that you don't need to be valuable in order to be worthy of love.
4. Assume that there is no one out there keeping a tally of all of your failings, ready to throw it in your face when you're either feeling too good or too awful about yourself.
5. Assume that if anyone actually is keeping a tally of all your failings, that act says more about them than it does about you.
6. Assume that you can't make all of the people happy all of the time; maybe not even some of the people some of the time.
7. Assume that you will, over the course of your life, sometimes anger or disappoint the people you love.
8. Assume that when this happens, it isn't the end of the world, even if that's what it feels like.
9. Assume that there is never an end to learning, or growing, or discovering.
10. Assume that you will always find a way out, even when all the doors slam shut and everything feels impossible.
11. Assume that sometimes earnestness and optimism can trump irony and cynicism.
12. Assume that it's possible to recapture the way you felt when you were young, how the perfect clockwork mechanism of the universe used to leave you breathless and giddy with wonder.
13. Assume that there will always be more stories to tell, or at the very least new ways of reinterpreting old fables.
14. Assume that nothing is permanent, that someday even the sun will disappear; remember that everything we see and touch and taste is made of stars that grew and pulsed and died long before this planet ever existed.
15. Assume that you are under some kind of obligation to make the world a better place.
What other positive assumptions do you regularly make in your life, or do you wish a woman in your life would make about herself? Share in the comments or tweet @HuffPostWomen using the hashtag #assumethis.]]>Stop Calling Rape Victims "Someone's Daughter"tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29098592013-03-19T17:19:00-04:002013-05-19T05:12:01-04:00Anne Theriaulthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-theriault-/Steubenville is all over the news.
I don't have to tell you that the fact that Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, the two teenagers convicted of raping a sixteen year old girl, were only sentenced to a combined three years in juvenile prison, is a fucking joke. Each will serve a year for the rape itself; Mays will serve an additional year for "illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material."
I probably don't even have to tell you that the media treatment of this trial has been a perfect, if utterly sickening, example of rape culture, with its focus on how difficult and painful this event has been for the rapists who raped a sixteen year old girl then bragged about it on social media.
And I almost certainly don't have to tell you that the world is full of seemingly nice, normal people who want to go to bat for the convicted rapists. I'm quite sure that you already know about the victim-blaming that's been happening since this case first came to light. You know about the fact that people have actually come out and said that the real lesson to be learned here is that we need to be more careful with social media (i.e. go ahead and rape but make sure you don't get caught). You already know that people seem to think that being a sports star and having a good academic record should somehow make up for the fact that you are a rapist.
I don't have to tell you any of that because it's all par for the course.
What I do want to tell you is that you need to stop using the "wives, sisters, daughters" argument when you are talking to people defending the Steubenville rapists. Or any rapists. Or anyone who commits any kind of crime, violent or otherwise, against a woman.
In case you're unfamiliar with this line of rhetoric, it's the one that goes like this:
You should stop defending the rapists and start caring about the victim. Imagine if she was your sister, or your daughter, or your wife. Imagine how badly you would feel if this happened to a woman that you cared about.
Framing the issue this way for rape apologists can seem useful. I totally get that. It feels like you're humanizing the victim and making the event more relatable, more sympathetic to the person you're arguing with.
You know what, though? Saying these things is not helpful; in fact, it's not even helping to humanize the victim. What you are actually doing is perpetuating rape culture by advancing the idea that a woman is only valuable in so much as she is loved or valued by a man.
The Steubenville rape victim was certainly someone's daughter. She may have been someone's sister. Someday she might even be someone's wife. But these are not the reasons why raping her was wrong. This rape, and any rape, was wrong because women are people. Women are people, rape is wrong, and no one should ever be raped. End of story.
The "wives, sisters, daughters" line of argument comes up all the fucking time. President Obama even used it in his State of the Union address this year, saying,
"We know our economy is stronger when our wives, mothers, and daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence."
This device, which Obama has used on more than one occasion, is reductive as hell. It defines women by their relationships to other people, rather than as people themselves. It says that women are only important when they are married to, have given birth to, or have been fathered by other people. It says that women are only important because of who they belong to.
Women are not possessions.
Women are people.
I seriously cannot believe that I have to say this in 2013.
On top of all of this, I want you to think of a few other implications this rhetorical device has. For one thing, what does it say about the women who aren't anyone's wife, mother or daughter? What does it say about the kids who are stuck in the foster system, the kids who are shuffled from one set of foster parents to another or else living in a group home? What does it say about the little girls whose mothers surrender them, willingly or not, to the state? What does it say about the people who turn their back on their biological families for one reason or another?
That they deserve to be raped? That they are not worthy of protection? That they are not deserving of sympathy, empathy or love?
And when we frame all women as being someone's wife, mother or daughter, what are we teaching young girls?
We are teaching them that in order to have the law on their side, they need to be loved by men. That they need to make themselves attractive and appealing to men in order to be worthy of protection. That their lives and their bodily integrity are valueless except for how they relate to the men they know.
The truth is that I am someone's wife. I am also someone's mother. I am someone's daughter, and someone's sister. But those are not the things that define me, or make me valuable in this world. Those are not the reasons that I should be able to live a life free from rape, sexual assault or any kind of violent crime.
I have value because I am a person. Full stop. End of argument. This isn't even a discussion that we should be having.
So please, let's start teaching that fact to the young women in our lives. Teach them that you love, honour and value them because of who they are. Teach them that they should expect to be treated with integrity because it's a basic human right. Teach them that they do not deserve to be raped because no one ever, ever, ever deserves to be raped.
