Road Kill

There was an uproar earlier today -- and for good reason -- among female Facebookers and their sympathetic male friends over a fan page apparently put up by kids at an Australian Catholic college.

It was titled -- brace yourself -- '''Killing your hooker so you don't have to pay her.''

It appears to be gone now, probably because so many people reported it. 

Sometime this afternoon it had some 23,000 members, although I expect the sudden surge in membership had more to do with angry Facebookers joining up so they could trash it.

As my sister Fringer Jude MacDonald wrote to the school:

It has come to my attention that several students from your school and others are enthusiastic participants on a Facebook group that makes the murder of sex workers a joke. Anyone who knows anything about violence against women - and specifically sex workers - knows that predators target those who are marginalized and dehumanized in society. Those who are not considered fully human.

It would appear that this attitude is part of your institution's culture. That this is the case in a boys' school is alarming. That this is the case in an institution that is presumably based on the teachings of Jesus is even more appalling.

Do you have any form of gender sensitivity built into your curriculum?

Do you have any way of dealing with the hateful, poisonous brew apparently breeding in your school?

I hope so. Please let me know. I plan to let more women and men who care about our emancipation know about this group, and your students who are part of it.

I regret not blogging this sooner so that I could have made a screen grab. But others did.

Here's one from Cleavage:

But hey! No problem! Here's another group with a similar theme -- and it's not too late to sign up: (UPDATE: It's gone now too.)

Indeed, there's nothing new about this, as we saw last fall. That's when boys at another Australian Christian college put up a pro-rape page. It too has been shut down. 

(Incidentally, how colonized and troubled are the girls who defended these pages? And what is going on in Australia?))

Now here's the thing. All this is supposedly a result of a theme in the ultra popular video game Grand Theft Auto.

As even your grandma knows, "Grand Theft Auto IV" is out and it's being hyped as an X-rated wonderland. You can enjoy booty-bouncing, crotch headstands and double lap dances at the local strip club, and pay a hooker to talk dirty and service you in your hooptie. It gets better: After you get your rocks off, you can run her over with your car or riddle her with bullets -- it all depends on how you roll, ya big stud. 

Oh phew. It's just a game.

I was kinda worried there for a sec.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE Sex in Power has more.

UPPITY WOMAN SECOND DATE: Sigh.

Comments

[David Morse]

Righteous post, and I'm glad to see that both of those groups have disappeared, or so it seems. No doubt there'll be more.

Not sure why all this nastiness seems to originate disproportionately from Australia. It would be interesting to get in contact with some activists from down under and chat with them about it.

That Salon article is spot on. Asks all the right questions.

[Atheistincanada]

There is alot going on in Australia. I lived there for 16 months and the culture is very misogynistic. It was definitely an eye-opener.