Serial Killing 101

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

So, as we were saying, here, here and here ...

Thank you Rosie. You get it. You really really get it. You wrote the column I would have written.

In distressing ways, it’s The Balcony Rapist all over again, nearly a quarter-century after that repeat offender attacked a string of women in downtown Toronto, 12 years after Jane Doe won her civil suit against Toronto police, with a judge finding the force guilty of negligence and gender discrimination for failure to inform the public about ongoing sexual attacks in a defined area, the victims all of a physical resemblance.

Williams appears to have had no preferred type. He was all over the map in his 82 fetish break-ins in terms of females targeted, from pubescent girls to middle-aged moms.

His creeping was not all over the map geographically, however, the home invasions clustered around a specific Ottawa neighbourhood and the small eastern Ontario town of Tweed.

“Not related” is the disclaimer that appears constantly in comments from police officials following Williams’ arrest last February and the subsequent media sifting of events: They had no reason to believe a link existed between what was happening in communities more than 200 kilometres apart.

But to hear at least some cops tell it, they weren’t even seeing a connection in the serial burglary of underwear in Tweed, a town with a population of less than 6,000. In retrospect, alarm bells should have been blaring. Yet at least one officer characterized the thieving of undergarments as not particularly uncommon, thus not noteworthy.

Unless sleepy Tweed just happens to be Planet Central for underwear-snatching, it should damn well have been apparent that something peculiar and disturbing was going on.

Incidentally, I would like to draw your attention to Killing for Sport: Inside the Minds of Serial Killers, page 53.

Yes. Well.

H/T to Facebook friend Nadine Lumley who pointed out the book.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE:

But officers investigating the Ottawa and Tweed fetish burglaries also had little reason to assume the two crime sprees were connected, a source close to the investigation told the Star.

I bet that source was real close to the investigation.

“These fetish burglaries are pretty widespread,” the source said. “It’s not that unique a behaviour.”

You know. Just panty raids.

SPEAKING OF WHICH DATE: Rick Barnes has more.

 Did the Police look at these break-ins of underwear as a pranks, or minor because they did not involve something of significance like a big screen TV or a wallet full of cash?

What the person did in the break-ins was intimidate and humiliate the women and girls whose privacy and space he invaded.  He made these girls and women feel very vulnerable and I expect scared.  Some did not report the break-ins because they felt so humiliated.

 

UP YOURS DATE: Nice. Not.

Stephen Harper has spoken. And not a soul has the guts to take him to task. Read this:

"The Canadian Forces are the victim here, [pause] as are the direct victims of these terrible events."

So says Stephen Harper. I didn't insert that "pause" for no reason. On the tape it exists and it suggests, to Harper, that the direct victims of Williams' crimes were secondary to the effect on the Canadian Forces as a whole.

Which shows what Harper knows about the Canadian Forces. And could care less for the actual victims.

Nothing.

Dave has more on this here.

(Via Dammit Janet!)

CLEAN UP DATE: Some weird formatting happened there for a while.. Sorry.

Caught flat-footed

Okay, so killer Russell Williams has had his days in court and has been sent up the river, or down it if he's headed to the Kingston pen, probably forever.

Don't slam the door on your way in.

 
Nothing can bring back his brutally murdered victims, Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyd, nor repair the broken families he tore apart.

Tweed sex assault victims Jane Doe, who was a very young mother of a weeks-old infant when Williams attacked her, and Laurie Massicotte will have nightmares forever. It's hard to imagine the trauma they suffered, and will continue to suffer.

Hopefully, the other victims, whose most intimate spaces and places were invaded and violated by Williams can find peace. But I suspect they may be lying in bed right now thinking, there but for the grace of God ...

Which is why, despite how the Ontario Provincial Police thinks it has neatly wrapped up this case, I keep tripping over the loose ends.

I have already covered off the way the media have been handling Williams predilection for photographing himself in little girls' panties. In any case, Elizabeth Pickett and Bina Becker have done a much more thorough job of analyzing that angle. Have a read here, here and here. (Elizabeth also considers military culture in the wake of the trial here.)

So what's left?

How about what strikes me as police ineptitude and insensitivity?

First of all, I highly recommend you take 45 minutes to watch an edition of CBC's the fifth estate from last month. It's available online here. Titled ''Above Suspicion,'' it reveals a lot about Williams' invasions -- dozens of invasions -- of women's homes, bedrooms and drawers (and no, that's not a pun.)

Stick with it and you'll be asking yourself, how could the cops have blown this badly?

At least have a look at the fifth's map here. Notice anything?

Now look at another CBC map as well as a CTV map of the Ottawa neighbourhood where Williams' wife lived. Notice anything?

Like maybe a street map and some coloured pins on an OPP wall would have shown a pattern of invasions with similar characteristics?

  

Why did it take so long for the police to start cooperating?

Don't forget, in the wake of the Bernardo-Homolka case, the Campbell report was stinging in its criticism of how the cops handled the case.

Campbell, who conducted a public inquiry into the Bernardo probe, went on to conclude that there was an "astounding and dangerous lack of co-operation between police forces" and a litany of errors, miscalculations and disputes.

The failure to share information prevented police from identifying Bernardo as the terrorizing "Scarborough rapist," whose victims were spread across several police jurisdictions.

Elizabeth takes a run at the Campbell report and how it relates to this case here.

Every single one of Russell's crimes -- except for Comeau's murder in Brighton -- happened within the OPP's Eastern Region. And, while Belleville has its own police force, and Orleans is served by the Ottawa force, somebody should have put it together.

But it wasn't until Lloyd went missing, and the Belleville police under Chief Cory McMullan got involved, that all the boys started playing together.

It's true that many victims did not report break-ins because they did not know about them or they believed the police would laugh them off. After all, it's just another panty raid?

The very fact that some victims hesitated speaks to how women fear that their complains will be discounted.

And no wonder:

There’s a troubling number missing from the latest report from Statistics Canada on criminal victimization. I went looking for the figure because it was there in the last version of the report, in 2004 – it showed that just 8% of all sexual assaults in 2004 were reported to police, a puny 42,000 assaults reported among the total of 512,000 committed. Expressed another way, less than 1 out of every 10 sexual assaults committed was reported to police. It is a pitiful and shameful statistic, a reflection of the fact that despite decades of progress in dealing with sexual abuse and exploitation, authorities have done little to make the process of reporting abuse and confronting abusers less frightening and intimidating. The vast majority of victims still suffer in silence. Statistics Canada refuses to release the figure for 2009. What if things are getting worse? What if they are getting much worse? I’ve produced a disturbing statistic that suggests, if the number is valid, that far fewer sexual assault victims are reporting to police.

Considering how many news outlets treated Williams ''fetish,'' it's no big surprise to many that women will put up and shut up.

Again, this speaks to how the police discounted these violations: They issued no warning to Tweed citizens until after Massicotte was attacked.

Not surprisingly, they were very disrespectful, at least according to Massicotte who fled the court room this week, of what the two sexual assault survivors went through.

Today she emailed. Here's some of what she wrote (I added the boldface):

Out of the respect of the deceased,I will not even attempt to be heard @ this time, submit my impact statement, nor show my face or presence in that court in Belleville since my regretful appearance Monday A.M., when me & my family literally fled that court house @ 11:20, the 1st possible dignified break after hearing THE GUILTY PLEA on all counts with the sexual assaults being blended with the other less serious, none the less disturbing home invasions. I feel that there is a time & place for everything & it is my belief for the living DEAD and their families. Call me over sensitive but those are my true feelings on how this case is being conducted as a survivor of his Hanois (sic) violent acts. So be it! I once again feel used & disrespected by the Crown & the police.

I feel liked chopped liver & I can't even comprehend how the little one is feeling. Now if I could get a message out to the masses it would be-if you survive a violent act of sex don't report it, just run for cover & find your own protection minus the police & the system they represent.

As Massicotte has repeatedly said, she felt the police could have done a much better job on all levels, from plain old detective work to treating victims with more respect.

Maybe Lloyd and Comeau would still be alive if they had.

Meanwhile the media have gone gaga for interrogator Det. Sgt. Jim Smyth.

While there is no question that the skilfull Smyth showed incredible calm and patience in getting Williams to confess, it's not as if the police didn't have a  basement full of panties as evidence.

What's more, it seems obvious that the killer, considering how he would eventually transfer his assets to his wife, was anxious to avoid horrendous legal fees on what would be a losing case. He's a sociopath but he's not stupid.

Today, incredibly, the OPP put out a news release congratulating themselves on a job well done.

Well yes. After all, they had the media spotlight all this week on their dog and pony show. Williams is in the slammer. You can all go home now. Nothing to see here.

And yet, as the the fifth estate documentary reports, it took a few locals driving in a truck late at night to spot Williams' SUV parked in a field near Lloyd's house to put it all together.

I think an inquest is in order.

You?

Photos by The Star's Steve Russell.

Forced entry

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED:

This is a steal from my friend Elizabeth Pickett's Facebook page. She wrote a note that I think nails today's court proceedings in the case of Col. Russell Williams.

He has pleaded guilty to dozens of charges, including sexual assault and murder. 

Today, the world was subjected to the grim details, including the fact that he videotaped the death of two of his victims -- Jessica Lloyd, 27, and his comrade-in-arms Cpl. Marie-France Comeau, 38, right.

We all knew Williams was into stealing his victims' lingerie and then filing and cataloging all  his ''trophies.'' What we didn't know is that this decorated officer liked to wear the stuff and shoot himself masturbating into it. (The Star has a photo gallery. Keep the eye bleach handy.)

If Twitter is any indication, many are grossed out by the details, and are questioning why we need to hear them, especially since Williams has already admitted guilt.

But maybe there's a good reason to pay attention. That's because the media are referring to his "fetish" an awful lot. Elizabeth takes issue with that. Here's why (and I added the boldface):

1. Because we need to see and understand how impossible it is for the mainstream media in general to report these kinds of cases fairly, accurately and KNOWLEDGEABLY. 

For instance, I keep hearing that his fetish for underwear escalated into break-ins, photo sessions whilst modelling the undies and masturbation on camera, leaving the evidence of such behind.  Now that is not a women's underwear fetish.  Such fetishes are perfectly harmless. 

This is the escalation of PREDATORY behaviour! 

The point is not the underwear.  The point is that it belonged to a girl or woman who wore it and kept it in her dresser drawer. To break into the house, the bedroom, the dresser drawer of a girl or woman, try on her underwear and spend hours taking pictures of yourself wearing it while masturbating isn't a fetish, it's a VIOLATION of the personal space and the sexualized belongings of the girl or woman. To masturbate all over her bedroom is a VIOLATION. To tie her up and take pictures of her while masturbating and taking pictures is a VIOLATION. To do the same and then kill her is a VIOLATION.  This is escalating predatory behaviour, not fetishism.

2.  Because we need to know that if the cops were educated about such behaviour and able to categorize it properly and make predictions on the basis of that information, THEY MIGHT BE ABLE TO STOP PEOPLE LIKE COL. WHAT'S IT.  And ought to have caught him before he sexually assaulted four women or, at the very least, before he killed two of them.

3. Because we need to know how easily predatory men get along in our misogynist culture and particularly in the most macho aspects of that culture which would certainly be THE MILITARY!  If I wanted to be a raping serial killer I would be in the military or I'd be a cop.  

Elizabeth links to this documentary by CBC's the fifth estate as well as a column of mine  
from back in February, when this whole story broke. I wrote it when I picked up how the police discounted the report of the first Tweed break-in and assault.

Here's a snippet:

According to Tweed resident Larry Jones, 62, who lives next door to Col. Russell   Williams, 46, now charged with two murders and the two sexual assaults, the police did not believe that first victim when she reported the attack.

Not until the second victim was attacked two weeks later.

"They said her boyfriend had broken into her house, to try to get back at her for leaving him or something,'' he told me Tuesday. "So two weeks went by. Not a word was said. Nothing in the media. Nothing in the news. And we had an animal running around.

"Then, (Victim B) down the road from me, she gets broken into and it's the same crime. They should have put the word out. They could have been looking for somebody.''

Interestingly, according to Victim B, Laurie Massicotte, with whom I have kept continuous contact, both she and Victim A, a young single mother, had what you might call "domestic problems." Massicotte was going through a bitter divorce while Victim A had had conflicts with the father of her baby. In the latter case, as I was told by Jones, police suggested that her boyfriend was ''playing tricks on her.''

Needless to say, I could never get a local cop to confim that. But I have no reason to doubt it either. And it does serve to back up what Elizabeth is saying.

Right now, thousands of people are going through the photos on the Star's website, maybe laughing, maybe feeling revulsion, maybe both.

But, as Elizabeth wants you to remember, Williams did not get that lingerie by ordering from Victoria's Secrets. He got it by raping the personal and private space of 82 women and girls -- and there's nothing titllating or amusing about that.

P.S. I refuse to post any of those underwear photos here.

P.P.S. I notice the mods are not posting some comments, even though they are great. Something about our policy regarding comments and ongoing court cases.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Sabina Becker, another Facebook friend, picks up this crucial thread:

A fetishist isn't generally interested in controlling a person; s/he is content to play with an object or collection of objects, and obtains sexual gratification that way. This activity usually doesn't escalate.

A predator collects human victims as trophies, rendering them into objects to be controlled. When he grows tired of taking easy, inanimate trophies--stolen jewelry, underwear or other personal effects--he begins to entertain the notion of taking humans themselves as his trophies. He escalates his violations over time, in both frequency and intensity, as an addict will increase his dose of drugs when he becomes habituated.

Fetishists are rarely violent. Many are quite odd, but this is beside the point; their oddity generally harms no one. They tend to respect the dignity of others.

Predators are increasingly violent. Often they do not stand out as odd on first glance; their cultivated façade of normality IS the point. It enables them to escalate their crimes until they die or are caught, whichever comes first.

So, we can see that a fetishist ≠ a predator. If anything, they are diametrically opposed.

This is why I get so angry when I see the media falling into the trap of fixating on Williams's alleged sexual fetishes, instead of understanding that he is a predator, one who sexualizes power-over. The media's job is to clear up our confusion, and instead, they are adding to it. And in so doing, they hang women and children--the persons most likely to become a predator's victims--out to dry.

(H/T Queer Thoughts)

UPPERMOST DATE: Note that, according to the agreed statement of facts, it appears that police did conduct a throrough investigation when Victim A in Tweed called them.

Rape Culture

Rarely do I write a piece that remains on The Star's internal greatest web hits list three days running. In fact, until last Sunday's feature on Rape Culture, I don't think it's ever happened.

This is a testament, I think, to how it resonates with so many. At last count, at least 600 shares on Facebook.

I know it got a lot of traction on Twitter, and a little help from the awesome Meslissa McEwan over at Shakesville, she who keeps an inventory of all the ways our society finds rape hysterically entertaining.

Or maybe some perverts out there have Google Alert set up to deliver the latest in rape news to their inbox.

Anyway ...

My story is about 1600 words long, but I am going to post to post all of it, if only to add updates, illustrations and links.

Not long ago, Professor Lise Gotell, an expert on sexual assault law at the University of Alberta, was taken aback to hear her 15-year-old son describe his football team’s crushing defeat as being “totally raped.’’

She wasn’t sure whether to call the coach, or the cops.

“Can’t you just say that you were humiliated? I asked him,’’ she recalls on the phone from her Edmonton office. “He explained that he meant to convey that ‘They turned us into their bitch.’’’

As if that were any better.

“There’s something about this sexualization and the use of rape as a colloquial verb that is really startling,’’ Gotell says. “Culture is a terrain that we should take very, very seriously.’’

Culture, or, as the feminist blogosphere often refers to it, “rape culture.’’

Writes Melissa McEwan, of the feminist blog site Shakesville: “Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-f***ing in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.’’

As good a definition as any.

“Thanks Wind, you have totally raped my hair’’ is the name of one Facebook group (about long hair and wind). Another is called “If you rape a prostitute, is it rape or shoplifting?’’ Still another: “You can’t say no if you can’t say anything at all’’— accompanied by a mock-up of a Superman comic showing the Caped Crusader disrobing behind a sobbing victim face-down on a bed.

Title?

“You gonna get raped!”

Little update here: Some of my Facebook friends reported these last two groups to Facebook and, thankfully, both have been bounced. I did manage to get screen grabs before that happened. And note that many other groups making light of rape exist. In fact, I wrote about one last year.

Fashion magazines use sexualized violence with alarming frequency, depicting sprawled dead-eyed and bloodied models. One Dolce & Gabanna ad, since pulled, showed a shirtless man pushing a woman to the ground while four other men watch, and wait for . . . what? Their turn?

Another D & G ad presents a naked youth inert on the floor while four men look on, one doing up his fly.

American Apparel has been criticized for ads that appear to some to be invitations to rape.

One competition for America’s Next Top Model infamously had the contestants, in lingerie or skimpy dresses, posing as murder victims.

Movies are built around rapes - The Last House on the Left, Deadgirl, Descent—all dwell extensively on the most violent and vile rapes. And then there’s the hit comedy Observe and Report, which treated the rape of a vomiting, drunk girl as a joke. All this, and more, in the past year or so.

And let's not forget this charming beer ad.

It seems every other episode of primetime crime series features rapes. Just this week, Law and Order: SVU, Criminal Minds and The Whole Truth had rape plots. Women characters are systematically introduced only to be bound, gagged, leashed, collared, trashed, slashed, chained, raped and murdered for entertainment.

Even 30 Rock’s most recent episode had a rape scene . . . played for laughs.

Go on Amazon and you can buy T-shirts emblazoned with “Two Beers $7/Three Margaritas $15/Four Jello Shots/ Taking Home the Girl Who Drank All of the Above . . . Priceless.’’

There are rape jokes. Rape songs. Music videos that covey a sense of sexual entitlement to men while portraying women as insatiable, available.

 

Just the other day on FunnyorDie.com, there was an implied gang rape of a woman in a video featuring well known comics such as Will Ferrell, in a spoof of public service messages promoting environmental awareness.

Is it any surprise then that, two weeks ago at a rave in Pitt Meadows, B.C., as many as a dozen young witnesses stood by and watched — and at least one boy videotaped with his smartphone — what police have described as the "gang rape" of an apparently drugged 16-year-old?

This kind of assault happens all too often. Just last year, a 15-year-old in California was attacked by four youths, while another 20 watched. How many attacks go unreported?

What made the B.C. incident so remarkable was, to add stunning insult to the incredible injury suffered by the victim, graphic images of the assault were repeatedly posted online, while at least one Facebook group was created to defend the attackers. It has since been shut down, ostensibly by police who have also been working to remove the images and charge the offenders with distributing child pornography.

Is this to be expected in a culture that encourages male sexual aggression, against women — or other men?

Margaret Lazarus, a Massachusetts producer, director and activist credited with coining the term “rape culture’’ in her 1975 documentary of the same name, says that what’s happening “reflects the integral connections between attitudes and something in the culture that’s promoting (rape).’’

Another one of her award-winning films, Rape Is ..., is required viewing for U.S. military recruits.

“Everybody says, ‘Oh yeah, the education has been done,’’’ she says, referring to all the lectures and classes to which young people have been subjected. “But then something like (Pitt Meadows) happens and you are reminded that you can’t stop being vigilant.’’

Rape culture is about desensitization, says Lee Lakeman, spokesperson for the Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres.

“There are lots of things in the culture that promote rape,” says Lakeman, who works for the Vancouver Rape Relief Centre. “Very vicious pornography is readily available, mean-spirited pornography is ever-present, even the kind of porn we see in fashion ads looks brutal.

“I do think that young men and women get told in many ways that rape is normal, that it happens a lot and there’s no particular reason to fight it.’’

But York University psychology professor Jennifer Connolly, who studies adolescent dating aggression, disagrees.

“Girls, I would argue, continue to be shocked and horrified by rape and sexual assault,’’ she says. “But the fact that a few groups of young men within a few subcultures are misogynist and behave badly is not surprising. I think one can look back at our culture and see that this has often been an attitude expressed by certain men.”

Despite the behaviour of, say, some jocks, frat boys and other testosterone-fueled groups, Connolly insists that research indicates that most youth don’t tolerate aggression in relationships.

That said, she adds, “The media play a role in romantic aggression.

“In our research we find that frequent use of violent media encourages youth to be very tolerant of aggression towards a romantic partner and then, by extension, to be more likely to get involved in relationships with aggression.”

Aggression comes in many forms.

The Pitt Meadows girl has been further brutalized by the age-old “she asked for it’’ victim-blaming (she shouldn’t have been at the rave, she drank too much) and so-called “slut-shaming” comments online.

On a 14,000-member Facebook group for her that offered overwhelmingly positive support, she was repeatedly identified and attacked by trolls who joined merely to stir up trouble — for example by posting images of other rapes, including an unspeakably horrifying photograph from Congo.

One “John Smith’’ commented: “I think there are more than a few people here that know people that enjoy sex outdoors or in public places, like it rough/simulated rape scenarios, and/or like sex with multiple partners. So, with all that, there is a good chance that this was a consensual act.’’

 

And he’s not the only one to believe that, as media interviews with B.C. youths, including some at the victim’s high school, have shown.

What is clear from all of this is the utter lack of understanding of Canadian law. Here, it’s not “No means no’’ but “Yes means yes.’’ The person must agree to sex. And nobody is deemed to have given consent if they appear to be under the influence.

“The law has moved beyond cultural understanding,’’ Gotell explains. “There’s very little understanding of what the legal standard for what consent is.

“We need to reach young men in particular. If you think somebody is too drunk to give consent, then get her number, wait another day.’’

It would help, adds Gotell, if there were political will to bring these issues into the open. That’s been happening in Scotland, which has an innovative and celebrated multimedia campaign to educate men.

But in North America, where social conservatives hold more sway, it’s women who are told not to drink, not to go out at night and to dress to avoid rape, rather than men being reminded of their responsibility not to commit rape.

“I do think the conservative agenda has a lot to do with this,’’ says Lakeman. “We don’t see public officials standing up for women. We don’t see the denunciation of ordinary violence against women. We don’t see men being held to account in any way that speaks to the whole society’s values.’’

“In Stephen Harper’s Canada, women’s groups which could have provided a voice on these issues have been weakened or eliminated,’’ says Gotell, referring to the cuts in government funding to some women’s groups. “That’s another explanation for the escalation of rape culture.’’

The experts agree these are not simple issues.

“I don’t see the explosion in rape; these things have always been going on,’’ says Guelph University professor Mavis Morton, who teaches criminology. “But there really has been an explosion in the media and the messages. Social media are another venue now where we see messages in support of gender inequality and that stereotype concepts of masculinity and femininity.

“As a sociologist, I have to say that we are not asking the larger questions about what is reinforcing this entitlement: How many more times do women have to be told to be afraid, to be very afraid, and change the way they live their lives?’’

“You can’t say, ‘Oh, the battle has been won.’ It just keeps coming back again and again,’’ concludes Lazarus. “We have to keep up the struggle.’’

And now for my new slam bang finish, this, courtesy of Between Friends comic strip artist Sandra Lundy who sent it to me today:

The Purdue University’s student newspaper, The Exponent, has issue an apology for running a cartoon that many viewed as promoting rape. The comic feature, Sex Position of the Week, depicted a male character (all in silhouette) having sex with a female (from the rear), then allowing another male to also engage in the position without the female aware of the switch.

Rape.

Rolling on the floor laughing ...

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: Incidentally, the illustration at the top of this post is one of the many images pinned up on Facebook by the evil trolls who were all over the group in support of the Pitt Meadows teen.

It was also the only one I could publish here.

 

 

Sale Bait

Here's what's likely a new term for you: ''Linkbait.'' That's when websites use gimmicks to draw the hits to their content and, hence, their ads.

This video, created for Bitch Magazine, explains it very well. It also makes the point that women's bodies are commodified even by progressives to sell stuff.

It never changes.

Via Feminist Frequency.

Grand Slam

Too often, sports pages and programming are dominated by men -- men reporters and columnists, men  colour commentators, men team owners, men coaches, men players. In fact, if you think about it, you rarely hear the term ''male athlete.'' It's a given.

Meanwhile, when it's a woman at play, it's often qualified with ''female'' or ''women's'' or something similar.

It's never ''men's hockey,'' except maybe at the Olympics. It's always ''women's hockey.''

But, hey, I am all for celebrating women athletes. The more, the better. It's just that, when it's done, it's all about celebrating the good-looking ones, or celebrating them in a sexual way.

Case in point: This lengthy magazine feature in The New York Times, published yesterday. (Reg. req'd)

The article itself, How Power has Transformed Women's Tennis, is a rather dry analysis of how women in the sport today not only have more clout, on and off the court, but also have more physical strength, more muscle, more back in that backhand.

“When Chrissie and Martina were winning 36 majors,” Billie Jean King, the tennis legend, talking pure performance, not personality, recalled of the Chris Evert versus Martina Navratilova rivalry of the late ’70s and early ’80s, “everyone was complaining about only two good players, no depth. Now, that was supposedly the golden age, and there’s no depth and only the Williams sisters today? Give me a break. My lord, what I would give to hit one ball like them.”

So far, so good right?

Except for this, an accompanying video/slide show showing sparkly, flowy,slow-mo shots of tennis champs such as Serena Williams, in action. Now, I am no prude as regular readers know, but I take exception to how these images are more shwing than swing.

Consider the video of Australia's Samatha Stosur. It barely shows her face, but spends plenty of time on her tubetop, in which she is clearly braless. Yes, I know. She chose her own outfit but, like most of the other videos, it has a vaguely soft-porn feel to it.

Would male tennis players get the same treatment?

Do women tennis players still feel they have to sell sexuality along with sport? 

Would a Billy Jean King or Martina Navratilova (pictured up top, right), no matter how pumped up, have a chance in today's tennis world?

Discuss.

H/T to Francesca, who pointed this out to me on Facebook.

When did you stop beating your wife?

I thought it was just me but, judging from comments on my Facebook page, it's not.

There is indeed a lot of victim-shaming going on in the alleged domestic assault case involving Belleville, On. Police Chief Cory McMullan.

To recap quickly, two weeks ago, Chief McMullan, whose arm is still in a cast, admitted that she was the victim of domestic violence. The small town was rife with rumours of the incident and, basically, she had no choice but to come out.

Without going into specifics, she said, “I do wish to let the citizens of Belleville know that the incident did result in injuries which required medical treatment.”

Her husband David McMullan, a 53-year-old retired police officer, has been charged with assault and released on a promise to appear in court Sept. 30. The couple has two teenaged children.

Residents in this city of 50,000 were busy trading tales on Wednesday about what triggered the incident last Friday.

Mayor Neil Ellis lashed out at those who would spread “gossip and innuendo.”

“We have a victim who needs community support and that’s where this should be going,” he said during an interview in his office.

Gossip is common in any politician’s life, he said. “I don’t pay attention to rumours.”

Surrounded by pictures and mementoes of his wife and three children, Ellis said he doesn’t know McMullan well and only “as the chief of police.” The 24-year policing veteran has held the position for just over a year.

“It is shocking,” he said of the attack. “No one can really make sense of any type of abuse, especially if it causes physical injury. This shows it can happen in any household.”

“The important thing here,” he added, “is Cory, er, the chief and the chief’s family. We have to support her and stand behind her.”

Now the buzz is Chief McMullan and Mayor Ellis were doing the horizontal mambo -- which could have been what, for lack of a better word, provoked husband David. Here's one account:

Mayor Neil Ellis admitted he was with Chief Cory McMullan the night she was allegedly attacked by her husband, but said it was completely innocent.

After two weeks of rumours circulating the town, Ellis said he had to speak out because it was starting to take a toll on his family.

<SNIP>

Ellis, who shows no signs of having been attacked, admitted he was with McMullan the night of the alleged assault, but that she was just giving him a ride home.
   
On Aug. 6, a Friday night, he said he took his daughter to the movies and returned home shortly after 9 p.m., before driving his car back to the theatre and leaving it there for his son who works at the mall.

He began walking to a friend's house, when the chief pulled up and asked if he wanted a ride. He said she wanted to discuss city business.

The mayor said as they were driving, he looked in the rearview window and "someone just came flying in at about 90 miles per hour."

That person was David McMullan. 

Headline?

Belleville mayor denies affair with police chief 

Here's another headline:

Belleville Mayor denies affair with police chief

And another:

Belleville mayor denies rumours of affair with police chief

And many many more.

Ah yes, the proverbial loaded question. Here's what I mean: When headlines say somebody ''denies'' doing something, the implication is that the somebody was doing it -- ''doing it'' being the operative phrase in this case.

Now, I ask you. What was the point of these stories? Titillation? Justification?

Judging from some of the discussion on my Facebook page ... well ... here ...

Sounds to me like the Mayor was crewing (sic) the Police chief behind her husbands back, he found out, she pushed his buttons causing him to do something stupid and now they pretend nothing happened. What am I missing here?

And my response, expletive and name deleted:

Ah so she deserved to have her arm broken, xxx? She ''pushed his buttons?''

She ''caused'' him to do something stupid?

And you ask what you are missing?

xxx almighty.

The old crime of passion line. The one that justified murder once upon a time. She supposedly  is responsible for having her arm broken because he presumably thought she was cheating on her.

Okay.

Rather than conduct some real journalism, or delve into the very real problem of high rates of domestic violence in police families, the media preferred to get into that were-they-or-weren't-they scenario, as if it was in any way, shape or form relevant.

Which it is not.

Her arm was broken. There is no excusing that.

As for domestic violence in police families, here are the facts:

Two studies have found that at least 40% of police officer families experience domestic violence, (1, 2) in contrast to 10% of families in the general population.(3) A third study of older and more experienced officers found a rate of 24% (4), indicating that domestic violence is 2-4 times more common among police families than American families in general. A police department that has domestic violence offenders among its ranks will not effectively serve and protect victims in the community.5, 6, 7, 8 Moreover, when officers know of domestic violence committed by their colleagues and seek to protect them by covering it up, they expose the department to civil liability.7

And some more perspective:

The female officer is under intense pressure to conceal any trouble in her personal life, especially domestic violence. There is a strong cultural stigma  against an officer being a victim. It may be rare that advocates receive a request for assistance from a female officer. When they do, however, they should see this as an indication that the abuse has escalated to an extremely volatile point, as many police officers would approach an advocate only as a last resort....

Let's face it. Police work can be highly stressful, and it can also be very violent. Cops can develop some very bad coping mechanisms. 

Would that not have been better reporting?

Or am I just overly sensitive to how violence against women gets brushed aside, or to the back pages, unless there's a celebrity element to it?

While we're on the subject, Here's a brand new campaign in the U.K. It urges people not to ignore domestic violence but to call the police.

When you think about it, the issue of domestic violence has been ignored this month -- by the media.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: I suddenly remembered where I found all that research about violence in police households. My friend Jude posted on my Facebook profile two weeks ago. Thanks GF!

Baby you can drive my car

Here's Ottawa Citizen columnist David Warren on the matter of maternal health and abortion, the issues which have been in the political news recently.

Let me just preface this excerpt by adding that this is typical of his musings on women and their rights.

I have before me a packet of cigarettes with a Health Canada message in capital letters that reads: "Cigarettes hurt babies." The text underneath this begins, "Tobacco use during pregnancy reduces the growth of babies." Since an accompanying photograph further shows a pregnant woman smoking, it was unnecessary to specify "unborn." Similarly, when we are discussing abortion, it is unnecessary to specify that the babies in question are "unborn."

Indeed, the refusal to use plain language, the substitution of euphemisms and rhetorical evasions, is an infallible indicator that a speaker or writer feels uncomfortable with the truth.

Consider for instance the proposition, "a woman's right to control her own body." Not even men believe this, and a pregnant woman, who actually believes that the baby she is carrying is part of her own body, should wait for it to kick. Perhaps she has an astoundingly primitive notion of biology; but I should think even a woman of subnormal intelligence would understand the difference between what is in that bump she is carrying, and what is in the rest of her flesh. To wit: a different person.

I have myself had the experience of sitting inside a car. And yet even in the moment I was doing so, I did not consider myself to be a car, or part of a car. Nor -- had the car the mind of a pro-active feminist -- would I consider it had the right to do what it wished with its own body, if that involved tossing me out on the highway.

So far I have made no argument against abortion, incidentally. I might be willing to consider an argument in favour of an abortion, at least in extremely rare circumstances. But I cannot engage with, nor otherwise take seriously, an argument based on an obvious lie.

Ah yes. Legal definitions by cigarette packet. As if the definition of personhood wasn't already settled in Canada.

But no matter.

Quite apart from the fact Warren will never get pregnant, never experience morning sickness, bladder pressure, swollen feet and weight gain, back pain, sleeplessness plus the feeling of being ripped apart by a watermelon at delivery, which, as we all know, is just like "sitting inside a car,'' isn't it special that he thinks that a fetus could survive on its own from the time of conception? That it need not be implanted in a uterus to develop? That it need not feed through an umbilical cord?

Minor details, no doubt.

But it's the metaphor simile that grates. It merely reinforces the notion that these men -- since most of them are men -- who are always railing about how abortion is murder, never think of pregnant women as anything more than a vessel for the fetal payload.

Call me truck-ulent on this one. This baby ain't moving an inch.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE (10/2/10): April Reign uses some strong language to make some good points. here's a slightly edited excerpt:

What exactly does (Warren) mean by this? For sure the statement is no lie as we know that

*rapists don’t believe it
*abusive husbands/boyfriends don’t believe it
*anti-choice (BLEEP!) don’t believe it
*men’s rights (BLEEP!) don’t believe it
*the pope doesn’t believe it
*the taliban doesn’t believe it

Geez Davey you’ve found yourself some great company!

Actually, I think Warren would consider it a compliment to be in the company of the Pope.

The Taliban, not so much.

By the way, while walking the dog, it occurred to me that his car simile only works if, after you deposit some sperm and an unfertilized egg on the back seat, it develops into an actual human passenger who can then take the wheel.

Stretching the truth

The Gothamist spotted this huge bit of digital manipulation, which no doubt helped to fat shame women even more than it already does.

It shows Mad Men bombshell Christina Hendricks at Sunday's Golden Globes.

On the right, the original. On the left, as published.

Everybody knows Hendricks' globes and everything else about her are golden. She works them all as part of her role on the incredibly successful series about the ad bizz in the 1960s.

But in this big fat lie of a photo -- Gothamist has a screen grab of the original -- she's distorted, ostensibly to make the writer's point that Hendricks made a fashion faux pas:

... pretty Christina Hendricks in Christian Siriano’s exploding ruffle dress. (As one stylist said, 'You don’t put a big girl in a big dress.')"

Now, if this was performed by some celebrity trash tab or bitchy gossip site, it would be one thing. But no. It was in the New York Times.

All the news re-sized to print.

H/T Dammit Janet!

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: One of my Tweeps suggested this may have been the result of some clumsy page lay-out. Maybe. A very interesting one, no?

Digital scale

Via the New York Times' health blog:

What is the fastest way to lose weight? Try getting a cover shoot for a magazine.

The Web site Jezebel.com this week offers a “Photoshop of Horrors,” identifying the 15 most “egregious” examples of digital retouching of photographs on magazine covers. Not surprisingly, many of the photos involve making already slim women look even slimmer.

I've posted a few over the past couple of years, as you can see here.

But Jezebel has the whole hall of shame, at least those that were glaringly obvious.

The worst? Pop star Kelly Clarkson on the cover of the September issue of Self, which isn't even a fashion magazine really but more about health and fitness.

In explaining the obvious fakeover, Self's editor would later blog (I added the boldface):

Kelly has this amazing spirit, the kind of joie de vivre that certain people possess that makes you want to stand closer to them, hoping that you can learn what they know. In this case, you get the feeling Kelly has not let fame spoil her, but also that she was just born confident, with a generosity of spirit that is all about others and rarely about herself. She is, like her music, giving and strong and confident and full of gusto. Did we alter her appearance? Only to make her look her personal best. Did we publish an act of fiction? No. Not unless you think all photos are that. But in the sense that Kelly is the picture of confidence, and she truly is, then I think this photo is the truest we have ever put out there on the newsstand.

Right.

Can you see the cover line at the top right of the issue?

Stay true to you and everyone else will love you too.

Unh-hunh.

No wonder so many girls are so screwed up.