A Word About a Word

“Alleged” is used to cover the ass of the media and those who must consider the facts of a case. By using this word, we are allowing the accused to remain “innocent until proven guilty,” a protected right, so the person who has been accused is alleged to have committed the violation. This has no bearing on whether or not the violation took place, only on whether or not the accused is guilty. Since victimization is determined by the one who suffers a violation, we should not be saying “alleged rape victim,” or “alleged assault victim,” and media has no business doing so. When we use the word to describe a victim, we instil doubt in the mind of the listener/reader as to whether or not a violation has occurred. Let’s stop doing that. Let’s start believing the victim; it harms nobody if we use “alleged” to describe only the accused, and it extends the “innocent until proven guilty” right to everyone involved.

Street Harassment

Street harassment is defined as any unwelcome words or actions that invade the space of another -whether physically or emotionally- and focus attention on the gender or sexuality of the (usually female) target.

The Othering

Let’s do a two-part exercise:

Part 1:

Imagine, in your mind’s eye, a photograph. The image on it is of a person who, based on colour, creed, gender or other status, is routinely placed in a position of being considered insignificant or “less than.” Perhaps even someone who

A second look at the face of a rape apologist.

The rape apologist is an odd animal. Usually they pass off their apologia as advice to women on how to stay safe, but that advice is unreliable at best. This approach to victim-blaming has earned them another nickname: the concern troll. When someone doesn’t understand victim-blaming, I am willing to give that person the benefit of the doubt; I will often engage in civil discussion with a victim-blamer who just doesn’t get what it is they’re saying, to what extent victim-blaming contributes to re-victimisation, or even what accountable language is. However, there is a difference between this and the true rape apologist: The true apologist puts considerable time and effort into creating a scenario that absolves the rapist of (predominantly) his responsibility, casts doubt onto the victim’s authenticity (the false rape claim), assigns guilt to the victim by way of some magical set of actions the victim should have carried out in order to not be raped (unfortunately, there is not a pill that wards off rapists in either the literal or figurative sense, as it is the rapist who is in control of the actions of the rapist – nobody else), and frequently conflates rape and sex. These apologists also tend to erase the vast majority of victims and perpetrators by insisting rape happens “out there,” committed by strangers, and also erase many victims by simply not acknowledging male victims, trans victims, child victims, elderly victims, and so on. The “casual” victim-blamer is someone who has bought into the line of the rape apologist, mostly because that line has been sold with no competition to a public hungry for answers for millennia.

Go hug Gramma

My mother spent a lot of time being mad at me just after my oldest started to walk. She felt I was teaching my daughter to not trust her grandmother, to not like her. The issue would always arise just after we stopped in for a visit

Self-Defence and Pre-hospital Care

“As I approach the scene, I use all of my senses to assess any hazards to myself or my partner.”

For paramedics and other members of the pre-hospital care team, these are some EMS-specific guidelines

Occupy Safety

Sexual offenders move among us. They’ve been in the clergy, the Scouts, and even our families. Sexual offenders are predators who will go where they believe they can find prey

5 Self-defence Myths. Busted.

Victim blaming has been the cornerstone of self-defence advice and education for… well, ever. “Do this, or…” and “Never do this, or…” are victim-blaming statements. Victim-blaming is the antithesis of empowerment. We speak of your responsibilities carelessly in this context, dismissing the responsibility of a perpetrator of crime – and therefor proclaiming crime’s inevitability and the predatory nature of our fellow crew-members on Spaceship Earth.

Fine, the cop said the wrong thing (again), so what’s the right advice?

Back in February, I wrote about an incident involving a constable with the Toronto police who gave the women in a law class fashion-advice (“Don’t dress like sluts!”) when asked what women could do to protect themselves from being sexually assaulted. The SlutWalk movement it sparked has now

kɒk ˈblɒk ər

Some time ago, my daughter asked me what a cock-blocker was. She had heard it on the radio, during a discussion some DJs were having about their night on the town. Excellent. Gone were the days of “Do unicorns like Cheez-Whiz?” and”Can I stay up late?”