S*** People Say to People with Disabilities

These are all actual words said by actual people to either me or to people I know well. In brackets is the individual who uttered them. I think we can all learn a lot from this list.

"You don't seem like you have Borderline Personality Disorder; you're not manipulative." (Friend)

"You can't have an eating disorder, you're a normal weight." (Dietitian)

"How can you have X disability? You're black!" (Take your pick, h/t to J Applebee for that!)

"I don't do drama." (Usually massive apologists for awful people)

"You can't have BPD, you're not a twat. People with BPD act like twats." (Friend)

"We wouldn't be self-diagnosing there a bit, would we?" (Stranger)

"You don't need care hours for housework any more." (Local authority, MK)

"I don't think it's chemical. I think you just need to go for more CBT." (Social worker, Milton Keynes)

"You have to pay 20GBP more this month for care. No, we can't explain why." (MULTIPLE local authorities, UK)

"You make eye contact; you can't have Aspergers'." (Media, doctors, therapists, friends)

"You hug people; you can't be ASD." (See previous)

"You're not socially awkward enough to have ASD." (See previous)

"You claim you care about people with disabilities, yet you parked near a dropped kerb for 4 minutes. Yeah, we don't care that you paid for your ticket and weren't obstructing traffic." - (Local council that shall remain nameless for now)

"You're not like her. She's mental." (Cheating married man)

"You're just butthurt that X PREDATOR picked me!" (Defenders of cheating married people, throughout history)

"If I had an invisible disability, I'd never tell anyone I was ASD! You're lucky." (Stranger)

"You're too broken for me to help you." (Therapist)

"We can't bring your psychiatrist appointment forward any further. No, we know you just tried to kill yourself, but five days from now is the best we can do." (NHS)

"I think you're just very intelligent, I don't think you need a meds review or to see a psychiatrist." (Social worker, NHS)

"We gave you physio once and it didn't work, so I'm afraid you can't have it again." (NHS)

"Yes, we have to cut your care hours again. We either don't know or don't care that you're getting ill from living in a filthy house." (Local council)

"A new catheter fitting operation is going to be an 8 month wait. We're aware that you get so many UTIs that leaving the house is hard." (NHS)

"Boys don't get eating disorders." (Media, older generation, take your pick)

"Only intelligent people get eating disorders." (GP)

"Can't you just toughen up?" (Take your pick)

"You can't sexually assault a man." (Media, older generation, women, so-called friends....)

"Other people have it much worse, you know." (EVERYONE, EVER!!)

Peter Sagan, Podium Girls and Objectification

When I saw a picture in this morning's paper of cyclist Peter Sagan grabbing a handful of the bum cheek of a 'podium girl' while waiting to be awarded his second-place prize at the Tour of Flanders, the only thing that surprised me was how unsurprised I felt. We're all aware of the icky tradition of young, slim, large-breasted, long-haired (and usually white) women being used as window dressing to celebrate the achievements of male athletes, especially in motorsport. So it kind of felt like only a matter of time before someone took the treating of women as decorative objects in sport to its logical conclusion. Because if you reduce a person to an object, with no feelings, thoughts or autonomy of their own, then why would you see anything wrong with publicly grabbing them? I doubt Sagan is the first athlete to let his hand wander over the deliberately appealing flesh of a young woman in hotpants paid to fawn over him, but it looks like he's the first who got caught doing it on camera.

 

Of course the inevitable attempts to make light of Sagan's actions followed, with puns a-plenty about his 'cheeky gesture'. Apparently the fame and fortune of the professional athlete does make a difference when it comes to applying the law - if Sagan was an office worker who had been PHOTOGRAPHED molesting a female colleague, he'd be suspended for sexual harassment so fast his head would spin. Possibly dismissed on the spot, possibly even arrested. But because it took place in that crazy, hazy world of sport where women are nothing but window dressing and men's actions, opinions and compulsions are respected regardless of whether they're domestic abusers, rapists or murderers, so far we've only seen a social media firestorm and no threat of legal action. Hearteningly, most of the responses - from both men and women - have criticised Sagan for his actions, although there have been a few depressing defences. And even those who question the whole tradition of 'podium girls' have managed to do so without placing the blame at the feet of the girls themselves. But it's still concerning that an act of sexual assault that took place in front of the world's eyes has not attracted a whiff of police attention. Is this because harassment of women within male-dominated sports is seen as a) not a 'real' problem, just 'laddish banter', or b) admittedly obnoxious, but still something women should just expect? I suspect a bit of both.

 

I've had a tiny bit of experience with real-life podium girls, although not in a setting anywhere near as glamorous as the circles Peter Sagan moves in. But I've been at competitions at major UK motor racing circuits and watched as the podium girls were trotted out at the end of the races, and more than simply finding it sexist and obnoxious (which it is), I also found the whole tradition really embarrassing. What's 'glamorous' about standing shivering, covered in fake tan, squeezed into hotpants one size too small so your buttocks are hanging out, in six-inch heels that wouldn't look out of place in Spearmint Rhino, in the middle of the tarmac? And that's not slut-shaming - I celebrate, and regularly demonstrate, a woman's right to dress however the fuck she wants, and by that I mean as sexually provocative (or not) as she wants. But we can't deny that clothing speaks to power structures, and when you're the scantily clad one amongst a group of 30 fully-dressed men (plus a few of us token women), it's fair to say you're not coming from a level playing field. The podium girls were there to be looked at, to provide 'eye candy', to be visually pleasing and sexually appealing. I was there in jeans, a t shirt and a much-needed hoodie (I've never been to a race track when it was anything near actual hotpants weather) - it didn't matter what I looked like, because I was there to report on the race. If I was judged at all, it would be on my writing. Whereas we all knew what the girls were being judged on. A man on my team made dismissive comments about 'those tarts over there', but not because he was objecting to the sexism of the tradition - rather he thought they were not sufficiently attractive, and remarked that you get a more sophisticated class of podium girl at Silverstone. So these girls couldn't win - they were there for nothing but their appearances, but even those were found to be wanting. And so goes the message to women - remember to look perpetually sexually available, even a little bit 'slutty', but never, god forbid, must you look 'cheap'.

 

Still, as I watched the two girls finish up, get back into more comfortable looking clothes and drive away, I reflected that it didn't look like too tough a job. It was certainly a briefer day's work than my 8 hours spent inhaling petrol fumes - not that I was complaining, as I actually really enjoyed reporting on the races, but if you wanted a way of making easy money without having to know anything about motorsport, theirs was certainly the job you'd pick over mine. If I had the height, bustline, waistline, backside, skin tone, hair length and appropriate wardrobe to fit the podium girl template, would I be picking the podium over the pit wall myself? Who knows - it's too big an 'if'. It's depressing, though, that this is how women's roles are still divided. Either you're 'useful' - like I was that day - or you're 'decorative', like podium girls. You're not allowed to be both, because that might muddy the waters. And whichever side of the coin you choose, you'll be punished for it. Ugly girls have to be clever and funny because why else would men pay them any attention, right? And pretty girls don't have to bother being anything but, because their worth is only skin deep, isn't it?

 

In this sense Peter Sagan's actions have been helpful, if only because they spurred on commentators to point out "the absurdity in still having podium girls in 2013". Much like the 89,000 supporters of the No More Page 3 campaign, people are finally coming out of the woodwork to point out how dated, cringeworthy and insulting it is to still treat women like 'dolly birds' in an era where we pay endless lip service to the notion of sexual equality. And it's great that sports writers have used this opportunity to challenge the sexist tradition - Matt Seaton has a great piece in today's Guardian, asking "Does professional cycling really need to award winners kisses from "trophy" females? The whole spectacle is unbecoming - not just tacky and embarrassing, but retrograde and demeaning." It's just a shame that a woman had to be assaulted for the conversation to happen.

Consent, and what it isn't

I saw this poster whilst walking around Brighton a few weeks ago, and thought it deserved sharing:

I'm appalled that Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a woman who has spent a great deal of time admirably taking to task Islamic fundamentalism and its shitty treatment of women, seems to be adopting the exact mindsets of those who believe sexual violence is - at least partly - the fault of the victim. But that's exactly what she seems to have done in her article in Monday's Independent, "How does dressing like a 'slut' help protect women?". It's the kind of knee-jerk victim-blaming and rape apologist tactics that I'd expect to find in The Daily Mail, and is therefore especially worrying when you consider that it's actually from a supposedly enlightened, liberal woman. Firstly, Alibhai-Brown lazily stereotypes and wilfully misunderstands the concept of Slutwalk, declaring that it consisted of women "dressed to pull...in uplifted bras, thongs, Playboy outfits", ignoring those who marched in jeans and jumpers, or those who held up signs saying that the latter is exactly what they were wearing when they were raped, and posing the question "...did I deserve it?". If you believe Alibhai-Brown, the answer goes something along the lines of "less than those naive tarts who wore miniskirts".

It's disconcerting to see an intelligent woman buy so thoroughly into the victim-blaming trend by not only equating 'provocative' dress with invitation to rape, but even going so far as to defend the Toronto policeman who inadvertently triggered the whole Slutwalk phenomenon with his comments. "Surely he was only saying women need to be sharp and savvy?". Um, no Yasmin. He wasn't saying that at all. He was perpetuating several gross, offensive and repeatedly disproved myths, those being that:

1) Rapists are not really responsible for their actions

2) Rape is just really sexual desire that gets out of control

3) Rape is only committed by strangers in dark alleys who leap upon scantily-clad women.

I've written about why those three statements don't stand up to scrutiny so much that I can barely be bothered to repeat myself, but it seems that the message still isn't getting through. How can Alibhai-Brown acknowledge that "women in burkas...are still as likely to be victims as the flesh-flashing demonstrators" in one breath, then go on to lay the blame for sexual violence solely at the feet of those very 'flesh flashers', in the next? How can she believe that rape is caused by the "flesh-baring daily dress...sex mime" if it happens just as much TO WOMEN WHO COVER EVERY INCH OF THEIR FLESH!?!?

She tries to dodge criticism by playing the class and race card, claiming that Slutwalk is the premise of pampered middle class ignoramuses with nothing better to do than patronise 'true' victims, and speculating that "there weren't many women on the march who have endured domestic rape or have been trafficked." Well Yasmin, how would any of us be able to find that out, considering one of the main problems surrounding rape is how its victims are forced into silence and shame by attitudes not dissimilar to your own? Bafflingly, she then brings in a story of an African cleaner being sexually abused by her British employer, as if to imply that Slutwalk is somehow an insult to 'real' rape victims, who presumably have to be poor, downtrodden, and definitely not wearing anything sexy, to qualify.

Although Alibhai-Brown claims to understand that rape is a heinous crime whether committed by Gaddafi's henchmen in Libya, "by soldiers in the Congo, [or] by civilian blokes in the home and on the streets", her words elsewhere in the article directly contradict this. In fact, it's less an article than an incoherent mish-mash of grotesque stereotypes and unsupported statements such as "there is more evidence that drunkenness among young women (and their revealing clothing in some cases) make them vulnerable to sexual assault". I'd really like to see the 'evidence' that supports that massively loaded statement - and I'd also like to hear what Alibhai-Brown thinks makes toddlers and grandmothers vulnerable to sexual assault, seeing as she seems to believe that rape victims are somehow guilty of collusion in their assault.

As I've said a wearisome number of times before, the blaming of a scrap of material or a glimpse of thigh for a man forcing his penis into a woman's vagina, anus or mouth, is not just bizarre and offensive because of what it says about women. It's also because of what it says about men. A-B seems content to believe that the modern world and all its provocative accoutrement has resulted in a society where "even more men seem to defile babies and toddlers, their own teenager children and partners, and violate innocent females, the elderly included" (ah. So there are SOME 'innocent' victims, are there Yasmin? How old, young or covered by cloth does one have to be to qualify exactly?). Her thinking seems to be that, as hemlines have shortened, men's brains have short-circuited, and rape and violence have increased because these middle class bitches just won't keep their cleavages covered. Wow. If men really are as basically-wired and easily provoked to violate a woman as Alibhai-Brown seems to think, isn't there a fairly strong argument for institutionalising, electronically tagging, blinding or at least castrating the lot of them?

But funnily enough, I'm not someone who wants to do that. I do believe the majority of men to be intelligent, logical and in possession of reason, and strangely enough, as a Slutwalker's placard pointed out, not compelled to commit rape by mere items of clothing (or lack thereof). Rape is entirely caused by the decision of vile, sadistic individuals, who are not just 'overly horny' or 'a bit too rough in the bedroom' or 'unable to control themselves'. Quite the opposite - they are calculating, cruel and determined to inflict pain and humiliation on a woman, and know that forcibly penetrating her body is an effective way to do it. No one rapes just because they got too aroused at the sight of an expanse of uncovered leg. They do it for the same reason they would defecate on a person - to shame, subordinate and silence them.

So Yasmin, please adopt some silence of your own until you can abandon your scarily right-wing woman-hating attitude, and consider that perhaps there is some truth to the statement that "rape predates miniskirts". None of us are naive enough to believe, or propagate the belief, that the world is safe for women. That was never the point of Slutwalk. The point was to say that the world SHOULD be safe for women, and no one should ever stop trying to make it that way, and a world in which rape is excused and accepted is a world which can never be excused and never be accepted. My last words to Yasmin, and your charming (interestingly all male) supporters who followed your article with letters to the Independent proclaiming that "The feelings aroused in men are something over which they have no control" and "If those women...don't want to be mistaken for prostitutes, they shouldn't wear the uniform" (because it's fine to rape prostitutes, isn't it chaps?) can only be another slogan from a Slutwalk placard: 100% OF RAPES ARE CAUSED BY RAPISTS.

ARRRRRRRRRRRGGHHHHH

Just when you thought things might be getting better, shit like this comes along to remind you that the powers that be remain utterly ignorant, and dangerously misguided, about pretty much anything to do with rape, sexual assault, or women's bodily autonomy in general.

I thought there might be some kind of turning point when I noticed the reporting over the sexual assault allegations against Dominique Strauss-Kahn wasn't the usual fest of victim-blaming misogyny that rape cases usually descend straight into. For once, the media seemed to be focusing on the behaviour of the accused, rather than the accuser, and suggesting that perhaps it's the (alleged) rapist's sexual history we should be examining when considering an allegation, rather than trying to undermine an already traumatised victim by trawling through their past and making them out to be a slut. Whilst headlines like 'PERV' aren't helping anyone, and not exactly upholding the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thang, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't refreshing to see that instead of 'WHAT A LYING WHORE', which is what rape victims have had to put with since time immemorial.

But today Kenneth Clarke, the British 'Justice' Secretary, has caused my faith to plummet right back through the floor, with his proposal to halve convicted rapists' sentences if they plead guilty, and his comments by way of explanation that: "[Rape] includes date rape and 17 year-olds having intercourse. Serious rape, I don't think many judges give five years for a forcible rape, frankly, the tariff is longer for that and a serious rape where there's violence and an unwilling woman, the tariff's much longer than that."

I can't even begin to unravel the tangle of misunderstandings, misconceptions, and frankly outright falsehoods contained in this sentence. But let me take a few pot shots. Firstly, I'd be happy to see the phrase 'date rape' banished from the face of the earth forevermore. It's one of the most despicable, dishonest, misleading terms I've ever come across, precisely because of the implication it carries that there are 'different types' of rape, and therefore some must be worse than others. Like the term 'domestic violence', it gives this type of assault on women a cosy little niche of its own, lessening the impact of the words 'rape' and 'violence' by adding a qualifier to them, ergo 'Oh, she was raped, but it was only date rape, so not as bad'. Also, what the fuck exactly is date rape? Does it only count if you went for dinner and drinks beforehand? Or does there have to be a movie and dancing too? Basically, it's used to cover pretty much all forms of acquaintance rape, which is the most worrying part of the trend, because acquaintance rape is the most common kind, the most underreported, and the hardest kind of rape to obtain a conviction for. So, um, can someone explain to me why people feel the need to erode the seriousness of this crime even more?

Sure, people are gonna come back with the usual shite about 'Oh, if two drunk students fall into bed together and neither can remember what happened, that's not as bad as someone being dragged into a dark alley at knifepoint'. Maybe it is and maybe it isn't - I wouldn't know, being fortunate enough not to have ever had either happen to me. However, what most people forget is that the 'dark alley at knifepoint' scenario is RARE. Fucking rare. In the 2003 survey of thousands of women, conducted by the Home Office with a view to amending the Sexual Offences law, it was found that only 8% of rape victims reported being attacked by a complete stranger. EIGHT PER CENT. That leaves 92% of those cases as technical 'date rapes', or at least 'acquaintance rapes', because they were committed by male friends, neighbours, colleagues, family members and - in 45% of cases, by husbands or male partners. Are we really expected to agree that the 8% who were horribly violated by a stranger, suffered a more serious assault, than the 45% who were raped by the men they loved and presumably trusted the most, or the 37% who were attacked by men they thought they were safe with, in their own houses, workplaces or social spaces?

By conflating 'date rape' with statutory rape Clarke muddies the waters even more. No, of course statutory rape isn't always the same. It certainly can be - it can involve force, coercion, and a massive inequality of power. The law is there to protect children - if you fuck a 9 year-old, it doesn't matter if she was 'willing'. She's 9, and you're a rapist. Go straight to jail, do not pass Go. However, the oft-trotted out example of a 15 year old and a 16 year old having consensual sex? Yeah, OK, it's not the same, and few police in their right mind would waste their time seeking a prosecution. But to put that latter case in the same category of your husband, boyfriend, friend, neighbour, colleague or the guy in the local paper shop turning on you and violating your body in the most horrendous, degrading way possible? It's just fucking madness. And it's terrifying that any member of our government is making that comparison, let alone daring to do so publicly.

I can only hope that Clarke's words come from ignorance rather than true misogyny - sadly, I think in a lot of people's cases, and yes a lot of them do happen to be male, the ignorance comes from being in a position of total inexperience. If you've never lived your life under the threat of rape, you might not bother to try and understand the issues at work. I hope many men will prove me wrong by speaking out in the wake of Clarke's vile assertions, and yes I know women can be evil victim-blamers as well, although I think their mindset comes from a different, more understandable place (the 'it'll never happen to me' camp). But whether Clarke's just an ignorant old dickhead, or a foul misogynist, is not the issue. The issue is what he said, and what those words demonstrated about his attitude to women, rape and justice. He does not speak for us. He does not uphold justice for us. Therefore he has to go. NOW.

Finally, some anti-rape campaigns aimed at men...

...one by my own local constabulary, Thames Valley Police, and one by Lambeth Council.
Are the police and local authorities finally listening to feminists? I'm wary of getting too excited, but it seems like some common sense is finally starting to permeate. More campaigns like this please.

Watching The Wright Stuff is rarely a good idea...

...but when you're killing time at home it's bound to appear on your TV screen sooner or later. How I've watched it so much without melting into a rage-induced puddle, or at least phoning in to scream abuse at Matthew Wright for his constant ill-concealed misogyny, I'm not sure, but the occasional word of sense that is spoken by the panel or callers is probably all that restrains me. On various occasions I've seen this 'host' portray women as money-grubbing, superficial, ignorant bitches who deserve what they get if their husband cheats on them while they're pregnant because they must've 'driven him away' (yes I was watching a recent discussion of Coleen and Wayne Rooney, and Wright's constant attempts to goad callers into saying that pregnant women are responsible for their husband's infidelity was damn sickening). Today he was harping on the subject of 'No Right To Get Shirty If Things Get Flirty', or rather the question of whether women have any reasonable expectation of, oooh, I dunno, RESPECT, if they DARE to wear revealing clothes.

What was concerning was not that anyone dared to come right out and say 'Yes, if you wear a short skirt, you get what you deserve and you deserve what you get, ho', but more the utterly confused thinking of the host and panel on the issue. They were all keen to get in the disclaimer that 'no one deserves to be raped' and OBVIOUSLY Judge Pickles (judge who was famous in 80s for telling rape victims they 'asked for it') was wrong, but then they all kinda pissed over the good those words achieved, by going on to say that women 'must shoulder some of the responsibility' if men leer, shout or otherwise treat them like crap for showing some cleavage. Matthew Wright and the two female panelists all said that 'I do believe that ideally women should have the right to wear whatever they want, but that's not the world we live in'. Yeah, I guess I believe that black people have the right not to be called wogs, and that gay people have the right not to have their heads kicked in, but that's not the world we live in, so we should all just roll over and submit to the hatred and ignorance infecting our society, right? For fuck's sake. Was there ever a lazier, more analysis-dodging excuse for vile behaviour than 'Oh, that's just the way it's always been, you'll never change things, so just shut the fuck up and submit'? And yet at the moment that seems to be our answer to everything - why prostitution, rape, violence against women and every shitty tributary of those behaviours will never go away. It's always been like that - so don't even bother trying to change it, sista.

What was also noticeably absent from the discussion (and is soooo often absent from any discussion of male ill-treatment of women) was the behaviour of men. No one, at any point, raised the notion of where cat-calls, leering, sleazing and groping actually COME FROM. No one made any suggestion that the blame and responsibility for these behaviours lie SOLELY with their MALE PERPETRATORS. And frighteningly, no one saw the connection between saying 'women shoulder some of the responsibility' for these acts, and blaming women for sexual violence. There IS a connection. I'm not saying that every knuckle-dragging missing link who shouts 'Nice tits' on a night out is a rapist, but the fact is, such a person is exhibiting a lack of respect, empathy and consideration for women that sows the seeds for sexual violence. Such a man may never do anything more than shout or leer, but nonetheless he is seated on a spectrum of systematic disrespect for women's bodily autonomy, which starts with the supposedly 'harmless' acts of verbal street abuse, and ends in rape. Thinking it's OK to yell sexualised insults at someone because they are dressed in any kind of way stems from thinking that a) everything women do is for male attention, and dammit, they should be grateful for whatever they get, and b) women's bodies are not really their own, they're for public consumption and therefore, why show it off if you don't want me to scream filth about it, sugar?

Matthew Wright was very close to the crux of the issue when he made the point that blaming women for verbal sexual abuse makes as much sense as 'covering them all up with burkas', but sadly failed to go further and explain why. Burka or mini-skirt, hijab or high heels, the very fact we focus constantly on what WOMEN are wearing, shows that we still see women as being the 'gatekeepers' of sexual activity, and men as the aggressors. No one would ever seriously make the argument that a man wearing tight jeans is 'asking for' a woman or a gay man to grab his backside, because what men wear, where men go, how men act, is never up for analysis. Why else would the alcohol consumption of the victims in rape trials be so disproportionately focused on, when it's actually the rapist who is far more likely to have consumed alcohol? Because, as our society currently operates, men hold no responsibility for their behaviour - it all falls to women.

Forget for a moment how horrendous this is for women, I think it's also disturbing just what a vile picture of men this assumption paints. As the current thinking goes, men are mentally retarded, lacking in all self-control or self-awareness, naturally violent, sexually obsessed, and incapable of seeing a woman in a short skirt (because Christ knows, no one's ever seen one of those before, and GOD are they a provocative sight when we've probably all seen enough internet nudity to last us a lifetime) without behaving in ways that would embarrass an ape. Pretty much all the men I know would be heftily insulted by this depiction, and would rather die than ever publicly sleaze on a woman. Yet we're all taught to accept that This Is How Men Are, and it's really quite a fucking sad indictment of what lows our society is sinking to.

I could rant for days about this kind of shit, but I think the fantastic Tairrie B put it better than I could when she demanded a world where women have
"the right to dress sexy when and where I want
Without being harrassed for it
Or being told that I asked for it"

If we're willing to wake the fuck up and stop making excuses of the kind I witnessed this morning, we'll come a lot closer to achieving it.

With thanks to the London Feminist Network for passing this one on...

This was posted in response to the predictable yet still deeply jarring campaign telling women how to avoid being raped over the Christmas season:

"A lot has been said about how to prevent rape. Women should learn self-defence. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn't have long hair and women shouldn't wear short skirts. Women shouldn't leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn't dare to get drunk at all.

Instead of that bullshit, how about:


If a woman is drunk, don't rape her. If a woman is walking alone at night, don't rape her. If a women is drugged and unconscious, don't rape her. If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don't rape her. If a woman is jogging in a park at 5AM, don't rape her. If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you're still hung up on, don't rape her. If a woman is asleep in her bed, don't rape her. If a woman is asleep in your bed, don't rape her. If a woman is doing her laundry, don't rape her. If a woman is in a coma, don't rape her. If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don't rape her. If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don't rape her. If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don't rape her. If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don't rape her. If your step-daughter is watching TV, don't rape her.


If you break into a house and find a woman there, don't rape her. If your friend thinks it's okay to rape someone, tell him it's not, and that he's not your friend. If your "friend" tells you he raped someone, report him to the police. If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there's an unconscious woman upstairs and it's your turn, don't rape her, call the police and report him as a rapist.


Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, and sons of friends that it's not okay to rape someone.


Don't just tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape. Don't imply that she could have avoided it if she'd only done/not done x, y, or z. Don't imply that it's in any way her fault. Don't let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he "got some" with the drunk girl. Don't perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can too help yourself. Rape is not about sex, it's about control and power, and what kind of power comes from taking advantage of others? No power anyone should ever desire."

Couldn't have put it better myself. Share with everyone you know - especially the men.