1/2/13 Weekly Media Update

Local News

Baton Rouge

Police arrested a 34 year old man accused of raping a woman in front of her son. See more here.

Two men accused of having sex with a 13 year old girl in a Baton Rouge hotel. See here for more.

Racheal Hebert, our executive director here at STAR is quoted, talking about the how consent is obscured in our society:

“So the issue is then when people see these cases and they think, ‘Oh, the girl consented,’ but if you really look at what type of power the perpetrator has over them, or in this case a (relative) who is older, you really can’t argue that that person could have consented when there could be some coercion or threats involved in that person engaging in what’s perceived as a consensual act.”

She goes on to say that these cases are very common, and that “they are a huge problem in Baton Rouge, because we’re not addressing the real problem, which is why do we feel that adults have entitlement to have sex with people who are children.”

Congratulations to one of our STAR volunteers, Alex Juan, for getting the executive director position at USS Kidd Veterans Memorial & Museum! See here for more.

International News

India

Youtube video advertisement turns the male gaze back on itself.

“Exactly one year after the horrific rape case in Delhi that became international news and drew global attention to violence against women in India, that turns the tables on men who ogle women in public. The film shows four scenarios where women are subjected to the ever-pervasive male gaze while going about their daily lives.”

Educational

Slam Poetry

Masks Off – A Challenge to Men

If a man asks what women have been asking for centuries, will men finally listen?

Author: Catherine Thurmond

I am a Master of Liberal Arts student minoring in Women's and Gender Studies at LSU. During the Fall 2014 semester, I will begin to write her thesis on queer oppression through a philosophical Marxist feminist lens. My academic interests include second wave feminism, queer theory, queer Marxist feminism, feminist philosophy, Simone de Beauvoir, and Monique Wittig. I have been politically active since 2010, fighting for an end to oppression under capitalism. I was involved in Occupy NOLA, bringing in members of The Kasama Project, a national communist project in the United States. I was also active in student organizations at Southeastern Louisiana University where I organized many speaker events for activists such as Jordan Flaherty, Richard Becker, The Beehive Design Collective, Jed Brandt and Eric Ribellarsi, and Malik Rahim. More recently, I began volunteering for STAR, Sexual Trauma Awareness & Response, in 2013 as a hospital advocate where I supported sexual assault survivors. I later joined the Louisiana Delta Service Corps, often described as the Domestic Peace Corps, where I interviewed to be placed at STAR as their Outreach Coordinator. I am also the founder of a Feminist Consciousness Raising Group in Baton Rouge which uses feminist theory to discuss personal experiences under patriarchal oppression. Check it out here for more info about the group: http://brfeminist.wix.com/consciousnessraising View all posts by Catherine Thurmond