Ash Moore, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Oklahoma College of Law)

I was wandering through the internet the other day when the story about pornhub.com donating money to Susan G. Komen for every “breast related video” watched during Breast Cancer Awareness month. Now, never-you-mind where, exactly, I was wandering.

Porn is divisive. Everyone has strong opinions about it. But it’s also a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry, whether anyone reading this likes that fact or not. That’s why I was a little surprised to see Komen snub their nose at free money. I know Komen is at least a relatively conservative organization and we all remember the Planned Parenthood disaster of 2012. That’s why the pornhub.com snub surprised me even more. Komen’s fundraising is still down after the Planned Parenthood fiasco. The previously un-blemished organization is still trying to figure out how to fix its reputation. Personally, I don’t think turning down donations is the right way to go.

Before anyone jumps up and starts throwing reputation back in my face, I’d like to say that I wouldn’t care if Komen told pornhub.com to simply take their name off the website and still offered to take the check. I understand you don’t want Pervy Herv watching his 300th hentai video of the day to think Komen and pornhub.com are partners. But Komen demanded pornhub.com to take their name off the website AND refused to take a check. In a half funny, half depressing twist, pornhub.com reached out to every other breast cancer group to give away their money. Supporters of pornhub.com can say they were the bigger men and we all know they’re all dying to say that.

Susan G. Komen is more than a group of people giving money to breast cancer research. It’s an incredibly powerful symbol of womanhood, perseverance, beating the odds, unity, and hope. I understand not wanting to be associated with a porn site. But they need to understand they have an obligation to every person who has put their hope in Komen’s hands. Every person who drives around with a pink ribbon on their car needs Komen to put the energy they’re spending on branding and refusing donations into finding a cure.

Everyone knows someone whose life has been affected by breast cancer. And everyone knows someone who watches porn. If Komen could raise the kind of money the porn industry has, there would already be a cure. Let’s stop fighting each other and stop denying the realities of the world we live in. Instead, let’s work together to make it better for everyone. All Komen has to do to help that happen is take a check. Is that really asking too much?

Rosie Wang, Resident Blogger (’14, Columbia Law School)

Women being catcalled on the street, paparazzi spying on celebrities’ intimate moments – these are two unsavory, disrespectful practices with unfortunately long legacies and deep roots in our culture. With the modern technology and social networking thrown in the mix, these practices start to intersect and evolve in disturbing ways. Parallels definitely exist between society’s fascination with spy-style photos of Kate Middleton topless on private, secluded property and the power that perpetrators of street harassment feel – parallels that find an overlap in certain internet communities.

Creepshots was a sub-forum of popular link-aggregator Reddit, where anonymous posters upload and comment on photos they take of women’s bodies, taken without these women’s knowledge as they go about their everyday lives. Part of their stated motto was “When you are in public, you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. We kindly ask women to respect our right to admire your bodies and stop complaining.” The photos’ distribution for mass consumption, the flippant physiological and sexual commentary they produce, and the fixation on the nonconsensual nature of the photos all combine into something supremely icky although probably not illegal.

Now, some have taken to fighting fire with fire. Gawker exposed the identity of a prominent member of the Reddit community who has the stellar track record of starting sub-Reddits promoting domestic violence and sexual attraction to underage girls. Others tracked usernames into other sites that Creepshots users were active in, gathering personal information and then posting it to a tumblr named “Predditors” that has since been shut down, but not before the arrest of a teacher in Georgia [need link]. The exposed people in question unironically invoked both their 1^st Amendment freedom of expression to photograph women unawares and their own right to privacy and internet anonymity.

This summer, while interning for LSRJ, one of the most inspiring talks I heard was from Sujatha Jesudason and Tracy Weitz of CoreAlign. They asked why, if reproductive rights is the most funded field in women’s issue, do we still seem culturally deadlocked? One of their major points was that the reproductive justice movement has often aimed for incremental changes – reform rather than radical transformation and immediate rather than long term goals. Calling out individual offenders seems to fall squarely into the immediate and incremental. It is reactionary rather than revolutionary and responds to this particular instance, rather than an overall culture of viewing women’s bodies as public property and fetishizing women’s nonconsent. While it is crucial to have discussions on the individual facts of this situation, how can we proactively work to create a different dominant mindset? Perhaps, start by educating people while they are younger. Perhaps the answer is to build into our public school system a more explicit and complex discussion of the importance of privacy and autonomy. Perhaps the answer is to encourage more open discussions among men as a jumping off point to encourage internal moderation of both online communities and real life social groups.

These tactics have echoes of the Hollaback movement, which posts photos of catcallers and narratives of harassment. Both situations have an element of turning the tables of public humiliation on the offenders. But does posting the name, age, and phone numbers of the perpetrators cross the line? While it has undertones of quid pro quo, poetic justice, and may indeed deter future creep-shooters, these tactics raise questions to ponder: Is this sinking to the same level? Is this perhaps engendering (misguided) feelings of victimhood that may fuel a feeling of entitlement or an alienation from seeing women as people rather than a desire to change one’s way of thinking? What can be done that is productive rather than destructive?

Josie Sustaire, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Oregon School of Law)

Scrolling down the news feed of my Facebook account, I stumbled upon a headline that caught my eye.  The headline warned, “New York Schools Enable Sexually Active Teenagers.”  Interesting, I thought, that someone thinks teens need enabling in this department.  I thought that hormones took care of that (but what do I know).  Curious, I read on.  The article discussed New York City’s CATCH program.  CATCH stands for Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Healthcare.  The program aims at providing students with free comprehensive contraception.  What struck me wasn’t the fact that savvy NY schools were providing comprehensive contraceptive services to their students but the spin that the media was putting on it by attempting to incite fear in their readers.  To be fair, no all the headlines I encountered were bad.  Here is a compilation of various headlines from a variety of news organizations:

1. New York City Gives Plan B contraceptive to Teens in School
2. New York schools enable sexually active teenagers
3. New York City Pilot Program Offers Contraceptives to High School Students
4. More Access to Contraceptives in City Schools  (The New York Times)
5. Girls age 14 can get birth control at New York City schools
6. Plan B Contraception pills now available at 13 New York City high schools
7. Morning-after pills offered to NYC high school students
8. Sensible Plan to Prevent Teen Pregnancy Sure to Be Met With Outrage

What stood out to me were articles #2 and #5.  My reaction to them was a mixture of disgust and sadness.  I thought, “Oh no.  Here we go again.”

Now, I wasn’t around during the sexual revolution of the 60’s, but rumor has it that things got kind of heated when sex education was first adopted into public schools.  The media back then also used incendiary headlines and fear-inducing language to spin stories with the hopes of inciting readers (parents) to action (getting rid of sex education).  Life magazine ran an article in its September 19, 1969 issue addressing just this issue.  On the cover are the innocent faces of grade-schoolers under the headline: Sex Education for our Little Children.  The article discussed, among other things, how parent groups had distributed pamphlets with outrageous stories of other schools around the country.  They claimed that one schoolteacher had taken her clothes off in front of students and that another school had shown sex films, neither of which really occurred.  As silly as these claims may seem, the reaction in the 1960’s to sex education in public schools seems to be repeated each time public schools bulk up their comprehensiveness in regards to sex education or sexual health services.  It happened in the 80’s (or in early 90’s if you lived in rural Oregon like me) in reaction to the AIDS crisis and it will likely happen again.

The bottom line is this: articles focused mainly on inducing fear aren’t helpful.  If anything, articles like #s 2 and 5 are simply knee-jerk reactions to changes that some folks just can’t understand or simply refuse to accept.  And although I may not know exactly what enables sexual activity among teens, I do know this, inciting fear in the hearts and minds of parents is wrong and as a mother of two school-aged kids the last thing that I need is more to worry about.

Elisabeth Smith, Resident Blogger (’14, University of Washington School of Law)

On Saturday night, Bill O’Reilly and Jon Stewart debated each other in “The Rumble 2012.”  Bill’s opening statement concluded as follows: “The poster person for the entitlement society is Sandra Fluke.  Do you know Sandra? I left two tickets for Sandra plus a month’s supply of birth control pills at will call. Is she here tonight? Sandra, buy your own. Coupon. We shouldn’t be paying for this or a lot of other stuff.”  He also held up a sign reading “Buy.  Your.  Own.”

This talking point is old. Rush Limbaugh first called Ms. Fluke a slut on February 29, 2012. Since then, she’s graduated from Georgetown Law (where she was the GULC LSRJ President), spoken at the DNC, and campaigned for President Obama.

Let’s remember what she said to Congress though.  Sandra Fluke testified about the need for her insurance plan to cover contraceptives. Not once did she ask for you, or me, or anyone else to pay for birth control.  In fact, she didn’t even talk about her own need for contraceptives, but rather her friends who couldn’t afford it, including one with polycystic ovarian syndrome who needs to take birth control to stops cysts from growing on her ovaries.

How did these women’s medical decisions morph into a stubborn story of insatiable sexual appetite and demands for free birth control? AND, p.s., who cares if someone has an insatiable sexual appetite?! Frankly, sex-shaming is obvious and tired. Why won’t this story die? Why can’t Bill O’Reilly get his facts right? Why does he keep retelling his version of Ms. Fluke’s testimony?

I don’t know. I really don’t. But the image of Bill O’Reilly, deliberately, patronizingly, slowly scolding Ms. Fluke from afar “Buy. Your. Own” while holding a three word sign makes me apoplectic. She spoke honestly and compassionately about the religiously-imposed limitations of her health insurance plan and the resulting effects on specific individuals.

So, Bill, stop talking about Ms. Fluke. Stop using her name as an applause line. Stop with the authoritative, demeaning tone. And, while you’re at it, check out this study.  It turns out free birth control is actually a pretty great thing.

Sara Taylor (’11, University of Michigan Law School)

*trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault

I managed to go to a bar the other weekend without being molested.  Pure luck, apparently.  I ran out to the grocery store late last night, too, and missed the unwanted groping.  I am having a great week!  Ooooh, maybe it’s because I was in loose-fitting pajamas, unwashed hair in a bun, glasses, slippers – on both occasions.  But what about the dozen or so years I, a woman, have been engaged in the risky behavior of going to bars and grocery stores?  What insight can I offer so other women can understand and possibly emulate my incredible assault-free hot streak?  Take it away, Judge Hatch!

Apparently, women who place themselves in vulnerable situations have a duty to be more vigilant to avoid becoming victims.

Several days ago, Arizona Superior Court Judge Hatch sentenced an ex-law enforcement officer who sexually assaulted a woman at a bar this past July.  After having a bit to drink, the then off-duty officer came up behind the woman, a friend of friends, put his hand up her skirt and fingered her.  He got tossed from the bar and the woman naturally participated in his subsequent prosecution (though let’s have a moment for her courage to do this, as it will become patently clear just how stacked the deck is against her).  Judge Hatch suspended jail time and sentenced him to probation, community service, treatment, and also decided this was the appropriate forum to admonish the victim for being a victim. Said Judge Hatch, “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability” and “if you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you.”

Well, I suppose that stands to reason, but how, exactly, does proximity become proximate cause?

Apparently, bad things can happen in bars. Even going to the grocery store after 10 p.m. can be dangerous for a woman.

Going forward, in furtherance of the common law, this is simply too vague.  I feel like I, too, must learn a lesson about friendship and vulnerability, even though I have narrowly escaped groping all these years.  If sexual assault survivors who venture out after dark and forget to leave their vaginas at home is a mitigating factor, what are the guidelines?  Any hemline limits?  Pants only?  What percentage of cleavage clears the threshold?  Can one be friends of friends of cops?  Have a drink?  Can a woman wield any sexual power at all, or would that be inciting dominance?  Let’s be clear, for heaven’s sake, this is a lesson.  What behavior needs to be demonstrated to believably point fingers at the fingerer?

Tell you what, I did learn something here.  The judge also provided some sage wisdom from her mother…when you blame others, you give up your power to change.

Well, your honor, mom was right.  When you blamed others, you gave up your power to change this tired, archaic, degrading narrative.   That duty of vigilance to avoid victimization was yours.

Catrina Otonoga, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

Sometimes, the internet is a glorious thing. Information! Reconnecting with old friends! Shopping! Finding delicious recipes I’ll never make! And sometimes, the internet is like walking down back alley in New York City that is home to the largest rats you’ve ever seen. Sometimes, a woman posts a demonstrational video on breastfeeding to the internet, and that video gets turned into porn through editing. Sometimes, the internet is wonderful, and sometimes it is so completely awful. This is one of those awful times.

After becoming a first time mother who was initially fearful of breastfeeding, and then finding her breast-feeding mojo with the help of a lactation consultant, MaryAnn Sahoury wanted to pass that mojo on to other ladies in need. So, in 2010, Sahoury agreed to appear in an instructional breastfeeding video shot by Meredith Video Studios. A few months after the shoot, Sahoury Googled her name and found that the  footage of her instructional breastfeeding video had wandered from its ownership by Meredith Corporation to YouTube, and finally, was spliced into pornography that was being shared on porn sharing cites XTube and YouPorn.

While the story itself is enough to incite emotion, the comments have been a trip down feminist history lane. News sites covering the story, like Huffington Post, Jezebel, and USA Today are flooded with them, many of them lambasting Sahoury for breastfeeding in public, for not having the dignity to at least cover up, and for having the audacity to show other women how to breast feed. And while it’s safe to say that these commentors don’t know Sahoury, it’s not for lack of wanting. They claim to know exactly who she is and how she lives,“emotionally screwed up” woman who doesn’t understand what “should come naturally” to her, and who was probably complicit in the video being turned into porn. Bottom line: she was asking for it by not being modest enough. And while a few of these comments speak to the responsibility of men in these situations, most are countered with the fault and blame being directed at Sahoury. We are reliving the battles fought by other mothers, our aunts, our grandmothers.

Lately, women in this country have faced an avalanche of criticism that starts the day they have sex, and continues throughout their parenting choices. The misuse of the video is more than just a rouge act; it is part of a systemic cultural effort to undermine and eliminate the voices of women. Sahoury has made a clear choice in how she wants to use her body and in how she wants her body to be seen, and that choice has been violated, with little acknowledgment or attention, other than the sheer shock value of it. Sahoury exhibited a powerful action: reclaiming her body for her daughter’s nourishment, and using it to empower other women who would like to make the same choice, or to discover that it isn’t for them. To have Sahoury’s video turned into porn is not entirely shocking to me; the internet often twists and turns words and actions into beings that are far from their original intent. What’s shocking to me is that the public conscious is endorsing this mantra every day: stay inside, cover up, have a little more modesty. Sounds to me like the public conscious needs a new Jiminy Cricket.

Rosie Wang, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

Somewhere along the way, as part of the natural process of hitting their mid twenties, my friends are making wiser decisions, marveling that that people born during the height of Spice Girl mania are old enough to drive now, and forgoing buying birthday cards in favor of birthday beers. That might explain why I was in for an unpleasant surprise when I looked at birthday cards recently, with the “Getting Older (Humor)” section standing out as a complete minefield.

Comparing the cards that fell under the “For Her” section with those in the “For Him” section, there was a clear divide in the mindset towards aging that reflects the general attitude society sees women bodies versus men’s. Check out the American Greetings website, you can see for yourself gender bias in their selection of print-out birthday cards.

Beyond the cake and shoes women’s cards, the hot-rod and baseball men’s cards, and the “Celebrating You” platitudes that both genders must suffer, these supposedly humorous cards focused on fear when they targeted women. Specifically, the fear that aging diminishes your sex appeal as a woman was joked about while simultaneously reinforced. For men, changes in their body were celebrated with friendly irony, without any competitiveness. In fact aging frees, rather than constrains them. Sure, one card references “breaking wind” instead of “breaking hearts” and mentions Viagra, but another lists ten reasons it’s great to be a man, including not fussing about shoes, nails, weddings, but above all “the older you get, the more you fart.” Crass perhaps, but it still focuses on what your body is capable of rather than what it looks like and highlights the release from other people’s expectations. The only card I found that addressed men’s changing physical appearances was in a drugstore. It had a quasi-vintage image of a boxer with six-pack abs and the caption “Is this the year to start sucking it in? Not for you! Happy Birthday!” It was downright reassuring.

Compare that to birthday cards for women, who with age, are increasingly subject to mockery that seems markedly more mean-spirited. Take this one for example, which says “Remember when you were a kid and how you always tried to make yourself look older? I guess all that practice paid off!” Or one that says there are six stages to a woman’s life, with stage 4 through 6 as “Young woman,” because all women lie about their age and the insecurity being further fed by cards like these is hilarious. A particularly vicious one asks, “What do you call a bunch of women who look fabulous in aerobic wear? A) A group B) A flock C) A gaggle, and then inside: d) Bitches.” The kindest one about bodily appearance is the insipid, “May your life be filled with one good hair day after another.”

What is really disturbing is that women are supposed to be sending such messages to each other in the spirit of well wishing. It is a bonding activity to agree that all women feel inadequate about how their bodies change over time, or to hatefully talk about other women’s bodies as a point of comparison. It says women’s relationships with each other and women’s identity are defined by a competition to fulfill an ideal. They send the message that it is normal for women to critique and police each other’s bodies in that process. In light of the fact that pregnancy and birth are the catalysts to some of the most dramatic changes in many women’s bodies as they age, this type of body snark criticizes by proxy people’s reproductive and health decisions. It shows a lack of respect for women beyond their bodies and tells women not to trust one another. I’ll take a birthday beer over that any day.

Shelley Halstead, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

I am not a reviewer of movies but I feel like I can review previews of movies. OK, I don’t even know if I can do that. But I can tell if I want to go see a movie from the preview. And after watching the Ruby Sparks preview I now know I will not be going to see that movie.

Dig this: Through a young author’s spark of imagination, his protagonist, the ingénue Ruby, transforms from existing on the page to a living breathing entity to behold. Or to be held as our writer protagonist will soon enough be able to do. The opening shot of the preview begins with the young male author putting paper into a typewriter (old school, perhaps it’s just that old fashioned kind of love he’s looking for) with his voice over telling us that he has a good idea but then says he thinks “it’s just stupid.” To which another male voice responds, “Tell me about it.” Immediately I think the response is sarcastic, exasperated like mine, as in yeah, buddy, tell me about your stupid idea. So, the young author begins to speak about the girl he wants to write about as her image appears on screen backlit by the sunshine, nothing discernible except the outline of her body, with her legs and figure accentuated beneath a white flowing skirt  as she walks through a golden field. His therapist(?) editor(?) says that it sounds romantic. Cut to him saying: “Ruby is from Dayton, Ohio” (sounds wholesome) “but was kicked out of high school for sleeping with her art teacher, or maybe her Spanish teacher. I haven’t decided yet.” So ok, not that wholesome. And why does he almost immediately begin with examples of her sexual  exploration? Does this exemplify her free spirit? I, of course, wonder what happened to the male teacher she was sleeping with? How old was he? How old was she? Cut to:

Therapist/editor: I’m glad you found something that inspires you.

Young author: [But] I can’t fall in love with a girl I write.

Therapist/editor:  Why not?

Young author: Because she’s not real.

Oh, but soon enough she will be. She will be everything he’s ever wanted, ever dreamed of, ever created. When she does appear in the preview sequence the young author calls his friend to tell him the wacky news. His friend, incredulous at first, says, “There’s no possible way that girl is in your house, because she’s not a real person. People don’t just appear out of thin air.”

But because it’s the movies we can suspend reality for the sake of art. The art of let’s make believe you are loved not for yourself but what you could be.

 Friend: Have you tried writing more?

Author writes, Ruby acts.

Friend: That’s insane, you’ve manifested a woman with your mind. You can make her do anything you want. For men everywhere, tell me you’re not going to let that go to waste.

This audience member: Big yawn.

 Omniscient voiceover (again): You may see this and think it’s magic, but falling in love is an act of magic.

What’s frustrating about this preview is that it leads us down the oft-trodden male fantasy of the perfect woman. If only one could create her she’d be perfect. (Bwwaahaahaa.) And according to an interview with the NY times, Ms. Kazan, who in real life is the author of the screenplay and plays Ruby on the screen says that “I think I was writing in reaction to a lot of fictional female characters that have been on screen the last few years,” and “just feeling like there’s a diminutive ideal of a girl that’s just one shade away from being true.” While the director puts it more succinctly, “The film is really talking about a male fantasy in a very blatant way.”

Again, I don’t know about the film, but the preview certainly conveys that. For me, it hit that male fantasy squarely on the nose, and appropriately, it made my skin crawl. For the untrained or less cynical or even more hopeful in the crowd (none of whom are me) it’s selling the most magical of magic—it’s selling love or at least the idea of it. The problem is that the preview sells what the interviews, the artists’ statements, and the movie purport to critique—female autonomy within a three dimensional relationship/character. When the omniscient voiceover calls this magic and love it’s forgoing all the creepiness that we just witnessed. They’re selling the fantasy whereby the leading male, lost and forlorn, is to be saved or invigorated by the love of his/the woman.

Believe me, I agree with Kazan and the director that this notion of love, the one where women can be molded by her intimate’s desire, should be critiqued. And I understand that the studio and not the actor/screenwriter/director have a say in the how their film is marketed, but if one does want to make a statement or turn a trope on its head, this preview makes it more difficult for someone like me to buy it.  So even if this movie ends up being quirky and lovely, or quirky and thought provoking, I will never know. But then again, I’m apparently not their target audience.

Rosie Wang, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

I saw Daniel Tosh in March 2011, at Improv in LA, without really knowing who he was. Even with two bloody marys aiding the generosity of my judgment, I didn’t really find his material memorable, mainly because his jokes and all the other ones told that night sounded pretty much the same. Which was concerning, because nearly all of the punchlines centered on the most tired stereotypes about histrionic women and scary black people and clueless white people possible. By now, if you search “Daniel Tosh rape” on Google, you’ll come up with 31.6 million results. Most of them are responses to a tumblr post that reported that Tosh, doing stand-up, announced that rape jokes are always funny, and then when challenged by a female member of the audience, continued,  “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…” The responses by other comics to this incident and Tosh’s semi-apology on Twitter seem to confirm my suspicion that Tosh isn’t an egregious outlier in the comedy world, but part of the mainstream. These tweets show a fundamental misunderstanding about the issue as heckling rather than dehumanizing women, trivializing rape, and threatening someone’s sense of safety when they are in a vulnerable position. To respond to some of these comedians:

• Kumail  Nanjiani said: Do any of you truly believe Tosh would think it was funny if a rape happened in front of him? No. None of you do. It’s called sarcasm.
• And:  It was said in the moment and not a pre written thing.

This only points out that to Nanjiani and Tosh, rape is not real to until they witness it – never mind that statistically it is impossible for them to not know women who have been raped. Even more puzzling is the fact that Nanjiani thinks that Tosh’s gang rape comment wasn’t pre-written is some sort of exonerating factor. I would think it is worse that Tosh spoke of rape, not just in a way that is contrived for easy shock value, but out of instinct, in the heat of the moment, to threaten and belittle a woman he felt was speaking out of turn and place.

• Patton Oswalt said: Wow, @danieltosh had to apologize to a self-aggrandizing, idiotic blogger. Hope I never have to do that (again).

To say that the blogger only wanted attention, that they were idiotic (presumably for going somewhere they know they might be offended) is not just distasteful, it is lazy. It’s lazy to assume a woman is an opportunist trying to show a performer up, rather than putting in the effort to understand her experiences and point of view. It is lazy to task a huge part of the population with swimming against the tide of a culture that constantly reminds them of their pain rather than trying ensure that every space is safe for them. By implying that he’s also offended others, Oswalt turns being hateful into a badge of honor.

• Jim Norton said: “Comics are pigs for making rape jokes, but Christian Bale is a great actor for American Psycho. Everyone can go fuck themselves.”

False comparison. American Psycho is a critique of modern American culture’s ideal of the alpha male, and thus the very mindset fuels rape jokes and attempts to justify them. It’s a work that makes artistic use of hyperbole to show us what the revolting and disturbing endpoint of an obsession with money, status, and machismo is. Admittedly, the movie glamorizes violence and is troublesome in many ways, but in the end it shows Patrick Bateman as the clearly mentally ill star of a cautionary tale. Ideally, if you’re aiming for dark, transgressive humor, this kind of evisceration of mainstream mores is what smart, creative comedy is supposed to do. It’s not taboo to make light of rape, because despite the cries of “PC Police” by the privileged, desensitization to rape is everywhere. It is actually more transgressive, creative, and unexpected to attack rape culture itself, as has been successfully done before.

Some comedians are reflexively defending Tosh to defend comedy and its ability to push boundaries. But comedy is the most powerful and at its best when the boundaries belong to those in power, not those who are already marginalized. All of these excuses serve to reinforce the message to rape survivors: “Large segments of society don’t value you as much as they value the brief thrill of feeling ‘edgy.’ Your feelings are messy and a wet blanket on our fun at your expense.”  It is also part of a larger epidemic of men talking over women who are trying to explain what it is like to live in a society that shames rape victims, accusing them of deserving it if they don’t guard against rape in the right ways, and of being paranoid and hysterical if they do. In the end, there is simply no right place to make fun of rape victims and no wrong place to speak up against rape culture.

Elisabeth Smith, LSRJ Summer Legal Intern

Everywhere you look someone is pontificating about the war on women. We must defend ourselves! No, there isn’t a war! Wait, actually the President is the one waging it.

Lately those of us who support the right to safe and legal abortions and the ability to access them regardless of race, economics, legal status, or geography, have been reacting. We’ve been told to be fearful because fear can be a powerful, yet short-term motivator.  March, yell, scream, protest, call your Senator, your Governor, your Representative!  Where does such fear take us though? Does it marginalize our beliefs far better than a zealot on the other side ever could?

Fear precludes discussions of why contraception and abortion and the ability to plan our families are crucial. Reacting fearfully does not allow for conversations about gender, race, and class. If we’re only focused on today’s crisis how can we explain that if rights don’t include access then for many people they are meaningless?

Reproductive justice (RJ) recognizes the effects of compound identities (race, ethnicity, gender, age, class, legal status, etc.) on reproductive autonomy and the interactions of those identities with healthcare, education, access to information, and social support. RJ advocates envision a world in which people with the necessary rights, information, and resources could make reproductive choices with dignity and free from violence or oppression.

In order to achieve the goals of our movement, we need to stop reacting and start talking, start imagining what an RJ world would look like. Sure, it wouldn’t include the District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act or similar state laws, but why wouldn’t it? If I just scream and say no and thrash about, I’m not giving anyone reason to listen to me or be persuaded.

I’d like to propose something radical. Let’s stop being angry and quash the fear that manufactures short-term effects. Let’s talk, let’s brainstorm, let’s help people understand why realizing reproductive justice is crucial for the betterment of our communities, our country, and the world. Let’s stop using the language of fear and oppression: war, battle, struggle, fight, strike, blow, assault.

Now, please understand that I’m not suggesting that we naively sing kumbaya while the states and the federal government limit our rights and inhibit access. We need allies who work to counter those measures, but we also need allies who explain why RJ is necessary on our terms, using our language.

Reframing conversations about contraception and abortion, one piece of the RJ framework, requires recognizing basic truths: people will always have sex, sometimes without wanting that sex to lead to pregnancy and sometimes with the hope of having a child.   Let’s start there.

In terms of contraception and abortion, what would an RJ world look like to you?