'Web Sensation' Who Forced Girlfriend To Walk Naked in Street for Talking to Other Men Arrested

Jason Melo (right) made a big mistake humiliating his girlfriend in front of the world.

By Rocco Parascandola, Erica Pearson, Stephen Rex Brown
A self-pitying misogynist maniac was arrested for choking his girlfriend, parading her around the streets of Harlem naked and then posting video of the public humiliation online, police sources said Thursday.

Jason Melo, 24, beat and choked his 22-year-old girlfriend in their W. 142nd St. apartment in front of her 3-month-old daughter before forcing the woman into the cold for the medieval-style degradation, cop sources said.

Sources said Melo punched the victim in the face and crotch and threatened to kill her if she didn’t disrobe, put on a towel and leave the apartment.

Video of the incident shows the woman wrapped in a towel being tailed by a man speaking Spanish who derides her as a “bi---” and “a tart [thot].” The man says he’d caught her talking to “seven other men.”

[...]

The video was so disturbing it prompted a response from First Lady Chirlane McCray.

“Earlier this week a video emerged that depicted intimate partner violence on a sidewalk in our city. The video displayed verbal abuse, forced humiliation, and harassment by the alleged offender, directed at his wife,” McCray said. “Posting that video online perpetuated the abuse, which New York City does not tolerate. We are steadfast in our efforts to make sure all victims of abuse are aware of the many resources available as we strive to make New York City's public and private spaces safe for all women and girls.”

Read More

India's Dalit Women’s Rights Under Economic Globalisation — In Many Ways Their Situation is Worse

The economic reforms begun in India in 1991 were couched in the language of ‘modernization’, yet they have done little to challenge the caste and gender discrimination faced by Dalit women (once referred to as "untouchables") — in some ways their situation is worse.

Covering their faces farm hands walk through the mustard field in India. These women
come from dalit communities and suffer various types of gender crimes including
molestation and rape followed by police apathy at the crimes.(Arindam Mukherjee/
Demotix - All rights reserved)

By Rachel Kurian
The Indian government claimed the economic reforms undertaken in India from 1991 would usher in a new era of market efficiency that would lead to a globally competitive economy with increased growth and employment. The reforms were implemented in a context that was highly influenced by patriarchy and caste-based exclusionary practices. The latter resulted in a close match between income inequalities and caste ordering. An important question was whether the reforms – couched in the language of ‘modernization’ - would improve the lot of Dalit women through providing them income and employment opportunities that would allow them to overcome traditional barriers. A study released in 2012, based on interviews in New Delhi and Hyderabad (two of the cities with highest growth rates), but drawing also on nationwide data, produced surprising results. It suggested that while there was little improvement in a few cases, caste and patriarchy continue to influence the work and lives of Dalit women. Further, these problems were made worse in some instances by deteriorating welfare benefits and economic insecurity as a result of fiscal cuts and increasing inequalities.


How did this come about? First, some background: through its hereditary and hierarchical principles, the Hindu caste system has historically enforced occupational and labor market discrimination on Dalits by forcing them to undertake menial, unclean and low-status occupations. The practice of ‘untouchability’ – the prohibition of social and relational interaction between Dalit and other communities – further limited their possibilities for upward mobility. In spite of legal measures that penalized such practices after independence, caste-based exclusion continued to prevail. Dalit women were subject not only to the patriarchal norms and practices prevailing in India, and within their own communities. They were also targets of physical violence and rape by members of the wider society as a means of humiliating the community.

The study looked at how Dalit women experienced economic liberalization in relation to employment in the public, private and NGO sectors, as well as in entrepreneurship.

The public sector had since the 1950s provided an important option for Dalit groups to gain secure employment and to improve their economic and social status. The ‘reservation’ policy allocated a quota of places to Dalits in government educational institutions and in public service employment (based on their proportion in the general population). This policy was supported by special vocational and skills training. These provisions gave confidence to Dalits that they could access government employment.

The study showed that by 2010 these opportunities were under threat or were no longer available. Under pressure to cut government expenditure in line with the liberalization policies, recruitment in the public sector became more irregular. Vacancies allocated for Dalits often were simply not being filled. Ostensibly, the reason was a lack of suitable candidates. Yet these positions were subsequently given to people on temporary contract, the latter often been filled through informal contacts. A majority of educated Dalit women pursuing public sector jobs were only able to access temporary, low paid, work which lacked social security and labour rights. Most of them were employed in typically female jobs, with 50% in New Delhi being employed as teachers in government schools, often below their own skill level.

In the private sector, liberalization did result in increased employment for educated Dalit women. These women, over 70% of whom were between 20-30 years, and 80% of whom were single, had accessed education through the reservation policies. They were improving their technical and computer skills to meet the needs of the business that had started, especially in the growing services sector, and working for sub-contractors of larger companies.

Unfortunately like in many such small subcontracting firms, the Dalit women earned a near-minimum wage, and often lacked security of employment and welfare. Trade unions did not generally exist in these companies. Some of the companies provided benefits. And some of the Dalit women employees did gain some respect from their families and communities, even if patriarchal norms continued their subordination to male authority within the household.

However, the government’s encouragement of privatisation was sometimes at the expense of the existing labour and welfare rights of the workers. For example, while the government of Andhra Pradesh encouraged private sector expansion in many areas of the economy, it let companies monitor themselves on various labour welfare measures, such as minimum wages and maternity benefits. While caste was not often discussed in the private sector, it did not mean that it did not exist. The Dalit women interviewed expressed their fear that their colleagues might get to know their caste leading to social ostracism and even untouchability at the workplace.

In contrast, the NGO sector – which expanded substantially with the government withdrawal from service delivery – proved to be in an important source of employment for urban Dalit women. These organizations also showed greater awareness of caste and gender discrimination. As a result Dalit women in NGOs were able to access new information, improve their education and social awareness, and use their skills in their jobs. Nevertheless, the traditional gender division of labor, with women assuming labor-intensive tasks, often under male authority and supervision, continued to prevail in paid employment as well as in the household. The result was the typical ‘double-burden’ that characterises women’s experiences in patriarchal societies.

Finally, as regards entrepreneurship, both the union and state governments had promoted independent business by the scheduled castes. For example, the Delhi Scheduled Caste Finance Development Corporation runs several schemes to develop scheduled caste entrepreneurship. But the reality was that the majority of the Dalit women who sought to start businesses faced problems due to poor educational levels, a lack of experience and problems in accessing credit or borrowing at affordable interest rates. Most of them were involved in what was really self-employment, and stretching to work longer hours to both manage their businesses and do their ‘normal’ chores in the households.

It was clear for the majority of Dalit women that self-employment was more a distress-driven phenomenon and a survival strategy due to inadequately paid jobs or unemployment. In was not surprising that they set up small-scale shops and undertook activities with low and uncertain incomes, involving a high degree of self-exploitation. Their caste identity sometimes created obstacles; for example, being limited to Dalit customers, or to operate in a primarily Dalit locality.

Overall, the study showed that in the wake of economic growth, global competition and increased privatization, Dalit women remained exposed to hierarchies based on class, caste and patriarchy – in the labor market and in society. The majority of those interviewed were accessing temporary, low paid, contractual jobs, without adequate welfare and security provisions. While some Dalit women have managed to challenge these perceptions and move into better jobs, the realization of their fundamental labor and gender rights remains a challenge in contemporary India. This is especially so in a context of widening inequalities in society, increasing insecurity in employment, and the persistence of patriarchy and caste based discrimination.

Reprinted with permission from openDemocracy

No Way Out: Child Marriage and Human Rights Abuses in Tanzania — Report

Sofia (center), 18, at the Buhangija Vocational Training Centre. Sofia was forced by her mother to marry
when she was 14 to a man who beat her and failed to provide financially for her and her children. Sofia
currently works to help her mother repay the dowry. (Shinyanga, Tanzania. August 4, 2014)

This 75-page report documents how child marriage severely curtails girls’ access to education, and exposes them to exploitation and violence – including marital rape and female genital mutilation (FGM) – and reproductive health risks. Human Rights Watch examined the gaps in Tanzania’s child protection system, the lack of protection for victims of child marriage, and the obstacles girls face in attempting to obtain redress, as well as shortcomings in existing laws and government plans to combat child marriage.

READ THE REPORT

27 Women Executed in Baghdad — Goes Almost Unnoticed: Call Girls Murdered While Their Customers Go Unharmed — Who Speaks for These Women?

From Video - What the media won't show you.

By AFP
Apartment blocks near a mosque and a kindergarten daubed with cartoon characters seem an unlikely place for the slaughter of 27 alleged prostitutes, but in Baghdad death is never far.

Few people in the Iraqi capital's Zayouna district know any details of what happened in their neighbourhood late on Saturday, and even fewer want to hazard a guess.

Residents of the rubbish-strewn area of crumbling grey apartment blocks say they stopped asking questions long ago in a city awash with guns and gangs and cursed with an ineffectual and politicised police force.

"People are afraid. They don't know their neighbours. Everyone's concerned about the safety of their own family and home. ... Some prostitutes were killed near me a few months ago and the neighbours only found out days later because of the smell," said Zayouna resident Wissam Sami, 23, a student.

"I don't know who carries out these killings. Both Daash and the Shiite militias wear black and anyone can buy a uniform or fake an identity card."

Daash is the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant jihadist group, now known as Islamic State, which last month overran swathes of northern and western Iraq. The word is often used as a catch-all term for Sunni militants.

AFP reporters were able to pass unchallenged through the main police checkpoint into Zayouna, where the previous evening police said gunmen stormed two apartment buildings and killed 27 women with silenced weapons.

"This is the fate of any prostitution," read a inscription on the door of the one of the raided buildings."

Read More

ISIS Executes Syrian Woman by Stoning for 'Adultery': And the Man She 'Cheated' With? — Guess He Was Given a Piece of Candy and Allowed to Go Home

Photo by Sonny Abesamis.

By AFP
Jihadists in the northern Syrian province of Raqa have accused a woman of adultery and stoned her to death, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday.


It was the first "execution" of its kind by the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, which has proclaimed the establishment of an Islamic "caliphate" straddling Syria and Iraq.

"The Islamic State carried out its first sentence of death by stoning against a woman in Tabaqa, accusing her of adultery," said the Britain-based Observatory, referring to a town in Raqa province, most of which is under IS control.

An activist in the province confirmed the report, and said the stoning took place in a public square in the Tabaqa market area on Thursday evening.

Read More

27 Women Executed in Baghdad — Goes Almost Unnoticed: Call Girls Murdered While Their Customers Go Unharmed — Who Speaks for These Women? (Warning Graphic)

Screen capture from video.

WARNING:
The video you about to see is extremely graphic and some may even find it disturbing. It depicts scenes of extreme violence and brutality and should only be viewed by adults.

By clicking WATCH VIDEO you certify that you are 18 years of age or over (if the age of maturity is higher in your state, province or country, then you certify that you are of said age or older), and you further certify that you are not offended by such materials and that you are intentionally and knowingly seeking access to them
for your own personal viewing.

If you do not meet these requirements, or do not agree with them, then
you do not have permission to view this content and must
click on RETURN TO HOMEPAGE now.


RETURN TO HOMEPAGE                WATCH VIDEO

27 Women Accused of Being Prostitutes Are Executed in Iraq

WARNING:
The video you about to see is extremely graphic and some may even find it disturbing. It depicts scenes of extreme violence and brutality and should only be viewed by adults.

White Guy Killer Syndrome

Screen capture from YouTube video.

This sense of heterosexual white male entitlement to a world that grants all one’s wishes, and this destructive murderous anger that attends the ostensible denial of these wishes, is at the emotional core of white supremacy. We cannot understand Elliot Rodger’s clear mental health issues and view of himself as the supremely forsaken victim here outside a context of racism, white supremacy and patriarchy. U.S. society needs to face up to the lethal truth about white male privilege – as a mental health issue.”


By Brittney Cooper

“Black men are not rolling onto college campuses and into movie theaters on a regular basis to shoot large numbers of people.”

Welp. Another young white guy has decided that his disillusionment with his life should become somebody else’s problem. On Saturday, 22-year-old Elliot Rodger (who, as many commenters have pointed out, had a white father and mother of Asian descent) went on a killing spree on the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara, murdering his three roommates, shooting women outside a sorority house, and hitting people with his car as he attempted to get away from police.

How many times must troubled young white men engage in these terroristic acts that make public space unsafe for everyone before we admit that white male privilege kills? While Mark Cuban is busy crossing the street at any sign of a black male in a hoodie, or clutching his wallet a bit tighter at the sign of a tatted-up white guy, he may find a bullet whizzing by his head from a young, clean-cut white man, child of a Hollywood film director, upset that he does not have a certain level of clout and status with the ladies.

The idea that it is young black men or working-class white men (which is partially what I think Cuban’s invocation of tattoos attempts to encode) who make public space dangerous is belied by the fact that the problems of urban violence, which disproportionately involve young men of color, largely happen on residential terrain. Black men are not rolling onto college campuses and into movie theaters on a regular basis to shoot large numbers of people. Usually, the young men who do that are white, male, heterosexual and middle-class.

“His anger is about his failure to be able to access all the markers of white male heterosexual middle-class privilege.”

And make no mistake: From my standpoint as an armchair therapist — having read transcripts of Rodger’s videos — his anger is about his failure to be able to access all the markers of white male heterosexual middle-class privilege. He goes on and on about his status as a virgin, his inability to find a date since middle school, his anger and resentment about being rejected by blond, sorority women. In fact, he claims he will “slaughter every single spoiled, stuck-up, blond slut I see.” As Jessica Valenti so thoroughly demonstrates [3]: “misogyny kills.” I am struck by the extent to which Rodger believed he was entitled to have what he deemed the prettiest girls, he was entitled to women’s bodies, and when society denied him these “entitlements” he thought it should become the public’s problem. He thought that his happiness was worth the slaughter of multiple people.

This sense of heterosexual white male entitlement to a world that grants all one’s wishes, and this destructive murderous anger that attends the ostensible denial of these wishes, is at the emotional core of white supremacy. Elliot Rodger was a late bloomer, which while socially inconvenient and embarrassing, is neither uncommon nor a problem. But because we don’t have a fundamentally honest societal conversation happening about white male privilege, rooted as it is in sexism and racism, we can’t even observe one of the most basic truths here: What Rodger perceived as a denial was at the very worst a delay. Our society is fundamentally premised on making sure that straight, middle-class (upper class in Rodger’s case) white men have access to power, money and women.

And while we have no problem from President Obama, down to Paul Ryan, down to the preacher in the pulpit talking about pathological black masculinity, we seem wholly uninterested in talking about pathological white masculinity, which continues to assert itself in the most dangerous and deadly of ways.

Read More

Still Mostly Male and White: Sunday Morrning Political Talkshows - Like The Tea Party, These TV Producers REFUSE To Adapt To A Changing America

(click to enlarge image)
The sneakiest kind of censorship: The racial and sexual kind.

By ROB SAVILLO

A Media Matters review of the Sunday morning political talk shows finds that white males largely dominated the guest lists in 2013. MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry and Up with Steve Kornacki achieved greater ethnic and gender diversity than the broadcast shows or CNN's State of the Union. Overall, conservatives outnumbered progressives on the four broadcast Sunday morning shows.

 

Throughout 2013, Media Matters has analyzed guest appearances on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, CBS' Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer, Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, NBC's Meet the Press with David Gregory, CNN's State of the Union with Candy Crowley, and MSNBC's Up with Steve Kornacki and Melissa Harris-Perry, political talk shows that often set the media and political agenda. Media Matters has previously released analyses of the first, second, and third quarters of the year. This item will be updated as Media Matters releases additional analysis of the 2013 gender, ethnicity, and ideological demographics of the guests.

Continue Reading...

Blizzard of Pure Hate At Republican Conference: Gays, Women, Muslims Attacked - GOP Operative Quits Over 'Bigotry'

A Republican women's club in San Bernardino, CA sent this out in a newsletter: The
stereotype of black "love" for fried chicken, watermelon, and koolaid passes for "humor"
among old school racists. Members of this Republican women's club would obviously
feel right at home at this year's winter GOP conference. (Source: Eric Molina)

Long-time Republican operative Jimmy LaSalvia announced he’s leaving the party
over what he calls a “tolerance of bigotry.”

The Golden Globes, Woody Allen, And How Awards Shows Can Honor Artists Who Have Done Horrible Things

Woody Allen enjoys worldwide acclaim. Statue of Allen in
Oviedo, Spain. (Photo by Evan Bench)

By Alyssa Rosenberg
The point of awards like the Golden Globes is that they’re meant to recognize that terrible people can still make great art. I think it’s important to acknowledge that the gap between personal behavior and art can be understated as often as it’s overemphasized. Orth pointed out that Blue Jasmine is substantially about adoption, a theme that Allen of course has personal experience with.

The discussion about Jim DeRogatis’ reporting about R. Kelly’s sexual abuse of young women is an important reminder that Kelly’s sexual deviance is an important part of his musical brand, and that his preference for particular acts is not actually separate from the women he likes to perform those acts on.

RELATED STORY: Did Woody Allen Molest His Adopted Daughter 22 Years Ago? - Let’s take a break from the Hollywood tributes to him and reconsider the evidence

That doesn’t mean you can’t honor the art, even if it comes from a terrible place, or at terrible cost to people who are often obscured by the work itself. And I’m not even sure it means you have to talk about sexual assault allegations when you’re honoring Woody Allen’s work, or about Roman Polanski’s flight from justice when you’re giving him a Best Director award. What I do think awards shows have an obligation to do, if they want to be thought of as classy and sensitive, is to make sure that these awards aren’t granted in a way that makes the producers of those shows and presenters who have to introduce them look clueless or like they’re perpetuating a coverup. Sticking to the work and avoiding personal praise of the person in question might be a good minimum standard.

Continue Reading...

Yes, India Has A SERIOUS Sex Abuse Problem: Another Woman Gang Raped - Danish Tourist Tormented For 5 Hours

Delhi protesters showing their anger over gang rape in Delhi, India. (Photo by Ramesh Lalwani)

Delhi Police on Wednesday night arrested two persons for allegedly robbing and gang-raping a 51-year-old Danish tourist who had apparently lost her way near the New Delhi Railway Station on Tuesday.

The arrested persons have been identified as Mahender alias Ganja, 25, and Mohammad Tahir alias Raja — both small-time criminals. The police recovered the woman’s iPod and a Nokia mobile phone worth $19 supposedly purchased by Ganja using her money. Her spectacle case and $16 cash was found on Raja.

A police officer associated with the investigation said the first breakthrough came after the woman identified two of the accused from the dossier of criminals that was shown to her. These criminals have earlier been arrested by the central district police for minor crimes.

Continue Reading...

Does R. Kelly Get 'A Pass'?: Read the "Stomach-Churning" Sexual Assault Accusations Against R. Kelly in Full

"The saddest fact I've learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody."
(Jim DeRogatis)
"One white girl in Winnetka and the story would have been different."
(Mark Anthony Neal)

By Jessica Hopper
It has been nearly 15 years since music journalist Jim DeRogatis caught the story that has since defined his career, one that he wishes didn't exist: R. Kelly's sexual predation on teenage girls. DeRogatis, at that time the pop-music critic at the Chicago Sun-Times, was anonymously delivered the first of two videos he would receive depicting the pop star engaging in sexual acts with underage girls. Now the host of the syndicated public radio show Sound Opinions and a professor at Columbia College, DeRogatis, along with his former Sun-Times colleague Abdon Pallasch, didn't just break the story, they did the only significant reporting on the accusations against Kelly, interviewing hundreds of people over the years, including dozens of young women whose lives DeRogatis says were ruined by the singer.

This past summer, leading up to Kelly's headlining performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival, DeRogatis posted a series of discussions about Kelly's career, the charges made against him, and sexual assault. He published a live review of the singer's festival set that was an indictment of Pitchfork and its audience for essentially endorsing a man he calls "a monster." In the two weeks since Kelly released his latest studio album, Black Panties, the conversation about him and why he has gotten a pass from music publications (not to mention feminist sites such as Jezebel) has been rekindled, in part because of the explicit nature of the album and also because of online arguments around the Pitchfork performance.

FOLLOW US: Via Our New Facebook Page

I was one of those people who challenged DeRogatis and was even flip about his judgment -- something I quickly came to regret. DeRogatis and I have tangled -- even feuded on air -- over the years; yet, amid the Twitter barbs, he approached me offline and told me about how one of Kelly's victims called him in the middle of the night after his Pitchfork review came out, to thank him for caring when no one else did. He told me of mothers crying on his shoulder, seeing the scars of a suicide attempt on a girl's wrists, the fear in their eyes. He detailed an aftermath that the public has never had to bear witness to.

Some have suggested that this album cover is R. Kelly's way
of thumbing his nose at allegations of child sex abuse.

DeRogatis offered to give me access to every file and transcript he has collected in reporting this story -- as he has to other reporters and journalists, none of whom has ever looked into the matter, thus relegating it to one man's personal crusade.

I thought that last fact merited a public conversation about why.

In this interview (which has been condensed significantly), DeRogatis speaks frankly and explicitly about the many disturbing charges against Kelly and says, ultimately, "The saddest fact I've learned is nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody."

Refresh our memories. How did this start for you?
Being a beat reporter, music critic at a Chicago daily, the Sun-Times, R. Kelly was a huge story for me, this guy who rose from not graduating from Kenwood Academy, singing at backyard barbecues and on the El, to suddenly selling millions of records. I interviewed him a number of times. Then TP2.com came out. I'd written a review that said the jarring thing about Kelly is that one moment he wants to be riding you and then next minute he's on his knees, crying and praying to his dead mother in Heaven for forgiveness for his unnamed sins. It's a little weird at times. It's just an observation.

The next day at the Sun-Times, we got this anonymous fax -- we didn't know where it came from. It said: R. Kelly's been under investigation for two years by the sex-crimes unit of the Chicago police. And I threw it on the corner of my desk. I thought, "player-hater." Now, from the beginning, there were rumors that Kelly likes them young. And there'd been this Aaliyah thing -- Vibe printed, without much commentary and no reporting, the marriage certificate. Kelly or someone had falsified her age as 18. There was that. So all this is floating in the air. This fax arrives and I think, "Oh, this is somebody playing with this." But there was something that nagged at me as a reporter. There were specific names, specific dates, and those great, long Polish cop names. And you're not going to make that crap up. So I went to the city desk and I asked, "What do we do with this?" They said, Abdon Pallasch is the courts reporter, why don't you two look into it and see if there's anything there? And it turns out there had been lawsuits that had been filed that had never been reported.

_______________

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COVERAGE AND COURT DOCUMENTS

Document 01        Document 02        Document 03        Document 04        Document 05

Document 06        Document 07        Document 08        Document 09        Document 10

Document 11        Document 12        Document 13        Document 14        Document 15

Document 16       

 _______________

When you cover the courts in Chicago or any city, you go twice a day and you go through the bin of cases that have been filed and every once in a while Michael Jordan's been sued or someone went bankrupt and it's this sexy story and you pull it out. These suits had been filed at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Ain't no reporter working at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and they flew under the radar. So we had these lawsuits that were explosive and we didn't understand why nobody had reported them.

Explosive in what regard?
They were stomach-churning. The one young woman, who had been 14 or 15 when R. Kelly began a relationship with her, detailed in great length, in her affidavits, a sexual relationship that began at Kenwood Academy: He would go back in the early years of his success and go to Lina McLin's gospel choir class. She's a legend in Chicago, gospel royalty. He would go to her sophomore class and hook up with girls afterward and have sex with them. Sometimes buy them a pair of sneakers. Sometimes just letting them hang out in his presence in the recording studio. She detailed the sexual relationship that she was scarred by. It lasted about one and a half to two years, and then he dumped her and she slit her wrists, tried to kill herself. Other girls were involved. She recruited other girls. He picked up other girls and made them all have sex together. A level of specificity that was pretty disgusting.

Her lawsuit was hundreds of pages long, and Kelly countersued. The countersuit was, like, 10 pages long: "None of this is true!" We began our reporting. We knocked on a lot of doors. The lawsuits, the two that we had found initially, had been settled. Kelly had paid the women and their families money and the settlements were sealed by the court. But of course, the initial lawsuits remain part of the public record.

So her affidavit, this testimony -- it's all public record?
To this day, any reporter who so cares can go to Cook County and pull these records, so it drives me crazy, even with some of the eloquent reconsiderations we've seen of Kelly in recent days, that they keep saying "rumors" and "allegations". Well, "allegations" is fair, OK. You're protected as a reporter, any lawsuit that has been filed as fact. The contents of the lawsuit are protected. So these were not rumors. These were allegations made in court.

Do you think part of how it's been handled and why it's been under-reported is that music writers may not know how to deal with it in a journalistic sense?
Let's start with the most mundane part. A lot of people who are critics are fans and don't come with any academic background, with any journalistic background, research background. Now, nobody knows everything, and far be it from me to say you've got to be a journalist or you have to have studied critical theory in the academy. Part of what we do is journalistic. Get the names right, get the dates right, get the facts right. Sometimes, on a very rare number of stories, there's a deeper level of reporting required.

There's another reason: People are squeamish. I think a lot of people don't know how to do it, don't care to do it, and it's way too much work. It's just kind of disgusting to have to write about this and bum everyone out when you just want to review a record.

You and I got into it over Twitter around Pitchfork, in part over the fact that you were saying, "If you are enjoying R. Kelly, you are effectively cosigning what this man has done." At the time, I was being defensive, saying people can like what they like.
To be clear, I think Pitchfork was cosigning it. I think each and every one of us, as individual listeners and consumers of culture, has to come up with our own answer. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. The thing that's interesting to me is that Pitchfork is a journalistic and critical organ. They do journalism and they do criticism. And then when they are making money to present an act -- that's a cosign, that's an endorsement. That's not just writing about and covering it. They very much wanted R. Kelly as their cornerstone artist for the festival. I think it's fair game to say: "Why, Pitchfork?"


CONTINUE READING...

When The Judge Is A Woman

Redressing the historical and structural male domination of judicial systems requires that we consider the impact of gender on judges, citizens, and the text of law itself. Reflections on the conversations at the ‘le juge est une femme’ conference at the Université libre de Bruxelles.

Tunisian judges, magistrates and lawyers demonstrate for their independence.
(Photo: Demotix)

By Heather Mcrobie
What does it mean when the judge is a woman?  The question raised at the Université libre de Bruxelles looks at the implications for the judicial system – and what we consider justice – when the gendered structures and assumptions built into it are taken apart.  In reply to the question, legal scholars and gender theory experts explored the impact of gender on judges themselves, as well as for citizens encountering the justice system.

For all their assertions of impartiality and fairness, the concepts that underpin law – and frame the ways we think about justice–  are laced with gendered notions, from the evolution of the symbol of ‘Lady Justice’ from the goddess Themis to the Enlightenment-era reworking of the relationship between citizen, state and the law through assertions of rights of ‘man’.  And judicial systems worldwide are male-dominated in at least two senses: firstly, judges who identify as male make up the majority of judges in national formal judicial systems, with women historically underrepresented in the judicial profession; secondly, as feminist legal scholars and socio-legal scholars have argued, modern justice systems emerged out of patriarchal conceptions of justice, and as such they privilege the male experience and qualities associated with masculinity.  Gendered ideas of who constitutes the ideal citizen pepper the historical emergence of our modern concepts of justice throughout the Enlightenment, whilst nineteenth-century elevations of the idea of property as a cornerstone of legal status work in tandem with historically patriarchal ideas of property.  Traces of these ideas live on in our current realities through their continued presence in the bloodstream of legal bodies.

"Anti-Rape" Panties Has Some People Pissed Off: Does Product Trivialize Rape?

So-called 'Anti-Rape' panties are made of 'indestructible material' around the thighs, waist, and crotch. Will they discourage rape or encourage even more violence? Or are they just another Jimmy Kimmel prank?

High tech anti-rape panties are pissing people off, despite best intentions (via Pando Daily)

By Carmel DeAmicis On November 1, 2013Today in ridiculous crowdfunding videos I present: Anti-rape panties. The line of clothing, which ranges from workout shorts to underwear, has indestructible material around the thighs, waist, and crotch. It is,…