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Just To Clarify...

essietee's picture
Submitted by essietee on Tue, 11/15/2011 - 10:08pm

eve

We're currently in class completing break-out groups that discuss Butler, Barad, Welch, and Humbach, specifically in regard to Eve Ensler's Huffington Post piece "Over It" (11 November 2011). In her writing, Ensler says that she is over "rape pages on Facebook" and "the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame." Three of my peers questioned what a rape page is - I'm attaching a link also printed by the Huffington Post entitled "Facebook Pulls A Few Controversial Rape Pages, But Many Remain" (9 November 2011) to clarify Ensler's words and to create more awareness for this specific issue.

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Kim K's picture

another reason facebook needs a "dislike" button

Submitted by Kim K on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 10:07pm.

I also had never heard of rape pages on facebook (I was in essietee's group on Tuesday night). I was horrified when I found out that such a thing existed. I remember a while ago I stumbled across a facebook group that I actually reported to facebook, and found out that it was later shut down (although I'm sure similar groups have since popped up). Anyway, it was called something like "bitch get in the kitchen and make me a "sammich"'... which is bad enough, but people were posting wall photos of abused women with jokes like "what do you say to a woman with two black eyes?" "Nothing, she's already been told twice". The sad thing is that these facebook pages only serve to perpetuate the lack of awareness and understanding in our society surrounding issues of rape and abuse. I would imagine that no one who joins or "likes" one of these groups has been abused or sexually assaulted or knows someone who has experienced rape or abuse. It literally hurts my heart to know that this kind of ignorance exists in society. It's bad enough to have a bunch of ignorant people sitting around their houses telling jokes about rape and abuse in private, but it's a thousand times worse to have a bunch of ignorant people recruiting others on public "social networking" sites. Ugh.

S. Yaeger's picture

I agree that these sorts of

Submitted by S. Yaeger on Tue, 11/29/2011 - 4:36pm.

I agree that these sorts of pages should be taken down.  However, your post made me consider an aspect of my own history that I haven't really thought about in terms of how it affected my actions.  You stated that you assume that none of the people who make domestic abuse jokes have been victimized by domestic abuse.  I have to confess that I am a survivor of an abusive relationship, who used to make jokes like that all the time.  I think there were a few reasons for this.  The first is that my relationship was mostly emotionally abusive, and I might have been seeking to distance myself from victims of physical abuse.  The second is that I often try to make sense of, and sometime obscure, my feelings by resorting to sarcasm and humor.  The third is that I couldn't really see the abuse for what it was while I was still living inside of it.  It was only after I had been outside of that relationship for awhile that I could see the horrific level of insensitivity inherent in jokes like that.  I'm not saying that you are wrong to be angered by them, or that you are even wrong for thinking that those making the jokes are not victims or survivors of abuse, but I think it's interesting to consider why those who have been victimized might make them.

aybala50's picture

thank you

Submitted by aybala50 on Sun, 11/20/2011 - 8:57pm.

Thank you for posting this. The link to the article you put up really clarified what Ensler meant by "rape pages on Facebook." I have never come across these pages or even heard about them. Honestly, I find myself wondering how exactly Facebook works? Is the reason I have never come across these pages have something to do with the friends I have on the website? How are these sites advertised? Unless I type in a keyword and search for a group, the only way I've come across groups is if I have been invited by a friend to join. The possibility of even coming across one of these groups scares me..as I will not be searching for one of these groups, a friend would have to invite me to join. I get a lot of invites to join groups, but I can't imagine how I would react to a request to join a group that makes a joke out of rape. 

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