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mjg59(This post contains some discussion of rape and sexual assault but does not go into any specifics)
There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.
Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.
And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.
Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.
There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over £40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.
Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.
In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.
Footnotes
[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like
(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)
(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.
In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.
Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that
There was a brief controversy at Linux.conf.au back in 2011. The final keynote speaker gave a compelling presentation on online privacy, including some slides containing sexualised imagery. This was against the terms of the conference policies, and resulted in an apology from the conference organisers and the speaker. The situation was unfortunate but well handled, and that should have been the end of it.
Afterwards, there was some pushback on the conference mailing list. Concerns were raised about the policy being overly restrictive and the potential for it to be used to stifle speech that influential groups disagreed with. I don't agree with these arguments, but discussion of why policies have been implemented is completely natural and provides an opportunity for a community to determine what its expected standards are.
And then Ted Ts'o effectively called rape victims liars[1]. At first I assumed that this was just some sort of horrific failure to understand the implications of what he was saying, so I emailed him to check. The reply I got drew a pretty clear distinction between the case of a drunk college student raping another drunk college student in their room and the case of knifepoint rape in a dark park. You know, the difference between accidental rape and rape rape. The difference between the one any of us might have done and the one that only bad people do. Legitimate rape and the "rape" that those feminists talk about. The distinction that lets rapists convince themselves that they didn't really rape anyone because they weren't holding a knife at the time.
Ted Ts'o argues that only a small percentage of rape really counts as what people think of as rape. Ted Ts'o is a rape apologist.
There's an ongoing scandal in the UK at the moment. A well known DJ, Jimmy Savile, died last year. He grew up in a working class family, but through hard work and natural talent was one of the most significant figures in promoting pop music in the UK in the 50s and 60s, and worked in various parts of the BBC for the best part of 30 years. He spent significant amounts of time raising money for charity, and it's estimated that he raised over £40 million for various causes. Since his death, around 300 people have accused him of sexually abusing them. The BBC is desperately trying to explain why it cancelled an expose shortly before it aired. Multiple people who worked there at the time claim that everyone knew he was involved in indecent activities, but saying anything would risk both their career and the charities that depended on his fundraising. Nobody said anything, and he was allegedly free to continue his abuse.
Ted Ts'o is a significant figure in the Linux kernel community. He has expressed abhorrent beliefs that damage that community. Condemnation was limited to a mailing list with limited readership, meaning, effectively, that nobody said anything. Last week the Ada Initiative published a blog post pointing out the damage that did, and I realised that my effective silence was not only helping to alienate 50% of the population from involving themselves with Linux, it was also implicitly supporting my community leadership. I was giving the impression that I was basically fine with our community leaders telling people that it wasn't really rape if you were both drunk enough. I was increasing the chances of members of our community being sexually assaulted. Silence is endorsement. Saying nothing is not ok.
In the absence of an apology and explanation from Ted, I'll be interacting with him to the bare minimum that I'm compelled to as a result of my job. I won't be attending any Linux Foundation events he's involved in organising. If I'm running any events, I won't be inviting him. At a time when we're finally making progress in making our community more open and supportive, we don't need leaders who undermine that work. Support organisations who encourage that progress, not the people who help drag us back.
Footnotes
[1]The original archive has vanished. I've put up a copy of the relevant thread here. Throughout, Ted states that he's actually arguing against the idea that women need to be frightened of sexual assault, and not against the definition of rape. Except saying things like
This one does a pretty good job of taking apart the Koss / Ms. Magazine study, which is the source for the "1 in 4" number. For example, it points out that over half of those cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercionis difficult to read in any way other than "Half of the people you're counting as having been raped haven't really been raped", and favourably referring to an article that asserts that the rate of false rape reports is probably close to 50% is pretty strong support for the idea that many rape victims are liars.
(Update 2012/10/30: Adam Williamson suggests in this comment that this mail is a better example of Ted's behaviour - there's some explicit victim blaming and a lot of "Is that rape" questioning with the obvious implication that the answer should be "no". Ted Ts'o is a victim blaming rape apologist.)
(Update 2012/11/05: It's been suggested that I haven't been sufficiently clear about which of Ted's statements justify my claims. So, here we go.
In this mail, Ted links to and endorses this article. He explicitly links to it because of its treatment of rape statistics. Quoting directly from that article:
the rate of false reports is at least 9 percent and probably closer to 50 percent
Ted explicitly endorses an article that claims that a significant percentage of reported rapes are false. The study that generated that figure is held in poor regard by other researchers in the field - Australian police figures indicate that 2.1% of rape accusations were classified as false. Ted asserts that he was trying to argue against poor use of statistics, so it's a fair assumption that he agrees with the alternative statistics that he's citing. Ted believes that many rape victims are making false accusations. Ted believes that many rape victims are liars.
Again in this mail, Ted argues against a claimed figure that 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted. One of his arguments is that
Also found in the Koss study, although not widely reported, was the statistic that of the women whom she classified as being raped (although 73% refused to self-classify the event as rape), 46% of them had subsequent sex with the reported assailant. Ted disagrees with a statistic because some rape victims subsequently have sex with the reported assailant. This means that Ted believes that this indicates that they were not really raped. Ted is a rape apologist.)
Definitions
Date: 2012-10-30 02:48 am (UTC)However, labeling Ted Ts'o as a rape apologist is ill-informed and not conducive toward achieving inclusivity, increasing more diverse participation in FOSS, and reducing factors which "alienate 50% of the population".
In writing this post, Matthew is clearly following the suggestions of Valerie Aurora, the author of the linked article "Open Source Software: Open to all?" (https://adainitiative.org/2012/10/open-source-software-open-to-all/), when she encourages people to vehemently speak out against people who express beliefs like Ted.
In this article, Valerie decries Ted's posts on the mailing list but offer's little constructive criticism. The third paragraph is the only one in which she directly addresses Ted's posts. She writes, "Ts’o wrote that rape was impossible if both people were drunk enough, and that including several common kinds of rape in rape statistics could be 'hyperbolic and misleading.' I won’t go into detail here because it’s pretty offensive".
Valerie writes with the assumption that all readers will understand what is inherently wrong with Ted's post. I did not, and sought to get more concrete answers.
Ted specifically said, "if both Alice and Bob were drunk, there's no rape that has taken place". Valerie is implying that Ted is so wrong that he is offensive. (http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Rape_apology_on_LCA_mailing_list)
According to the US Code (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920), the classification of rape specifically requires "unlawful force", "greivous bodily harm", or "impairing the ability of that other person to appraise or control conduct" without consent.
According to this definition, rape cannot be confirmed or denied by drunkenness alone. Thus, both Valerie and Ted are incorrect. However, if the specific aforementioned necessities are absent, Ted is correct in arguing that drunkenness does not mean rape. Thus, his "challenging the use of statistics that may be hyperbolic and misleading" is reasonable, since he is referencing statistics that classify nonviolent sexual encounters as rape.
Indeed, regarding one of these articles, Ted writes his assumptions: "For example, [the article] points out that over half of those cases were ones where undergraduates were plied with alcohol, and did not otherwise involve using physical force or other forms of coercion". (http://www.codon.org.uk/~mjg59/ted_mail/0037.html)
Thus, if your definition of rape requires force or violence, then these statistics that count nonviolent sexual encounters as rape are indeed misleading.
This conclusion may be unsatisfying to those whose definition of rape is more general, like Matthew, myself, and Valerie. To them, perhaps, rape may refer to any non-consensual sexual act (without the specific aforementioned requirements). Indeed, these people are not alone! The official definition of rape by the FBI is different from the one in the US Code!
Rape - "The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."
http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/attorney-general-eric-holder-announces-revisions-to-the-uniform-crime-reports-definition-of-rape
Note the absence of any reference to a requirement of force for a sexual encounter to be considered rape.
With this definition, rape still cannot be confirmed or denied based on drunkeness alone! Now, we must examine the definition of consent. The US Code section on rape has a pretty thorough treatment of consent. It's the same link as before, near the bottom of the page: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/920
Unfortunately, still, this definition of consent doesn't mention impairment. However, under the definition of sexual assault, one definition reads:
[a person is guilty of sexual assault if he/she] "commits a sexual act upon another person when the other person is incapable of consenting to the sexual act due to impairment by any drug, intoxicant, or other similar substance, and that condition is known or reasonably should be known by the person".
Thus, whether or not two copulating drunken individuals are sexually assaulting each other seems to hinge on whether the two impaired individuals can know that the other is impaired and unable to give consent. This is up for debate, but out of the scope of this comment.
What I hope to have shown is that this argument between Ted and those who agree with him (like some commenters above me), and Matthew, Valerie and those that agree with them is meaningless, since the two groups have conflicting definitions of rape. However, this conflicting definition is an issue which is larger than these groups -- the US code and the FBI have different definitions themselves!
Still, there exists this conflict between these two groups. I entreat Ted to examine the more inclusive definition of rape, and perhaps see how he may have offended and hurt those who have been impacted by nonviolent but nonconsensual sexual acts. Moreover, I believe that a mailing list for a work-related conference is not the place to have such discussions, and since he has quite clearly angered some people (however unwittingly), I hope he will apologize for the sake of goodwill across the diverse community, and to be magnanimous.
To Valerie, I wish you will include more concrete premises to back up your opinionated conclusions in the future, lest you lead others to start arguments based on such subtle things as differing definitions. Still, you are working toward a good goal. Keep it up.
To Matthew, I hope to have shown that Ted is a rape apologist only depending on your definition of rape. An apologist is "a person who makes a defense in speech or writing of a belief, idea, etc" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apologist?s=t&ld=1093), but Ted is not defending rape -- he's not saying rape is okay! Instead, he's saying that certain acts are not rape, based on his definition of rape.
However, to you, with a more general definition of rape, he is saying that some kinds of rape (inc. non-consenting sex) are okay (not rape). Still, your issue is not with him personally, it is with conflicting definitions of rape in our society. I entreat you to not be standoffish (though your meanings are in the right place), because it ensures disunity between groups of people, who probably both want the same things as I mentioned before: achieving inclusivity, increasing more diverse participation in FOSS, and reducing factors which "alienate 50% of the population". Probably, calling Ted a rape apologist is hurtful, and not constructive in the sense that you may have hoped. From the comments above me, it has just seemed to create more disagreement.
Perhaps a more productive post would have detailed how Ted's post may have been hurtful and alienating to some people.
Going forward, it's important to keep in mind that the definition of rape is a hotly contested thing. Often, you're not arguing against a person so much as against the current definition of rape. It may be best to qualify your definition of rape (be it non-consensual with force, strictly non-consensual, or something else), whenever you bring up the term in the future.
Regards,
Hashem Nasarat
Re: Definitions
Date: 2012-10-30 03:05 am (UTC)It's a troll-y tactic because it tends to polarize and derail any kind of discussion into a deeply pointless argument about what constitutes a criminal offence in some hypothetical scenario with absolutely no relevance to the debate at hand.
If you read the whole thread, including his later posts which get progressively wackier and wackier, Ted rather successfully derailed a constructive discussion of how to address a specific problem at a specific conference into a polarized and angry regurgitation of a highly toxic debate about what is and isn't 'rape' and how bad rape is and whether some rapes are worse than others. To the net detriment of everybody involved. This was not a good thing to do.
I've cited elsewhere in this comment section some useful references that it's worth reading. The whole hypothetical scenario about two people getting drunk and having sex without explicit consent is essentially a derailing tactic. If you look at the actual source Matthew was quoting, it does not match any of them very well. The majority of rape cases by any metric - reported to law enforcement, reported to health authorities, reported to surveys of any kind, whether reported by the attacker or the victim - do not involve such a questionable scenario. Even where they involve alcohol consumption they tend to involve far more consumption by the victim than the aggressor, and they involve consumption to the point where the victim is _not physically capable_ of consenting - not the messier question of whether when they say 'yes' they really _mean_ 'yes', but the kind of 'not consenting' which involves being passed out and unresponsive.
Re: Definitions
Date: 2012-10-30 04:59 pm (UTC)On the other hand, the implication that a person cannot give consent when they are intoxicated or otherwise under the influence of a substance is problematic. If I have voluntarily imbibed alcohol or drugs and voluntarily and without force or coercion decide to have sex, then that is my right. As a woman, I do not appreciate this section of the legal code which stipulates that I cannot give consent under the influence, as it is simply a subtler method of controlling my body, my actions, and my sexuality. It assumes that I cannot make choices for myself and must be protected- a problematic and patriarchal assumption.
In thinking about rape, definitions can be very problematic. In my opinion, much of this has to do with the negative framing of the rape question. ‘No means no’ puts emphasis upon the victim to resist the advances of a perpetrator. A more positive oriented dialogue of ‘yes means yes’ puts emphasis upon both parties to ask for, and grant consent. This line of thinking entirely changes the paradigm around the issue of rape, and was coined in the feminist theory book ‘Yes means Yes: Visions of Female Empowerment and a World without Rape.’ (http://yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/) The problem with the ‘No means no’ dialogue is that it does not allow room for women’s sexuality and sexual empowerment. By changing our thinking scheme to one of ‘yes means yes’, we allow women- and men- to embrace their own sexuality and acknowledge the fact that we as women also positive rights to sex and sexuality and that in instances of sexual intercourse, it is important that consent always be granted, rather than relying on an ambiguous situation in which consent may neither have been granted nor denied. In this line of thinking, no still means no in all instances, whether or not force is involved. But it expands upon this so that the only instances in which consent is granted is when yes means yes- whether these situations are sober or intoxicated. This is an empowering paradigm shift in thinking around rape, as it no long depicts a victim, but rather a sexually empowered individual who is able to make their own choices in regards to sex and control their own body.
Re: Definitions
Date: 2012-10-31 05:46 am (UTC)Not really. As a woman I can state with confidence that the legal system seems so slanted in favor of disbelieving us in such instances that I hardly think this wording is designed to discourage us from having sex while drunk or otherwise intoxicated. More to protect us in those instances where we're so drunk or otherwise intoxicated we are not conscious to say no, or are so far gone by the time we should say no that it either doesn't occur to us to say no, or we actually can't say no.
Given how hard it is to "prove" rape because of common misconceptions that women "ask for it" by their mode of dress or by "knowingly" drinking too much in the presence of men or whatever, I do not see this wording as problematic, but rather as protective in the sense that it codifies common sense, which can make it an added legal protection in court.