Category: Sexual Harassment

Bound, gagged, degraded: The eroticised torture of women approved for a public audience – Collective Shout

A new public mural in Fitzroy, Melbourne depicts a woman in BDSM fetish gear gagged and bound with ropes.

The chilling image of eroticised violence against women as ‘art’ is on display for the general public – including survivors of rape and sexual assault, domestic abuse, and children.

Responding to objections, the artist defended the mural as “empowering” and told objectors to “chill”.

But there is nothing “empowering” or subversive about normalising or glamorising violence against women. While the artist may view female subordination and degradation as the means to empowerment, ALL women are harmed by the promotion of violence against us, dehumanisation, and the message that deep down we desire violence and abuse.

 

Source: Bound, gagged, degraded: The eroticised torture of women approved for a public audience – Collective Shout

Serial pest in sperm donor groups joins Clive Palmer’s colourful cast | SMH

A serial pest in sperm donation groups has joined the cast of bankrupts, fraudsters and fantasists in Clive Palmer’s Trumpet of Patriots and is running in the hotly contested western Sydney seat of Lindsay.

Joseph O’Connor claims in the biography posted on the party’s website that he brings “a wealth of experience in mental health and counselling” to his candidacy.

But this masthead can reveal that he has also presented himself as Dane McDuff, Blake McBeth, Adam Nilsson and Jack DeBevay in Facebook groups for women and couples looking for sperm donations, among a stream of identities that mushroom each time he is banned from a group.

Sperm donor groups generally do not allow members to use aliases.

Multiple women have complained to the group administrators that he has engaged in creepy behaviour, sent them unwanted imagery and is using the groups for sexual gratification.

Loading

The unwanted material included videos of himself on a porn site called “Chaturbate” where he uses the moniker JackPhallus.

In one of his early profiles, set up under the moniker Dane McDuff in 2019, he boasted of a “super high” sperm count.

Source: 12ft

‘Orgasms are a marvellous happiness’. Shere Hite gave voice to female sexuality in a landmark book – but the backlash was fierce | The Conversation

Shere Hite’s The Hite Report was quickly dubbed a “sexual revolution in 600 pages”. It did something nobody had considered worth doing: investigating women’s sexuality by asking them to share their thoughts and feelings, then relaying those reflections to readers in women’s own words.

This might not sound unusual today. But in 1976, it was incendiary.

The Hite Report did not attempt to define a sexual norm, or produce a representative survey sample, or pretend its data could be generalised to an entire population. But it did contain some statistical findings.

The most significant of these – the source of the book’s notoriety – was that only 30% of women surveyed reported being able to regularly or reliably reach orgasm through heterosexual intercourse. And yet, 80% reported they could easily and regularly reach orgasm through clitoral stimulation, which was frequently obtained through masturbation, either alone, or with their partner.

Another breathtaking aspect of the book is the way participants’ answers are shot through with sexual violence. On the issue of sexual coercion, for example, one participant replied, “I’m not supposed to say ‘no’ since I’m legally married”.

Hite identified toxic gender stereotypes as the major driver of sexual violence, especially the belief that “a man’s need for ‘sex’ is a strong and urgent ‘drive’” which women were obligated to satisfy. “Women aren’t always free to not have sex,” explained one respondent.

This backlash was not long in coming. Playboy apocryphally dubbed it “The Hate Report”, a label regularly recycled in media outlets around the world, including by female journalists. One male journalist, writing in the Miami Herald, argued women could not be regarded as truthful or reliable witnesses to their own lives. “What annoys me about The Hite Report,” he wrote, “is its smug assumption that just because women made these comments, they’re true”.

It remains the 30th bestselling book of all time, with 50 million copies sold in 45 countries, including two recently translated editions in China, where it sparked conversations among intellectuals interested in formerly taboo western culture.

Hite did not “discover” the clitoral orgasm. Instead, by centring women’s experiences, and taking their reflections seriously, her work threw into question centuries of sexological studies. These studies had either pathologised normal female sexual functioning or else insisted any pleasure women derived from sex had to be a by-product of conventional heterosexual intercourse.

Even Masters and Johnson, who, in their reports from 1966 onwards, clinically proved all female orgasms were the result of clitoral stimulation, had insisted on the centrality of coitus.

Hite’s Australian reception ranked among the most hostile. Her research assistant described the trip as “hideous”, alleging Hite had “never before encountered” such “vicious attitudes” as those exhibited by male journalists.

Source: ‘Orgasms are a marvellous happiness’. Shere Hite gave voice to female sexuality in a landmark book – but the backlash was fierce

No woman should be forced to change her clothes in front of a male colleague | Sonia Sodha | The Guardian

Some things are plain common sense. Female employees should not be expected to share changing rooms with male colleagues. They shouldn’t be socially shamed into undressing around them, or being in spaces where male colleagues get undressed in front of them.

There is a host of principles and evidence around women’s privacy, dignity and safety to be marshalled in support of this – the charity Sex Matters lays them out – but most people don’t need to read accounts of how uncomfortable mixed-sex changing facilities make some women feel, or statistics showing that voyeurism and exposure are two of the most common male sex crimes, to understand how wrong this would be.

But not managers at NHS Fife, it would seem. Despite the law of the land enshrining that commonsense insight – that employers are obliged to provide separate changing facilities for their male and female employees – female staff working for this Scottish health board have been expected to share changing rooms with a male doctor who identifies as female. One nurse, Sandie Peggie, has brought an employment tribunal claim for harassment, sex discrimination and victimisation against the board, following her suspension after she raised concerns.

Given the bravery required to take a legal case, this is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. A group of nurses in Darlington are also suing their trust as a result of having to share facilities with a male colleague. In a Sheffield hospital, female staff worried about sharing a changing room with one of their male colleagues were told, incorrectly, that the colleague in question had a right to be there. Outside the NHS, there have been many cases where employers have unlawfully elevated a male desire to be treated as female above women’s established workplace rights.

The idea that a man who identifies as female is literally a woman, and must without fail be treated as such, has become a cherished principle for some progressives. Politicians and women’s rights activists speaking against this have been excommunicated from the left. Slowly, but surely, this is starting to change in the UK: take health secretary Wes Streeting’s admirably principled defence of the Darlington nurses, for example.

Not before time. There is a cautionary tale from across the Atlantic, where Democrats’ stubborn and unpopular defence of men’s rights to self-identify into women’s sport has dropped the unlikeliest of moral victories into President Donald Trump’s lap, allowing a man accused of serious sexual assault to somehow position himself as a defender of women’s rights. Abandoning basic common sense for unpopular policies that put women at risk does not go well for the left.

Source: No woman should be forced to change her clothes in front of a male colleague | Sonia Sodha | The Guardian

‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’ | BBC

Young male gamers had taken issue with a single frame in the trailer, in which the female character could be seen holding her thumb and forefinger close together.

They thought it resembled a hand gesture used by a radical online feminist community almost a decade ago to poke fun at the size of Korean men’s penises.

Darim had become the latest victim in a series of vicious online witch hunts, in which men in South Korea attack women they suspect of having feminist views. They bombard them with abuse and try to get them sacked.

This is part of a growing backlash to feminism, in which feminists have been branded man-haters who deserve to be punished. The witch hunts are having a chilling effect on women, with many now scared to admit they are feminists.

This is forcing the movement underground, in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the OECD, a group of the world’s rich countries.

The backlash began in the mid-2010s, following a surge of feminist activism. During this time, women took to the streets in protest at sexual violence and the widespread use of hidden cameras that secretly film women using toilets and changing rooms – around 5,000 to 6,000 cases are reported annually.

There is evidence the authorities are also capitulating to the anti-feminists’ demands. When Darim reported her abuse to the police, they refused to take her case.

They said because the finger-pinching gesture was taboo, it was “logical” that she, as a feminist, had been attacked. “I was astonished,” she said. “Why would the authorities not protect me?”

A 2024 IPSOS poll of 31 countries found only 24% of women in South Korea defined themselves as feminist, compared to an average of 45%, and down from 33% in 2019.

Source: ‘I got rape threats over claims I put a feminist symbol in a video game’

NSW cop sacked over topless waitress party, domestic violence case failures | SMH

A NSW police officer who hosted a team Christmas party featuring a topless waitress and failed to adequately investigate domestic violence allegations has failed in a bid to overturn his dismissal.

The NSW Industrial Relations Commission last week upheld an order by Police Commissioner Karen Webb to sack Andrew Herring, a senior constable with 13 years’ service, based on concerns about his integrity and performance.

By 2022, the Lake Illawarra Local Area Command officer had received several warnings for not using body-worn video and failing to adequately respond to domestic violence complaints.

In September that year, he met with a woman who alleged her ex-partner had posted intimate images of her online, including advertisements that made her look like a sex worker.

Herring did not provide an email address when the woman asked if she could send the video to police, did not perform a risk assessment and failed to mention the intimate images when he later typed up her complaint.

The next month, Herring visited a woman who complained her ex-partner had breached an apprehended domestic violence order with a flurry of 35 phone calls and 11 intimidating voice messages.

“Until it reaches a criminal element, there’s nothing the police can do,” Herring told her. He took no notes and failed to record the incident in the police database for two weeks.

Toward the end of 2022, Herring hosted a “Yellow Team Christmas Party” at an apartment, which he described as “a fairly loose affair”.

The police commissioner’s lawyers argued that allowing the waitress to remain at the party amounted to sexual harassment.

Source: 12ft

“Rape Club” Prison in California: U.S. Gov’t to Pay Record $116M to 103 Women Who Sued over Abuse – YouTube

Sexual harassment class actions filed against BHP, Rio Tinto – Lawyers Weekly

Earlier this week, individual proceedings were filed in the Federal Court of Australia against Australian mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto by JGA Saddler – whose founders formerly led the class actions practice at national plaintiff firm Shine Lawyers – and global litigation funder Omni Bridgeway.

JGA Saddler has asked the Federal Court to redact all names in the filings, amid concerns for personal safety of the lead applicants. Women who were subject to harassment or discrimination while working at one or more Australian workplaces for BHP or Rio Tinto, anytime from November 2023, are eligible to be claimants, the firm added.

Offensive language and behaviour, pranks, and pregnancy discrimination are all featured in proceedings filed against mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto, with a class action firm and a litigation funder alleging “widespread, systemic” issues on worksites.

Source: Sexual harassment class actions filed against BHP, Rio Tinto – Lawyers Weekly

British Transport Police threatened with legal action over new guidance allowing trans officers to strip-search woman |MSN

The British Transport Police (BTP) is facing legal action over new guidance allowing transgender officers to strip-search women.

Campaigners from gender-critical group Sex Matters have sent a pre-action letter to the BTP challenging their new policy, which is the first step towards taking them to court for a judicial review of the guidelines.

Referring to the BTP’s new rules, Maya Forstater, the chief executive of gender-critical campaign group Sex Matters called the guidance “state-sponsored sex discrimination and sexual abuse.”

Forstater added that too many officers have been found guilty of sexual offences, and that men are responsible for 98 per cent of sex crimes.

“Abuse of position for sexual purposes is the largest area of corruption that the Independent Office of Police Complaints deals with,” she said.

Source: British Transport Police threatened with legal action over new guidance allowing trans officers to strip-search woman

Nurses suing their employer for allowing trans women to use their changing rooms | UK News | Sky News

Eight nurses are suing their employer for sexual harassment and sex discrimination because of a policy which allows trans women to use their women’s changing rooms.

The legal action began after 26 nurses wrote to County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust raising their concerns in March.

The nurses, who work at Darlington Memorial Hospital, must change in and out of their scrubs twice a day with no private cubicles.

Bethany Hutchison, one of the claimants, says they have felt unsafe as a result of a male staff member who identifies as a woman and has not transitioned.

She said: “There’s been occasions where I’ve been in the changing room alone with this colleague who looks very masculine and that was a real shock because you feel you want to challenge them, you think, ‘Oh there’s a man in the changing room’ but you can’t because of the trust’s policy.”

Source: Nurses suing their employer for allowing trans women to use their changing rooms | UK News | Sky News