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| Was the gang-rape victim "asking for it"? Or has an intrusive press violated actor Charlize Theron in the worst way as she tries to live a quiet life of obscurity? (hdwallpapers.in) |
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| Charlize Theron (celebs101.com) |
You know how they say Gwyneth Paltrow is a real jerk? She's a self-absorbed elitist parent trying to outdo all of us, and a wife who never has to face divorce like the rest of us because she "consciously uncouples" instead? (lol) Well, we like her, Goop and all. She got in trouble recently for a bit of hyperbole comparing her life with Internet trolls to "war." Mrs. John McCain got bent out of shape. Anything to hate on a skinny, holier-than-thou Hollywood starlet.
Oh, Gwyn, you know who's a real gem? Charlize Theron. If Paltrow has gone off the deep end of insensitivity by comparing her life to combat, Theron takes the cake by claiming she is being "raped." By high-caste Indian men with police help? No, it's that intrusive "gotcha" press bumbling Sarah Palin warned us about. Theron compares pushy reporters to rapists. Paltrow is relieved the attention has turned to Madonna's ex (Sean Penn)'s newest girlfriend.
This is much more important an issue than which celebrity said what. It's their job to distract us by calling attention to themselves. What's Justin Bieber up to? He's on tape saying the N word. WTR? Have his ratings gone up? It's all about the ratings in showbiz. It's important because the horror that is the gang rape and murder of two Shakya/Dalit caste girls in India isn't getting the traction and outrage the rape of a young, middle class woman on a New Delhi bus did in 2012. Why?
That was a middle class, high woman, so the rapists went too far. If they want to rape low caste girls and kill them, well, that's apparently more understandable. And middle class Indian women living in the city aren't going to get too bent out of shape and get out in the streets to protest. But eave tease (sexually harass) another worker with Internet access and a toilet, and that they will picket about.
Where is our outrage when things happen to our social-inferiors? Because when it's our perceived social-superiors, it's game on! We must have justice! Policeman beats and kills someone, who cares. Someone beats and kills a policeman, stop the city, declare martial law, institute a curfew for everyone, that "savage" must be corralled, captured, and decapitated like an animal. The policeman we can acquit for doing the best he could in a tough job we don't want to do. What a society, what a world to live in.
Charlize Theron says she was [gang] raped
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| They started to make me feel raped |
South African-born ["all-American," Hollywood] actress Charlize Theron has waded into controversy for a recent interview in which she compared intrusive press coverage to rape.
Theron told the U.K.’s Sky News that “every aspect” of her life has become fodder for the tabloids:
“I don’t (Google myself) -- that’s my saving grace,” she said. “When you start living in that world, and doing that, you start feeling
raped.”
- The perpetrator was not one medium but the media, which is plural. It constitutes a "gang"; if she feels raped, it was by a group of celebrity-crazed individuals.
Asked if she meant to use such strong language, the actress said: “Well, when it comes to your son and your private life -- maybe it’s just me.
“Some people might relish in all that stuff, but there are certain things in my life that I think of as very sacred and I am very protective over them,” she told Sky News.
“I don’t always win that war, but as long as I don’t have to see that stuff or read that stuff or hear that stuff then I can live with my head in a clear space, which is probably a lot healthier than living in that dark room.”
“I can’t be concerned about what some idiot is going to write online about my short skirt; I can only take responsibility for myself,” she added.
Rape jokes on Seth MacFarlane's "Family Guy": Did you hear the one about Peter Griffin?
Miss Theron was in London to promote her new film, “A Million Ways to Die in the West,” starring “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane [famous for rape and other risque humor that shows us ourselves as Americans], which opened on Friday.
Rape of the Shakya caste, India (audio)
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| Indian police use water cannons against anti-rape protesters: Civilian officers push and shove demonstrators before using water cannons to disperse them. |
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| FEMEN activists against patriarchy |
The Buddha was from the Shakya -- which means "grey earth" and also came to be a goldsmith caste -- clan, from which the caste may claim descent, as it does in Nepal and as it may survive dispersed in Central Asia: Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kalmykia (Europe), and Indo-Pakistan (formerly part of Gandhara, India).
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| Women of India in US (india-west.com) |
Recently in UP, India two girls were gang raped, murdered, and lynched with their own scarves. Why? They were
the wrong caste, making it tacitly permissible to
mistreat, abuse, and "punish" them as if they were low socioeconomic-status individuals in America. The New Delhi and Mumbai gang rapes caused much more media attention and public outrage. Reaction to this double murder and flagrant sexual assault -- which a police officer participated in -- is dying down. The Dalit caste have no functional rights, even if they have nominal ones. To get rights many Dalits are converting to Buddhism, which does not please the nationalist Hindu majority.
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| Indian monks on PlayStation (Geolis06/flickr) |
But this is a global problem beyond India. The problem is patriarchy, endemic sexism, poverty, and capitalism, and our colonized minds. Santa Barbara murder spree, rampant child sexual trafficking in the U.S., Boko Haram kidnappings, the "honor killing"/public bludgeoning in front of police of a young woman outside the Lahore high court in Pakistan for disobeying her parents and marrying the man she wanted to, U.S. college campus assaults and cover ups... all tie in. Pacifica Radio Berkeley takes a GLOBAL perspective on violence against females by talking to Rafia Zakaria,
Dawn newspaper and
Al Jazeera-English columnist, and Preeti Shekar,
UC Berkeley women rights activist, South Asia specialist, and journalist. What do we do now?
Rape in India?(
W) In 2011 number of brutal assaults on women were reported in
Uttar Pradesh state in India. And according to the
People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), the majority of those assaulted were
poor women from remote areas and Dalits ["untouchable caste"]. PUCL Vice President S.R. Darapuri says, "I analysed the rape figures for 2007, and I found that 90% of victims were
Dalits, and
85% of Dalit rape victims were underage girls" (BBC, "
Rape and murder in Uttar Pradesh," July 18, 2011).
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