Content warning: This piece contains references to rape and violence against women that may be distressing.

This week, Noisey, Vice’s music channel, published a piece in defence of rap artist Tyler the Creator. The article, entitled ‘#FreeTylerTheCreator And Reject Theresa May’s Dumb Logic’ painted Tyler as a victim of racism and ignorance, and presented misinformation about campaigns against him.

The piece opens by describing a “moving” performance by TTC, summed up with the following statement:

"This – a peaceful lover of nature – is an artist who remains banned from entering the UK under any circumstances.”

It's hard to imagine such a “peaceful lover of nature” could be behind lyrics like “rape a pregnant bitch and tell my friends I had a threesome”, or a wealth of others glorifying rape and extreme violence against women, murder, mutilating women’s genitals, stuffing them into car boots, trapping them in his basement, raping their corpses and burying their bodies.

The author suggests there is no basis for TTC to be refused access into any country, and that bans were motivated by racism:

"It was a very blatant case of making an example out of someone for no reason other than the fact that he’s black and angry and all the other countries under the Queen’s rule were doing it.”

The author's lack of research doesn’t end there, with the article incorrectly stating that after being banned from entering New Zealand in 2014, TTC became the focus of Collective Shout.

Collective Shout first campaigned against Tyler the Creator in June of 2013, not because he is “black and angry”, but due to his songs advocating rape and violence against women, often defended by his fans as ‘art’. In the course of our campaign, young activist Talitha Stone wrote a tweet accusing Tyler the Creator of promoting misogyny. TTC responded by sharing her tweet with his millions of followers, who predictably jumped at the opportunity to prove their loyalty by threatening to rape and murder Talitha, with police involvement required after one fan tweeted her home address.

Just days later, Tyler launched into an abusive tirade against Talitha who was in the crowd at his Sydney concert, calling her a bitch, whore and c*** as concertgoers cheered. He then proceeded to dedicate the song ‘Bitch Suck Dick’ to her, which contains the lyrics “You dead bitch, I'm hot as f*ck…Punch a bitch in her mouth just for talkin' shit”.

Is this still ‘art’?

*Content warning: This post contains descriptions of men’s violence against women and may be distressing*

This week a supporter contacted us after coming across a disturbing image on Golfporn’s Facebook page. The picture, which showed a woman being kicked off a cliff after suggesting her male partner sell his golf clubs, “did not violate community standards”, according to Facebook. It had been shared over 1500 times.

It is an unsettling image for many who understand the shocking reality of domestic violence and murders of women.

Not a joke, but a reality

This isn’t an absurd abstract scenario - it is a real-life and often life-ending scenario for many women.

In 2015, Harold Henthorn was sentenced to life in prison after pushing his wife Toni 130 feet off a cliff while hiking in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate their anniversary.

Brisbane man Daniel Brookes was arrested in 2015 having been accused of killing his girlfriend Maria Elena Huilcanina Ocampo by throwing her off a balcony. The couple were heard having an argument before security footage showed her body fall. Her sister said that Maria had blood under her nails when she fell.

Simon Gittany was found guilty of murdering his fiancée Lisa Harnum by throwing her off the balcony of a Sydney high rise apartment block.

At trial, witness Joshua Rathnell recalled hearing “deranged screaming” and looked up to see someone “unloading” something from the building.

”I saw the man load the object off the balcony, and in what I described as a fluid motion, turned and went straight back into the apartment.”

Rathnell later realised the object he saw was Ms Harnum’s body. 

At the time of Gittany’s conviction, Justice McCallum said Ms Harnum must have been "in a state of complete terror in the last moments before her death".

Earlier this year, Alexander Kenneth McIntyre pleaded guilty to assault charges after he held a woman by the neck against a balcony and told her he would drop her to her death and “happily do 16 years” in jail. Holding a knife, he threatened her “I will cut your head off, c***.” A crying child was also present.

Last year, Loren Bunner was sentenced to 52 years in prison after murdering his 18-year-old ex-girlfriend Jolee Callan while they were hiking together. He shot her in the back of the head and in between the eyes before shoving her off a 40- foot cliff. Bunner bragged to cell mates about killing Ms Callan, claiming that if he couldn’t have her no one else could.

New South Wales man Des Campbell was found guilty of killing his new wife Janet Campbell by pushing her off a cliff. The prosecution told the court that Ms Campbell was "worth more to her husband dead than alive" because he needed her money to pay off his debts. 

Given this awful reality, how can casual joking about pushing one’s wife off a cliff be regarded as humorous? Joking about violence against women is sinister in its apathy and callous attitude to women whose lives ended this way. 

Trivialising acts of abuse

Dr Kristin Diemer, one of the lead researchers and authors on the National Community Attitudes Survey on Violence Against Women, noted that excusing the abuse of women as a joke “minimises the impact of violence against women”.  

“Few Australians openly support violence against women, but many others subtly endorse it by trivialising and excusing acts of abuse.”

Media has an impact on attitudes and behaviours. That a social media post making light of violence against women is so popular and unremarkable both reflects and perpetuates our desensitisation to these horrific crimes.

Dr Diemer concluded:

“Community attitudes on violence against women are an important barometer on gender relations. They illustrate the way people respond when they witness violence, whether victims feel confident to seek help, and whether perpetrators are likely to be excused or held to account for their actions. Changing attitudes is crucial to preventing crises in the longer term. Community attitudes shape the way we respond to domestic violence.”

We can’t address men’s violence against women while simultaneously making light of it. Violence against women is not a joke.

‘Beat the p***y up’ – the way we talk about sex with women

 By Jessica Eaton

 This blog contains a discussion of violent language to discuss sex, sexual violence and porn. It also contains the titles to real porn films that a lot of people may find disturbing. Please take care of yourself whilst reading this and seek support after reading if you need to.

As a massive old skool (and sometimes new skool) RnB, Rap and Hip Hop fan, I often find myself experiencing some pretty serious cognitive dissonance to try to enjoy my music without yelling at the radio or crying into my crisps.

As a younger feminist, I used to tell myself that it was okay that women were called bitches and hoes because that’s the way that artist chose to express themselves (I know, I know, so progressive).

As I got older, I started to resent the use of the word ‘bitch’ in my once-favourite songs. I stopped listening to some artists because I couldn’t stand the way they spoke about women and sex. The next challenge was dealing with the rise of female artists using ‘bitch’ and ‘nasty hoe’ to describe themselves. I thought the rise of female MCs, rappers and writers would eliminate this constant woman-hating but it didn’t. Nicki, Cardi B, Lil Kim, Missy Elliott – they made me wanna two-step and cry at the same time.

(Edit: I would just like to add that misogynistic and rape-glorifying lyrics are found in Death Metal too so this issue clearly isn’t unique to my music preferences, but I have never listened to it so didn’t know until someone told me today! Here’s a link.)

It is often the case in music that women sing about loving men and men sing about f*cking women. And it’s this that I want to talk about.

I noticed recently that the range of ways men sing, rap and talk about having sex with women has become inherently violent. They aren’t talking about ‘getting jiggy’ or ‘having fun’ or ‘doing the deed’ – I mean, they are not even calling it sex anymore. Not only that, but they are not even naming or identifying the woman anymore.

I decided to sit and think about all the violent ways men describe having sex with women these days, and came up with this list in about 3 minutes. I am sure there are many more and people will contact me with others.

List of violent terms to describe having sex with women:

Hit that

Hurt that

Smash that

Smack that

F**k that

Merc that

Destroy that

Crush that

Beat that p***y up

Beat it up

Ruin that

Bang that

Nail that

There are two main points here. The first is that sex is being described in very violent terms and the second is that the word ‘that’ is used in place of ‘her’ to objectify the woman they are talking about. These men aren’t saying ‘I would love to have sex with her’ or ‘I would shag her’ or even ‘I would f**k her’ – they are saying ‘I would f**k that’. ‘That’ is not a pronoun. ‘That’ is not a name. ‘That’ is used for objects. I’ll come back to this point.

The first point is the violence in the language. Hit. Destroy. Ruin. Bang. Beat up. Smash. Smack. Hurt. These are words that describe violence and injury. They don’t describe sex. They don’t describe the type of sex any woman wants to have.

When I started to search the terms I had heard and read, I easily found memes, articles, discussions and blogs using this language about women in a completely normalised way. Men saying to their friends ‘The girl next door, I would ruin that!’ or ‘She’s gonna get it hard. Beat that p***y up!’ The image of all of the guys saying they would rape the sleeping girl on the sofa. I found hundreds of song lyrics like the ones I have listened to.

Gucci Mane released a song called ‘Beat it up’ about having sex with women. So did Slim Thug. So did Chris Brown. And no, I’m not talking about one song they all featured on, I’m talking about three separately produced songs about ‘beating that p***y up’.

Here are the lyrics from Slim Thug:

Guess what? I’m f**kin tonight

Whether you know it or not, Ima beat that pussy right

Yeah I’m f**kin tonight, Ima beat it up

In song lyrics, R Kelly says he ‘beats the p***y up like Django’and Lil Wayne says he ‘beat that p***y up like Emmett Till’.

Chris Brown says he f**ks women back to sleep in ‘Back to sleep’. I don’t really know why he would want to make a woman he has sex with fall asleep but the song lyrics are creepy as shit:

F**k you to sleep, wake you up again, I go so deep, beat it up again

Just let me rock, f**k you back to sleep, girl 

Don’t say no, girl, don’t you talk

Just hold on tight to me, girl

F**k you back to sleep, girl.

The issue here is that these influential men in our popular culture and music industry are openly using sexually violent references to having sex with women and then every day adults (and children) are singing along to Chris Brown riffin’ about the women he wakes up to make them have sex with him again when they are too tired. We are so oblivious to what we are listening to, this language quickly becomes the norm.

One article I found listed every artist they could find who referred to sex as ‘beating the p***y up’ and they found over 15 current male artists using that term in hit songs. Jay-Z to Lil Wayne – they were all describing sex as harming women.

After searching for evidence on each one of the terms I listed above, I found a website discussing what ‘destroy that’ and ‘ruin that’ meant and was surprised to find how open men were when talking about what they meant. I had thought that maybe it was being used semi-consciously by men who were using it in banter, but they were using it literally. One page defined it as ‘having sex with her so rough that you cause injuries, the more physical injuries the rougher it probably was’. One man said he used it with his friends to mean destroying or ruining a ‘nice girl’ by having very aggressive sex with her or by taking her virginity.

It reminded me of a film I watched (and use in my teaching) about mail order brides and the way white, wealthy guys were buying and sexually exploiting women as servile brides from deprived areas. There was this one guy who used military metaphors to discuss meeting and having sex with potential brides. He made my skin crawl.

He is sat in a dark club when he says to the camera:

“Uh, the search and destroy mission for today is to circulate, work the room, identify a target and go for it. If plan A doesn’t work, I retreat, rally the troops and then go out and then try plan B uhh to capture the target.”

He doesn’t even say woman. He doesn’t even talk about humans. He talks about destroying and identifying targets.

This links to the second point I wanted to make – that this language dehumanises and dementalises women – it reduces them to their ‘p***y’ or their ‘ass’ that the men are going to ‘hurt’ or ‘hit’ or ‘crush’ or ‘beat that up’. They no longer converse about sex in human terms – they talk in metaphors and disconnected, dehumanised language. They refer to women as ‘that’ or they only talk about her body parts. She is there to be used, abused and hurt for their pleasure.

Where is this sexually violent language coming from?

Well, sorry to be the not-the-fun-kind-of-feminist, but its porn and societal misogyny. There is no doubt about where this is coming from. Work by people like Julia Long and Gail Dines has long told us that porn has become more and more violent, with Long (2012) arguing that over 90% of porn now features violence against women including hitting, slapping, kicking, choking, hurting, whipping and deliberately painful and extremely degrading sex acts.

You only have to look at the titles of porn films on Pornhub or X Videos to see the way they describe women in violent and degrading terms to see where this is coming from.

Here are some examples that are on porn sites today (18th May 2018):

‘Passed out slut letting me f**k her brains out’ (this film is of a clearly unconscious young girl being raped on Pornhub)

‘Unwanted painful anal’ (another allowed to stay on Pornhub despite clearly describing a rape)

‘Rip her up’ (the name of a series of videos in which women are raped)

‘Blonde babe gets brutally slapped and f**ked’

‘Beauty humiliated and ruined – BRUTAL’

‘Teen gets anally destroyed – hear her real screams and crying’

‘Heavily pregnant teen used by men’ (Pornhub allows this!)

*Warning- this blog post contains graphic descriptions of violence in pornography*

A man becomes fixated on a young female university student. He immediately becomes possessive, sulking when she so much as talks to other men, and attempts to isolate her from her friends. He shows up unannounced at her place of work. He traces her mobile phone to find her on a night out drinking with friends. He knows where she lives. He is controlling and emotionally manipulative. He proceeds to have sex with her, despite her refusal and continued protestation. (There's a word for that.) The young woman reports feeling "abused".

On the face of it, this scenario does not appear to be incredibly romantic, although it is one that unfortunately resonates with too many women.

But it's the premise of the widely popular Fifty Shades of Grey book and film trilogy, the story of Anastacia Steele and Christian Grey.

The second instalment in the series, Fifty Shades Darker, is out this week, just in time for Valentines Day – because nothing says romance like intimate partner violence and stalking.

Rather than the grim tale of a sadistic man grooming a naive young woman for sexual violence and abuse, the series has been framed as a sexy romance or porn for women, with women jumping onboard.

Putting aside the fact that if Christian Grey wasn't wealthy and handsome, this scenario could just as likely be an episode of CSI, women are supposed to view Fifty Shades as sexy and empowering, a bit of naughty fun – despite female lead Dakota Johnson describing the sex scenes as "uncomfortable" and "emotionally taxing".

The popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey is a testament to how far we have yet to come in working to end men's violence against women. 

An analysis of the first book found that sexual violence and emotional abuse were pervasive, with Anastacia suffering harm as a result.

Collective Shout has the privilege of working with young people in schools around the country, teaching media literacy and examining the depiction of women in media and popular culture. We have seen firsthand how the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey has left teenage girls confused about sex and relationships, wondering if male violence can be a sign of affection, or if stalking means he really loves you?

Of course, it's not just Fifty Shades that is to blame. Popular culture is littered with messages and imagery that normalise violence against women, like Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines ("I know you want it"), advertising from brands such as Calvin Klein simulating gang rape or upskirting, and rape and murder of women in prostitution in theGrand Theft Auto video game series.

When women are continually depicted as passive victims or objects of sexual recreation in media, advertising and popular culture, it impacts the way we perceive them, our attitudes and beliefs, and serves to both normalise violence and inequality and downplay the harms.

In response, dozens of groups have joined together to call for the public to boycott the film and to donate the money they would have spent on tickets to a women's refuge or domestic violence service.

These services are where women like Anastacia end up. They do such important work and are often underfunded and in need of financial assistance. 

Men's violence against women is at epidemic levels in Australia, with at least one woman murdered each week. It's not enough to merely condemn such violence: we must address it at its roots, recognise and challenge the cultural drivers of this violence.

It's time to connect the dots between a culture that normalises and even glorifies violence against women, and real life violence against women. 

Caitlin Roper is campaigns manager for Collective Shout: for a world free of sexploitation.

Access full article here.

Trigger warning: sexual abuse.

Domestic violence is so common in the region girls believe it is normal.

Domestic violence disproportionately affects women in Australia, and for women living in the Kimberley, this reality is far starker than for the average Western Australian. In fact, women in the Kimberly are four times more likely to be hospitalised as a result of domestic violence than the average Western Australian women, and reporting rates are increasing at twice the state average.

Welfare workers have raised concerns about the prevalence and normalisation of domestic violence in regional Western Australia where girls as young as twelve are being assaulted by their boyfriends according to a report by Emily Jane Smith of ABC Kimberley.

Alarmingly, more and more adolescent girls are having violence perpetrated against them. And because domestic violence is so rampant in their communities, girls believe it is “normal” to be beaten by a boyfriend.

Among those raising concerns is Victoria Baird. In her capacity as the regional coordinator of Save The Children in the East Kimberly, Baird said that domestic violence affected most of the young people with whom she came into contact.

"We have 12, 13, 14-year-olds who are already in violent relationships with their teenage partners," revealed Baird in a shocking statement.

A report to this effect was given by Detective Sergeant Tania MacKenzie of East Kimberley in March 2017.

"We're seeing situations where young girls [as young as 14] are being repeatedly assaulted, dragged along the street and assaulted again and again, which is such a concern that at that young age they're getting used to that level of violence," said Detective Sergeant MacKenzie.

Ms Baird explained that children often experience domestic violence growing up and so domestic violence becomes normalised and tolerated.

"Domestic violence is so normalised across the region. Most of these kids have […] experienced it growing up, it's not an unusual part of a relationship,'' said Ms Baird.

"It's something that affects them in their relationship in their family that they've grown up and now as they move forward into adulthood, it's repeating that cycle."

And the cycle is vicious.

Welfare workers say that attacks such as a recent incident, which saw a 16-year-old girl allegedly slashed across the face by her boyfriend, are not uncommon.

In fact, Detective Sergeant MacKenzie said, "I've seen women that have had their ankles smashed with rocks, so they can't walk away with anyone else, and we've seen repeated attacks with all sorts of weapons: belt buckles, rocks, hammers, wheel braces, boiling water, just a myriad of weapons that people use and yes, you get some pretty horrific injuries from those kind of weapons." (Park 2017).

While reporting rates are on the rise, terror continues to plague survivors of domestic violence, particularly adolescent survivours, who often are too afraid to speak out for fear of backlash or retribution from the perpetrator or the perpetrator’s family.

This cycle of violence must be broken, and for this to occur, Mr Hill insists that young people must be engaged and taught about healthy relationships.

"We need to break that cycle, but to break the cycle you need begin with the young generation," he said.

Mr Hill suggested that services for young men, in particular, were needed to change the pervasive and entrenched culture of violence in the Kimberly region.

"We need to teach them from a young age that it's not an acceptable way to treat your partner," he said.

For family and domestic violence support services:

    1800 Respect national helpline: 1800 737 732

    Women's Crisis Line: 1800 811 811

    Men's Referral Service: 1300 766 491

    Lifeline (24 hour crisis line): 131 114

    Relationships Australia: 1300 364 277

Please join Collective Shout in our commitment to protecting girls from sexual exploitation and violence

About the author: Violeta Buljubasic detests pornography and anything that resembles it. Cognisant of its devastating consequences, she believes that porn and the raunch culture from which it stems are symptoms of a ubiquitous ill that has removed sex and sexuality from their original design. Moved by the work of Collective Shout, Fight the New Drug, and NCOSE, Violeta hopes to be part of the solution to this insidious problem.

Last month, American discussion site Reddit banned an online community that glorified and incited violence against women. The subreddit is believed to have had up to 40,000 members or “incels”, which stands for ‘involuntarily celibate’.

The following is an excerpt from ‘”I Hate Feminists!” December 6, 1989, and its Aftermath’.

*Content warning*

‘On December 6, 1989, at around 5 p.m., as the women engineers-to-be at the École Polytechnique were studying or writing their end of term examinations, Marc Lépine, a twenty-five- year- old man dressed in army fatigues, went up to the second floor of the school and entered a classroom occupied by about sixty students, female and male. He separated the class into two groups and told the men to leave. When he was alone with the women students, he proclaimed: “I hate feminists!” He fired. Marc Lépine left fourteen women dead and fourteen people wounded.

‘The Montreal police department had given the media a summary of his motives as expressed in the suicide note found on his body; with the note was a list of women and men he had been planning to murder, women who were pioneers in their fields (including the first woman firefighter and the first woman police officer) [and] well known feminists.

Source: https://www.emaze.com/@AOFWFFWC/montreal-massacre

A recent article offering men advice about how to proposition a woman wearing headphones – encouraging them to block her path to prevent her from ignoring them – rightfully provoked a major backlash. But the backlash also brought a certain phenomenon to wider public attention – the fact that women sometimes wear headphones as a way to avoid unwanted approaches in public.

The public conversation on violence against women tends to focus on sexual assault and domestic abuse. We talk less about the routine intrusions women experience from men in their everyday lives, even though this is the most common form of sexual violence.

My recent research looked at how women navigate interruptions, intrusions, and harassment from unknown men in public. What was most surprising was how all 50 of the women I interviewed significantly underestimated the amount of work they were putting in to avoid intrusions by men in the street, and the impact this had on them.

They recognised that they were making certain decisions about routes home, or where to sit on public transport. They spoke about using sunglasses or headphones in order to create a shield – a way to give the impression that they didn’t hear that man making a sexual comment, or didn’t see that other man touching himself as he walked behind them.

Many categorised their clothes in relation to safety. Scarves were seen as safe – handy for covering your chest. The colour red was, for some, seen as unsafe – too bright, too obvious, too visible. Some even adopted particular facial expressions, trying to balance “looking tough” against the desire to not be told to “cheer up” by a man they’d never met before.

The women I spoke to knew they were doing some of these things but other behaviours were less conscious. They hadn’t really reflected on how much energy went into avoiding unwanted contact below the surface and how their freedom was affected.

Image: The Federalist