Tag Archive for Italian

Tight Jeans–Invitation to Rape?

April 25, 2018 Comments Off on Tight Jeans–Invitation to Rape?

Denim Day?!  How stupid is that!  Not at all when we look at how it started and what wearing denim today means.

18 years ago the Italian Supreme Court reversed a rapist’s conviction because his victim was wearing tight denim pants.  Therefore, (they guessed) she must have helped him remove them.  Therefore, ruled the court, because she had given implied consent, the sex was  consensual.  The women in Parliament wore denim the next day in support of the victim and protest at the decision.  Thus, Denim Day was born.

What does it mean?  Standing up for rape victims.  Saying that what a woman wears does NOT mean she’s asking to be raped.  That there needs to be changes in attitudes toward sexual assault.  As the Denim Day Campaign says, “There is no excuse and never an invitation to rape.”

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Tight Denim and Rape

April 26, 2017 Comments Off on Tight Denim and Rape

Denim Day?!  How stupid is that!  Not at all when we look at how it started and what wearing denim today means.

18 years ago the Italian Supreme Court reversed a rapist’s conviction because his victim was wearing tight denim pants.  Therefore, (they guessed) she must have helped him remove them.  Therefore, ruled the court, because she had given implied consent, the sex was  consensual.  The women in Parliament wore denim the next day in support of the victim and protest at the decision.  Thus, Denim Day was born.

What does it mean?  Standing up for rape victims.  Saying that what a woman wears does NOT mean she’s asking to be raped.  That there needs to be changes in attitudes toward sexual assault.  As the Denim Day Campaign says, “There is no excuse and never an invitation to rape.”

 

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We All Earn Our Pride

July 2, 2013 Comments Off on We All Earn Our Pride

It’s the season of Gay Pride and Disability Pride and Italian Pride, etc.  I trouble with all of that.  I don’t think that an accident of birth or some other factor I had no control over is pride that I’ve earned.  Why should I be proud that I’m a woman, heterosexual, disabled, white, a victim of a crime in my childhood, or anything else I didn’t chose, earn, or accomplish? Yes, I admit to some pride when it comes to my learning to adapt to negative aspects of the above–and to some shame when I didn’t adapt in an honorable way.  I feel pride, though, for things that I worked for and accomplished, or ways I made a positive difference in this world: as a teacher, writer, mother, wife, friend, advocate, volunteer, and good example.

Everyone has something in life to overcome, be it homelessness, un/under employment, poverty, bad parenting, illness, lack of education, a disability (physical, intellectual, emotional, age-related), extreme shyness….  If I’m caught in poverty, I don’t feel Poverty Pride; if I’m able to help myself out of poverty, I’m entitled to feel pride of success.  Apply this to all situations.

In other words, it isn’t what we’re born into or what happens to us that earns us pride.  It’s how we handle life itself–and interact with those sharing this Earth–that lets us carry the ultimate sign: “Human Pride.”

 

 

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