Speaker 1: Just a quick heads up. Today's episode mentioned sexual violence
Speaker 1: because we're so ignorant about rape? Why are we so
Speaker 1: ignorant about rape? In a large part because of the media.
Speaker 1: Why because capitalism ex media incentivized for us to be
Speaker 1: ignorant about it? There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: As a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss Creative,
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Todd and this is there are no girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. It seems like moral panics about cancel
Speaker 1: culture are everywhere, and partially I kind of get it.
Speaker 1: It is so much easier to flatten out complex situations
Speaker 1: into a cancel culture, run them up trend piece that
Speaker 1: will get tons of quicks and attention, but doesn't actually
Speaker 1: inform or help us understand things more clearly? So what
Speaker 1: happens when we rely on lofty buzzwords like cancel culture
Speaker 1: in lieu of a deeper exploration, especially for a topic
Speaker 1: that's really important and sensitive like sexual violence. Recently, the
Speaker 1: media outlet The Cut published a long read about a
Speaker 1: teenager who they say was canceled by his classmates after
Speaker 1: he non consensually shared a nude image of his girlfriend
Speaker 1: with his friends. Now, there is a lot going on
Speaker 1: in this piece and you should probably read it to
Speaker 1: really understand today's conversation. But the main framing device and
Speaker 1: argument is that the teenager is actually the victim of canceling.
Speaker 1: And this feels really unhelpful to me. So I really
Speaker 1: want to talk about what gets left out of the
Speaker 1: conversation when this happens. Survivor and independent scholar willgatu Wanjuki
Speaker 1: says that this cancel culture framing doesn't actually really get
Speaker 1: us to a more useful understanding of sexual violence or
Speaker 1: rape culture. So you have a really like long and
Speaker 1: storied career as an award winning like international anti rape
Speaker 1: activists and survivor justice advocate, can you tell us about Yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes way back. Yeah, I guess now it is
Speaker 1: way back. And my college wasn't that long ago. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was that long ago. Um, but I started like
Speaker 1: I started as an activist. Um, I was assaulted in
Speaker 1: college and my school didn't handle it really well, and
Speaker 1: at first I blamed myself, But then the next semester
Speaker 1: actually met another survivor and we realized that it wasn't
Speaker 1: just about our stories because we noticed a lot of
Speaker 1: similarities with the same administrators. So we got together and
Speaker 1: we fought for a better sexual small policy. While things
Speaker 1: were picking up at school, I got expelled. It was
Speaker 1: under like really shady situation, but you know, it happened,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, all right, since I'm not
Speaker 1: in school, I'll guess I'll take it like to the
Speaker 1: internet and do more. And I would blog about it.
Speaker 1: And that was really pivotal because other students from other
Speaker 1: schools saw my blog, they reached out to me. We
Speaker 1: joined forces and we asked the Obama administration to enforce
Speaker 1: Title nine in a better way. We're saying, hey, we're
Speaker 1: being failed, and they actually listened to us, which was
Speaker 1: really interesting in a lot of ways. So taking from
Speaker 1: there just seeing to power social media, but also the
Speaker 1: power of like traditional media as well as somebody who
Speaker 1: was like a contributor and did a lot of communications work.
Speaker 1: So I've always have been working around media, social media, activism,
Speaker 1: survivor rights, um policy, that sort of stuff is just
Speaker 1: very near and dear to me. I would say the phrase,
Speaker 1: you know, the personals political is definitely a guiding force
Speaker 1: for what I do. Yeah, something I really admire about
Speaker 1: your work is the way that you're continuing to use
Speaker 1: the Internet and digital media to educate but also sort
Speaker 1: of entertained and really show people, you know, better ways,
Speaker 1: better frameworks for how they can understand things like survivor, justice, consent,
Speaker 1: and the way that those issues are playing out all
Speaker 1: around us, whether it's on reality TV and our culture
Speaker 1: in the news. You're really somebody who I think is
Speaker 1: excellent at using the internet to cut through what can
Speaker 1: sometimes be a confusing and chaotic catholic Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's really because I was so misinformed when I started
Speaker 1: out as an activist, not even just as an activist,
Speaker 1: but as a survivor, taking a while to even identify
Speaker 1: what happened to me. And I thought back, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, I was, like the media told me it
Speaker 1: was just about a stranger in the alley way attacking you.
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about how being like unprepared and
Speaker 1: misinformed are so well connected. And I am also like
Speaker 1: not super a people person, at least not in person.
Speaker 1: On the internet, it's cool, right, So it was just
Speaker 1: it seems like just to be a really good combo
Speaker 1: of sort of saying, Okay, I see where these problems are.
Speaker 1: I like being on the internet. It's really rapid pace.
Speaker 1: Um let's challenge all these assumptions that are there in
Speaker 1: the media, and like, how can we change our relationship
Speaker 1: to media even if we can't change it, because I
Speaker 1: think it's so easy on especially on Twitter, right, and
Speaker 1: even I would say even a little bit on TikTok,
Speaker 1: to get really outraged, to pile on people and just
Speaker 1: say like it sucks. But I noticed there's all these
Speaker 1: circular things, so sort of like instead of getting mad
Speaker 1: every single time and not really thinking about the deeper
Speaker 1: implications or like how it can be systemic. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: let's move towards that that lens looking at the systemic stuff.
Speaker 1: Because it's just for me, I like to ration my outrage.
Speaker 1: I want to be strategic. I wanted to be effective.
Speaker 1: You know, it's tough because it's also like the world
Speaker 1: is on fire. But also then you have your own
Speaker 1: personal life stuff that you need to deal with. Um.
Speaker 1: And since a lot of folks are very inflammatory on
Speaker 1: there on social media and the Internet, I think it's
Speaker 1: really important to show a different way. How can you
Speaker 1: be authentic? How can you be sincere? But also just
Speaker 1: like how can you still be rooted in reality? Right?
Speaker 1: And like I try to like maintain my values and
Speaker 1: as much as I can, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: just how I interact with information and try to be
Speaker 1: I try to be useful. I want to empower people.
Speaker 1: I don't want to just tell people how to feel.
Speaker 1: I want to be like, this is how I feel,
Speaker 1: and this is why you Here's what you can take
Speaker 1: from it. Late last month, The Cut published an article
Speaker 1: called Canceled at seventeen about a high school or they
Speaker 1: called Diego, who, while drunk at a party, shared a
Speaker 1: nude image of his then girlfriend Fiona with his friends
Speaker 1: without consent. Now, to be frank, what he did is
Speaker 1: a crime in many jurisdictions, but the article goes on
Speaker 1: to talk about how the students at his school ostracized
Speaker 1: him for what the Peace states was just a quote stupid,
Speaker 1: drunken mistake on his part. The Peace spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on what this all feels like for Diego emotionally,
Speaker 1: who the article goes out of their way to describe
Speaker 1: as a sweet, goofy kid who was being shunned by
Speaker 1: his classmates. We're also told that the climate of the
Speaker 1: school really fueled all of this behavior. The student body
Speaker 1: back in in person schooling after lockdowns were now reflecting
Speaker 1: on incidents of sexual harassment and assault from years prior,
Speaker 1: with new eyes and feeling new anger about the ways
Speaker 1: the school handled them. Feeling fed up by administrators, the
Speaker 1: students take matters into their own hands. They organize a
Speaker 1: walkout to protest the schools and action. They circulate a
Speaker 1: list of kids to watch out for it. So, I
Speaker 1: actually think there is a lot going on in this
Speaker 1: piece that is useful to unpack, Like what happens when
Speaker 1: adults fail to create a safe and supportive learning environment
Speaker 1: for young people so much so that those young people
Speaker 1: take matters into their own hands. And what are the
Speaker 1: racial dynamics at play behind the fact that the majority
Speaker 1: of the young men on the people to watch out
Speaker 1: for a list are boys of color? Or what are
Speaker 1: the institutional factors that play here? For instance, in the
Speaker 1: Trump administration, Secretary of Education Betsy Divas completely overhauled Title nine,
Speaker 1: the federal civil rights law that governs how schools must
Speaker 1: handle sexual assault in schools. But this piece doesn't really
Speaker 1: get into any of that. Instead, it tells us that
Speaker 1: Diego is the victim of cancel culture, run them up,
Speaker 1: that young people, fueled by social media wokesm have come
Speaker 1: together to ruin the life of a sweet kid over
Speaker 1: one tiny transgression. That piece from last month in the cut.
Speaker 1: When I saw that piece, I thought, Wow, this intersect
Speaker 1: with so many of the issues that I know that
Speaker 1: you care about. Um. And so you were the first
Speaker 1: person and I was like, I really want to know
Speaker 1: her take. What were your initial thoughts on that? Man?
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so many waves of it. But
Speaker 1: first I was rolling my eyes because it starts off
Speaker 1: canceled at seventeen. I'm like, oh my god, not canceled, right,
Speaker 1: because it goes back the whole cancel culture stuff. And
Speaker 1: I was thinking, how that's already inherently anti black. And
Speaker 1: I remember the cover was a clown. It was a clown,
Speaker 1: like a sad clown on a skateboard. So it's already
Speaker 1: like framing it as this, like this child, and then
Speaker 1: you read it and quote unquote he was canceled. Was
Speaker 1: just that he was ostracized after sharing nudes of his
Speaker 1: girlfriend non consensually, right, and then there's also little hints
Speaker 1: about him potentially being abusive in other ways. Um, And
Speaker 1: so it was just it was it was a perfect
Speaker 1: example of hympathy, right. The framing. It was a very um,
Speaker 1: I think it's a worthwhile topic, and I think she
Speaker 1: touched upon things that other people should have covered. Basically, um,
Speaker 1: the way that it was from his point of view,
Speaker 1: like if you if you read it sort of like
Speaker 1: he's the victim. There was a lot of UM. She
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time. I'm talking about how badly
Speaker 1: he felt, how badly his parents felt, how you know,
Speaker 1: all these sort of things, how bad the administrators felt.
Speaker 1: It was always about everyone but the victims, how badly
Speaker 1: they felt. Very little spent on the victim, what she thought,
Speaker 1: any of those sort of things. So that was just
Speaker 1: very um that stood out to me. And also the
Speaker 1: timing stood out because it technically was a Title nine story,
Speaker 1: even though they made it seem like it's about this
Speaker 1: boy being victimized, and they did this on the week
Speaker 1: of the fiftieth anniversary of Title nine. I think it
Speaker 1: was a week up or the week after. So it
Speaker 1: was just very much like a part of this backlash
Speaker 1: against Title nine, which is a civil rights law. I
Speaker 1: feel like folks don't say that enough, like this is
Speaker 1: about civil rights and education, um, and also just part
Speaker 1: of a larger part of the backlash to me too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's something else that I really like how
Speaker 1: you framed that, because one of the things that stuck
Speaker 1: out right away for me for that piece was the
Speaker 1: way that Diego is framed as this, you know, good kid,
Speaker 1: blah blah blah and his ex girlfriend, the person that
Speaker 1: he you know, non non consensually shared new images of
Speaker 1: the writer goes out of her way to talk about
Speaker 1: how beautiful she was in this way that just feels
Speaker 1: a little suset, almost feels like the implication is that
Speaker 1: Diego was so proud of her beauty that showing these
Speaker 1: images even without her consent, she really should have almost
Speaker 1: been like complimented or flattered. And something about the way
Speaker 1: it was framed just made me think that the writer
Speaker 1: was trying to get us the reader to think, like, well,
Speaker 1: is what he did really so bad? It was essentially
Speaker 1: another way of saying she was asking for it by
Speaker 1: being so beautiful, and that was really and and that
Speaker 1: was a way to make him seem less responsible. And
Speaker 1: it was really creepy because these are children. Why are
Speaker 1: you talking about how attractive it um child is? And
Speaker 1: especially we're gonna be talking about sexual violence right sharing
Speaker 1: someone's nudes non consensually is a form of sexual violence.
Speaker 1: So why are we talking about attractiveness? Because now you're
Speaker 1: blurring the lines between sexual violence and sex and I
Speaker 1: think that is a big part of rape culture, and
Speaker 1: that's something that the media loves to do, is just
Speaker 1: sort of saying, well, how did the victim ask for it?
Speaker 1: How is the perpetrator not that responsible? Let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break back. At this point, it seems almost impossible
Speaker 1: to have not encountered at least one piece about cancel
Speaker 1: culture about a mock friend of the show Michael Hobbs,
Speaker 1: has a great episode of his podcast You're Wrong About
Speaker 1: All about how most of the time, these pieces making
Speaker 1: puffed up our guments about the threat that cancel culture
Speaker 1: plays in our workplaces and college campuses are usually just
Speaker 1: cherry picked anecdotes that totally fall apart under any scrutiny.
Speaker 1: Yet media outlets, even pretty mainstream ones like The Atlantic,
Speaker 1: keep churning them out, lending credibility to this idea that
Speaker 1: people are routinely losing their entire livelihoods for saying or
Speaker 1: doing one small, off color thing. It's yet another way
Speaker 1: that our digital media ecosystem has incentivized these divisive but
Speaker 1: ultimately kind of meaningless buzzwords to describe situations in ways
Speaker 1: that make us all less informed and more divided. You
Speaker 1: hit on something earlier where you said that it's it
Speaker 1: was a story. It was like ostensibly a Title nine story.
Speaker 1: But then they use this framing of you know, cancel culture,
Speaker 1: run amuck. Why do you think that's the framing that
Speaker 1: they chose. It feels so unhelpful. I think because they
Speaker 1: wanted to be unhelpful. Um. I think we also have
Speaker 1: to understand the role of media and um around issues
Speaker 1: like this, that it's form of social control in the
Speaker 1: sense that it is basically reflecting the values of the
Speaker 1: people in charge. Right, so it's going to align with
Speaker 1: the values of the systems of oppression that we have
Speaker 1: in force, like heado patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism. Um, they
Speaker 1: hate rights. So the media is going to use language,
Speaker 1: the medias is gonna use language that is going to
Speaker 1: be very, um vague. I think that's very much something
Speaker 1: that is common amongst reactionaries in general. They'll use very
Speaker 1: vague language so they can twist it right because they
Speaker 1: started off as canceled. You have to open it up
Speaker 1: to see what it's about. Then you're like, oh, this
Speaker 1: kid did something really bad, and not only that, the
Speaker 1: language you used before she even told us what he did.
Speaker 1: I was like, please don't judge him, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I was like, whoa, they're like very heavy handed. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, I've read a lot of bad things about
Speaker 1: sexual by Lens, but that was really shocking where she
Speaker 1: was just explicitly like, don't judge this boy who did
Speaker 1: something objectively wrong. Um, So yeah, I think it's just
Speaker 1: about it was it was able to use this umbrella
Speaker 1: where it's like either you're an assailant or you said
Speaker 1: something racist. Then she also just like stopped saying what
Speaker 1: different kids did and then giving us their opinion as
Speaker 1: if it's truth. Right, So it's just it's just it's
Speaker 1: a manipulation tool. Is the Is the the short of it.
Speaker 1: I see time after time after time after time, all
Speaker 1: of these pieces where it's like cancel culture run amuck,
Speaker 1: and it's like, actually, this seems like a couple like
Speaker 1: a couple of anecdotes that you've really cherry picked and
Speaker 1: and and really blown up or it just it just
Speaker 1: feels like a lot of breathless writing about something, but
Speaker 1: there does also seem to be like an actual story
Speaker 1: worth telling in the piece, I would argue, because when
Speaker 1: I read that piece, all I could think was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: these young people have been so clearly failed by the
Speaker 1: adults in their lives that they feel like and the
Speaker 1: institutions in their lives that they feel like the only
Speaker 1: way that they can get any kind of justice is
Speaker 1: taking matters into their own hands, and no ship turns out.
Speaker 1: A bunch of teenagers acting on their own without any
Speaker 1: kind of like meaningful guidance or institutional support might not
Speaker 1: handle things in the in the most productive way. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like what, like, why not tell that story
Speaker 1: because it's a story worth telling? You know. I think
Speaker 1: part of it is that, you know, part of the backlash.
Speaker 1: It's a way to sort of recalibrate power. So I
Speaker 1: would see this as a way to sort of like, Okay, um,
Speaker 1: too many people were supportive of Title nine and sexual
Speaker 1: self survivors, so let's sort of shift the script. I
Speaker 1: think council culture in a book is just a lot
Speaker 1: easier to write, and it's a lot you can do
Speaker 1: a lot of innuendo, a lot of implying this is
Speaker 1: just part of again, we're very much in this re
Speaker 1: actionary culture we're trying to like, so we're seeing people
Speaker 1: using the media to sort of reclaim um, hegemonic masculinity
Speaker 1: or toxic masculinity. I would say they they're like excusing
Speaker 1: the toxic part to reinforce hegemonic masculinity, because with hegemonic masculinity,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of theorists will talk about how
Speaker 1: it's about how there's power in the legal sense then
Speaker 1: also like in the public sphere and then also in
Speaker 1: the private sphere. So it's a way to sort of
Speaker 1: reassert that power by um, not looking at the real problem.
Speaker 1: The media loves. Episodic framing when it comes to sexual
Speaker 1: violence is something that's been studied and they also studies
Speaker 1: also show that when you have an episodic framing, when
Speaker 1: you sort of like say it's this kid being victimized, um,
Speaker 1: people are less likely to be supportive of survivors because
Speaker 1: they're not going to really know that this is part
Speaker 1: of a cultural problem. And when people realize that this
Speaker 1: is a cultural problem that hasn't gone away, people are
Speaker 1: gonna start thinking, wait, who's benefiting from this? Weight who's
Speaker 1: not changing things. So I think it's a way to
Speaker 1: maintain the status quo. And essentially, because how many adults
Speaker 1: are going to write about themselves being like failing a
Speaker 1: bunch of kids, very few people are going to be
Speaker 1: willing to admit that. So what do you do? You
Speaker 1: kind of like shove it under the rug. All right,
Speaker 1: it's the cats out of the bag. We couldn't control
Speaker 1: the activists, right, like you're welcome, y'all right? Like as
Speaker 1: I feel like my friends and I were activists and
Speaker 1: were like, whoah, we got we gotta fix that. And
Speaker 1: so instead of validating it as a real thing, they
Speaker 1: go to this other angle that's just very um yeah,
Speaker 1: it's manipulative, it's dishonest, and they know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: Do you feel that the media just consistently fails survivors
Speaker 1: in the way that it frames and tells your story? Absolutely? Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting. I've been reading about just media
Speaker 1: and campus sexual assault in the different connections between it,
Speaker 1: and there's been a long legacy of specifically white women
Speaker 1: coming out to um doubt sexual violence and education. So
Speaker 1: it was more so about campus sexual assaults specifically starting
Speaker 1: around in the nineteen eighties nineteen nineties, and it was
Speaker 1: about like this was before there was a lot of
Speaker 1: research out. So first it was sort of like do
Speaker 1: we really know, we need we need data, we don't
Speaker 1: really trust just a bunch of women lying. Then the
Speaker 1: data came out there like the data is wrong, this
Speaker 1: is just it doesn't make any sense, blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So now the argument here is that cancel culture has
Speaker 1: gone wrong. And then when you use cancel culture, you
Speaker 1: can blame low key black people, right, you can blame
Speaker 1: the internet. Couldn't quote Twitter, uh, you know, you can
Speaker 1: just blame a bunch of minoritized groups and sort of
Speaker 1: like it's a way to funnel that resentment against people
Speaker 1: who have been getting um more visibility. One thing is
Speaker 1: about the racism in the piece. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: so interesting because she they do mention that like the boys,
Speaker 1: like most of the boys who were like sort of
Speaker 1: singled out, we're all voice of color. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: is something that's been used increasingly in the past couple.
Speaker 1: Actually they started using that um line the reactionaries, the
Speaker 1: anti title nine people when my friends and I sort
Speaker 1: of came on the scene and so they're trying to
Speaker 1: make it as sort of like freeing it, as these
Speaker 1: white girls are trying to ruin these black boys lives.
Speaker 1: And that is really awful in a sense because all right,
Speaker 1: I know, as me, as a black survivor and someone
Speaker 1: who was assaulted by a black person, um, I hesitated
Speaker 1: to come forward for a while because I did not
Speaker 1: want to reinforce that representation. I think it's really harmful
Speaker 1: and media only talks about men and boys of color
Speaker 1: as potentially perpetrators, are only as the accused because you're
Speaker 1: racing them as victims, and then you're also silencing the
Speaker 1: people that they do victimize. Because the thing is is
Speaker 1: most sexual violence is within the race, but they don't
Speaker 1: talk about that, and so it's really messed up of
Speaker 1: how they tried to emphasize that while erasing the victims,
Speaker 1: because like maybe most of the victims are are girls
Speaker 1: of color or people of color, but we we don't
Speaker 1: really hear that. She talks about the activists being mostly
Speaker 1: women of color, but then she labels them as tribalistic,
Speaker 1: you know, and exorcistic, you know, like really trying to
Speaker 1: be like these are these irrational like like primal thing
Speaker 1: and It was really interesting how she kind of frames
Speaker 1: it as like it's a primal thing when you're supporting
Speaker 1: survivors and being an activist. But god forbid um but
Speaker 1: everyone else, right, the users, they're enablers, they're all the
Speaker 1: rational people. And there was also like a little bit
Speaker 1: of a dog whistle where she talked about privilege in
Speaker 1: ways it just sort of show that like, if you
Speaker 1: believe in privilege, then you're going to be somebody who
Speaker 1: will be a counselor like someone who cancels, and that's bad.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of like little like nitpicky things. Oh
Speaker 1: and then when she talked about him going on a
Speaker 1: trip learning about the civil rights movement and then she
Speaker 1: was like that's where he learned. Oh, that's right, that's
Speaker 1: where he learned about negative power. I was like, it
Speaker 1: was like, you did not just use the civil rights
Speaker 1: movement to like equated with a boy committing sexual violence
Speaker 1: against his exchol friend. What are you doing? So you
Speaker 1: know the way that they like really like to like
Speaker 1: move us away from true power, conscious analysis, right and
Speaker 1: try and flatten it to like anyone can be a victim.
Speaker 1: And when you mean anyone, it's the people with the
Speaker 1: most power. Yeah, the people with the most power who
Speaker 1: happened to be facing some consequences for their Here, he's
Speaker 1: still got to go to four proms. So first of all,
Speaker 1: you still have friends. Number two, you're not poor because
Speaker 1: proms are not cheap. But anyway, yeah, if you're going
Speaker 1: to four proms, I don't know. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: little it's a little hard for me to be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're being socially ostrious. Has four proms as hell? What
Speaker 1: there's another thing. I was like, Yeah, it's just like
Speaker 1: these white ladies, you know, and you know that it
Speaker 1: just hits at that white liberal racism. Was like, oh no,
Speaker 1: I don't want to support something that accuses black boys
Speaker 1: of rape. But then they don't talk about how basically,
Speaker 1: with anything in regards to schools code of conduct, students
Speaker 1: of color disproportionately disciplined. So if you're only doing it
Speaker 1: around rape, you're just being racist. And you're using rape
Speaker 1: culture to do it, because that's really messed up to
Speaker 1: only care about it when you're trying to undermine survivors
Speaker 1: who are often survivors of color. Absolutely, and I think
Speaker 1: the piece does at at once is sort of concern
Speaker 1: trolling around like oh, I don't want to be you know,
Speaker 1: criminalizing boys of color, but then also blames people of
Speaker 1: color for this like cancel culture, abound a monk, Like
Speaker 1: it's like, well, geez, which is exactly definitely playing both
Speaker 1: sides and hoping that you don't catch up on it, right,
Speaker 1: And I think unfortunately, I'm sure most white people would
Speaker 1: not be able to pick up on that because it's
Speaker 1: just sort of those things that you can read in
Speaker 1: between the lines. But it's, um, it's really weird how
Speaker 1: they're using race in this really manipulative way. More after
Speaker 1: a quick break, let's get right back into it. I
Speaker 1: feel like it is part of the course for the
Speaker 1: way that we are using we're seeing like issues like
Speaker 1: race and gender like just become these issues that are
Speaker 1: just used to inflame instead of having like thoughtful conversations,
Speaker 1: they're just be They're just being used to like stoke tensions,
Speaker 1: like further stoke tensions. Yeah. I think education has always
Speaker 1: been a site of like inciting tensions and trying to
Speaker 1: spread moral panics. So I think this is just another
Speaker 1: way that they're manifesting that. Yeah, I see that so
Speaker 1: often echoed on the Internet. I think that it's I mean,
Speaker 1: this is just my personal pet theory, but I think
Speaker 1: it's like why Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter in
Speaker 1: part because it's like minoritized groups and groups who historically
Speaker 1: have been marginalized and had power taken from us are
Speaker 1: able to use these tools to build power, to build
Speaker 1: a voice, to build moments, to build culture, and to
Speaker 1: push back. And I think that that is really threatening
Speaker 1: to a certain type of person, really really committed and
Speaker 1: uh you know, really committed to having power and making
Speaker 1: sure that people like us don't really have. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of the cancel culture rhetoric is about like who
Speaker 1: has control over the public square right, who can control
Speaker 1: the discourse, who can influence it? And so since um, yeah,
Speaker 1: minoritized people are have had like, you know, just unprecedented reach,
Speaker 1: now they are going to use traditional media where white people,
Speaker 1: where the you know, the rich white men have control,
Speaker 1: and they're going to commission these sort of things to
Speaker 1: to legitimize a sense of canceling. And then also in
Speaker 1: sense you legitimize people who dare to speak up as
Speaker 1: a survivor, people who dared to be in solidarity with survivors,
Speaker 1: it's just very much about condemning, um, everyone who dares
Speaker 1: challenge his status quo. Yeah, are there ways that you like,
Speaker 1: in a perfect world, how would the internet and media
Speaker 1: and our digital ecosystem, like, how could those institutions actually
Speaker 1: show up for survivors? Is there is there a world
Speaker 1: where that could exist? Oh, it definitely could exist. It's
Speaker 1: not going to exist with the way things are now,
Speaker 1: just because I think something that's, um, something that's happened
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't talk about that is that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, so much media has closed, right, there's just
Speaker 1: lost less competition. There's been a lot of mergers and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, and there's some theory about how when
Speaker 1: that happens. When there's less competition, there's more incentive to
Speaker 1: cater to the narrative of the people in charge of
Speaker 1: hegemonic narratives and the hegemonic discourses, which is why you'll
Speaker 1: get more like grape culture, more racism. Why you know,
Speaker 1: fascists will get platforms more easily than like victims of
Speaker 1: police of violence. What we have to do is essentially
Speaker 1: have media organizations that are trauma informed and also their
Speaker 1: values are not about making money or catering to power,
Speaker 1: but rather challenging power, because it's this is something that
Speaker 1: you need to have an expertise, you need to be
Speaker 1: educated about. It's really complicated to talk about sexual violence
Speaker 1: because very often I read things and I can read
Speaker 1: in between the lines. But I know most people would
Speaker 1: not be able to do that. They wouldn't know that. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, when I was reading the article, it was
Speaker 1: kind of like best hits of all the different reactionary
Speaker 1: things that I've seen when they're talking about title nine. Um,
Speaker 1: so it's just about incentives, changing the incentives. Who gets funding,
Speaker 1: who gets to lead newsrooms, right, who gets disseminated, and
Speaker 1: how it's really um, when you think about it, we're
Speaker 1: very much in the domain where, yes, social media has
Speaker 1: been great and we have chipped way a little bit
Speaker 1: at that power, but we still have to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: the power in the media has is just disproportionately in
Speaker 1: favor of you know, a few old, rich, white dudes,
Speaker 1: and that's by design. Yeah, I mean I think so
Speaker 1: often when I think about, like, what will it take
Speaker 1: to get to a better future one, you know, one
Speaker 1: where survivors are supported, it's capitalism. It's like it's like
Speaker 1: it is tearing down systems and institutions, and it seems
Speaker 1: so you know, lofty, far off, but it seems to
Speaker 1: always come back to that. It was actually realizing the
Speaker 1: connections between rape culture and the media that made me realize.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, capitalism has to go because there's
Speaker 1: literally no financial incentive to be against rape culture. There's
Speaker 1: only so many financial incentives, and if every single business
Speaker 1: is existing to stay in business to make as much
Speaker 1: money as possible, that's a huge disadvantage for survivors and
Speaker 1: for the entire society because mere exposure to rape myths
Speaker 1: and headlines actually influences people. They're more victim blaming, they
Speaker 1: accept more rape myths, and then people who are inclined
Speaker 1: to commit sexual violence are actually more emboldened. So this
Speaker 1: is these are all messages that we are all living
Speaker 1: with the implications of that we don't really talk about.
Speaker 1: That's just really um upsetting. But yeah, capitalism is we
Speaker 1: have to think about how basically capitalism as we know
Speaker 1: it in the United States um was built on sexual violence. Right.
Speaker 1: It's the sexual violence against indigenous people too as form
Speaker 1: of colonialism, and then sexual violence against enslaved Africans where
Speaker 1: raping people could literally create more capital. And so when
Speaker 1: we think about that legacy, if we think about this
Speaker 1: economic system that we're in, that it um has been
Speaker 1: run to normalize sexual violence because it is profitable. We
Speaker 1: have to we have to throw it away. We're not
Speaker 1: going to be able to really dig out there, Like
Speaker 1: obviously I'm gonna do what I can, but yeah, capitalism
Speaker 1: and um hetero patriarchy, Right, we just have a lot
Speaker 1: of sexist people, a lot of sis sexist people because
Speaker 1: we're seeing the rise of transphobia and the way that
Speaker 1: the idea of groomers, right, people are able to use
Speaker 1: those labels, those like your predator, you're this, you're that
Speaker 1: strategically because we're so ignorant about rape. Why are we
Speaker 1: so ignorant about rape? In a large part because of
Speaker 1: the media. Why because capitalism makes the media incentivized for
Speaker 1: us to be ignorant about it. Yeah, I guess I
Speaker 1: it's difficult to not see the ways that these things
Speaker 1: are all connected. And like, once you start pulling that thread,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh shit, it's the whole ball of apertly,
Speaker 1: it's like throw it all away. It's just it's all
Speaker 1: it's this is why intersectionality got so popular, right, because
Speaker 1: people were really drawn to the idea of like this
Speaker 1: is all connected in some way at some point, you know,
Speaker 1: to go back to that piece. Something that really I
Speaker 1: kind of Scott stuck on after reading it is that
Speaker 1: the idea that it's it was the perpetrator who was
Speaker 1: like ostracized when I was young, when I was in
Speaker 1: high school. I you know how like every high school
Speaker 1: has like that thing that happened in your school. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing that happened in our school was that female
Speaker 1: classmate of ours um her boyfriend showed a video of
Speaker 1: her to our entire school into like neighboring schools. And
Speaker 1: when I tell you, like like she was completely ostracized.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember the guy's name. And she was
Speaker 1: the one who had to Like I think they left.
Speaker 1: I think they moved away. Like it was like it
Speaker 1: was like the biggest thing of our school. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, we were all in high school, and so certainly,
Speaker 1: I mean I think back and I'm like, wow, we
Speaker 1: really fucked up and failed that that young woman. But
Speaker 1: today part of me was so surprised that the party
Speaker 1: that was ostracized was the perpetrator, not the victims, because
Speaker 1: that certainly wasn't what the vibe was and what I
Speaker 1: was saying. I mean, I think that was something a
Speaker 1: lot of people were saying on Twitter, like, whoa, they
Speaker 1: actually ostracized the perpetrator for what. Yeah, I was really
Speaker 1: surprised because it makes me think about slut walk. In
Speaker 1: a Toronto police officer suggested that women should avoid dressing
Speaker 1: like sluts to avoid sexual violence. In response, anti rape
Speaker 1: activists started the slut Walk movement to protest rape culture,
Speaker 1: victim blaming and slut shaming. Slut Walk was about like
Speaker 1: twenty eleven something like that. It was that sounds right, yeah,
Speaker 1: but made me think about how, um, you know, feminists
Speaker 1: are trying to reclaim the word slut, even though depending
Speaker 1: on your identity, it's not exactly like as achievable. But
Speaker 1: that's like another conversation. However, it was about how slut.
Speaker 1: We used to talk a lot about how the word
Speaker 1: slut was used against victims of sexual violence because they
Speaker 1: would be the ones who were bullied, they would be
Speaker 1: the ones whould be ostracized. It was basically showing how
Speaker 1: slut shaming was an umbrella term to sort of hide
Speaker 1: what actually is being done to whom who has the power,
Speaker 1: who's the real victim? Um? So this is really surprising.
Speaker 1: And I think because it is so more common for
Speaker 1: the victim to be ostracized, it made this decision even
Speaker 1: more interesting because it's sort of like, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: if it starts, this is going to be bad. And
Speaker 1: it really frames it as like it's normal and good
Speaker 1: for the victims, who are usually girls right to carry
Speaker 1: that shame and the consequences of the actions of um,
Speaker 1: their perpetrators. Yeah, you just I mean, it's normal and
Speaker 1: good for the victims who are usually girls to carry
Speaker 1: that shame. That's I guess, especially today when we're all
Speaker 1: having this conversation about a ten year old child who
Speaker 1: is a rape survivor of rape who was pregnant and pregnated.
Speaker 1: This idea of like what we ask women and girls,
Speaker 1: what shame we asked them to absorb, to keep, to
Speaker 1: keep these societal things running, to make to make sure
Speaker 1: that this power and balance doesn't shift back. And I
Speaker 1: guess that's just really weighing heavy on my my heart
Speaker 1: right now. The way that you put that really stung
Speaker 1: a little. Like I remember I was reading something and
Speaker 1: I realized that. I was like, oh shit. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: they're okay with this. Oh they think we deserve this.
Speaker 1: Oh Like it's just sort of like a damn it.
Speaker 1: This is why I don't believe in giving gory details.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that showing the violence will convince people
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of people who think that's
Speaker 1: just how the world is supposed to be UM, And
Speaker 1: I think that's something that we need to reckon with
Speaker 1: because I think it'll make us more effective in our
Speaker 1: strategy and how we respond. But especially we're thinking about UM.
Speaker 1: How you know, Christianity very much has shaped our sense
Speaker 1: of what victimhood is. And when you take that into consideration,
Speaker 1: you have to think about Jesus Christ, who's like the
Speaker 1: ultimate victim. And they use Jesus Christ as a way
Speaker 1: to sort of show that suffering is good in a sense, right,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of twisted in a way to be like,
Speaker 1: this is just all a part of God's plan. Your
Speaker 1: suffering is a part of God's plan. It brings you
Speaker 1: closer to Godliness. And when you're in a society where
Speaker 1: the marginalized people are seen as inherently bad, right, women
Speaker 1: are the original sinners. You know, trans people and queer
Speaker 1: people are you know, they're they're deviant. Then it's sort
Speaker 1: of like this weird concept of like, if you're suffering,
Speaker 1: we're kind of helping you. Mm hmm, Like um, it
Speaker 1: reminds me so much of that Orneal Herson quote if
Speaker 1: you're silent about your pain, they'll kill you and say
Speaker 1: you enjoyed it, like teaching us that we should find
Speaker 1: empowerment through our suffering or that should be like, you know,
Speaker 1: a badge of honor. Like I'm just I'm just so
Speaker 1: done with anything that tells me that something that is
Speaker 1: negative for me that I but I should be happy
Speaker 1: about it. I'm so done with that. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that that isn't our culture everywhere definitely is. It's
Speaker 1: definitely a way to sort of maintain not sort of,
Speaker 1: it's one of the many ways that they maintain the
Speaker 1: status quot because it's a sort of gas lighting as well, right,
Speaker 1: because if it's if suffering is normal, then we don't
Speaker 1: need to think about systems of oppression, we don't need
Speaker 1: to think about rape culture because like that's just how
Speaker 1: the world is. And so it's like it was it's
Speaker 1: sort of like an anti call to action if you
Speaker 1: think about the article it has said's right, because it's
Speaker 1: like don't change no, no, no, Like just if you
Speaker 1: blame the victim, if you coddle abusers, that's okay, that's cool,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's low key that like, don't
Speaker 1: get too worried about all the hubbub on Twitter and
Speaker 1: college campuses, like it'll be okay. It's a call to
Speaker 1: inaction exactly. So, given where we're at, everything that's happened
Speaker 1: in our culture when it comes to survivors and how
Speaker 1: how we fail them, don't support them tell their stories.
Speaker 1: Are what do you think about what's on the horizon?
Speaker 1: Are you hopeful in this moment today? Like how are
Speaker 1: you feeling about what it means to be a survivor
Speaker 1: and to have survivor stories be told? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful in a sense where I have seen from
Speaker 1: my time on college campuses, which was really hard for
Speaker 1: people to talk about rape, to now we're having that
Speaker 1: ass high schoolers doing rallies and like getting administrators to resign.
Speaker 1: That's amazing, Like I see so much progress where students
Speaker 1: are really stepping up their occupying frat houses, they're occupying
Speaker 1: administrators offices. Like people are catching on and I'm seeing it,
Speaker 1: and that gives me hope. I think it's easy to
Speaker 1: fall into despair when you're on social media doom scrolling,
Speaker 1: especially since I feel like I just, you know, I
Speaker 1: follow a lot of news. I follow out of anxious people,
Speaker 1: follow a lot of vulnerable people, you know. But there
Speaker 1: is progress. They if there wasn't, they wouldn't be fighting
Speaker 1: back against us so hard. They're cheating. They're cheating, and
Speaker 1: we're still beating their asses. So I got a story
Speaker 1: about an interesting thing in tech. I just want to
Speaker 1: say hi. You can be just at hello at tangodi
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode
Speaker 1: at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the
Speaker 1: Internet was created by me Brigittad. It's a production of
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Terry Harrison is our producer, and sound engineer. Michael Amato
Speaker 1: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget DoD. If
Speaker 1: you want to help us grow, rate and review us
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