Oxfam - rape reporting

[MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously]

mol.im/a/9671555

Wtf? Has anyone else seen this yet?

Yes, I've just read it...

An Oxfam staff training document blamed 'privileged white women' for 'supporting the root causes of sexual violence' by wanting 'bad men' fired or thrown in prison because it disproportionately affects minorities.

Accompanied by a cartoon of a crying white woman, the training brochure claims that mainstream feminism supports 'the root causes of sexual violence' and even appears to suggest that reporting rape is 'contemptible'.

The four-week 'learning journey' states: 'Mainstream feminism centres privileged white women and demands that ''bad men'' be fired or imprisoned.'

Next to the cartoon of a sobbing white woman is a caption saying that this attitude 'legitimises criminal punishment, harming black and other marginalised people'.

The document recommends staff read Me Not You: The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism, a book by Alison Phipps, a professor of gender studies at Sussex University.

It then links to the academic's Twitter account, including a thread which summarises the main themes of the book, including: 'White feminist tears deploy white woundedness, and the sympathy it generates, to hide the harms we perpetuate through white supremacy.'

I'm stunned tbh. Don't know where to start. Maybe with the sacking of whoever is running Oxfam! How can they continue to operate?

Ironic given Oxfam workers sexual exploitation of black women in Haiti and Congo.

It's not an official document, and so far we've only got a summary from the Daily Mail. Do you have a link to the full document? Why would you sack someone that has nothing to do with it?

It is true though that feminism centres around privileged white women, privileged in the sense that we don't experience the discrimination and inequality that other women do.

Ironic given Oxfam workers sexual exploitation of black women in Haiti and Congo.

This is what we should be focusing on, but we're not because black women living in poverty are not a priority in feminism (which proves the author's point!).

Am I remembering correctly that male Oxfam workers were coercing vulnerable women and girls into sex to access the charity's provisions?

That's right, isn't it?

Are these "bad men" too - in which the inverted commas wash away the sin? Good of the barmy gender studies contingent to create a narrative were white feminists are the root of all problems

On a more local level, there's lots of discussion about sex work and how men should receive greater punishments. Yet the vast majority of those in the discussion actually speak to the sex workers and take their views into account. The focus is on criminality, not on supporting the less privileged women.

• don't actually speak to the sex workers

Key word omitted!

I think it came from The Times originally. They might have a link to the full document. Whether official policy/voluntary or not, when an organisation endorses this kind of 'training', then I think the buck stops with the the leadership.
To me, it's not a question of prioritising one set of women over another Orf, Imo Oxfam made themselves unfit for purpose after what happened in Haiti.

Blimey!

OP, can I suggest you ask MN to change the title of the thread so as it give it more visibility and raise awareness. I'm surprised there have been so few posting on this. It's shocking.

I didn't know what to say in the title tbh that was succinct. Am stunned by this.

Have reported post to ask if MN can add 'Rape reporting' to the title.

YANBU. It’s a living disgrace. Wonder which misogynistic teenager wrote it.

Oxfam keeps on doing its best to give me yet more justifications not to send my charitable donations their way. . .

Black people will end up being harangued for blaming White Women for a culture of covering up and minimising sexual assault. Even when we've neither done so, or written a document stating so.

We live in a patriarchal society structured for the benefit of White men, absolving them of wrongdoings where possible, and not really presenting them as villainous even when they've done wrong. There are White Women who uphold this pateiarchy and are defensive if White men are criticised. But this never meant they wouldn't be thrown under the bus eventually. Men are deemed more important.

Men are to blame. Women will get the blame. Whilst I abhor that women turned a blind eye to the Oxfam sexual deviants in Haiti and elsewhere, I never seem to hear about men who will have covered for their colleagues too.

It is horrific, hard to believe it is real! Who would sign off on that, especially given their history?!

It is true though that feminism centres around privileged white women, privileged in the sense that we don't experience the discrimination and inequality that other women do.

^^ I am not sure that the poor white girls groomed and abused in Rotherham would agree.

@CatherineMorland I don’t understand why this is always the response when this is mentioned. Are you trying to say white people experience racism to the extent ethnic minorities do. No? Then what the poster said isn’t wrong.

Also feminism is definitely centred in white women especially on here.

@CatherineMorland I could just easily respond that the women in Haiti abused by Oxfam workers wouldn’t agree with you. Or the women in refuge camps abused by UN workers. Hint: these women aren’t white.

Also feminism is definitely centred in white women especially on here

Which feminist stand point would afford men the space to assault women without being criminalised?

@FourTeaFallOut what does that have anything to do with what I said?

Because I'm suggesting that the particularity of the feminist lens in the discussion of this male violence is a distraction.

I'm suggesting the particularity of the feminist lens is not the cause of the harm, either to the women who are assaulted or the men who feel victimised by the outcomes their own criminality.

I'm suggesting that sinking into a feminist black hole of cultural relativism affords Oxfam the opportunity to reframe some feminists as bad feminists, which is useful when a number of those feminists are in the media and pointing at you saying your charity workers shouldn't be trading aid for sex.