Interesting discussion on Assange on The World Tonight

[slhilly]

About the rape allegations and his status as liberal icon.

Contributors were Jaclyn Friedman and Katrin Axelson from Women Against Rape who wrote a letter to the Guardian a couple of days ago on this.

Link here.

starts at 14:57 into the show

that letter to the Guardian is what Naomi Wolf should have written.

just pointing out the double standard, I thought.

I sgree about 'It is a massive insult to victims that one of the few times accusations of rape are taken as seriously as they should be, is when there is a political motive behind it.'

Yes, it really does add fuel to the theory that men in general, and certainly those in power, are really not bothered about women being raped unless they can use the rapes for their own ends.

Because we live in Comic Book World where you're a hero or a villain, Stewie? Did no-one tell you?

That's why Polanski can't be a child rapist too - because he made brilliant [sic] films!

It's part of the whole "nice guy" thing isn't it?

Almost nothing makes me more suspicious of a man than him telling me that he is a nice guy, or that women only like the bad guys, not nice guys like him. Or why can't he find anyone to shove his penis into go out with him when he's so nice?

Clue: the nice ones don't go on about being nice. They might not even know they are nice. They are just being normal. The "nice" ones are pretending to be nice and are outraged when their rightful reward in the form of vagina is not forthcoming.

Dittany, the person you heard on the radio last night was the WAR woman!

She took pains to emphasise that she thought it right that Assange be investigated, but was deeply suspicious about the motives for the investigation -- that they weren't about seeking justice for the victims but about shutting him up. She pointed out that if it was about justice for women, other women who have suffered much more would be having their cases investigated and their attackers would not be being released on bail, as Assange is.

I thought the Radio 4 discussion was a fairly rare example of two feminists discussing sexual violence in a way that was broadly pro-woman, and managing to do so despite the producers' clearly setting one of them up to say that the violence allegations should simply be dismissed as a conspiracy.

Article about sexual violence in Sweden and how attitudes there are more progressive than elsewhere--except maybe that's only on the surface:

news.yahoo.com/s/time/20101216/wl_time/08599203707800