Headlines, News and a Phemiversary

Well, it's been a crazy month! Where to even begin. I guess I'll start with why I was reminded this morning why I never get on MySpace anymore: Hotties For Sale . In this same vein, Pink is still rocking my world, however, apparently her video Dear Mr. President, an open critique of George W. Bush's policies while in office, and "not available for viewing in your country" is not being rocked on Myspace.

On a better note, fellow Pheminist Amy just got married! Congrats to Amy! We all are wishing you two much love, adventure, growth and light together. Another exciting celebration in progress, October marks the one year anniversary of Phem! Within that time frame, a lot of exciting things have happened....Phem began small, but quickly gained momentum in the ever supportive realm of ODU's Women's Studies program. Over the past year, we have gained twenty four online members, of those, twelve becoming regular contributors to the blog. Phem then gained a good amount of student support thanks to Dr. Jennifer Fish's shout out at the Friends of Women's Studies Dinner in March, and again during the Annual Women's Studies Essay Contest in May. In June, Phem was also awarded a $1,000 grant from the ODU Honors College from Dean Metzger with the help of Dr.'s Buchanan and Fish, where it was applied to the production of a 56pagemagazine featuring art, essays, commentary, poetry, and student experiences abroad in South Africa. I've been wondering where to take Phem to next. Any ideas?

My last bit of updates includes a rather disturbing piece that I've been so shocked by that I haven't been able to comment on it for quite some time. I realize every culture has its different norms and values, but I was certain that sexual violence is never something to culturally accept, until I came across Rape Lay. This video game simulates the stalking, sexual harassment and abuse and rape and gang rape of a the female members of a particular family. From there, we continue to forced abortions and From Equality Now's post on this issue:

The aim of the RapeLay game is for the player to repeatedly rape the mother and her daughters until they begin to “enjoy” the experience. After on-screen raping of the mother and her two daughters, the player has more control over rape scenarios and must “rape-train” the woman and girls by subjecting them to multiple and varied sexual assaults, including gang rapes, until they succumb to each assault and even beg their rapist to indulge them. As the rapes continue the chances of the woman and girls becoming pregnant increases. The player must, however, force the woman and girls to get abortions otherwise one of the girls will stab him to death, again in a manner that sexualizes violence. Illusion Software has also issued a free download that includes depiction of the woman and girls in a cell being subjected to sexual torture, as well as a scene of a particularly brutal rape of the elder daughter with the mother and younger daughter being forcibly restrained and made to watch. This assault disturbingly mirrors the real-life situation in Tokyo where, in 2005, the local government was forced to introduce women-only carriages after a survey found that 64% of women in their 20s and 30s had been molested on public transport. Most respondents said they had been groped several times over the previous 12-month period.

Thankfully, Amazon has banned all sales of the video game and other companies are following suit. Sigh... Thoughts on any of this from my fellow Pheminists?