For many free speech advocates the only speech deemed harmful, and so impermissible, is the “no platform” demand. Speech, though, and not just “no platform” speech, is inextricably mixed with other kinds of action.“Question everything” is an injunction that regularly surfaces in libertarian political circles. But aside from the fact it rarely becomes the focus…
The neoliberalisation of the university could be undermining decades of progress in combatting rape myths.Two weeks ago the LSE Department of Law hosted its inaugural ‘Debating Law’ public event, drawing an audience that filled all 400 seats of its largest lecture theatre and working with the LSE’s events team to ensure the debate attracted maximum…
Like many others, I used to admire Julian Assange. In 2009 I took part in a campaign to nominate Assange for ‘Australian of the Year’, thinking that putting forward a journalist who actively publishes material that challenges nationalistic myths for a nationalistic prize, was a small but effective political statement about what makes a good…
What is it about the culture of male sports in which violence against women is excused, ignored and even tacitly condoned? As Luis Suárez joined Johan le Roux and Mike Tyson in the annals of sports-biting history this week, across the water in Northern Ireland Alvin Rouse continues to play in goal for Ballinamallard United…
Are we witnessing a global epidemic of sexual violence against women, or are we simply witnessing a temporary surge in public and media interest in a ubiquitous, endemic problem? I suspect the latter — much as a spectacular famine, or a good earthquake, temporarily piques ‘international’ (i.e. Western or Euro-American) interest in the endemic reality…
The death of the 23 year old woman following the brutal gang rape and assault on a moving bus on 16 December 2012 at a hospital in Singapore early this morning [Ed. Friday 28th December 2013] leaves all of us in states of deep mourning. This is a political death. Rape and murder of women is…
The horrific gang rape incident in Delhi has led to demands for amending the law to provide for more stringent punishment for rape, including introducing the death penalty. Over the last few days, there have been various debates about the advisability of making such changes to the law. An issue that has not been highlighted…
On August 18th, the youtube channel ‘molucca Red,’ ‘[t]he only fully authorised GG channel,’ posted ‘Good night with George Galloway (Episode 5).’ This episode featured Galloway discussing various issues relating to the Wikileaks founder Jullian Assange. In watching the episode, especially at around 21:15 into the video, the viewer may be forgiven for beginning to…
Give me your name and address and I’ll rape you. [All laugh] — Unidentified Garda Sergeant Shell to Sea is an organisation operating in the west of Ireland which was formed to take direct action in protest against the Corrib Gas Project. It is widely known and accepted in Ireland that the police (the gardai) have…
Get your money for nothing And your chicks for free (Dire Straits) My previous contribution on Assange and the Swedish sex scandal drew some ire from feminist bloggers who mostly raised Catherine MacKinnon’s domination politics to refute my arguments relating to sexual consent and the withdrawal of consent. According to some schools of thought, women are…
At Critical Legal Thinking, Narnia Bohler-Muller takes issue with the narrow legalism of the often ‘surreal’ commentaries on the Assange controversy. In amongst the denunciation and counter-denunciation she detects an undercurrent of disciplinary power. On this account, the apparently ‘very broad’ rape laws of Sweden, like efforts in South Africa to force HIV tests on…
Sweet dreams are made of this/Who am I to disagree?/I travel the world/And the seven seas/Everybody’s looking for something. Some of them want to use you/Some of them want to get used by you/Some of them want to abuse you/Some of them want to be abused. (Eurythmics) Julian Assange is a sort of modern-day Che…