firehose

Chvrches lead singer Lauren Mayberry is familiar with sexism. She holds a four-year law degree and a master's in journalism; her dissertation was on how women are portrayed in the media. In her music career so far, she's found herself turning down opportunities that could have objectified her, emphasizing her femininity over her talent.

But it appears that the internet has objectified her anyhow. Today, she penned an editorial in The Guardian about the rape threats she receives on the band's Facebook page, and how she came to the conclusion that no person should have to "just deal with" that kind of abuse:

My current favourites from the latter category include:

"This isn't rape culture. You'll know rape culture when I'm raping you, bitch"

"I have your address and I will come round to your house and give u anal and you will love it you twat lol" "Act like a slut, getting treated like a sluy [sic]"

"It's just one of those things you'll need to learn to deal with. If you're easily offended, then maybe the music industry isn't for you"

But why should women "deal" with this? I am incredibly lucky to be doing the job I am doing at the moment – and painfully aware of the fact that I would not be able to make music for a living without people on the internet caring about our band. But does that mean that I need to accept that it's OK for people to make comments like this, because that's how women in my position are spoken to?

It's certainly not news to anyone that women would be objectified in this way, particularly on the internet. And the fallout can be far worse. Objectified individuals are only a home address from being raped in real life, or living in such fear that they flee their home. When those people speak out, things can often get worse. But that's really Mayberry's point, after all. She's in a band, true, but like many other affected individuals before her, she's simply sharing her story and encouraging others to reject the status quo — to actively throw away the idea that making violent, sexist comments online should be deemed normal.

Maxis is considering user generated content and modding support for SimCity, according to a post on the game's official forums, posting the first draft of UGC guidelines and inviting the community to offer feedback.

According to update, Maxis want to open an discussion with the SimCity community about UGC and mods to ensure that players have fun while providing a "gameplay experience is safe and has integrity" when using mods.

"It's difficult to determine what makes a "good" or safe mod and what mods cross the line. Clarifying guidelines for UGC will help players understand where that line is and protect both our UGC and non-UGC community." the post reads.

Maxis invites users to post their thoughts on the "User Generated Content" forum section about what kinds of UGC and mods interests them, thoughts on guidelines and how cheating players should be dealt with. The developer also asks the community what game modes would be acceptable for UGC, such as Sandbox mode. Feedback will be compiled over the next few weeks and a the final version of the official guidelines will posted shortly after.

Electronic Arts recently announced that SimCity will receive its first expansion, Cities of Tomorrow, on Nov. 12 for Mac and Windows PC. Set 50 years in the future, the expansion will introduce "plausible technologies," such MagLev, fusion reactors or tidal wave generators, drones to serve your Sims and massive MegaTowers.

Thank you, Nick Brombal.

New residents of Palo Alto, California looking to have a home built for themselves will soon have an interesting new requirement: their house must be wired up to support an electric vehicle charger. According to Palo Alto Online, the city's council adopted a change to its building code last Tuesday that, once fully drafted and adopted in the coming months, will require all new homes to be wired in a way that will easily accommodate a charger. The chargers will reportedly add on about $200 to the cost of a new home — far less expensive than the $1,000 or $2,000 that retrofitting a home would cost.

Commercial charging stations should become easier to set up too

The city's council wants to make Palo Alto one of the leading locations for electric vehicles. That's something that its many tech-friendly businesses should appreciate — especially Tesla Motors, which is headquartered in the city. The home charging requirement won't make Palo Alto more drivable for electric vehicles overnight, however, since it only applies to new homes. But the mandate also included another measure that could quickly help. Palo Alto Online reports that the mandate should also streamline the process for companies looking to establish electric vehicle charging stations, which could lead to more popping up.

The new requirements were prompted by a memo written by Palo Alto Mayor Greg Scharff, reports Palo Alto Online. In the memo, he writes that the city must review its ordinances in order to make sure that electric vehicles are properly being encouraged because of their sustainability. He reportedly spoke more to the matter during the council's meeting, "It's incumbent for us to find out what are the obstacles to owning electric vehicles and to get rid of those obstacles."

A new leak published by The Guardian reveals more details about the NSA's Marina metadata program, including the program's ability to look back at a full year of metadata for millions of web users, regardless of whether the users are the target of an investigation. The metadata can include anything from browsing history to more detailed account activity in the case of web-based email, including contact lists and potentially even account passwords.

The Marina program had been mentioned in previous leaks, but the new revelations, pulled from an NSA training document, show how the data was centrally stored and managed. Much of the data is coming from previously reported programs, like PRISM's bulk FISA orders or GHCQ's undersea cable-tapping operations. Once collected, the data is put to build detailed graphs of a person's known associates and social activity, a process referred to in the document as "pattern-of-life development."

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Flashon Studio

Yesterday, I missed a train and I was frustrated, hot and tired. A man standing in the station decided it was a good time to pass his hand along my arm as I ran by and whisper, “You’d be even prettier if you smiled.”  Here’s the thing about “Smile, baby,” the more commonly uttered variant of the same sentiment: No woman wants to hear it.  And every woman wonders, no matter how briefly, about what could happen if she doesn’t smile.  I was in a crowded place and perfectly safe, but that is actually, in the end, irrelevant.  I have, in the past, been followed by men like him.

Without exception, this phrase means a man is entirely comfortable telling a woman, probably one he doesn’t even know, what he wants her to do with her body to please him.  This suggests a lack of respect for other people’s bodily integrity and autonomy.  The phrase, and others more sexually explicit, are verbal expressions of male entitlement.  The touching would reinforce that suggestion. Two “inconsequential” little words.  A small thing, until you consider street harassment as the normalization of male dominance. Harassing men are arbiters of public space and their everyday regulation of women in those spaces results in what, in 1993, Cynthia Grant Bowman called the “informal ghettoization of women.”   Then it’s not so small.

Street harassment is very gendered, linked to violence and overwhelmingly heteronormative.  Women are generally not harassing men, grabbing their bodies or otherwise threatening them in public.  I have been called every conceivable gendered slur under the sun for not complying with the sexualized demands of total strangers in public places.  I’m taking about boys and men muttering obscenities, making pornographic suggestions,  touching people they don’t know in intimate ways, lurking on stoops, staring from benches, and following girls in cars.  It puts a damper on a sunny day when you go for a walk and someone yells that you’re a “fucking slut” because you don’t respond to their request that you stop and talk to them.

According to Holly Kearl, the author of “Always On Guard: Women and Street Harassment” and founder of Stop Street Harassment, anywhere between 80 percent and 98 percent of women surveyed report persistent, aggressive street harassment.  A spectrum of street harassment is a universal constant for women and it subtly imparts the understanding that girls and women should not feel too safe or confident in public.  It starts when girls are as young as 9 and never ends. Even covering up entirely has no effect.  The younger the girl, the more negative the possible effects, which are well documented and can include depression, shame, headaches, anxiety, withdrawal, fear, self-objectification and more.  After the thin veneer of flattery wears off, what is left is a sometimes-daily awareness of vulnerability, sexual objectification, shame at being targeted, and shame at not fighting back. Some women do confront harassers, but the idea of fighting back, or saying “Stop!” has class and race implications. As Jamie Nesbitt Golden noted earlier yesterday, “Just telling men ‘no’ doesn’t necessarily work for everyone – and can even be dangerous.”

Going to school, commuting to work, or meeting friends should not have to involve an assessment of whether or not you are putting yourself in a “dangerous situation.”  In a country where one in five women will be raped (higher in some groups, for example if a girl or woman is Native American,  in college, in the military or between the ages of 16 and 24), we don’t have the luxury of pretending street harassment is “harmless” or exists in a vacuum.  Regardless of where the harassment takes place, or its virulence, street harassment reflects widespread acceptance of the idea that women’s bodies are a public resource and that men are entitled to them. It derives its power from the threat of violence that simmers under the surface of every interaction, even the “flattering” ones.

In San Francisco last year, a man stabbed a woman in the face and arm after she didn’t respond positively to his sexually harassing her on the street.  In Bradenton, Fla., a man shot a high school senior to death after she and her friends refused to perform oral sex at his request. In Chicago, a scared 15-year-old was hit by a car and died after she tried escaping from harassers on a bus.  Just Google, “Man grabs woman.”  The problem with street harassment isn’t the demand that a woman smile or perform fellatio, the problem is the answer to the question, “What if a woman doesn’t want to?”

Of the more than 40,000 submissions sent to the site Everyday Sexism, a significant percentage involve common street harassment. Typical submissions look like this: “A guy came up behind me and put his shirt over my head while simultaneously grabbing my breasts, hard,” “Harassed by a group of twenty year olds…shouting ‘Nice rack!’” (to 13-year-old), and “A hand grabbed me from behind and pushed between my legs.”  Girls’ and women’s responses range from being intimidated, embarrassed and humiliated to being enraged and fighting back. Most men express amazement that we live with this reality.

We are, however, at the beginning of a global anti-street harassment groundswell. Organizations like Hollaback (which encourages people to share their stories and put harassers on neighborhood maps), Stop Street Harassment and the Safe Cities Global Initiative conduct and compile research and work to raise public awareness, educate children and adults and give people the tools to deal with and confront widespread harassment.

Among the most compelling testaments to the pervasiveness and harms of harassment, however, come from activists and artists.  Last year, a video of street harassment in Belgium catalyzed public awareness across Europe when the filmmaker captured “regular” guys saying things like “sexy butt” and “naughty slut” to women they followed and talked to.  The documentary “Black Women Walking” paints a clear portrait of racialized harassment in the United States.  Comedian Kamau Bell’s recorded street conversations with women and harassers was both humorous and enlightening and revealed a lot about what men think when they engage in this behavior.  Perhaps most provocative, however, is the work of Brooklyn-based artist Tatyana Fazlalizadeh.  Early this year she began pasting graphite portraits of women accompanied by texts reading, for example, “My Name Is Not Baby, Shorty, Sexy, Sweetie, Honey, Pretty, Boo, Sweetheart, Ma,” and “Women Are Not Outside for Your Entertainment.” She just launched a Kickstarter to expand her public art project, named “Stop Telling Women to Smile,” to more cities.

Most men are not abusive harassers who yell threatening vulgarities at girls and women, and what a woman wears, her age and her comportment have very little to do with harassment.  It’s important that these men challenge those who harass.  Men who are abusive have license, until recently largely uncontested, to act with entitlement in our culture.  It’s really a good time for this to change.