• Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims by K. Burmeister

Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims by K. Burmeister

Sexual Assault Victims Who Turn on Sexual Assault Victims

Snippets:

October 2018

Most sexual assault survivors are supportive of other survivors, but sometimes a sexual assault victim comes along who isn’t supportive. Sometimes these victims are outright hostile toward survivors.

It can be hard to understand why these fellow victims would try to throw other victims under the bus. In my experience, there are a few reasons this might happen, and I believe it’s important for us to be aware of these reasons as we’re having these difficult conversations.

….They Might Actually be a Jerk

Anyone can be the victim of sexual assault. Women. Men. Straight. LGBTQ. Adults. Children. Elders.

And jerks. Jerks can be sexually assaulted too.

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• We Shouldn’t Need Multiple Accusers to Stop a Sexual Harasser By Jill Filipovic

We Shouldn’t Need Multiple Accusers to Stop a Sexual Harasser

By Jill Filipovic

September 12, 2018

It took 12 women to push one man from his perch. Leslie Moonves, the chairman and CEO of CBS, departed the company after a total of a dozen sexual-harassment and assault allegations were leveled against him — six over a month ago, then six more on Sept. 9 after weeks of discussions but little action on ousting one of TV’s titans.

This is how these cases seem to go: One person speaks out, or maybe two or three talk to a reporter.

Only after the initial accusations are made public do the floodgates open.

This cascading effect — that it’s tough to get anyone to speak out first, but appears almost inevitable that more voices will then follow — illuminates some of the remaining challenges of combatting sexual harassment across our culture.

….We now seem to expect that a harasser will have a long list of victims, whether he (or she) is famous or not.

But there are consequences to that assumption: It inevitably makes it harder for a single accuser to have her claims heard.

• Only Slim Majority of Americans Believe in God of Bible, Numbers Decline Among Gen X, Millennials (pew study)

Only Slim Majority of Americans Believe in God of Bible, Numbers Decline Among Gen X, Millennials

October 2018

Although some 80 percent of Americans say they believe in God, only a slim majority of the nation’s approximately 327 million people believe in God as described in the Bible, according to results of a new study released by the Pew Research Center.

And among those younger than 50, belief in the God of the Bible drops lower than 50 percent.

…Another significant finding from the study also showed that young adults were far less likely than their older counterparts to say they believe in God as described in the Bible.

• Giving Up on Life Can Lead to Actual Death in Less Than A Month

Giving Up on Life Can Lead to Actual Death in Less Than A Month by C. Purdy

Yes, People Can Die From Giving Up on Life

Why losing the will to live can be deadly within three weeks

Trauma can lead to death from ‘give-up-itis’, study finds

People Who Give Up on Life Can Die From “Psychogenic Death,” Say Scientists

Snippets:

By Emma Betuel
on September 28, 2018

…..Segal, eventually termed this syndrome “give-up-itis.” John Leach Ph.D., a visiting senior research fellow at the University of Portsmouth in England and a former military psychologist typically calls it “psychogenic death” but admits that “give-up-itis” is bitingly accurate:

“Basically it’s a horrible term” Leach tells Inverse. “But it’s a descriptive term. There were always those people who just gave up — curled up, laid down and died. In many cases these were otherwise healthy men and women, and the thing that stood out was that their death was basically inexplicable. But it appears that there’s an underlying organic cause for it.”

• An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It by K. Wong

An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It by K. Wong

I find some of what follows applicable to religious thought not just to mental health (anxiety, depression).

Many Christians, those of other faiths, and even many atheists, act completely certain about topics such as religion, salvation, the after-life, or if a deity (or deities) exist.

This following page reminds me a little bit of Pete Enns’ work on the topic of certainty in Christianity:

The Sin of Certainty by Pete Enns

“The controversial evangelical Bible scholar and author of The Bible Tells Me So explains how Christians mistake “certainty” and “correct belief” for faith when what God really desires is trust and intimacy.”

I’ve become more comfortable with uncertainty over the last few years and find myself rather put-off by people who claim to understand everything perfectly, who act as though they understand why everything happens, to claim to know definitely that a God does not exist, and so forth.

Being at that level of certainty can make a person arrogant or closed-off to considering other views, or to considering that maybe their opinions or understanding of some topic or another may be incorrect.

An Intolerance of Uncertainty is Linked to Anxiety and Depression. Here’s How to Get Better at Tolerating It

Excerpts:

If you’ve ever taken a philosophy class, you’ve probably heard of the Socratic paradox: “The only thing I know is that I know nothing.”

It advocates for the benefits of uncertainty, a point of view that happens to be backed by modern psychological science, too. Namely, uncertainty “improves our decisions, promotes empathy, and boosts creativity,” says Jamie Holmes, a Future Tense Fellow at New America and author of the book, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing.

Likewise, a 2014 study suggests that uncertainty can also be motivating. A little uncertainty is good for you.

• All Career Advice For Women Is A Form of Gaslighting by Ephrat Livni

All Career Advice For Women Is A Form of Gaslighting by Ephrat Livni

All Career Advice For Women Is A Form of Gaslighting by By Ephrat Livni

Snippets:

If you’re a working woman, you’ve likely been inundated with advice about how to ensure that gender double standards don’t impede your brilliant career. 

Assert yourself boldly at meetings in an appropriately low tone of voice, yet purr pleasingly when negotiating salary. Be smart but never superior, a team player though not a pushover, ever-effective yet not intimidatingly intellectual. Calibrate ambition correctly, so that none are offended by your sense of self-worth, but all seek to reward your value. Dress the part.

Inevitably, even in the most allegedly enlightened workplaces, women contend with subtle biases. And so the fairer sex gets the message that we can’t just work. We must also contort and twist and try not to seem bitchy as we lean in.

• What Kind of Person Makes False Rape Accusations? by S. Newman

What Kind of Person Makes False Rape Accusations? by S. Newman

What Kind of Person Makes False Rape Accusations?

Snippets:

False rape accusations loom large in the cultural imagination. We don’t forget the big ones:
The widely-read 2014 Rolling Stone article, later retracted, about a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia; the 2006 accusations against innocent members of the Duke University lacrosse team.

These cases are readily cited by defense attorneys and Republican lawmakers and anyone else who wants a reason to discuss the dangers of false allegations. What if a woman has consensual sex, and then regrets it the next day?

What if a woman gets dumped by her boyfriend and decides to accuse him of rape as revenge?

What if she’s just doing it for attention?

Are false accusations reaching epidemic levels in today’s hard-drinking hookup culture, where the lines of consent have been blurred? Critics argue that reports of rape should be treated with more caution, since men’s lives are so often ruined by women’s malicious lies.

But my research—including academic studies, journalistic accounts, and cases recorded in the US National Registry of Exonerations—suggests that every part of this narrative is wrong.

What’s more, it’s wrong in ways that help real rapists escape justice, while perversely making it more likely that we will miss the signs of false reports.