Fighting the Tides of Misogyny

­­I donned my rain gear and headed to the waters west of the Greater Assholosphere to check out the comments regarding the alleged gang rape of Jamie Leigh Jones, a KBR contractor in Iraq. Jones said that her co-workers raped her, tore her pectoral muscle and ruptured a breast implant, and locked her in a shipping container. She called her father while imprisoned, her father called a Republican senator, and she was released.

A post at the Ace of Spades threw doubt on her story, and the comments piled on the skepticism. Funky Chicken took the first comment with: “I’ll go out on a limb here . . . she’s lying. She’s probably also insane.” Funky Chicken called her “Beauchampian” in comment #3 (referring to the article-of-faith within the rightwing blogosphere that Scott Beauchamp lied in his New Republic article about American atrocities in Iraq). Others compared her to Valerie Plame, and I counted a few Duke Lacrosse team references.

The blame-the-victim accusations rolled in. Here’s a taste:

“Gang rapes are exceedingly rare. . . Among female schizophrenics it’s common to have hallucinations about being repeatedly raped along with government conspiracies to cover it up.” Maetenloch

[I wonder if steroid use also causes hallucinations and, perhaps, false notions of expertise?]

“We’re talking about a 20 year old single female with breast implants. . .” Funky chicken

She’s suffering from “a bad case of the ‘next-day-sorrys.’” emdfl

“This girl was right out of high school practically, and she has breast implants? . . . if all or parts of this story are false, then this woman should be held accountable by law.” Mike D.

“And I'm skeptical because there are apparently no photos of her injuries . . .” K. Brennan

It would be too easy for me to declare the Ace’s waters polluted and call it day, but the oppositional commenters impressed me. In particular, Tom and Hollowpoint did their best to rebut the “Neanderthals” who were “making light of a woman who may have been raped” (Tom). Tom asked “Why not run some of your comments by your wives or girlfriends and see if they share your opinion that she must be lying. See if they think it's as hilarious as you appear to think it is.” TheEJS and Hollowpoint seemed to fall over themselves in throwing out the “your mom” rejoinder, but Hollowpoint redeemed himself later in the thread by arguing with the “she’s lying” crowd: “are you suggesting that she completely made up the part about her injuries, something that could easily be disproven if false?” And: “If you 'I question the timing' types are wrong in your implications that she’s a liar, then you deserve whatever scorn you get for immediately labeling [sic] an alledged [sic] gang rape victim as a liar. I’m trying to save you guys from yourselves here, but apparently it’s a lost cause.” Deep in the thread, Tom takes on two commenters:

And you're basing your conclusion that she's lying on what? Intuition? The fact that the report is from ABC. Don't believe a group of men would rape a woman? Just don't believe women are raped? I think it boils down to this: Both of you, along with other ignorant fools here, just just don't want to believe anything derogatory about the people the Bush administration hire to do their work. Based on the ignorant and thoroughly disgusting comments from many here, I'll lay odds 99% of those calling this woman a liar have never known someone who’s been raped.

After Ace’s post received some publicity in Left Blogistan (that’s where I learned about it), the commenters toward the end of the thread expressed disgust and outrage at the knee-jerk “she’s lying” attitude. The tone shifted after Jon Swift offered comment #82. But if you still don’t believe we live in a rape culture, have a look at the first 80 comments in the “Woman Alleges Gang-Rape Cover Up By US, Halliburton” thread and get back to me.