Back in 2013, UN developed a series of ads to bring light to some of the sexist “autocomplete” after Christopher Hunt, the Art Director had become aware of some of the incredible sexist google “suggested” searches.

“When we came across these searches, we were shocked by how negative they were and decided we had to do something with them,” Hunt said, the idea then developed where they had portraits of women and had the google search bars over their mouths, to give the illusion of “silencing” them.

They not only did it on sexism, they also did a series aimed at the racist searches.

The copy writer, Kareem Shuhaibar said that it proves just how much of a long way we have to have gender equality and it was a wake up call to see those negative searches.

The beauty community on YouTube has had it’s fair share of drama, with people having a platform to voice their opinions its no surprise as there are always a group of people who disagree with one another. Although there are so many positive aspects of having such a large following on YouTube, there of course, are negatives. Recently, the 19 year old “beauty guru” came under fire after a friend, Tati Westbrook, made a video addressing some of his toxic behaviour.

James Charles first earned his fame from being a beauty guru, being the first male spokesmodel for CoverGirl Cosmetics and being very openly gay, however he is also known for the controversies he has been involved in.

Tati’s lengthy video (43 minutes) explained that he had acted in a disgusting manner towards a waiter at her birthday meal – the 37-year-old said that she explained that the waiter was in fact straight, James simply replied with “It doesn’t matter, I’m a celebrity” this sparked fury from his fans. Originally people were unsure on if this was true, but the waiter later released his own video explaining – including recordings of a call with the YouTuber and even screenshots from direct messages, the pair shared.

The waiter, Sam, admitted he wasn’t certain of his sexuality due to the fact he hadn’t experimented. After his sister got him to message James –  a casual conversation with typical small talk. At some point James invited him to a hotel room, not thinking much of it Sam happily went there, where they began talking for a bit before making out.

After this, Sam said he left and after a few days he send James a text politely explaining that he was quite certain he wasn’t gay. James didn’t seem too keen on Sam’s response, even after Sam told him he wished to split on good terms.

In a text conversation James said to him “You’re not straight, no matter how many times you tell yourself” this is not the first case of James trying to pressure straight men into thinking they are either gay or bisexual.

This also, is not the only allegations against James at the moment as even bigger celebrities such as Zara Larsson, after the whole situation started trending on Twitter, the 21-year-old revealed that James had tried this with her boyfriend multiple times despite knowing he wasn’t gay.

There was another incident at the beginning of the year involving the model Gage Gomez after a photo surfaced of the pair together at Coachella back in April. Rumours had it that they were dating – despite any proper evidence. However, James later replied to a fan who asked about them saying “Nope unfortunately I am still very single. This boy played me for months on end and is a disgusting con artist. I’m thankful I had my friends with me to protect me” the tweet has later been deleted but he also had tweeted “This is no one’s fault but my own because my dumb a** continues to go for the same type of insecure cute boys and it gets me hurt every. single. time. I f*****g hate myself” this sent fans into a frenzy as they tried to defend him – instantly accusing the model of using James for his fame and popularity.

The model in the end created a YouTube channel solely for the fact of sharing his side of the story stating that he was creating the video to bring light to the “lies, false allegations and more importantly – the slander” as it was not only affecting him, but his friends and family also.

He denied the allegations that he was using James for his money and fame, before posting a longer video explaining in detail what happened between them.

According to Gage, he and James began talking during January 2019. He had made it very clear that he was straight, he also said that James kept insisting that they meet and got angry when the model was unavailable due to his busy schedule before he later accepted meeting up at Coachella.

James has even recently stated that he does not consider himself to be “completely gay” because of his attractions to girls and trans guys as well as the fact he pursues straight men. This statement caused a lot of controversy especially now since he claimed the waiter, Sam, was “not straight no matter how many times he told himself” leading to a lot of backlash.

This scenario is a perfect example of some of the negative aspects of social media. People such as James Charles use their large following to their advantage – he used his platform after Gage declined any romantic advances because he knew the majority of his fans would easily go after Gage and throw abuse his way.

However after he deleted his tweets, he apologised to Gage over text where he said he tweeted them out of anger because his fans had caught on which he didn’t want happening…despite posting the image of the two and tweeting about his rejection.

Although Gage contacted him to apologise and to set things straight, James was nothing but hostile the entire time. During the end of the conversation Gage gives up with arguing and simply asks James to clear his name however, he takes this as an opportunity to argue.

He claims Gage used him for his fame and played with his emotions as he had got him into Coachella and because Gage had not “informed him” that he was not gay in the first place, he was in the wrong as he lead James on, etc.

James then refuses to clear his name as it would “give him more attention and more followers” to which Gage said he completely understood that James has dealt – and continues, to deal with hate and negativity on daily basis but in this case James is choosing to make his life hell, rather than just letting the two of them sort it out between them rather than his angered fans fighting for him.

Gage even said that he did like James – as a friend and did not feel any attraction to men and he did not mean any malice from the whole situation but completely understood what James was feeling and knew why he was upset. Gage once again apologised and asked if they could just drop everything and move on, both going their separate ways as it would be easier on both of them.

However, this all turned out to be allegations as James Charles released a video with the title “No more lies” where he proved his innocence by showing text messages between him and Jeffree Star – another big name in the beauty community, who had joined in the accusations calling James a “predator” and saying that he knew there was “something wrong with him”.

He was quickly shut down after fans pulled up tweets that Jeffree had posted back in 2010 where he too, boasted about the fact he “loved” straight guys, some fans even argued about his song “Straight Boys” as he used to be known for his music.

James showed the messages shared between the pair proving that he was in fact not in the wrong.

I had previously touched upon the Brock Turner incident in a previous post. However there was quite a bit more to the story so I decided to create a whole new post for this situation.

Back in 2016 there was a story that caught the public’s attention; 19 year old Brock Turner had been found guilty of sexually assaulting an unconscious girl on the Stanford campus after a frat party. The part of the story that sparked controversy was when the judge, Aaron Persky, did not treat the matter as seriously as he should have.

Brock was only sentenced to three months out of a six month sentence. Some said that this wasn’t the only incident that judge Persky had let off easily, apparently he had a reputation for being rather lenient with aspiring athletes – stating that “putting it on their record could severely damage their future careers” and this sparked even more outrage.

 

Although his case had been left in the past, he recently had gotten into even more trouble after tweeting a rather ignorant tweet – thanking his coached for his success in his swimming, however what angered people was the fact he said “before SHE happened” insinuating that the women he had assaulted had put a dent in his career.

His arrogance immediately caught the attention of many angry users causing them to hurl insults at him which later left him deleting his twitter account altogether.

To add insult to injury, a group was created on Facebook by – presumably Brock’s parents, stating that he is a “kind and gentle boy” before posting a whole post attempting to get sympathy for his actions and even claiming “he is not a monster, he had a momentary lapse in judgement” as if that could justify his disgusting actions.

What made it worse was the image they attached which “encouraged” parents to teach their daughters the dangers of excessive drinking – which is them blaming the girl that THEIR son sexually assaulted back in 2016, simply because she was under the influence. It is this kind of toxic mentality that allows people like Brock to walk free as they refuse to see that their son is at fault and don’t take responsibility for not disciplining their son about his actions and not teaching him basic human decency.

Often when people hear the term “abuse” their first initial thought is physical violence against a partner, typically a woman. One of the reasons for this is because of the media; men are often portrayed as strong and emotionally “stable” giving young, growing boys the impression they are weak for showing emotions.

The stories in the media are always said to be damaging for young girls which is absolutely right as there are so many valid reasons for women and young girls to feel so pressured to be “perfect” as there are so many magazines where women are super skinny and are portrayed to have near to no flaws, but nobody ever likes to talk about the damage it does to men and young boys. Men in magazines and in the media are either seen as incredibly masculine, athletic or powerful, as well as being the initial villain before any evidence comes through. This leaves men feeling weak for wanting to come clean about abuse thrown their way.

After doing some research I came across a page designated to male abuse, where men were open to share their stories. Some of them were truly brutal and the most common thing is how they’ve waited several years to open up about it, which is such a sad thought; someone who had been through such a difficult situation and they could have had it dealt with, decided to leave it be and have their partner go free because they genuinely feared for their life, as well as what other people would label them as.

In one of the stories I came across, a man stated that it first began with verbal abuse, which is where it usually begins, simple name calling with that extra hint of venom in their voice before slowly becoming worse. Which is exactly what happened, he stated that she first started hurling verbal abuse at him and would blackmail him into staying by threatening her own life, he said that she took several pills one night but had in fact spat them out soon after, simply to scare him. Which is why he stayed.

Supposedly the first time she got physical was at home when she snapped – he admitted that even to this day he doesn’t know what provoked her, but she grabbed a knife from  the kitchen and attacked him with it. The second time she followed him around the house throwing punches at him, hit him with a pint glass and knocked him to the ground and promptly began to knee him in the head. However, he said that despite these other attacks, the most shocking one to him was on their wedding night. She punched and kicked him repeatedly and dug her nails into his cheek, she later got angry at him for the cuts on his cheek for “ruining their honeymoon pictures”.

Another story was about how his wife first got aggressive after their first child was born, it can be common for a child to bring some tension into a relationship/marriage however it began with her arguing very frequently; picking at any little thing she could, for example, one night they went out with friends and he urged that they go back to their newborn as it was beginning to get quite late. As they were in front of friends, she agreed with some hesitance before they left. He said once they began walking back to the car she argued relentlessly about it, even stating he “belittled her” in front of friends. Once they got home, she became more aggressive; first shouting before she gradually escalated to smashing a mirror over his head. As he didn’t want the already heated argument to worsen, he slept on the couch and dropped the whole thing.

When morning came, she acted as if nothing happened so he left the situation be. A little while after the first incident, he received a call from work asking for him to do extra shifts to which he refused as he had been working 60 hours per work and with the the newborn baby, he was exhausted. This led to yet another argument as she claimed she wanted some new clothes, as the arguing continued she eventually smashed a glass door and threw pieces at him, this left him with scratches over his face and neck. He fled the house to the closest people he knew and asked them if he could stay for a while to which they happily agreed.

Once he returned home, he found her crying and she apologised profusely. A few years passed and everything seemed normal once again, until they lost their second child leaving them both distraught. This led to her once again returning to her aggressive state, she began arguing about anything she could and she began going out a lot more and coming home extremely late. He later discovered she had spend £5000 on cocaine and had in fact been unfaithful to him, but he still loved her and was determined to make it work so he forgave her.

They had another child which seemed to go well at first until she continued being quite distant leaving him to care for their two children. One night she attacked him causing him to flee from the house and get the neighbours to call the police, however she also called the police getting them both arrested. She was under the influence from drinking that night so they had to wait for her to sober up in order to interview her, but interviewed him straight away. Although he had marks on him, they let them both go.

After the past few incidents, they decided to have a fresh start and put all of it behind them for the sake of their children. However after a while there were accusations and rumours that he cheated on her all of which were fake, this caused the tension to return leading to a few more arguments, but nothing too extreme. One night she decides to invite a few friends round; the woman he had supposedly cheating on her with, included.

It turned into an interrogation leading to her shouting at the two of them, although they were denying they did anything. Deciding not to add fuel to the fire, he removes himself from the conversation whilst she dismissed the friends. Once he returned he found her waiting for him and immediately began attacking him; scratching and biting his face, he told the children to go upstairs but they refused to leave his side as they try prying their mother off of him. Once he was able to break free, he takes the kids upstairs and runs to the master bedroom where he pushed the bed up against the door and used the house phone to call the police, minutes later she managed to get in through the door and continued attacking him, this time bitting at his eye and ear.

Thankfully able to break free, he ran outside with his children where the police and an ambulance arrived. The police took statements and photos of what happened, the next day he was called and told they were pressing charges leaving him full custody of the children who are now safe and much better off without their mother.

One story covered something that I have seen a lot of abusive people do in order to remain “innocent”, in this story he met his partner on an online dating app. He later discovered that she was a recovering alcoholic and had four children – all of which lived with their father as they removed from her care after she had a drunken suicide attempt. But they both a child together and soon began planning the rest of their life together.

As the relationship progressed, her attitude soon became sour and she started to become very controlling and manipulative; checking his emails, his text messages and his Facebook account, even going as far as impersonating him and messaging girls on his account. After that she slowly became more and more violent – threatening him, throwing a laptop at hime and continuous shouting.

He also had a son from a previous relationship, who she repeatedly singled out by giving him his meal last, slamming his plate onto the table and even soaked his clothes after they had been ironed. She would refuse to let him have dessert after dinner and just alienated him. Not to mention, he was exposed to watching her scream and become violent towards his father.

She eventually stopped him from seeing friends from work as she would question his intentions and make him feel guilty, she later threw him out of their shared home and began spreading rumours about him and even overdosed – all within the two months their newborn child had been born. He later discovered that she had been drinking throughout this period.

He tried to mend their very fragile relationship and the peace lasted for 5 months before her bad habits made another appearance. Having had enough, he left her.

She took this opportunity to tell the social worker that he had been violent and abusive towards her, to which they told her that she should have no unsupervised contact with him for her safety. He wasn’t invited to the meetings with the social worker to share his sides of things. She later lied to the police by saying that he had stolen some of her possessions leading to him unable to collect his possessions. He lost nearly all of his belongings including £800 deposit on the house.

Throughout a 14 month period, she abused him over the phone calls they shared, email and text. She threatened to make him lose his job and contact with his son and he continues to fight for custody of his son.

I believe it so unbelievably unfair how easily people believe the woman’s side of the story sometimes – especially in cases like this where she has an obviously troubled past with her struggle with alcoholism, not to mention how she lost custody to the four children she already had…and yet she is allowed to have the two children – one of which she repeatedly mistreated.

In a lot of the cases of domestic abuse we see, the person giving the abuse is always very quick to make false accusations against the other party in order to hide the fact they are the ones at fault. When it comes to cases where the woman is the one abusing their partner they usually use this to their advantage as they flip the accusations and claim it is self defence and they were scared, etc. Of course, they are not always false claims but here are so many cases where they lie about the abuse when they are the ones who are violent and abusive. In my opinion it’s sad that none of these stories have been really talked about – and all the other stories who have been completely ignored, I think it is downright repulsive that people can simply dust serious cases like this under the rug, simply because it is a man who is the victim.

In a similar story a man had been married to his partner for 10 years before he was able to gain the courage to divorce her after years of abuse not only towards him but to their son. She had a drinking problem which only caused her violent outbursts to worsen throughout the length of their relationship. During this, he had tried to commit suicide twice as he was left uncertain of another way out of the abuse.

The last time she attacked him, she stabbed him in the head to which he fled the house all while bleeding profusely and managed to call the police before collapsing, once he awoke in the hospital he had no memory of actually getting there.

Throughout their relationship he refused to tell anybody about the abuse as she made him feel at fault, causing him to question his every move and begin to truly believe he had deserved it.

Once they separated, he was prevented from seeing his son for 2 years. After a long court process, he was finally granted sole custody of his son and is currently living a new life with a new partner – he admitted that it took him a while to back into a relationship.

The Joyful Heart Foundation is a campaign that was first founded by Mariska Hargitay in 2004 after she portrayed the character Olivia Benson on the famous drama series Law and Oder: Special Victims Unit where they covered topics such as abuse; sexual, domestic and child abuse. But after an episode had aired she received countless emails from survivors who disclosed their stories on their experience with said abuse. She even revealed that people on the street would typically ask for an autograph but it would slowly turn into people admitting to the abuse they received, which she said proved how desperate they were to finally be heard.

This led her to create The Joyful Heart Foundation, a campaign to help victims heal and begin a new chapter of their life without that fear or darkness following them, she stated that she wanted to let all the brave men and women who experienced this abuse were being heard and they were no alone. This was a word she said was repeated constantly in emails and conversations, “alone” and that urged her to make that feeling disappear.

“I created The Joyful Heart Foundation in 2004 to help survivors of sexual assault heal their minds, bodies and spirits and reclaim their lives.” – Mariska 

Andre Braugher

In 2013 they launched the “NO MORE” campaign to bring awareness to the issue at stake. They did both a video series which had celebrities talking about abuse as well as a series of prints of male and female celebrities with a quote under the slogan. For example, the one above “it’s just a women’s issue” is a toxic mentality some people have these days, where they refuse to acknowledge abuse is an issue with both men and women.

The campaign involved over 75 celebrities.

Courtney Cox

Mariska stated that although she had a role to play on television, she felt some responsibility for them. They opened up to her and bravely told them their stories and she wanted to ensure they knew they were being heard and could stop living in fear.

When the program first began, they quickly realised that many different people heal in various ways so they started to create new ways for each individual to help them find the right way for them to begin recovering.

“When people are abused and assaulted, it is like the doors to their souls slam shut. The goal of Joyful Heart is to let the light, and the life, back in—to banish the darkness and let the healing begin.”
– Mariska Hargitay, Founder & President of the Joyful Heart Foundation

Often in the media we come across stories of big male celebrities being accused of sexual assault and other crimes after videos or images resurface, however it makes no difference if the evidence shown is years old, they will potentially ruin their lives and careers- rightfully so if the evidence proves that they are in fact guilty.

Recently a story came to light about the 26-year-old rapper, Cardi B was faced with a lot of backlash from a video she made over three years ago. The video was her admitting to drugging men and robbing them, although it isn’t sexual assault it is still a crime nonetheless which has seemed to have gone overlooked.

Her defence was “she needed to make a living” but if the roles had been reversed and it was in fact a man who had drugged and robbed women because of that reason, their careers and lavish lifestyle would be ripped from their grasp and they would be thrown in jail and shamed. Once again, rightfully so as I had said- it is still a crime, a punishable one at that. But my point is that as it is a women who has been known for a rough past, after she was confirmed to have worked as a stripper to earn money before going into rap, that should not excuse the fact she has drugged and robbed men.

A lot of women ranted on twitter saying things such as “if the men didn’t want to be robbed they shouldn’t have worn such clothing” and so on, which I understand the point they are trying to make as many women who are sexually abused get blamed, however I feel as though people are not seeing the serious matter at hand and deciding to fight fire with fire, making the situation a competition.

Cardi also said “I never claim to be perfect or come from a perfect world with a perfect past, I speak the truth” which I personally feel as though she is trying to justify her actions by earning her adoring fans sympathy, which is exactly what she got as nobody has spoken up about it since it first resurfaced and that to me is quite sad to think people think so little of it. Imagine if it was a lot more serious and she had sexually assaulted them, would people still be turning the tables and saying “well men do the same thing” or just dusting it under the rug?

Men

Domestic violence against men is often overlooked as such a small percentage of men who experience domestic abuse or sexual abuse from an intimate partner actually report it. There are many reasons that could cause for men to feel unable to talk about and report these kinds of incidents due to a lot of the social stigma they can get; for example, men who report domestic abuse are often labelled as “weak” or “less masculine” which is such a sad thing to think about. Imagine not being able to feel comfortable reporting such a severely traumatic incident because you won’t be taken seriously.

In a survey taken in 2010-2011 discovered that 27% of women reported their abuse to the police whereas only 10% of men did so. From 2010 to 2012 throughout the USA, the UK and Canada more women (23%) than men (19.3%) have been assaulted once in their lifetime.

One of the main factors that can cause both men and women to turn away from seeking help is how quickly some abusive people quickly take the title of victim in order to for example O.J Simpson often labelled himself as a “battered husband” however I feel as though women are usually seen as the victim without knowing the full story, which can definitely cause men to back away from the idea of making such claims public. If a man does come forward and report domestic violence it is often seen as the women acting out of “self defence” as so many people strongly believe in the rule “a man should never hit a woman” which is true, but a woman should not be able to hit a man and be seen as some form of hero.

I have seen many videos of women hitting men repeatedly and then when the man strikes back, they are seen as a victim and the man is arrested or punished in some way.

More than 10 million men and women in the USA are subjected to domestic violence. In a survey taken last year, it showed more than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) report incidents of domestic violence, sexual abuse and stalking whereas 1 in 4 men (28.5%) report it.

In an episode of Jeremy Kyle, known for covering topics that range from different levels of intensity. A young man admitted that his former girlfriend at the time had some violent tendencies. He said that one day she locked him in their flat leaving him no choice but to jump out of a three storey building leaving him in hospital, to which the audience laughed. Jeremy Kyle thankfully scolded the audience and continued the show where the man reveals she would give him black eyes and busted lips.

Women

 

Similar to the cases with domestic abuse towards men, it usually begins with verbal abuse before it can slowly – or quite drastically escalate to physical abuse.

There are several ways someone can abuse someone:

– Financial abuse.
– Verbal abuse.
– Stalking.
– Sexual abuse.
– Physical abuse.
– Mental abuse.
– Psychological abuse.

Domestic abuse will affect 1 in 4 women in their lifetime, which leads to two women being murdered each week due to domestic violence. It is also said to be the most quoted reason for becoming homeless according to Shelter (2012). 

Approximately 400 people take their own life each year who have attended a hospital for domestic abuse victims within six months of attending, it is said that 50% of these people had attended a hospital the day they took their life.

In 2010 the Force Marriage Unit had received and responded to 1735 reports of forced marriages. It is also said that domestic abuse has more repeat victims compared to other crimes, on average there will have been 35 assaults before the victim reports it to the police.

There are types of abuse people don’t initially think of, which can include (however, not limited to):

Mental, Psychological and Emotional abuse:

– Isolating them from friends and family.
– Making them feel at fault for the abuse.
– Using their phobias/fears against them.
– Ignoring or using silence towards the victim.
– Making false accusations towards the victim.
– Belittling them.

Stalking and Harassment:

– Frequent calls to the victim’s house and/or workplace.
– Following the victim.
– Sending unwanted gifts.
– Gathering information about the victim and people close to them.
– Sending malicious text messages, letters and “gifts”.

Financial abuse:

– Taking money from them.
– Not allowing them to buy necessities (for them or children)
– Preventing employment.
– Getting upset if they spend money on themself.

Controlling behaviour:

– Not allowing contact with certain people – if not, all contact with people.
– Constant calls or messages.
– Questioning them; their location, who they’re with, etc.
– Controlling what they wear.

Physical abuse:

Physical abuse is the most well known version of abuse, however it is also one of the least reported leading to two women on average are killed by their partner or former partner.

The abusive partner can often feel somewhat remorseful of their outburst and will tearfully apologise for it, however in some cases they will insist the victim brought it onto themselves as they “provoked” them in one way or another. They can also insist that they hadn’t intended to be violent and they were having a rough day or just “lost it”.

They could blame drink or drugs, but a lot of the time the victim is often blamed. These justifications can often leave the victim feeling very conflicted and attempt to gain forgiveness from the perpetrator enabling them to maintain control over the victim.

Physical abuse doesn’t always begin with an extreme act of violence, it can often start rather small such as:

– Forcefully grabbing their partner’s wrist.
– Shoving them during an argument.
– Grabbing their face to force them to look at them.

They appear to be kind of tame at the beginning and “they didn’t mean it” which is the aim of the perpetrator is to make the victim truly believe that they have no ill intentions and all of the abuse is a result of bad day after bad day and them simply “loosing it”.

However there are more extreme acts of violence such as:

– Hitting; slapping, punching, etc.
– Hair pulling.
– Throwing objects.
– Smashing objects.
– Scalding or burning them.
– Scratching.
– Biting.
– Suffocation them.

Ideas

Modern Family

The popular American series “Modern Family” is a show I’ve been following for a few years but it wasn’t until Unit 8 that I found myself trying to make ideas for physical pieces out of everything. However what got me thinking was the opening sequence, each episode starts out with each family holding a framed picture of each other. As the topic I chose for this unit is having what appears to be a happy couple holding either a mirror or picture frame with an image inside of them in a heated argument.

Although I am not completely certain on anything yet, I am still wanting to use it as an idea to begin experimenting with.

For Unit 8 I had many topics I wanted to cover as I am, and always have been very passionate about equal rights. Originally I planned on doing feminism, LGBT and mental health, however one topic I felt would be excellent to choose for this unit is sexual assault and domestic abuse-not only in women but men as well as I personally feel like the terms “sexual assault” and “domestic abuse” are usually perceived as an attack against a woman, without a second thought.

The one major thing about sexual assault that has always baffled me is the punishment people will receive for acting in such a way, for example I had previously seen stories about people being sentenced to jail for life whereas the name Brock Turner made headlines in 2016 as he had sexually assaulted a young woman near a bin after a fraternity party. However, the reason this story made headlines was the fact he was only sentenced to 6 months in jail and 3 years probation this was because Turner’s father said his son should not be punished for “20 minutes action” as well as his age, clean criminal history and the fact he was intoxicated.

What made things much worse is Brock was later released September 2016 serving half his sentence due to his “good behaviour”, of course this is not always the case and there are cases that are dealt with appropriately and fairly, however this case is beyond unfair and down right ridiculous. Nobody who has assaulted someone in such a horrific way deserve to be able to walk freely so easily. It was said that the judge who sentenced him, Judge Persky had apparently argued he had “a responsibility to consider rehabilitation and probation for first time offenders” as he had previously been rather lenient with other offenders.

Standford students used their graduation ceremony to protest.

Another thing I feel isn’t talked about is people making false accusations about sexual assault, there are sadly cases where people make false claims which could potentially ruin not just their career but their life and they can get away with it without punishment. I personally believe there should be some sort of punishment for making such harsh claims towards someone, however only if there is strong evidence to prove that those claims are in fact false, they should be punished because they could put that person’s life in jeopardy.