-one student's perspective on life as a woman at georgetown university-

So Casey Anthony was acquitted.

Here’s the truth: we spent a lot of time on this case, but none of us sat in/watched the trial for 6-8 weeks straight. Instead, we saw the entire trial through the eyes of Nancy Grace, a sensationalist, muckraking “journalist” who effectively (er…ineffectively) hanged “tot mom” before the trial had even begun.

A lot of people think that Anthony’s acquittal suggests we’re racist; a black woman would NEVER have gotten off like this. I tend to agree – I think a black woman would have been in even deeper shit than Casey was in (completely notwithstanding the fact that Casey’s daughter was also white – can you imagine the media caring if this child had been black? that shit happens all the time, right? no big).

But I think the real problem – the one that actually existed in this trial and not just in our theoretical world where we speculate about “what ifs” – is that Casey Anthony was almost sentenced to death for being a slut and a bad mother. We gave her a nickname that reminded us how immature she is and then decided she should die for going to clubs and drinking.

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The Wall Street Journal is on a roll these days, isn’t it? After publishing an article so terrifying that its rampant republication almost exploded the internet, it published this gem by Lenore Skenazy, who has written a book and runs a website called Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children (Without Going Nuts with Worry).

Ms. Skenazy’s website does not exactly contain what I expected to find. Maybe we should describe her as the anti-Amy Chua: eager to let her kids have their own experiences and their own lives independent of their parents. On some level, that’s kind of cool. Would I necessarily send my nine-year-old child alone on the Subway like Ms. Skenazy does? Almost absolutely not. But would I start considering it at age ten? Maybe. It would depend upon the kid. What about age eleven? We draw these weird arbitrary lines of when things are okay, but shouldn’t it depend upon the person?

But Ms. Skenazy’s WSJ piece isn’t just about kids playing in the woods or traveling on the New York subway:

And so it goes these days, when almost any man who has anything to do with a child can find himself suspected of being a creep. I call it “Worst-First” thinking: Gripped by pedophile panic, we jump to the very worst, even least likely, conclusion first. Then we congratulate ourselves for being so vigilant.

I have to ask: where does Ms. Skenazy think this came from?

Someone’s been telling me to think like this, I’m just trying to remember wher- oh, of course! Every time someone gets sexually assaulted, she fucked up. Don’t trust men!

That’s what a victim-blaming culture does. It creates fear from which we are incapable of escaping.
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I’m a sharer. I share everything. I work things out better if they’re physically out of my body. Sometimes that just means writing or crying for a while, but neither appears to be socially acceptable for a twenty-year-old, so recently, I’ve been doing a lot of a sharing.

But there are some things I don’t feel comfortable sharing on this blog – or at all. This summer,  I was the target of sexual harassment…a lot, or at least, more than ever before. I’ve been trying to find a way to recount those experiences, to turn them into a learning experience from which other people can garner some kind of personal benefit.

I feel somewhat more inspired to do this after reading Molly Redden’s incredibly moving, and very personal, account of sexual assault she experienced. Her piece in the The Georgetown Voice prompted a lot of positive response, which I was so thrilled to see, given the shit that’s been in the news recently.

But unlike Ms. Redden, I can’t do it.

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I don’t particularly like Meghan McCain’s economic politics. But as a person, I find her engaging and kind of entertaining. I also think she’s the single most attractive size-eight girl who gets media attention.

I follow her on Twitter (along with Roy Blunt Jr., Tarryl Clark, and a feed that parodies Dan Maes) because I think, for a person commenting on politics, the honesty and youth is kind of refreshing. Or, I’m just nosy and I like seeing the thoughts of famous people. Whatever.

Someone recently made a comment @McCainBlogette insulting her weight and her book, which is to be released in ten days:

So I assume *Dirty Sexy Politics* by @McCainBlogette comes with a free bag of Pork Rinds.

Ms. McCain’s responses follow:

Does it make you feel better about yourself to make fat jokes about me? You are vile. Men like u give women eating disorders @jimccarson

I address body image issues w/ women (specifically in politics) in my book, it’s something close to my heart that I will fight for until I

can no longer breathe. We have to fight back against men like that, that think it’s acceptable to criticize women’s bodies. I get called fat

almost every single day of my life. All I know is that I am happy, healthy, and want the world to be a more open place for my little sister

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