Who thinks of such things? A long-sleeve Christmas T-Shirt, with festive motifs, adorning the word ‘Rape’, the word itself made from candy canes.
A petition has been launched to get CafePress not only to take it down but to pre-vet products before they are sold.
Cafe Press also features in Collective Shout’s annual Cross Ém Off Your Christmas list blacklist of corporate offenders engaging in sexist practices to sell products and services.
The rape T.shirt is a micros example of the normalisation of rape culture in fashion and pop culture. Laura McNally highlights the global currency of sexual violence against women, below.
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Trigger Warning
Last week we found a product on CafePress titled “Rape, Christmas Long Sleeve T-Shirt.”
Other recent products include “RAPED Oval Decal” sticker, “Feeling raped Ash Grey T-shirt” and a mug printed with the words “I could rape a cup of tea.”
These are just a few examples of many products that have featured on CafePress that trivialise rape and sexual violence.
Products such as these are always removed quickly for breaching CafePress’ Content Usage Policy [this one is still there]. But they shouldn’t be on its website in the first place. It is no use removing a product promoting rape after a survivor of rape has been triggered by it, or some viewers have already internalised it as “normal” and acceptable. The damage has already been done.
We’re calling on CafePress to remove all content that glorifies rape and violence from its website, and ensure that it adheres fully to its Content Usage Policy in the future, by moderating content before it goes live on the site.
Cafepress is an online shop where anyone can create and sell content, from t-shirts to phone-cases. It’s fantastic that we have a free platform to create content, but not when this content violates the rights of others and trivialises rape and violence.
Rape is not a fashion accessory. Although some content uploaders on CafePress obviously seem to think that it is. Rape is a horrific act of violence that devastates thousands of people’s lives. A popular website like CafePress should not be endorsing products that glorify it.
Cafe Press’ own Content Usage Policy lists the following under “Prohibited Content”;
Content that may violate the rights of any person or entity, including moral rights and rights of publicity or privacy.
Content that glorifies hatred, violence, racial, ethnic or religious intolerance.
Content that promotes illegal activities.
Content trivialising rape violates all 3 of these policies, and therefore CafePress has a responsibility to ensure that it is not on the website. Rape is immoral and promotes illegal activity. Worst of all, this content glorifies hatred and violence.
Christmas is fast approaching, and while it may be a happy time of year for many of us, violence against women increases dramatically during the Christmas period. Considering this, it’s disgusting that any website could be selling a product titled “Rape, Christmas Long Sleeve T-shirt.”
We’re calling on CafePress to abide by its Content Usage Policy and remove all content trivialising rape and violence. We’re asking CafePress to adhere properly to its Content Usage Policy so that we never see content glorifying rape and violence on its site again. Sign petition
By Laura McNally
If we consider that rape in marriage was legal up until recent decades in most OECD countries, or that rape is a necessary product of the global sex trade, or that rape is a systemic tool in war, or that rape convictions are near enough to nil in most countries, then it should be clear that ending rape would require a massive shift in global relations.
Between the pulling of Grand Theft Auto V from Target Australia and the increasing number of women who want to be treated like humans, men are under attack like never before.
A widely-read article by Milo Yiannopoulos, published at Breitbart, recently decried the excruciating oppression facing men, who, with the advent of women’s right to work and vote, are no longer able to use “girls” to solve their problems. A travesty of the highest sort. The author quotes one man:
“[it] wouldn’t be so bad if we could at least dull the pain with girls. But we’re treated like paedophiles and potential rapists just for showing interest”
These men claim they are earning less money, have less retirement funds and now, have to deal with “girls” who expect to be treated with respect. It’s unthinkable, really.
These men cannot even shop safely at Target anymore, knowing their right to prostitute and murder women within their gaming world is being scrutinized. What’s next? Equal pay? This madness has to stop.
Yiannopoulos informs us that women, surely, are the driving force behind decreasing social mobility, political disillusionment, and the fragmentation of the liberal democratic system. Presumably women’s rights are also to blame for the melting of the polar ice caps and the declining number of wild bees.
Apparently if women had never started with this “right to vote” bullshit, none of this would have happened.
The author has surely confused “feminism” with rampant capitalism, advanced globalization and the dearth of state governance. Undeterred by his errors, the author presents his case for why men are the real victims of the systems they created in order to maintain their own supremacy.
I agree with him on one thing: the pale male purveyors of globalized capitalism have shat in their own nests. But it’s not because of women that the systems underpinning capitalism are crumbling from the inside out.
The global economic system and its political counterparts are in a crisis of their own making. Women rallying to end rape have very little to do with this.
Yet according to Yiannopoulos, they do. Those pesky anti-rape seminars at American colleges are ruining men’s willingness to rape and with it their entire lives and the social fabric of society. Ironic then that he accuses women of hysteria…
The idea that rape is a central feature of the broader economic system is actually an important one. Yet the author fails to engage with this in any meaningful way (obviously).
If we consider that rape in marriage was legal up until recent decades in most OECD countries, or that rape is a necessary product of the global sex trade, or that rape is a systemic tool in war, or that rape convictions are near enough to nil in most countries, then it should be clear that ending rape would require a massive shift in global relations.
Ending rape, then, requires a radical revisioning of the systems that govern society and an acknowledgement of women as co-creators.
The idea that women may no longer be passive recipients of male-centric political, legal and economic systems is likely to unsettle those men who pin their egocentric notions of self-worth on traditional power relations over women.
Men who’ve sat at the pinnacle of such power relations may be disillusioned by the growing complexity and diversity around them. Perhaps they are asking “Why are black people in my workplace?”… “How could this woman be my manager and why can’t I force her into sex?” Apparently, some men have found themselves directly confronted by the notion that men should not rape. In fact, the author goes to the extent of calling new anti-rape law “unworkable, prudish and downright misandrist.”
Unsurprisingly, Yiannopoulos fails to provide any actual data to back up his woman-hating rhetoric. First person narrative from his bros who can’t be bothered with “chicks” anymore is enough to justify his hysterical claims that the world falling to pieces because “rape law.”
As luck would have it, this freshly-laid pile of anecdotal excrement is well-received by thousands of readers, none of whom seem to notice the stark lack of substantive evidence.
This stands in contrast to any article ever written on women’s rights, which is immediately torn apart by commenter-turned-statisticians who question the limitations of methodology, the lack of strength in p-values and repeat the only thing they remember from the research methods course they took in first year — “correlation is not causation.” Strangely, few seem to care for empiricism when it is women’s rights under fire.
We live in a society so accustomed to misogyny that the slightest move in favour of women’s human rights is misinterpreted as female supremacy. If precedent is anything to go by, these new misandry-laden rape laws will still see only a very small percentage of rapists ever being charged — hardly female supremacy at work. And the removal of GTA from a few retailers does not actually censor the world of depraved gaming, it merely sends a message about social responsibility.
The fact is that sex crimes against women are on the rise in many countries, self-harm, suicide and eating disorders in girls are burgeoning, and sex trafficking of the vulnerable is a booming business. Young women are under more sexual coercive pressure from men than ever before. There is no male ‘sexodus’ and in fact research suggests quite the opposite. The idea that men are now somehow suffering because rape laws make them feel rejected is surely hysteria at its peak.
Next week Breitbart has a special follow-up feature: “Why women are the biggest victims of women’s rights.” I can hardly wait.
Laura McNally is a psychologist, consultant, author and PhD
candidate. Her current research examines the political and social implications of global corporate social responsibility. Find more of her work at lauramcnally.com.
3 Responses
Why hasn’t CafePress created T-shirts with slogan ‘racism’ or slogans saying ‘racism is just a word.’ Or even ‘gays don’t exist.’ Answer is because all these issues affect men apparently not women and because it affects men this means CafePress will not upset mens’ fragile feelings because men are human beings.
However, CafePress believes its misogynistic male propaganda is harmless fun because hey ‘rape is humorous since men are not routinely subjected to sadistic male sexual violence and men are, remember human and hence are accorded automatic dignity and rights.
CafePress is just another mundane male owned corporate business enterprise and this male owned corporation knows they will increase their profits by selling t-shirts to men who continue to deny male sexual violence against women is a never ending male war on women and girls.
Well done CafePress for yet creating another infamous women-hating piece of trash and because this organisation is just a ‘business’ they must not be held accountable for endorsing/promoting male hatred of women and girls.
Hi, I signed the petition and automatically clicked the Facebook share link … but the link on FB doesn’t have a link to sign the petition – it only has a link to promote the petition. Please fix this asap and you will have more impact. My FB friends are wondering what to do with the info I sent them – I’ve had to send a url for them to sign the petition. Thanks.
Thanks Tricia. It’s not my petition unfortunately – you could contact the author through a comment on the petition itself and let them know?