The Guardian cares about strip searches...when women are the victims

[Metaphor]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ed-more-than-100-girls-including-12-year-olds

The New South Wales police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds.

Following the NSW police watchdog’s investigation into the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival last year, data obtained under freedom of information laws show she was just one of 122 girls under the age of 18 who have been forced to undergo the controversial practice by police since 2016.

The revelations come as the NSW police watchdog revealed last week that it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year, and is likely to place the practice under increased scrutiny.
...



The data, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre, reveals that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.

Most shockingly, the data shows that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
“Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of police accountability at the Redfern Legal Centre said.
“There is no doubt these young women would have been scared, some terrified and most having no idea of their legal rights.”
...
(more at link)

I was curious about the focus on women and girls in the article, and I wondered whether strip-searching was a gendered issue that affected women more.

Doing some digging,l I found the report that contains the numbers in the article. And, I was half-right. It is a gendered issue, but in the other direction. Three quarters of all strip searches in the time period were on men, and 59% of strip searches on children under 18 were on boys.

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

 

[Toni]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ed-more-than-100-girls-including-12-year-olds

The New South Wales police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds.

Following the NSW police watchdog’s investigation into the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival last year, data obtained under freedom of information laws show she was just one of 122 girls under the age of 18 who have been forced to undergo the controversial practice by police since 2016.

The revelations come as the NSW police watchdog revealed last week that it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year, and is likely to place the practice under increased scrutiny.
...



The data, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre, reveals that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.

Most shockingly, the data shows that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
“Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of police accountability at the Redfern Legal Centre said.
“There is no doubt these young women would have been scared, some terrified and most having no idea of their legal rights.”
...
(more at link)

I was curious about the focus on women and girls in the article, and I wondered whether strip-searching was a gendered issue that affected women more.

Doing some digging,l I found the report that contains the numbers in the article. And, I was half-right. It is a gendered issue, but in the other direction. Three quarters of all strip searches in the time period were on men, and 59% of strip searches on children under 18 were on boys.

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

Well thank god that newspapers never sensationalize anything to grab headlines or to bring attention to the subject! And are immune to titillation being any part of their reporting.

From a US perspective, strip searches are problematic, particularly when they involve minors. Unfortunately my sense is that they are more common than before. Or perhaps they are just being tracked more than they used to be.

 

[Jarhyn]

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ed-more-than-100-girls-including-12-year-olds

The New South Wales police performed strip-searches on more than 100 girls in the last three years, including two 12-year-olds.

Following the NSW police watchdog’s investigation into the allegedly illegal strip-search of a 16-year-old girl at a music festival last year, data obtained under freedom of information laws show she was just one of 122 girls under the age of 18 who have been forced to undergo the controversial practice by police since 2016.

The revelations come as the NSW police watchdog revealed last week that it investigated six separate allegations of misuse of strip-search powers by police last year, and is likely to place the practice under increased scrutiny.
...



The data, obtained by the Redfern Legal Centre, reveals that since 2016 there have been 3,919 strip-searches by police on women in NSW. Young women aged 25 and under accounted for almost half the searches, while the oldest woman strip-searched was 72 years old.

Most shockingly, the data shows that two 12-year-olds and eight 13-year-olds have been strip-searched by police since 2016.
“Girls as young as 12 and 13, some just finishing primary school, are being taken by police to a strange place and ordered by someone with a huge amount of power to take off their clothes,” Samantha Lee, the head of police accountability at the Redfern Legal Centre said.
“There is no doubt these young women would have been scared, some terrified and most having no idea of their legal rights.”
...
(more at link)

I was curious about the focus on women and girls in the article, and I wondered whether strip-searching was a gendered issue that affected women more.

Doing some digging,l I found the report that contains the numbers in the article. And, I was half-right. It is a gendered issue, but in the other direction. Three quarters of all strip searches in the time period were on men, and 59% of strip searches on children under 18 were on boys.

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

So, mysoginistic spin aside, you bring up an interesting g topic.

The fact of the matter is, this kind of reporting DOES have an effect, a pointedly patriarchal one: it implies through selective omission that women are to be treated as fragile victims. This has an overall negative impact on women, at the same time as it places an undue burden on men to "man up" and repress or ignore trauma that happens to them.

Too much empathy can indeed be patriarchal, and patronizing, and a better feminist would seek to report on men being abused in this way as well, as it shows empathy and frees men from the structures of patriarchy as much as it frees women.

As to the differences in numbers, you haven't corrected for police contact in general: of police contacts, more police contacts are had by men. So to get a good understanding, one would have to correct for that. If women are stripped more per contact, then it is still exactly the case that women are more likely to be abused when encountering an officer.

Men are also victims of the patriarchy.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I think Metaphor has done a remarkable job at concluding that the Guardian has a bias regarding strip searches among female teens by citing a single article.

The article certainly is incomplete and Jarhyn raises a great point regarding the issue of gender roles and how exactly different genders are treated here. The boys are supposed to man up and the girls are fragile, when in both cases, a teen being forced to strip in front of a stranger is humiliating, regardless of gender.

 

[RVonse]

Perhaps I am missing something that goes in Australia. But in the US, all strip searches are performed by women (if for a woman) so I would expect there to be no issue of modesty. Or if a man does perform a strip search on a woman (or vice versa) it would have to be an out of ordinary event where someone thought they were in serious danger. Is it normal for a guy to be strip searching a woman? As far as strip searching young people, how is that any different than adults? Its still going to be the same sex doing the search, or am I missing something here?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Perhaps I am missing something that goes in Australia. But in the US, all strip searches are performed by women (if for a woman) so I would expect there to be no issue of modesty.

Mr. I Don't Trust The Government thinks it is fine for a teen to strip in front of a female.

Or if a man does perform a strip search on a woman (or vice versa) it would have to be an out of ordinary event where someone thought they were in serious danger. Is it normal for a guy to be strip searching a woman? As far as strip searching young people, how is that any different than adults? Its still going to be the same sex doing the search, or am I missing something here?

Yeah, the whole having to get naked in front of a stranger thing.

 

[RVonse]

Mr. I Don't Trust The Government thinks it is fine for a teen to strip in front of a female.

I definitely do not trust the government or the police, you have that completely correct.

But I still don't see the problem with a woman strip searching a teen. Are you saying teens can't take their clothes off in front of other people of their own sex? Like in the locker room in high school? What does age have to do about this?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Mr. I Don't Trust The Government thinks it is fine for a teen to strip in front of a female.

I definitely do not trust the government or the police, you have that completely correct.

But I still don't see the problem with a woman strip searching a teen.

I can't help you with that. I can't imagine the level of importance the police would need to have to justify to me, making my child (at any age) strip their clothes off.

Are you saying teens can't take their clothes off in front of other people of their own sex? Like in the locker room in high school? What does age have to do about this?

Age, familiarity, location, power relationship... is stripping necessary at all?!

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

If you are just talking about gender roles and gender bias, why call it "patriarchy"? Why not "matriarchy" and why not simply "gender roles" or "gender bias"?

 

[RVonse]

is stripping necessary at all?!

Probably not in the US because we like concealed guns here.

But in Australia they have made guns illegal for normal people, hence the need to search. Hmm... maybe they should change their gun laws more like the US so that your modesty is not offended so much.

 

[Toni]

Mr. I Don't Trust The Government thinks it is fine for a teen to strip in front of a female.

I definitely do not trust the government or the police, you have that completely correct.

But I still don't see the problem with a woman strip searching a teen. Are you saying teens can't take their clothes off in front of other people of their own sex? Like in the locker room in high school? What does age have to do about this?

I think that there are few cases where strip searches of anybody are warranted. In the case of minors, there really should be greatly enhanced criteria that must be met. I certainly don't think that boys should have to strip in front of female officers and I don't think that it is 'ok' to require that girls strip in front of female officers or boys to strip in front of male officers without extremely good reason, following very strict criteria that MUST be met. It should be an extremely rare event and should be done with the utmost care and caution to protect the rights of the children.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Mr. I Don't Trust The Government thinks it is fine for a teen to strip in front of a female.

I definitely do not trust the government or the police, you have that completely correct.

But I still don't see the problem with a woman strip searching a teen. Are you saying teens can't take their clothes off in front of other people of their own sex? Like in the locker room in high school? What does age have to do about this?

I think that there are few cases where strip searches of anybody are warranted. In the case of minors, there really should be greatly enhanced criteria that must be met. I certainly don't think that boys should have to strip in front of female officers and I don't think that it is 'ok' to require that girls strip in front of female officers or boys to strip in front of male officers without extremely good reason, following very strict criteria that MUST be met. It should be an extremely rare event and should be done with the utmost care and caution to protect the rights of the children.

I agree that strip searches should be very rare. I disagree that there should be any special protection against st rip searches based on age or gender. I see no justification for any such double standard.

 

[laughing dog]

I think that there are few cases where strip searches of anybody are warranted. In the case of minors, there really should be greatly enhanced criteria that must be met. I certainly don't think that boys should have to strip in front of female officers and I don't think that it is 'ok' to require that girls strip in front of female officers or boys to strip in front of male officers without extremely good reason, following very strict criteria that MUST be met. It should be an extremely rare event and should be done with the utmost care and caution to protect the rights of the children.

I agree that strip searches should be very rare. I disagree that there should be any special protection against strip searches based on age or gender.

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

So on RVonse side, we've got...

13 year old: I don't want to strip naked in front of you.
Officer: What are you, a prude?

Then we've got Jolly Penguin

13 year old: I don't want to strip naked in front of you. It makes me very uncomfortable.
Officer: Sorry kid. But if we allow for arbitrary age limits on strip searches, we might as well become cannibals.

I think that there are few cases where strip searches of anybody are warranted. In the case of minors, there really should be greatly enhanced criteria that must be met. I certainly don't think that boys should have to strip in front of female officers and I don't think that it is 'ok' to require that girls strip in front of female officers or boys to strip in front of male officers without extremely good reason, following very strict criteria that MUST be met. It should be an extremely rare event and should be done with the utmost care and caution to protect the rights of the children.

I agree that strip searches should be very rare. I disagree that there should be any special protection against strip searches based on age or gender.

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

I'll take people that aren't parents for $1200 Alex.

 

[fromderinside]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Never. It's really about exposing big boy ball sacks.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I think that there are few cases where strip searches of anybody are warranted. In the case of minors, there really should be greatly enhanced criteria that must be met. I certainly don't think that boys should have to strip in front of female officers and I don't think that it is 'ok' to require that girls strip in front of female officers or boys to strip in front of male officers without extremely good reason, following very strict criteria that MUST be met. It should be an extremely rare event and should be done with the utmost care and caution to protect the rights of the children.

I agree that strip searches should be very rare. I disagree that there should be any special protection against strip searches based on age or gender.

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

 

[Toni]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

Do you care about 8 year olds? At all?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

Do you care about 8 year olds? At all?

Clearly he does. He doesn't want them to become drug mules because the police can't strip search them. Do you want 8 years olds to become drug mules? DO YOU?! ​ Because it will happen!

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Really? You think 8 year olds should be strip searched like 35 year olds?

Under the same conditions or with the same evidence against them, yes. Yes I do. Why shouldn't they be? Do want their bodies to be the primary place to stash whatever is being hidden?

Do you care about 8 year olds? At all?

No, Toni. I hate all children and want to turn them into fertilizer.

What a stupid question. Of course I care about 8 year olds....

I also care about 38 year olds....

And I see no reason to strip search one and not the other if the evidence warrants a strip search, which as you read me write above, I think should be very very rare.

 

[Derec]

But remember: we live in a patriarchy that hates women, just hates them. Don't let The Guardian's seeming empathetic reporting on female victims distort that truth.

Treating women the same as men is "misogyny". Women must be paid equally (or more) for unequal work, and must be awarded special rights or protections, or otherwise you are just a woman hating agent of the patriarchy!