this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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Summary

A South African scientist at the remote Sanae IV Antarctic base has been accused of sexual assault and violent threats, prompting urgent pleas for help.

The 10-person team is stranded for months due to extreme winter conditions. Officials were warned of the escalating situation as early as December but failed to act.

South Africa’s environment department has launched an investigation and is offering counseling.

The incident raises concerns over psychological screening for Antarctic missions, echoing past violent incidents in South Africa’s research programs.

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[–] [email protected] 104 points 1 day ago (6 children)

I would think frontier justice would apply nicely in this situation. Just boot the asshole out in the cold and nature will solve the problem for you.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Your comment is kinda case-in-point demonstrating how "frontier" justice can be unjust.

Other publications are reporting physical assault, not sexual. It could have been a slap. Still unacceptable but probably doesn't deserve death by exposure.

My point is, it sounds like a difficult situation but following procedure and running it up the chain is always the right move.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 hour ago

The body of this article also only mentions physical assault. It appears the telegraph completely made up the sexual assault part and is whipping people into a frenzy over it.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 day ago (14 children)

Women and some other minorities are raised to not even consider using acts of violence to protect ourselves, like it never crosses our minds as a possibility that we could physically hurt an assailant if we wanted to. We have internalized a sense of weakness that isn’t actually true. This has been detrimental to our safety as well as the safety of other women. Fuck the patriarchy for doing this to us.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Don't put this on the victims. Women are doing their best to defend themselves.

Unfortunately there's a culture of sexual assault at Antarctica, where the "boys will be boys" crowd overrule the kind of thing @[email protected] just suggested.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I never once blamed the victims. And I never will.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 22 hours ago (5 children)

My point is that the women being sexually assaulted in Antarctica haven't been passively sitting there saying it "never crossed their mind" to protect themselves - one had to walk around for months wielding a hammer to use as a weapon against her assailant.

It's the wider system down there and the rape culture society that is creating this system not some kind of passive internaluzed helplessness. Most women field scientists are tough as nails because they have to be.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Plus fear of being believed, self blame and feeling of needing to be polite.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The need to be polite and feeling of blame are both an extension of the lie that we are weak and can’t physically stand up for ourselves. It doesn’t necessarily matter whether we’re believed if we are ultimately safe from the assault in the first place.

But our culture has made us forget that we are strong and capable, has raised us to never develop the muscles to be able to stop someone, to never tear an assailant’s skin off with our teeth, etc.

I could be wildly out of left field, here, and I am extremely privileged that I’ve never been hurt in this way. I just want to see minorities believe that we are strong…because we are.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I agree with a lot of what you say. Just bear in mind if they kill/harm someone to prevent themselves being raped, they have to explain this to various authorities. And may feel they won't be believed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Because for a long time we weren't believed. It's why #metoo was so important.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Agreed. The fact that we have to depend on structurally patriarchal/domineering justice system is the problem… It’s a whole mess.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

But our culture has made us forget that we are strong and capable, has raised us to never develop the muscles to be able to stop someone, to never tear an assailant’s skin off with our teeth, etc.

I really don't think we should be perpetuating the idea that women can rely on their strength to fight off an offender.

It has the knock-on effect of emboldening women to put themselves into situations they otherwise would not because "they know how to fight" or what have you. Then they find out just how powerful testosterone is and bad things happen.

I'm serious. As a man who gets next to no exercise, I still feel strong as hell. I still feel like I could demolish any chick who isn't hitting up the gym 5 days a week. I wouldn't, but it's scary to think about. The natural advantage that testosterone gives, coupled with males being brought up to think they need to be tough, paints a very poor picture for the "girl power" crew that wants to pretend women can reliably combat men.

Really, the best thing we can be doing is teaching people how to avoid dangerous situation altogether. It'd be nice if we could create a culture of recognizing womanizing scumbags when we see them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

It has the knock-on effect of emboldening women to put themselves into situations they otherwise would not because “they know how to fight” or what have you.

A'ight, I grew up in an red state with a lot of gang activity and had to learn how to fight just to go to school. I know you aren't thinking of 'attending class' when you said this, but I saw girl fights where they were using the stucco walls like a cheese grater to take somebody's face off.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I am sad for the way you were raised, in my entire extended family there is not one woman who would have put up with it or had any thought other than self-defense at whatever cost.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’d love to spread your family’s mindset through the larger white American culture (the one in which I was raised)!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I was raised in America as well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're not a woman. I think you're underestimating how prevalent and protected sexual assault can be

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You mean there aren't any women who would talk about it in your family I guess, cause statistically speaking that's not likely.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 21 hours ago

It's not really unique to women or SA. I'm not trying to downplay the severity of it, I'm merely highlighting how most crimes are actually quite hard to prove and get justice for.

For example, most people whose cars are broken into never receive justice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Absolutely 100%. I think basic self-defense should be a required course in middle school or high school, especially for women. And I would encourage any woman or any person for that matter to take charge of their personal defense, in whatever way is most comfortable for them. Carry a gun, carry a taser, carry pepper spray, take martial arts classes like Krav, etc.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

A gun is pretty much the best solution, especially for a woman.

Tasers, pepper spray, martial arts, etc don't always work and usually serve to just piss off your assailant.

I keep saying this: women and minorities should be the ones owning the most guns, not white males.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (10 children)

Schools should be teaching boys to respect women and not believe they have a 'right' to women's bodies.

If we hit the source of the problem it can be fixed ... and the source is not women, it's boys/men.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

Schools should be teaching boys to respect women and not believe they have a ‘right’ to women’s bodies.

What? This has nothing to do with schooling.

Every time you see a woman get womanized, it just tells all the men that they don't need to try as hard to get with her.

Womanizers are successful because there's a significant portion of women who want to be womanized. Look at all your personal experiences for no shortage of evidence to back this up.

Women need to have higher standards and stop putting their faith in obvious scumbags if they want culture to change. Too many women expect guys to "mac" on them and assume the guys who don't aren't interested. It's rhetoric that they proudly spew to each other without realizing the damage it does.

"If he's not talking to you, you can believe he's talking to someone else!" This kind of stuff is a load of bullshit and only serves to give womanizers an edge over better people.

"It's easier to fool someone than to convince them they'd been fooled" - Mark Twain. This is true because the women who put their faith in shitty men don't want to admit they valued the wrong things or have been taken for a ride, so they just keep going. Their "friends" who are doing the same thing also don't want to admit it or change.

Before you people get mad at me for "blaming the victim," try to understand that avoiding holding women accountable for their actions contributes to idea of viewing them as helpless children.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Have you watched the handmaids tale series? Spoiler alert, but

the main character starts out seemingly powerless, being repeatedly assaulted etc. By the 3rd series she's murdered one of the state sponsored rapists by stabbing him with a pen I think, then the other women hide the evidence and secretly cremate the guy in a furnace.

The lesson I took is that people are always more powerful than they think and solidarity is very important.

Also that the attitude #TraumatiseThemBack is valid when dealing with evil.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I have! That show absolutely terrifies me, since yeah, a small minority of people convinces a ton of other people to do violence against women in a way that feels very USA 2025. But that’s a great point! When the main character realizes her power, she goes far in protecting herself and others.

It’s difficult because our culture trains us from birth to never realize we can fight back. Like, I have a strong suspicion that if I was suddenly attacked, my brain would dump all ideas of fighting back and just freeze, which of course allows the violence to happen. I don’t think this is a “natural state” of being for women or any person. I think we were just trained this way, which makes it a very difficult mindset to overcome; I believe that this is by design.

So…how do we retrain women and girls to respond with a #traumatizethemback mindset? Seems impossible to do this at the cultural level, at least for several generations.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Exactly what I was thinking.

When you're cut off from any help, you ARE your own help. Don't wait for something unthinkable to happen, this person has made it clear they don't respect you or boundaries, and have made threats.

It's 9v1, if you're scared just wait until they're asleep. Kick them out the door, lock it, and they can try walking their happy ass back to civilization. from Antarctica

Don't bother looking for a body.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

Same, too many people on here have a defeatist mindset and it baffles me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That is close to my thought, "Hey asshole, you gotta sleep sometime..."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Exactly, thank you.

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