Today I found a link to Joss Whedon's commentary on the murder of Dua Khalil, a young woman who was killed almost exactly one year ago. Her death is yet another instance of the abuse of women being treated as a spectator sport - and in the year since, that has not changed. The reason Joss' entry surfaced again is that a charity anthology, Nothing But Red, was written to commemorate Khalil's murder and raise money for Equality Now, and it has just been released.
I never read Joss' entry last year, but I'm glad I found it now. If you are like me and also missed it, I want to bring this it to your attention now for two reasons: the first is that, as to be expected, Joss writes very eloquently about Khalil's death, as well as the pervasiveness of misogyny and sexual oppression.
The second reason is this quote:
"Women’s inferiority – in fact, their malevolence -- is as ingrained in American popular culture as it is anywhere they’re sporting burkhas. I find it in movies, I hear it in the jokes of colleagues, I see it plastered on billboards, and not just the ones for horror movies. Women are weak. Women are manipulative. Women are somehow morally unfinished."
I appreciate that Joss does not use this event as a call to arms for feminism that relies on perpetuating racist and imperialist power differences. In other words, he does not seek to protect women from misogyny by redirecting our malice against non-white men and non-U.S. cultures. Too often, the response - the feminist response, even - to news such as this is one of, "Look how awful they are," and "We should help those women over there." Villainizing minority men, infantilizing minority women, and ignoring the whole heap of steaming bullshit that is sexism in the United States.
I do not feel safe from misogyny for being born in the U.S. In fact, when my so-called "liberal" or "progressive" male peers decry "foreign" sexism but refuse to acknowledge the necessity of combatting or even acknowledging their own privilege - I don't feel very safe at all. Finding one more male ally who not only challenges his male privilege, but also refuses to soothe his ego by relying on his racial privilege, gives me some hope.
- feeling:
thoughtful
In May of this year, the progressive netroots pulled together to save a tiny women's shelter on a Lakota Sioux reservation in South Dakota. Thanks to over 680 strangers who donated a combined $27,000, Pretty Bird Woman House was able to keep its doors open for the duration and provide emergency shelter for 188 women and 132 children.
But just last month thieves broke into Pretty Bird Woman House - literally smashing holes through the walls. They stole the computers, the television, clothing, toiletries - all donated. Then arsonists set fire to the building.
Pretty Bird Woman House remains open, without a house, in an unheated, donated office. The tribal council has done all it can afford to do. Without a house, this sanctuary will die.
Pretty Bird Woman House needs another netroots miracle to survive. There is so much in the world we are powerless over. For Pretty Bird Woman House you can make a difference, make the world a better place, right here, right now, today.
( More information )
Links
Friends of Pretty Bird Woman House Yahoo Group
Pretty Bird Woman House Blog
Amnesty International Report-Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA
DONATE
- feeling:
busy
hungryI found the seminar impressive, because the presenter knew her stuff and wasn't just mouthing off platitudes. However, there is the niggling sense that this effort is just lip service, if there are not other efforts to back it up. So there's definitely room for critique and improvement.
Our presenter just sent out an email compiling the comments from the evaluation forms, and many of these comments expressed that very concern. However, a couple comments fell prey to the usual anti-feminist myths about sexual harassment, and I think it's useful to look at these straight from the horse's mouth - so there's no distraction of "people don't REALLY talk that way ..." - and see what these statements really mean.
( Example #1 )
( Example #2 )
- feeling:
irritated
Luckily, there are people in the Washington state judicial system who aren't total fuckwits.
Read the article for the full story, but here are a few notable quotes that illustrate the persistent sexism and victim-blaming in public attitudes towards sexual violence. Sure, society says, we'll protect the victims of rape - but only if you're the right kind of victim.
( Newsflash: working as a prostitute doesn't actually reduce the gravity of a rape )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling:
tired
I realize that a quarter-long series of articles about violence against women can be depressing, and I'd like to end this on an optimistic note.
Unfortunately, I don't have The Solution to violence against women. Even I don't have delusions of being that wise. ;) But - and here I'm engaging in a bit of hubris - I believe in the power of language to educate and agitate for change. That's one of the reasons I chose to undertake this project, and why I choose to blog in general. Writing and dialoguing is important. It's powerful. It's consciousness raising in cyberspace.
( Fighting the roots of violence )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling: productive
In "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action," Audre Lorde writes the following description of her thought process when faced with a potential diagnosis of cancer:
[...] and what I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid? To question or to speak as I believed could have meant pain, or death. But we all hurt in so many different ways, all the time, and pain will either change or end. Death, on the other hand, is the final silence. And that might be coming quickly, now, without regard for whether I had ever spoken what needed to be said, or had only betrayed myself into small silences, while I planned someday to speak, or waited for someone else's words. And I began to recognize a source of power within myself that comes from the knowledge that while it is most desirable not to be afraid, learning to put fear into a perspective gave me great strength.
I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you." (41)
( The meaning(s) of silence )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling:
anxious
In an article titled "'Femininity' and women's silence in response to sexual harassment and coercion," Kathleen V. Cairns describes how harassment of women functions as a method of social control over women's behavior:
[O]vert practices include the public, ritual shaming of women in the form of catcalls, lewd remarks and so on which serves to demonstrate the fact that 'any man or group of men feels entitled not only to pass judgement on any woman walking along minding her own business, but also to announce it to her' [Kotzin 1993: 167]
[...]
In patriarchy, women are taught to accept that their femaleness, their simple presence, are responsible for men's behavior towards them [...] It becomes women's responsibility to police themselves, to keep their dress, comportment and presence within approved limits to avoid 'provoking' harassment. (96-7).
This dynamic - of men acting with impunity to judge women, and women shouldering the blame for men's actions towards them - can be applied to other forms of gender violence as well. What it comes down to is the way that negative reactions from men - or even the anticipation of those reactions - function to police women in everything from their appearance to their behavior.
( the lessons women learn )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling:
sick
One of the most insidious ways of normalizing and justifying gendered violence is by tying it to tradition. By portraying perpetrators as if they were enacting the accepted practices of a culture, those in power position victims of violence not only against their victimizer, but also against the weight of a culture's history. Additionally, "tradition" is a popular buzzword that protects a practice from interrogation, hiding it behind a shield of maintaining history or honoring ancestors.
( Where that leaves women )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling:
calm
A couple of disclaimers, to start:
-First, this is not about me being angry at, or blaming, any particular individuals. This is also not about placing the responsibility for a society-wide problem on these particular individuals.
-Second, this entry is for everyone to read, even though I refer to a specific example in which only a few people were involved. The point of this entry is, again, not to pin the responsibility on anyone. The point is to raise awareness of a common, problematic pattern that we all engage in.
( With that said ... )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling: busy
One of the first readings assigned for this class has been Albert Bandura's "Selective Activation and Disengagement of Moral Control," published in volume 46, number 1 of Journal of Social Issues. The purpose of the article is to examine how, in normal and everyday circumstances, people can commit actions that they typically consider immoral. Most of the time, barring deviant individuals, we keep ourselves in check. We decide not to commit immoral actions according to what we understand as 'moral,' without needing other people to force us to do so.
According to Bandura, we regulate ourselves through the use of "self-sanctions." I guess it's like the superego, but without dealing with issues of the unconscious. For a psychological layperson like me, it's useful just to think of it as a conscience. Basically it means that we watch and judge ourselves, and that is what determines our behavior. So if those judgments are somehow deactivated, then we can engage in behavior that we would normally consider wrong, but without making ourselves feel shame.
This is a pretty useful concept for a class on gendered violence, because it helps explain why something normally heinous (violence, particularly sexual violence) has become so common against women. I also find it useful for wider discussions about sexism in general - why something as awful-sounding as discriminating against people based on their sex is nonetheless such a widespread part of our societies. Not by a few of the absolute worst people. Not by the people who mean to do it. But by everybody.
( but I'm such a Nice Guy ... )
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling: busy
This quarter I'm taking a Women Studies course titled "Women and Violence." The final project for this class is open to creative interpretation, and so I'm attempting to bring together my academic feminism with my online feminism by using blogging as a part of that project. Over the next eight weeks, until the final week of the quarter, I'll be making weekly posts on the topic of women and violence. Each post will (hopefully) be inspired by the readings or discussions from class. They will be posted both here and on Shrub.com, and can be accessed through the "women and violence" tag.
The course itself approaches gendered violence as a continuum of behaviors that affect women, from the private to the public, the individual to the institutional, the legally prohibited to the socially permissible. This includes the most commonly discussed forms of gendered violence, such as rape and domestic violence; and also forms of violence such as war, abuse by prisons and other institutions, and indirect violence by the media. My series of posts will cover any of these topics, depending on what strikes me, or perhaps what is most relevant to the feminist blogosphere at the time.
If this all sounds kind of vague to you all, that's on purpose. I'm actually not sure how these next eight weeks will go, or what kind of writing I will do. I'm hoping to let the writing come organically out of influences from the course and online, so I'm not putting any limitations on this series for now.
Speaking of influences - while I always welcome responses from readers, I invite them even more heartily for this project. Comments or criticism - even if you don't have anything to add beyond, "I agree with you/Commenter A!" - please do make your voice heard. Part of the reason I'm using a blog format is so I can examine the responses I get, and how other people might connect to what I'm writing.
x-posted to Shrub.com
- feeling: drained
I just went to use the restroom in my workplace - a single-user, unisex room inside our office - and this is what I saw: urine in the unflushed toilet, and something else. It was bizarre enough for me to look twice, rather than just cussing out inconsiderate people and flushing the toilet. My best guess (since there wasn't any toilet paper in the toilet and it leads me to think a man had used it) is that it was ejaculate.
But see, I don't know. Not being male, I've never had the opportunity for such a ... viewing pleasure. So I ask you, friendslist, if you can advise me on what spunk in a toilet bowl looks like. If you can tell me, I want to know - I promise not to judge you on how or why you have the information. I only judge fuckers who get off on harassing people.
In any case, I sent an email detailing the incident to our assistant dean to find out what can be done. It surprised me because this restroom is in our office, which is only accessible through our front door, which is highly visible, or a couple of other locked doors. And, while there are a few men working in our office, they are quite nice guys. (Not that that is a guarantee of anything, I know.)
So I don't know. Clearly this man wanted this to be seen and fuck with people. And I don't know what we can do besides give people a heads up to be on the lookout.
But you know? I almost didn't say anything. I almost went on my way, not wanting to trouble anyone else about it, because it wasn't a "big deal." Because, hey, just because I was made to feel severely uncomfortable and creeped out, what's that worth? And this is even in a strongly supportive, majority female work environment where I knew I wouldn't be judged for speaking up. It's just that I've had it socialized into the deepest part of me that I should stay quiet, keep my head down, not make a fuss. And most of all, not inconvenience other people for what bothers me. Because ladies don't do that, you know.
And people wonder why women don't speak up about sexual harassment more often.
Edit: Comments on this post are now screened. Go here for an explanation.
- feeling:
pissed off
( The rally and aftermath )
Thus ends SARVA Week 2007. It was pretty crazy for me since I was much more involved this year, but it was totally worth it. The other events of the week were all fantastic (though more humorous than heavy, and so not really worth attempting to translate into a blog post).
I hope you're all wearing jeans today for our Denim Day remembrance/protest. I've been wearing my SARVA Week t-shirt all week, so my co-workers all know about it and a bunch of them are wearing jeans today. :D
Oh, and ha ha.
- feeling:
awake
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kyonkun pointed me toward today's issue of The Daily, our campus newspaper, for more news about Monday's murder.Today's issue presents some interesting juxtapositions. ( Good, bad, and in-between )
- feeling: frustrated
The following is a message from the university president, emailed to everyone on campus:
( Read more... )
I appreciate the university administration putting forth an official gesture of sympathy. However, it's also problematic in a few ways: there is no mention of the domestic violence/gendered violence aspect of the crime, which makes the murder seem like an isolated incident rather than part of a society-wide pattern. Of course, the president did acknowledge that this kind of violence happens "all too often," but note that he also characterizes it as "senseless," thereby obscuring the pervasive nature of domestic violence, particularly against women. Also, it being SARVA Week and Sexual Assault Awareness Month, he really failed when he advertised only palliative resources (grief counseling, etc.) and completely ignored the preventative action being taken on this campus right at this moment.
So. What to do about that, right? It didn't occur to me that something could be done until one of my friends forwarded to me and some other classmates the response she had sent to the president, addressing these very issues. Then, in response, another person sent another email, advocating a collective effort to get the president's attention - which finally made me realize that I could do the same (I'm a little slow ...). Emails have been sent to the campus newspaper as well, so that in case the president doesn't respond at least someone will know.
How simple was that? There was ignorance; we spoke against it. It was a simple thing to do, and I don't know how much effect it will have. But at least it was a way for us to take action against a problem.
As I learn how to engage in activism, there are a lot of reasons to get discouraged, so I'm glad to have this small example of how it can be easy.
By the way: I encourage all members of the University of Washington to join in writing these emails, so the president can see how many people care about this issue.
- feeling:
determined
I've totally been lax on making announcements about this, but SARVA Week is going on right now! For those of you unfamiliar with the event, SARVA (Sexual Assault and Relationship Violence Awareness) Week is an annual event organized by C.O.R.E. (the Committee Organizing Rape Education, of which I am a volunteer). Through events, posters, and other displays, SARVA Week seeks to raise awareness on campus about the issues of sexual assault and relationship (domestic) violence.
Every night of this week through Thursday, there will be an event on campus in the HUB that educates people about sexual violence. (There was one just tonight and it was fabulous.) All events are free and open to the public.
( SARVA Week events )
I plan to go to all of these events. Please come and show your support!
- feeling: determined
ratzeo was Body Outlaws, published by the woman-friendly Seal Press. It's a collection of essays by women attempting to rewrite body image outside of conventional beauty standards - and not just white, middle-class, straight women, but women who experience all forms of oppression, including racism.The first essay is "My Brown Face," by Mira Jacob, an Indian-American woman who constantly finds herself fetishized by white men. Most women of color are familiar with this experience - the 'positive' counterpart of racist degradation - when men tell you how 'beautiful' and 'exotic' you are. This can be accomplished either through ebullient and chivalrous praise, or through crude and fetishistic verbal harassment; Jacob describes instances of both. These anecdotes are presented as contained sections of the essay, without direct commentary - and yet her indignation and disgust towards her 'suitors' is palpable.
I love this essay for the clarity and energy of the writing, the juxtaposition of caustic anger and humor, but also for the personal nuances that Jacobs provides, which are so gratifying to read because they echo my own experience. Very few voices from women of color are heard in the mainstream conversation on body image - one of the reasons I asked
ratzeo for this book, in fact - and it was comforting to read things that were familiar to me, but so often overlooked by standard (white) analyses.( more )
x-posted on Shrub.com
- feeling: thoughtful
No, it's funny, I promise. And so true. Extra points for the sci-fi (specifically, BSG) context.
(From Racy Li.)
- feeling:
amused - listening:"Consider This," Anna Nalick
According to a court in Maryland, a woman cannot withdraw consent to sex once it has begun.
Because, apparently, once a man sticks his penis in you, you lose all say over what happens to your own body. I guess this isn't terribly surprising, though, since that's the common conservative position on abortion - if you consented to have sex, then you lose the ability to decide what happens to your body if you get pregnant. It doesn't matter if the pregnancy is inconvenient, painful, damaging to your body, or even life-threatening. And now, apparently, it doesn't matter if sex does the same thing. You said 'yes' at one point, after all.
Does anyone else have an image of a three year-old whining, "No take-backs!"?
But wait, there's more! The court graciously explained the basis for this ruling, which was a law that states that raping a woman "de-flowers" her and is thus a loss for the man who owns her.
Maryland court in less than 50 words: You're not allowed to control your body once a man penetrates you. But that's okay, because your only worth is being a pristine virgin for the man who actually controls you anyway.
More here, here, and here.
You know, contrary to popular belief, I don't hate men because I'm a feminist. But I do hold a scathing contempt for a large number of them, namely the ones who are too selfish, lazy, stupid, or cruel to own up to their privilege. Particularly the ones who purport to be intelligent or even enlightened, and have the tools for education staring them in the face. I include judges in this category.
( which brings me to C.O.R.E. )
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