Taking Back The Streets–Why Slutwalks Are A Form of Feminism

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Aug 142011
 

The other night I had dinner with a male friend.  Afterwards he walked me to my car and I was glad he did because even in a very nice neighborhood, it always feels a little bit unsafe to walk alone, especially after dark.  In 50 plus years of living, I’ve long since lost track of the number of times I’ve been harassed on the street, usually minor incidents, but even minor incidents are intimidating and uncomfortable.  And that is why I attended SlutwalkDC.

According to the dictionary, the word “slut” means:

  1. a dirty, slovenly woman.
  2. an immoral or dissolute woman; prostitute.

The origin of the word can be traced back to the 1300′s, from the Norwegian word slutte, meaning impure liquid.  A derogatory label to say the least.  Which is why I was extremely uneasy when I first heard about the slutwalks that have been taking place in various cities around the world.

The slutwalks began after Toronto police proclaimed that, “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized”.  And that is precisely what this is about.

Time and time again, violence and harassment is blamed on the victim–what they wore, what they said, or simply their lack of penis and courts and police have all to often reinforced this in the way they investigate and prosecute these incidents.  Slutwalk isn’t saying that we like the word slut, it is about saying it doesn’t matter what we are wearing or saying or how we are acting, we have had enough of being harassed because we dared to walk down the street while being female.

So on a hot, humid and at times rainy day, hundreds of women and male allies marched down the streets of of Washington, DC.  Holly Kearl of the DC based Stop Street Harassment put it this way in her remarks to the crowd,

…we are taking back that power with our activism, with our SlutWalks and by refusing to be silent. We are creating power by being here today and walking and speaking out together.

Could this movement be called something like, “Women Against Street Harassment” instead of using the word slut?  Yes, but it would get a lot less attention.  Women have been speaking out against harassment since forever, and yet here we are with the problem continuing, so you know what?  If even the Toronto police are going to call us sluts because of how we dress, then it is time to use the word to turn the tables.  It also opens the door for great visuals and awesome signs, costumes and art were out in abundance at the walk in DC.  In addition to the pictures I’ve included here, there are more on the Feminist Peace Network Facebook page.

Finally, shared with her kind permission, Australian poet Susan Hawthorne recorded this poem about the use of the word slut:

———- Slut but but 2 compact small by Susan Hawthorne

———

Am I still uncomfortable about claiming the word “slut”?  Yes.  But that isn’t the issue here.  The issue is that women should never be blamed for the actions of their abusers and when that blaming continues to be institutionalized by those who are supposed to protect us, then that is what should make us uncomfortable, not the name we chose to give to our response.

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 Posted by on August 14, 2011

Reclaiming Her-Story–Time Out! Women Call Pre-Emptive Strike For Peace

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Mar 232011
 

In our continuing look at the Feminist Peace Network’s story as part of Women’ History Month, we were a signatory to this letter in 2003.  In retrospect one wonders if this should be an annual call.  Imagine if we took this path instead of using embargoes and no-fly zones.

TIME OUT! WOMEN CALL PREEMPTIVE STRIKE FOR PEACE

Open letter to the United Nations Security Council

Women call a Preemptive Strike for Peace as the clearest expression of our informed, collective self-interest. Peace best enables our lives and the lives of our offspring, our brothers, fathers, spouses and partners, families, friends, neighbors and fellow human beings, wherever they live.  Peace among humans is the necessary condition to rescue our beleaguered planet and it may well be the imperative for species survival.

According to the Global Action To Prevent War: “The past century was the most lethal in human history. There were 250 wars, including two worldwide wars and a cold war, with more dead than in all previous wars of the past two thousand years. Over six million more have died even after the cold war ended, when things should have changed for the better.

This situation must not continue into this new century and it does not have to.”

WE cannot allow it. We Must Act Now. Our approach is not idealistic. It is a pragmatic, relevant, achievable response to war. Everywhere (and historically) non-combatant women, adolescent girls and children are the most brutalized victims of war. Violence against this population is the most relentlessly cruel and widespread violence of war. All conditions that produce and reproduce such violence should be intolerable to every woman and man and to every institution designed to organize human life.

What We Want

We request the UN Security Council

  1. To join us in calling TIME OUT on war. To help mobilize every UN Agency, especially all those mandated with the protection and well being of women and children, to invoke the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Beijing Platform on Women, to declare the impending war on Iraq (and by default in the whole region), illegal, irresponsible, immoral, unnecessary and untenable showing a blatant disregard for the lives of women, adolescent girls and children. If anyone claims we can fight a war and protect the human rights of this population, we ask the question, what of the human rights of every human being to whom every human woman’s life is attached, and what of the universal nature of human rights?
  2. To request the Secretary General to submit information for consideration –in step with the weapons inspection and disarmament of Iraq–on the condition of women in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Caspian Basin the USA and Britain as their lives embroil in the stresses of war in its every phase…impending (USA, Britain, Caspian Basin); escalating (Iraq); under foreign military occupation (Afghanistan).  
  3. To hold the line on war, enforcing the weapons inspection and disarmament project in Iraq unhindered and un-pressed for time by all parties.
  4. To call for unhindered, immediate and ongoing restoration of the critical life-support infrastructure in Afghanistan and Iraq and clean up of the depleted uranium contamination in both countries
  5. To mobilize with the NGO’s Global Action Plan To Prevent War and The Hague Appeal For Peace for implementation of their programs of action moving towards the Abolition of War. The time to act is now, before the military machine roars into full gear and runs amok.
  6. To recognize that the UNSC Iraq weapons inspections and disarmament project has laid the groundwork and precedent for universal weapons inspections and disarmament and to push and call for it in every forum.
  7. To call an emergency global conference on The Root Cause of Conflict and The Culture of Peace. The conference will deliberate upon the problems and prospects of the Oil Industry and the International Weapons Industry and articulate action plans and timelines for their conversion to socially useful and sustainable industries. We propose that the conference be held in Baghdad as soon as possible, drawing ‘stakeholder’ participation from NGO’s and labor unions, government and industry.
  8. To mobilize UNESCO to hold a Middle East Cultural Festival in Iraq by early fall. The festival should include scholarly forums/ conferences on religion and peace, for example, Islam, Judaism, Christianity and World Peace, Mapping Peaceful Paths for our Children’s Children’s Children; health and healing, ecology and human culture, youth culture. We envision a great surge in International travel on missions of goodwill to replace the cold and cruel insanity of the war fever.

On October 28th. 2002, in the Secretary-General’s Statement To Security Council on Women, Peace and Security, Mr. Kofi Annan reported, …“patterns of discrimination against women and girls tend to be exacerbated in armed conflict…. But if women suffer the impact of conflict disproportionately, they are also key to the solution of conflict…However, with a few exceptions, women are not present at the formal negotiating tables and at formal peace negotiations. The report calls for greater representation of women in formal peace negotiations… The world can no longer afford to neglect the abuses to which women and girls are subjected in armed conflict and its aftermath, or to ignore the contributions that women make to the search for peace”.

Mr. Kofi Annan’s report was based on a 179 page study undertaken by his office in response to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. This historic resolution was unanimously adopted following an open discussion on October 24 & 25, 2000 when for the first time since its establishment in 1947, the UN Security Council  (UNSC) considered war from women’s perspective.  Better late than never.

UNSC Resolution 1325 reiterates the importance of bringing gender perspectives to the center of attention in all UN peace-making, peace-building, peacekeeping, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. The resolution provides a number of important operational mandates. They include:

  • Increase representation of women in decision-making for the prevention, management and resolution of conflict and peace processes (paras 1 and 2);
  • Increase appointment of women as special representatives and envoys (para 3);
  • … support local women’s peace initiatives; and ensure protection and respect for the human rights of women and girls (para 8);
  • Ensure respect for international law applicable to the rights and protection of women and girls (para 9);
  • Adopt special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence (para 10);
  • Ensure that Security Council missions take gender considerations and rights of women into account, including through consultation with local and international women’s groups (para 15);
  • The Secretary General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls, the role of women in peace-building and the gender dimensions of peace processes and conflict resolution and submit a report to the Security Council (para 16);
  • The Secretary General to include in his reporting to the Security Council progress on gender mainstreaming throughout peacekeeping missions (para 17)

Any resolution is only as good as its full implementation. While the UN Secretary General’s study was underway, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund For Women) commissioned a simultaneous, independent study reporting similar conclusions. Each of these studies and both should have certainly mobilized the UN system to call the UN’s overarching mandate into full operation. The Preamble to the Charter establishing the United Nations says:

WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

  • to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war.
  • to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small
  • to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
  • to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom

AND FOR THESE ENDS

  • to practice tolerance…in peace with one another as good neighbors
  • to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security
  • to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest…

HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS

Clearly, war is not a “condition under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.

Yet here we are, sliding precipitously into the Bush administrations WAR ON TERROR in terrifying and unconscionable disregard of the findings of two exhaustive reports and in direct contravention of our collective obligation under UNSC Resolution 1325 and a host of other treaties including the UN Charter and the UN Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

Women and men of good conscience must not allow this outrage. We are resolved to mobilize all resources in our power for peace. We urge every United Nations agency all National missions to the UN (signatories to the UN Charter) and all NGO’s to do the same.

We believe that the only appropriate follow up to UNSC Resolution 1325, is to implement the Hague Appeal For Peace: Replacing the law of force with the force of fair and just law. Ours is a human rights response. We assert our inalienable, common human right to Live Free of tyranny.

We have come through the bloodiest century in human history, with multiple, unprecedented, global attempts to chart a course for peaceful conflict resolution between and within nations. We have delineated in binding treaties, much of the international legal framework for peace. We have expressed our vision and intent in words. Now we must implement our common human will in action.

In the USA, Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and other leading women activists are mobilizing against the escalating war on Iraq under a Code Pink Alert. Starhawk, one of the leaders explains: “a Code Pink alert: signifying extreme danger to all the values of nurturing, caring, and compassion that women and loving men have held. We choose pink, the color of roses, the beauty that like bread is food for life; the color of the dawn of a new era when cooperation and negotiation prevail over force”.

Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness has helped to maintain a steady flow of Peace Teams into Iraq since the first Gulf War. Across the globe, organizations like Women In Black, Global Women Strike, have sent women into strife ravaged areas to be peacemakers. The Women’s International League For Peace and Freedom was founded on such actions.

In September, UNIFEM helped form a coalition of women in Azerbaijan to do peace work in the region. These are just a few of the many actions of Peace Women. Women of extraordinary courage and will are putting their lives on the line alongside men of conscience and humanity to prevent war. And this is not accounting for all the hundreds of thousands of courageous men organizing worldwide to avert war and work to bring us the sustainable world we envision.

Like the newly formed coalition in Azerbaijan, invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform, the final documents of the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Women in Development: Equality Development and Peace Between Men and Women in the 21st. Century, the UNSC Resolution 1325, and CEDAW we invite all Women, all peace-loving institutions and all peaceful people of the world to join our call.

TIME OUT! WOMEN CALL PREMPTIVE STRIKE FOR PEACE.

ENDORSING ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS

Women’s International League For Peace And Freedom, NY Metro

Evelyn Mauss (board Member Physicians For Social Responsibility, Consultant National Resources Defense Council -for identification only)

MADRE

Deborah Gorham, Prof. Emerita, Dept.of History/Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

Professor Harriet Alonso City College NY, Women’s Peace Historian, Author

Feminist Peace Network

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 Posted by on March 23, 2011

The Giffords Shooting From A Gendered Lens

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Jan 102011
 

Was woman hating a factor in the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords?  There I’ve said it, because as a feminist it is a question I need to ask and no, don’t start with the mansplaining that I don’t understand the bigger picture or that there are larger issues because the uncomfortable truth is that violence is usually perpetrated against women for different reasons than it is perpetrated against men and the frame in which it is subsequently processed and analyzed is often quite different as well. Woman-hatred is at pandemic levels in this world and that context cannot be ignored.

There are definite reasons to think that indeed there is a misogynist aspect to understanding the Giffords shooting. We know that Loughner had approached Giffords before, in 2007,

Mr. Loughner said he asked the lawmaker, “How do you know words mean anything?” recalled Mr. Montanaro. He said Mr. Loughner was “aggravated” when Ms. Giffords, after pausing for a couple of seconds, “responded to him in Spanish and moved on with the meeting.”

So had he been stalking her since then?  It’s possible. There are also reports that Loughner verbally attacked a fellow student with anti-abortion vitriol and Giffords is pro-choice, so that may have something to do with it.

Amanda Marcotte puts it this way,

Gender is an issue with this specific shooting.  Just as you can’t claim that shooting a congressperson and a judge at a political event is a non-political event, you can’t really just pretend there aren’t gender implications to a young man shooting one of the sadly too few women in Congress.

Marcotte goes on to explain why indeed Gifford’s response to Loughner in 2007 may have a bearing in understanding what happened on Saturday, that it might be interpreted as an extreme way of manplaining his anger with her refusal to be badgered by him.  Her essay is a crucial must read, particularly for her truly cogent explanation of mansplaining and why it is so problematic and damaging.

Jessica Valenti also points out that ‘manning up’ plays an important part in American political rhetoric and the impact of that also needs to be considered.

Gloria Feldt adds this,

We can’t depend on the current leadership of the hypermasculinized political culture that  Jessica Valenti, Feministing executive editor, describes in The Guardian. Our idealization of violent masculinity she says spills over into the political discourse, and is emulated by right-wing women like Sarah Palin, whose electoral target map placed Giffords in her gunsight.

Is it appropriate to frame this incident in terms of hyper-masculine violence? Was there an element of woman-hatred in this incident? It will be awhile until we know enough to fully answer those questions.  The point we need to hold firm on however is that these possible frames be fully examined as an integral part of the analysis and investigation of this horrific crime.

———

Addenda:  This description from the Wall Street Journal lends a great deal of credence to the likelihood that he was stalking her and that while shooting a Congresswoman is a political act, this particular shooting was probably also motivated by a deep misogyny directed specifically at Giffords:

Accused gunman Jared Lee Loughner appeared to have been long obsessed with U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

A safe at Mr. Loughner’s home contained a form letter from Ms. Giffords’ office thanking him for attending a 2007 “Congress on your Corner” event in Tucson. The safe also held an envelope with handwritten notes, including the name of Ms. Giffords, as well as “I planned ahead,” “My assassination,” and what appeared to be Mr. Loughner’s signature, according to an FBI affidavit.

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 Posted by on January 10, 2011

I’m A Left-Wing Hero, Therefore I Couldn’t Be A Rapist Or Why Daniel Ellsberg Is No Longer My Hero

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Jan 062011
 

I have no idea if Julian Assange is a rapist.  What I do know is that being a left-wing hero doesn’t make you innocent of those charges.  That point seems to be lost on a number of people who should know better.  I’m looking at you Bianca Jagger.  And you Naomi Wolf.  Keith Olbermann and Michael Moore, you too.  And now Daniel Ellsberg, who tweeted this yesterday,

Hello?  Mr. Ellsberg? Did you also listen to his accusers?  Do you think that every man who says he is innocent of rape charges that have been brought against him is innocent?  These remarks sadden me.  You are my hero but the values that you hold dear must not be at the expense of women’s human rights and safety.  You have said on Twitter that you will address the concerns of those who are calling you out for this remark.  Frankly the only response that will work is to apologize and say that your comment was ill-conceived;  when the left sounds like Justice Scalia when it comes to women’s human rights, that is unacceptable.

———-

Addenda:

1.  Interesting interview with one of Assange’s accusers here.

2.  A reminder from Haiti that rapists often get a free pass, often on a grand and very tragic scale.

3.  The Nation’s Greg Mitchell wants to know why I called him out on Twitter for retweeting Ellsberg’s tweet about the rape charges.  Because Ellsberg’s words carry a great deal of weight and shouldn’t just be given a no comment pass.  Mitchell comments on all sorts of things regularly, this would have been a good time to comment.

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 Posted by on January 6, 2011

Beware Of Men Bearing False Gifts

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Jan 022011
 

Okay, okay, I know–holiday season over, moving on.  But remember that ad that ran on television before Christmas with two shoppers and one holds up something and says that it is just like the one the other person asked for and the second person sadly says that it isn’t?  That is an apt analogy for Michael Moore’s self-serving apology to Sady Doyle a few days before Christmas for not responding to her sooner regarding the #MooreandMe campaign that she began to call out his grossly inappropriate remarks to Keith Olbermann regarding the Assange rape charges (see here for a lot more about that).

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show in which he failed to address the protest directly, but made their imprint obvious in his transformed rhetoric on rape accusations. In a crowning irony, the man whose zeal for transparency-God Julian Assange started this protest finally made direct acknowledgement of it…in a private Twitter message to #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle.

Keeping with the seasonal theme, let’s unpackage that.  Nice that he apologized for not getting back to her sooner.  And at least he didn’t stoop as low as Olbermann who attacked his detractors while pompously declaring he was a major feminist ally.

But Moore is seriously naughty for not apologizing for what he said that she rightly called out in the first place and the  major arrogance of the notion that he needed airtime to re-state his remarks without ever acknowledging those that called him out in the first place or apologizing to them while on the air or heaven forbid, giving the microphone to Doyle instead.  But since he didn’t, here is the take-away that Doyle offers on her blog,

We fought for basic human decency for over a week. We fought, tirelessly, at great risk and expense, to make a mountain move. The mountain moved, like, three inches to the left. If you weren’t looking closely, you wouldn’t notice that it had moved at all. You definitely wouldn’t think to thank or acknowledge the incredibly hard work of the people who moved it. But we moved a mountain. We did the impossible. We went from just a random bunch of frustrated feminists, a random bunch of people on Twitter, to a force capable of changing the rape apologism in the narrative of one of the world’s biggest news stories.The mountain moved. The man came down from the tower. And we still live in a rape culture; we’re still not done fighting it; the narrative around Assange, in particular, is still hugely misogynist and hugely dangerous for those two women and will still encourage rape survivors not to report. We didn’t get a full apology and correction from Michael Moore; we didn’t get a full apology and correction from Keith Olbermann; neither of them have donated to the many rape crisis and anti-rape organizations to which we’ve provided links; heck, we didn’t even get credit on air. But we know what we’re capable of now. And that is immensely important.

Another point that bears emphasis–the women bringing the rape charges are not the only ones being disparaged–feminists are also being hauled out to the woodshed.  When calling his accusers honeypots didn’t get him enough traction, Julian Assange offered this analysis:

Sweden is the Saudi Arabia of feminism,” he said. “I fell into a hornets’ nest of revolutionary feminism.

I’m not even sure I understand what that means, but the blame it on the feminists mantra comes through loud and clear.  And here is another one of that genre from the World Socialist Website,

Feminist opinion—as the Assange case and the Polanski affair before it have demonstrated—has become one of the means of legitimizing the suppression of nonconformists and political dissidents, and of changing the subject from the great social issues, above all, class oppression and social inequality, to stale and self-pitying concerns.

Translation:  Feminists don’t understand the big picture and therefore are damaging and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

Rape and sexual assault are “stale and self-pitying concerns”?  In a word, well actually two, up yours.

In her Winter Solstice message, visionary pagan Starhawk wrote,

…take a good look at what you want to shed. What are the behaviors, the beliefs, the patterns that no longer serve? Let them go. Make the commitment to change.

…envision the future you want to create. What world do we want to see? How will we step up to face the huge challenges of healing our communities, our economies, our climate and our environment? What risks will we need to take? What will we need to let go of, and what will we need to embrace?

Well I for one am well and ready to let go of the patriarchal left.  Yes we should be on the same side, but we aren’t  when men like Moore and Olbermann use their positions of privilege to trivialize and dismiss violence against women as well as those of us who stand up to tell them that they are wrong and damaging. When that happens, then I am done listening.

And yes I know, this is only the latest in a long, long history of left-wing misogyny.  But for me it is a break point.  I am tired.  Bone and soul weary tired of having to address this kind of damaging spew. So in answer to Starhawk’s challenge, that is what I need to let go of. I’m not going to listen to assurances that we are really on the same side or that you care about what I care about when the evidence says otherwise.  It is a toxic waste of time and energy.

As for what I’m embracing, it is that awesome wonderful capability that Doyle writes about.  That is what sustains me and lets me believe that we absolutely can and will move beyond the absurd notion that  leftwing misogyny is acceptable collateral damage for the greater good.

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 Posted by on January 2, 2011
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