SlutWalk Sign Ideas

Feb 15

“

There was a pervasive expectation that black British women should only concentrate either on race or gender, as if the two were easily separated. The pressure to be either black or lesbian make it very difficult and confusing to develop being black and lesbian.

‘If I was seen to choose race, i’m thought not to be serious about my feminism’

if you don’t have the same politics as white lesbians and are politically involved with Black men, they believe themselves to be at a higher stage of consciousness because according to them, they are women-identified and you’re still male-identified’

” ‘Sexuality & Other Identities’ (in What is She Like) -Rosa Ainley (via queerhairyvag)

Feb 14

Damsel in de Tech: [Canadian] February 14th events

Aug 15

I want to issue a warning.

Today on the facebook page of Washington D.C’s local Slutwalk, an e-mail the group received was published onto their wall.

The organizers of Slutwalk D.C. chose to include the e-mail address of the sender, the mother of a survivor, who respectfully raised concerns and criticisms as to the methods of Slutwalk.

This is unacceptable, petty and dangerous behaviour on the part of these organizers. No one should have their privacy violated in such a manner, regardless of their opinions or disagreements with our respective organizations.

E-mail addresses and other contact information should be kept between the organizers and the sender, regardless of whether the e-mail’s content is to be published, until such a time as the sender consents to have said contact information released. Correspondence of a threatening or otherwise malicious nature should be forwarded to the legal authorities.

Releasing contact information to the general public without explicit, visible consent from the sender is offensive, dangerous, and illegal. I refuse to partner with any group or individual who fails to recognize this and behave accordingly.

I strongly hope that this will not be perpetuated in any more of the Slutwalk groups. Whether any of us can trust the current Slutwalk D.C. organizers beyond this point will remain to be seen - I simply wish to keep you informed as to the current nature of interactions with this particular group.

(Further updates will be provided as necessary)

Aug 11

“

[W]hen men come forward to complain that they would totally act right if women would just say no “correctly,” they are lying. The idea that you could somehow make your harassment less gropey and upsetting or your rape less rapey, if you would stop being so inscrutable and just explain to the poor clueless dear in terms that he’ll understaaaaaaaaaaand is beyond. fucked. up.

This sets up a world where men can do whatever they want until they hear a “no” that they choose to interpret as being “real,” and sets up any damage done up until that point as being the victim’s fault. The victim is not controlling the interaction, the harasser is choosing to harass. What possible advantage is there in making it the victim’s responsibility to convince their harasser “Oh no, kind sir, please stop?” or they must have deserved what they got? If you’re really invested in the “why are women such cowards who don’t say no clearly enough” narrative, ask yourself, why are you so interested in maintaining a shield of plausible deniability for sketchy people doing sketchy things to women?

” Captain Awkward, The C-Word (Hint: C is for Creep!)

Aug 8

“

“Recommendation

I’m directing this to men who inhabit het-identified social spaces, and I’m not really limiting it more than that. Women are already doing what they can to prevent rape; brokering a peace with the fear is part of their lives that we can never fully understand. We’re the ones who are not doing our jobs.

Here’s what we need to do. We need to spot the rapists, and we need to shut down the social structures that give them a license to operate. They are in the population, among us. They have an average of six victims, women that they know, and therefore likely some women you know. They use force sometimes, but mostly they use intoxicants. They don’t accidentally end up in a room with a woman too drunk or high to consent or resist; they plan on getting there and that’s where they end up.

Listen. The women you know will tell you when the men they thought they could trust assaulted them; if and only if they know you won’t stonewall, deny, blame or judge. Let them tell you that they got drunk, and woke up with your buddy on top of them. Listen. Don’t defend that guy. That guy is more likely than not a recidivist. He has probably done it before. He will probably do it again.

Change the culture. To rape again and again, these men need silence. They need to know that the right combination of factors — alcohol and sex shame, mostly — will keep their victims quiet. Otherwise, they would be identified earlier and have a harder time finding victims. The women in your life need to be able to talk frankly about sexual assault. They need to be able to tell you, and they need to know that they can tell you, and not be stonewalled, denied, blamed or judged.

Listen. The men in your lives will tell you what they do. As long as the R word doesn’t get attached, rapists do self-report. The guy who says he sees a woman too drunk to know where she is as an opportunity is not joking. He’s telling you how he sees it. The guy who says, “bros before hos”, is asking you to make a pact.

The Pact. The social structure that allows the predators to hide in plain sight, to sit at the bar at the same table with everyone, take a target home, rape her, and stay in the same social circle because she can’t or won’t tell anyone, or because nobody does anything if she does. The pact to make excuses, to look for mitigation, to patch things over — to believe that what happens to our friends — what our friends do to our friends — is not (using Whoopi Goldberg’s pathetic apologetics) “rape-rape”.

Change the culture. We are not going to pull six or ten or twelve million men out of the U.S. population over any short period, so if we are going to put a dent in the prevalence of rape, we need to change the environment that the rapist operates in. Choose not to be part of a rape-supportive environment. Rape jokes are not jokes. Woman-hating jokes are not jokes. These guys are telling you what they think. When you laugh along to get their approval, you give them yours. You tell them that the social license to operate is in force; that you’ll go along with the pact to turn your eyes away from the evidence; to make excuses for them; to assume it’s a mistake, of the first time, or a confusing situation. You’re telling them that they’re at low risk.”

” YesMeansYes: Meet the Predators

Aug 2

“

Although I certainly have direct experiences with street harassment, this story is a little different — but still very upsetting. Last night, an acquaintance/former classmate posted this status on Facebook: “Ladies: I honked because you’re hot, no need to flip me off.” In the few minutes between reading this and deleting this person, it had already accumulated 12 “likes”, from both men and women. Perhaps the most bewildering part of this is that the status was actually posted by a woman.

Regardless of the sex of the poster, however, such a public endorsement of street harassment is sickening to me. The worst part is that all of those people “liking” and commenting on the status about how “funny” it is most likely don’t even know that what they’re making jokes about and encouraging is a very real problem; a problem that is part of the even bigger issue of how women are seen and treated all over the world. It’s beyond sad to know we can barely walk down the street without being honked at, catcalled, or followed. It’s terrible that we’re expected to take it as a compliment. Even worse, it’s such a common part of society that many women can’t even see what’s happening.

” Anonymous, Stop Street Harrassment

Jul 14

mychemicalelizabeth:

Sometimes-

I wish I was born a boy

so that, at night-

I could go out

in empty parking lots

to convenience stores

into the city

to the park by my house

to ride my bike

in the neighborhood

where I’ve spent my whole life.

Or jog on paths

running through the woods

surrounded by trees and nature

lay in a field-

alone

and not be afraid.

And sometimes I get so angry

at my father

for telling me

it’s not safe to go out

at that time,

to that place

Did your father tell those things to you?

He didn’t.

Would you tell the same to a son?

You wouldn’t.

Sometimes I get so angry

For needing to be afraid

in my own life, my own world

Just because I was born a girl

But then I remember all the things that are great-

about being a woman.

And I remember-

that it’s society that should change

Not me.

(A poem by me about rape culture and gender equality in our society)

(via chronic0le)

Jul 13

Black Teenage Girls’ Experiences with Sexual Coercion: Context, Coping, and Consequences

choongcommunist:

Trigger warning for discussions of rape and sexual violence committed agaisnt black women.

Black girls and women are not part of the dominant sexual violence discourse. The bodies of black girls and women are often treated as invisible or disposable in this society. Rarely are we viewed as victims of violence or as agents of resistance. Male violence against black girls and women infrequently appears in the media and it is hardly addressed in ‘mainstream’ feminism. The silence surrounding the victimisation and survival of black girls and women is also often obscured within our own communities.

Black Girls’ and Women’s Sexual Coercion in Context

To understand sexual victimization against black girls and women, it is necessary to place the experiences of black women in a sociohistorical framework. Statuses of “black” and “woman” are both historically oppressed identities in the United States. Thus, black women are seen, treated, and often inter- nalized as having “double-minority” status, experiencing both gender and racial oppression (and their intersection). The controlling image of black girls and women as sexually loose and lascivious (e.g., Jezebel, video vixen, “ho”) represents this intersection and has historically played a role in their sexual victimization (Collins 2000; Getman 1984; Wyatt 1992). During slavery, the reproduction of Africans was essential to the economy; slave owners sought increased amounts of “labor” to either sell or use for their own service and agricultural production. Because black women were considered property, white men, both during slavery and after emancipation, often took sexual conquest of black women. Black women who were raped under these circumstances had no protection from their rapists (West 2006). The image of the Jezebel (and its contemporary expressions through images such as the video vixen) has historically been used and continues to be used as a means to justify the rape and sexual victimization black women; underlying these practices is the belief that because black girls and women are sexually promiscuous, they are always desirous of sex and thus cannot be raped or are not injured by sexual victimization. This controlling image has profound implications for the perception and treatment of black sexual violence victims/survivors. For example, research indicates that black sexual violence victims are perceived as suffering less harm than their white coun- terparts (Foley et al. 1995) and that they were more likely to be blamed for their sexual assault (Donovan 2007; George and Martinez 2002). The Jezebel image also influences black sexual violence survivors’ recovery process in a number of ways. Wyatt (1992) found that black women were significantly less likely to report incidents of sexual assault to the police, partly because of common perceptions that black women are not credible rape victims. The degree to which African American sexual assault victims internalize the Jezebel image can also influence ways in which they understand why they were assaulted and can shape psychosocial responses in dealing with sexual assault (Neville et al. 2004).

Psychosocial Influence of Sexual Coercion

Although race and gender have played critical roles in shaping the sexual violence of girls and women, sexually coercive encounters are stressful and can be traumatic for people irrespective of social location (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, class). Sexual violence in adolescence has been linked to psychological maladjustment, including depressive symptoms (e.g., Leitenberg and Saltzman 2000; Rhode et al. 2001), suicidal ideation (Buzi et al. 2003), disordered eating (Ackard and Neumark-Sztainer 2002), and low overall mental well-being (Howard and Wang 2004). Adolescents who experience sexual victimization are also at greater risk for health consequences related to sexually transmitted infections (see Beck-Sague and Solomon 1999 for a review), including potentially life-threatening infections such as human papillomavirus infection (Kahn et al. 2005; Stevens-Simon et al. 2000), squamous intraepithelial lesions (Kahn et al. 2005), and HIV (Lindegren et al. 1998).

Not surprisingly, the research in this area typically focuses on more vio- lent or aggressive forms of sexual coercion and, moreover, on predominant- ly white samples. Research on the outcomes of adolescent sexual coercion specifically, or nonphysical tactics of sexual victimization, is significantly less. Psychologists Cecil and Matson’s (2005) examination of psychosocial correlates of sexual violence among African American adolescent girls is a notable exception to this body of work. They found that girls who reported greater severity of sexual coercion (i.e., rape as opposed to sexual coercion) had lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of depression. Over the past decade or so, scholars have examined not only the link between sexual coercion and psychological outcomes but also the psychological factors that may help explain that linkage. This work is important because it acknowledges that victims are in fact survivors and that there are activities in which they engage to assist in their recovery process. Coping strategies have emerged in the psychological research as a consistent mediator between sexually coercive encounters and psychological outcomes. Findings suggest that among adult women sexual violence survivors, those who use more passive or avoidant coping strategies tend to have greater psychological distress (Boeschen et al. 2001; Frazier and Burnett 1994; Neville et al. 2004) and those with active coping strategies such as thinking positively and keeping busy show higher psychological well-being (Frazier and Burnett 1994). Various coping strategies have been found to mediate the association between negative social reactions and psychological symptoms (Ullman 1996), behavioral self-blame and distress (Frazier, Mortensen, and Steward 2005), control over recovery and distress (Frazier, Mortensen, and Steward 2005), and child sexual abuse and trauma symptoms (Arata 1999) among rape survivors. Women have also spoken about their recovery process and described coping mechanisms— such as seeking support, reframing the experience, and seeing themselves as survivors rather than victims—that help them cope with the trauma (Smith and Kelly 2001). At this point, we know very little about the potential role of coping in how adolescent girls deal with sexually coercive encounters.