Rihanna Is Erased By Do Something.ORG When They Confront Domestic Violence
Earlier this morning I was sent a link about a campaign run by DoSomething.org. In an effort to raise awareness about violence against women they have created a re-enactment of the beating that Rihanna allegedly received from Chris Brown.
Extreme Trigger Warning on the video.
At the end we are told that 1 in 3 teens are abused in a relationship and viewers are encouraged to go to DoSomething.org/Abuse to get three free bracelets, one blue and two black to raise awareness. Violence against women is just the latest cause to get the “Bono of activist treatment” (read: the bracelet, or the ribbon certification).
These bracelets have become the symbol of our so-called concern for diversity and tolerance, and yet they function just like any other fashion appendage. Does anyone really know what each one of the multi colour bracelets and ribbons even means anymore? We have this social idea that putting on a symbol of an issue somehow means we have performed some sort of activism. The bracelet, or ribbon allows us to profess a stated belief without making any concrete efforts for change. It functions more as a badge of inertia than anything else.
I fail to see how we can possibly praise this video as womanists/feminists and yet Courtney of Feministing has completely endorsed this video.
While I could understand why some people would be outraged by this bold PSA tactic, I’m completely in support of what Do Something is doing. They’re making the incident–which has been so obscured by the media hype, ignorant commentary from pundits and the public alike, and so much disrespect–real again. A woman, a man, out of control emotions, and inexcusable violence. If Rhianna weren’t already horribly outed by this whole incident, I might feel like it were an invasion of her privacy, but at this point, it’s just so public. It seems like the most respectful thing we can do for Rhianna is make sure that this whole thing inspires young people to get educated about relationship violence–as the ad does.
So, because she has already been violated once, what’s one more time? We can comfort ourselves with the belief that no matter how triggering it may be for her to be held up as the “role model” for battered women, it’s for a good cause. Let’s remove the last bit of agency and self respect that she has by co-opting her experience without permission because ultimately we secretly identify with her abuser anyway; how else could we justify displaying a total lack of solidarity with the victim ?
This is about realism right; so showing simulated violence which in no way reflects the real terror she must have felt as Brown spilled her blood all over his car is showing the horrors of domestic violence? Hearing the monotone drone of the narrator as he describes what have must have been the most terrifying moments in her life, instead of her screams of pain and fear is meant to place her in the center of this incident?
In the final act of co-option the woman chosen to play her isn’t even black. So in a bid once again for realism, it is somehow appropriate to replace a black woman with a white woman? What does this tell us about which bodies are valued in this society? Are we to feel more sympathetic to this pseudo-victim because she is white? Are we meant to have an easier time identifying with her because of whiteness? In a world in which the black woman is daily devalued, replacing her physical body without commentary and assuming that whiteness can represent her is truly a racist act. Just as in Richard Wrights, The Outsider, though both white women and black women are victims of violence, it is the harm done to the white female victim that is understood as the truly criminal act. This is not because we value white women universally, but because we over value whiteness to the extent that any crime committed against it is considered a true social violation.
This video is not the least bit groundbreaking and in fact plays on racism and false images of violence to promote hipster activism. We live in a society that believes that problems can be solved through capitol rather than engagement. We wear our so-called causes around like latest fashion accessory happily moving from issue to issue, as each social problem comes in and out of vogue. Though this model has failed to produce any tangible results, we continue to embrace it because we like our activism like McDonalds; fast, cheap and full of unidentifiable ingredients.
Cross Posted from Womanist Musings
Only In A Woman’s World: Frito Lay Goes Girly
There I was happily watching CNN this morning when they reported that women are now no longer seen as a niche market. It seems that the recession depression has largely effected men and companies are now realizing that it is women that have the disposable income and the discretionary power to spend.
Rather than using this as an opportunity to validate women, companies have resorted to ridiculous essentialist pitches to garner our attention. If you identify as female you must love the colour pink, fluffy clouds, and rainbows. The utility of the object in question is irrelevant as long as it is pretty, cause you know how all of us wimminez just need everything to be pastel and cutesy.
While it is necessary to some degree to draw on large generalizations to effectively market, creating a single monolithic representation of what constitutes woman is extremely problematic. The images that we see end up not being about our struggles or our triumphs but womanhood as it is understood through the patriarchal lens. Advertising in this way quickly becomes yet another tool that is marshalled by patriarchy to discipline women into perform a gender essentialist, submissive femininity.
Each year more women seek post secondary and graduate education. We are entering fields that were once male dominated, crashing through glass ceilings at every turn and yet Frito Lay has decided that the best possible way to appeal to us, is to pander to our so called obsessive need to count every calorie because of a fixation on our bodies. These generalizations are not only essentialist, they are highly demeaning.
Frito Lay has even gone on to make webisodes in which these shallow women are featured.
Notice how every single item is either low calorie or low in fat. Women of course never just pig out cause hey we all need a good junk food and pyjama day from time to time. Apparently we are racked endlessly with guilt every time we decide to eat.
Women are so much more than what the advertising industry has constructed us to be. These images are not innocuous, rather they set up damaging ideas that translate into the devaluation of women. In a world in which not conforming to ideal body standards often translates into shaming, and less employment opportunities (read: feminization of poverty) such mode of advertising must be challenged. Commercials like this are made to benefit patriarchy and we internalize these images without thought or resistance we are assuming this unbalanced definition of womanhood.
Just like every other social organization patriarchy is highly dependent on the labour, finances and support of women We collude daily in small ways in our own oppression often without being cognizant that we are contributing to our own second class status. While we certainly do not control the media we do have the power to eliminate or reduce the purchasing of items that serve to create woman as the eternal ‘other’; we not only owe this to ourselves but to our daughters.
We cannot be post feminist until we move away from the idea that we do not deserve to be treated seriously. Since the advertising agency has found a new belief in our purchasing power, it is essential that we leverage this to ensure that the degree to which we are constructed as flighty, brainless, narcissistic beings is reduced. A world in which the full depth of womanhood is equally represented would lend itself to greater opportunities, and a reduction in the degree to which patriarchy manages to maintain its control. Woman is a complex identity and can never be fully appreciated as long as it is continually equated with flower, pastels and diet materials.
Cross posted from Womanist Musings
Trans Hate Continues To Lead To Violence
When I first started to educate myself about the transgender community, I was shocked to learn the degree of violence that they face. I continue to fail to see how someone living their life makes another so uncomfortable that feel that it is necessary to express hatred towards another human being. In many cases this hatred impacts employment, housing, medical care, and can lead to violence.
Two trans men were recently verbally and physically assaulted at the Dupont Circle gay bar Fab Lounge.
According to the Washington Blade:
Mitch Graffeo, 40, of Alexandria, Va., said the incident began when he and a friend were getting ready to leave Fab Lounge shortly before 3 a.m. on Feb. 28 at the conclusion of the club’s weekly lesbian night. As his friend walked over to a sofa to retrieve his coat, a female customer began “groping” his friend, Graffeo said.
The 29-year-old friend, also from Alexandria, spoke to the Blade on the condition that he was identified only by his first name, Jaime.
Graffeo said Jaime, who is about 5 feet 4 inches tall and has a slender build, recently began a female-to-male gender transition process and has a youthful, boyish appearance. Graffeo noted he transitioned more than 10 years ago and his gender is readily recognized as that of a male.
“They said, ‘What the fuck are you? Are you a girl or a boy?’(emphasis mine)” Graffeo recalled one of the women saying to Jaime inside the club.
Graffeo said another woman, along with a man who was with them, joined the first woman in shouting insults aimed at Jaime’s appearance after Jaime asked the first woman to leave him alone.
Jaime told the Blade as many as three women in the bar ran their hands over his chest as they taunted him over his appearance, saying they wanted to find out if he was male or female.
He and Graffeo then left the Fab Lounge, which is located in a second-floor space at 1805 Connecticut Ave., N.W., in an effort to avoid a confrontation with the women, the two men said.
“When we were about 20 feet from the club’s entrance, one of the lesbians came up from behind and put [Jaime] in a headlock and again began to question his gender,” Graffeo said.
Jaime said that as the woman released him from her grip, another woman punched him repeatedly in the head and body, inflicting injuries that included a concussion, doctors told him later.
As the alleged assault unfolded on the sidewalk near the corner of Connecticut and Florida avenues, Graffeo said he asked the women to leave Jaime alone and announced he was calling the police on his cell phone. At that time, the woman who had held Jaime in a headlock “grabbed my phone out of my hands and hit me in the neck and head a few times,” Graffeo said.
Minutes later, Graffeo said, the male friend who had accompanied the women inside the club arrived in a car, which he stopped on Connecticut Avenue in front of the Royal Palace nightclub, which operates below Fab Lounge. He said the two women entered the car, which turned onto Florida Avenue and drove eastbound, Graffeo said.
The two assailants have been arrested but have yet to be charged with a hate crime. I find the delay in declaring this a hate crime reprehensible. Clearly the purpose of this confrontation was to demean and assault two human beings based on a trans gender identity. They asked if the victims were boys or girls and further touched them to ascertain how their bodies were configured. When incidents like this happen a strong message needs to be sent regarding the unacceptability of such behaviour. Fortunately these two men escaped with their lives but many have not been so lucky after confrontations with people that are determined to hate based in cisgender privilege.
When I read about this story at the bilerico, the focus seemed to be that we should not assume that the assailants are lesbian simply because they were in a lesbian bar. Though I agree with this statement, I find it completely irrelevant. The GLB community has been known for its virulent trans hatred but it is not uniquely transphobic. Transphobia happens across the sexual/gender spectrum. Our concern should be that these violent incidents keep reoccurring and that people are losing their lives.
When the media reports on violence aimed at trans people they often use the wrong pronoun, blame the victim, or somehow reduce the issue as unimportant. Trans people are thriving members of our community and they are being unfairly targeted. We justify the violence against them in a desire to preserve our undeserved cisgender privilege.
I have read the commentary from otherwise intelligent women using the most ridiculous justifications for their hatred like “trans women can’t give birth, or they don’t have periods and that is why they are not women”. Obviously there are cisgender women to whom those same conditions apply and yet we would never dream of declaring them unwomen. Essentially this is about the ability to express power over another and not because the gender identity of another individual is threatening in some way.
When we think of power, we always conceive of it as coercive and this ultimately creates an expression that reifies many of the binaries and social constructions that are damaging to our society. When we use the wrong pronoun what we are essentially doing is denying someone’s existence by declaring that we have the right to determine what is understood as male or female, furthermore disciplining a failure to conform is yet another way in which cisgender privilege is maintained. We have so over valued hierarchy that we have allowed it to control what bodies truly matter in this society and this is why the trans panic defense is routinely employed to legitimate violence that we would find otherwise intolerable.
What happened to those two men is atrocious and that it occurred because of someone’s desire to maintain our artificial divisions. It further speaks to how far removed we are from the fair and equal society that we claim to live in. Someone who is trans gender has not made a lifestyle choice; they are living their lives and therefore they deserve to exist without violence, or threat of it. Acknowledging the humanity of a fellow human being will not devalue you in any way; in fact it is the first step to assuring that we all exist with the rights and freedoms that we give lip service to.
Cross Posted From Womanist Musings
Slut Shaming From Sextexting Leads To Suicide
Her name was Jesse Logan and she is dead. This young woman hanged herself after repeated verbal abuse from her classmates regarding nude photos of herself that she sent to a former boyfriend.
Walking down the hallways she reported being called a slut, whore and having things thrown at her. Imagine having to face that kind of treatment everyday just to get an education.
Before she committed suicide she had an interview with the media where she detailed the horrible treatment that she was receiving. Just two weeks after taking her story public she was dead.
Much of the reports on her death have focused on the issue of sextexting i.e sending sexually explicit images over the internet. Law makers are concerned that this is a form of child pornography. The real issue should be what happens to these images once they are released and how they are interpreted by society.
If Jesse had been male, would these kids have thought to use the taunt of slut and whore? These words are specifically targeted at women to make them feel shame for daring to be sexual. We live in a society where female bodies are often sexualized for the benefit of the male gaze and yet if a woman chooses to be an active body and reveal her body for her own gratification she is shamed publicly. Sex is something that we are told that we may only submit to unwillingly.
Even when we apply the words slut to men we routinely ad the word male in front of it to denote a change in referring gender i.e. male slut, male whore. Instead of dealing with this as an issue of restricting pornography, we should be concerning ourselves with the warped message that the young are receiving as it relates to gender and sexuality.
We are sexual creatures and the fact that we deny this essential part of our nature is ridiculous. The same behaviour that we promote and encourage in males, we stigmatize and discipline women for. A man that has various sexual partner is a stud, a hero of sorts and yet a young woman engaging in the same behaviour is slut shamed. We claim that we have reached a post feminist time and yet we regularly punish women and attempt to control their behaviour.
The demands of purity are very much a part of how we raise our daughters. Each day they are inundated with sexualized images of women and are then taught not to engage in sex unless it occurs within the context of a patriarchal marriage. We teach them to leverage their bodies for the brass ring as though marriage will somehow guarantee them a form of security. For women in particular, gender becomes a performance with few rewards. The basis of female life is submission to male desires, needs, and wants, and it is this point that needs to be understood by all. Yes there is a need for feminism. Young girls need a haven that they can turn to which will teach a positive affirmation of their bodies and their lives.
Sending a nude picture of yourself should not lead to this kind of treatment and schools need to take the issue of harassment seriously. It is not a simple matter of hurt feelings; for some it is a life and death issue. Any action that diminishes another should not be allowed on any school property. They are responsible for creating a hostile free learning environment and by not taking corrective measures all they did was teach Jesse’s assailants that they were right to taunt her in the manner that they did.
When incidents like this happen we need to pay close attention to how they are spoken about. This is not about sextexting, this is about gender based harassment and slut shaming. No young woman should be made to feel desperate enough to kill herself because we refuse to believe that women should have the right to display their bodies or be sexual outside of male control.
Cross Posted from Womanist Musings
The Porn Industry Is Ready To Exploit Nadya Suleman
Nadya Suleman is easily the most vilified mother in recent history. She became famous for giving birth to eight children using invitro fertilization in January. The media have stopped at nothing to portray her as an irresponsible nitwit too crazy to know what is in her own best interests.
It would be far too much to look at the cultural treatment of motherhood or the fact that we have long since socially abdicated responsibility for our children. We are for more focused on forcing women to give birth to children that they do not want, than caring for the current children in existence. Oh dear, someone might have to donate some of their tax dollars to helping a child when they would be so much better spent on fat pensions for bureaucrats who don’t serve the public need, foreign wars of aggression that have left untold numbers dead and damaged, and bailing out companies like AIG who are once again begging for a new handout (private jet anyone?). Let’s not talk about our social responsibilities, or our skewed sense of values, oh no lets persecute a poor woman for choosing to exercise her biological imperatives.
Finally when I thought I could not get anymore disgusted with the news stories surrounding this poor woman, the porn industry has reared its ugly exploitative head. Vivid Entertainment has offered her one million dollars to star in a porn movie. Nadya is in deep financial trouble, the home that she lives in is about to be foreclosed on and the hospital has threatened to refuse to release her children to her. The website that she created to give people the opportunity to help her struggling family has been ridiculed and all avenues of support have been radically slammed in her face.
Well, clearly this woman is in need of some serious need, and the porn industry just loves a vulnerable woman. They have always been there to “extend aid” as long as a woman is willing to take off her clothes and become nothing more than a glory hole for men to fuck with wild abandon. While I agree that some women actively choose this, when there is an issue of clear exploitation, porn and I clearly part ways. How much is this media company going to make on this movie? Already the media is playing with potential titles for a movie that she has not even agreed to star in.
Suleman has never stared in any porn movie and obviously with the pressing state of financial concerns and public rejection, she may have to take this offer to stave off financial ruin for her large family. Should this woman who has been repeatedly judged decide that this is what she needs to do to support her family, one can certainly rest assured that this will be yet another opportunity for society to rip her shreds and shame her for not being the “perfect mommy”. No one wants to help her but if she takes the only avenue available to her, she will be by default a terrible person.
This issue is so much larger than Nadya and her 14 children. This is about the right of women to have autonomy over their bodies and our social obligation to care for all children. This is about women not being forced to make “choices” that are harmful to them to ensure the subsistence of their families. Suleman is a vulnerable woman and if we look closely we can all see a little bit of ourselves reflected in her.
Cross posted at Womanist Musings
Sex-Positivity
I'm passionate about sex-positivity and believe every sexual being should have the freedom to explore their sexuality safely and without condemnation. I even lost my ad network after my refusal to censor myself after reviewing feminist porn.So if you're in the market for sex toys, porn, books, etc. take a look at the retailers below, all of which are feminist-friendly.
Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
