Last month, when I was visting a friend, I apologized to our groups of friends for holding us up because I had to go to the bathroom. But before I left she stopped me and reminded me that I don’t have to apologize for my body. It was a small moment, but I’ve held on to it. It affirmed my body’s needs and my ownership of it so simply, yet powerfully, and I continue to check myself when I’m about to apologize for it.

And we do apologize for our bodies SO OFTEN. Recently the Rotund wrote: Fatties, I Challenge You; In Fact, I Dare You in which she challenged readers to cut it out:

You do not take up too much space. You are not an inconvenience. You are not a slacker. If it’s the first time you’ve ever done something, you do not have to apologize for not being perfect at it. If you have done something a hundred thousand million times, you still do not have to apologize for not being perfect at it.

Why do feel the need to apologize for our bodies’ needs and justify the choices we make about them? As I continue to incorporate body positivity into my life, I still find myself listing off what I ate all day to justify why I’m hungry now, or explaining, in detail, what made me so tired that  I need a nap. But these are choices I’m absolutely allowed to make on my own, without any justification to anyone else. I decide when I eat, sleep, move and how I maintain my own personal health and appearance. Apologizing for, or justifying these choices and needs to others is unnecessary.

This is also an area where we can be body positive allies to others. When we remind others that they don’t need to apologize for their bodies or justify our choices about them, we affirm there sovereignty over their bodies. To repeat a quote I’ve used before (by Hazel/Cedar Troost), when we advocate for body sovereignty,

we won’t have only the strength of feminists behind us in challenging rape culture, nor only the strength of sex-posotive, polyamorous, and BDSM communities in fighting sex phobia, nor only fat people in fighting medically mandated eating disorders-we’ll have the sum total of everyone who wants their body back. And that’s most of us.

So do you accept that challenge? Will you stop apologizing for your bodies and affirm others' rights to make choices about them? It starts with the simple acts of reminding each other that when we need to go to the bathroom we don’t have to apologize for holding others up, but it grows into a movement.

Originally posted on Happy Bodies

May was sexual violence prevention month at Carleton, with a lot of great events coordinated out of the GSC. The largest is the Speak Up, here’s a description from Paper and Clay:

The event involved students submitting written pieces about their experiences with sexual violence (with the option of submitting anonymously) and the pieces being read by students (some people read their own piece, some read anonymous submissions, some read submissions by students who didn’t feel comfortable reading their own piece).  It was extremely moving.  We had a much larger turn out this year than last, which really gives me hope about the number of Carleton students committed to ending sexual violence on our campus.

There was also an article about it in the Carletonian.

A group of my lovely, brave, inspirational friends also created a zine entitled “How we Survive”. Again, Paper and Clay’s description:

The zine we made to go along with the SpeakUp! is a book about the continuing process of survival at Carleton, made entirely by Carleton students/survivors.  We put a call out to all of our friends asking for tips about their process of survival, especially relating to being at Carleton.  The submissions we got back were really stellar and I think the finished product is really beautiful and powerful.

You can check it out in a number of ways:
The publications page,  How We Survive (Online Book),  How We Survive (PDF)

I hope you are as inspired as I am by the work of these students. The prevalence of sexual assault, rape apology, and victim blaming can really tear us down. But knowing that there are others out there, struggling, surviving, helps us come together to heal as a community.

Originally Posted here

(via): The Trans Murder Monitoring Project (TMM) has now launched its official website, Transrespect versus Transphobia Worldwide. In their March 17th press release, TMM reports tragic numbers in terms of transphobia and violence. There were 333 cases of reported murders of trans people in the last 2 years, and number of reports of murdered trans people is increasing. Here is a map of the data they found:

You’ll notice that all the areas in white have no data. And of course, the statistics suffer from underreporting of violence against trans people globally. But that’s why this project is so important; recognizing and understanding the breadth of violence against the trans community is vital to addressing the issue on a large scale. It’s also vital for those dedicated to sexual violence prevention to recognize how this same culture of violence, misogyny and devaluing of femininity contributes to violence against trans people. We need to step outside the male perpetrator/female victim trope to address the range of people affected by sexual violence and the different forms it takes.

Original here.

FUN FACT:
Microsoft Word will ask if you want to change the spelling of “womanism” to “womanish.”

This little correction is particularly ironic. Womanism, the ideology, and Africana Womanism, the scholarly field were created to focus on the “unique experiences, struggles, needs, and desires of Africana women.” (See Clenora Hudson-Weems) This assertion of black female identity is necessary because black women in the 1960s were in a “double bind”: neither the women’s movement nor the Black Freedom movement addressed their interlocking oppressions. (See Patricia Hill Collins) More simply put, black women have faced sexism in Black Freedom movements and racism in Feminist movements. They have been defined as black-ish, woman-ish. For those interested, this was the topic of my senior thesis: how black female activists in the 1960s navigated this double bind. I examined Elaine Brown in particular, the first female chairwoman of the Black Panther Party, and how she negotiated the gendered spaces of a party mired by sexism and violence against women. I could go into more detail, but my adviser is found of asking the question, SO WHAT?

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Living at a college is a unique environment which many experience and only for a brief portion of their lives. For me, its the first time that my “community” has been so clearly and deliberately defined. This manifests in many ways, but one in particular are college’s communal codes of conducts. One rarely considers the code of conduct before entering a college community, but its something that is defined for you and you must agree to when you enroll. These codes of conduct are often hard to change from the inside, as we have seen at Carleton with the long process of trying to alter the Sexual Misconduct policies. These codes of conduct do not always make a campus environment more safe, and often are less strict on violations of the law.

I’ve found that living in such a deliberate community often makes me feel more safe: I will leave my laptop for hours in the library, feel pretty comfortable walking around late at night, and generally feel like I can rely on fellow Carls more than the wider population. However, when this community is made to feel unsafe, the small size and level of control is even more imposing. Victims of crimes or harassment know that the perpetrator is walking around their small campus, even if they do not know who it was. On a campus, public spaces are also living spaces; there is rarely a place where one is perfectly alon e and in complete control of their environment. Further, small social environments can allow individual reputations to flourish. One’s perceived character is often taken into account just as much as one’s actions. I have seen this work negatively when a person with a good reputation is accused of violence, and the survivor was less likely to be believed.

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This year I was one of the advocacy directors for V-day at my college. There is a lot of excitement around the Vagina Monologues performance, but often energy lags after that point. Or rather, people have a lot of energy, but no outlets for it! So we designed this publication, to be handed out at the performance, of other projects done on campus that promote sexual violence prevention. Even if you are not from Carleton we hope you are inspired by these student’s efforts to promote body sovereignty in your own community.

We also had incredible student designed  cover art that will be turned into a community art project:

Check out the whole publication!

The other morning I walked into my introductory International Relations class to see two signs that read: <— Male People / Female People —>

I knew this couldn’t be good.

And yep it was Gender Day! The one day of the term where professors pay lip service to feminism and allow us to read female authors, and perhaps even women of color (if we’re lucky.) And while I never enjoy gender days, finding myself inevitably getting worked up about the sexist, homophobic, transphobic sentiments usually expressed only latently in classrooms, this day was particularly rough. First we were divided into “male people” and “female people” on different sides of the classroom (don’t ask me why he thought this terminology was best) and told our topic was “Does gender matter?” I know I’m preachy to the choir here, but seriously, the fact that we’re asked that question in the first place, and given the chance to say ‘no’ is indicative of the problem. J. Ann Tickner, a feminist we got to read today sums it up quite nicely:

It does indicate, how, all too often, claims of gender neutrality mask deeply embedded masculinist assumptions which can naturalize or hide gender differences and gender inequalities.

But we weren’t able to talk on this larger level. Instead we were stuck into a nature vs nurture conversation. The class came to some wimpy conclusion along the lines of ‘gender is a social construction, except when it’s biological, so it matters, maybe.’ It was a frustrating conversation, having that kind of schoolyard debate over whether girls or boys are better are sports, but now being applied toThe Lord of the Flies and all of global politics. But what infuriated me most, was when our professor ended the conversation with a statement that while gender might matter in discussions of human nature, should we even be talking about human nature in global politics rather than larger structures?

Here, for the first time all term, I piped up. I talked about structural inequalities, systemic sexual violence, gendered experiences of war. I’m not going to say I was eloquent, but I think I kept up with the prof, who structures the class as a series of individual debates with him. I felt like he listened, and maybe even agreed with me. I ended the class by writing a note on my homework assignment about how the male/female divide of the classroom left out all manners of people outside the gender binary and also would force certain groups to either “out” themselves or deny their identities. I felt less frustrated at the end of class. We’d even spoked a bit about classroom dynamics, and one male student acknowledged how men in political science classes tend to be more aggressive about speaking up than women.

But nothing has changed. The same (white) men feel the need to speak for a large majority of class time. The same men are repeatedly asked to share their opinions. I hear about one or two opinions from women every class period, and have not been asked to speak in class since. We’ve read no more female authors, and the notion of gender has not been considered again. To be honest, most days I sit in the back and imagine how satisfying it would be to flick my pen at the guy in the front row who feels sure that his opinion is valuable over all others in the class, every. single. day. It’s annoying, and it’s demoralizing. These classroom dynamics reinforces my feelings that International Relations is an old white man’s field. A field that might not have room for me. I do believe in my intelligence and ability to navigate this field and this classroom as a woman, but I’m not always sure I have the energy.

So my question to you, is how do you deal with gender relations in the classroom? How do you change a so masculine space from the perspective of a student, or even from the perspective of a teacher? It seems to me that having more women in International Relations, particularly women ready to consider gender would be a huge benefit to the field. But how to encourage women to take these classes? How to change the dynamics so that masculinity is not the only thing valued? I’d love to hear what you think.

Original here.

Every week our body positivity discussion groups gets together to plan our on-campus activism. We also advertise for our weekly discussion group by cutting out ads and commenting on them – it’s both cathartic and illuminating.

Although the discussion group is for everyon, we generally have significantly more women come. So we have been trying to make an effort to have ads targeting male bodies. Although it has required us to look through a Maxim and a lot of groaning about the depiction of women in it, we now have some ads to put up in men’s bathrooms and make sure that people know all bodies are welcome!

To see more, check out: C’mon get happy 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

 **Trigger Warning**

I also want to note that I do not want to exclude the fact that men are also victims of sexual assault and women are also perpetrators, and I don’t want to diminish the experiences of male survivors. However there is a significant tendency for cases to break down in this way, and that this was the situation that seemed to be addressed in the survey. There is also a huge gap left here in the gross amount of violence against trans people, which were not addressed in the survey and I’m not sure I have the resources to cover. I am speaking from my upbringing as a white, cisgender woman, and my perceptions about how other girls were raised to think about sexual violence. If anyone was raised with different experiences or perceptions, please share in the comments.

A new survey out of the UK reports that more than half of respondents believed that  victims were partly to blame for sexual assault. But the major story being reported is that women were less forgiving than men in terms of individual situations in which victims should take part of the blame. I find it kind of problematic that of all the nuances in the statistics, the majority of the media chose to report, first and foremost, these gender differences. For example, there was also the interesting finding that young people between 18 and 24 were especially likely to blame the victims, which I’d love to hear some ideas as to why this is the case.

You can find more here, but one of the statistics is particularly telling: Of the women who believe that victims are partly to blame, 71% said they were to blame if she got in to bed with her rapist, as opposed to 57% of men. But here is another finding:

Alarmingly, they also found that one in three men claimed they didn’t think it was rape if they made their partner have sex when they didn’t want to. Thirteen per cent of men admitted having sex with a partner who was too drunk to know what was happening.

Perhaps this complete lack of understanding of what can be defined as sexual violenceinfluenced how people chose to allocate the blame? Many survivors reacted specifically in the comments with experiences of assault from their husbands/boyfriends/friends and how long it took them to understand it was not their fault. One woman wrote, “It was only several years later that I accepted that I hadn’t deserved what had happened, that it wasn’t right, and that it was actually rape. What should I have done? Who should I have told?”

There is obviously a large disconnect in how sexual violence affects peoples lives and how the threat can become internalized. Cisgendered women are aware of the threat of sexual violence from the time they are very young, even if they have not personally experienced violence I’ve written before about getting to a point in my early teens when this concern became almost debilitating. I took many steps to avoid violence in my own life, and was aware of the perils of any given situation. Walking home from school: risky. Walking alone at night: highly risky. Being alone with an older man: out of the question. In Cara Kulwicki’s article for the Guardian she explains how our attachment to our own safety leads to a tendency to blame survivors. Women are incentivized to blame victims, because of the myth that if they “follow ‘the rules’ – don’t go out alone at night, don’t get too drunk, don’t wear anything too revealing, don’t flirt too much – they themselves are safe from becoming victims.” Women often hold fast to these way to prevent sexual assault in order to feel some agency over their own bodies and not view themselves as victims. The individual choices that women choose to make for their own safety, does not mean that others can or should make that choice. We’ve made that mistake before during a discussion group, which brittalinn powerfully responded to:

The brainstorming about how we can protect ourselves from sexual assault left me profoundly disturbed. The suggestion that rape is an inherent risk of certain behaviors is highly problematic. The idea that not going home with someone that I do not know or trust, or not getting too drunk, or not walking alone at night, or not wearing revealing clothing is an effective deterrent of sexual assault, is just totally false. Women can be raped in the safety of their own homes, by their own husbands. It happens all the time. The idea that there is something that I can and should be doing to prevent sexual assault is a form of victim blaming, and it was really disheartening to find this attitude within the body positivity group.

These “rules” that many women often commit themselves to adhering to are not solely personally generated. There are many, many examples of “ways to prevent sexual assault” guide produced by men, women, colleges, and police stations. Advice includes things like walking in well-lit areas, watching how much you drink, and carrying a gun. Some acknowledge that most sexual assaults come from people women know, others re-inforce the trope that rapists are sick individuals that jump out at you from the bushes. Often this trope allows men to reinscribe themselves as protectors of women. I’m not sure I can make the claim that men blame victims less because they feel the need to protect women, but I do think it is the nature of the patriarchy to feel that women’s bodies [Or any bodies that don't "fit" what it means to be a man] need to be regulated and controlled. Because women aren’t really allowed agencies over their bodies in the first place, how could they be blamed for violence?

Although I question some of the ways this survey has been reported, I’m glad this information about victim-blaming is getting out there in way that emphasizes how wrong it is. The article includes reactions from survivors about how they feel about the results of this survey. (Trigger warning here too) Some of their stories are pretty heartbreaking, but take it back to why it’s so important that we listen to survivors and emphasize that it’s not their fault. We should take away from this study, not that there may be some different reactions based on gender, but further questions about how we, as a culture, can support survivors.

Original here

As I’ve mentioned before, this year’s V-day Campaign is centered around sexual violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 10% of the profits of ANY Vagina Monologues performance you go to worldwide will be donated to the City of Joy, a facility for the survivors of sexual violence in Bukavu which will support women’s to healing process and provide them with opportunities to develop their leadership. (The other 90% goes to a local women’s shelter)

I think it’s important to know the background to the crisis in the DRC. It’s also important to know some sense of the scope. That the war, involving 8 countries, 20+ armed groups, and 210 languages has claimed some 5.4 million lives and displaced over 2.8 million. On top of this incredible tragedy is the prevalence of sexual violence against women. I have not found any firm statistics of the number of women affected by sexual violence (it’s a cirme that goes frequently unreported globally) but in the province of South Kivu alone, local health centers report that an average of 40 women are raped daily.

Sexual violence is not an inevitable feature of war. Treating it as such only encourages impunity for perpetrators and often silences survivors. UNAction Against Sexual Violence in Conflict is a great resource and movement for understanding sexual violence as a tactic of war:

Sexual violence has been dismissed as random acts of individual soldiers. But in armed conflict, rape is also often a military tactic, serving as a combat tool to humiliate and demoralize individuals, to tear apart families, and to devastate communities. Armed forces use sexual violence as the spoils of war for soldiers who see the rape of women as their entitlement. Lawlessness allows perpetrators to act with impunity and leaves survivors with little to no recourse.

The extreme violence that women suffer during conflict foes not arise solely out of the conditions of war; it is directly related to the violence that exists in women’s lives during peacetime.

What should be emphasized most, however, in hearing that statistics that shock and scare, and seeking to understand the structural nature of this violence, is the incredible strength and resilience of the women in the Congo. What Nicholas Kristof gets wrong, in columns like “Orphaned, Raped, and Ignored” is that he presents these women as victims, rather than survivors. He explains his reasons for doing this, that inevitably the American public will only respond to stories of extreme tragedy. The story of incredibly powerful women surviving through oppression is less sexy, maybe, but it’s the truth.

The documentary The Greatest Silence highlights some of the women that are turning pain into power and reclaiming their communities. Like Major Munyole, of the National Police. Munyole, who works out of a wooden shack, is a one-woman special victims unit in charge of investigating sex crimes in the eastern DRC.

And so, what is a woman? The woman is the mother of a nation. He who rapes a woman, rapes an entire nation. When a woman is exposed to that kind of violence, it’s the entire country that is affected by it. – Major Munyole

A group of women show this same amount of strength is the Congolese Women’s Campaign Against Sexual Violence in the DRC , an initiative launched by women’s associations in Eastern DRC to bolster the fight against sexual violence.

Without your support, our action will lose momentum. Without our partnership, your action will have little impact. Help us change the direction of the fight against sexual violence in the DRC.
Click here to sign the petition.

I am in serious awe of the women in the DRC. To be faced with such violence and to continue to live, to support, to speak up, shows such incredible power and strength that I can only aspire to.

Original here