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.

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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.

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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.

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I think we often focus on the things media does wrong, but sometimes it's good to highlight when it's “getting it right”, so I though I would pass along this link from Gender Across Borders: Getting it Right when it Comes to Anti-Rape Campaigns. This is important, because there are a lot of ways that sexual violence prevention, particularly in mass campaigns has been done wrong:

1. Blaming the victim: I’ve presented Norwegian media’s efforts to “warn women” about sexual violence rather than discuss systematic problems and rape culture. GAB’s post references theS*M*A*R*T campaign, which similarly blames victims for sexual violence by giving women steps to avoid being sexually assaulted, because “rape happens”.

2. Triggering: Both of these ads could be triggering for some survivors, but the efforts of Cabwise in London (shown to me by a friend) are unquestionably triggering and creating of an unsafe environment for survivors. *warning, as I said, this ad is very triggering.*

3. Glamorizing sexual violence: Joelynn recently wrote about how sensationalism makes her feel unsafe to tell her story as a survivor, and I think it’s a really important consideration in mass campaigns. There have been mixed opinions on the “This is not an invitation to rape me” campaign, also out of the UK, but I think there is definitely some problems with sensationalism.

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Part of V-day is preventing sexual violence in our own communities. One of the issues on my campus is communication and consent, So my incredible roommate, of show me your wits fame, came up with the idea to collect sexy ways to ask for consent from students, and then give them the V-day stamp of approval. These are up all over campus; here are our favorites:

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The Vagina Monologues is a showcase of a few individual women’s stories about their bodies, as compiled by Eve Ensler. But V-day is about women. It’s about anyone who identifies as a woman. V-day is about the women on this campus who are brave enough to stand up in the middle of the chapel and say “vagina”. It’s about supporting the women in our local communities who endure domestic and sexual violence. It’s about the 1 in 3 women globally who survive violence. And this year, it’s about women in the Congo.

The Spotlight Campaign this year is again on women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Although the war in the DRC is formally over, women are still under the constant threat of violence. The violence is coming from multiple sources; all armed groups in the conflict have committed acts of sexual violence and even UN personnel have been implicated in perpetuating the violence. The extent of this violence is hard to estimate, but in one province alone, local health centers report that an average of 40 women are raped every day.

Gender-based violence is being used as a tactic of war and women are suffering from sexual slavery, forced prostitution, kidnapping and rape. Even when the war is over, women must endure this violence long-term. Survivors of sexual violence suffer severe psychological and physical health consequences, but they face barriers for justice in stigmatizing and under-capacitated court systems, and STIs and HIV remain untreated with the absence of a solid health infrastructure in the DRC.

But women are still supporting each other. Part of the profits from every Vagina Monologues performance this year will go to the City of Joy. This facility located in Bukavu, will support and train women to be community activists. Just down the road from the Panzi hospital, City of Joy will be a place of community healing though group therapy, storytelling, dance, theater, sex education and economic empowerment. Women can turn their pain into power and reclaim their communities.

V-day’s mission is to prevent sexual violence against women, and we can all reclaim our bodies as sites of empowerment. All V-day events are about coming together as a community to really interrogate how we can prevent sexual violence and empower all bodies. It’s about the women in the Congo, it’s about our whole community. It’s about you.

On the 37th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade NARAL asked bloggers to blog for choice, as usual, I'm running a little late.

On my campus it’s pretty hard to get people to talk about choice. A friend of mine, who runs our Pro-Choice organization can hardly get a couple of people out of a campus full of largely progressive women to come to the meeting. I think for a lot of women, like me, who are white, cisgender, and come from upper-middle class families, the question can become a little moot. Right now, I basically have the choice:  if I need an abortion, I can afford one. It’s not often when my choice gets truly challenged in the debate about abortion.

Instead, measures against abortion continually restrict access to low-income communities. When Bush expanded the “conscience clause” late in his administration, to allow health-care workers to refuse to provide services based on moral objections, it was a horrible restriction on many women’s access to abortion, depending on where they live. The Hyde amendment, (and expansions like Stupak-which-was-the-Pitts) that bars the use of federal funds to pay for abortions, severely limits the access of low-income women whose health care comes from Medicaid. Other nongovernmental efforts like “Crisis Pregnancy Centers”, which do not provide abortions, and often mislead, bully, and straight out lie to women about their rights and the facts of abortion, end up targeting women who are uneducated about sex and reproduction, and don’t have other options.

In the regulation of women’s bodies by the government, it’s my privilege that keeps me afloat. For those of us who the privilege to choose where we live, have private insurance, and have a thorough and honest education about sex and reproduction, these limits on abortion often don’t apply. So isn’t it time that, especially when the face of the pro-choice movement is white upper-class women, that we stop talking about choice, and start talking about rights? All of these limitations on abortion, do not take away a generic women’s “choice”, but instead specific women’s rights.

In Beggars and Choosers, Rickie Solinger outlines the problem with “choice”:

In theory, choice refers to individual preference and wants to protect all women from reproductive coercion. In practice, though, choice has two faces. The contemporary language of choice promises dignity and reproductive autonomy to women with resources. For women without, the language of choice is a taunt and a threat. When the language of choice is applied to the question of poor women and motherhood, it begins to sound a lot like the language of eugenics: women who cannot afford to make choices are not fit to be mothers. The mutable quality of choice reminds us that sex and reproduction- motherhood- provide a rich site for controlling women, based on their race and class “value”.

Solinger uses the language of choice to unpack the inequalities in reproduction in America, but usually this language serves to hide these structures. When we assess reproductive rights in terms of our choices, it presents all women on an even playing field and allows us to misconstrue equal opportunity with equality. NARAL asks that we post this image, in promotion of blog for choice. Lets take it to mean trust all women with the choice of motherhood. Let’s fight for access in every community in America, so that all women really can truly exercise their reproductive rights.

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I wrote earlier this week about a body positivity group I run on campus, and people said they were interested in hearing more, so here's what we're up to!

Every week the happy bodies team 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. Here are some of our favorite ads from this week:

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Last spring, I helped found a group on my campus to promote body positivity and size acceptance. It was inspired by this article from Kate Harding to Oprah which said something pretty basic, but it clicked with me:

Oprah, we’ve been over this. Grown women are allowed to eat whatever we want. More to the point, we are allowed to want, period.

We decided that we needed to talk about bodies on campus, and we were not sure where exactly it would take us. At our first meeting we decided to create, what we then called, a Wo(man)ifesto about how our bodies should be treated. We tried to get the women who attennded to help us create it, but people were too busy talking about bodies to come to a full list. We decided the conversation was more important, and dropped it. Instead, we started weekly discussion groups, held banquets, and launched a blog, to continue the conversation beyond campus.

Now, 9 months later, a few of us original HB-ers got together to write the Manifesto for the Carletonian, our paper, in order to publicize Happy Bodies, and body positivity in general. We had a lot of ideas, and I think we came up with a pretty good start. But what I noticed most, was how far we have come.Facilitating the discussion group and writing for Happy Bodies has swept me into a whole new consciousness about bodies. I’ve become wrapped up in the feminist blogosphere, and the particular subsect that is the fatosphere. I know the html codes, the terminology, and the best sites to link to to get the most traffic. But most importantly, I have become pretty solidified on my views of body sovereignty. When a woman at discussion group made the point of “But isn’t fat unhealthy?” I almost recoiled. Fat acceptance, health at every size, and the uselessness of dieting, have all become pretty ingrained in me. I kind of forget now that I wasn’t always like this. That when faced with that question nine months ago I probably wouldn’t have launched into a rant about BMI, fat-shaming and “health”.

It’s pretty exciting to think about how much I’ve grown. And I have my fellow bloggers, the discussion group, and other blogs like Amplify to thank for that. But I need to continue to remind myself that body positivity still is pretty radical. That after being showered with images of photoshopped women and clothes you’ll never fit into it’s really hard to walk out the door feeling beautiful. And with every other article on health in America ranting about the obesity crisis, and the insistent connection in magazines between weight loss and will power, it can be hard not to connect fat with shame. With women you respect like Oprah, Ricki Lake, your mother, your aunt, your friends, all endlessly fighting to lose weight, it’s hard not to think you should do the same. So when I still sometimes need makeup to feel pretty on a night out or I begin engage in the fantasy of being thin, I try not to feel guilt, but remind myself that maybe I don’t have to be a radical actor for body sovereignty today, that it’s a process to come to truly love my body.

And when someone asks me a question that I now refer to as “101″ I need to remember that we’re still working on a radical cause, this fight to accept all bodies, and most of the discourses on health in the mass media are not with us. I have to remember that body sovereignty is a cause worth fighting for, but loving your body is a radical step that can be hard to take.

So with that I give you our manifesto, which is going to be a work in progress, as we continue along the process of being truly body positive.

Body Positivity is for everyone.
So is Body Sovereignty.
I am the owner of my body. I decide what is done to it and how it is treated.
I have a right to modify or decline to modify my body in order to best express myself.
My moral value is independent of my weight or appearance.
My body is an instrument, not an ornament.
I will eat what I want.
I will not allow anyone to shame my body or my self, or the body and selves of others.
My body deserves pleasure.
I have the right to know and define my body.
I will recognize that the bodies I’m attracted to aren’t the only attractive bodies.
Every body has a claim to beauty.
I will affirm and support the personhood of others.
I will never apologize for my weight or how my body looks.
I will recognize the privileges my body has.
I will celebrate the abilities of my body, even if they are different from others.
My body is a part of my self and my being. I will treat it and nurture it as such.

Feel free to add!

Sociological Images has a great post about Pepsi’s new “Pepsi Max,” a diet soda branded for men. The campaign is based on the inherent joke that real men don’t diet, that these pressures and concerns are only for women.

In searching around the links from this post, I found this video:

Now I have already commented on this campaign in some capacity here, but this video just makes me really angry. The ideas that fat=unhappy (but only for women), that the only thing worse for a woman to be fat is to be fat AND flat chested (the horror!) and that changes in your body will affect men’s pleasure, and that it ok are all pernicious. But what makes me angriest, is that women are supposed to strongly identify with this woman – to laugh along with being unhappy with our weight and worried that our bodies can’t please a man. These type of ads are trying to define what it means to be a woman.

My feminism is based on the idea of a community of women, one that is formed from common experiences and entails some sort of mutual responsibility and respect. What makes me so angry is when the “women’s experience” is defined for me rather than by me. That all these magazines, ads, and products tell us that dieting, feeling insecure, and trying to please men are a universal experience that we all relate to. I hate how the easiest way to strike up an amiable conversation with another woman is to talk about how you shouldn’t eat that cookie, count calories, or exchange body gripes. In many senses, a woman’s experiences is defined by the oppression we face, the many ways patriarchal society restrains us: physically, socially, politically. But I will not let self-inflicted body consciousness define what it means for me to be a women, define the common women’s experiences.

I’d really like it to be defined by our perseverance, strength, and beauty, rather than some community of people who hate our bodies.

Original here

After seeing this picture on Jezebel, I was fascinated and wanted to learn more about Femen – a women’s rights organization, who protested on Independence square in Kiev yesterday as part of their “Ukraine is not a brothel” campaign, seeking to stop sex tourism to the country. Sex tourism is a huge source of oppression, violence, and denigration of women in Ukraine, take this statistic as just a small example of how women are viewed in the country: Femen polled 1,200 female students in Kyiv. Their findings suggest that nearly 70 percent of those polled were proposed sex for money. Femen is clearly still somewhat of a fledgling movement, the only website I have found for them is here, and a fairly active livejournal in Ukrainian. But I am really impressed with the values they are presenting, their goals, and some of the actions they have already taken, including this protest.

From their statement “We are the Women’s Movement”:

We unite young women basing on the principles of social awareness and activism, intellectual and cultural development.
We recognise the European values of freedom, equality and comprehensive development of a person irrespective of the gender.
We set up brand new standards of the civil movement in Ukraine.
We have worked out our own unique form of a civil self-expression based on courage, creativity, efficiency and shock.
We plan to become the biggest and the most influential feminist movement in Europe.

HELL YES. I love these women’s unconventional approach to activism, valuation of building leadership in young women, and lofty goals. However, I was really disappointed both by the lack of coverage of their protest (not unexpected), but also the patronizing lens from which they are described.

For example from the Kyiv Post:

Armed with high heels and wit, these rebels are quintessential Ukrainian women. Their crusade is not as weighty as the Orange political revolt, but their aims are lofty all the same.

The women’s organization Femen – a derivative of feminine – wants to knock prostitution and sex tourism off their legs in Ukraine with the help of unconventional street shows.

In front of the Turkish embassy on Sept. 21, a dozen Femen members were dressed as sexy nurses. Their smudged makeup, high pink heels and infectious giggles washed away the blues of another rainy weekend in Kyiv.

(emphasis mine)

No, Yuliya Popova, these are not just “quintessential women”, they are not a simple source for you to make puns, and their protest is not for your entertainment. And where the hell do you get off saying their crusade is not weighty? How is the exploitation of the country’s women by 23 million tourists a year not a weighty issue? What is it about the fact that women in this country are treated like sexual objects that makes this seem unimportant? How is the systematic abuse of the female body not a problem for you?

This sort of flippant attitude towards women’s rights activism is not unique. Female activists, particularly for women’s rights often get too labels: “femenazis” (offensive in so many ways) or “cute”. I’ve gotten my fair share of the “cute” label, a sort of “Good for you! Look at what you can do! I’m glad you and your little friends have found something to get excited about!” NO. I am not excited about my need to do activism. I AM PISSED. I, and other female activists do what I do because I have to. I cannot take any longer the oppression of female bodies and the only thing I can think to do besides just yell and yell and yell is to try to be productive. And IT’S HARD. It’s hard to be productive and create positive movements when all you can think about is how mad you are and how you shouldn’t even have to be doing this. I shouldn’t have to plan discussions about sexual violence prevention, because there should not be systematic violence against the female body in our society. I shouldn’t have to be called an “ally” to the LGBT community, because no one’s sexuality, gender expression, or sexual orientation should have to be defended. I shouldn’t have to work myself up into to tears trying to convince someone that I do feel silenced in academic settings. Because I should not be silenced. These things absolutely should not be problems.

And the women of FEMEN should not have to speak up themselves to stop the sex tourism industry. Women’s bodies should not be for sale and the Ukrainian government should not be tacitly supporting the sex tourism industry for their own economic benefit. They shouldn’t have to do this, but they do. We should respect the fact that they have turned their anger into a meaningful, creative, productive protest. These women are badass, and should be treated as such.

Oh and don’t even get me started on Mark Rachkevych, also from the Kyiv Post,

Lack of moral values is also cited as a factor driving Ukraine’s sex business. Barely legal girls released from state run orphanages and boarding homes are especially at risk.

Yes, if only these girls were taught that prostitution made them skanky hos, this wouldn’t be a problem. Obviously.

Ok, if I keep going, this will probably just turn into four letter words, so I will give the last word to Anna Hutsol, the leader of FEMEN: “We take this issue very seriously. We are pushing for legislation to forbid sex tourists from entering the country. We are sick of men looking at us like pieces of meat.”

Original here.

The other night I found myself yelling “IT’S BECAUSE OF THE SMELL” across the bar to a friend who couldn’t figure out why you would call a vagina a fish taco. I was just trying to catch him up to speed, but really, I probably should have told the truth: I have no idea. I have no idea why anyone would refer to an essential part of the female reproductive system a fish taco. But then again, we don’t have that many good options.

What we were taught in high school about vulvas seems pretty uniformly uninformative and hilarious. For example, my sex-ed teacher was really not comfortable best: using the terms vagina, clitoris, labia, etc. I think she was okay with fallopian tubes, but anything vulval, if addressed offhandedly was treated with something along the lines of “hee hee”, “hoo ha” or “you know….”. Perhaps she learned from the “Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor,” as reported by the Onion:

 

 

More realistically, the charts we see look like this:

 

Which, although they’re clinically correct, are really hard to connect with. In my 5th/7th/10th grade mind, I had trouble truly believing all of that was “down there.” To be honest with you, I still don’t really think my fat cells look like corn, or my ovaries like alien fetuses, or that any of my reproductive system is generally that terrifying. It’s near impossible to connect these clinical terms and images to actual bodily functions and feelings.

The alternative terminology we are raised with, however, is altogether ridiculous.

It ranges from terms like pussy and cunt, which are offensive enough to many to lose any positive meaning. There are the terms my sex ed teacher used to simply ignore the problem. And then there are stupid phrases that were somehow made up along the way, and then whispered in the cafeteria: bearded clam, fluffy sausage wallet, muff monster. Some of these are explicitly penis-centric: penis holster, cum collector. And some I kind of like: pink pit of pleasure, breakfast of champions, delta of venus.

There are a lot of gaps in our collective vulval knowledge (yeah, that’s a thing), but a basic problem is that none of these terms seems to fit the actual functioning and feeling of having a vagina. Why can’t we talk explicitly about what the vagina looks like, smells like, feels like? Because of this gap, young women are given no way to conceptualize their own bodies. How weird is that women are “finding” their clitorises? That we’re searching for some lost part of our body? They’ve always been there! (Perhaps a nursery school song: “the clitoris is connected to the vulva…”?)

If we could talk more comfortably about vaginas, women could learn and connect to their sexuality earlier and easier. They would feel less ashamed, scared, or “dirty” to get in touch (literally) with their own bodies. Wouldn’t it be great to be told right away: There is a bundle of nerves between your legs at the top of the vulva. It’s only about the size of the pea, but stimulating it causes immense pleasure. In fact, a majority of women can’t orgasm from simply vaginal intercourse but instead this clitoral stimulation. And orgasming is a very good thing.

Also, if the message could be passed along to young men too, that would be great.

Original here

Have you ever seen some guy walking around with “Save the Ta Tas” written on his T-shirt and felt very conflicted? On the one hand, buying that shirt probably raised money for breast cancer awareness. But on the other hand, I feel kind of objectified by the idea that we’re saving women’s lives for his personal pleasure in them as objects. I worry I’m being too harsh, because after all, the issue is about breasts, does that mean objectification is inherent? NO

Here’s pretty clear example (via Adfreak) of two separate ad campaigns one from the male gaze, and one from the female gaze:

From the Rethink Breast Cancer Initiative:

From Yoplait:

Can you tell which one is targeted towards women and which ones for men?
Can you tell which one is more objectifying in getting its point across?
Can you tell which one I like better?

Original here

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I got “Bad Girls/Good Girls”: Women, Sex and Power in the Nineties , an anthology edited by Nan Bauer Maglin and Donna Perry, for Christmas. While I (obviously) haven’t read the entire thing, if the article “How Being a Good Girl Can Be Bad for Girls” by Deborah L. Tolman and Tracy E. Higgins, is indicative of the quality of this read, I will be finished soon.  This article uses examples from the media, law, and the words of young women speaking about their experiences to explore the Good Girl/Bad Girl dichotomy and how it negatively affects young women. “Bad Girls” are active, desiring sexual agents; “Good Girls” are those passively victimized by boy’s raging hormones. Basically, I have never read a more thorough and accurate analysis of cultural norms around female sexuality and how it creates a culture of sexual violence permissibility. I want to make everyone I know read this. 

I remember trying to explain to a male friend of mine what makes sexual violence a different form of violence towards the body. I struggled to describe it, but I knew the place to begin was to explain a young woman’s experience with her own sexuality. I explained the two confusing, if not conflicting things I was taught about myself as a sexual being: (1) that my body as an object was subject to male gaze, desire, and violence and I must protect myself and (2) that females don’t or shouldn’t have sexual desires. (I wrote about some of this experience earlier) But I’m pretty sure I  lost him a bit in trying to translate how this treatment of female sexuality contributes to a culture of sexual violence permissibility and mediates the experience of sexual violence. But Tolman and Higgins both speak directly to my experience and bring it together in a comprehensive view of how adolescent female sexuality relates to sexual violence.

They begin with a description of the cultural story told about male and female sexuality:

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V magazine’s “Size Issue” (the one time a year they recognize that people come in sizes that aren’t thin or trying-to-be-thin) includes the shoot “One Size Fits All” in which straight-size model Jacquelyn Jablonski and plus size model Crystal Renn pose side-by-side in the same looks:

Many don’t like the way that the two models appear to be in competition, pitting skinny vs. fat in “a game of spot the difference”. I totally agree with Jezebel here, in this ad you can see the visual manifestation of the way we pit fat women against skinny women, as if there is only can win the prize of being beautiful.

But what, frankly amuses, me the most is that V magazine says the shoot “proves fashion can flatter any figure.” Really, V, we didn’t know that before? Fashion mags are so out of touch that they don’t realize that most women haven’t been wearing the sample size over their lifetime, and have somehow managed to look good. Photographer Terry Richardson “finds that Spring’s most sizzling looks can work on any figure?” Has he not looked around him before? Everyday I see gorgeous women of all sizes looking beautiful and fashionable. Just because they haven’t featured them (except in the size issue I assume) doesn’t mean fatshionistas aren’t out there. Or that the idea that women above a size two can look hot in clothing is news to any of V’s readers.

I’m glad V has “proved” that you don’t need to be a sample-size to look good in clothing. I’m sure the women at Fatshonista, Fatshionable, and the Manfattan project as well as other women who’ve been looking hot in plus sizes their entire lives will be happy to learn of this new discovery.

Original here

In October, Senator Al Franken proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold federal funds from contractors that restrict their employees from taking rape and sexual assault cases that happen at work to court. The amendment was a response to former Halliburton employee Jamie Leigh Jones who was raped by fellow employees but told she could not bring charges in court because her contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration. Here's what Al Franken had to say to congress:

In the discussion surrounding the amendment 30-some republican senators against it were mad that they were being portrayed as indifferent to sexual violence and asked Franken to defend them. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who voted against the amendment stated,

I think it would be helpful for Sen. Franken to come forward and say, ‘I’m not suggesting that anybody who votes for my amendment is indifferent to crimes against women or anybody else.

Um, no.

If you chose other priorities over the right of women to seek justice for crimes committed against them, you are indifferent to crimes against women. End stop. In what political bizarro world does anyone have the obligation to shield you from the negative consequences of taking a morally problematic position?

But despite all the political maneuvering, on Saturday, the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill and Franken's attached amendment were signed into law. There's more good news for Jamie Leigh Jones too. On tuesday a court found that her alleged injuries were not, in fact, in any way related to her employment and thus, not covered by the contract, which means she can start the process of seeking justice from those who wronged her. Jones says of the amendment,

It means the world to me. It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it.

Here’s the quick story of one night in Copenhagen, when a friend and I just wanted to go out and dance. Now, Copenhagen is a pretty safe town (besides the gang wars) so my friend and I felt pretty comfortable walking the streets on our own, even while wearing clothes to go out in and drinking out of cans of Carlsberg. But of course, for many men we encountered, this was an invitation for them to talk to us, which I don’t necessarily mind. If I’m at a club, and someone asks me to dance, I’ll say yes or no (ok, mostly no) and if they respect my decision I can still feel comfortable. But when I’m on the street and someone says hi to me, I never really want to talk to them and I generally try not to respond or respond politely but clearly that I don’t want to talk. More so, I definitely didnt want to talk to the man who said hi to me and then continued to follow us for over four blocks. Or the man who was all dressed up who followed us out of the club and down the street, finally asking us, hilariously if we were psychokillers. I have to admit, I was proud of myself for responding, “well, we’re not the one’s wearing a wig and following people we don’t know home, are we?”, which I was rewarded for by another few blocks of lurking about 50 feet behind us. These are clearly inappropriate and threatening behaviors, but these interactions influence all my interactions with unknown men. As Phaedra Starling describes, based on these experiences all men become “Schrödinger’s Rapist”. I really encourage you to read her article, if you haven’t yet, which is addressed to men, detailing why women are so on guard when meeting someone new, and what men can do to be respectful of this need for self-protection.

In class this week we have been discussing Michel Foucault, and his concepts of sexuality that only has meaning within a social context and biopower , the means by which the state gains power over the body by regulating it and disciplining it. I was thinking about his defintion of power in relation to the threat of sexual violence, because we all know that rape is about power, not sex. This power is exercise over women at all times, not just at the point of rape. The constant threat of sexual violence leads women to constantly have to regulate and discipline their own behaviors. We chose wear to walk, what to wear and who to talk to based on this threat. The other night, we switched streets when we realized that ours was at the center of the redlight district and that we were surrounded by groups of men, with few women in sight – clearly, not a safe place to walk. This self-regulation is a form of male oppression and men are constantly exercising this power over women, even if they don’t mean to, because they are all “Schrödinger’s Rapist¨”. Women participate in this system of regulation to, in the ways we socially sanction women who deviate from proper female sexuality. Terms like “slut” and “whore” are used to degrade women who don’t protect themselves, sex workers are considered victims regardless of their situation and agency and clothing and drinking choices are all questioned in rape cases.

I would call this a panoptic system of power, but does not simply involve this disciplining and regulation. Because the threat of sexual violence is real, and sexual violence is not a “punishment” but rather torture. While Foucault historically places his theories in a way that implies today that we are beyond this public and physically violent forms of regulation by the state, we are not. The system of regulation in which women (and those considered sexually deviant) reside in is enforced by physical, sexual, violence against the women’s body. Realizing that this system of power and regulation in place, does not necessarily give me the means to combat it. Sometimes I wish that I could rebel against the system by drinking as much as I want, wearing whatever I want, talking to whoever I want and walking wherever I want. Of course, I should be able to do all these things without being punished, but in this system of power, the regulation can be more than just social sanction, but in fact physical violence. And I can’t be sure which one I’ll get.

Original here: happybodies.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/a-typical-night-out-even-in-scandinavia/

I found this article, Teens: Oral Sex and Casual Prostitution No Biggie to be really upsetting. Yes, because of the behaviors the teens are engaging in (especially these forms of casual prostitution), but also because of the way the authors handle it.

It discusses the new documentary “Oral Sex is the new Goodnight Kiss” which reveals a teen culture of parties, sexual favors, and the rise of “casual prostitution,” where girls are exchanging these favors for money, homework, or other rewards. I do find the increase of these trends really troubling, it’s clearly a culture of sexual exploitation which violates and devalues the female body and sexuality. But rather than discussing how this is an iteration of a patriarchal culture of sexual violence permissibility, which is occuring shockingly early, the major issue the authors have is: “oh noes! the girls are have teh sex!”

The article is supposed to be about all teenage sexual activity, but focuses entirely on the girls. In both the video and the article it is mentioned that these are, “typical teenage girls from good middle class families”:

“The prettiest girls from the most successful families [are the most at risk]. We’re not talking about marginalized girls,” she said. “[Parents] don’t want to know because they really don’t know what to do. I mean, you might be prepared to learn that, at age 12, your daughter has had sex, but what are you supposed to do when your daughter has traded her virginity for $1,000 or a new bag?”

Excuse me? Am I supposed to be more upset because these are “the prettiest girls”? Is this just expected behavior from marginalized communities?

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A new study (via) on bulimia comes to a conclusion that may seem obvious but in fact defies common wisdom: treat blacks. Researchers from University of Maryland and the Autonomous University of Barcelona found that African American girls are 50% more likely than white girls to suffer from bulimia. Girls from low-income families are also more likely than girls from middle and high-income families to suffer. I find it really upsetting that its taken so long for bulimia in low-income and African American communities to be recognized much less understood. These conclusions surprised even the researchers who held the belief, like many do, that bulimia is more common among white girls from middle and high-income families. Researcher Michelle Goeree have some theories as to why this conception of bulimia has stuck:

We were less surprised after we realized that insurance may not cover the expensive doctor visit where a girl with an eating disorder gets diagnosed. If two girls both suffer from bulimia nervosa, but one is from a low-income family and the other from a high-income family, which girl is most likely to be diagnosed if it requires a visit to the expensive psychiatrist?

The results of this situation are that girls who are African American and/or come from low-income families are much less likely to be diagnosed. Judging from the shock of the researchers themselves, the African American experience of body image, addiction, and food is an area that needs a lot more understanding. How have these experiences gone silent for so long? Although 10 million Americans intimately experience eating disorders, we’re just now recognizing the breadth of suffering in African American and low-income communities? Here is a case where privilege in regards to class, race and gender has intersected to marginalize young black women and allow their experiences to be silenced. The experience of eating disorders is so much more than low self-esteem, it’s a really important health issue that needs to be recognized and treated. Women’s negative relationships with their bodies can hold them back mentally, socially and can have serious effects on their health. The fact that prevalence is higher in African American and low-income communities is both an indicator of and contributor to a system of marginalization.

While I don’t believe that eating disorders are caused by depictions of beauty in the media, I think the unattainable beauty norms that are shown is the reason that issues of depression, anxiety, control, etc. are expressed through the way people eat. And it’s a particularly damaging and unhealthy way to express it. NEDA reports that research about eating disorders is remarkably underfunded. Clearly one of the areas that needs more research is body image for women of color. As Jill has reminded us before, white beauty norms are not problematic for white women only. And it’s not that women are not speaking out about their experiences with eating disorders, it’s that somehow we aren’t listening.

read more: happybodies.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/bulimia-study-says-treat-blacks/