You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘Feminism’ tag.
This comment jumped out at me from a thread I was perusing at Captain Awkward.com. I commiserate with the author to a certain extent, as the post as it describes so much of the frustration I have to put up with attempting to educate people about basic facts of our culture. My frustration is nothing though compared with people who have to deal with this sorta crap everday. Post-Feminism my ass. There is still such a long way to go toward achieving equality and recognition of women as fully human, fully autonomous beings. Oh, and go read the whole thread over there, it is well worth your time.
“I don’t want to dogpile or anything. But I just feel like I should say this.
Every single person, IRL, to whom I have said the words “Rape Culture,” has been hearing it for the first time from me. It is possible that one or two of the women at Food Not Bombs mentioned it, but I don’t remember. One of my closest friends – first time*. My close female friend in highschool – first time. Any of my best friends, honestly. Most of the geeky fannish writing group I hang out with online – a handful of exceptions, there. Not many. My dad, first time (and ye gods, what was I thinking?). My brother, first time. My sister, first time. Every single one of her friends**. First time ever hearing the words “Rape Culture.”
The way we’re going to make headway as a culture is by addressing this stuff head-on, and making it clear this shit is no longer tolerable. The way we can make headway as a culture to stop Rape Culture is to popularize this struggle. To make it clear that society is not going to put up with this shit anymore. To get comics to realize that it’s not “edgy.” To get guys to realize that it’s not acceptable damage.
Look, I’m tired of being Angry Social Justice Girl. I want to go back to being Cheerful Carefree Artist Girl. I want to stop muttering under my breath at the movie theatre (Oooh, another movie about how Evil Desert People are trying to destroy us! That’s not exploiting a rift or marginalizing anyone!), I want to stop complaining about three out of every four commercials (“With this toothpaste, you won’t just be the ex, you’ll be the one that got away,” yeah fuck you), I want to enjoy comics without feeling less-than-human because I’m a short androgynous girl, not a massive-boobed rubber-spined stiletto-heeled long-haired pinup model (Do less-than-sex-objects girls even exist in comicsland?), I don’t want to be outraged.
I am so very, very tired of being angry. I wish that being happy and peaceful and politely asking people to please, thank you, maybe treat us a little more like human beings if you would kindly… worked. It doesn’t. That gets you a pat on the head.
This went on a lot longer than I intended, and I apologize. It’s just – the only reason it seems like this is a big cultural thing is because we’re here, surrounded by people who get it. The rest of the world is not so understanding. The rest of the world is indifferent, for the most part, and actively hostile at times. That has to change, and the only way it’s going to happen is if we refuse to back down when this stuff goes down.
We still have far to go as civilization, when half the population is subject to shite like this.
Christian ‘morals’ plus the abortion issue and dudes, you know where we are headed….
I’m not sure if I like the “reader” function that wordpress offers as a part of its blogging platform. Searching the Abortion tag seems to consistently raise my blood pressure because of beastly shite that I find out there. Today’s turd of a post is entitled ‘Tough Choices” and after reading it my tough choice was either to cry or vomit. Luckily I chose option “3” and will employ the red pen of justice and take this privileged anti-choice dude apart.
“A young girl, around 12 or 13, is walking down the street at dark, when suddenly a man takes her and violently rapes her. Devastated, she falls into a state of depression. She is ready to put it all in the past when she realizes something–she’s late on her period. Terrified, she obtains a pregnancy test which confirms her fears. She is pregnant with the child of a rapist’s.
Now, I know some people would say that she needs to have the right to an abortion. Well–and yes, I know this is probably an unpopular opinion–I disagree.”
[Well it is good to establish that you have a firm hatred of women and their bodily autonomy from the outset.] Yes, rape is traumatic.[The faux-empathy begins here]
I can’t even begin to imagine having to go through it [It’s shitty, and you don’t want first hand experience].
However, if a victim of rape realizes she is pregnant, she probably feels scared, alone, and vulnerable. Some women would want to turn to abortion. But abortion is a cold lie [Where the frack does this come from? Abortion is not a lie, it is a medical procedure Is an appendectomy a cold lie too?]. It may seem appealing, like you can magically “undo” all that happened by a simple procedure, but in reality, it is the killing of a child[anti-choice distortion, the first of many – It is not a child, we get a child after the little event called “Birth”. Acorns are not oak trees]. Should a child’s life [*facepalm* – repeating misinformation does not make it more true] be taken just because of the crime the father committed?
Abortion in cases of rape takes a vulnerable, traumatized girl and further disturbs her by killing her child [Like carrying the results of rape for 9 months isn’t traumatizing?]. The results of abortion in cases of rape is one dead child [one terminated pregnancy, FIFY] and one extremely wounded mother [keep in mind the author is talking about a 11 or 12 year child, the term “Mother” is grossly misused].
Which seems more traumatic to you: being raped, becoming pregnant, having the child killed, and having to live with that the rest of your life; or, being raped, becoming pregnant, delivering the child, putting the child up for adoption, and living knowing that your child is alive as well? [you missed the option of suffering though and possibly dying in pregnancy] (though some women choose to keep their children rather than giving them up for adoption, a most admirable move)
Some pro-lifers want an exception for rape[yes, they have something resembling empathy and respect for women]. However, I don’t think there should be one. It may seem heartless at first[because it is], but once you look at the real reasons[fetus worshipping] why abortion shouldn’t be allowed in cases of rape[women should be second class citizens/incubators nothing more], I think you will better understand[We do understand, the hate for women and their autonomy screams from every line of this post].
Brilliant post about the shit women have to put up with a daily basis. Some highlights here, but follow the link for the entire post, it is must read material.
[Captain Awkward responding to letter:]
“Dear Creeper, No Creeping! and Creeped Out:
I’m not slithering around on the floor and hissing with my forked tongue when I say that the situations described in these two letters are pretty good examples of what Rape Culture is and why it is so insidious.
Step 1: A creepy dude does creepy, entitled shit and makes women feel unsafe.
Step 2: The women speak up about it to their partners.
Step 3: It gets written off as “not a big deal” or “he probably didn’t mean it” or “he’s not a bad guy, really.” Any discussion of the bad behavior must immediately be followed by a complete audit of his better qualities or the sad things he’s suffered in the name of “fairness.” Once the camera has moved in and seen him in closeup as a real, human, suffering person, how can you (the object, always an object, as in “objectified,” as in a disembodied set of tits or orifices, or a Trapper Keeper, or a favorite coffee mug or a pet cat) be so cruel as to want to hold him accountable for his actions? Bitches, man.
Step 4: Everyone is worried about hurting creepy dude’s feelings or making it weird for creepy dude. Better yet, everyone is worried about how the other dudes in the friend group will feel if they are called out for enabling creepy dude. Women are worried that if they push the issue, that the entire friend group will side with creepy dude or that they’ll be blamed for causing “drama.” Look at how LW #323 put it: ”how can I approach this subject with my boyfriend, and make him understand a) how serious this is, and b) that he is not responsible for Ben’s reactions, without making him feel defensive?”
Wouldn’t want someone who covers up for and defends a proto-rapist to have to have SADFEELS, right? (LW, it’s not your fault you’re asking the question this way, it’s just that our culture sucks about this and your boyfriend and his friends have been giving you constant messages that Ben is to be coddled while you are to be shushed in the hopes that it will all blow over).
Step 5: Creepy dude creeps on with his creepy self. He’s learned that there are no real (i.e. “disapproval & pushback from dudes and dude society”) consequences to his actions. Women feel creeped out and unsafe.Some of them decide to take a firm stand against creeping and not come to parties anymore. They slowly slide out of the friend group. Some of the woman decide to just quietly put up with it, because they’ve learned that no one will really side with them and it’s easier to go along than to lose one’s entire community. The whole group works around this missing stair.
Possible Step 6: Creepy dude rapes someone. If he does, there’s a less than 50% chance that the woman will report it. Why?
Could it be that all the people who surround her have taught her that if she speaks up nothing will really come of it anyway? Could it be that she doesn’t trust her friends and the people who love her to have her back on this? I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY. They couldn’t even kick this dude off their weekly trivia team.
Could it be that the authorities, the police, and the court system will treat her like this is something she caused to happen? Worse, will the dude’s history of being creepy come up and, instead of being used as evidence of a pattern of behavior, be used as evidence that the victim tolerated his advances in the past?
So, yeah, I wanted to be very clear that these letters are part of a larger cultural paradigm that is a direct outgrowth of male privilege. Can women be creepy? Yes, for sure. They are human and capable of anything that humans are capable of. But when they are creepy, they don’t have an entire culture backing them up and explaining why their creepiness isn’t that bad.”
Thank you to Slender Means for posting this, everything below this disclaimer is hers:
This is a very long post (linked below) but it is worth reading to see what some Christians still want to teach and believe about gender roles and norms, men’s rights to women’s bodies, and women and sex. Further down the post, racist beliefs are also discussed.
When Church teaching is about rape apology and white supremacy. You want to believe that it’s delusion and that we can all laugh at it and him but he has his followers and they believe every word of it. If you have time, I suggest you go to the link at the very bottom of this post and read all of it.
The following is a quote by Douglas (Doug) Wilson, a complementarian pastor, from his book Fidelity: What It Means to be a One-Woman Man:
The sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. A woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.
We cannot make gravity disappear just because we dislike it, and in the same way we find that our banished authority and submission comes back to us in pathological forms. This is what lies behind sexual “bondage and submission games,” along with very common rape fantasies. Men dream of being rapists, and women find themselves wistfully reading novels in which someone ravishes the “soon to be made willing” heroine. Those who deny they have any need for water at all will soon find themselves lusting after polluted water, but water nonetheless.
The quote is part of an excerpt posted by Jared Wilson (no relation as far as I know) to The Gospel Coalition blog, with an approving note that explains the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey and “other modern celebrations of perverted sexual authority/submission.” (h/t Rachel Held Evans.)
[via arewomenhuman]
It is one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever read. Maybe I shouldn’t be so shocked. It’s not wildly different from from things John Piper or Doug Wilson’s wife Nancy have said about submission and authority in sex.
But Wilson goes much farther than any rape apologist Christian writer I’ve ever read, and that’s a lot of people. His notion of godly sex is little more than sanctified rape. In the name of Jesus.
He also says (as Jared Wilson states in a comment defending this filth) that “rape is judgment upon a culture that does not cherish and protect women.” We should be OK with this, according to Jared, because Doug Wilson isn’t blaming rape survivors for being raped. He’s only blaming all women who want to be treated equally and all of our allies. That’s all.
[…]
A second point: Doug Wilson is not only a rape apologist; he’s also a slavery apologist. And contrary to Jared Wilson’s dismissal of commenters who repeatedly tried to point this out, this is absolutely relevant to Wilson’s teachings about obligatory female submission in sex.
Wilson is the co-author with Steve Wilkins, a white supremacist, of a pamphlet called Southern Slavery as it Was, which claims that Southern slavery “was not an adversarial relationship with pervasive racial animosity” but a relationship between “friends and often intimates”:
Because of its dominantly patriarchal character, [slavery] was a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence. There has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world. The credit for this must go to the predominance of Christianity. The gospel enabled men who were distinct in nearly every way, to live and work together, to be friends and often intimates…
[WPA Slave] Narratives consistently portray an amazingly benign picture of Southern plantation life. Affection for former masters and mistresses is expressed in terms of unmistakable devotion. Testimony to the good treatment, kindness, and gentleness of many so-called “heartless slave holders” abounds. Many of the old slaves express a wistful desire to be back at the plantation.
Slave life was to them a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, clothes, and good medical care. In the narratives taken as a whole, there is no pervasive cry of rage and anguish..abuses came from a distinct and very small minority. [emphasis mine]
If you can stomach any more: video [on link] of Wilson on why he’s a Paleoconfederate, why the post Civil War Reconstruction Amendments – you know, the ones that abolished slavery (in theory) and established black citizenship and voting rights (in theory) – “inverted the meaning of the Constitution,” and why the Civil War wasn’t God’s way of ending slavery and is to blame for racial animosity today.
[…]
What does this have to do with rape apologism? Firstly, both Wilson’s rape and slavery apologism hinge on that little word ”patriarchal.” He’s trying to sell a vision in which white male patriarchy rules benevolently over the rest of us, for our own good and protection.
[…]
Wilson means for us to accept a theology that revolves around authoritarian hierarchy, with white, straight, cis, Western men at the top, and everyone else knowing our proper place. We’re meant to accept that movements for racial and gender equality are actually the causes of racist and misogynist abuse and violence, and that the real root of such violence – white male patriarchy – is actually its remedy.
This isn’t just about Doug Wilson. It’s about an entire culture of white Christians who promote his teaching of sanctified rape and domineering patriarchy as godly theology. It’s about a culture that conveniently ignores his vile racism when it suits them, thinking they are remaining “neutral.” In fact they implicitly endorse his racism by promoting him as “sound and compelling” while refusing to acknowledge, much less condemn his defense of slavery. This is about an entire culture that majors in perpetuating rape culture and racism by looking the other way.
[via arewomenhuman]
Linked posts:
- Doug Wilson on The Gospel Coalition: How Christian Patriarchy Turns Sex into Rape and Pregnancy into Slavery (barefootchristianfaith.wordpress.com)
- The ‘Gospel’ Coalition? Maybe They Should Call Themselves the ‘Haunt of the Reprobate Rapist’ (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- If This is What Christian Sex Is Like, No Thank You (patheos.com)
- Rape: A Punishment for Egalitarians? (sarahoverthemoon.com)
A neat tidbit from the slacktivist. I’ve excerpted a bit here:
“If you’re a disabled worker, then you’re protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. If you’re a pregnant worker and not hindered in job performance, or if you’re pregnant and completely unable to work, then you’re protected under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. But if you’re a pregnant worker and able to perform some, but not all, of the functions of your job, then you slip through the cracks and you’re SOL. That means that some pregnant women may be forced to choose between keeping their job and keeping their pregnancy.
Now, since the “pro-life” and “pro-family” movements of the religious right are all about preventing pregnant women from choosing not to keep their pregnancies, this would seem like legislation they ought to be supporting.
And yet, as I noted last month, I haven’t yet seen any support for this, or even any mention of it, among such groups. The PWFA would help to remove one powerful economic incentive for abortion — a real situation that real people face. Anti-abortion groups therefore ought to support it. But if any of them are supporting it, they’re doing so very, very quietly.
Maybe I’d just missed their statements backing this bill? To double-check, I asked the folks at NWLC if they had heard of any support for this workplace protection from anti-abortion groups. Liz Watson, a senior advisor at NWLC, responded:
Supporting pregnant workers so that they can continue their jobs and have healthy pregnancies, is something people of all political stripes should agree on, regardless of their stance on other issues, including abortion. As yet, we are not aware of any support from pro-life groups, however.”
Hypocrisy in action. *sigh*
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
Spot the Question.
August 23, 2012 in Education, Feminism | Tags: Awesome Comments I steal from the Internet, Feminism, Patriarchy, Rape Culture, Spot the Question, Understanding Feminism | by The Arbourist | 13 comments
—–
“Not surprisingly, I have a story? It’s pretty long, and I’m sorry. My husband, Doctor Glass, recently went on a weeklong workshop. The participants worked on teams, slept in a dormitory, shared meals and spent all day together. While there, Dr Glass acquired a strikingly beautiful female friend, who was absolutely luminous – like a fallen star or a revolutionary. She was also just about to enter university, making her very much younger than Dr Glass. They were on the same team, had much in common, and seemed to enjoy each other.
However, there was a twenty-something dude on the course who, according to Dr Glass, “made things awkward.” Immediately, he tried to make the workshop all about his pantsfeelings for Luminous Girl. Although he was on a different team, he was constantly buzzing around Dr Glass and Luminous Girl, getting in their way (which was dangerous and distracting, as they were doing physical labor) and trying to get her to talk to him, work with him, come over and look at his work, etc. In return she tried to ignore him, laughed him off politely, repeatedly referenced her desire to do her work, physically moved away whenever he got close to her, and stuck like glue to Dr Glass; saying NO in all those thousand little pleasant ways that women are trained to do. Awkward Dude tried to impress her with physical activity, but Dr Glass cut him off because he was being distracting. Confused and annoyed, Awkward stepped up his Game, trying to impress her with his intellectual cred, and it went down like a lead zeppelin, with Luminous and Dr Glass resuming their own work and conversations. So Awkward started loudly asking wasn’t Dr Glass married?!
At this, Awkward Dude attempted to kill Dr Glass with his laser-eyeballs at every turn, lurking and glaring and pining like a bad Snape impersonator. (Dr Glass wasn’t sure why he was suddenly the target of the resulting animosity, as he clearly had no romantic interest in Luminous, until I explained it to him: Dude had decided that the reason Luminous Girl was not sleeping with him was because she was the Possession of Another Male, and further, a Male who Already Had His Fair Share of Females; thus Dr Glass was the enemy for not shunning her and leaving a clear path for fellow males. “Oh,” said Dr Glass in sudden revelation, “That makes sense, I guess.”)
But the guy persisted – it wasn’t that Luminous didn’t like him! It was that she was clearly in thrall of my husband. The solution was to get her alone! So whenever they sat down to a lecture, Luminous, practically dragging Dr Glass by the arm, would move like lightning to position herself between him and a safe wall – with her lovely admirer circling them and glaring, loudly asking Dr Glass about his Wife Back Home. Awkward Dude implied that Dr Glass was creepy and odd for always hanging out with a girl half his age. Awkward Dude was annoyed that the course director, an older woman who should presumably know better, had assigned dorm space based on teams, so that Dr Glass and Luminous bunked in adjacent rooms (while he, Awkward Dude, was in the wing with the married couples!) because it was inappropriate and wrong to place a married man next to a teenaged female. On a particularly cold day, Dr Glass noticed that Luminous did not have warm clothing, and lent her an extra hoodie. It happened to have his name on it; Awkward Dude practically ignited, to the point where even the other people on the course were laughing awkwardly at him and saying “Uh, she’s… allowed to wear clothes?”
Read the rest of this entry »
Share this: