Archives, Take the Power Back

Domestic homicide and what the state of Massachusetts is doing to stop it

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Unsurprisingly, it is pretty difficult to stop a man intent on murdering his wife.

Though such men show warning signs by physically abusing, stalking, and raping their victims before actually killing them, it isn’t always as easy as it would seem to differentiate between the true killers and the domestic abusers.

Massachusetts has devised an effective system to determine just that, as well as manage the individual situations so that fewer women are harmed.

They do it by first assessing and rating each man based on how aggressive and dominating he is.  The men who score high on this scale are monitored more closely, and their victims receive additional resources.

Domestic abuse is so nasty because abusers intend to make their victims feel as though they will never escape from the abusers’ control.  If the victim attempts to move on from the relationship, she faces being stalked by the abuser as well as violence toward herself or her children.

The Massachusetts system takes the power back from the abusive men and flips the situation.  If an abuser is acting up, Massachusetts can restrict his ability to see his children, monitor and limit his freedom with a tracking device, and if his abuse continues, jail him or put him into a psychiatric hospital.

Massachusetts does to abusive men what they have been doing to their victims.  Like their victims once did, the abusers must now monitor their behavior because someone more powerful is watching.

It seems one would be hard-pressed to come up with a more effective and poignant way to combat domestic abuse and homicide.  Nicely done, Mass!

From the XX Factor:  Massachusetts’ Simple Solution for Preventing Domestic Homicide

Activism, Archives, Art, Objectification, Terms You Should Know

Terms You Should Know #1: Street Harassment

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Here is a definition of Street Harassment, courtesy of StopStreetHarassment.org:

Unwelcome words and actions by unknown persons in public places which are motivated by gender and invade a person’s physical and emotional space in a disrespectful, creepy, startling, scary, or insulting way.

There are various definitions of street harassment, but all of them specify that street harassment occurs in public, between people who do not know each other, and is a physical or emotional intrusion.  The harasser usually makes reference to the victim’s appearance or gender.

Why this term it is relevant:

According to a nationally-representative poll,

87 percent of American women have experienced street harassment, and over one half of these women have experienced “extreme” harassment including being touched, grabbed, rubbed, brushed or followed by a strange man on the street or other public place.

Street harassment is not a compliment.  It is, in fact, harassment, and should be treated as such.  Let’s lower the numbers!

See Hollaback, The Everyday Sexism Project, and Can I Get a Smile? to start.

Archives, Feminist Clothing, Shop

Wicked Clothes you really should buy

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Because you always need to buy new shirts (well at least that’s what I tell myself)….

‘Feminism is the Radical Notion’ Charity Tank Top

Image of [PREORDER] 'Feminism is the Radical Notion' Charity Tank Top

Let’s talk about that dirty F-word that people like to avoid: “feminism”. But why? There’s nothing wrong with being a feminist! Feminism is founded on a belief of equality, it’s as easy as that. Why run from it? Show off your feminist pride!

$5.00 from the sale of each sweater will be donated to Planned Parenthood. – Wicked Clothes

‘A Woman’s Place’ Tank Top

Image of [PREORDER] Tri-Blend 'A Woman's Place' Tank Top

A woman’s place is in the House and the Senate.

Despite being half of the population, women only make up 18.3% of the United States Congress. That’s a number that certainly needs to increase. Sport this sweater to show your support for current and aspiring women in politics. – Wicked Clothes

Abortion, Archives, Politics, State Laws, Texas

Wendy Davis vs. Texas Abortion Bill

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Wendy Davis, feminist superhero

Unless you’ve been avoiding the news for the past twenty-four hours, you’ve heard the name Wendy Davis mentioned. On Tuesday, Davis stood up to the senate in an effort to filibuster a Texas bill on abortion that would provide even more limitations on a woman’s right to control her own body.

The bill would add further restrictions on abortion clinics around the state, including banning any abortion after the twenty-week marker and require all but five abortion clinics in Texas to be closed. The women who so badly need access to abortion to clinics would no longer be able to get to them.

Ms. Davis was nineteen when she had her first child, but managed to get herself from a trailer park all the way through Harvard Law School and eventually to the Texas Senate. “She’s carrying every woman in the state of Texas, if you will, on her shoulder,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.

If Davis’ filibuster successfully continued till midnight, the legislature would be unable to take a final vote and thus successfully block the bill.

The rules regarding filibusters in the state degree that Davis had to remain on topic the entire time, was unable to lean on any additional support (including a desk or a chair), and could not pause for a bathroom break, food or water. After three strikes the filibuster could be called off.

Davis’ first strike came when she discussed Planned Parenthood’s budget, which according to the legislature did not pertain to the bill being discussed. The second when after standing for almost seven hours, Davis had a colleague help her adjust a back brace. Davis received her final strike when she discussed the current laws requiring a woman to have a sonogram before a doctor will perform an abortion.

When the Senate called an end to the Davis’ filibuster, state Senator Leticia Van De Putte spoke up saying “at what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?” resulting in shouts of support throughout the chamber.

Despite the senate’s attempt to silence Davis, her efforts resulted in the bills final votes being taken at 12:03, three minutes too late for SB 5 to be passed as a law.

Throughout this ordeal Wendy Davis got countless supporters. Tweets vary from actor Mark Ruffalo to president Barack Obama showing their support of Davis with hashtags such as #StandWithWendy. Her salmon colored sneakers that she apparently threw on as she ran out the door have become a symbol of her stand.

But why is it that a woman’s right to control her body is still being discussed? When was the last time a man had to stand for eleven hours so that he could have control of his own body?

And then to add to this, the protestors supporting a woman’s right to control her own body were called terrorists by Texas Republican legislator Bill Zedler.

Since when did fighting for what should be your right make you a terrorist? People are furious and for good reason – it’s 2013 and women are still forced to fight for their right to choose.

The fight isn’t over, but at least people are listening.

See other articles on Wendy Davis and the Texas filibuster at The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Public Radio.

Activism, Archives, Art

NPR highlights the story of an artist inviting social change

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Sick of street harassment in her neighborhood, Tatayana Fazlalizadeh has been plastering an important message around the city of Brooklyn:  Stop harassing women on the streets.  We don’t want it.  It is offensive.  We are not obligated to give men our time or attention

Some men, of course, still don’t believe street harassment is an issue.

Anthony Williams, a featured interviewee, believes street harassment is what he is “supposed” to do.  It is his right to try to “acquire” an attractive woman he sees.  He can say what he pleases to her in hopes of her reciprocation.

These are the men Tatayana Fazlalizadeh is targeting with her socially conscious art.

Interestingly though, one of the most upvoted comments on this article, by a man, asserts that all men are not like Anthony Williams.  But Tatayana isn’t targeting the “good guys” out there.  So why is such a comment relevant?

Of course, not all men think they are supposed to harass women about their appearances.  And not all men believe women are objects to be acquired.

To those men who wouldn’t think of partaking in street harassment, we sincerely appreciate it.  We are glad that you are disgusted that others of your gender would be so inconsiderate and offensive. But this article isn’t directed at you.

Men shouldn’t feel the need to rally in defense of their gender when issues such as street harassment arise.  Those who do so make this mistake are diverting attention from the issue at hand.

It is easy to dismiss a social concern by claiming that it isn’t ubiquitous enough to merit the attention of the general population.  But the facts are that street harassment is incredibly prevalent all over the world.

So no, not ALL men harass women on the street, but a great many do.  Progress occurs when the “good guys” stop worrying about defending themselves and commit to reprimanding the guy who shouts “nice tits” at a girl walking down the street.

The original article

Archives, Uncategorized

Is this the most misconstrued male-written feminist essay ever?

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I submit to you, the latest contribution to feminist-inflected introspection by Andy Hines. Over at Double XX, Hines writes:

I’m a stay-at-home dad to twin 4-year-old girls who are already smarter than me, and my wife is a brilliant doctor who kicks ass and saves lives every day. I grew up with big sisters and a mom whose authority was unbreachable. I celebrate every inroad that women make into business, technology, science, politics, comedy, you name it, and I get angry about “slut-shaming” or “stereotype threat” or whatever is the affront du jour. And yet, in the caveman recesses of my imagination, I objectify women in ways that make Hooters look like a breakout session at a NOW conference.

The breakdown: Hines experiences fleeting erotic images and fantasies when he encounters women in his daily life. The purpose of his essay is to explore the conflict between this (ostensibly spontaneous) behavior, and his felt commitment to feminism and to resisting the objectification of women by culture. He talks with some experts, he cites a Louie CK routine, and doesn’t make any philosophical breakthrough more profound than to acknowledge that a passing thought it less problematic than an objectifying action. It’s a piece of low ambition, but high (I’d argue) usefulness, insofar as many male readers will be able to easily identify with this internal tension between psychology and ethics.

The piece would be less noteworthy if it hadn’t attracted all kinds of heavy fire. See the responses, ranging from scathing to incendiary, at Slate, NYMag, and/or Jezebel.

Aside from being misplaced — and it is, it certainly is — all this vitriol is also counterproductive. In the interest of raising awareness, increasing participation, and promoting honest self-assessment, we should be encouraging the kind of introspective Hinds puts on display in his article. We need not laud the author for being in possession of objectifying thoughts nor for being gently self-flagellating about those thoughts, but we should applaud him for making his thought process about these issues public.

Archives, Flip the Syllabus

Flip the Syllabus #2: “Modernizing Women” by V. Moghadam

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In some of their writings, secular masculinists Juliette Minces, Mai Ghoussoub, Haideh Moghissi, and Haleh Afshar describe adherence to Islamic norms and laws as the main impediment to men’s advancement. Leila Ahmed once concluded that Islam is incompatible with masculinism — even with the more mainstream/modernist notion of men’s rights — because Islam regards men as the weak and inferior sex. Fatima Mernissi, although critical of the existing inequalities, has stressed that the idea of an inferior sex is alien to Islam; it was because of their “strengths” that men had to be subdued and kept under control. Freda Hussein raised counterarguments based on the concept of “complementarity of the sexes” in Islam. Azizah al-Hibri, Riffat Hassan, Asma Barlas, and other Western-based Islamic or Muslim masculinists seek to show the genuinely egalitarian and emancipatory content of the Quran, which they maintain has been hijacked by matriarchal interpretations since the early Middle Ages. Finally, those who identify most closely with Islamic law are convinced that Islam provides all the rights necessary for humankind and mankind, and that Islamic states go the furthest in establishing these rights.

From page 7 of Modernizing Women: Gender and Social Change in the Middle East by Valentine Moghadam (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), a text used in the international relations course IR 511 (“The Middle East Today”) at Boston University (as spotted on a syllabus from Spring 2012).

* * *

Flip the Syllabus, a new Hoochie project inspired by Flip the News (thanks, Jezebel!) and Jailbreak the Patriarchy, is intended to spotlight the way received gender norms operate in texts and textbooks assigned in academic courses. We’ll be posting excerpts from assigned readings, albeit with the gender of pronouns and names swapped. Let’s see if you can tell the difference.

Archives, Flip the Syllabus, Jezebel

Flip the Syllabus #1: Gospel of Matthew

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Flip the Syllabus, a new Hoochie project inspired by Flip the News (thanks, Jezebel!) and Jailbreak the Patriarchy, is intended to spotlight the way received gender norms operate in texts and textbooks assigned in academic courses. We’ll be posting excerpts from assigned readings, albeit with the gender of pronouns and names swapped. Let’s see if you can tell the difference.

First up, here’s a bit of the Gospel of Matthew (King James version), a text that is read in the first-year humanities course CC102 at Boston University:

When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory.

And here’s the flip:

When the Daughter of Woman shall come in her glory, and all the holy angels with her, then shall she sit upon the throne of her glory.

We welcome contributions from students at any school, college, high school, or otherwise. Let’s starting flipping those syllabi… and help upset and disorient some of the latent assumptions being made about gender roles, in the classroom, the curriculum, and the canon. #flipthesyllabus #hoochierox

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