In Honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month

I came across Laurie Anderson, an American photographer, while brainstorming a photography project while in the midst of reading Laura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Laurie Anderson may not claim to be a feminist, but her piece "Fully Automated Nikon" has feminism all over it.

Laurie Anderson describes the method behind her 1973 black and white photography series:

I decided to shoot pictures of men who made comments to me on the street. I had always hated this invasion of my privacy and now I had the means of my revenge. As I walked along Houston Street with my fully automated Nikon, I felt armed, ready. I passed a man who muttered ‘Wanna fuck?’ This was standard technique: the female passes and the male strikes at the last possible moment forcing the woman to backtrack if she should dare to object. I wheeled around, furious. ‘Did you say that?’ He looked around surprised, then defiant. ‘Yeah, so what the fuck if I did?’ I raised my Nikon, took aim, began to focus. His eyes darted back and forth, an undercover cop? CLICK.

I found this an excellent way to respond to street harassment and found out that women in anti-harassment campaigns such as HollaBack! have already adopted this strategy and encourage victims of harassment to do this. Women have adopted strategies to avoid street harassment such as constantly assessing our surroundings, crossing the street or taking another route, scowling, putting on the bad-ass look, avoiding eye contact, wearing headphones, talking on a cellphone, the list goes on. Street harassment has become so normalized in a woman's life that these experiences go unreported because they do not seem "important". The literature of law and social science is largely silent about the harassment of women in public spaces. This is not viewed this as an issue worthy of attention.

What can we do? One way to stop street harassment is to stop supporting unhealthy definitions of masculinity and educate men about street harassment:
I came across this video a couple weeks ago at the height of "Shit (?) Say" viral videos and was so happy that this video was made: Shit Men Say To Men Who Say Shit to Women on the Street.

Women, Gender Violence, and AIDS

QUICK FACTS - US
• In 2004, HIV infection was the leading cause of death for black women aged 25-34 years
• In 2004, HIV infection was the 5th leading cause of death for all women aged 35-44 years

• High-risk heterosexual contact is the source of 80% of newly diagnosed infections

• Women are slightly less likely than men to receive a prescription for the most effective treatments for HIV infection

• About 26% of new HIV diagnoses are female

• In 1992, women made up only 14% of people living with AIDS, but by 2005, this proportion was 23%

• African American and Hispanic women together represent 24% of US women, but account for 82% of total AIDS diagnoses for women


RISK FACTORS FOR WOMEN

• Younger age: HIV/AIDS diagnoses highest for women aged 15-39

• Lack of recognition of partner’s risk factors: In one study, 34% of black men who had sex with men reported to also have sex with women, but only 6% of black women knew about their partners’ bisexual activity

• Relationship dynamics: Women may not insist on using a condom for fear of physical abuse

• Biological vulnerability and STDs – Women are significantly more likely to contract HIV infection during vaginal intercourse and STDs increases the chance of transmitting or acquiring HIV

• Socioeconomic Issues: Women in poverty are more likely to abuse substances, lack access to high-quality healthcare, exchange sex for money, and have a higher number of sexual partners


QUICK FACTS - GLOBAL

• HIV is the leading cause of death and disease among women of reproductive age worldwide

• Women make up 50% of global epidemic

• 70% of women experience violence in their lifetime

• The risk of HIV among women who have experienced violence may be up to three times higher than among those who have not

• Women, fearing or experiencing violence are less likely to negotiate for safe sex, go for HIV testing, share their status, or seek treatment

• Forced sex increases risk of HIV transmission due to lacerations

• In some countries, it is common for men to have more than one sexual partner and to maintain sexual relations with much younger women, which can contribute to an infection rate for young women that is 3 times higher than young men



PERSONAL STORIES
Visit http://www.avert.org/living-with-hiv.htm to read about personal stories of individuals who've experienced gender violence in their lives


RAPE CRISIS IN SOUTH AFRICA: QUICK FACTS

• In South Africa, a woman is raped every minute

• South Africa has the world’s largest number of people living with HIV: 5.5 million out of a population of about 48 million

• In South Africa, there are estimated to be 1.7 million rapes each year, but only 54,000 rape survivors lay charges

• 75% of rape in South Africa is gang rape

• 50% of all court cases in South Africa are for rape

• The average age of children raped in South Africa is 3, 41-90% of rape is against children under 12, depending on the region

• 26% of doctors don’t think rape is a serious medical problem

• 40% of those raped are at risk of becoming HIV-positive

• Girls in South Africa are 6 times more likely to have HIV than boys


WHY?
• 1/4 of men admit to having raped someone

• 1/2 of these men admit to having raped more than once

• 62% of boys believe rape is not violence

• 1/3 of boys believe girls enjoy rape

• 75% of rape is gang rape – sometimes considered male bonding

• Some people believe sex with a virgin cures HIV

• Many people believe that sex with a child is safe

*Disclaimer: These statistics are not intended to present men as evil perpetrators of this crime. Rather, they illuminate how men have been socialized to believe that rape is acceptable.


WHAT IS BEING DONE?
• Sonnet Ehlers, a South African woman invented “Rape-aXe,” an anti-rape condom that hooks onto a man’s penis during penetration

• Media campaigns

• Public education aimed at men about rape and violence

• Public education about HIV/AIDS

• Providing HIV drugs to victims immediately after rape, in case of exposure

• NGOs working to implement policies related to sexual offences

Language Policing

It’s very easy and common for people to be really savvy in the language they use to avoid being ableist and so on, and yet have rotten attitudes and actions. How much are we letting language policing distract us from getting to the core of the issues raised?

I’m starting to get a little wary of language policing. Mainly because it seems a little too easy.

Instead of engaging with points of view that are challenging to yours (or just even working from a very different perspective), instead of looking within yourself to see how you’re perpetuating and practicing discrimination and harm, all you have to do is pick out a word and go “Ableist! Classist! XYZist!” and dismiss the other person altogether, self-satisfied that we’re done our Good Activist Deed Of The Day and so no one can call us out on our rubbish.

Prettying up the surface instead of dealing with the darker depths. Talking the talk but not walking the walk. Not willing to take what you dish out. Nitpicking on the small stuff because it saves us from having to tackle the hairier things.

I feel like we’re in some sort of weird semi-academic-language bubble in some internet communities, particularly Tumblr where I blog, patting ourselves on the back for not using ableist words or whatever, without actually thinking of how it works elsewhere in the world.

Honestly, outside of Tumblr, who else is going to look at words like “homophobia” and go “Oh no! That’s ableist towards people with phobias!”? Especially when the people who have a right to raise that concern haven’t brought it up in offline circles until now?

Will anyone else be able to understand why certain words are X-ist if you explain – or will they come back and say that just because they use supposedly X terms doesn’t mean they are that discriminatory in their actions?

It’s very easy (and common) for people to be really savvy in the language and yet have rotten attitudes and actions.

And speaking of savviness: I feel that language policing puts even more pressure on people whose language (mainly English) skills are already under scrutiny for not being perfect – people for whom English isn’t a first language, who learnt it in a non-English-centric country, who grew up trying to translate difficult nuances between languages and found ways that were “good enough” early on.

There’s already enough prejudice being doled out for not speaking “proper English” (as if there’s such a thing) and for not typing full sentences or using your/you’re correctly as it is.

Do we really want to privilege conversations like these towards people who have really high English language skills, whatever their perspective?

Do we really want to alienate people with important and useful perspectives because they’ve learnt to use the word “crazy” for things that don’t make sense, or can’t get people’s pronouns right because their native language only has one pronoun for any gender, or has found the term “homophobia” useful while still dealing with a debilitating phobia of spiders but doesn’t see one degrading the other?

As it is we can’t even seem to make up our minds between being descriptive and being prescriptive. “They” as a singular pronoun is OK, but you can’t use “-phobia” anymore? You shouldn’t look down at someone’s typing skills, but there’s a huge difference between “trans man” and “transman”?

I saw this happen with blogger BFP. She writes something important about having to deal with paperwork and insurance and finding it difficult due to her various health conditions, and the first responses are “This term is ableist” – when it turns out that they actually are relevant to her position.

How many of us are going to know the writer’s original life story enough to be able to make that call between “They’re ableist!” and “They lived this!”?

Do we have the right to make that call?

How much are we letting language policing distract us from getting to the core of the issues raised?

What’s important here – what they’re saying or how they’re saying it?

-Tiara the Merchgirl

From The Scavenger

On Iranian Women and Girls

http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/mhviran.htm

Tell the Catholic Bishops NO!

Will Obama Abandon Women for Bishops?

Many women across America are livid at the news that President Obama once again is considering selling women out on reproductive health care to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

At issue is whether Obama will renege on the promise of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the package of preventive services available to American women under the Affordable Care Act will include all forms of prescription birth control, without a deductible or co-pay.
Because this opportunity will include the women (non-Catholic as well as Catholic) who work for institutions under Catholic auspices that employ non-Catholics, serve non-Catholics, have secular missions -- education, health care, social services -- and thrive on public taxpayer funds, the bishops are irate. They want no woman in their network of secularly oriented institutions to have access to coverage for birth control, and they are apoplectic about the very fair exemption that does exist, allowing them to refuse to provide this coverage to women working for a narrowly defined religious institution (like a church).

In fact, the women working in these nominally Catholic educational, health-related and social service entities are merely a subset of the total population of American women the bishops have targeted. They are lobbying HHS to deprive all American women of insurance coverage for "prescription contraceptives, sterilization and related patient education and counseling." They argue -- in arrogant defiance of the conclusions of the Institute of Medicine, the World Health Organization, the International College of OB-GYNs, and the American Public Health Association, among others -- that these are "not 'health' services."

It remains incomprehensible that these theoretically celibate male hierarchs -- so compromised by their blatant and naked disregard for the most basic laws of moral human interaction, for refusing to protect male and female children and adolescents from rape, sodomy and sexual abuse, decade after decade to the present day -- have the ear of anyone in power to make moral choices on behalf of anyone else, much less women.

When will America's politicians recognize that the men who run the Catholic Church have only the power that others in power are willing to grant them? Otherwise, the bishops' power is a figment of their own imaginations.

Catholics do not agree with them on the most basic moral issues -- from birth control to abortion, divorce to homosexuality -- acting in accordance with their own consciences, not the bishops' dictums. Non-Catholics, including those who work for nominally Catholic institutions, have no obligation to abide by the bishops' positions. When will our political leaders realize that they ought not to be listening either? When will Obama realize it?

If the President caves to the bishops on birth control coverage by broadening the religious institution's exemption from providing that coverage, he will not only be burdening access to a crucial primary care service for the millions of women who work for those Catholic institutions and the female students who attend them.

He will also be bowing to the demands of the representatives of an institution that is shot through with misogyny: a self-righteous and intractable commitment to silencing women, shutting them out of the highest positions of power, without voice on issues affecting their own most intimate lives, and a complete and total denial of women's most basic right to control their own bodies.
President Obama: Are these really the guys you want to be in bed with?

Source:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/angela-bonavoglia/obama-bishops-contraception_b_1114516.html

Your action is urgently needed:
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1400/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8877

WELCOME BACK

Hello readers! The Women's Center is excited to start off the new year with a brand new intern staff! Stop by the Women's Center for some relaxation or if you just want to kick it with the cool kids.

Learn about our going-ons at the Women's Center's Facebook, Twitter, and HERE!

I first wrote about Andrej Pejic for the Winter 2011 newsletter, "Gender and the Media". Pejic is a model whose long blonde hair, high cheekbones and pout have been gaining a lot of fame and followers in the fashion world recently, walking in many prominent womenswear shows and even closing Jean Paul Gaultier's SP11 Couture show in the finale bridal gown. Pejic also happens to be a teenage boy.

He has been embraced by the fashion community and his career as a model has so far been extremely successful. Recently, however, FHM magazine (similar to Maxim) named him #98 on their list of the 100 Sexiest Women in the World. Unfortunately, the accompanying copy was one of the most ignorant and offensive pieces of trash I've ever read. It was taken down quickly, but here's a screenshot:

There are too many heteronormative, hateful and ignorant things written here to even try and point out, because I would just end up quoting the whole thing. Pejic has never been shy about his maleness, nor has ever tried to "keep it a secret". And just because this one writer can't seem to comprehend the notion of a pretty man, the writer feels privileged enough to take away his humanity. Let's hope that models like Pejic and Lea T are more than a passing trend, and rise to the tops of their fields because they are beautiful and talented, regardless of what their gender identity may or may not be.

FHM remained quiet about this over the weekend, only to replace his page with the following "apology":

Andrej Pejic appears at number 98 in FHM’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World 2011.

Regrettably the copy accompanying Andrej’s online entry wasn’t subbed prior to going live. Once we realised, we removed it immediately and apologised for any offence caused.

FHM has spoken to the individual concerned and taken steps to ensure this can never happen again.

Essentially, they're embarrassed that the copy wasn't edited properly and cleaned up to be less obviously ignorant (although the apology doesn't seem to have gone through editing either, given the multiple misspellings). The writer was obviously threatened by Pejic's sexual appeal, and seems to have triggered some sort of fear that finding a man like Pejic sexy was threatening his own masculinity and decided to prove it by spewing hate. I can't say I'm totally surprised, especially considering that this copy was written for a list that ranked women by their sexual appeal, but I'm disappointed that no one else at the magazine doesn't seem to get it.

How does this keep happening?

Dove's newest ad for their VisibleCare body wash promises "visibly more beautiful skin in just one week". However, due to the unfortunate juxtaposition of images in the ad, it seems to be saying that "visibly more beautiful skin" means whiter (and thinner and blonder).

You can see it for yourself:

The black woman is obviously standing under the "before" while the white woman is standing under the "after" with a Latina woman in the middle. The problematic aspects could easily be removed by rearranging the images, or even by removing the words "before" and "after", and yet here it is. I have to wonder how this ever made it to print without someone noticing what the ad was really saying.

Dove released this statement about the ad:

We believe that real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes, colors and ages and are committed to featuring realistic and attainable images of beauty in all our advertising. We are also dedicated to educating and encouraging all women and girls to build a positive relationship with beauty, to help raise self-esteem and to enable them to realize their full potential.

The ad is intended to illustrate the benefits of using Dove VisibleCare Body Wash, by making skin visibly more beautiful in just one week. All three women are intended to demonstrate the "after" product benefit. We do not condone any activity or imagery that intentionally insults any audience."

Notice the lack of an apology. This statement reads more like "You're making a big deal over nothing" than "Oops we made a mistake. Our bad". The ad is also still running on their website dovecloseup.com.

I want to think that this was simply an unfortunate mistake and were simply trying to portray women of different colors and sizes in their advertising, but the lack of an apology and the fact that the ad is still being used really makes me wonder. At the very least, they seem ambivalent towards the message that this is sending.

Vandana Shiva, a world-renowned environmental thinker, founder of Navdanya, http://www.navdanya.org/, and leader in the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), and the Slow Food Movement has written a plethora of books, articles and scientific journals. Check out some of her books if you're interested in learning more, they'll make great summer reading.

-Bridget Guiza

And Out Come the Claws

I have a distinct memory from several years ago that I feel speaks volumes on how I now feel about my gender and gender roles. I will never forget the moment a now ex-partner held my hand, gazed down at it and then up into my eyes, and said, "You don't really do your nails do you?"

Way to kill the mood. All jokes aside, this comment astounded me in terms of the implications for how feminine gender roles were supposed to dictate my behavior as a self-identifying woman. Did not doing my nails imply that I was not fully a woman that embraced such feminine commitments to my appearance? I questioned the immediate feeling of surprise, next mild self-loathing, then resentment. At first I wondered if maybe I was missing something. After some thought, I realized the masculine privilege and socialized expectations that manifested themselves in this statement. I don't have to do my nails to be a woman, and I can choose the effort I commit to my physical appearance. Nails don't make the woman, and a woman isn't defined by doing her nails.

Actually, for a long time I was uncomfortable with my hands. I actually was very insecure about my nails, which are weak, break easily, and don't grow out very well. I used to think my hands were too big, too masculine. And it was even more severe. I could barely wear shirts that were short-sleeved in middle school and some of high school because I couldn't bear how hairy my arms were. It sounds trivial, but my discomfort and insecurity with my body was great enough to influence how much of it I showed. It took years to finally overcome this and fully accept my body for what it was and is now.

Thus, this explains the arrival at my lasting reaction to this comment about my nails: disgust. I am proud of my acceptance of my body, and was completely put off by the dismissal of my growth and self-acceptance. Now I have learned to reflect on the influence of socialization and privilege that culminated themselves into this comment. I am glad I could point those elements out for what they are, and be proud of my accomplishments in acceptance of my physical self. I also learned something else: in this situation, I chose to not let vocalized expectations of my gender have a lasting effect on how I saw myself.

Now with it being 8th week and all, I imagine I'm not the only person on this campus who feels dangerously on the verge of burning out before finals even come around. In any case, I thought I'd include some fun goodies for you all as well. For any electro or house fans out there, I found this track a few days ago and just can't stop listening to it.

Also, a pretty solid track from an indie band called Dirty Gold. Hope this helps you get through the rest of the quarter and on to a great summer.

Much love to the community,
Neda