Misogyny and Sexism in the News

[Kobi]

Seems to me, a simple approach might be a more logical format for a potential instant breakthrough. For example.....so if your sister, mother, grandmother are in bed in their own home, asleep, and a man breaks in and rapes them.....they were dressed too provocatively? Shouldnt have been there? Egged him on?

Rape is rape. Adolesents girls are raped, elderly women are raped, nuns are raped, chuldren and babies are raped, men are raped. Fit the lack of logic to the situation.

Pardon my exuberence. I was working on a rape project today. Just spill over.

Found the anaolgy:

[femmeInterrupted]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Seems to me, a simple approach might be a more logical format for a potential instant breakthrough. For example.....so if your sister, mother, grandmother are in bed in their own home, asleep, and a man breaks in and rapes them.....they were dressed too provocatively? Shouldnt have been there? Egged him on?

Rape is rape. Adolesents girls are raped, elderly women are raped, nuns are raped, chuldren and babies are raped, men are raped. Fit the lack of logic to the situation.

Pardon my exuberence. I was working on a rape project today. Just spill over.

Found the anaolgy:

I think it's important to remember that rape is not a crime about sex. It's about power and control. That's why 7 year olds and 77 year olds get raped...Both demographics hardly fit the going standard for 'sexy' in today's society. It is however, a sexualized violence. It's about power OVER. It's about the dehumanization of women and children, the commodification of women and children, and the idea that is so nastily pervasive under the male gaze. Entitlement.

Personally, I don't think your exuberance needs pardoning, although I find myself in the same position often. I think it's O.K. to be passionate about things that require and are deserved of that passion. Violence against women is surely something that everyone SHOULD be passionate about.

I've been doing some research and reading into the gendered nature of anger and outrage. Both natural and appropriate emotions and responses to things that elicit that response. Again, violence against women and social justice comes to mind.

I think as feminists we need to have the discussions around anger, which is problematic in that
A) most examples of anger are that of aggression. It is gendered.
and
B) the notions of what it is to be a woman with anger. We AREN'T supposed to be. We are urged into forgiveness and passivity. We are told that in order to heal we need to let go of that anger. Globally, that's a LOT of women working on reclaiming lives derailed and greatly effected by woman abuse and sexual violation. That's a lot of sisters living lives altered by the reality of sexism, misogyny, racism, heterosexism...

So instead of pushing my anger away, I'm sitting with it, as is sometimes good to do with ALL uncomfortable emotions, because it's there for a reason.

Be passionate! Be angry. Be whatever it takes to feel enough to get active and create change.

Thanks for sharing

[Kobi]

femmeInterrupted this might explain the reasons behind what we have been talking about. The "survey" was done back in 2012 for netmums. Not sure how valid it is in scientific terms but it does explain some of the reluctance, apathy, shifts....I'm not sure what to call it.

Is it a ME focus as the name implies i.e. personal preferences? Does it feel like internalized sexism to some extent with a dash of identification with the aggressor or Stockholm Syndrome? Does it have some valid points?

Does it address some of the anger and women focus of the previous post?

-----------


http://www.netmums.com/

[femmeInterrupted]

Originally Posted by Kobi

femmeInterrupted this might explain the reasons behind what we have been talking about. The "survey" was done back in 2012 for netmums. Not sure how valid it is in scientific terms but it does explain some of the reluctance, apathy, shifts....I'm not sure what to call it.

Is it a ME focus as the name implies i.e. personal preferences? Does it feel like internalized sexism to some extent with a dash of identification with the aggressor or Stockholm Syndrome? Does it have some valid points?

Does it address some of the anger and women focus of the previous post?

-----------


http://www.netmums.com/

First off....what the hell is 'Vajazzle'?!

There's just too much to deconstruct here....I keep sighing, which is interfering with my typing!

It is interesting that the scope of 'alright activities' are all about beauty/body modification/image. I'd say that's a tall glass of Stockholm flavoured Kool-Aid.

The parts about motherhood, affordable and quality daycare, maternity leave benefits should have always been important to everyone...not just the women with the babies. This all ties into the unpaid work/labour of women, the creation of 'pink collar' low paid wages (still in most of the helping/caring professions)

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by femmeInterrupted

First off....what the hell is 'Vajazzle'?!

There's just too much to deconstruct here....I keep sighing, which is interfering with my typing!

It is interesting that the scope of 'alright activities' are all about beauty/body modification/image. I'd say that's a tall glass of Stockholm flavoured Kool-Aid.

The parts about motherhood, affordable and quality daycare, maternity leave benefits should have always been important to everyone...not just the women with the babies. This all ties into the unpaid work/labour of women, the creation of 'pink collar' low paid wages (still in most of the helping/caring professions)

Vajazzling: The act of applying glitter and jewels to a woman's bikini area for aesthetic purposes.

Learn something new everyday.

[Allison W]

On the matter of that FeMEnist thing, I can understand the importance of personal preferences coming up--different people are different and so will have different needs and motivations and will make different choices. But the survey itself is kind of depressing. The answers kind of range from "sad" to "soul-killing." I mean, getting back into the kitchen being the highest priority on the list, vastly exceeding little things like equal pay and more women in positions of power? What is this I don't even.

But I really want to shake down the ones who answered that the big priority of women today should be to reject equality in favour of backwards gender-essentialism and "different rights," and ask them what the crispy fuck "different rights" they are thinking. Because seriously, anything good coming of going down that road isn't even conceivable on paper, let alone in practice. That is serious I-don't-even-want-to-live-on-this-planet-anymore shit.

EDIT: The #1 answer for priorities ("just being a mum") saddened me (primarily due to being at the tippy-top of the list; if it had traded places with one of the other answers, it wouldn't have made me nearly so uneasy), but the #2 priority actually makes sense and I suppose I should clarify that that one didn't make me want to weep tears of blood.

[Kobi]

A debate by Afghan MPs about beefing up a law to prevent violence against women has been halted amid angry scenes.

Parliament's speaker ended the debate after 15 minutes after traditionalists called for the law to be scrapped.

A law banning violence against women, child marriages and forced marriages was passed by presidential decree in 2009, but did not gain MPs' approval.

Hundreds of people have been jailed under the current law, introduced by President Hamid Karzai.

'Lack of assurance'

The decision to seek parliamentary approval for the law had split women activists.

Some had said opening it up for debate in parliament could pave the way for conservatives to amend it and weaken protection for women - or even throw it out altogether.

One of those against the move was prominent MP Farkhunda Zahra Naderi. She told the BBC after Saturday's events in parliament that her fears had been proved right.

During the debate, mullahs and other traditionalist MPs accused President Karzai of acting against Islamic Sharia law by signing the decree in the first place, the BBC's David Loyn reports from Kabul.

In particular, they demanded a change to the law so that men cannot be prosecuted for rape within marriage, our correspondent said.

One of those who had sought to enshrine the decree with parliamentary approval is leading MP Fawzia Koofi, who survived a Taliban ambush two years ago.

She had worried that if the law did not have parliamentary backing it could be weakened as Afghan leaders attempt to pacify the Islamist Taliban movement.

"There is a lack of assurance that any president of Afghanistan will have any commitment to women's issues and in particular towards this decree," Ms Koofi told the BBC before the debate.

President Karzai has come under fire from women's groups for frequently changing his position on women's rights.

In 2012, he endorsed a "code of conduct" issued by an influential council of clerics which allows husbands to beat wives under certain circumstances.

Ms Koofi and fellow activists have argued that the law is similar to those in many other Islamic countries.

The existing law will now remain in force while further discussions on procedure are held, our correspondent says.

Despite the efforts taken to enhance rights for women and girls in Afghanistan, child marriages remain common and stories of abuse keep coming to light.

Most Afghans still live in rural areas, where poverty, conflict and conservative attitudes are more likely to keep girls and women at home.

-----------------------

Analysis
BBC News, Kabul

Afghanistan's Law to Eliminate Violence Against Women, remains in force. It was signed by President Karzai in 2009 and did not need parliamentary approval.

But nothing is certain in this young democracy, and those who brought it to parliament, led by a potential presidential candidate, Fawzia Koofi, wanted it approved there so it was irreversible. But women activists who feared that debating it would give a platform to the most fundamentalist voices were proved right. Its withdrawal for now puts further progress on women's rights into legal limbo.

There have been hundreds of successful prosecutions under the law - some resulting in jail terms. But changing attitudes in the Afghan countryside will take more than a change in the law, and the failed debate will strengthen the hand of fundamentalists who see the law as opposed to Sharia.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22579098