Global pushback

Laurie Penny went to Dublin to report on women fighting to legalize abortion in Ireland, then she went to Cairo to report on women fighting sexual harassment in Tahrir Square. In both places, women told her they were sick of feeling ashamed.

From India to Ireland to Egypt, women are on the streets, on the airwaves, on the internet, getting organised and getting angry. They’re co-ordinating in their communities to combat sexual violence and taking a stand against archaic sexist legislation; they’re challenging harassment and rape culture. Across the world, women who are sick and tired of shame and fear are fighting back in unprecedented ways.

And because of the internet, we know about each other, we’re in contact with each other.

Sexism often functions as a pressure-release valve in times of social unrest – and when it does, it takes different forms, depending on local values. Right now, in Egypt, it’s groping, heckling and mob attacks; in Ireland, it’s rape apologism and a backlash against abortion and sexual equality; on the internet, it’s vicious slut-shaming and “revenge porn“. But this time, women are refusing to take it any more.

Like the Arab spring and Occupy in 2011, local movements with no apparent connection to one another are exchanging information and taking courage from one another’s struggles. The fight against misogyny is spreading online and via networks of solidarity and trust that develop rapidly, outside the traditional channels. I met Swedish and Iranian feminist activists in Dublin, and British feminist activists in Cairo, and have seen live information about the women’s marches in Egypt spread quickly through chains of activists from South Africa to the American Deep South.

What I’m saying. We’re linked up.

It’s too early to say whether the mood of mutiny will last. When people fight misogyny, they aren’t just fighting governments and police forces, religious organisations and strangers in the streets – they also have to deal with intolerance from their loved ones, from their colleagues, from friends and family members who can’t or won’t understand. Over the last few weeks I have been humbled by the bravery of the activists I’ve met, particularly the women. It takes a special sort of courage to cast off shame, to risk not just violence but also intimate rejection for the sake of a better future. And the thing about courage is that it’s contagious.

Dealing with friends who can’t or won’t understand is a tough one. Courage isn’t really even relevant to that. I’m not sure what is, other than resilience. At any rate, it’s a long game, to say the least.

 

Misogyny v sexism: the words

You know that trope about the expansion of or meaning-shift in the word “misogyny”? The one that says it’s being used to mean the same thing as sexism? I don’t use it that way, but I’ve found an example that, I think, does.

It’s a petition to the White House asking the Obama administration to

Stop using the “wives, mothers, & daughters” rhetorical frame that defines women by their relationships to other people.

The petition is hopeless of course, but it’s a good point. But I think the word “misogyny” doesn’t belong. [Read more…]

Sensitive to their lackluster showing

The US Senate has renewed the Violence Against Women Act, 78 to 22. (It’s odd that I’m pleased about the 78 rather than appalled by the 22. Low expectations strike again.)

The act expired in 2011, putting efforts to improve its many federal programs on hold. Last year both the Republican-led House and the Democratic-controlled Senate passed renewal bills, but they were unable to reach a compromise.

This year House Republicans, sensitive to their lackluster showing among women voters in the November election, have vowed to move expeditiously on the issue. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., has taken the lead in negotiating the terms of a House bill.

So…”Ok, bitchez, if you’re going to get all bitchy about it and not vote for us, fine, we’ll pass your fucking Don’t Hit the Bitchez bill. But don’t come crying to us when all the men run away because they can’t stand you telling them not to hit you.” [Read more…]

And just because something is not literally true does not mean it’s profound

Atheist leans over backward to find something contrarian to say about religion because of finding Dawkins too simplistic on the subject. Douglas Murray, in The Spectator. (It sounds like something piping hot and fresh from 2009, but oh well.)

These new atheists remain incapable of getting beyond the question, ‘Is it true?’ They assume that by ‘true’ we agree them to mean ‘literally true’. They also assume that if the answer is ‘no’, then that closes everything. But it does not. Just because something is not literally true does not mean that there is no truth, or worth, in it.

Schopenhauer said that truth may be like water: it needs a vessel to carry it. It is all very well to point out — as Dawkins did again the other night — that Adam did not exist. But to think that this discovery makes not just the story of Eden but the narrative of the crucifixion and resurrection meaningless is to rather startlingly miss a point. You can be in agreement with Professor Dawkins that Adam did not exist, yet know and feel that the story of Eden speaks profoundly about ourselves. [Read more…]

One final verdict

Frank Bruni wrote a pretty blistering op-ed in the NY Times last week on the Catholic church’s funny way of veering between theocracy and secularism depending on which is most convenient at any particular moment. He pointed out things that don’t get pointed out nearly often enough, especially by hyper-respectable newspapers like the Times.

On the one hand, he notes, you have the bishops shouting about contraceptive coverage in health care plans, and on the other hand, you have lawyers for a Catholic hospital chain arguing that fetuses aren’t persons. And then you have those pesky child-raping priests…

We’ve been getting a fresh and galling peek into that with the court-compelled release of documents from the Los Angeles Archdiocese, which engaged in a pattern of willful blindness and outright cover-up so egregious that the current archbishop, José Gomez, took the shocking step last week of publicly reprimanding his predecessor, Cardinal Roger Mahony.

The documents show that Mahony and his lieutenants repeatedly failed to report allegations to law enforcement officials and urged accused priests to leave or stay out of the state, lest they face prosecution. They decided, in short, that the church’s representatives and reputation mattered more than justice: that the church could hold itself above laws that governed everybody else. [Read more…]

Just stay home

More from those fun-loving woman-haters in Egypt.

Shura Council’s human rights committee members said on Monday that women taking part in protests bear the responsibility of being sexually harassed, describing what happens in some demonstrators’ tents as “prostitution.”

Major General Adel Afify, member of the committee representing the Salafi Asala Party, criticized female protesters, saying that they “know they are among thugs. They should protect themselves before requesting that the Interior Ministry does so. By getting herself involved in such circumstances, the woman has 100 percent responsibility.”

That’s right! By engaging in protest, women are formally requesting to be raped. If they don’t want to be raped, all they have to do is  stop participating in political life. What’s the problem with that?! [Read more…]

No one to control them

When in doubt, harass women.

Shahira Amin has an article at Index on Censorship about the harassment of women in Tahrir Square.

Egyptian Salafi preacher Ahmed Mahmoud Abdulla — known as Abou Islam — recently made remarks justifying sexual violence against female protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, claiming that women who join protests are asking “to get raped”…

In a video posted online last Wednesday, Abdulla said that women who join the protests are “either crusaders who have no shame or widows who have no one to control them”. He also described them as “devils”, and added that “they talk like monsters”.

Yes that’s right, just throw everything. It all sticks, so it’s all good to throw. [Read more…]

Bye bye popey

Michael Nugent gives ten reasons to be pleased that Ratzinger is hanging up his red shoes.

One, because of the Vatican’s (ridiculous) international clout.

Because the UN takes most decisions by consensus, the Holy See has been able to frustrate negotiations on population, contraception, reproductive health care and women’s rights. And Pope Benedict has ensured that the Holy See’s work at the United Nations is based on his own conservative theology.

Four, his church claims that atheists are not fully human. [Read more…]

Ooh Dean Esmay says I’m a public figure!

Update I didn’t even see that there’s also a post on AVoiceforMen. I can’t keep up. I have so many fans haters now I cannot keep up.

He also says I’m a fassist Stalinist thug. He says a lot of things. He pronounces “fascist” as “fassist.” I’m a fassist Stalinist hate-mongering bigoted book-burning censoring thug.

The book burners of the world and the censors of the world, the crypto-fassists and the outright fassists of the world, they just never go away, do they.

Wussup? we wonder as we listen. Wussup is that “Wooly” Bumblebee did a video and then got banned from YouTube.

What was so outrageous? She was critical of a public figure. That’s right, a public figure. A public figure who regularly makes outrageously bigoted and hateful statements, in a very high-profile forum called Free Thought Blogs. [Read more…]