Going Farther Out of Our Minds - Sonia Johnson

Sonia explores how women can leave patriarchy behind and begin living in a new world right now. "Fairness" and "practicality" reasons for their passive resistance have been used for 5000 years and found lacking, so different methods should now be tried.

PART 1


PART 2

We Are All Sonali

Why is it so hard for some people to understand that women's bodies are their own?

This is what Eve Ensler calls a #ReasonToRise:

Today 27-year-old Sonali Mukherjee will have surgery to help reconstruct her face. It melted nine years ago, leaving a painful mask in its place, after three young men poured acid on her while she slept. This was their response to her fending off their relentless sexual advances as she made her way to school every morning. In India the ubiquitous harassment that women face is called, in a "family-friendly" euphemism, "eve baiting."

Today's surgery will be the first of many, involving eye operations and hair and ear transplants, that will take place over years at a hospital in New Dehli. What do we need to know about Sonali? That she was studying sociology? That she was a happy 17-year-old? What she was wearing when she slept? Or that's she's now petitioned her government to either help her find justice or give her the right to euthanasia?
For six of the past nine years, her assailants have been free. Sonali and her family, bankrupted paying for her care, had to move villages after they were threatened by the men when they returned. She has, over the years, persistently appealed to the Indian justice system for medical assistance and stricter penalties for assailants, and a fund has been established to help cover the enormous expense of her medical care. This woman, with whom I have been in touch through mutual friends, is, remarkably, a bright, brave, and determined and dignified person. To hear her petition (she is essentially asking for help raising roughly $30,000 or the right to die) watch this video, or join the Friends of Sonali Facebook page and send her a note to help buoy her spirits in the hospital.

Sonali is why GOP spokesman Jay Townsend's comment, "Let's hurl some acid at those female Democratic Senators," was not just inappropriate but inhumane.

She isn't alone, however. In Columbia, where there were at least 150 acid-throwing incidents last year, women like 51-year-old Consuela Cordoba wear masks every day of their lives. In England model Katie Piper was doused in acid after a rejected ex-boyfriend hired someone to attack her. In Afganistan schoolgirls are habitually subjected to acid throwing and poisoning. In Uganda 25-year-old Regina Nannono is one of an increasing number of women attacked by ex-spouses, romantic rivals, and competitors trying to change property inheritances; most of the victims are women. In Pakistan 10-year-old Zaib Aslam thought someone had lit her face on fire when men on motorcycles threw acid on her face as she waited with her mother at a bus stop. Many simply cannot go on living. In Rome last year, after 38 grueling surgeries, 33-year-old Fakhra Younasfinally committed suicide, 10 years after she was assaulted in this way. These are only a handful of readily available examples.

Not "our" problem? In that case, let's consider "our" version of acid throwing, say, lighting women on fire.
In Maryland Yvette Cade had gasoline poured on her and was lit on fire by her estranged husband. In Florida Naomie Breton was lit on fire at a gas station in what the newspaper termed a "dispute" with the father of her child. She was then charged astronomical towing fees, which she refused to pay (shocking!). In Cleveland Tiffany Lawson, 31, threw her 18-month-old son out of a second-story window into the arms of a stranger and then threw herself out behind him, after her boyfriend threw lighter fluid on her and lit her on fire. In Detroit 22-year-old LaTonya Bowman, three weeks short of delivering a baby, was kidnapped by the baby's father, lit on fire, and then, just for good measure, shot in the back. She survived and gave birth. In St. Louis last June, a man lit his 36-year-old girlfriend on fire. In Seattle an unnamed 17-year-old girl died -- her house was set on fire, so the man accused, a boyfriend, took a less direct route. Clearly all these women weren'tsubservient enough.

How can I say "we are all Sonali" when what she and these other girls and women have experienced are extreme and terrifying injustices? I can say it because women all over the world are not in possession of themselves. And we have the right to be.

There are people who agree, and those who do not. Some of them are U.S. legislators (some withclose ties to the mail-order bride business, for example).

What women experience as victims of abuse, or when they're seized and forced to undergo surgery against their wills, or even when they hear a vice-presidential candidate say publicly, without widespread and uniform condemnation, that rape is just another "method of conception," is someone else (or the state) claiming ownership of their bodies and existences. Usually that someone else is a man they know. The abuse and rape of women is oblivious to social status, education, race, nationality, ethnicity, or anything else. What Sonali asked for when she resisted her harassers every day, and what was denied to her when they attacked her, was the right to be female and in control of her own body. Men wanted to control her and wanted access to her body. Indeed, they felt that this access and control were their birthright. Her culture, the men and women in it, supporting the notion that her body was somehow public property, allowed this to happen. When she did not comply, they punished her severely. They invaded her privacy. They violated her bodily integrity. They ignored her autonomy, and they damaged her body horrifically. They denied her her agency. Does this sound familiar yet?

What do Sonali and these other women have to do with you or me, sitting at these computers, probably relatively safe and sound?

Well, maybe it depends on how aware you are of the prevalence of violence and its threat in the lives of women; whether you think we, collectively, should care about people other than ourselves; and what you think the role of government should be in seeking justice. Apparently, a lot of what I believe flies in the face of a longstanding frontier ethos of individual destiny and the making of the traditional, successful American man. This mentality hasn't gone so well for women in America -- or in the rest of the world. I think women's freedom -- bodily, reproductive, economic -- requires government intervention to offset pervasive, traditional biases that prop up and perpetuate corrupt structures, violence, and abuse.
When the right to privacy was extended to women, men whose authority this undermined switched their focus to "family privacy." Abortion was the nominal catalyst, but in reality it was just the proxy du jour. The family is often the place where incursions against women's rights have their strongest breeding ground. And the public sphere, we keep getting told, is just the private, family sphere writ large.
"The family's right to privacy" is a specific code for certain male heads-of-households' exercise of traditionally held privileges of male domination that allow the violation of the human rights of the women and girls they are intimate with. It doesn't matter where in the world the girls and women are. This family, in which a man made his young children videotape 51 minutes of his verbal and physical abuse of his wife, had a right to privacy. It's a family privacy that many women suffer for in similar ways. Our inability to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, because of the right'shomophobia, sexism, and racism, is a national shame with international consequences.

I know that many will say that these egregious examples do not represent all men. That's certainly true. I also know that it's irrelevant given the reality that one third of the world's women are subjected to violence of this sort, more than 1 billion women. In addition, there are those, especially in this country, who question these numbers. Their claims are regularly debunked. Besides, 1 billion is an awful lot of lying women.

If you doubt what I am arguing, particularly as it pertains to the United States, consider this map of 34 states (the number is now 31) that have failed to pass laws that deny rapists the right to visitation and custody, against their rape victims' will, to children born as a result of the rape that caused the pregnancy. By not passing these laws two thirds of our states effectively ensure paternal rapists' rights. Who gives rapists rights, even by default? This is an illustration of the degree to which we live unconsciously with state-sanctioned support of the rights of men, especially fathers, over those of women. By any measure of justice this map should not exist. This is as Handmaiden's Tale as you get. If there has ever been a map of male domination and the legislative subjugation of women, this is it. Just ask Shauna Prewitt what having the man who raped and inseminated you against your will gain legal access to your child feels like. She became a lawyer, and her recent CNN appearance caused a firestorm because of it. Conversations like Todd Akin's "legitimate rape" comment, Tom Smith's likening rape babies to "out-of-wedlock babies," Paul Ryan's reference to rape as just another "method of conception," and other similar fantasies all reflect a fundamental denial of women's bodily autonomy and rights.

Women also have the right to have the state protect their rights rather than perpetuate the privilege that results in the denial of their rights. That means changes conserve-atives don't like.

For men, the ability to be successful and pursue their individual destinies in traditional ways might require the government to be small and go away. This tenacious idea has meant that women's rights were subsumed. For individual women, in order to offset systematized sexism, misogyny, and violence (most of which takes place at the hands of individual men in a domestic context), it may mean that government has to intercede in new and different ways. That's why patriarchy hates real democracy, because equality for women gets in the way of individual men's exercise of long-held power and privilege. All these things come together, as usual, over women's bodies, which, until relatively recently, were entirely subject to laws based entirely on male norms and male supremacy.

The state of India, in collusion with Sonali's assailants, has largely stood by and allowed multiple injustices to occur. It has failed to protect Sonali and other women like her and to adequately protect their rights under the law. In Sonali's case her bodily involvement in the stripping of her rights is clear. In the U.S. risks to women's bodily integrity are obscured and less obvious to most people, but similar situations occur to women all over the country.

Next time you are at a party, look around and remember:

More than half of school-age girls experience sexual harassment.

Sixty-nine percent of American women surveyed report that they do not look people in the eye when they walk in public streets, in order to avoid harassment.

Between 85 and 99 percent of all women experience varying degrees of street harassment.

One in four women in the U.S. experiences violence at the hands of a partner in her lifetime.

One in three in the world will.

One in five women is a survivor of sexual assault and rape.

This is why I can say "we are all Sonali."

"Violence against women crosses boundaries regardless of nationality, ethnicity, culture, class or economic status. With 1 in 3 women affected, it may well be the biggest human rights atrocity of the 21st century," explains Regina Yau, founder of The Pixel Project, and organization dedicated to raising awareness and fighting against violence against women worldwide, "If you can reduce gender-based violence by even 50 percent across the world, imagine the human potential that could be released: girls can have a fighting chance to be healthy and to go to school, and women can start their own businesses and earn money to feed their families and get out of poverty."

Clearly we both think we have an obligation to others. Many think we have none. This is a defining issue in the U.S. election in November. Individual rights and the limited role of government vs. societal good and the involvement of government. What is going on here in the United States is a social contract debate about women's bodies and who controls them. Just like the debate going on in India. And Columbia. And Afghanistan. And Pakistan. And Uganda. And England.

If we have slipped so far in our commitment to protect the rights of at least half of our population, how can we possible expect to lead the rest of the world in anything? Women's rights in the United States affect women everywhere.

Resources:

Eve Ensler started One Billion Rising to combat worldwide violence against women.

No More is dedicated to raising awareness and eliminating the shame associated with being a victim, male or female, of domestic violence and sexual assault.

The Pixel Project is a global effort to raise awareness and end violence against women.

The Half the Sky Movement, based on the book and documentary of the same name, seeks to change oppression into opportunity for girls and women.

In the U.S. make sure you representatives support the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act when it goes to the U.S. Senate later this year.

Acid Survivors Trust International
Men Against Violence Against Women
Bell Bajao
Men Stopping Violence
Say No Unite to end violence against women
Men Can Stop Rape
UN Women
RAINN Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network
Stop Street Harassment

By Soraya Chemaly

Link to Original Article

The Privatization of Women

Andrea Dworkin has stated that we, in this society, DO NOT perceive a husband (the one who fucks) and a wife (the one who is fucked) as a SOCIAL unit.  It is, in fact, a private unit.  It is not a social part of life.  The relationship between a man and his wife is not interpreted as SOCIAL.  This is what church, state, and institutional laws are built around.  Men build goddamn walls around women, like a prisoner in solitary confinement, and then call it their home.  In this home, or prison, we are beaten, manipulated, raped, annihilated.  Women are most likely to be beaten, raped, and killed in their own home than anywhere else.  

On top of this, we, literally, are given a script for how to interpret that PRIVATE unit.  It’s in the media, our movies, our TV shows, our literature, our institutions.  It’s everywhere.  The romance of the woman (or, what should be more appropriately called the rape of the woman) is the script we are given.  Pornography demonstrates this clearly: women are beaten with a smile on their faces, and it is a ejaculatory event for both this man and this woman.

More than 50% of women report that they were ATTACKED in their own home, most commonly by their “intimate” partner.  The meaning of the word “intimate” is defined as “very private; closely personal”.  Women are captives with no political rights to defend off their attacker, their abuser, the man they were socially conditioned to love NO MATTER WHAT.  She is his property through and through.  She still cannot claim that she has been raped in a court of law without being laughed away.  She, throughout history through the eyes of men, has seemed to have cried wolf.  She cannot claim dignity nor respect nor any self.  According to Wikipedia, the definition of captive is “the state of being confined to a space from which it is difficult or impossible to escape”.  A place where one finds it difficult to escape?  This is the function of marriage.  It is a literal capture.  Women are unable to leave their male partners for economic reasons, for legal reasons, for every male class law and institution in place.

Women, who only got the vote 92 years ago, haven’t been able to participate in the construction of their society.  Their voices have been drowned out, ignored, silenced. 

To demonstrate to you how sub-human women are, in 1990 it was reported that there were 1,500 shelters for battered women in the United States. There are 3,800 animal shelters.  How is this possible, when the evidence is so clear that women are beaten, tortured, killed on a daily basis?  This means there are 2.5 times more animal shelters than there are human shelters, which supposedly are supposed to function when someone is in a state of EMERGENCY.  Apparently, a man’s best friend is only his dog, not his wife.  A dog’s function is, after all, companionship, while the wife is still relegated to the function of producing the progeny of the male through contracted intercourse.

The husband is the human being in this “PRIVATE” relationship.  Not the women; it’s never the woman who is human in this gender classed world.  The woman is property, an object of possession, a fetishized sexual being that elevates the man’s prosperity.  The wife is his bling, like his car which functions to get him around.  She is, literally, a PART of him, like his pinky finger or his spleen.  (Eve, after all, is of Adam’s rib)  She is not human.  She is the one who breeds, who CARES for him.  During Colonial times, men literally BOUGHT women.  They were brought to the colonies as wives.  This is ONLY 200 years ago out of our 50,000 year history as humans.  This was how America began: bringing captives, white and black, as slaves to the WHITE MAN.  Both white women and blacks were sexual slaves.  The white woman bred the new generations of white men, while blacks were bred as slaves.  Black women were also used as the sexual property of the white man.  America was literally born through the system of concubinage.

Women are literally PRIVATE PROPERTY.  LITERALLY.  To this day, this is how the laws are set up.  It is "private matters".  It is "none of your business."  Literally, it is none of society’s BUSINESS.  It is personal, not to be discussed.  Law and State interprets it this way.  The church interprets it this way.  Our learned behavior has been conditioned this way… The relationship between a man and his wife is privatized.  Women are literally owned by the men they marry.  The laws make it so. She is owned inside out.  The slit between her legs is his property.  His sexual object, his possession, his fetishized obsession.  Remember, he signed a contract saying he is the owner of her slit.  That CONTRACT states that he has sexual access to her.  He can have sexual access to her whether she likes it or not, and he will get away with it.  Like the slaves, she is the white property of his estate, his castle.  He can intimidate her, insult her, degrade her, and get away with it.  He can beat her, hurt and rape her and get away with it, and on top of that she will be the one to blame.  It is her fault; she is crazy and has “personal issues”, the script says, society says.  I am here to say that her “personal” issues ARE NOT PERSONAL.  They ARE POLITICAL.  The only thing she is trying to do is keep herself alive, trying to keep her body, mind, and soul from being violated.  And the court says, “No, you are exaggerating, lying.”  And the psychologists say, “No, you are bipolar, crazy.”  And the intellectuals say, “No, you are not worth our time nor effort.”  And her family says, “No, you are his wife. Deal with it.”  He can kill her, like chattel, and get away with murder.  And she has died a trillion times throughout history.

This is why the statement, “The Personal is Political” is so important.  I’m glad a close professor has emphasized this phrase so much to me.  Women have been privatized.  This is why the personal lives of women are so important to listen to, not to be trivialized, not to be swept under the carpet.  Yet, this is what’s going on.  Women are being ignored; to take her seriously would cause great anger, great violence, great political conflict.  The Suffragettes knew it.  In their personal conversations with each other, they strategized NOT to talk about the personal lives they inhabited with men.  These women knew it would anger men to the point of losing the vote.  They strategized not to talk about it in order to get the vote.  This must end.  Our silence must END NOW.  We are no longer living under the same state of tyranny of the 1920s… that is to say, not as much... not much, after all, has changed.  The state has reconfigured and women have done that.  Now we must act in new ways; we must have the courage to not be afraid of what men will do to us when we speak up and institute new laws.  We must end the privatization of women, the privatization of marriage, and the privatization of masculine identity.  We must end our silence on issues of “private matters”.

Feminism’s war against their oppressors has always been about ridding the masculine identity from the face of the earth.  Women have done this through changing laws, obtaining the vote, creating women shelters and rape centers, through using their words. They have done this with their mutilated bodies up for grabs, putting their lives up for the violent backlash which pounds back 10 times harder. Feminism, I will tell you, have not raised up in arms as a collective force.  They have used merely their words, marching, protesting. 

But this is a war no matter how men try to define war; it is a war which violates the bodies of women.  Men use their propaganda, pornography, which is now so proliferate that even “women’s magazines” are filled with it, showing the bodies of hot young fuckable girls with a look of sexual seduction on their faces in stiletto heels.  Women, now more than ever, have internalized this masochistic language as the pornographic imagination has extended out past farther than even anyone imagined: into the public sphere of commercials, television, the media, the internet.

This war is no different from nations violating the human rights of other nations.  War is defined as a state of emergency, and so is the condition of women as they stand now, in 4 inch high heels.  Women are in a state of emergency, yet, when we speak up, go to the authorities, talk with our closest friends and family, we are trivialized and told we deserve it, need it.  Women need to fight back against the all holy masculine identity dependent on pillage and rape.  A precondition for joy for men is putting women in their place.  This is the function of marriage, of the dating system.  It is to put a woman in her place: as a sexual object to be bred and used for physical labor.  This must change.  Men need to find a way to break the systematic sadistic joy and literal erection they get from beating, raping, and ejaculating on women.  If they do not, we, women, will force them to; they will be forced to change, and if they do not, they will perish from this world because we will make this world into something they cannot thrive in.

I'd like to leave you with a speech given by Andrea Dworkin, who highly influenced this piece.

http://andreadworkin.com/audio/montrealdworkin.mp3

Andrea Dworkin's Testimony to the Attorney General On Pornography

Here is Andrea Dworkin's famous speech before the attorney general on the effects of pornography on women's civil rights... couldn't have been put any better.

Andrea Dworkin

This is a great documentary about Andrea's stance on pornography.  The documentary also includes interviews from those women who were exploited in porn and their experiences with it.  Very powerful.  If you want to listen to someone who has a very powerful and empathetic voice, look no further.

TEN THINGS MEN CAN DO TO PREVENT GENDER VIOLENCE

1. Approach gender violence as a MEN'S issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View men not only as perpetrators or possible offenders, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peer.

2. If  a brother, friend, classmate, or teammate is abusing his female partner -- or is disrespectful or abusive to girls and women in general -- don't look the other way. If you feel comfortable doing so, try to talk to him about it. Urge him to seek help. Or if you don't know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counselor. DON'T REMAIN SILENT.

3. Have the courage to look inward. Question your own attitudes. Don't be defensive when something you do or say ends up hurting someone else. Try hard to understand how your own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate sexism and violence, and work toward changing them.

4. If you suspect that a woman close to you is being abused or has been sexually assaulted, gently ask if you can help.

5. If you are emotionally, psychologically, physically, or sexually abusive to women, or have been in the past, seek professional help NOW.

6. Be an ally to women who are working to end all forms of gender violence. Support the work of campus-based women's centers. Attend "Take Back the Night" rallies and other public events. Raise money for community-based rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters. If you belong to a team or fraternity, or another student group, organize a fundraiser.

7. Recognize and speak out against homophobia and gay-bashing. Discrimination and violence against lesbians and gays are wrong in and of themselves. This abuse also has direct links to sexism (eg. the sexual orientation of men who speak out against sexism is often questioned, a conscious or unconscious strategy intended to silence them. This is a key reason few men do so).

8. Attend programs, take courses, watch films, and read articles and books about multicultural masculinities, gender inequality, and the root causes of gender violence.  Educate yourself and others about how larger social forces affect the conflicts between individual men and women.

9. Don't fund sexism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any Web site, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner. Protest sexism in the media.

10. Mentor and teach young boys about how to be men in ways that don't involve degrading or abusing girls and women. Volunteer to work with gender violence prevention programs, including anti-sexist men's programs. Lead by example.

From: http://www.jacksonkatz.com/wmcd.html

WAR ZONE

I think I'm about to lose my MIND.

This documentary, War Zone, was directed/made by a woman from Louisiana.

She bought a camera, and soon found herself in the streets with her tiny camera filming men saying highly sexist things.

 It's 33 minutes long. I'm only half done. SAVE ME!!

http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=213&template=PDGCommTemplates%2FHTN%2FItem_Preview.html

Just an extra note: 90% of murderers are men.

Everyday Male Chauvinism

Everyday Male Chauvinism is a form of intimate partner violence that is not called violence.  This phenomena of power and control over women is unrecognizable, invisible, and remains unnamed.  This is the name of the game, and it is part of everyday relationships with men, especially white heterosexual men who are privileged in ways that are invisible to them as they are the standard.  This invisibility is what makes patriarchy tick; it's the gas that fuels the patriarchal car.  Take away the gas, and the car will no longer be able to run.  This is what making visible the invisible so powerful.  We must make them visible and call out the patriarchal mindset as it arises.  We must not take the path of least resistance.  We must persevere, fight for our rights as human beings in need of respect, dignity, and love.

Men must understand that women and men live in a world where the patriarchal empire Masculand exists and functions in every sphere of life imaginable. This is a global phenomenon, and it's not leaving without outright resistance.  "The recognition of everyday male chauvinism can result in changes in the lives of women who suffer from it.  Men, along with women, must recognise their own behaviour and WANT to change it, not merely think about it abstractly" as I have seen done even in radical circles.  Women WILL NOT progress without the help and support of men; this is not to say that women do not have power.  This capitalistic system will fall to its feet without women's constant unpaid labor of their minds and bodies.  Feminism has drastically changed the lives of every woman who has come into contact with it. Women's roles within society have dramatically changed over the past century due to the fight that women have fought: they have gained the right to vote, to work, to their sexuality, etc.  Of course, our work is not done.  We have far to go, and even farther than Feminism, but humanity for all.

The point is: It is not only necessary for women to fight, but men’s active work is needed.

"The manifestations of everyday male chauvinism are part of a systematic behaviour—they are not occasional and momentary manoeuvres but are tactical steps constituting a strategy. The strategic aim is again the maintenance of the power position, of male dominance, and its restoration if that power is injured. The emphasis is on maintenance and restoration and not on the creation of power because this latter has already been ensured largely by the social, structural element: patriarchal society."

"Men’s 'small' controlling, violent and dominant behaviours are forms of behaviour all within the limits of so called normality and are not particularly outstanding.  They are recognized by men as normal in their lives without even realizing their harmful behaviors.  They do insidious and continuous harm to women’s autonomy, dignity and even their psychic equilibrium. They are extremely common among so called 'nice' men whom public opinion would call neither violent nor particularly controlling  or male chauvinistic."

"These almost unrecognisable mechanisms of “soft” control (i..e. everyday male chauvinism) exercised over women have a devastating effect not only on women but in the long term also on the men who exercise them." These mechanisms of control used by men are damaging to both the man and the woman.  Men are held transfixed in terror, and must prove they can defend themselves endlessly.  They also must defend their property, i.e. women, cattle, his choice of business.  They must defend their "manhood" against other men, and mostly they perish even attempting that.

Male domestic violence and rape in our culture is turned into a fiasco of "victim blaming" where women are castigated as whores and deserving of men's violence.  So, what makes us think the more subtler forms of violence against women like verbal abuse and intimidation are ever even remarked upon in our culture in our daily lives?  Even when it's the most common, most widespread mechanism of control.  Break a woman (soldier) down, and they are yours forever.

Maybe you're thinking to yourself that women are very often violent themselves, even violent against men.  Yes, this is true.  Women can act in all sorts of ways just as men can and vice versa, but the violence women commit is against the flow of the dominant system of patriarchy.  They are working against an everyday patriarchal society where violence committed by men is dominant in their daily lives.  Women, unlike men, are quickly and swiftly shut down and dismissed as bitches, worthless whores, witches, man haters, crazy, unreasonable, illogical.  Pick your favorite.  On the other hand, when a man acts this way, in an intimidating (although, for them, reasonable) way, he is treated like next years king.

In simpler terms, intimidation on women looks bitchy, unreasonable, deserving of put-downs and hatred.  On men, it looks like terror, logical, right, and even can be sexy.

To really make this point compare these photos:

While both look harsh and terrifying, which one's anger looks and feels unjustified, unreasonable, stupid?  Which one looks and feels terrifyingly reasonable?

This woman in the photo uses intimidation and slave-owning techniques just like the man, so don't both genders use intimidation and everyday "male" chauvinism?  Women may use everyday male chauvinism as a mechanism to protect themselves, to fight off feelings of powerlessness from the unequal division of power, or to stand up against the dominant power structures set up to put women back in "their place."  Sometimes the woman, herself, usually alone, must use the dominant system of revenge: castigating him for his indifference and ruthlessness, jail him, use capital punishment.  This is not because she just loves to be sadistic like a man.  It's because it's the only way she is finally able to gain any sort of sense of safety.  If your attacker keeps attacking and threatens to kill you, rape you, or hurt you and those close to you, and if the capitalistic world institution can't help you (even further, they discredit you and castigate you), you are left to defend yourself "outside the proper lawful system".  Outside this "moral" system of lawfulness, we are left to fend for ourselves in a world where our concerns are not considered worth a even a cent! We, women, must stand together, and SHOUT, SCREAM at the top of our lungs that we are not immoral, psychotic, or vengeful.  It is the system which "drives us crazy" and "makes us psychotic and hysteric".  It is a personal feeling and experience that every woman has experienced in a wide variety of ways.  That sick Chicana woman.  That blonde whore.  That negress slut animal.

The majority of women who use violence are merely protecting themselves against the systematic violence that is committed against them on a daily basis.  Any oppressed group can use the tools of the master when the time arises in the right moment of strategic consideration, but, watch out for some serious BACKLASH and watch out FOR YOUR VERY LIFE.  For instance, a man may rape a woman or maybe he throws her around a little bit, or maybe he says something hurtful, or maybe he cheats on her.  The woman may use violence that typifies everyday male chauvinism when other mechanisms aren't available due to her systematic oppression, but the difference is she will be labeled an uncontrollable raging bitch, and therefore simply dismissed as hysteric.Women are castigated as very violent in comparison to men . It's not their "normal" roles to be violent, so any instance of violence by women is heavily sedated by the power structures in place. Neutralized I should say.  This is what we are fighting, women.  Listen up.  Men are neutralizing us before we even have the chance to stand on our two feet.  They kick us down before we even stand.

More men need to LISTEN, really listen... really gravitating to the weight of what women are saying daily about their particular struggle within their very lives NOW.  Women also, especially, if we are even to get this war back on with more equal footing.  What is she going through?  What is she concerned about endlessly as if in a psychosis that can't be woken up from?  Even those men who give us the time of day to speak don't seem to realize the gravity of what we are saying.  After all, their emotional range isn't ideologically supposed to be anything more than an emotional-less stone or anger.  Alas, we are to only be seen, looked upon as their porcelain dolls for them to glorify when we go with the flow, and we will be vilified when we act against the flow of THEIR power structures.  If we "go with the flow" we are seen as innocent, pure dolls, but when we ACT against that flow, we are demonized and systematically dismissed.

We are never to be heard.  We are like children with little right to exist beyond men's needs.  Men treat us like children as they "know better".  They have an "intellectual stamina" over women due to all that inherent male superiority given to them by this patriarchal structure.  Believe me, they realize this structure exists and that it oppresses women.  They invented it afterall, this system of slavery, this slavery of the gender class woman -- can you contradict me?

This is, of course, the same old story of male logic which keeps women down and out of intellectual circles in all fields of life except love, motherhood, and wifehood.  This is of course the biggest farce.  Women very well know what's going on.  They've been learning since they were BORN that they could not be "men" as they were stuffed into a pink bonnet and severely punished for acting out against the gender class man.

Men have been indoctrinated with the idea that they are the show runners of the world.  They see themselves as the rulers, the bosses, the kings, the organizers, the politicians, and this is, indeed correct. THEY ARE.  Big whoop.  Women are the ones breaking their backs with little reward or little thanks from their bosses, their husbands, their boyfriends, and even their families.  They do the dirty work.  They clean, sweep, organize the home, print the kids homework, create the pamphlets for that organization, set the dates for that beach or business trip, shop for your groceries, and the list is almost endless.

What is all very, very critical to this is the man's (and woman's) realization of his (her) socialization, indoctrination as a kid.  As a young boy, he adapted to the terrain of traditional roles set up for him before he's even born (his father maintained the family, his mother takes care of him, and on top of that he sees how other families interact in such similar ways).  His father uses "male logic" on his mommy.  His mommy uses kisses, hugs, complements, and sex as a tool of submission when she requests anything from a man, including him.  These ideas are indoctrinated, uploaded, buried beneath the boy's very understanding of men and women.  It becomes reality.  Even if he knows about patriarchy and wishes theoretically to dispose of it because (logically) he knows this is best for Homo Sapiens survival, he still knows these patriarchal roles are functioning NOW in the world.  He knows, at anytime, he can use these mechanisms and maneuvers against women and other men which degrade both.  He knows, beneath all of that, that he has the capacity to destroy a woman's self-esteem and sleep with any woman he wishes simply through the mechanisms he's used on his mother or sister or that cousin he felt up when he was 15 and she was 5.

This is so well into his very life-being.  He doesn't realize how much of that is in him, even when he may endorse the equality of both women and men in order to dissolve the gender classes.  He exploits and abuses the fact that the woman is an “expert” at taking care of others. He know she's been conditioned to do just that, so why not let her do it as she knows best and it'll be easier anyways, right guys?  By reinforcing women's already socialised calling “to live for others”, it leads the woman into the roles that are hers “by nature”, "by roles", and now "by patriarchy". 

Do you really think men aren't thinking this?  That if they get their wives or girlfriends to do the laundry or those dishes or plan that trip, he won't have as much to think about except his long held desire to exploit her and live out his dream of become "expert" or "theoretician".  It'll be just like living with mommy.

Women are conditioned to be a mother, wife, assistant, secretary, dispatcher, psychologist, social worker, telephonist, receptionist, cleaner and cloakroom attendant all at once for one man and for those men she works for at "her" job without any help from other men or women what so ever (unless, she dare ask for it, for help... which may lead to a hit, a put down, and terror).

“Often men feel that a relationship has deteriorated when the mechanisms of male power, which are accepted as everyday communication, are no longer enough to maintain power over women.” -Why Does He Abuse? Why Can He Abuse?

***This writing was highly influenced by the paper, Everyday Male Chauvinism.  Direct quotes are taken from it and have been modified by me.  No copyright infringement intended. 

A Radical Profeminist: Women, Men, Love, and Hate: A Radical Profeminist ...

Just.... wow....

Very, very strong message.  Here is part of a blog post taken from the blog, A Radical Profeminist: Women, Men, Love, and Hate: A Radical Profeminist by Julian Real

"When most men read writings by women men perceive to be hateful, they will take GREAT offence, become histerical, and see such writing as evidence that women hating on men is a global problem that must be snuffed out by any means necessary.

When many women read writings by men they experience as hateful, they will often often respond with a kind of reasoned resignation, as if to say "Yeah, what else is new? Same story, different day."

Online anti-feminist men are apparently convinced there's something 'out there' called misandry--not committed by MEN, but committed by WOMEN. These delusional people will cling to Andrea Dworkin's writings as "proof" because men love to believe women hate them, ridicule them, don't respect them, and find them generally distasteful. And how many countries did Andrea Dworkin rule? How many courts did she oversee? How many juries did she advise? How many institutions or industries did she control? How much profit did she make from selling rape of women as entertainment for men? How rich was she? How much money did she earn from her dozen or so books? (The answer is shockingly low. You have to write books about boys as courageous, about men as heroes, to make any money at all, if you're a woman.)

Can you count on one hand, two hands, twenty hands, the number of men who rule countries that don't respect women as full human beings? Please make sure you put "the United States" on the first hand. Please add "Canada" too. And "England". And "Australia". And "Japan". And most any nation-state you know of. Even the few Scandinavian countries which are trying to end the procurement and rape of women. Because the procurement and the rape hasn't ended anywhere yet. So women are free nowhere. Even in societies in which women are generally regarded as human, there will always be white men to arrive and remind them what white men think women, globally, are for. Class-privileged white het men in Japan do this a whole lot, for example. And they do it a whole lot in Australia. And England. And Canada. And the United States too. Everywhere white het men go, they carry with them a belief in their absolute right to have sexual access to women and girls. But they don't call this protection of a right wrong as "hate".

These privileged men also will not see women who love women, sexually, romantically, socially, and politically, for what it is: being loving. The also won't see women's critiques of male atrocities for what they are: loving.

To whatever extent actual negative portraits of men exist, socially, they will not ever be regarded by men as a class as a crucial aspect of women gaining some sense of freedom from the imposition on will, on being, and on life, of the primary patriarchal commandment: THOU SHALT NOT DO ANYTHING TO INSULT, DEGRADE, OR DEMONISE ME(N), who are to be revered as gods. This follows the commandment, a very Conservative Corporate Christian one: THOU SHALT DO EVERYTHING IN ONE'S POWER AS A MAN, INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY, TO INSULT, DEGRADE, AND DEMONISE WOMEN.

There is a sexual politic to hate. Here is how it works: men are allowed to hate women, or not. Men can show contempt, callousness, or cruelty and always claim "It's because I love ya, baby!! Why don't you SEE that?? Why don't you KNOW that?!"

Women are not allowed to do anything at all that might possibly be perceived by one man or many men as being contemptuous, callous, or cruel to one man or to men in general. If a man takes offence to what a woman does, no amount of pleading for him to understand it as not-hate will stop him from beating the shit out of her, castigating her publicly, or killing her.

A group of college students was segregated for an exercise, by sex. The exercise went more or less as follows.

Female teacher asked a classroom full of male students: "What do you fear most about women?"

The most common answer from individual males was, "She will make fun of me."

Same female teacher asked a classroom full of female students: "What do you fear most about men?"

The most common answer from individual females was, "He will kill me."

This gets to the bloody heart of the matter, doesn't it? Men realities with women are radically different, globally, than women's with men. Women, by media and by men, are incessantly assaulted. Men, by women, are made to accommodate males, to accept males, to appreciate males, to approve of males, to find men endlessly fascinating even when men are boring as hay.

This post, just as it is, noting the most obvious things about men's hatred of women being an institutional and interpersonal problem, that comes up against little to no resistance within patriarchal societies, will be seen as some kind of "threat" to men. As if words on blogs threaten men. As if words on blogs can have any significant impact on stemming the tide of men's misogyny, which floods women's lives at least twice daily.

What men cannot see and cannot accept is that men hating on women is a social problem and men dominating and subordinating women is an ever larger problem. What men cannot see is that women hating on men, however much it happens, has no institutional backing or media support. Even corporate pimps portray it as a kind of fetish of men's: something some men "are into" which has no grounding in cross-cultural social reality. What corporate pimps know, however, is that portraying all women as if they want to be raped has grounding in a very lethal reality: men do wish to rape women and accomplish this, with almost no men ever being charged with a crime, or otherwise suffering any negative consequence, other than more of their heart and soul chipping off and falling away.

We might just as well do away with the term "hate" and find out what's really going on, because "hate" is not really the issue. Men can and do feel all kinds of things for women, and call them all "what is in women's best interests". If men despise women, it's because women deserve it and need it. If men love women, well, men get to behave atrociously and still cling to the claim that it's an expression of love. And, worse yet, they are believed!

When women do disdain or disrespect one man or men in general, she cannot claim that "It's really love, baby--why can't you see that??"

Meanwhile, men do systematically and endemically rape women, singularly and in gangs, at home and in motel rooms and in wars and in "peacetime". Women do not systematically or endemically rape men anywhere.

Father-against-daughter incest, or father-figure or adult male family member against daughter-figure or girl child, is the most common form of child sexual abuse on Earth. Yet the patriarchal media are far more likely to report on boys being abused by men. This is because girls being abused by men is so common a practice that it we would have to add hours to the day to report on all the cases.

I saw a program not too long ago in which the woman host remarked with great sadness, "One in six males will be sexually abused in their childhoods". Is that horrible? Of course it is. It's a criminal shame. And we cannot forget for one moment that over 90% of the perpetrators will be men. "Good" men. "Trusted" men. "Holy" men. Socially adored and respected men.

Let's break down what that means relative to the experience of girls. Twice as many girls as boys will be sexually assaulted--predominantly by men--by the time they reach adulthood, if they reach adulthood.

The sadness felt for boys assaulted in their youth, by men, is felt culturally. It resonates in the bodies of those who hear this news as "Awful. Truly awful." Because it is awful. But the sexual assault of girls is registered in the bodies of the masses as "inevitable", or "unfortunate", or "Why didn't the mother do anything to stop her husband or boyfriend, huh?" As if women have ever been able to regulate men's sexually predatory behaviour. Get this, reader:

If a woman DOES catch her predatorary male partner raping her/their daughter, and she is also being battered by him, and she leaves him, this is what typically occurs:

She is charged with the crime of stealing HIS children from HIM. She is charged with being abusive to the children. Her claims that she was beaten are seen as evidence that she is an evil woman who will do anything she can to selfishly hold onto her children while demonising the prick. The pricks get expensive attorneys who make these arguments to pro-patriarchal judges and juries, who award him full custody and call her a criminal. She's a criminal for leaving the prick; he's not a criminal for beating and raping his wife and children. Now, tell me: where's the social love for women and girls in that?

Is not the act of incestuous molestation or assault or rape a father or father-figure stealing something from a girl? Is this theft not a crime against humanity? Ought not such a man be forbidden by society to ever have access to the child again?

And what of men who desire girls sexually and publicly? What of men who, collectively, socially lust after girls? Who want to fuck girls? Who want to see girls depicted as "sexxx-things for men to get aroused by"? For men to fantasize about, to use as fuel to bring firm up their determination as they make their way into the bedrooms of their daughters?

Is both the desire and the depictions "love" of girls? That's what men say. The term for this condition in men, after all, is "paedophilia", isn't it? "Love of children". Not misopedia: hatred of children. Men who desire to fuck girls and who do rape girls are called "lovers of children". Now, how fucked up is that? If this doesn't show that men don't know the difference between love and hate, what does?

Women, especially over the last forty-three years, have gotten very clear about what men's hatred of women looks like, feels like, and is. And women over the last forty-three years, especially, have realised that men not only hate women, but men don't regard women as human enough to see as full human beings. Some men don't hate women because to hate them one might have to recognise them as human. So some men just hold women in a kind of callous disregard, and in this frame men feel quite comfortable wiping their dicks on girls and women, as if that's what girls and women are for. Men traffic girls and women, as fuck-objects, as objects, as possesions, and as slaves. Men beat women and girls without mercy. Men terrorise girls and women without ever calling it terrorism. Men, collectively, never call this TERRORISM.

I am demanding that men stop terrorising women and girls; that men stop trafficking women and girls; that men stop raping women and girls; that men stop beating up women and girls; that men stop using images of women and girls as their fuel to invade the bedrooms of their spouses or children; that men stop incesting their daughters or other girls in the family; that men stop thinking of women and girls as existing to serve men, to submit to men, to be subordinate to men. I am demanding that men get off women's backs and fronts. That men stop all the hating and love that feels like hate.

And to any man reading this who thinks it is hateful of men, I have only this to say: go fuck yourself. And do it exactly the way you see men in pornography do it to women. And then you might know what hate truly feels like.

I call on humanity to institutionalise male respect, regard, empathy, compassion, and dignity for all women and all girls. To make it mandatory. To make it compulsory. To make it a social requirement for admission into the social and intimate world of women and girls. I won't call on men to "love" women, because I know that for too many men, that word has no spiritual meaning at all. It is, rather, men's excuse for doing to women what anyone with a beating heart would call hatred if women expressed it the same way to men.

I hope women, internationally, rise up against men's domination, men's humiliations, men's indignities, men's assaults, men's insults, men's tyranny, men's terrorism, men's anti-democratic ways of being against individual women and against women as a class of human beings regarded by men as existing for men. And I hope patriarchies everywhere are unplugged soon. Very soon. Perhaps within the next few years. If not sooner. I hope patriarchal societies fall like Dominoes. And that when they fall they crack into pieces too tiny to put back together. I hope for this so that girls and women can know life without men's exploitation, without incest, without rape, without economic servitude, without sexual slavery, and life without men's social and personal terrorism and tyranny. With love in my heart for womankind, I hope for this.Not with hate for manunkind. I will hold out faith that you, dear reader, after taking in the realities described in this post, will intellectually and viscerally know the difference.

The reason I love women of all colors is because women are human beings who show a form courage I've yet to see in white men. Women are collectively enduring a globalised system of male domination, too often in isolation, feeling alone, trapped. These individual women who are experiencing what millions of other women have experienced and are experiencing on this day, will all too often blame themselves for conditions well beyond women's collective control, let alone individual control. At the same time, the most enslaved women are creative, finding ways to survive, get through another day. There is resistance going on, even when it looks like appeasement. I know millions of women worldwide are waiting for the right moment to rise up, collectively, not individually, to get out from under him and his ritually abusive rules, to move out of reach of his grip and to cast off his grim view of what "woman" is for. I refuse to see women as existing for men. I see women as existing for themselves, for Life, for Being. I see women as existing beyond any definitions of "woman" that men entertain and enforce.

The reason I don't hate men is because it is a waste of my energy and it clouds my capacity to see what's going on. Men are human, every one, no matter how monstrously they behave. And there are, after all, some very dear men in the world: Derrick Jensen, Noam Chomsky, and Nelson Mandela. A problem--one of many--is that almost no men on Earth will focus on the oppression of women by men as a central atrocity faced by humanity. Not the only atrocity. But a central one. One worth fighting to end, with all of one's being behind the effort."

Dirty Women

I dare all to look at a woman with respect and decency instead of looking at her with disdain, like a worthless object.

What do you see and feel when you LOOK at this woman? Do you feel disgusted? Do you feel revolt?  Do you feel dirty? Or do you see that loving woman who's your grandma who you only speak to now on Christmas?

 

What do you see when you look at this woman?  Is she that slut you've always wanted to fuck over?  Is she overcompensating?  Is she just that 'mistake' you never want to look at again?  I dare you to believe that and see where it takes you.  Karma is a bitch.  Be careful where you tread.  

What do you see here? Do you see a dirty animal beneath you, beneath decency and love?  Do you see a sexualized being only worth conquering?  Women in this world might as well be equated to commodities who are exchanged on the basis of looks. Look closely at the women around you, especially those who have raised you, who have been your friends, your confidants. Do you think they are truly happy with the psychotic system put in place to keep them disturbed, fearful, and stir-crazy? Women are bought and sold, traded.  Just like blacks, communists, gays, and other 'scums of the earth', women are wading through a world where they must rise just to your kneecaps just to get SOME respect and decency those others get like it's just a damn gift handed over to them at birth.  White, heterosexual, conservative dicks can't see how wretchedly hard it is for us to rise and be all we can be.  The oppressed of the world can't stand this dilemma.  The privileged, the ones born with a BIRTH RIGHT, have no idea how much we suffer under their legacy of humiliation, subjugation, and oppression.  Let us learn and move on.

My First Period - Spoken Word of Staceyann Chin

This is amazing.


Start at 10:10 for a shorter version that's more intense.

RAPE

"I'm not fighting for a world where 'radical' rape exists. I'm fighting for a world where the world is free of any rape what so ever."

 

Ptahhotep, The Ancient Egyptian's Wisdom of Grace

I thought ya'll would enjoy the following quotes.  I fell in love and now they are hanging on my fridge so I will start to memorize them by heart.

• "Great is the Law (Maat)." (p. 24)
• "All conduct should be so straight that you can measure it with a plumb-line." (p. 27)
• "Injustice exists in abundance, but evil can never succeed in the long run." (p. 32)
• "Punish with principle, teach meaningfully. The act of stopping evil leads to the lasting establishment of virtue." (p. 32)
• "The human race never accomplishes anything. It's what God commands that gets done." (p. 41)
• "Those whom God guides do not go wrong. Those whose boat He takes away cannot cross." (p. 43)
• "Follow your heart all your life, do not commit excess with respect to what has been ordained." (p. 66)
• "If you work hard, and if growth takes place as it should in the fields, it is because God has placed abundance in your hands." (p. 74)
• "Do not gossip in your neighbourhood, because people respect the silent." (p. 74)
• "Listening benefits the listener." (p. 74)
• "If he who listens, listens fully, then he who listens becomes he who understands." (p. 76)
• "He who listens becomes the master of what is profitable." (p. 76)
• "To listen is better than anything, thus is born perfect love." (p. 76)
• "God loves he who listens. He hates those who do not listen." (p. 76)
• "As for the ignorant man who does not listen, he accomplishes nothing. He equates knowledge with ignorance, the useless with the harmful. He does everything which is detestable, so people get angry with him each day." (p. 77)
• "A perfect word is hidden more deeply than precious stones. It is to be found near the servants working at the mill-stone." (p. 78)
• "Only speak when you have something worth saying." (p. 79)
• "As for you, teach your disciple the words of tradition. May he act as a model for the children of the great, that they may find in him the understanding and justice of every heart that speaks to him, since man is not born wise." (p. 85)
• "A woman with happy heart brings equilibrium." (p. 107)
• "Love your wife with passion." (p. 107)
• "As for those who end up continually lusting after women, none of their plans will succeed." (p. 108)
• "How wonderful is a son who obeys his father!" (p. 112)
• "How happy he is of whom it is said: 'A son is kind-natured when he knows how to listen.'" (p. 112)
• "Do not blame those who are childless, do not criticise them for not having any, and do not boast about having them yourself." (p. 113)
• "May your heart never be vain because of what you know. Take counsel from the ignorant as well as the wise..." (p. 119)
• "So do not place any confidence in your heart in the accumulation of riches, since everything that you have is a gift from God." (p. 126)
• "Think of living in peace with what you possess, and whatever the Gods choose to give will come of its own accord." (p. 127)
• "Do not repeat a slanderous rumour, do not listen to it." (p. 139)
• "He who has a great heart has a gift from God. He who obeys his stomach obeys the enemy." (p. 140)
• "Those who[m] the Gods guide cannot get lost. Those they forbid passage will not be able to cross the river of life." (p. 143)

Here's the link to the source.

Phah hotep's Advice to Son about How to treat Women

Well this is interesting. I just got done talking to an Egyptian (He's literally FROM Egypt) Mythologist, and man is he SMART!  He told me about Ra (the sun god) who was all alone and lonely.  So, what did he do? He masturbated.  He masturbated, and then from his cum, he created 4 children: Geb (Earth), Nut (Sky), Shy? (air), and Tefnut (humidity). lol! What a crazy world, and the things we come up with. = )

Here are some original notes from him (the blue is his original handwriting, mine is the black/gray).
Click image or here to enlarge.

Also interesting, ptah hotep, who wrote wisdom literature, advised his son on how to treat his wife and mother.

Here is a little info from wiki about his work, The Instruction of Ptah Hotep.

In the introduction, the author explains the reason for writing the instruction, namely his having reached old age and wanting to pass on the wisdom of his ancestors who had, in his words, listened to the gods. The Maxims are conformist precepts extolling such civil virtues as truthfulness, self-control and kindness towards one's fellow beings. Learning by listening to everybody and knowing that human knowledge is never perfect are a leitmotif. Avoiding open conflict wherever possible should not be considered weakness. Justice should be pursued and in the end it will be a god's command that prevails. Some of the maxims refer to one's behaviour when in the presence of the great, how to choose the right master and how to serve him. Others teach the correct way to lead through openness and kindness. Greed is the base of all evil and should be guarded against, while generosity towards family and friends is praiseworthy. Rise in the social order should be accepted as a gift from an Egyptian god and could be preserved by accepting the precedence of one's superior.

The Body

 

This outright hatred of so called ‘fatness’ enables an all-out war on the body.

This relentless war demands the complete disconnection of the body and the soul.

At birth these two were one, but, acclimating within a body perfectionist culture forces the soul to vilify the body.

The body, once at peace with the soul, is turned into the enemy being fought.

 

Once the body is twisted into an object of disgust, the soul begins the attempt to control itself by fragmenting into shards.  

This splitting of the soul is unavoidable as control mandates the mind to divide into a ‘me’ that’s being controlled and an ‘I’ that’s doing the controlling.

This leaves the body disconnected from the soul and the soul fragmented in pieces.

We, as human beings, have been fragmented by our culture, left to feel nothing but abhorrence for the body, which merely becomes a vessel holding a ruptured soul of nothingness.

 

This body warfare will always end in devastating losses as it is an endless struggle in a culture that inherently contradicts itself.

Capitalism demands souls to accept a narrow definition of body perfection in order to make souls feel inept and buy more to perfect the body, but Capitalism also necessitates the ceaseless consumption of goods, including the great amount of goods we ingest into the body.

In this Capitalist World-System, the soldiers at war with their bodies 

Will. Never. Stop. Fighting. 

because peace commands a complete revolution of the system.