We are still picking ourselves up from all the assaults on women’s rights and health in 2016 that culminated in the election of a sexist administration dedicated to strengthening the patriarchy. Yet even as we come to terms with 2017 and all it might bring, we continue working on the issues and causes that have engaged us for years. How do we move past fear to reconnect with hope? One of the WOW women said “Hope is easier to build when we work together.” We might wear different labels such as — male, female, LGBTQ, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, people of color or with disabilities, Latinx, Asian, hetero, white — but we all share common dreams and fears. Let’s focus on what we share and work together, all of us.
In light of the “all of us” part, instead of words from wise women today, I bring you two wise men at the beginning and end of This Week in the War on Women.
As an old man, I can say this again.
Start where you are and realise you are not meant on your own to resolve all of these massive problems.
My heart leaps with joy at discovering the number of people who say "we want to make a better world".
And you will be surprised at how it can get to be catching.
Do what you can, where you can.
Desmond Tutu
The first week of 2017 was no different than other weeks. We saw legislation to limit women’s access to abortion despite the reality that support for Roe versus Wade is at an all-time high. More restrictions are planned, although Schumer implies that the abortion stance of nominees to the SCOTUS might be enough to disqualify a candidate. A new campaign brings awareness of the disproportionate attacks on Black girls by public schools. They are five times more likely to be suspended even though their rate of offense is the same as white girls.
Women also are moving to repair damages and find answers. We promote political awareness and solutions through art; consider establishing quotas to promote parity of women candidates and political positions as is commonly accepted in other nations; and along with allies, we will march on Washington.
Tonight’s news includes the usual actions: attempts to silence our voices (a sure sign we are being effective!); holding women to unreasonable expectations; and blaming women for being abused. The patriarchy once again attempts to define “true rape” and discourage women from reporting rape by doubting and belittling us.
No wonder women feel especially disheartened and nervous about what is coming. Again this week as I did last week, I’m promoting a truly intersectional feminism as an antidote to despair, and following through on this by highlighting two men who embody resilience and unity: the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu.
silencing women
Trying to shut her up: Indigenous activist facing threats stands up for peace in Colombia
A 28-year-old indigenous Colombian peace and women’s rights activist, Marcia Mejía Chirimia worked to protect her community from the 50 year war between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and the Colombian government. She helped her area become a humanitarian refuge and served as leader of the women and gender group at the Association of Indigenous Councils of Valle del Cauca. This organization represents nearly 100 indigenous towns in western Colombia and addresses the rights of local women and girls. She was part of the negotiations to resolve the 50-year war.
During the four-year peace process that culminated in congressional approval in 2016, Mejía found that she and other women from her organization were playing an important role in representing indigenous communities who were victims of the violence caused by the FARC, the army, and paramilitary groups. She wanted to make sure the voices and stories of marginalized groups—including indigenous groups, women, and children, who were particularly affected by the violence—were taken into account in the process. As a spokeswoman for Communities Building Peace in their Territories (CONPAZ), she worked to integrate victims’ voices and concerns into the peace process, including prioritizing truth and reconciliation over jail time for perpetrators. Many of those recommendations are reflected in the final accord.
Ending the war wasn’t fully supported as some people benefited from the ability to seize lands (and thus profit from mineral and natural resources), while urban people had less direct experience with the violence and displacement that affected rural people. In April 2016, Mejía received a text threat she thinks was from a paramilitary group.
I would like to remind Marcia Mejía and other fucking snitch Indians who block roads and are informers to the guerilla[s] that you will die. …You rats, we know where you are and you are a military objective. Watch out, there is no time left. You will die.
Mejía doesn’t plan to step back and be safe. She knows a diversity of people are needed to ensure that the peace deal is successful and that it creates greater equality for women. For example, female former guerrilla members don’t want to become women locked into a traditional domestic life. These women, as all others, are part of the post-war culture. “I always tell women that we have to continue speaking up, that we can’t remain silent.”
Meltdown of the Phantom Snowflakes presents another type of silencing when oppresed people call for reform and are told to “be strong”. If you are not a white heterosexual cis-male, your right to speak out about oppression is silenced by being labelled weakness. Laurie Penny discusses how the conservative right has framed tolerating oppression as "strength," and speaking out about oppression as "weakness."
To demand “strength” from an oppressed person is to excuse their oppression, to label them weak for voicing anything that looks like dissent. That’s what we see when young people organizing for change are labelled “generation snowflake.” Dissent is called outrage, whining, crying victim, virtue signaling—unless it’s angry white neoreactionaries bravely fighting back against basic decency, in which case it’s called “legitimate concerns.” The concerns of women and minorities can never be legitimate—still less their pain.
India outrage after minister blames “Western dress” for groping
Women in Bangalore India used social media to report groping and molestation by crowds of men during New Year’s Eve festivities. More people (10-20,000) than police (1,500) gathered to celebrate. The large crowd made movement difficult and women were unable to escape from assaulting men or call for help. Women in India hesitate to report sexual assault due to social stigmas and fear of retaliation and even those women who did report the assaults were unable to identify the men due to crowd. After hearing reports, a Home Minister held the women responsible for being assaulted.
[He blamed women for] ..."copying the Westerners, not only in their mindset, but even in their dressing".
"These kind of things do happen," he said.
The Twitter hashtag #YesAllWomen comes forward to help women express their anger and tell their stories, while the hastag #NotAllMen once again allows men to express their scorn and doubts (denial and justifications). And as usual women are sneering at men’s excuses saying that being proud because you’ve never molested a woman is not important. What is important is working to promote women’s rights to not be molested. There’s no award for not molesting just as there’s no trophy for refraining from murder.
lying about birth control to promote political agendas
Trump Health-Care Peddles Myths About Contraception
Katy Talento was appointed to Trump’s domestic policy team on health care and promoted in a press release as “an infectious disease epidemiologist with nearly 20 years of experience in public health and health policy, as well as government oversight and investigations and program evaluation.” Yet as one might expect, the discrepancies between how she is promoted and what she actually does are significant and dangerous.
Talento pushes discredited claims about birth control and abortion, including the myth that hormonal birth control drugs cause abortions, miscarriages, and infertility. Among her other nonsense, in the article Ladies: Is Birth Control The Mother Of All Medical Malpractice? Talento promoted lies about birth control calling it an “unholy alliance between the OB/GYN racket and Big Pharma all too willing to sign you up for endless annual visits and regular copays at the pharmacy...” She mocked the intention to make BC available over-the-counter and asserted that fertility tracking was a better method because hormonal birth control is a dangerous drug.
I know—even better, let’s run for Congress on the promise of putting those dangerous, carcinogenic chemicals in the candy aisle at CVS. Surely this would inoculate us against accusations of waging a “war on women.”
She claimed that women who say they use hormonal birth control to manage symptoms of dysmenorrhea, endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome are merely postponing the more important need to identify why they have these symptoms, as if taking an aspirin relieves one of the need to learn if there’s a treatable cause for your headache.
She concludes her anti-BC manifesto by pointing out that consequence-free orgasms are a male entitlement that devastates women.
There’s also economic and relational devastation that has left women and children abandoned by men who now feel entitled to consequence-free orgasms. As a result, fewer and fewer women, men and especially children enjoy the stability, prosperity, and human flourishing that marriage between biological parents provides….
true rape is worse than . . . wtf
NYPD captain suggests ‘true stranger rapes’ are more serious than others
“They’re not total abomination rapes where strangers are being dragged off the streets,” said Captain Peter Rose of the New York City police department’s 94th precinct. “If there’s a true stranger rape, a random guy picks up a stranger off the street, those are the troubling ones. That person has, like, no moral standards.”
Women aren’t taking this silently. Strangers are rarely dragged off the streets to be raped. Often rapists are someone the woman knows — friend, relative, or boss. Sometimes it’s a casual encounter, such as a Llyft driver, friend/relative of a friend, or someone met at a party.
It’s still rape if
- fingers are used instead of a penis (you are a rapist Brock Turner);
- she’s your wife;
- the woman is unable to speak and say no;
- last week she said yes;
- she’s wearing leggings or a short skirt.
ALL RAPE IS TRUE RAPE.
It is statements like Rose’s that result in 1 out of 3 rapists not being convicted.
Ultra-Violet has a petition asking that NYPD Captain Rose be fired.
Police Said They Couldn’t Find the Men Who Gang-Raped This Woman While Her 2-Year-Old Watched. Then Another Woman Was Raped.
Taylor Hirth reported the February 2016 rape when men entered her home in a Kansas City, Missouri suburb as she slept and then spent hours gang raping her. Police were informed right away and Hirth went to the hospital for a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner exam. DNA evidence was found but didn’t match anything in the database. Hirth did everything “right” following the rape and yet during the police interview immediately afterward, she began to doubt the likelihood of justice.
About 20 minutes into her taped interview with the detective, after she has given her account of what happened and answered his questions and follow-up questions, he asks about what she did earlier on the night of the attack, and if she is on Tinder or other dating websites that might lead someone to know who she is. [...]
The detective explains that they have to ask about things like Tinder because it's very popular and they've had situations where “there's a plan to meet and it ended up turning into a rape." Sometimes, he says, people are too embarrassed to reveal they were on a dating site, even though it can be important. [...]
I kept thinking, How could I be a more perfect victim,” Taylor. . . “I was sober, dressed in sweatpants, sleeping in my locked apartment on the third floor with my daughter, not on Tinder or OkCupid, not dating or married … and still wasn't believed.”
Myths about rape are rampant and when police and the judicial system buy into these myths, women are denied justice. No wonder many women don’t even report rapes. The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network says that 2 out of 3 sexual assaults are not reported, primarily due to fear of retaliation or belief that the police won’t help.
In Rape Law Gatekeeping, a law professor found that police disbelieve rape victims far more than the public realizes. As a result of police belittling the rape and not conducting an extensive investigation, too many rapists are not held accountable, know they got away with it, and go on to rape other women.
Police across the United States regularly act as hostile gatekeepers who prevent rape complaints from advancing through the criminal justice system by fervently policing the culturally disputed concept of “rape.
CRONE ENERGY
How 101-Year-OldArtist Carmen Herrera Handles Sexist Double Standards
Women artists lack the recognition and support their male counterparts have enjoyed for centuries, but if you hang on until you are 89 you might get an exhibit at The Whitney by time you are 101. After all, the men have families to support and deserve more attention and income.
In a recent interview with The Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone, Herrera recalled a particular conversation with avant-garde gallery owner Rose Fried, who gave a succinct and wholly infuriating explanation for why, despite her abundant talent, Herrera couldn’t land herself a show.
“She said, ‘You know, Carmen, you can paint rings around the men artists I have, but I’m not going to give you a show because you’re a woman,’” Herrera recalled. “I felt as if someone had slapped me on the face. I felt for the first time what discrimination was. It’s a terrible thing. I just walked out.”
Yet even though Herrera has finally been recognized with her own exhibit, it is smaller in scope than what men artists receive.
“Why didn’t the Whitney give Ms. Herrera not just the show she ought to have received some decades ago, but also the show that she deserves today?” Cotter asked. “Meaning a full retrospective on the big stage of the fifth floor, like those the museum bestowed on Frank Stella last fall, or even a slightly more focused look at her oeuvre from maturity on, as in the Stuart Davis survey that’s now in its final weeks. Well-intentioned as it is, ‘Lines of Sight’ gives us just a narrow slice of a career that’s seven decades strong and still going.”
It is clear that there is still much work to be done in terms of gender parity in the creative realm, but Herrera’s resilient style and determined spirit serve as an example of what is possible with hard work and a fierce antipathy for sexism.
remember why we resist oppression and division
the world also holds love and joy
The Book of Joy by Desmond Tutu and His Holiness the Dalai Lama teaches us how to live with joy even in times of adversity. Both men know adversity — and joy. In the book, they share their stories, teachings, findings in the science of deep happiness, and daily practices that help them remain hopeful despite personal and worldly disturbances.
Let’s remain hopeful despite adversity.