tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-268653152024-03-14T09:12:37.601+00:00Feminism and TeaA reformed blog from what used to be meaningless chattering to what I hope is meaningful discussion on politics and society, with a heavy focus on gender issues.
Please feel free to comment, especially if you disagree.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.comBlogger90125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-71701588197913290502011-03-08T17:18:00.000+00:002011-03-08T17:18:10.663+00:00International Women's Day 2011: Women and DemocracyLast year on international women's day, I wrote a blog post on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ffeminismandtea.blogspot.com%2F2010%2F03%2Finternational-womens-day-rage.html%3Fspref%3Dfb&h=c31aa">what the 8th of March is and what it isn't</a>. I felt that was needed; a surprising amount of people want to congratulate women or bring them gifts or congratulate them for being women. Why this is completely wrong you can read there.<br />
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This year I want to focus on something recent, something beautiful, but something still troubling. I wrote a while back on <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/revolution-with-invisible-women.html">women in Egypt's revolution</a> and how they had been made invisible. Lately, the media has started picking up on the importance of women in the front lines of the revolution, demonstrating side by side with the men, women from different religions, backgrounds, with different stories, but the same goal. Even Naomi Wolf wrote <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/03/201134111445686926.html">a piece on it for Al Jazeera</a> and it involved no rape apologia (!) even though it was far from original.<br />
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As the revolution has spread to Libya and other countries, women are still out there, they are still shouting and they are still fighting for freedom and democracy. These women are very much a part of bringing about a freer and fairer society with the hope of being a part of that as well. I did express my worry in the above blog post on women not being properly included in a reconstruction of an Egyptian society, and I stressed the importance of making sure that they were included in order to guarantee a fully free and equal society. But as it seems, sadly, the women were welcome as long as they were needed to further men's goals and needs, and are today being <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/201138133425420552.html">pushed back to their traditional roles</a> - a pattern that is all too obvious in conflict and upheaval where women are expected to participate or support but later return to their assigned duties when it is all over. <br />
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Today, these women are once again braving the streets, in a country where it is estimated that 80% of the women have been sexually harassed and much of it takes place in public places, to demand their rights and recognition for the role that they played in overthrowing the Mubarak regime. As this post is being written, there are <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/AymanM/status/45160004327714818">reports of harassment</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/#!/AJELive/status/45148543413002240">violence</a> targeted against the international women's day protest in Tahrir Square, Cairo. (I will update with a proper news article when I find one.) What is said to have happened is that men have entered the square, harassing women and using violence to stop them from demanding their rights. In essence, it is an anti-feminist, anti-women's rights counter protest. The women have served their purpose - they helped overthrow the regime - now when the men have reached equality and freedom, we can go back to the status quo and continue harassing and oppressing women.<br />
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<a href="http://womenforwomen.org">Women for Women</a> are organising an event today called <a href="http://www.womenforwomen.org/bridge/our-mission-on-bridge.php">on the bridge</a> standing in solidarity with all the women around the world whose voices are not heard, calling for peace and an end to violence against women. They are standing with the women from Afghanistan who continue being excluded from reconstruction processes; with women from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rape is used systematically as a tactic of war and terror; and with all other women trying to make a difference, like the women in Egypt today, and the women in the Ivory Coast, where <a href="http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/08/4-killed-in-ivory-coast-after-womens-march/">women have been killed today in a protest</a>.<br />
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Today it is international women's day. It is a day when we are supposed to celebrate what we have accomplished in the past in terms of women's civil and political advancement. It is a day to celebrate the present and all the brilliant women and men who work so hard to include women and make their voices heard. And it is a day to try to change the future, to shout to be seen and heard and included. The violence and harassment against women who are simply trying to demand what should be theirs already - respect, autonomy and being heard - is sad. <br />
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These events, the violence against women and the violation of their rights of assembly and walking down the streets without being sexually harassed, shows the importance of this day. This day is important, because today, and only today, the spotlight is on the women. Media all over the world are reporting on events, protests and have in depth analysis of women's movements, women's rights and all things women. For years, women in Egypt have not been able to walk the streets safely, as they are not today, but today the world is watching and crying out in sheer horror. These women and their bravery have always been beautiful, but today it is visible too. Today, these kinds of events are allowed to be seen and heard and discussed. <br />
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It has been 100 years since international women's day was established. We have done a lot of fantastic things but, as today's events show, where women are not even allowed to protest for their rights, we still have a long way to go. Don't quit just yet.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-26915028290726585492011-02-13T19:50:00.000+00:002011-02-13T19:50:38.257+00:00Tory MSP: Rape Survivor Has Herself to BlameI think this will be my first post commenting on Scottish politics, but I thought this very relevant to bring to people's attention as the Scottish election is coming up in May.<br />
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<a href="http://www.thefword.org.uk/blog/2011/02/victim-blaming_?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter">The F Word UK</a> reports how Bill Aitken, MSP has implied that a woman who was raped on Renfrew Lane here in Glasgow might have been a hooker because <br />
<blockquote>“Somebody should be asking her what she was doing in Renfrew Lane. Did she go there with somebody? … Now, Renfrew Lane is known as a place where things happen, put it that way.”</blockquote>This is a completely outrageous statement! What does the woman's line of work have anything to do with rape? Can she not be raped because she allegedly sells sex? If it is true, and the woman is a sex worker, it <i>doesn't matter</i>. Sex workers <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/moralising-sex-work.html">deserve the same access to rights and protection</a> as people who are teachers or bus drivers or politicians or unemployed or whatever. They are people, and they have rights. The views of people like Bill Aitken <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-work-stigma-kills-people.html">are downright dangerous</a> to the well-being of these people and feed into a wider stigmatisation of sex workers where it is seen to be acceptable to rape, abuse and treat them however one likes.<br />
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Furthermore, what is really problematic, apart from the obvious victim blaming that the F Word UK have already pointed out, is his view of who can and cannot be raped. Not only is there an implicit assumption that sex workers can't be raped because they voluntarily (although, not always voluntarily as Bill Aitken should know) sell sexual services, is the obvious moral assumptions on the part of Aitken. By stating that the woman a) was in the wrong part of the town at the wrong time of night, she must b) be a sex worker or something like it, he is stating that <i>only certain women can be raped</i>. In his view, it seems, a virtuous woman would not be seen in Renfrew Lane or thereabouts at certain points of the day; thus, this woman <i>must</i> be morally inferior or corrupt in some kind of way. (That sex workers should be morally inferior or corrupt is, to begin with, <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/04/prostitution-quagmire.html">a stupid assumption</a>). In Bill Aitken's world, good people do not get raped. This, in itself, gives rise to very interesting questions on how he would take it if someone he viewed as "good" actually was raped. Either they must be inherently evil or the rape would not have taken place; or they have not been raped and are either exaggerating some sort of consensual sex or they are lying, which would make them liars instead. This is such a backward way of thinking it does not belong in the 21st century.<br />
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What is even more outrageous is that this man sits on the justice committee that helped formulate the policy on rape! This man, who wants to blame <i>the rape survivors</i> for putting themselves at risk of rape, <i>is actually forming policies on the matter</i>. I suspect it shall not be long until he issues another statement saying that the most efficient way to prohibit rape is to put all women (because in Aitken's world, I suspect only women can be raped) in a cage and throw the key away. After all, in that case women cannot walk on the streets where they might get raped. But we have to remember that we cannot put this cage in someone's home, because as Aitken might know (but have forgotten) <i>the majority of rapes happen in the home or by someone already familiar to the survivor</i>. Uh oh, would not this make it even worse for women who are now caged up for the familiar men (in worlds like Aitken's, men are perpetrators and women are victims) to use at their whim? <br />
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I suppose, then, that Aitken has come up with the golden middle-way in this scenario. Because women cannot safely be protected, in the case of rape, we shall just blame them. Because we all know that women incite men to sexual violence, and especially sex workers who flaunt their genitalia and their sexuality. Because as we all know also, if you have agreed to sex one time, your consent is indefinite - the person is yours for the taking.<br />
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What Bill Aitken is managing to do through his statements is placing the responsibility of rape onto the survivors and every single potential victim. He is also implying that if you are raped, you are a slut, and therefore you provoked the act of rape. <br />
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People like these should not be close to power. Other people that should not be close to power are people like Annabel Goldie, leader of Scottish Conservatives, who refused to condemn Aitken for his statements. It is people like these who make the streets less safe because they feed into a culture where the responsibility lies with the victim, and the perpetrator walks free from it. It is not outright encouraging of rape, but it is pretty damn near.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-30209043109462919992011-02-12T22:31:00.000+00:002011-02-12T22:31:32.183+00:00The Average Human and Changing the World: What We Can Learn from EgyptIf you have missed what has been happening in Egypt for the past three weeks, you must have had your head buried in the sand. The people of Egypt followed suit from the people of Tunisia and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12433045">overthrew</a> the man who had been oppressing them for 30 years. It was a revolution organised by the people and made possible by the people who for 17 days refused to give in before the man and his collaborators stepped down and handed over the power to the people.<br />
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Similar protests have occurred throughout the Arab world, with the most recent being <a href="http://www.yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=3128">Yemen</a> and <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/12/algerian-protesters-clash-police-egypt">Algeria</a>. Jordan recently had its government fired by the king (see Guardian article on Algeria) and there have been rumours of unrest in <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/08/iran-opposition-green-movement-tehran-protest">Iran</a>. Added to this the Iraqi Prime Minister promising three years before the next election <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/05/eye-on-unrest-iraqi-pm-sa_n_819118.html">not to run for a third term</a>. This is all because the people of these countries have become fed up with being oppressed, fed up with not having a job to go to, not having enough money and living in fear of having their human rights violated.<br />
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This entire process of change and democratisation would not be possible if it weren't for the people. If the people, men, women and third gender people together, adults and children, academics, housewives, manual labourers and unemployed youth, did not come together and shout with one unified voice this would not be possible. It is impressive and it is glorious how these people manage to do that, the resolve they have shown. It is inspiring and it is beautiful.<br />
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I think there is definitely a lesson to be learned from this for people living in already democratic societies. In the past few decades, voter turnouts have plummeted and people have started experiencing a political apathy. Democratic participation today is not what it was fifty years ago, and this contributes to a downward spiral. People are disgruntled because the politicians do not do their jobs and therefore do not vote, but politicians cannot do their jobs properly if the public does not clearly state what it wants (usually done through a vote, but arguably more civic republican measures such as citizen panels could be beneficial). It is a vicious circle and it benefits no one, apart from perhaps non-person entities such as corporations, which can creep in in the widening gaps that are growing between citizens and their representatives and insert their policy preferences there. There is little that phase us nowadays, and if one does not have a stated interest in politics, or a certain area of society, then there is usually little patience for politics and the power players.<br />
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There has been talk about a decline of political capital, one of the famous authors being Robert Putnam and his book about the decline in the American social capital, <i>Bowling Alone</i>. While I do not agree with some of his theories (let's face it, the man is a little outdated when it comes to his slandering of the internet and its potential), he does have a point in that we are not nearly as good at coming together and discussing politics and the state of society. There is just so much else to occupy our minds: TV, the internet, the million various offers of "fun stuff" that are made available to us every day through advertisements. There is so much amusement out there, and we forget about the politics, we forget about the society and we forget about what part <i>we</i> play in it.<br />
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This is why the Arab world can be such an inspiration to us in democratised countries. We got the democracy and many of us became lazy. We expect the world to turn out in a certain way, but we also expect it without clearly stating what we want, how we want it and why we want it. We just expect certain things to exist, and when the flaws show, we complain, which is our right and duty as citizens, but we often do not bother to become involved.<br />
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If there is anything the past month in Tunisia and Egypt has shown us it is that we can make a difference. We can become the catalysers for change as long as we organise, we mobilise, and we get the message out there. Things will not happen straight away, and neither did they for the people of Egypt and Tunisia, where discontent had been brewing long before the actual protests took place. It seems strange that, in a democracy where we have so many more channels of expression than non-democracies, we would not make use of these and try to express our thoughts and feelings about politics and society. Some have done it, and some have made headway, such as the feminist online movement through, among others, Sady Doyle at <a href="http://www.tigerbeatdown.com">Tigerbeatdown</a> with the campaigns <a href="http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/01/29/dearjohn-for-when-boehner-decides-your-rape-just-wasnt-enough/">#DearJohn</a> (about the proposed legislation in the US House of Representatives that will effectively stop a lot of aid to women who need abortions) and <a href="http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/12/15/mooreandme-on-dude-progressives-rape-apologism-and-the-little-guy/">#MooreandMe</a> (when Michael Moore <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/im-disappointed-michael-moore.html">gave into conspiracy theories</a> and told people to never, ever believe someone who accused someone Moore likes of rape).<br />
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We need more of this! We need more of people who want to stick their noses out, who will come out and say "Hey! This is wrong because such and such and such." We need more civic participation and less whinging and whining. Keep on pointing out things you disagree with, but do something about it, even if it is just to invent your own twitter hashtag for it, as in the case of Tigerbeatdown.<br />
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These Arab revolutions should inspire us and they should make us want to act. Yes, we have democracy, but no, everything is not great, there are <i>always</i> things to be done to improve things. So look at <a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011211164636605699.html">the videos in this Al Jazeera article</a> and feel inspired. It is never a waste of time standing up for something you believe in.<br />
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<b>Books mentioned in this post:</b><br />
<iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=polifemiochte-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=0743203046&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe>Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-20208520841686135502011-02-09T20:41:00.002+00:002011-02-09T20:47:08.749+00:00The Whole Woman by Germaine Greer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TVL3T_4DFpI/AAAAAAAAASU/1i54ggiJm-M/s1600/9780552774345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="206" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TVL3T_4DFpI/AAAAAAAAASU/1i54ggiJm-M/s320/9780552774345.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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Before I opened this book, I went to Amazon to read <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/1862300577/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending">the reviews of the book</a> in order to get some kind of inkling what this book was all about and what Germaine Greer, a person I've never read before, could possibly say in it. As I have <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/note-on-feminism.html">said</a>, there is no one feminism, but several feminism<i>s</i> and one feminist writer does not represent them all, so I wanted to know what kind of feminism I was going to encounter in this book. The reviews were interesting, it was everything from the types where Greer is claimed to have completely changed someone's world to accusing her of hating all but homosexual women. Both are quite expected when dealing with feminism, but I was happy to see that it was a provocative book as these usually make for interesting reading. I was not disappointed.<br />
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The book is structured in four sections called "body," "mind," "love," and "power," each section dealing with topics that, not so surprisingly fall under those headings. I shall structure my thinking according to these sections below in order to get some kind of coherent text instead of loads of brain splatter.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i>body</i></b></span><br />
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I think my favourite part of the book, and the one that was thought-provocative in a way that I could grasp was this section. In it, Greer discusses everything from body ideals to abortion and female genital mutilation (FGM). Actually, one of the things I had read about this book before I read it was how Greer had been under heavy criticism as it comes of as if she is defending FGM in this book, and I will explain why I disagree with this assessment. <br />
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In this section, Greer talks about manmade women, plastic surgery and the strive to look as unnatural and unwomanly as possibly can. From the position where Greer stands, all this shaving, use of make up, obsessive striving to become thinner than is healthy and the consequent widespread use of plastic surgery to look as 'perfect' as possible, is nothing but a result of mainly male thinking that the female is not female enough and so has to be altered in order to fit their imaginings of the female. She rightly argues that a woman is a woman in her natural state. The armpit hair, the leg hair, the often asymmetrical breasts and the body fat is all woman. A woman is never more woman than before she alters her appearance, because that is what the woman is - nothing more, nothing less. No one can be more woman than woman herself in her natural state. It is an interesting thought and one that a lot of feminists have argued, but one that is nevertheless important to be reminded of. Women themselves take part in the reproduction of this culture, Greer argues, but it is imposed by men. <br />
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This ties into where people have (perhaps mistakenly) argued that she is a proponent of FGM. In the section talking about plastic surgery as a self-mutilation, Greer mentions FGM. Why is it, she asks, that in our culture we accept that women go through vaginoplasty (plastic surgery on the vagina) to ensure that they look like what they think is culturally appropriate and acceptable, while we do not accept this argument with people in non-Western civilisations? She not only draws parallels to vaginoplasty, but also other forms of plastic surgery like breast augmentation. She invokes the argument of cultural relativism to prove how absurd this entire plastic culture has become and reminds us that we are really morally opposed to it. Of course, Greer fails to acknowledge that plastic surgery is legally supposed to be done to an <i>adult</i> with her consent, but FGM is done by adults to children, which makes a helluva difference. With regards to health risks, distorted body ideals and the danger in trying to fit a narrow description of 'perfect', she is, however, right.<br />
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It is also in this section Greer tries to rally up feminists not to accept trans people as female, arguing that at the end of the day, trans people can never be female because they do not have the sex chromosomes for it. This argument really surprised me as generally feminists are very pro trans people out of a very simple explanation - feminists believe that gender is a social construct, that is to say that femininities and masculinities are something that we are taught, something we are socialised into, rather than something that is biologically determined. Therefore gender is fluid, and the key issue is what gender someone <i>identifies</i> as, not what they were born as. If someone who was not born biologically female identifies as a female, this person will be female to most feminists. That Greer, who has been one of the most prominent feminists for a long time, would fail to make this separation between sex and gender is just unbelievable. As the book goes on, however, it is not so shocking anymore, as Greer seems to take a more "back to nature" stance with sex and genders, putting much emphasis on woman as a sex and gender as well as gender as a social construct. To me, the extent to which she focuses on the female sex in the first section somewhat contradicts her thoughts on gender in the social later on. But it does raise an important point even though it perhaps does not explicitly say so - the point of the third gender, or rather the lack thereof everywhere but in Australia.<br />
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I will not go through the entire section, because even though it's a non-fiction book, I don't want to recount everything for people that might possibly want to read this book. Suffice to say that the section deals with most things that have to do with the female body and in a very interesting and thought-provoking way.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i>mind</i></b></span><br />
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This is also a section where Greer focuses heavily on the difference between men and women, both biologically and socially. In her chapter on oestrogen, she questions the need for it in menopausal women and also questions why there is only chemical contraception for women and not for men. Greer argues, and I have heard this argument elsewhere as well, that there are ways to create chemical contraception for men, but as this would emasculate them, this is not done.<br />
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I also enjoyed the chapter on soldiers and violence as this is what I am currently writing my dissertation on and something I am considering looking further into when I will hopefully study gender further. (Fingers crossed that I will meet my conditions!) I will not go into this as I have written about <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2008/05/violence-in-south-africa.html">gendered</a> <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/revolution-with-invisible-women.html">violence</a> <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-work-stigma-kills-people.html">before</a>.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i>love</i></b></span><br />
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Here Greer writes about women's capacity to love, and women's apparently insatiable need to be loved back. She writes about how women always love but are never loved back, beginning with the relationship between the daughter and the father and continuing on in later life up until death. Greer claims that a woman will never receive the amount of love back that she gives; to a father, to a partner, to her children. Interestingly, she also claims that mothers will always love their children unconditionally but implies over and over again that it is their sons that will receive the attention, not the daughters. If this is because mothers, according to Greer, cannot love their daughters as much as their sons, or if it is due to a girl child's apparent utter disinterest in their mothers, she fails to make clear. In either case, it is a contradiction. Either mothers love their children more than they will ever be loved back, as Greer claims at one point, and this will include their daughters; or they are not capable of the unstoppable, indefinite love that she claims that they are. This is one of many times where I feel Greer is more out after glorifying the female species rather than understanding why things are as they are. <br />
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There is nothing wrong in aiming to increase the status and view of women - on the contrary. This is one of the things that I really enjoyed with <i>the Whole Woman</i>; the attempt to view woman as a beautiful being instead of an incurable, screwed up, weak mess that deserves to be stomped on and forgotten. All human beings deserve to be seen and heard and loved, but all human beings are also at the same time flawed in that beautiful way that makes us who we are. We are capable of being both at the same time. Making out one gender to be above the other or worthy of being viewed as 'perfect' is not beneficial to any human being. That is what got is into this whole mess with gender roles and gender hierarchies in the first place.<br />
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I really enjoyed how Greer put sex in the "mind" section, pointing to the bond between the mental and the physical that often exists in sexual relations for both men and women. This mental bond does not have to include love, that is not at all what I am saying here, but it does have to include trust and respect for it to be enjoyable for both or all parts. Her critique of the quick jumping to penetrative sex is exquisite. She raises some really good points in that section, but what they are, I shall leave for you to find out.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><b><i>power</i></b></span><br />
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This brings us to the final section which deals with the structural inequalities in society and Greer continues to be controversial and thought-provoking up until the last page. Here she deals with the somewhat irrational fear of male violence, arguing that society has led us to constantly fear male sexuality, male violence and male aggression when we often do not have to. This disproportional fear gives men more power and control over women. Liz Kelly in <i>Surviving Sexual Violence</i> argues much the same. The disproportionate fear by women of men leads to women not daring to act in certain ways and do certain things in fear of the possible consequences which happen in a minority of cases. This is comparable to the victim blaming that all too often happens after rape, where women are cautioned they should have been more careful, and that next time they should think before they act/dress themselves/speak lest they get hurt again. Women's fear of men is an oppression in itself, and while men are partly responsible for it, not all of them are, and women are actively reproducing these fears as well. At the same time it is quite interesting how Greer at one point in the book makes all men into sexual predators through saying that a father's love for a daughter will inevitably become inappropriate at one point or another (a claim I am not even going to discuss because that's how little I agree with it - don't feed the troll).<br />
<br />
As always, I am always happy when masculinities are discussed, and Greer delivers in this area. She talks throughout the book about the gendered pressure on men, like that on women, that exists in society - the pressure to perform sexually, the pressure to act aggressively, to protect, to earn money etc. Once again we are back to gender as a social construct. Although, Greer points out in the very last few pages that her aim is not to order people to be in a certain way, but rather for herself and others to feel comfortable in their own skin, in their natural beauty - both internal an external. She wants to make the Whole Woman. That is an aim I can relate to and that I will support.<br />
<br />
------<br />
<br />
These points made above are just a tiny piece of all what is thought-provoking, controversial and wise in Greer's book. It is a book of 425 pages dealing with everything female and women. There is a lot that I disagree with that I haven't brought up, a lot of arguments that I still need time to digest before I can make up my mind on them, and a lot of arguments that I will remember, use and be grateful to Greer that she reminded me of or pointed out to me. It is definitely a book that requires an open mind; there is no point in reading it if you already have your opinions set in stone. If you are, however, curious about feminism, this particular feminist, or are someone already immersed in the gender debate who wants to explore and find out more, I would recommend you read this book! It should be noted, though, that this book is kind of a sequel to <i>the Female Eunuch</i>, Greer's debut book written in the '70s. I have not read this, so I can safely say that you do not need to read it before you read <i>the Whole Woman</i>, but if you want a bit of background on Greer and the arguments she expands in <i>the Whole Woman</i>, I am sure it is interesting reading.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Books mentioned in this post:</b><br />
<br />
<iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=polifemiochte-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1862300577&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=polifemiochte-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=0007205015&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><iframe frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=polifemiochte-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=0745604633&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 240px; width: 120px;"></iframe><br />
<br />
This book is registered on <a href="http://bookcrossing.com/friends/yogie">BookCrossing.com</a>. <a href="http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8626098">Here</a> is the journal for it. As more people read the book, the journal will grow with their thoughts and reactions to this book.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-4798653918041639762011-02-07T19:29:00.002+00:002011-02-07T19:34:08.503+00:00Tea Musings: God, Creation, and the Missing Third Gender<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TVA-g2j4dkI/AAAAAAAAASE/P9MKnsQ1mDQ/s1600/bild%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TVA-g2j4dkI/AAAAAAAAASE/P9MKnsQ1mDQ/s320/bild%2B%25282%2529.jpg" width="239" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">This time brought to you by a special blueberry/grapefruit Earl Grey blend called "Grandpa's Mix," bought as usual at <a href="http://www.tehornan.se/">Tehörnan in Umeå</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><br />
I am absolutely not alone in this, I know, but I have to question, why is there an assumption that God inevitably and unquestionably has to be male? Apart from the references to God in the Bible as a male pronoun, where does the assumption come from? <br />
<br />
The Bible is, after all, whether one believes in the message, the literal wording, or just the plain fact that the book exists, a manmade creation. Even the Bible says so. It is written by chosen people who are, in some way, conveying God's message to be spread to the people on Earth. It is easy for people to mix up pronouns. The debate around and the lack of a proper pronoun for the third gender tells us so. <br />
<br />
In <a href="http://www.bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp">Genesis</a>, we are told that God made us in his image. It says: <blockquote>"Let us make man in our image... So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."</blockquote><br />
God is the Creator. God is what some people assume created Earth and everything on it. But woman is also Creator. Woman, through her possession of a womb, carries the same ability as God; she can create life. She is what nourishes, carries and sustains a life for (optimally) nine months before that child leaves the safe haven of the womb to face the world. If God is Creator and woman is Creator, then why, if God made us the image of 'him', is God referred to as a 'he'? Would it not make more sense to think of the Creator as a woman, the way she was so beautifully depicted in pagan religions? If God were a man, why did 'he' create the Paradise as a brilliant metaphor for the womb where Adam and Eve were nurtured and loved for a time before they were borne into the world?<br />
<br />
Granted, woman needs man to create a life. Or rather, woman needs man's magic seed to create a life, but without the male species it would not be possible to create life (although science is at this very moment challenging those assumptions). <i>Both</i> woman and man are needed to create life. Woman and man together are the Creator. If man cannot create without woman, and woman cannot create without man, why is the Creator referred to as a 'he'? Would it not make more sense to think of God as of both genders, or perhaps genderless?<br />
<br />
If God is omnipotent, as God is said to be, and can do everything that man and woman and all people accomplish together, would this not make God both man and woman and neither at the same time?<br />
<br />
Religion as an institution has long discriminated against women and LGBTQ people, and even though it is getting better in some countries, it is still not good. It is far from good. The discrimination against everything but the narrow definition of male that Christianity subscribes to has its roots in history and is as such a culturally rooted phenomenon. The supremacy of the male is recorded in the Bible, but the Bible also follows the assumption that God is male, even though there is no evidence but a personal pronoun to prove this. The Bible is also written by human hands, with human minds and so also was exposed to human limits and flaws. <br />
<br />
Human minds are limited by the language we use. If the language is not broad enough, there will be no room for interpretation or accurate definitions. Instead we are confined to the language that is at hand at the time of recording any event in history. If we think of the world in terms of two genders, it will be two genders that are present in our historical recordings. If the world today only has one country that has gone so far as to adopt a third gender, the assumption is that the world was hardly thinking in those terms at the creation of the Bible.<br />
<br />
If God is both male and female and at the same time neither, is this discrimination against everything but the narrowly defined male a mistake due to the non-existence of the third gender at the times the Bible was written?Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-73636137131814180022011-02-04T22:45:00.002+00:002011-02-05T00:08:27.716+00:00Naomi Wolf, Wikileaks and InconsistencyNaomi Wolf has written a piece on the Huffington Post <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1667_b_817553.html">about the "lost cojones" of America's journalists</a> who refuse to defend Julian Assange against the American government in the Wikileaks leaks issue. This post does not discuss the alleged sexual crimes Julian Assange is said to have committed, so I don't really have much of an issue with this post, in fact, Wolf and I are in agreement when it comes to a lot of this. She rightly points out that he is wanted for very similar things to what journalists often see as their work - exposing secrets of the government, acting as the watch dog against the powerful and the mighty in society, ensuring that they do not abuse their power.<br />
<br />
As always, there are people who would be in disagreement with this view of the media's role, but the media can be an effective tool in exposing power abuses. The problem in that is that media in and of itself becomes a power player holding the sole power to expose scandals and shape the opinion of the people. Media, too, can become too powerful. Just take the Murdoch imperium, for instance, which owns a significant amount of the media in the US as well as the UK; media which is quite well known to engage in a lot of right-wing rhetoric and opinion building (Fox Entertainment Group, is one example).<br />
<br />
But enough about that. Let's get back to Naomi Wolf.<br />
<br />
After arguing about the hypocrisy of all the American journalist (apart from herself, I suppose), she asks the question:<br />
<blockquote>So why do all these American reporters, who know quite well that they get praise and money for doing what Assange has done, stand in a silence that can only be called cowardly, while a fellow publisher faces threats of extradition, banning, prosecution for spying -- which can incur the death penalty -- and calls for his assassination?</blockquote>A valid and interesting question, but not nearly as interesting as the answer she herself offers immediately after:<br />
<blockquote>One could say that the reason for the silence has to do with the sexual misconduct charges in Sweden. But any serious journalist in America knows perfectly well that the two issues must not be conflated. The First Amendment applies to rogues and scoundrels. You don't lose your First Amendment rights because of a sleazy personality, or even for having committed a crime. Felons in jail are protected by the First Amendment. Indeed the most famous First Amendment cases, the ones that are supposed to showcase America's strength and moral power, involve the protection of speech most decent people hate.</blockquote><b>Say what, now?</b><br />
<br />
Once again, the frustrating woman has done what <a href="http://jessicavalenti.com/2010/12/07/why-naomi-wolf-really-needs-to-read-the-internet/">Jessica Valenti</a> has criticised her for earlier: claiming not to read the internet, but somehow still find out all the criticism against her and then utterly fail to engage with it in her next piece but somehow try to correct it anyway. It is just that the woman never faces the criticism. She just ends up arguing against herself, as she is in this case as well.<br />
<br />
Naomi Wolf has over and over <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminists-against-rape-survivors.html">managed to make Wikileaks and the</a> <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/lets-crucify-rape-survivors.html">rape charges against Julian Assange synonymous</a>, which they are not, as I have <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/im-disappointed-michael-moore.html">written about</a> <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-conspiracies-and-julian.html">over</a> and <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-conspiracies-and-julian.html">over</a>. I will try it one more time. <i><b>Wikileaks the organisation is not Julian Assange the person</i></b>, and everyone would do better in understanding this, supporters of Wikileaks just as much as the US government who are seizing the opportunity to bring Julian Assange to trial for completely unrelated accusations. <br />
<br />
Back to the point. So Naomi Wolf is now criticising all the journalists in the United States of America for not being vocal enough about the horrific things that the US government might do to him (which they should criticise) because of their incapability to separate the sexual assault accusations against Assange from the organisation Wikileaks, while <i>she has herself not been able to do that throughout the entire debate</i>. I don't know if I should be happy it seems she has taken criticism to heart, or frustrated that she does in no way try to correct the blatant rape apologia she has been spreading. To be honest, I think that this new insight on her part will only last as long as it doesn't suit her purpose to write a provocative article again. As soon as the trial for extradition starts, I am sure she will be back to her rape apologetic self, calling the women jealous, petty and liars again.<br />
<br />
What is more, and what is really, really relevant seeing as Naomi Wolf is a self-proclaimed feminist who has been held in quite high regard in feminist circles is her use of <i>cojones</i> in the headline. <i>Cojones</i> is a vulgar Spanish word for <i>testicles</I> denoting courage. While this word is relatively accepted and mainstream when it comes to talking about courage, much like 'balls' is, it is a word that refers to the <i>male</i> genitals meaning that females cannot in any possible way have these, i.e. courage. It is a word that is grounded in male/female gender roles with the male as the courage, active protector of the weak, passive, incapable female. Females cannot have <i>cojones</i>, nor can they have balls in the sense that they are being used synonymously with courage. <i>Cojones</i> and balls are not female, they are male, and exclusively so by biology. Courage is male, by biology, it implies, and it is physically impossible for women to gain it. It does not take a deep level of gender analysis to see this, and that Naomi Wolf has failed to do so is nothing but embarrassing. Granted, the headline could have been set by someone else, as often happens when articles are published, but in that case I really do hope that Wolf engages in a very long and heated lecture on why this particular word is inappropriate to use.<br />
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Someone mentioned in relation to her previous pieces and appearances on rape and Wikileaks (both separately and in relation to each other) that she is arguing what she is arguing in an attempt to revive a down-spiralling career. This latest addition seems to say so too. Unfortunately for Naomi Wolf is that if she doesn't engage with the criticism she is receiving, and respond to it appropriately, she is unlikely to gather much support. Judging from her performance on BBC World Have Your Say three weeks ago <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/sexual-assault-survivor-suck-it-up-or.html">she is not likely to engage with anyone criticising her soon, but rather keep on patronising and ignoring them</a>. It seems she is digging her own grave.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-63261916912459675042011-02-02T23:37:00.001+00:002011-02-02T23:42:29.664+00:00Tea Musings*: Bodies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TUnoVaMfZWI/AAAAAAAAARw/u0fLA36zPhM/s1600/bild%2B%25281%2529.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TUnoVaMfZWI/AAAAAAAAARw/u0fLA36zPhM/s320/bild%2B%25281%2529.JPG" width="239" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Tea of the night: A berry flavoured rooibos called the Queen of the Forest, bought at <a href="http://www.tehornan.se/">Tehörnan in Umeå</a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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Recently I have started reflecting over something. A year or so ago I started losing weight. I found myself not to be happy with my weight or the future implications it could have on my health if I continued in the same way. I was not overweight, but my clothes did not fit as well as before and I started feeling uncomfortable in them, so I took to the gym, I started eating more healthily. I dislike diets and would not call what I did a diet, it was more of a cleaning up of my diet; less processed foods, saturated fats, junk food and snacks; more fruit, vegetables and balanced meals with less carbohydrates and more proteins, unsaturated fats, vitamins and all those other essentials that my body likes. <br />
<br />
The change was noticeable, both in mind and in body. Clothes quickly went back to fitting well again, and after a while they were too loose; I had more energy during the day and, above all, slept better at night, which is so valuable if you are, what I call a 'stress sleeper', like me. (For some reason I have a hard time going to sleep and that is usually the time of day when I am the most stressed out, which in its turn makes me even more stressed out - vicious circle.) Other people started noticing the change too, and I got comments on how well I looked. <br />
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It is interesting how once someone starts losing weight, people immediately comment on it. It is regarded as a nice thing to do, a recognition of the supposedly hard work that someone has put in to shed those extra kilos, and people mean well while they do it. It has struck me, though, how this seems to be one of the most flattering compliments out there, and you can tell that people always take great care in conveying their noticing your weight loss to you. Don't get me wrong, it is a nice thing to compliment people, regardless on what it is on, but I think this says a lot about society.<br />
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People take such great care telling me that I look 'amazing' or something like it, that I cannot help but feel it is a way of validating me in the eyes of society. I know that these compliments are not meant in this way, but the amazement and the pat on the shoulder type comments are a way of implying that I have done well, that I am striving towards the elite of those untouchable modelesque women and men who cover the glossy magazines and enjoy higher status in the spheres of society - that superficial elite that so many people would give a limb to belong to. I have become more valid in the eyes of society, I am on my way towards becoming a person now, not one of those undefinable lumps of flesh that we see everywhere. If I just do a bit more work, put in those extra hours at the gym, I will reach that separated sphere of unrealistically thin and beautiful people and I will be someone who matters.<br />
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This whole attitude makes me confused. I am just the same as before, perhaps a bit more energetic, perhaps my mind has become a bit quicker because I feel more alert, but my personality has not changed as far as I am aware. I feel just the same, so why should I not be just the same? Or rather, why should I not be treated just the same? It is interesting, because I don't seem to be alone in this feeling of being treated differently. People who have lost more weight than me also report being treated very differently, see <a href="http://weight-loss.fitness.com/topic/21649-were-you-treated-differently-after-losing-lot-weight.html">this forum</a>, for instance, or <a href="http://in.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101006041921AA6Jzqb">this</a>. People are friendlier, they smile, they see you, and they see you in a good way. Your existence is not nearly as provocative to people as before, or perhaps they are just more likely to notice you. <br />
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It is interesting, that. Even if it weren't so that people were provoked by anything above a size medium, what is it that justifies that people who are a medium and below deserve more attention, more smiles, more acceptance? What is it that makes them so much better than the rest of the people? A letter on a label on the inside of their clothes? Their compliance to the incredibly impossible standards of celebrities who do not even manage to look like they are represented so they have to be airbrushed into a 'better version' of themselves added onto all that expensive make up applied by professional make up artists? Whatever standard it is that validates those people is too damn hard for them to reach even for themselves. It is a twisted ideal that focuses on completely the wrong things. What have I, or anyone else, achieved from being thin? Apart from health, that is, but people that are larger than a size medium can be healthy too, and it is certainly not without risks to both mental and physical health to strive for a 'size zero'. Besides, how does any of this, in any kind of way, justify treating people differently? Hint: it doesn't.<br />
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I want to point out again that compliments are nice, and most people, including me, appreciate them, even (sometimes in other people's cases especially) when they relate to weight loss. I am not in any kind of way suggesting that people start giving less compliments to others, I am just trying to share what I have noticed. In general I am in favour of much more compliments to be distributed to other people, as long as they are honest, and perhaps relating to more things than weight or other appearance-related things. Surely there must be more things that people are good at than looking good?<br />
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* A friend of mine complained a while ago that while there is a lot of feminism in my blog, there is no tea. There is no better way to incorporate this than to show how I keep myself fuelled while writing. This is how my ideas are conceived, baked and carried out - tea is nearly always involved.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-27698906343708098312011-01-29T18:16:00.002+00:002011-01-30T13:04:05.479+00:00Egypt: A Revolution With Invisible WomenEgypt is going into its <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12314799">fifth day of protests</a> against the Mubarak regime today. It is following the example of Tunisia who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12209621">successfully toppled their government and replaced it with a new one</a> that has said it will respect civil and political liberties to a greater extent than the previous government.<br />
<br />
Interesting in violent uprisings like these is how the women are largely invisible. Firstly, this is because men are the primary perpetrators of as well as participators in violence in political uprisings (see <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0195149750?ie=UTF8&tag=polifemiochte-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0195149750">The Gendered Society by Michael Kimmel</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=polifemiochte-21&l=as2&o=2&a=0195149750" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> as well as Cynthia Cockburn (2001) 'Gender in armed conflict and peace processes',<br />
in <i>The Cyprus Review</i>), but it also has to do with the focus of conflicts and violence as male. <br />
<br />
There is coverage of women in the revolution, for instance <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/dailybeast/12106_egyptrevolutionthepurityprotests">this piece on women in the Egypt revolution</a> or <a href="http://www.demotix.com/news/570710/men-and-women-equal-peaceful-protest-against-mubarak">this shorter piece</a> kindly given to me by Twitterer <a href="https://twitter.com/trishzanetti">@trishzanetti</a>. The major news outlets' coverage of women is, however, shining with its absence. <br />
<br />
I have mainly been watching the Al Jazeera coverage of the Egypt revolution because of its presence in the region and the availability of a live stream of video coverage rather than text, but I have also followed the news on various web sites, such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/29/egypt-protests-government-live-blog?intcmp=239">the Guardian's live blog</a> as well as the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/9380534.stm">BBC's live blog</a>. What has struck me as really obvious is the lack of women in the commentary on the revolution. While Al Jazeera has had women reporting on the revolution, the experts and commentators from the ground have been heavily over-represented by male views. The Guardian's coverage is mainly by men, and in the expert comments provided on their live blog through Reuters three out of four are male. <br />
<br />
In coverage of revolutions and violent clashes like these it is important to point out the absence of women. Militarism and violence are both attributed to masculinities by female and male masculinist and feminist scholars alike (again, see Kimmel above); it is a male system built on a male perspective that ironically relies on both males and females for its continuation. Males take an active part in violence, both in war and political revolutions, and females take over the male responsibilities while this is going on, added on to their usual continued responsibility for the family sphere as well as the bearers and rearers of culture (future and present children). <br />
<br />
What is more is that males and females <i>experience</i> conflicts differently (see <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1856498980?ie=UTF8&tag=polifemiochte-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=1856498980">Caroline Moser, <i>'Victims, Perpetrators or Actors: Gender, Armed Conflict and Political Violence'</i></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=polifemiochte-21&l=as2&o=2&a=1856498980" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />) in their respective roles. In a period of civil and/or political unrest and during violent conflicts, gendered violence, including domestic violence, <i>increases</i> (see any of the references above, as well as official UN documents on conflict) and this violence is perpetrated by men toward women. <br />
<br />
During situations like this revolution in Egypt, women's movements tend to organise and join together for peace and progress in society (Cynthia Cockburn has written extensively on women's organisations in conflict). Where is the coverage of this? Where are the representatives of these organisations, and why are they not invited to comment on the revolution? Peace-promoting women's rights organisations have been organised for decades, and they are represented in the Arab world, so why do we not hear their voices?<br />
<br />
United Nations Resolution 1325 stresses the importance of including women in (re)construction of societies in order to ensure that women are being sufficiently represented and that their concerns are voiced, included and implemented in social policy. This resolution has been drafted in the way that it has because it has been recognised that women experience conflicts differently and that they are heavily underrepresented in the (re)construction of a society, leading to their exclusion from the (re)constructed society in the wake of a conflict. Resolution 1325 is supposed to be a way to ensure that women are being considered and included in a society that is going through (re)construction, because a society cannot be fair and equal and guarantee people their rights if the entire people is not heard. <br />
<br />
While what is going on in Egypt presently is not a war in the classic sense, it is hopefully an end of an oppressive regime into one where the people's concern is taken into consideration. Considering that women are also people, it is surprising and disconcerting that their voices are not heard more in the media. If 85% of the speakers, commentators, experts and news anchors are male, all sides of the conversation is not covered. It will inevitably become a skewed coverage working within a framework of male perspectives. The female perspective is invisible - it exists, but it is not heard. Consequently, what is heard is not the <i>people's</i> voice, it is the <i>male</i> voice.<br />
<br />
I have written over and over about the <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/search/label/rhetoric">importance of rhetoric</a>. This includes the inclusion and the exclusion of voices as well as the normative framework one chooses to operate within. If this revolution is to ensure the Egyptian people's rights, it needs to include women too. Media can start by helping out to bring them onto the agenda, instead of allowing them to remain invisible.<br />
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<b>Update</b><br />
These links to women in the revolution were posted in the comments section:<br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=268523&id=586357675">A Facebook album of women participating in the protest</a><br />
<a href="http://www.thehumanitarianspace.com/2011/01/women-of-egypt.html">The Humanitarian Space</a> has also raised concerns over the invisibility of women in the Egypt revolution, with more specific references to women's movements in Egypt.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-49703071407551275302011-01-23T20:51:00.002+00:002011-02-03T23:02:31.236+00:00Feminist Fantasy? Elantris by Brandon Sanderson<b>This post will contain minor spoilers, so if you do not wish to know anything about the book, please stop reading here.</b><br />
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Having been a fan of Robert Jordan's <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBwQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Wheel_of_Time&ei=4IY8TZjXE6CqhAfPxaWVCg&usg=AFQjCNH3Jfg_fJoOLpy2r3NmoYDsSWp-cA">Wheel of Time</a> for quite some years now, and having been a fan of fantasy for as long as I can remember, I was not able to resist picking up a book by Brandon Sanderson when it became clear that he was to be the one to finish Jordan's epic fantasy series after Jordan's death in 2007. Luckily, I found one of Sanderson's free-standing fantasy novels in the sale when Borders closed down (yes, I remember where and when I bought every book in my bookshelf), the one called <i>Elantris</i>. As I had barely heard of Sanderson before his involvement with the Wheel of Time, apart from a note I made when still in high school that I should read his Mistborn series, I was quite curious to see how this author, who has done such a great job with the Wheel of Time, would hold up on his own. There was no doubt in my mind that he would be great as Jordan's wife and editor had personally picked Sanderson out to finish the book series which at the time had grown to 11 books, with more planned. <br />
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Before Christmas, I finally got around to reading <i>Elantris</i> and was surprised quite early in the book. There is one thing to fantasy books that is both frustrating but partly what makes it so compelling: it is built around medieval worlds. Medieval worlds in all their glory with shining armour, magic and the occasional dragons also bring with them a rigid set of gender roles. Women are women who dress in dresses, cook food and while there might be women who are awesome at points and defying the normative confines of gender through, say, slaying a nazgûl, they usually do it in the disguise of a man. <br />
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Robert Jordan is not exactly known for using fluid concepts of gender in his books, and while he arguably has strong female characters, there is a constant raging battle of the sexes taking place within Rand-land where women are poised against men and the dividing line of gender seems to be based on the notion of biology rather than cultures, so that women can co-operate over the boundaries of culture but will always, no exception, be confused by men's ways of thinking and vice versa. There are inherent qualities ascribed to the genders in the Wheel of Time that are not challenged. (More <a href="http://swan-tower.livejournal.com/437323.html"> on gender in Wheel of Time from Swan Tower</a>.)<br />
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So when I picked up Sanderson's <i>Elantris</i>, I was not only pleased to find that he did not use such a rigid concept as Jordan had in his Wheel of Time, but Sanderson actually experiments with gender roles in this book in a way that is seldom found in the fantasy genre. Two of the main protagonists, Sarene (a woman and Teod princess) and Raoden (a man and Arelish prince) seemed from the outset to have broken the norms of gender to such a degree that I could not help but suspect that this book was, among other things, very much an intended experiment in gender. Sarene, the princess, feels she has been denied love and being viewed as a woman all her life for being so opinionated, blunt and political, while her betrothed Raoden is a character who bases most his decisions on irrational trust, emotions and empathy. Both these people, however, operate within a world where women are oppressed and forced into passiveness while the men enjoy all the power and most of the freedom of being and movement which is what makes it so interesting. This is a world that is built much like other fantasy worlds, but one in which these particular characters challenge the norms.<br />
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I started off by loving these characters. There is nothing that peaks my interest as a clear break and challenge to our non-fantasy real world's norms, even if it is just fictional characters in a book. I loved it how Sarene would be forceful and scheming and how Raoden would use his inherent belief in the goodness of people, a totally irrational assumption, to argue for his political beliefs. I kept cheering these characters on - at least until it became dull. Sarene continued her scheming, manipulating and to completely discard any kind of human feelings, basing everything upon rationality. She was breaking her gender roles as a woman, but instead dressing in those of a man. Now, while this shows that assumptions of inherent qualities in women might very well be wrong, it is hardly a breaking of rigid gender roles. Instead of challenging women's gender roles, Sarene just assumed another pair of them, albeit the antonyms to her own. Same thing with Raoden. He seemed to rely on empathy and caring to the degree I started wondering if he was modelled upon the stereotypical view of mothers and motherhood. Instead of being the stern but loving father of his people, he started becoming the loving and nurturing mother of Elantris. There is nothing wrong with these qualities in people, but from a gender challenging perspective it is not so interesting. It is more about switching gender roles than actually challenging them.<br />
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Fortunately, as the book carried on, at least one of the characters started becoming human. Sarene, in all her cynicism, hardness and political scheming started thinking about how she yearned for the great love, that she was afraid that no one could love her for her ways because she was a woman with personality traits like those she had. There was a lot of thoughts on how she had tried to change, but would not become as silly as the ladies in the court in her home country and her adopted country. She was content with the person she was, that was clear, but she felt it unfair that she should have to sacrifice such things as love and a family because she was intelligent. These types of considerations are very important lest the character shall become a cliché; one of those women in fantasy who challenge the norm to the degree where they adopt the ways of the other gender and refuse all traditional gender traits. Once again, this is not <i>challenging</i> the gender normativity, it is just buying into another side of it, consequently reinforcing it. A woman who has to assume male gender roles to be taken seriously is not challenging the system, she is reinforcing it through proving and thinking that she has to adopt masculine roles to gain power and be taken seriously.<br />
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This, unfortunately, is where it started to go wrong. Instead of Raoden starting to question his irrational belief in empathy and emotions, he kept going in the same direction even though there were several opportunities for him to question his belief. In a way, this could be a sign of unwillingness to develop personally or, if he weren't so intelligent, be a indicator of naïvete. However, with him eventually becoming something akin to a demigod who would not only be the most powerful such, but also the most controlled and wise such, it hardly offered any opportunity to question his perceived superiority. His beloved princess would show human flaws and stay human, he himself would not, and become a powerful demigod of a king. Added to that, when Sarene strives from her expected gender roles she is severely disliked, almost shunned by men and women alike. Raoden, on the other hand, breaks gender roles and is described as "loved by all." The symbolism is quite striking.<br />
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<i>Elantris</i> actually had several other themes that were interesting from a political and/or sociological standpoint. There was this constant view of 'otherness' displayed by Elantris, and especially after the transformation when its inhabitants were shunned and feared. The moral story and implications of this was interesting and important as well. <br />
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The politics in the book was also interesting; a guide to how to not build a nation. It can definitely be read as a criticism against capitalism with the portrayal of Arelon's nobility being silly despot merchants and the social status in the country being dependent on one's private property holdings. The religious differences and the portrayal of how it affected societies in their various different ways, as well as the inability to coexist side by side was really interesting if one considers our own human history. It is enough with one religion wanting to eradicate the others for oppression and civil wars to come about.<br />
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All in all, it was a really interesting book. A great approach to a social experiment that points out a lot of social ills and challenges quite a few social norms; it is a book that is riddled with implications of the choices people make socially, economically, religiously and politically. It was a novel that I found really interesting in the way that it was as much a good story as a well-thought through social experiment. It is clear that Sanderson has given this world quite a lot of thought.<br />
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Although I found the depiction of gender somewhat lacking, I really enjoyed the attempt to walk away from narrow gender confines that are so often found and reproduced in the fantasy genre. I would most certainly recommend people to read it, and I will read more of Sanderson in the future. It gives me hope to think that there can be such a thing as feminist fantasy.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-53308756942382586892011-01-20T11:53:00.000+00:002011-01-20T11:53:03.656+00:00Banning Guns, Yes, But Rhetoric is Also ImportantThe Economist writes in last week's edition (technically still this week's until tomorrow) about the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/17902699?Story_ID=17902699&CFID=154063666&CFTOKEN=98492044">blame game</a>, saying that opportunists should not focus on the rhetoric of American politics, but on the gun laws themselves.<br />
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There is no doubt that banning guns in America would contribute a great deal to keeping armed violence down domestically - it is simple logic, less guns, less opportunity for violence and gun accidents. To completely dismiss the rhetoric, or almost completely as in this case, is to isolate only one part of the problem, albeit the biggest one, and ignore the others. <br />
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As the article notes, and as people have noted when writing about the Loughner shooting, what is commonly known, is that the right to bear arms is a part of American culture, at least in some circles. It is a part of the constitution (although the interpretation of said amendment can vary and it could be argued that much stricter gun laws could be put in place without violating the constitution) and an issue that has created social movements to ensure the protection of the second amendment and the gun laws that have come out of it. For some people, it is an essential right to own guns and to be able to use them to protect oneself and the family. <br />
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The issue is, though, that in a society, or parts of a society, where people have a tendency to invoke violence instead of diplomacy when faced with a threat, or people threatening to use violence through weapons, it creates a hostile environment. There is a <i>reliance</i> on guns and what is seen as the <i>inherent</i> right of every citizen of the United States of America to bear arms. This is as much a problem as the actual fact of owning guns. If people see it as their right to bear arms to protect themselves, they also see it as their right to use them. If a violent rhetoric is then used as a deterrent or as a threat and is combined with the notion of an unalienable right to bear arms, this could lead to trouble. <br />
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That it is a problem that guns are so easy to come by, is not something I would deny at all. That the gun control laws are not working the way they should be when Loughner, who allegedly should not have been able to buy a gun because of previous army troubles, can do so anyway, is not something I would argue against at all either. In fact, being Swedish and not understanding why people would at all want to keep weapons in their house that can kill other people, not to mention be used against themselves, I would absolutely argue that legislation that allows this is nothing but counterproductive and idiotic. Why would any state want to give its citizens the easy access to weapons to kill each other, or for children to be accidentally shot to death? It's beyond me. Point being, I do not have a problem with the Economist's call for banning guns. I think it is a sensible argument.<br />
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It is when the legislation becomes separate from cultural and social influences that I start seeing a problem. Guns allows for violence, that is true, but there are also other ways of assaulting people. Perhaps it would be harder to kill politicians if there were no guns as personal body guards would probably stop any person trying to lay hands on a politician, but the problem here is that <i>the average person does not have body guards</i>. If a violent rhetoric still exists in society there will still possibly be a problem with violence, because a violent rhetoric in the way that primarily right-wing politicians in the US are using <i>makes it acceptable</i>, in fact, <i>it is an indirect encouragement of violence</i>. If violence becomes normative in discussions about politics, or about any action in society, people start seeing it as something acceptable, and once that happens, what is to say that there will not be people exercising violence against average citizens demonstrating for a cause that the perpetrator(s) do(es) not agree with? This happens in societies where guns are not nearly as readily accessible.<br />
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When violence and politics are seen as something that go together, it becomes a problem. A democratic society is no longer democratic where people are silenced through violence, by any means. Violent rhetoric can contribute to a mainstreaming of violence within politics, and it does not matter if it is guns that are being used in visuals, like Sarah Palin and her famous crosshairs, because it is the <i>violence</i> in the rhetoric that is dangerous. If that type of rhetoric is used and people do not have access to guns, they will find other ways to use violence; other means of violent protest. Banning guns is a fantastic idea, but the rhetoric is also very important to watch lest it leads to violence becoming the norm in political debate and discussion, or that violence starts to be associated with politics.<br />
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I have said it <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/sarah-palin-and-consequences-of-free.html">before</a>: violent rhetoric does not belong in a democratic society, it is counterproductive and may lead to an undermining of democratic principles. Implications and consequences of using a certain type of rhetoric needs to be watched out for. If rhetoric were not important, then politicians would not need nearly the enormous amount of staff and resources that go into politial PR, spin, speech writing etc. Words do matter. So does legislation, but banning things will only work insofar the public is on board with the idea. If the rhetoric persists while guns are banned, violence might still be used in politics. Banning guns is a good start, but there needs to be work done on the rhetoric too.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-69861300291658187352011-01-16T20:01:00.002+00:002011-01-16T23:35:41.902+00:00the United Nations and Human Rights Male NormativityThis semester I am taking a course called "Human Rights in Global Perspectives." As opposed to the class I took last semester on the politics of accessing human rights, this course is actually on the theory, philosophy, rhetoric and implementation of human rights internationally, and to a certain extent, on state level.<br />
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As part of the course work, I have had to read different treaties and agreements on human, civil/political and socio-economic rights. Tonight I have read <i><a href="http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b1udhr.htm"> the Universal Declaration on Human Rights</a></i>;<i> <a href="http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b2esc"> the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights</a></i>; and<i> <a href="http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/b3ccpr.htm">the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a></i>. All three are quite short reads and fairly repetitive, so if you want to have a look through them, I would recommend that you do.<br />
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What struck me to begin with is that these arguments are such blatantly male-centric documents, probably because they are written by men and for men. Remember, CEDAW - the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women - came later, as it was widely viewed that women's rights were not sufficiently covered by these previous covenants. <br />
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And no wonder that UN, member states and women's rights groups felt the need to create a separate and complementary agreement referring specifically to women and women's needs after these, so called, universal rights documents had been produced. <i>The covenants are literally teeming with male-centric language and rhetoric.</i> In every single instance, when referring to an individual in the documents, "his," "him," "he" is used. Even if the use of the gender neutral plural pronouns were not widespread at the time, it would not have taken much energy and effort to add a corresponding female noun there to make sure that the female gender was represented as well. Although, it should be noted that this would probably not be accepted practice today anyway, as there are people who do not define as either gender and are thus not covered by these gendered nouns. Unfortunately, this thinking had not come as far in the 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) was finalised, nor in 1966 when the two covenants were.<br />
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If it were not blatantly obvious in the way that any other genders but the male gender are excluded, it is certainly obvious in the very first article of the UDHR, which states<br />
<blockquote>All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.</blockquote>The word 'brotherhood' implies that either we are operating under a male normative set of rules, i.e., all people, women, men, all human beings, should act and operate under the rules for something which is defined as 'brotherhood', implied by the name to be a set of rules set up by males for males. Even if this would be an inclusive set of rules, welcoming all genders, it would still be referring to a specific set of male normative rules. If it is not inclusive, then it means that all genders, apart from the male one, would not be included in this 'spirit of brotherhood', which is a human right. Women and other people not identifying as male, would thus be excluded from human rights. This is set out in the very first article of the <i>Universal</i> Declaration of Human Rights. <br />
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As if this was not enough, the sacrosanctity of heteronormative culture is also inscribed in the Covenant on Civil and Policial Rights (1966) in Article 23. I quote (my bold):<br />
<blockquote>Article 23<br />
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<b>1. The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.</b><br />
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2. The right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and to found a family shall be recognized.<br />
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3. No marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.<br />
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4. States Parties to the present Covenant shall take appropriate steps to ensure equality of rights and responsibilities of spouses as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution. In the case of dissolution, provision shall be made for the necessary protection of any children.</blockquote><br />
There is so much wrong in this article, but let me just start out by saying <i>the natural and fundamental group of society</i>? In this part of a sentence, the UN and its signatories have assumed that the heteronormative family is a biological fact and that it shall not be threatened. By what? Gay marriage, probably. Assuming that blood bonds are very strong is not in itself a wrong, but not defining what they mean by 'family' is. I assume, however, that in the 1960s, when this covenant was agreed upon, it was quite self-evident what was meant with 'family,' as homosexuality was still illegal in many countries. Point 2, also indicates that this was the intention, as "the right of men and women of marriageable age to marry and found a family..." probably means <i>to each other</i> and not to whomever they so wish.<br />
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That fact, alone, should make all of us question the intention of <i>universal</i> human rights. Or shall I say universal as long as one conforms to the white male heteronormative society in which families are the untouchable cornerstones of society and women are not a part of being human to the extent that complementary agreements have to be made to ensure that they, too, are covered by human rights. (If you want more information on either of these topics, just look into the two of big debates within human rights 'are women human?' and 'are human rights Western?')<br />
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International debate and treaties made by international organs like the UN are riddled with gendered language. If there is one thing that I have learned while reading for my dissertation on the discourse around women in conflict, it is that. While there seems to be a will to mainstream gender into organisations, which essentially means making sure that gender has been taken into consideration at all times, there is a disconnect between that and the implementation of gender-neutral policies. Not to mention that gender mainstreaming as an approach has been severely criticised, among other things, for 'streaming' women away, neglecting women's particular concerns that may exist. <br />
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So when I am reading documents like these, the fundamentals of human rights, which are supposed to be universal, and women are supposed to be included, but the language is so blatantly male-centric, it is hard to believe that things will get better. The problem is that <i>the entire framework</i> within which, and upon which, human rights implementation, discourse and philosophy are based, is <i>gendered</i>. Regardless of what improvements we do in the future, there will always be the male-centric original documents that to a certain extent neglect or exclude women and other people who do not identify as male. Added to that, it also excludes LGBTQ groups that wish to exercise, what is supposed to be a <i>universal</i> right to marry whomever they wish. <br />
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As long as our rights are based on a male perspective, we will be excluded in one way or another - through implementation, in the rhetoric (which is a severe problem), in the discourse (which is slightly different from the rhetoric), in the philosophy, in the politics - in all aspects. Human rights cannot be universal until <i>everyone</i> is included, and according to the Western thought on human rights, they are. Human rights may be inalienable and universal, but the implementation and thought certainly do not ensure this. It could even be said to hinder the universality of human rights through its exclusionary nature. If human rights are to be universal, rhetorical issues like these <i>need</i> to be paid attention to. Ignoring gendered aspects of human rights is not benefiting anyone, apart from the white male.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-75128469463953258562011-01-13T22:30:00.001+00:002011-01-13T22:30:21.676+00:00Perky Boobs Part of Your Uniform<a href="http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/bosses-win-right-to-give-bra-edict/story-e6frfhk6-1225986859794">Another gem</a> from my twitter feed.<br />
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Apparently an airport security firm have gone to court over dress codes for their staff, including underwear. Women will from now on be forced to wear bras to work, all "to preserve the orderly appearance of employer-provided uniforms." Yes, that sounds about right, because the first thing you think about with unsupported breasts is "disorderly"? Perhaps asymmetrical, saggy, small, or imperfectly shaped boobs are such an offence according to this airport security firm that they have to have a standard for the breasts so that they fit into the uniform.<br />
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Interesting is that this whole fight for the women to wear a bra as a part of their uniform tells quite a lot about the intentions for it. I mean, there are bras and bras. There are bras without padding, which are essentially no bras at all, or at least to the onlookers eye, there is little to no difference at all, because the bras do not lift, nor do they shape. They just sit there as an invisible support for the woman's comfort. Externally it cannot be seen whether the woman is wearing a bra or not, which probably means that they would not qualify as a part of a uniform for this particular airport security firm, as they do nothing to add to the orderliness required. If they are against no bras at all, the logic follows that they would also oppose bras that do not add anything particular. <br />
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There are also bras which are strapless and do not add much of a support, but can be comfortable to wear for women who wear strapless dresses or do not want their bra straps to show. They are not particularly great for health reasons as they do not usually give the back the support it needs for those women with larger breasts. Would these qualify as acceptable bras under the uniform standard? Possibly, since they could add to the uniform looking more orderly. What the difference would be, I do not know, perhaps the nipples would not be so obvious if the airport is a bit chilly?<br />
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But if this whole disagreement is because of the firm not wanting their workers to be looked at in a sexual way, then padded bras and especially push up bras should be banned too. Both make the breasts look larger and more artificial, which can be seen as 'sexier.' They also usually offer better support, but this really has to do with getting a bra that is the right fit rather than anything else. A bra, no matter if it is a Wonder Bra or a H&M bra will give you the support you need if you do not have your correct measurements, so in this case no bra would be just as acceptable. But, as the airport firm has itself argued, this is not for health, it is for orderliness.<br />
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Implied in this silly argument of orderliness is an expectation on <i>how women's breasts should look to be deemed appropriate</i>. If they are not perfectly round (as a padded bra must be used in order for it not to look like the woman is not wearing a bra), sitting at a certain level, exactly the same size, they are not <i>acceptable</i> breasts; they are abnormal, ugly and inappropriate for any professional person. It is a great insult to any woman out there and a completely absurd argument that violates a person's right to be. Asymmetrical, non-round breasts are not a sign of bad hygiene, the way that dirty hair can it be, nor can they hurt anyone or hinder a job, the way that long finger nails can. This is nothing but an attempt to sexualise women further and make the absurd society ideals a part of women's working uniform. What were the judges thinking? Are they now regulating breasts?<br />
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Ironically, in their search for the perfect breasts, this airport firm has effectively hidden everything that is natural about breasts. They are no longer allowed to be breasts, but rather the padding of an underwear garment.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-45602500714618417992011-01-12T17:49:00.002+00:002011-01-13T00:27:01.590+00:00Sarah Palin and the Consequences of Free SpeechSarah Palin <a href=http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/12/palin-calls-criticism-blood-libel/?partner=rss&emc=rss">has done it again</a>, said something of such utter stupidity that the clocks start ticking backwards. Today she has posted a video accusing journalists and other people criticising her violent rhetoric of blood libel, a term most often used (according to above article) "to describe the false accusation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood in religious rituals, in particular the baking of matzos for passover. The term, which is centuries old, referred to anti-Semitism and violent pogroms against Jews." Rep. Giffords, who most people are aware of, was shot a couple of days ago in what seems to be at least a partly politically motivated action and her condition is still critical, perhaps not so surprisingly as she took a bullet to her head.<br />
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I don't really want to discuss the details of the violent rhetoric of the US right, as there have been others who know more of the subject and can express it better <a href=http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/01/lets-get-this-straight.html">among them Melissa McEwan at Shakesville</a>. Suffice to say that the right wing in USA have been using, condoning and, some might even argue, encouraging violent rhetoric in the form of gun imagery when talking about their political opponents. While it has been fairly clear that this imagery has not been meant to really hurt someone, it is distasteful and horrible. What I really want to discuss is Palin's call for protection under free speech in the face of this horrible event. <br />
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Free speech is good. Free speech is great. A lot of productive discussion can come under free speech and democracy and the progress of society would be impossible without it. No person, or few persons, alone can take on the development of a country and its inhabitants. While more voices might sometimes be confusing, it is definitely a benefit for the greater good. That is not to say that <i>rhetoric is not important</i>. I have argued consistently, both <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/11/importance-of-rhetoric.html">here</a> and <a href="http://feminismochte.blogspot.com/search/label/retorik">on my Swedish language blog</a>, that rhetoric is key to how policies are interpreted, implemented and constructed. After all, we all act within the references of what we know, and rhetoric shapes much of our perception of society, which it is also such an important thing to <i>challenge</i> normative rhetoric and the (inappropriate) use of it.<br />
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Under free speech, the notion is that you can say nearly whatever you want, as long as there is no direct hate crime or slandering of another person. Fierce opposition is common and encouraged among politicians, especially in today's media hyped society where the harshest words make the best newspaper heading. But with great freedom, comes great responsibility, to paraphrase Spider-Man's uncle. If you are allowed to say nearly whatever you want, whenever you want, wherever you want, <i>you should also be prepared to take responsibility of the consequences</i>. I am not saying here that Palin and her buddies are responsible for the horrible shooting against Rep. Giffords and the other people, but it can most certainly be argued that their violent rhetoric could have inspired the shooter. This is something that Palin should recognise and own up to. She needn't apologise for the shooting, because she did not hold the gun, but she should at least recognise the possibility that her rhetoric and her imagery have or could have contributed to political violence. If she uses violent rhetoric in politics, there is a possibility it could lead to political violence. <br />
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When violent rhetoric becomes the norm within certain political circles, politics will be associated with violence. From putting crosshairs over political candidates, to threatening that people will start picking up their guns if the political outcome is not in their favour, as Sharron Angle did, there is a hazy line to resorting to violent tactics. When violent imagery and euphemisms are used in such political contexts, it indirectly condones such behaviour and might even encourage it. The use of such rhetoric is nothing but irresponsible. <br />
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People are not accusing Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle or any of the other users of violent rhetoric, of having pulled the trigger and fired the gun at Rep. Giffords, they are calling for them to take responsibility for abusing words and imagery. Being a person in power, you have to be careful of what you say and <i>how</i> you say it, because people listen to you. That is the whole point of power, you can influence other people to do what you want them to do. If you start talking about picking up guns, or if you make political representatives targets on your website while in a power position, you cannot completely turn your back to the fact that people might act on it. The reason why this rhetoric was used in the first place was to make people passionate about politics, Ms. Angle says. Did it not cross your mind, then, that perhaps making people passionate about gun violence and politics in the same sentence was not such a great idea?<br />
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Enjoying the freedom of speech does not mean that you are automatically immune to all criticism, regardless of how harsh it might be - it means the opposite. Now people are using their freedom of speech to make Palin et. al. realise what it is that they did wrong, because in a democracy, violence and politics should not be associated with each other - not from the state against its citizens, nor from the citizens against its state.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-49878857485092811392011-01-11T23:44:00.003+00:002011-01-12T10:15:46.028+00:00Let This Folly Stop Now!Assange's lawyers have today come out with <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan/11/julian-assange-wikileaks-execution-gantanamo">another outrageous defence argument</a>. This time, they are arguing that he should not be extradited to <i>Sweden</i> because he might be sentenced to death in <i>USA</i>. I suppose this makes sense if you also <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-conspiracies-and-julian.html">believe that Sweden is a feminist state that is really run by the CIA</a> and that <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-by-surprise.html">sex by surprise is actually a crime in Sweden, and not some awful euphemism for rape used to trivialise the crime</a>.<br />
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First of all, even if one would buy the lawyer's claim that Assange might be tried and sentenced to a death penalty (this is indeed one of the crimes punishable by capital punishment in the US, <a href="http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-penalty-offenses-other-murder">according to deathpenaltyinfo.org</a>), the country he is supposed to be extradited to, Sweden, <i>did away with capital punishment in 1921</i> and <a href="http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/7416/nocache/true/a/89965/dictionary/false">the country itself is a driving force against capital punishment everywhere (Page in Swedish)</a>. That Sweden would therefore extradite a man they even consider risks a capital punishment would be very surprising to say the least. Not only because of the current government's commitment against it, but there would be a public outcry in Sweden if this happened. (Strange, since we all know that Sweden is really USA/CIA, right?)<br />
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Secondly, as has been said before, but is apparently worth pointing out again <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11952817">experts think that it would be very hard to extradite Assange from Sweden to the US</a>. Not only are there problems with the extradition treaties that would possibly not allow him to be extradited, there might also be a problem with it having to be a tripartite negotiation. Not only does Sweden have to agree to an extradition (which is unlikely if they think that Assange's human rights will be deprived, as argued above), <i>the UK also has to be in on it</i>. As the UK also has abolished capital punishment, albeit a bit later than Sweden, in 1998, it seems unlikely they would condone such a punishment. <br />
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This whole situation has been handled exceptionally badly both by Assange's lawyers and by Assange himself. Instead of publicly issuing statements requesting that this be dealt with in court (whether it regards fighting the extradition or facing allegations of sexual assault), a load of utter BS has been uttered to reduce the credibility of the Swedish legal system, Assange's accusers and the Swedish government. There has been encouragement by Assange and his lawyers to dismiss these rape charges as lies, and fair enough, denying such an accusation is his right and if he believes himself to be innocent he should rightly do so, but to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden">claim it is part of a 'honeytrap'</a> is <i>only</i> to undermine the credibility of the women, and serves nothing but to damage them in the public eye which is hugely unfair. It is fully possible to claim innocence and not attempt to set up a public trial and encourage harassment at the same time. (Yes, it is encouragement, because Assange and his lawyers are hardly blind to what is going on and that the women are targeted and harassed, that their names, addresses and phone numbers have been made available on the internet for the purpose of harassing them. To not realise this would be to be intentionally ignorant and naïve.)<br />
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I have consistently called for this to be a trial within the Swedish system of justice, if it even goes so far, Assange might, after all, not be extradited to Sweden in the end. Also, he is only wanted for questioning at the moment, there has been no trial set. I am not in favour of Naomi Wolf's tactics of <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/sexual-assault-survivor-suck-it-up-or.html">naming and shaming</a> rape/ sexual assault survivors, and neither am I in favour of doing so with people that have gone no further in the process than being accused of sexual offences. That the Assange case went public to begin with is a very sad thing, indeed, but that does not make right the treatment of the women by Assange and his lawyers, especially when it cannot be proven that they were the ones leaking the rape accusations in the first place. That they are now capitalising on this scandal at the expense of these women who, according to themselves, have been victims of a crime, is appalling and unjustifiable. If it turns out, on the other hand, that these women were the driving force behind the leaking and have secretly been orchestrating a hate campaign against Assange, of course they should be held responsible for that, but until this is proven, one has to assume their innocence, precisely what that Assange's supporters are calling for with regards to the rape accusations against him.<br />
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If these women are expected to take responsibility for accusing one of the world's most loved and hated person, then he should rightly take responsibility to act like an adult when he is accused of a crime.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-18279201624310111722011-01-09T14:55:00.001+00:002011-01-13T23:37:16.966+00:00Alcohol Problems Are Not ShamefulI've written some on this over at my <a href="http://www.feminismochte.blogspot.com">Swedish language blog</a>, and I suppose it was just a matter of time before the topic made its way over here as well.<br />
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An old <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/simon-carr/simon-carr-i-drink-a-bottle-of-wine-a-day-but-dont-call-me-an-alcoholic-1817283.html">Independent article</a> caught my eye today when someone I follow tweeted it. In it Simon Carr explains how he has gone from 30 bottles a day to one bottle a day, but even though the amount the drinks classes him as a person with an alcohol problem, he refuses to call himself an alcoholic or even think about whether or not he does, in fact, have an alcohol problem. Although his drinking would be classified at least as risk behaviour for becoming an alcoholic, I am not interested in discussing whether or not he drinks too much, should cut down, or should keep on going the way he is. If he has an alcohol problem, it is on him to first realise it and then admit it, because if the person who allegedly has an alcohol problem refuses to do something about it, nothing can be done about it. A general rule is, though, that if someone in your close vicinity thinks that your drinking is a problem, then it is a problem. To you it might not be, but to someone else it is, and therefore it should be taken seriously and discussed.<br />
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What really upset me about this article is how Carr makes it out to be something shameful to have an alcohol problem. Alcoholism is a disease, it is classified as such - both a physical and mental as it affects both - and what is more is that it is a very cruel disease that not only affects the person who is an alcoholic, but friends and family who are usually caught up in an enabling position, <i>made possible through the hiding and keeping quiet so as to avoid the ugliness that is attached to being an alcoholic</i>. <br />
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Media have discussed over the past five years, or even more, about the alcohol behaviour in Europe, that alcohol consumption has risen pretty much all over Europe, and in Scotland, my current home country, new laws were passed just last year to curb binge drinking and lower the overall alcohol consumption. That we are consuming too much alcohol as a society is no news, and that it would be beneficial to all of society (apart from perhaps the companies profiting from the increased alcohol consumption) health-wise, economically and socially, if overall drinking would be lowered is something I am going to hazard to guess most people would agree with. Not all people have a problem, and if it is not a problem, then, by all means, go ahead and continue your alcohol habits. I am not proposing a complete ban on alcohol here - it would not be possible in our society today. Besides, adults should enjoy the responsibility of choosing how and when they consume alcohol. <br />
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What needs to be done is to stop this hushing of drug addiction, both alcohol and other drugs. When a person is stuck in an addiction, their behaviour alters radically. Did you know, for instance, that liver cirrhosis affects your brain when the liver cannot break down the chemicals it would if it were healthy? The tissue dies and scars and becomes hard and because of the decrease in healthy liver cells that would normally digest and take care of different toxins, it cannot, and so these toxins rise to the affected person's brain and physically affects the behaviour of the person. Liver cirrhosis is a fairly common disease in people with long-term alcohol problems, and the only cure for it is to stop drinking period. (Of course, there are other ways than drinking that can result in liver cirrhosis, Hepatitis C is one such example, but alcoholism is by far the most common cause.) Addiction also leads to a lot of lying, manipulating and aggression, which can be unrelated to liver cirrhosis as that disease comes from a long abuse of alcohol substances and the manipulation and lying often starts early on in an addiction (the hiding of bottles, lying about amounts of alcohol consumed etc.). When in an addiction, nothing matters more than the next hit (of alcohol, of other drugs), including family and friends. It is sad, but it is truth. A person with an alcohol addiction might want to change their habits, but they literally cannot. It is a brutal and cruel disease to all people involved. <br />
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Lying and hiding another person's addiction only <i>enables</i> that person to continue on with their habits. Often it is done out of love, because the person hiding and lying wants people to see the addict for the person that they really are, not the addiction. Sadly, this is a problem in society, where alcohol and other drug addiction is associated with something dirty, weak and ugly. There is nothing weak about the person becoming an alcoholic, <i>anyone can become one</i>, although genetical predisposition and environment contributes to people getting caught in an addiction. There are alcoholics that function perfectly in their work environments (one of the most common myths, that if you can manage our job, you're not an alcoholic), who are intelligent, charming, powerful - all in all, great people. Where it often shows is the social sphere, and not necessarily only with friends or acquaintances, but family and close friends. That is where an addiction becomes the most clear. The first people to realise there is a problem will be the close people, and the first one to deny it will be the addict. Even if the family and close friends will hide the problem from the outside world, there will be a problem, and it will be very present and real to some people.<br />
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The greatest service you can do to anyone who is an addict is to be honest about it - to them, to yourself, to all people. You do not have to tell anyone if you do not want to, but don't make excuses for the addict's behaviour. There is nothing shameful about someone being an addict. That person is a person with a problem, but the key thing to remember is that <i>it is a person</i>. It is a person who might not behave the way that they do if they had a different option, and often to an addict, it seems that they don't, or they might do, but they do not want to change or they cannot. The fact still remains that there is a <i>person</i> in there, hidden behind manipulative behaviour, lies and all other sorts of crazy things addicts get up to. This person needs to be seen, needs to be heard, and needs to get the opportunity to break free from the addiction in order to take control over their own life. Because when an addict, there is no control, there is only being controlled by the substance abused.<br />
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The best way to achieve this is <i>not</i> to continue hiding alcohol problems or to be offended when someone might indicate that you have a problem. If someone thinks you have a problem, you should seriously listen and consider if you do, because if someone tells you you do, there is a great possibility that you might have an alcohol problem.<br />
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<b>News flash to Simon Carr:</b> Dying from liver failure is not quick and painless. It is a painful process in which both you and everybody surrounding you will suffer. It affects your entire body and it costs the health care system lots and lots of money. You might get diabetic, requiring insulin on a daily basis. Often, because of the scar tissue in your liver squeezing your main blood vessels, the blood is trying to squeeze itself through your smaller vessels which inevitably become more fragile and these bursting is one of the main causes of death for people with liver cirrhosis. These are called varices, and if your bleeding is caught early enough you can be saved through a massive blood transfusion and surgery, both of which cost the health care system. Apart from that, there is the severe organ failure. When your liver can't digest the toxins you put in your own body, these toxins will travel to other organs and affect them as well, leading to a complete organ failure. Other unpleasant symptoms include vomiting blood, itchiness, loss of sex drive, insomnia, breathlessness and memory loss and confusion. These are just some of the things that might happen when contracting liver cirrhosis, most of which can be treated to some degree by drugs and continued medical check-ups.<br />
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Alcoholism is no disease to dismiss offhand and take as an offensive accusation. It is a serious and real disease and it affects so many people around the world (relatives and friends included). It is a cruel and brutal disease and it should be taken seriously. It should not be hidden and lied about. And above all, former, current and future addicts <i>should not be stigmatised</i>. The stigmatisation of alcohol addicts only lead to less people seeking help for this brutal disease and that is a tragedy to all people affected.<br />
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More on liver cirrhosis and alcohol problems: <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/liver_disease_(alcoholic)/Pages/Introduction.aspx">NHS - alcoholic liver disease</a>, <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Cirrhosis/Pages/Introduction.aspx?url=Pages/What-is-it.aspx">NHS - cirrhosis</a>, <a href="http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Cirrhosis/Pages/Symptoms.aspx">NHS - cirrhosis symptoms</a>, <a href="http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/">Alcoholic Anonymous for more information on alcoholism</a>, <a href="http://www.al-anonuk.org.uk/">Al-Anon for families and others whose lives are affected by someone with an addiction</a>, <a href="http://www.downyourdrink.org.uk/">Down Your Drink</a> - a UCL based informational site on alcohol consumption.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-87580091981365521302011-01-07T23:35:00.002+00:002011-01-08T02:37:24.883+00:00Sexual Assault Survivor? Suck it up, or go public.Tonight I listened to the BBC World Have Your Say where Naomi Wolf was a guest talking about her <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/05/julian-assange-sex-crimes-anonymity">recent article</a> in the Guardian arguing that rape survivors should take a moral responsibility when they accuse someone for sexual assault and therefore be outed in the media - voluntarily or involuntarily. (See yesterday's <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2011/01/lets-crucify-rape-survivors.html">blog post</a> for commentary on the Guardian article.)<br />
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First of all, I want to say that World Have Your Say had chosen a brilliant person to argue against Wolf - Helen from Belfast but currently in London (that's how the host kept on talking about her), twice rape survivor and a brilliant debater. She refused to be patronised when Wolf started with her condescending and belittling way as described in <a href="http://lasophielle.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/naomi-wolf-author-the-beauty-myth-fire-with-fire-and-more-speaks-to-the-ivory-tower-and-in-the-eyes-of-left-leaning-attendees-very-much-disappoints/">this blog post</a> by a blogger who went to a lecture with Wolf when she was at Oxford the other day. Wolf even at one point said "Bear with me, I know there are many new thoughts here" to Helen from Belfast but currently in London, upon which she retorted "I have been thinking about this for many years now," a brilliant answer from someone who refused to be patronised and talked down to the way Wolf tried with everyone who put her on the spot, including the host of the show.<br />
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There was much said by Wolf in the show that probably will give me nightmares for days to come and much that made me lose whatever respect I might possibly have had for Wolf as a feminist, at least concerning this subject, but perhaps everything as I have a hard time taking people with such an attitude seriously. It was quite obvious that Wolf argued the way she did because she wanted to <i>get to the perpetrators</i>. The argument went as such that if the perpetrators were outed in media, they would not be so keen on sexually assaulting another person. It would also lead to the the forced realisation of the assaulted people that it is not ever their fault that they are sexually assaulted, that the perpetrators <i>always</i> bear the full responsibility for a sexual assault. Also, the open talking about sexual assault by survivors would, according to Wolf, decrease the stigma and victim blaming attached to being a sexual assault survivor.<br />
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The problem is that Wolf is going about it backwards. I, too, wish that one day men and women alike could speak about sexual assault, consent and boundaries in an open and productive way, much as was attempted with the Swedish <a href=http://prataomdet.se/in-english/"><i>Talk about it</i></a> campaign where men and women were encouraged to discuss both crossing boundaries and having boundaries crossed by another person. Men and women talked about being the (sometimes unintended or unknowing) perpetrator and about being sexually assaulted, but also about how threat of sexual assault sometimes is used as a tool of coercion or power. Although there were some (as always) who were trying to make the campaign out to be ridiculous, it lead to a lot of productive discussion and media in Sweden wrote about it quite a lot.<br />
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Encouraging people to speak about sexual assault, both as perpetrators and survivors is a great way to eradicate stigma and victim blaming and also define boundaries and consent. Talking about it encourages a respectful ever ongoing discourse in a relationship to make sure that both (or more) parties are comfortable at all times. Boundaries and consent may change at any time and therefore it is important to continue discussing them. What Wolf wants to do, however, is not to <i>encourage</i> people to talk about it, which would be productive, but to <i>force</i> people to come forward as sexual assault survivors, which can be downright destructive. At one point in the show she even said that, according to her, there were two options: press charges and come forward as a sexual assault survivor willing to talk to the press about it or <i>to keep silent about it and live with it</i>. In other words, the options Wolf gives survivors of sexual assault is to put oneself at the risk of victim blaming, threats, force and psychological hardship or to <i>suck it up</i>. <br />
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Not only is this suggestion ridiculous and very offensive, it also brings with it a series of problems. As Helen pointed out, because of the appallingly low conviction rates for sexual crimes (that Wolf claims to want to battle through forcibly outing sexual assault survivors), there is an infinitesimal chance that the perpetrator will actually be convicted for the crime he or she has committed. If then, one were to be sexually assaulted twice, as happened with Helen, and the previous case had been dismissed or ruled in favour of the perpetrator, and this was at the same time discussed ad nauseam in media, she (in Helen's case) would forever be "the girl who cried rape." Tell me how this would not do more harm to a sexual assault survivor than it would do good.<br />
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Wolf's faith in the media as the almighty defender of sexual assault survivors is also ridiculous. She stated at one point in the show that because institutions have failed in the past to protect sexual assault survivors, media would take on that role. As it <a href=http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-by-surprise.html">has in</a> <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-conspiracies-and-julian.html">the past</a>, she means? Media - the defender of women who accuse powerful men of sexual assault. Sounds just about right, doesn't it? Or not.<br />
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What is more is that Wolf bases her argument on public trials for sexual assault crimes on her notion that if one wants to bring a case into the public sphere, one should be prepared to defend themselves publicly. Well excuse me, but where was the public when the crime was committed? Bringing someone into court is the only (legal) retribution that a sexual assault survivor may receive. Is she proposing going back to the olden days when brothers and fathers handled situations where a woman's honour had been violated? Perhaps she would think it more appropriate to settle the dispute with fists rather than going through the legal system which actually has the mandate and power to punish people who break the law. Or perhaps she thinks that media should be holding the public trials? Perhaps in an entertainment show kind of way? Yes, perhaps we could bring in Ricki Lake!? That sexual assault survivors are anonymous to the public does not mean that they are anonymous to the police and the judicial system, where these matters should be handled. That media, through publishing information on sexual assault cases, should be able to keep police and the judiciary in check is doubtful. Media are not exactly known to be without their own political agendas, not to mention that most media are funded through earnings, which means that <i>they will publish what sells</i>, and often in ways that make things sound more scandalous than what they might be. <br />
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Media does <i>not</i> need to know every little thing about individual sexual assault survivors, neither do we, the public. If women and men who have been on either end of sexual assault wants to come forward and talk about it, they should get the opportunity to. They should be <i>encouraged</i> by all means to do so, but they should not be <i>forced</i> to talk about it. Furthermore, if a wrong has been committed, the person whom it has been committed on should have the means to receive some kind of retribution, they should not - never ever - be told to suck it up. And just because it helped you, Naomi Wolf, and possibly lots of other women and men, to come forward and talk about being sexually assaulted, just because it made <i>you</i> stronger, does not mean it will to everyone at any time. You had <i>twenty</i> years to prepare what to say and think about it before you talked about it. Allow other sexual assault survivors the same courtesy. Forcing them to talk about it prematurely might only do more damage than good. Please, please, Naomi Wolf, stop patronising every woman and man who has ever been sexually assaulted.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-19991809474271473992011-01-06T21:32:00.000+00:002011-01-06T21:32:14.984+00:00Let's Crucify the Rape Survivors<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/05/julian-assange-sex-crimes-anonymity">Naomi Wolf does it again</a>. This time she has written an article in the Guardian calling for a forced outing of the accusers of Julian Assange using the stigma attached to sexual assault survivors as the reason for doing so. While there are some valid points to Wolf's argument, for instance that not identifying survivors feeds into the rape myths about how sexual assault/rape survivors should look like, act, be, et cetera, she seems to completely neglect the other side of the argument, <i>that sexual assault/rape survivors should not be involuntarily outed because they need to be protected</i> against, say, the mob. Instead Wolf talks about taking moral responsibility, facing the accuser and changing the perception of rape as a crime.<br />
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The real issue, however, becomes quite clear when Wolf starts talking about Assange and him being dragged before the public eye and voicing worries about this case, because of geopolitical tensions, standing little chance of actually being free and fair. These worries are very valid, and a lot of people who call against rape trivialisation are worried about exactly the same thing. There is little doubt in most people's minds that this is a politically precarious situation where the Swedish judicial system will have to seriously guard its integrity against the pressures of political giants like USA, but perhaps even its own government. These sexual assault allegations are being stretched to the point of distortion from both Wikileaks supporters and Wikileaks opponents to further their own political agendas. (Key here being <i>Wikileaks</i> opponents and/or supporters of the <i>organisation</i> which is, as argued <a href=http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminist-conspiracies-and-julian.html">before</a>, separate from the <i>person</i> Julian Assange.) Making sure that the trial is, therefore, free and fair and without political motivations (meaning keeping the trial to the allegations made, not ones possibly made in the future) is essential not only to supporters of free speech, but also to feminists and other people against rape trivialising around the world. <br />
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Wolf has previously complained how <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html">these rape allegations have</a> <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html">been made to further a political agenda</A> and that the women doing so should be ashamed of themselves. She, along with other <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-rape-allegations-freedom-of-speech">self-proclaimed feminists</A> have called this entire case a slap in the face against all rape survivors, basing this on the fact that because rape accusations have in the past been made against politically powerful people, this case must be the same. As I have written <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/feminists-against-rape-survivors.html">before</a>, just because states and other power players can benefit from this situation does not mean that <i>they have orchestrated it</i>. The logic saying it inevitably has to be so is severely flawed, indeed, there is no logic behind it at all. Powerful states, people, organisations or any kind of players have always benefited from unconnected situations that happen to play neatly into their agenda. They can simply be capitalising from a situation that occurred simultaneously. Is it a big coincidence this is happening at the same time? Yes. Does it mean that Julian Assange cannot be a man who sexually assaults and/or rapes women? No.<br />
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This entire article by Naomi Wolf is nothing more than to further her own agenda. She is obviously a strong believer in Wikileaks and what it does. So am I. The difference between us is that I will not crucify potential sexual assault survivors just because of it. I can still believe strongly in free speech and not trivialise rape. In fact, I think it is contradictory to do what Wolf does. These women deserve to be heard, they deserve to be taken seriously - they deserve to be able to exercise their rights to free speech without being ostracised, bullied and crucified for it. That Assange became a victim of the press who published the leak of these allegations (appreciate the irony here) does not mean that it is right to bring these women to a public trial as well. Two wrongs don't make a right, as it is said. <br />
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What still baffles me, though, is how Wolf fails to understand that what she is doing is just as much a slap in the face to rape survivors all over. She has consistently said that rape allegations should not be used to further political agendas, and she is correct. That states are using these accusations as some kind of proof that Assange (read Wikileaks) is a bad man (organisation) is nothing but wrong. That does not mean, however, that these accusations are false or that these women are simply pawns in some greater political game. These accusations could be true and these women could be used to further political agendas at the same time. None of those statements are mutually exclusive. What Wolf does when she completely dismisses these accusations offhand is to <i>feed further into the rape myths</i>. She is doing exactly what she claims she wants to prevent: she is setting the terms and boundaries of who can and who cannot be rape/ sexual assault survivors. Apparently, Wolf has decided, to qualify as someone who can be raped or sexually assaulted in another way, the accusations must be made against someone who does not have political power. Because if these accusations are made against someone in political power, especially someone working as a rogue self-proclaimed hero of the average person, that being noble and all, <i>it inevitably means these accusations are false</i>. I wonder what Wolf would have written if these accusations would have been made against some powerful political player who works within the nation-state apparatus?<br />
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It is just as important today as it was a month ago to be able to hold two thoughts at the same time. Using these accusations to further a political cause related to Wikileaks is nothing but wrong, and that goes for both sides. The beautiful irony in this entire series of debate articles that Wolf has written against states using rape accusations for their own purposes is that she is doing exactly the same. She is no better herself than the states that she is criticising. What is more is that it becomes more and more obvious for each article she writes. What is sad is that she is losing credibility among feminists, but perhaps it is all for the best. If Wolf is to continue trivialising rape and feeding into rape myths she may as well stay far away from feminism and the feminist base, as far as I am concerned.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-39441551080472521722010-12-28T16:00:00.001+00:002010-12-28T16:01:14.728+00:00Moralising Sex WorkWith the recent murders on sex workers in the UK (see previous <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-work-stigma-kills-people.html">blog post</a>), BBC has published <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12073796">this</a> article which discusses possible solutions to make sex work safer for the men and women in that line of work. <br />
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Currently in the UK, it is not illegal to sell sex, but brothels and selling sex on the street is illegal. There may be one person in one building selling sex, but no more. While there are justifications for this legislation, such as worries about facilitating human trafficking if brothels and street prostitution were to be decriminalised, and that street prostitution can be very unsafe, this legislation ends up offering little protection for sex workers. <br />
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The consequence of legislation that does not allow sex workers to meet customers on the street or in a brothel is that they either need to rent a room, hire a space or bring the customers to their own homes. The first two options could be expensive in the long run unless the sex worker would charge the client for rent or room hire, but the way that the market dictates business, the price increase could lead to a loss in business. The third option is just simply unsafe. Sex workers are at a high risk for sexual violence and other forms of violence as it is. If the sex workers would then be forced to reveal where they live to their clients, they could face serious danger, not to mention fear of being visited by the authorities and other people that would wish to make their opinions known about sex workers. <br />
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My personal fear is that our moral views impair our thinking when it comes to sex work and lead to unsafe legislation for the men and women voluntarily involved in that line of work. (As said before, trafficking is always, and should always be, viewed as a crime as there is an element of coercion/threat and/or debt bondage. More on that <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/search/label/human%20trafficking">here</a>.) Instead of providing them with safe places to run their businesses, the legislation punishes them because they are in a line of work that people do not agree with morally, and that people perhaps would not choose for themselves. So what we do, instead of working with these people, is to work against them.<br />
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Regardless of what view one has of prostitution - whether it should exist or not, or whether the need for it should exist or not - it exists. The reality is that people sell sex. The reality is that there is a market for selling sex, and people will sell sex. To legislate in a way that punishes these people and make their line of work highly unsafe and a high risk for violence in different forms is not going to change this - sex will continue to be sold. It is one of the very oldest trades and it will probably continue to exist for a long time yet, whether governments choose to let the trade operate in the open and regulate it, or keep it in the dark. <br />
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The focus therefore needs to lie on making this line of work safe for the people within it, rather than punish them or robbing them of their rights, or keep legislation in place that has proved itself not to make the situation safer for sex workers. Just because many people disagree with this trade does not mean that these people do not deserve the same rights to safety and freedom from violence and other abuse. It is a good thing that the police are putting a lot of focus on uncovering trafficking networks and trafficked people, but that does not mean that it is justified to neglect the people who are in the sex trade voluntarily. They are at high risk for abuse and sexual assault and should be offered protection accordingly. There is still a wide-spread belief that sex workers cannot be raped because they sell sex, but any sexual advance that has not been negotiated or agreed upon is still an offence regardless of whom it is done to. Unfortunately this leads to a <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-work-stigma-kills-people.html">stigma that is reflected in society</a> and not even the police is safe from it.<br />
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It is a good thing that this is currently being discussed in the media, but let's make sure that it stays this way. Let's make sure that we do not let this topic disappear because we do not want to see the uncomfortable truths or that we want to pretend that these issues do not exist. Let's make sure that these people can also live safely without the fear of being used, abused and murdered, because all people deserve that right.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-31663601653346729852010-12-26T16:35:00.001+00:002010-12-26T16:49:13.326+00:00Passing Judgement on SexualitiesAn MI6 agent, Gareth Williams, is suspected to have been murdered, but all his friend can think about is to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/26/mi6-spy-not-gay">'clear' his name</a> from 'allegations' that he might have been gay. Talk about having her priorities straight.<br />
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There are no accusations or allegations that need to be cleared in this case. First of all, the only thing that has been said about Williams is that "detectives suggested the 31-year-old may have died at the hands of a mystery bondage sex partner he met on London's gay scene" (from article linked above). There are no speculations whether this was just a one time sex connection or if it was something Williams did recurrently or if he was sexually curious or bisexual or homosexual. There are no speculations about the man's sexuality, just a speculation of what happened to him and how he was connected with the person believed to have murdered him.<br />
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Secondly, even if he were gay, does it matter? Being gay is not something negative, not anything one needs to clear one's reputation from if it is false. The fact that this woman feels she has the need to go to media and set the record straight (pun intended) is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, she doesn't know everything about this man's sexuality or sexual feelings, no one knows, apart from him when he was alive. He might very well have had sexual encounters with other men while he was alive out of curiosity, because this was what he wanted, or perhaps he was doing research for a new identity. No one knows, and it doesn't matter. He chose not to talk about it, so neither should anyone else.<br />
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Talking to the media about the man's sexuality and trying to 'explain' that he was, beyond doubt, heterosexual is nothing but passing negative judgement on homosexual men. To feel the need is there to actually explain who this man did or did not sleep with is saying that homosexuality is below heterosexuality, that Williams was being <i>accused</i> of something, and an accusation, as we all know, is associated with making a wrong. Love or sex between two members of the same sex is not a wrong, but William's friend clearly believes it to be so. To flip the coin, would she, or most people, talk to media about a homosexual person allegedly having sex with a heterosexual person? Most likely not.<br />
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Many people claim that they have no problems with love or sex between two members of the same sex (or gender), but the rhetoric tells otherwise. If people keep on trying to 'clear' a supposedly heterosexual person's name of speculations of sexual or emotional relationships with members of the same sex (or gender), it is no different from saying that heterosexual people are more worth in the eyes of the society. This is not so surprising, perhaps, considering that the norm is heterosexuality, and as many of us know, breaking norms is not always viewed favourably. Just because something is the norm, however, does not mean that it should be, or that other groups, thoughts or people should be marginalised or feel forced to justify why they are the way they are, why they think what they think or why they hold certain opinions. <br />
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Feeling attraction to someone of the same sex is just as valid as feeling attraction to someone of the opposite sex. Furthermore, <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/08/proposition-8-and-victory-of-love.html">love is love</a> and can be just as beautiful, loving and caring no matter of the sexes or genders of the people involved in the love, no matter how many people are involved in it. Being heterosexual and monogamous is no guarantee of a 'better' relationship (if there is such a thing) and statistics of domestic violence can testify of this. The fact that domestic violence occurs in heterosexual monogamous relationships tells that it is not necessarily the most optimal form of relationship for everyone. Being in a heterosexual relationship is no guarantee against being hurt, abused or stuck in a destructive relationship. Being in a homosexual or polyamorous relationship is not either. Love is love regardless of who is or isn't involved in it, and it can be constructive or destructive regardless of who is involved. That someone therefore should have to have their name cleared from being able to love in a way that strives from the norm is absurd. Norm-breaking love is no less valid than any other form of love, and there is no need to make excuses for love, as long as it is consensual.<br />
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I will never make excuses for my friends' or family's love - their love is just as valid as mine, regardless if it is between people of the same sex, people of the opposite sex, people where one or more genders are undefined. They need not have me or anyone else make excuses for their love. Neither did Gareth Williams. He lived and he loved, it should have been left at that.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-55613110804341568482010-12-23T00:12:00.000+00:002010-12-23T00:12:16.468+00:00Sex Work Stigma Kills PeopleThere is a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/22/world-violence-sex-workers">great article</a> in the Guardian today about sex workers and the vicious ways in which some of them are murdered and how a lot of them are in other ways violently abused.<br />
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I have <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/04/prostitution-quagmire.html">written</a> previously on my opinions on prostitution and highlighted some problems with legalising it as well as some problems with keeping various aspects of sex work illegal. This issue about violence against sex workers is one such example of why it is such an important discussion to have. <br />
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Sex workers are often stigmatised and ostracised from society. They are viewed as 'used' women, dirty puppets inevitably oppressed by the great big evil patriarchy and males' inherent uncontrollable sexual drive, leading people to believe that they are essentially flesh and blood rag dolls incapable of making their own decisions or having any kind of agency. There are many assumptions made about sex workers, about their motivations, about their lives, about their thoughts and about them as people; how someone must be, think and act to be a sex worker, as if they were all one and the same.<br />
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This homogenisation and association with uncleanness in appearance, manner and health leads to a huge stigma to be attached to sex workers. Because of these assumptions they are reduced to nothing more than second class citizens. If the view is not that they are doing something morally repugnant, the assumption is that they are not capable of civic virtues or performing civic duties and are thus in need of rescue. This is where <i>we</i>, the people who presumedly '<i>know better</i>' have to step in and 'teach' these men and women how to live a life the way it is supposed to be lived.<br />
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There are several factors why people enter sex work. Where trafficking is the reason, it is clear that there has been a human rights crime committed, as trafficking per definition includes some kind of coercion or threat and some kind of debt bondage which severely impairs an individual's freedom to self-decision and movement. Trafficking is in every way a crime and should be prevented. <i>But</i>, trafficking does <i>not</i> equal all sex work, and the sooner we understand this, the better. There are men and women who enter the sex trade due to several different reasons, and these people do so <i>voluntarily</i>. If they later find themselves in debt bondage or under coercion and/or threat, it will classify as trafficking, but not all sex workers find themselves in this position, and some sex workers get out of such a position to pursue sex work independently anyway.<br />
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The problem with making a blanket assumption about the motivations and reasons why a person is in the sex trade whether it be moral (or as some people think, lack thereof), socioeconomic or other is that it does not make separations between the individuals and the people are all seen as one big lump of sex workers without agency, individuality or personal strengths/weaknesses. They are all made out to be one and the same, and often one and the same with one's own personal moral and philosophical feelings about the sex trade. We end up signing agency to them, or rather robbing them of it as we consequently make the decision (assumption) for them <i>why</i> they are a sex worker. The issue here being that society at large seems to have a great moral problem with sex for money, making the sex trade into a big taboo and so attaching stigma to it; a stigma which automatically follows with the sex worker and makes him/her out to be of less intelligence/capability.<br />
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When these assumptions are brought out into society, they become dangerous. People who are viewed as less in any kind of way (moral, intelligence, capability of decision-making over self and other things), they become less. These people are easy targets for violence and other sorts of human rights crimes, because <i>they are not seen as fully human</i>. Because a sex worker is already seen as dirty/dumb/incapable, it is more justified to violate such a person in any kind of way than it would be a person who was capable, or rather viewed as more worth. It would be a greater crime to violate someone who is valued as <i>fully</i> human.<br />
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These types of crimes, or rather power displays of people who believe themselves to have the right to assert power over other people they see as of less value stain our history. Race, religion, sex, occupation, bloodline - these have all been reasons why it is justified for one person of higher status to take advantage of or assert power over the one with the lesser status. Sex workers are no different, it is just another occupation, but also one that is seen as lowly, not worthy, only for people with problems/in poverty/of lesser intelligence, and the people in it can therefore be used and abused according to the ruling people's wishes, which in this case is anyone who enjoys higher status than a sex worker. Because sex workers enjoy such a low status in society, this means just about anyone.<br />
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People may have their differences about what prostitution/sex work represents, and whether or not it is selling your body or simply a transaction that involves sex, but the problems remain regardless: sex workers are used, abused and violated because they are seen as <i>lesser</i>, because people do not consider their full human value. This needs to stop. Sex work and sex workers need to be taken seriously and respected as human beings of a certain occupation, regardless of what anyone's personal opinions is about the line of work. Otherwise these people will continue to be stigmatised and reduced to second class citizenry where they will struggle to even access their supposedly universal human rights.<br />
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To finish off I will leave you with a quotation from David Wilson, professor of criminology at the University of Central England and the vice chair of the Howard League for Penal Reform, from the article above:<br />
<blockquote>"There are always going to be a small but consistent group of people in our culture who will want to do the maximum damage to other human beings. They can't continue to do harm to other people … if they are stopped early enough, if the group of people that they initially targeted are valued enough in our culture for the police to take it seriously. We create the phenomenon of serial killing by not valuing this group of people enough."</blockquote>Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-13915866203807751592010-12-22T12:00:00.000+00:002010-12-22T12:00:28.962+00:00Condom ConfusionAs most people will know, the Pope said a while back that it was not acceptable to use condoms for prevention of spreading of HIV, something he later changed his mind about and said that sure, it is okay to use a condom, <i>as long as it is used for prevention of diseases</i>. Most people did not doubt that this was a PR trick as a response to all the criticism that he had received in his unrealistic standpoint on HIV prevention. <br />
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Now, the Vatican has issued a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/world/europe/22pope.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss">clarification</a> on the Pope's statement on condom use, confusing matters further. The Vatican, in response to conservative Catholics who worry, have issued another statement saying that it is still not acceptable to use condoms as a contraceptive. Contraceptives are not allowed to be used as contraceptives, but for the prevention of spreading STDs, how does this work? <br />
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If condoms are used solely not to contract a disease, it will inevitably be used as a contraceptive as well. Sex will be had for the sake of sex, not for the sake of procreation, and the condom involved will thus be used as a contraceptive. Even if you see it in the way that <i>if someone has to have sex</i> it is better to use a condom in order to prevent disease spreading, it is still a contraceptive unless it is a sexual act between two members of the same sex or perhaps sex with a prostitute, but this, according to the Vatican, is still morally wrong. The NYT article reads:<br />
<blockquote>It said that condom use by a prostitute for disease prevention could not be considered a “lesser evil” because prostitution is “gravely immoral,” and that “an action which is objectively evil, even if a lesser evil, can never be licitly willed.”</blockquote><br />
The whole matter is just really confusing, condoms cannot be used to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, but to prevent disease, is it a matter of motivation, the reason for having sex? But regardless of how one twists it, even if the motivation is condom use for prevention of disease spreading, the sexual act is still not initiated to procreate, so the condom will also be used to prevent any possible pregnancies, because if a person who had HIV wanted a child but wanted to prevent spreading the disease to this child, he or she would probably adopt or try to conceive naturally which would mean a risk of spreading the disease. The whole condom use, according to the Pope and the Vatican is a lose - lose situation.<br />
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This all seems like a failed attempt to make the Pope more popular. The criticism for his statement on condoms and HIV, the one where he initially said it is unacceptable to use a condom even for the prevention of spreading the disease was so widely criticised, by Catholics, Protestants, atheists and other people alike, so he went out and condoned condom use in <i>certain</i> situations. This gave rise to a worry among conservative Catholics who were afraid that condoms would be used as a contraceptive against pregnancies, so the Vatican went out and 'clarified' the Pope's statement to appease these people, to solidify the Pope's popularity among that group, and inevitably contradicting what had just been said by the Pope.<br />
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The problem with this issue, the use of condoms, is that it is <i>never</i> going to be an issue where compromise can be made. Either you are for the use of condoms, or against it, because either you believe that sex should be had for procreation or pleasure or both. As long as there is even a tiny part of you that believes that sex should be used for pleasure, condoms will inevitably be used as contraception, because even if the major reason for using a condom is to prevent disease spreading, the purpose of the sex is pleasure. If you believe that sex is for procreation, there is no excuse for the use of a condom, because a condom will always partly be a contraceptive purposely used for the prevention of pregnancies, directly or indirectly. There is no compromise. Allowing people to use condoms as a disease prevention mechanism is to encourage, perhaps even condone, sex for other purposes than procreation, i.e. sex for pleasure. And this would open a whole can of worms, it would essentially say that prostitution can be acceptable as long as the circumstances are right, not to mention that it sexual promiscuity would also be accepted.<br />
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I suppose the only way to explain this confusing matter is that the Pope and the Vatican seems to think that sex for pleasure is acceptable, but there should not be any contraceptives involved unless there is a known disease in the picture. In that case, it seems that the evil of quenching potential life is lesser than the evil of sexually transmitted diseases. That, or just that the Pope is trying to approach a more mainstream audience and failing greatly.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-82450448402188752312010-12-18T23:59:00.001+00:002010-12-19T01:40:44.366+00:00Another Victory of Love!Some happy news: the repeal of the Don't Ask Don't Tell policy (previous posts <a href=http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/search/label/Don't%20Ask%20Don't%20Tell">here</a>) has <i>finally</i> been <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40715888/ns/politics-capitol_hill/">voted through in both the Senate and the House</a> and all that seems to be standing between letting gay people openly serve in the US military is an approval of President Obama and his top military advisers. Seeing as one of Obama's election promises was to do away with this policy, it should not be a problem.<br />
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I've blogged before about <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/08/proposition-8-and-victory-of-love.html">love being love</a> no matter in what shape and how certain kinds of love should not be judged because they strive from the heterosexual norm. Love is love, and love is always good as long as one is not stuck in a destructive spiral. Everyone can love and everyone should have the right to love whomever they wish without being judged. Our world needs all the love it can get, and this will certainly add to it. This is most certainly another victory of love!<br />
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To the Marine Corps and Army combat units: Grow up and get over it.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-14614609734146758352010-12-17T20:39:00.000+00:002010-12-17T20:39:06.325+00:00Real men don't cry - unless they have problemsWhile on my nightmare trip home for Christmas, I came across <a href=http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/15/john-boehners-crying-is-he-drinking-too-much/">this</a> article about the incoming House Speaker John Boehner. Apparently this man cries, not constantly and arguably not even in inappropriate situations (is there such a thing?), but <i>way too much to be a man</i>, where the expectations are that you don't cry. If your favourite sports team wins or if you go through a loss of a family member, then fine, cry away, but 'normally' men don't cry. Therefore, John Boehner <i>obviously</i> has to be an alcoholic. <br />
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<blockquote>Speaking generally, Dr. Robert DuPont, who served as the second White House drug czar and was the first director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, tells me that "alcohol reduces inhibitions. Whatever emotion you have, you're more likely to express it [when drinking]." DuPont added that alcohol reduces the functioning of the frontal lobes, and "the frontal lobes have to do with judgment, which is why [intoxicated] people do impulsive behavior."<br />
Alcohol also "brings out underlying emotions," explains Dr. Michael Fingerhood, an associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. "It generally is unmasking what is inside them."</blockquote><br />
This excerpt is from the article, and there are other discussions related to his assumed alcohol problems in direct relation to his crying. It should be noted that it is not Politics Daily that is accusing him, it's a discussion of the assumptions made of Boehner by other people, including his colleagues. Because he's a man and he's emotional and that's all fine for a woman, but because he's a man, there simply must be something wrong with him. If it's not the alcohol, it's probably depression or perhaps even an emotional problem, but there must be something awry or he would not cry. He could not simply be a man who cries, perhaps even has drinking problems, but who cries unrelated to his drinking. A man who cries and drinks must be crying because he drinks, it's as simple as that.<br />
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Now, if this were a woman, it would be seen as far more natural. Women cry, you know, <i>especially during that time of the month</i>. It's annoying, it's a hassle and it certainly speaks to the fact that they are not suitable for high positions - they're just too emotional, but it's fine to cry if you're a woman.<br />
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So remember all you men out there: If you're a man, you can't cry. There are no ifs or buts - you can't cry. And if you're a woman, you can, but you shouldn't. Because [insert whatever here] forbid that we would have more people honest about their feelings, what kind of world would we live in then?Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-3647243577171413482010-12-15T21:02:00.002+00:002010-12-15T21:07:19.374+00:00Feminists Against Rape SurvivorsI didn't really know who Naomi Wolf was until this entire Assange rape accusation case stormed through the media and the woman, as many other women and men, went out and dismissed the sexual assault and rape accusations made against Assange. She wrote about it in the Huffington Post in an article entitled <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/interpol-the-worlds-datin_b_793033.html">"Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police"</a>, arguing that because there was such a big ruckus about this entire case, it must be false and the accusations being made solely to further a political agenda, and this thus being a slap in the face to all rape survivors around the world. Why this post was entirely ridiculous and itself a slap in the face to all survivors of sexual assault can be read on <a href="http://jessicavalenti.com/2010/12/07/why-naomi-wolf-really-needs-to-read-the-internet/">Jessica Valenti's blog</a>.<br />
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As if that was not enough, the woman went out a couple of days later, completely ignoring all the criticism people had given her and wrote that this time <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/jaccuse-sweden-britain-an_b_795899.html">Interpol, Sweden, Britain and USA accuse rape victims world wide</a>. In this article she invokes her knowledge about rape survivors and describes the entire thing as a "theatre." There is no doubt to a lot of feminists and other people that the hard crackdown on Julian Assange allegedly as a consequence of these accusations are politically motivated. That is not, however, because we automatically assume them to be false, as a lot of other people seem to do, but rather because a lot of us are aware that rape survivors and sexual assault victims rarely get due consideration and any form of sexual assault accusation is unlikely to lead to a verdict against the perpetrator. Instead, the survivor/victim often finds him/herself in the role of <i>defending</i> oneself from all type of accusations: why was (s)he walking there at that time of night, what was (s)he wearing, didn't (s)he know better than that!? There is a justification needed for every step of the way why this should be called sexual assault or rape, rather than something one just brought upon themselves. The survivor/victim thus finds him/herself in the role of the perpetrator; a nasty "bitch" who wants to bring down a man's reputation and resorts to falsely accusing men of rape as a tactical choice. The irony in the entire thing lies in the fact that because conviction rates are so appallingly low in most countries, it is a very ineffective way to "take someone down."<br />
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But I digress. Wolf points out, rightly, that rape accusations are seldom taken seriously nationally and internationally and it is a slap in the face to other survivors that one should have to accuse someone famous in order to get an accusation taken seriously. This does not, however, mean that we should bring these accusations against Assange to the level of other accusations, <i>it means that authorities need to take all rape accusations seriously</i>. This goes for everyday people as well, who because of different states' willingness to use these accusations to fit into their political agenda, automatically assume that these accusations are invalidated. <i>Just because these accusations fit neatly into the US political agenda does not mean that they are orchestrated by the US government, CIA or any other US organ.</i> It could be possible that the US is capitalising on events already happened without holding the strings. It should be possible to hold two thoughts in a brain at the same time, something which seems that a lot of people are completely incapable of, <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/im-disappointed-michael-moore.html">including Michael Moore</a> and Naomi Wolf. <br />
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So today when Naomi Wold wrote another article bashing the Swedish legal system called <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/post_1435_b_797188.html">"Sweden's Serial Negligence in Prosecuting Rape Further Highlights the Politics Behind Julian Assange's Arrest"</a> I started wondering if she was just plainly ignorant. Wolf points out some pretty important criticism against the Swedish legal systems, the prosecutors in particular, saying that they are quite terrible at properly prosecuting rape accusations. There is an appallingly low number of cases that ever reach a verdict, and rape survivors in Sweden has to go through the usual amount of victim blaming and rape apologia from prosecutors and authorities that happens in every culture. So a lot of the criticism Wolf dishes out is very valid and something I hope that Swedish prosecutors, authorities and other people otherwise involved in rape cases take to heart. But then she goes on...<br />
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<blockquote>But none of the media outlets hyperventilating now about how this global-manhunt/Bourne-identity-chase-scene-level treatment of a sex crime allegation originating in Sweden must be 'normative' has bothered to do any actual reporting of how rape -- let alone the far more ambiguous charges of Assange's accusers, which are not charges of rape but of a category called 'sex by surprise,' which has no analog elsewhere -- is actually prosecuted in Sweden.<br />
</blockquote>Wolf obviously has not done her home work. <a href="http://feminismandtea.blogspot.com/2010/12/sex-by-surprise.html">There still isn't such a thing as 'sex by surprise'</a>, and this is still not what <a href="http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5iLBCkkC5l0NVV0gEYkAA04x83Wrg?docId=B32488671291733403A00">Assange is wanted for or accused of</a>! It's still a phrase used to trivialise rape, and has now been spread and reinforced by a self-proclaimed high profile feminist. What is more, Wolf blatantly ignores parts of the reports by BRÅ that she herself cites in the article. In their reports, BRÅ have acknowledged that Sweden has very high accusations of sexual crimes, and they have also asked <i>why</i>, something Wolf completely fails to do. The conclusions were that because of new legislation on sexual crimes clubbed through in the late nineties and onward, the definition for sex crimes, among them rape, have been broadened and now Sweden has a broader definition of some sexual crimes than other countries do. They also said that it cannot be concluded that sexual crimes are not on the uprising in Sweden, but it is hard to determine because of the widening of sex crime legislation. (Sift trough BRÅ's publications <a href="http://www.bra.se/extra/pod/?action=pod_show&id=8&module_instance=2">here</a>, specific report <a href="http://www.bra.se/extra/measurepoint/?module_instance=4&name=V%e5ldt%e4kter%20slutred.pdf&url=/dynamaster/file_archive/050511/5bae71cb5169364a3fac9dacf796b048/V%25e5ldt%25e4kter%2520slutred.pdf">here</a>, they're generally in Swedish but some (most?) have summaries in English). By picking and choosing in the information and leaving out crucial parts, Wolf has made herself guilty of the same fault as a friend of mine accused Michael Moore for - one-sided arguments. As a journalist Wolf should be able to do better, and as a feminist, especially in this case.<br />
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It is a shame that high profile feminists are not doing their home work, not investigating this issue good enough and, as a consequence, start feeding into rape myths and rape apologia. I think that what Wolf is doing might ultimately harm rape survivors across the world more than the slap in the face they are receiving from governments for taking this case especially seriously to promote their own political agenda. Hopefully something can be learned from that - that sex crime accusations all deserve to be treated with seriousness, because they are serious accusations. What Naomi Wolf is teaching is that it is fine to disbelieve and dismiss rape and sexual assault accusers, as long as you strongly believe that the person accused has done something good. This is one of the oldest rape myths in the book - that a person that is well-known and well-liked cannot commit a crime, and Wolf is not even capable to see through it.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26865315.post-33547498671049247902010-12-14T19:20:00.000+00:002010-12-14T19:20:12.956+00:00I'm Disappointed, Michael MooreMichael Moore, the well-known documentary film maker has <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-posting-bail-money">stated publicly on his blog why he is posting bail money for Julian Assange</a>. So far I'm with him, Wikileaks have done a great many good things and to want to post bail money for the front figure of the organisation is in no way a statement on being against rape and sexual assault accusations or saying that they do not deserve to be heard. I can understand why a lot of people think that Assange deserves to come out on bail and move about freely while extradition negotiations are underway as long as he does not try to escape the UK. It makes sense, people do not think he should be incarcerated before a crime has been proven. Swedish authorities have appealed this decision, according to Gemma Lindfield, representative of the Swedish authorities, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/14/julian-assange-wikileaks">because they believe there is a real possibility Assange might attempt to leave the country</a>. A valid concern, I think, but perhaps not strong enough to keep this man locked up while the extradition is negotiated, a process that has been said could take weeks.<br />
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So when Swedish authorities appealed this decision to let Assange out on bail, Michael Moore tweeted the following: <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TQfAmO1Gh3I/AAAAAAAAARg/BTrKJy_AjJs/s1600/Bild+3.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="152" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gtOWRQBYqAo/TQfAmO1Gh3I/AAAAAAAAARg/BTrKJy_AjJs/s320/Bild+3.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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I will be lying if I didn't say I expected better from this man, perhaps naïvely. Michael Moore has bought into these theories of a joint Swedish government/feminist and CIA co operation conspiracy. As a man who have produced documentaries that I have enjoyed immensely because of their capability of revealing things that have not been seen when looking at issues superficially, I would have expected him to do a little bit more critical thinking than that. Instead, it seems, that his hatred of the American government(s) and their power plays has made him automatically assume that this cannot be anything but a great puppet show with the US apparatus pulling the strings. I am disappointed.<br />
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I have said before and I feel forced to reiterate: serious accusations deserve to be heard and considered in an appropriate manner. Accusations of sex crimes, including rape, are serious, and therefore deserve to be heard. They do not automatically deserve to be believed without any critical thinking, but neither do they deserve to be dismissed as another one of America's great schemes in the plot to take over the world. <br />
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I can understand the willingness to defend Wikileaks and post bail for a man that has not been sentenced to any crime yet, but I cannot understand how a world renowned investigative journalist dismissed these accusations through such narrow thinking.Linnéa Sandström Langehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04102930371590467448noreply@blogger.com9