Why I’m More Inspired by UC Student Actions than I am by NYC Student Actions
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: November 20, 2009
-reposted from facebook with permission-
written by Farah Khimji (former SDS member and organizer from Take Back NYU)
Look at the pictures. pics from new york all look similar to this:
UCLA
and like this (except, you know, with much less sunshine):
UCLA
but at the uc actions, not only are there angry white punkish anarcho-kids (which, don’t get me wrong, i do love y’all) but there are ALSO photos like this:
UCLA
UCLA
UCLA
UCLA
See a difference? yeah, that’s right, there are ACTUALLY WAY MORE students of color who are being radicalized, standing up, and fighting back. they’re not all caught up in the trappings of white anarcho-punk subculture (look! they wear colors! and no bandanas! and they’re also wearing their college sweatshirts, oh dear god, SCHOOL SPIRIT!) – instead, they’re caught up in the fact that their tuition is going up by 32%, that their classes are regularly cancelled due to lack of funding, that this is the ONLY WAY THEY CAN GO TO SCHOOL and it’s being taken away from them. they aren’t fighting back against bourgeois ennui and problems with authority, and they aren’t checking to make sure their black bandanas are hanging out of their ass pocket, just so, before they go out to march. they aren’t even fighting because they don’t want to graduate from private school with a fuck ton of debt. nope – they’re fighting to actually be able to go to school. if nyu/new school raises tuition – and we know they will – we’re just gonna dig deeper into our loan pockets and keep paying. we aren’t having our classes canceled because our school couldn’t afford to keep them open. we didn’t come back over the summer to find out that hundreds of professors and staff had been fired, and that the tuition we’d already paid suddenly wasn’t going to be enough to cover us for the whole year. now, THAT is something to get seriously pissed off about.
why am i writing this? well, i’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately, one of them being my very deep dissatisfaction and feeling of alienation from “the radical scene” in new york. these feelings come not from the fact that i don’t share similar political beliefs – i’m as much an anti-capitalist, anti-authoritarian, smash-hierarchy kind of person as the next anarcho-dude. my dissatisfaction & alienation come from not feeling a part of (nor wanting to be a part of) the sort of material trappings of the anarchist scene. i don’t wear all black, unless i’m in a black block, and no i don’t feel the need to have my bandana swinging from the pocket of my supertight torn black pants all the time. no, i don’t identify with your insurrectionist zine because it doesn’t pull from my life experiences, or leaves very important life experiences out of its rhetoric (like race & gender). to put it frankly, the radical scene here makes me feel whitewashed. and i don’t like being whitewashed, because it’s something i’ve felt like i’ve had to do for most of my life. and i’m beginning to refuse, consistantly and constantly, to ever be whitewashed again. problem is, my refusal to be whitewashed also makes me feel like i’m not welcome.
the number of times i’ve been told, jokingly of course, that i don’t “look radical” or that they thought i was a “norm” or they’re “surprised” by “how radical” i turned out to be once they got to know me – all of these times make me realize just how much these otherwise good folks are caught up in a certain white subculture that i’ve never wanted to be a part of. looking around the room and realizing that not only am i the only non-white face, but i’m also the only one wearing blue jeans, is getting really fucking tiring. and my problem isn’t that folks like to wear these things and express their radicalism in these ways – that’s fine, if it makes you feel good, then go for it. what pisses me off, what makes me want to not be a part of it any more, is that i am judged as not-quite-radical because of the way that i look – or rather, the way that i don’t look. it feels yet again like i’m expected to assimilate. well, fuck you, i refuse to assimilate. fuck your cultural hegemony, fuck the fact that you call yourselves anti-racists but you don’t have a problem with trying to whitewash me. i’ve fucking had it.
and so, i return back to my original point: why i’m so much more inspired by uc student actions than i am by nyc student actions. clearly, i care deeply about what happened (and what will continue to happen) on our campuses here in nyc – i participated in these actions, and cared enough to get arrested with a bunch of strangers, most of whom i’d just met a week before. but it’s because of shit like this that i’ve stopped feeling like i can be a part of this, on my terms, without compromising who i am and who i want to be. but when i look at press from uc, and read about the percentages of students of color, and see people in the photos who i can actually identify with, i feel inspired by them. we run around asking ourselves how the fuck are they doing this, how are they getting so many people involved (500 at the last ucsc campus shutdown, wtf?), why can’t we accomplish things on this scale? well, maybe this is part of the reason: because we alienate people. and i don’t mean we’re too anarchist, we’re too militant, and that’s why we alienate people. no, that’s not why i feel alienated. we alienate people because its just so goddamn important to look and act like a white kid who got politicized by listening to punk and grew up to read the coming insurrection. maybe if that stopped being an unspoken prerequisite, maybe more rad folks would be willing to work with us. hasn’t anyone ever wondered why some apoc folks are so angry <http://illvox.org/2009/07/smack-a-white-boy-round-two-crimethinc-eviction/> at what they call the “white anarchist movement”? we alienate people because race is hardly ever addressed, and if it is then it takes a person of color to agitate for it to be addressed.
so yeah. i’m really fucking inspired by students at ucsc, because when i look at those students, i feel like i’d fit in and be accepted much more than i do here. those people look like they could be my people. some days i’m not even sure if i really have people here.
Graffiti at UCSC
Concrete Ways Not to be a Total Dude Bro
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: November 18, 2009
Concrete Ways Not to be a Total Dude Bro
i.e., I Can’t Believe You Guys Are Being for Real
by Adrian & Emilyn with special thanks to Christa.
an entirely accurate depiction of Emilyn (in the middle) and Adrian (on the right) defeating the metaphorical "monster" that is patriarchy.
DISCLAIMER: We recognize that the tone of this piece is probably a little aggressive or angry. That’s because we were really angry and upset and in a bad place when we wrote it. We’ve come back a few months later, removed some of the profanity, and tried to be not so confrontational. But it was also important for us to be able to express these things that we’ve felt for so long, and haven’t been empowered to say. So please, when you’re reading this, try not to get defensive, and try to acknowledge where we were when we wrote this.
dude bro: (noun) \ˈdüd \ˈbrō
1. a gender-normative male-bodied person who acts in a patriarchal way
2. one who is macho and/or overly- and obnoxiously-masculine, in the worst way(s) possible
dudely: (adj.)
1. something/someone with the qualities of a dude bro
2. dominated by men
cisgender: (noun.) (in this piece we use cismale/cismen/cisdude)
1. the contrast to trans on the gender spectrum
2. someone who lives and identifies as the sex they were assigned at birth
- Stop prowling (also, stop denying that you are).
- Stop lying to yourself — you’re not a good feminist.
- STFU&L (shut the fuck up and listen).
- STFU&SPTL (shut the fuck up and stop pretending to listen).
- Stop kidding yourselves. And stop kidding women. Stop pretending to understand women, women’s issues, and feminism.
- Stop doing that manly thing where you feel you need to take charge and fix everything (specifically if you are not involved in the situation), because you’re really only dealing with it in the worst way possible.
- If you’re having issues with women, don’t go to men to talk about it; they’re not gonna give you real insight into what women think.
- If you’re having issues with men, don’t expect women to solve y’alls problems for y’all.
- Stop judging women / your female friends based on whether they will ever sleep with you.
- Don’t befriend trans folks/genderqueer folks/women just to get them to sleep with you (or be upfront if those are your intentions). AND don’t just stop talking to them because you realize that they don’t want to sleep with you (don’t think we don’t notice). Perhaps you should entertain the idea that they just want to be your platonic friend?!??!?!?
- Don’t assume that trans folks/genderqueer folks/women need mentorship, leadership, education, etc. by you.
- Acknowledge your emotions. keep a journal, work on your shit, talk about your feelings with other men, and don’t just dump all your feelings on your (least?) favorite female and/or genderqueer and/or genderqueer friend(s).
- Keep yourself accountable to yourself. Hold other men accountable. Don’t expect women/queer/trans folks to hold yr hand, kiss yr ass, and calmly and politely explain to you why you’re being hurtful and how you can change.
- Realize that when trans folks/women/genderqueer folks call you out, they do it out of a place of love. (Seriously, if we didn’t care about you guys, we wouldn’t be trying to help you change, we’d be getting you out of our lives.)
- If you’re having a conversation about theory, pay attention to who’s talking. If you look around and realize that cismen are the only ones talking, acknowledge that, and then stop and think about why that’s happening. (Also, check to see if there’s a genderqueer person/woman/trans person in the kitchen cooking food for everyone while you’re having that discussion. If there is, for god’s sake, help them!)
- It is not necessary to post long diatribes about links people post on facebook or similar venues. We really don’t need a pissing match on our wall and we have more important things to do than listen to your opinion on everything or read the billion links you suggest we read.
- When someone tells you that you’re being patriarchal or hurtful, that you’re making them feel uncomfortable, etc… listen attentively, don’t get defensive, and don’t make excuses.
- The only thing worse than a dudely dude is a dudely dude who complains about other men being dudely dudes. (Does that sentence even make sense? Emilyn and Adrian think so, and that’s all that matters, right?)
- Stop pretending you’re soooo totally over your patriarchy. You’re not. You never will be. It is a process you will always need to work on. Accept that. No one likes a self-righteous dude bro.
- Please try to listen to what we’re saying, not how we’re saying it. (i.e., Don’t play the tone police. No one likes cops.)
- Don’t expect women to be supportive of all your decisions; if they are, recognize that it doesn’t mean that the whole feminist community thinks it’s okay, too.
- If we ask you a question, don’t assume we don’t know any information on the topic as a whole — we didn’t ask for a whole fucking history report.
- Don’t be emotionally supportive only when it suits you–NO STRINGS ATTACHED!??!
- Just because you give me emotional support, doesn’t mean I need to give you emotional support.
- Don’t come over for social engagements and expect everyone to be in an organizing mindset.
- Recognize that being emotionally supportive is emotionally draining, and that people can’t do it for you 24/7.
- Understand that there ain’t nothing like female/trans/genderqueer companionship, that we sometimes need to get away from cismen, and that it’s nothing personal.
- Remember that calling yourself a feminist doesn’t mean much on a practical level. Recognize that it doesn’t mean women/trans folks will automatically trust you, talk to you about feminist/women’s issues, sleep with you, etc.
- Don’t bother getting into pissing matches over who’s a better feminist or who’s better about women’s/queer/trans issues. It just makes you look like a jerk.
- Don’t use feminism as a pick-up line.
- Pay attention to how often you interrupt and/or talk over women/trans folks/genderqueer folks. Don’t dominate conversations.
- Don’t try to lead women’s events or to dictate feminist politics. Allies are great, but allies support by following, not leading.
- Respect the ways in which women (and other oppressed folks) deal with their oppression. (e.g., Don’t try to tell us that joking about our oppression is inappropriate, or that we should do X, Y, or Z to combat our own oppression.)
Post-Script:
Many women have left SDS because of serious issues of sexism that exist within the organization (just as many POC/queer/trans/disabled folk have left because of racism, heterosexism, cissexism, and ableism within SDS). This is serious shit that we need to work on in order to create a movement and to change society. If you think that internal anti-oppression is a “distraction” from “the rev” or from changing society, then you best check your privilege. If you can’t respect us, you can’t work with us.
Men and the Written Word
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: November 15, 2009
by Robin, Philly
This is a topic I’ve been thinking about for a long time and have had a hard time drawing decisive conclusions about. At this point I’ve been noticing it consistently for about 2 and a half years, though, and I think it’s time to throw my thoughts out there to hear what other people think. (And when I say people, I mean, women, trans and gender variant people, and MAYBE some dudes if you’re gonna do something other than get defensive.)
What is up with men and books? So many activist men I know have read about a billion books. All about leftist history and anarchism/communism and racism and sexism, apparently. I’m not trying to say women don’t read books, but to be honest, most of my female friends read much fewer books than the males I know, and they are more likely to read fiction.
Personally, I read maybe 3 books a year. It’s not that I don’t like to read – I read a lot. But I read short things – zines and magazines and blog entries. Sometimes newspapers and online news sites. But I just don’t read a lot of books! I never feel like I have enough time to commit to reading a whole book. I start them and never finish them; I get busy with other things. The books I am able to most successfully complete are anthologies, collections of essays, zine compilations. If the book is broken up into small parts I can read in half an hour or less, I am about 100% more likely to finish it than a full length book. Logically, of course, I recognize that I could just read part of a chapter and put the book down, but I don’t do this. I think I get a mental block because the very idea of committing to reading a whole book is just too intimidating. (I should add that up until about age 13 I read full length books all the time, no problem.)
I wonder sometimes if this is just a product of being of the “MTV generation” – I’m so used to watching 10 second advertisements and music videos that cut back and forth that I have permanently damaged my attention span. It’s possible. But, if this is the only issue, then why do my male peers seem less affected? I think there is something more going on.
I have developed three hypothesis so far:
1. Most books are still written by men. The publishing industry is notoriously sexist. The majority of books being published are going to appeal to men. (And in the instance of historical books especially, most history is written from a straight white male perspective about and appealing to straight white men.)
2. Men are (in general) more encouraged to pursue academic interests. This would explain why men not only read more, but tend to favor non-fiction, and, in the case of my radical friends, tend to read a lot of movement histories, history in general, political ideological texts, and other academic stuff.
3. Men have more free time to devote to reading because they do not have to spend time addressing their gender oppression. This is the hardest one for me to justify, because I know many men are still oppressed in other ways (class, race, sexuality, etc.) But I’m still putting it out there.
I think #3 can play out in infinite ways. In my own life, I know that I really do spend a good deal of time processing and analyzing the gendered interactions I have and trying to understand why I feel so fucking crazy when I interact with men. I also waste a lot of time anxiously worrying that I have upset men or not pleased them appropriately. [I say this, obviously, as a radical feminist who knows that shit is fucked up, but it takes TIME to uproot internalized patriarchy. I'm working on it.] When I was talking to my friend Sam about this once, she suggested that men are more likely to blow off responsibilities in order to just relax and read a book, whereas women have been socialized to feel that we must be responsible for not only ourselves but others and feel guilty blowing off responsibilities to spend time for ourselves.
I think what is hard for me about this issue is – it’s not men’s fault, and they’re not doing anything actively wrong. Of course I don’t think reading books is a bad thing. I think it’s a really really great thing. But, it gets on my fucking nerves!! First of all, I am so over going to political events where men are know-it-alls about leftist ideologies and movement histories and always get to be the “teachers”. They casually name drop Chomsky and Freire and seem surprised when not everyone has read their entire works. I call myself an anarchist and before that I called myself a socialist, but I’ve never read any texts about either ideology. I’ve never read any Marx, or Chomsky, or any… whoever. And I don’t care!! I don’t need to read a book to know I’m an anarchist. I came to my political beliefs through my lived experiences and put a name to them when I met other people with similar beliefs who called themselves anarchists. Honestly, the labels are meaningless to me, all I care about are the beliefs people hold, which don’t need a name to exist and be valid.
image from my zine “Do’s and Don’ts for the Dudely Organizer” *
The other thing that pisses me off is when some awesome new feminist book is published or recommended, and my male friends read it before I can. This has happened to me SO MANY TIMES!! I own books that I have lent to male friends and that they returned to me over a year ago and that I STILL have not read myself. It just isn’t fair! These books are actually relevant to my life and might help me better understand my experiences, but they’re being read (and reviewed and recommended via facebook and Goodreads) by men!
Of COURSE I want men to read books about feminism. I think it’s critical. But that doesn’t stop me from feeling frustrated when another dude posts a review of some bell hooks book that’s been on my to-do list for 16 months.
So, I just ranted a whole lot…but do I have any solutions?
The only thing I’ve come up with so far is a trade system. Like, men take some of their extra time they would spend reading, and offer to do some kind of work (cooking a meal, cleaning a bathroom, volunteering somewhere) that a woman would normally do, and instead she gets a couple extra hours to spend reading.
I also think women can work to encourage each other to read more, through reading groups and just generally talking about books more with one another. (Though it is important not to do this to the point of alienating people who don’t read much.)
Also, to go along with “men and books”, I have also noticed my male friends have a lot more time for WRITING as well as reading. Practically every leftist man I know has a personal blog.** I know several men who have had their writing published in leftist magazines, books, and on websites, but hardly any women. The one time I wrote something to be published on a website, a male SDSer was the one who set me up with the connection. I assume men write/publish more for the same reason they seem to read more.
So, what do you all think? Do you notice this pattern in your friends too? What do you think about challenging men to trade off some of their reading time to give it to women?
* When I wrote this cartoon, I literally just made up the babble by stringing together a bunch of words and names I’d heard activist dudes use. Since publishing the zine, several people have asked me if Chomsky really wrote something analyzing Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Not that I know of, but I’m not likely to know since I’ve never read PoO or anything by Chomsky.
** I just thought I’d throw in that the idea for the womyn’s caucus blog was born one night when my friend and former SDSer Tyneisha and I were drinking wine and lamenting the ratio of radical female friends with blogs to male friends with blogs – and I am so happy we set this up, I know I wouldn’t blog without it!
The Flow: FMB
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: October 16, 2009
Hey there all you gender non-conformists! This time around we are bringing you a song by Maple Rabbit, a three-person keyboard band from Philadelphia. You can find their myspace page here: http://www.myspace.com/maplerabbit
It’s pretty straightforward as to why we picked this song! Sorry if the lyrics are a little off, we couldn’t find the actual ones online!
Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever
by Maple Rabbit
Everyday when we walk home from work
its hey baby hey hey do you have a boyfriend?
I said yeah, my girlfriend is my boyfriend yeah
My girlfriend is my boyfriend
Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever
Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever
Everyday when we ride home from work its
hey baby hey
I wish I was those seats
I said, I wish you were the road
so I could run
over your face
Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever
Fuck Macho Bullshit Forever
Everyday when we walk home from work its
hey hey baby hey do you have a boyfriend?
I said yeah, the revolution is my boyfriend
Yeah, the revolution is my girlfriend
I said yeah, Maple Rabbit is my girlfriend
yeah, Maple Rabbit is my boyfriend
I said yeah, Maple Rabbit is my boyfriend
I said yeah, Maple Rabbit is my boyfriend
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
Fuck macho bullshit forever!
<3<3<3
The Flow -Can’t Hold Us Down
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: August 23, 2009
Can’t Hold Us Down
Christina Aguilera and Lil’ Kim
So what am I not supposed to have an opinion
Should I be quiet just because I’m a woman
Call me a bitch cos I speak what’s on my mind
Guess it’s easier for you to swallow if I sat and smiled
When a female fires back
Suddenly big talker don’t know how to act
So he does what any little boy will do
Making up a few false rumors or two
That for sure is not a man to me
Slanderin’ names for popularity
It’s sad you only get your fame through controversy
But now it’s time for me to come and give you more to say
This is for my girls all around the world
Who’ve come across a man who don’t respect your worth
Thinking all women should be seen, not heard
So what do we do girls?
Shout out loud!
Letting them know we’re gonna stand our ground
Lift your hands high and wave them proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can’t hold us down
Nobody can hold us down
Nobody can hold us down
Nobody can hold us down
Never can, never will
So what am I not supposed to say what I’m saying
Are you offended by the message I’m bringing
Call me whatever cos your words don’t mean a thing
Guess you ain’t even a man enough to handle what I sing
If you look back in history
It’s a common double standard of society
The guy gets all the glory the more he can score
While the girl can do the same and yet you call her a whore
I don’t understand why it’s okay
The guy can get away with it & the girl gets named
All my ladies come together and make a change
Start a new beginning for us everybody sing
This is for my girls all around the world
Who’ve come across a man who don’t respect your worth
Thinking all women should be seen, not heard
What do we do girls?
Shout out loud!
Letting them know we’re gonna stand our ground
Lift your hands high and wave ‘em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can’t hold us down
[Lil' Kim:]
Check it – Here’s something I just can’t understand
If the guy have three girls then he’s the man
He can either give us some head, sex her off
If the girl do the same, then she’s a whore
But the table’s about to turn
I’ll bet my fame on it
Cats take my ideas and put their name on it
It’s aiight though, you can’t hold me down
I got to keep on movin’
To all my girls with a man who be tryin to mack
Do it right back to him and let that be that
You need to let him know that his game is whack
And Lil’ Kim and Christina Aguilera got your back
But you’re just a little boy
Think you’re so cute, so coy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things
So you’re just a little boy
All you’ll do is annoy
You must talk so big
To make up for smaller things
This is for my girls…
This is for my girls all around the world
Who’ve come across a man who don’t respect your worth
Thinking all women should be seen, not heard
So what do we do girls?
Should out loud!
Letting them know we’re gonna stand our ground
Lift your hands high and wave ‘em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can’t hold us down
This is for my girls all around the world
Who’ve come across a man who don’t respect your worth
Thinking all women should be seen, not heard
So what do we do girls?
Should out loud!
Letting them know we’re gonna stand our ground
Lift your hands high and wave ‘em proud
Take a deep breath and say it loud
Never can, never will, can’t hold us down
Spread the word, can’t hold us down
Posted by Christa and Emilyn (Drew SDS)
Sharing experiences of abusive behavior-how the hell should I do it?
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: July 23, 2009
- In: Abuse
- 4 Comments
Posted by Carly, Providence SDS
For a year now, I’ve been struggling with the question of how to share my experiences, and my chapter’s experiences, of a member’s abusive behavior in a productive, conscionable way.
From the day it happened, I didn’t know who to tell, what to say, or how to deliver any of it. I had a hard time articulating to myself what had happened. It took me two weeks to tell him what he did made me feel uncomfortable, two months for me to stop blaming myself, six months for me to name it as sexual assault.
I had many conversations with people as I went through this process. I told my partner first, searching unsuccessfully for the words to name my experience. All I could really do is describe what happened. “He gave me three glasses of wine. He put his legs over me on the couch. He started stroking my hand…”
I became angrier and angrier as time went on, consistently walking out of meetings and snapping at the perpetrator. I felt I needed to share my story in order to justify my behavior to the other members of the group. When I approached someone as an individual to tell them, I relied on emotion and my old set of crude descriptions. For months, the only way I could share my experience was in furtively and bitterly describe the events of that night to individual friends. Maybe we would be the last ones left at a party, maybe my friend would be lending me a book. My only release from my anger and frustration came through these small fits of sharing.
In telling others, it became clear to me a vocabulary was missing. I didn’t have the words at the time to name what was going on, and those who listened didn’t have any either. The people I told were confused and hurt, which they expressed through silence. Our community lacked any sort of framework for understanding and confronting abusive behavior. There was no room in our group’s language for my experiences, no room for any of the other women and men who were affected by this one person’s behavior in other violent ways. As individuals and as an organization, we were paralyzed, effectively silenced by this person and the missing vocabulary and framework for understanding our experiences.
Finally, one incredibly strong woman called an emergency meeting of the women’s caucus. For the first time, we shared our experiences with each other not in whispers behind backs, but as part of a group. Sharing was awful, listening was gut-wrenching. Together, we created the missing vocabulary to name our experiences for what they were: abuse, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. We decided that as a group of twelve women, we would demand that the perpetrator leave or we would leave the organization to make the space safer for both women and men in our chapter.
From this moment on, the question in my mind was not “how do I share my experience with others,” but rather, “how do we share these stories with the whole group.” I didn’t know how my male friends would react to our stories or our decision. As I had said before, my experiences sharing had been pretty negative. My friends’ silence had eroded a lot of my trust in the group, and I was particularly scared to see how they would react to our decision to remove this person, who had been an integral part of the organization for years and a good friend to many members. I was afraid they might minimize our stories or doubt our decision. Our group had already been ripped apart by the abuser’s behavior in a lot of ways, and part of me feared that people would view it as a divisive, not healing, decision.
Telling my story to a group of twenty-two people was a nerve-wracking experience and very different than telling it to a group of women or a friend late at night. It was hard, but I felt bolstered by the group of eleven women sitting next to me. The organization’s response was incredibly positive, and people were supportive, responsive, and reflective. I left the meeting with renewed faith in my community. I have never felt more inspired by collective action, acting as a woman, in a group of women, to actually do something about patriarchy.
Among the barriers to sharing was this particularly slippery one, one that I struggle with to do this day. I didn’t want to ruin this person, and still don’t want to ruin this person. I knew that in a lot of ways, I was helping to make a decision that could potentially isolate and really socially damage someone who had used to be my friend, someone who I resented but didn’t hate. I believe in restorative justice, but what if the restorative justice process inadvertently becomes punitive? This person did legitimately shitty things. Sharing that and making it known would most likely be an unpleasant experience for him. People could react by pulling away from him, and he was no longer going to be in the organization. These things would be negative and could possibly be interpreted as punitive for him, but were consequences of a decision made with the safety of women and the organization in mind. I don’t know how to reconcile this.
As I’ve become more involved in national work, I’ve run into this same issue again and again. Do I share information that could possibly do further harm to this person? I don’t want to further damage this person’s relationships, but I definitely do not want to be silenced. The other day, I was triggered by someone who made a comment about sexual assault happening within chapters. I didn’t know whether I should share with her why I was triggered, and thought maybe if I had previously shared my story, she wouldn’t have made the comment in the first place. Again, I felt unsure as to how to speak about my experiences in a useful, fair way.
I think SDS needs to do a better job creating a community in which stories of sexual assault and interpersonal violence can be constructively shared. To echo something I heard a lot at the national convention, I think we need to build a community of trust so we can actually have a safe space to talk. I think we need a vocabulary to talk about these experiences. Finally, I would love conversations to take place about the act of sharing these experiences. Hopefully this piece will open up some space for us to talk about the processes of being silenced and speaking out, how to more effectively go about making sure our voices are heard, and how to create a safe and constructive environment for sharing our experiences.
Who Says Ugly’s not the new Beautiful: Some Thoughts on Body Image and Critical Consciousness
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: July 19, 2009
- In: body image| media
- 1 Comment
Throughout my life-and yes I think every woman’s life but I’ll stick to talking about mine since I know it best-I have struggled with body image, continually wavering from acceptance and love of my body and disappointment and even disgust for it. Looking back at my childhood and adolescence, there are many painful memories that I can dredge up, experiences in which people who were supposed to be loved ones, caretakers (including teachers, family members, neighbors, friends) knowingly or unknowingly reinforced what the dominant culture told me about women’s bodies, my body, through movies, books, tv, textbooks, etc. There was an ideal woman out there. She was/is pretty, docile, thin, demur, and I learned, was taught early on that I was not HER.
Whether the time when I was a young girl, probably 5 or 6, that my grandmother told me not to eat so much, something that would never and still will never be told to any of my male cousins (in fact, they should eat more!), or the time a gym teacher told me she was surprised at my athleticism because a girl of 11 with a short stocky build is not usually such a good runner!, or my mother expressing her concern over my upper lip hair upon accompanying me to my first visit to a gynecologist- all of these experiences continue to hamper my love for myself and my body as well as my ability to truly love and trust all women despite my discovery of radical politics and feminism and my continued work to develop and promote critical consciousness-my own and others.
On a recent visit home, my mother commented that she thought people might think my un-shaved legs “looked ugly.” At first I was hurt, but this hurt was quickly replaced by sadness and rage at the fact that my 50 year old mother is so insecure about body image that she is concerned (anxious and worried, stressed even!) about my leg hair and how others might think about me, and about her, because of my not so out of the ordinary choice to not shave it.
I responded to her that “You might think that but I don’t and a lot of other people don’t either.” My confidence and disregard for caring whether I “looked ugly” caused her to rethink her statement and she realized how hurtful it was, not apologizing but quickly adding that “of course I think you’re beautiful”- not indicating any body hair in that phrase.
This most recent experience was an eye opener for me. Like I said, I continually struggle with body image-wavering between shaving and not shaving body hair and continually worrying about my weight. (Yes, that’s right, I am not afraid to admit that these negative thoughts still plague my mind and I would venture to say they plague the minds of many alternative women I know and love as well. We have to acknowledge them before we can eradicate them!) This last exchange with my mother however, caused me to critically examine many of the hurtful memories and experiences linked to my body and affecting my body and self image, confidence, and love. I concluded that these things were often keeping me from fully expressing myself, embracing all of my varied selves that are suppressed by attempts to feel comfortable, to not stick out or gain unwanted attention.
I also realized that having confidence in my own decisions and perception of my self was crucial to helping other women, like my mother, battle their own hang-ups and self hate which has been ingrained in every woman living in a patriarchal capitalist society that values them only as commodities and sexual objects. And more than ever, reflecting on my own struggle to love my body and myself and all women despite difference left me with an overwhelming drive to infuse this struggle into my everyday life, my social organizing, and to find new creative ways to bring radical feminism not only into radical circles but into the mainstream!
I strongly believe that along with the dominant patriarchal capitalist vision of women that continues to thrive in the mass media and to a large extent in academia and even in radical organizing, personal experiences in which loved ones or caretakers betray our trust and assert the power of these same oppressive structures over us represent a huge hindrance not just to developing and maintaining critical consciousness and love for ones body, self, and of others, but to a powerful, radical feminist movement among the many voices currently working for social change. I think it is vital that we confront the hurtful, damaging experiences that occur living in a patriarchal society and that we be vocal and supportive of each other in these efforts so that we can transform our hurt into action, our pain into change!
LOVE JO PHILLYSDS
The Flow: You Don’t Own Me
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: July 6, 2009
About THE FLOW: Emilyn (Drew SDS) and Christa (formerly Drew SDS) will bring you monthly installments of “The Flow” which celebrates feminist creative writing. This includes lyrics, poems, short stories, etc. We want lyrics from a wide variety of music genres and works that cover issues that pertain to feminism, gener non-comformity, female/trans/genderqueer empowerment, etc. If you have suggestions or want to submit a piece please contact us at chendric@gmail.com or thatcrazybroad@gmail.com. Thanks!
We’re starting out with an easy one for our first post – you know you love belting this out -at least we do!
<3 Emilyn and Christa
You Don’t Own Me
by Leslie Gore (also performed on First Wives Club)
You don’t own me, I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me, don’t say I can’t go with other boys
And don’t tell me what to do
And don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display, ’cause
You don’t own me, don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me, don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay
Oh, I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you
I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please
A-a-a-nd don’t tell me what to do
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display
I don’t tell you what to say
Oh-h-h-h don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you
I’m young and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
A Witch is A Witch
Posted by: sdswomynscaucus on: June 11, 2009
-Joanna-Philly SDS
Dissidents-despite the age in which they have lived and struggled-have been put to death-murdered-by institutions and individuals fighting for woman’s right to control her body. From the Inquisition throughout Europe in the “dark ages” to the outlawing of midwifery and the establishment of the medical industry in early 20th century America, with its professional, male doctors, woman’s health advocates, especially those fighting for control of reproductive care, have been labeled as witches, moral hazards, illegal, heretical, justifiably punished with death.
In short, woman’s fight to control health care, her own as well as her right to provide it without “official” sanction, is a historical battle that can not be isolated from the past. In a pamphlet by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, “Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, A History or Women Healers,” the authors outline how women have been pushed from controlling health care and their bodies by institutions that benefited (and benefit) from their oppression. By marginalizing women as unfit to care, except in the intentionally innocuous role of nurses, these institutions ( for example the church, state, and university) created the current dependency on an inadequate health care system inherently tied to profit and patriarchy. During the Inquisition it was stated that, “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil” (“Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, A History or Women Healers,”10) and apparently the dominating spirit expressed in this hateful speech is still at work among Christian extremists in the U.S.
To truly understand the threat that abortion, midwifery, and birth control pose to the American Christian right, the historic oppression of women by a patriarchal elite must be acknowledged. It is in this framework that Dr. Tiller’s assassination should be placed. For, according to precedent, Tiller represented another menacing witch to be burned.
Tiller’s true crime was not killing babies and angering Jesus, even if the killer and his supporters preach this on high. Tiller threatened the dominant mythology of church, state, and the heath care industry that women can not and should not think for themselves when it comes to their bodies- for everyone’s safety seems to be linked to maintaining patriarichal control.
Interviewed on Democracy Now! on June 1, 2009, Dr. Shelley Sella, who worked with Dr. Tiller since 2005, remembered him saying that, “The woman’s body is smarter than the doctor…” This statement sums up the danger that he and other abortion and reproductive health care providers pose to those fighting to maintain control over womens minds and bodies. Woman- to these individuals and institutions- is unfit to make decisions and certainly a sexual and moral danger to society if let loose. What the killing of Dr. Tiller, as well as that of other Dr.’s and health care workers that have been recently targeted by religious extremists, signifies is the continued threat to patriarchal control posed by women and men who struggle for autonomy.
A witch is a witch to killers who disguise murder as mercy- the inquistion appears alive and well.
