niyad
niyad's JournalThe Daily B***h*: "I am sorry for being a little s### earlier, but, in my
defense *motions at EVERYTHING!!!
*Both a noun, and a verb, depending on the context.
How many sexual assault/rape/trafficking survivors were triggered by
brittwit's so casually, without any warning, tossing out Ms. Romero's story? This is what I keep thinking about. Even if there was only one survivor who heard that, unprepared, and is now having a difficult time, I hope that katie, and everyone involved (including every single person defending her, or allowing her to lie about it),, receives everything they deserve. SMIB.
International Women's Day, observed as an official holiday in many
countries. But here, in the self-defined "greatest country in the world", women's rights are under attack at every level, regressive policies are increasing, threats are increasing. Other countries are moving forward, as the christofascist talibangelicals are trying to drag us backward.
Indigenous Bolivian women take up taekwondo against gender-based violence
Indigenous Bolivian women take up taekwondo against gender-based violence
Bolivia has one of the highest rates of gender violence, with 80 percent women experiencing it in their lifetime.
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Many dressed in traditional Aymara bulging skirt with woollen blanket and tall bowler hat over two long braids, the women start each session with a muscle warm-up. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
Published On 6 Mar 20246 Mar 2024
A violent attack by would-be robbers steered Bolivian Lidia Mayta towards the martial art of taekwondo. Three years later, she helps train other Indigenous women to defend themselves against rampant gender-based violence in the South American country. Mayta says she would have died if neighbours had not come out of their homes to scare off the assailants choking her outside her front door as they tried to steal her wallet. After the attack, she pledged she would never feel so helpless again. She joined a woman-only class at the Warmi Power taekwondo studio in Bolivia’s second city El Alto. Warmi means “woman” in the indigenous Quechua language. Her enthusiasm was such that the founders soon asked her to join the training team, helping in particular to translate instructions into Aymara, another of Bolivia’s indigenous tongues. “I didn’t know how to defend myself, now I try to help other women lose that fear,” the 56-year-old shopkeeper and community health secretary said. “This is a job of violence prevention.”
Government data shows that eight out of 10 women and girls in Bolivia suffer physical violence at least once in their lives. “This is a violent country for women,” said Lucia Vargas of Coordinadora de la Mujer, or Women’s Coordinator, a rights advocacy group. In 2023, more than 51,000 women reported falling victim to violence. Husbands or partners were the perpetrators in the vast majority of cases.
Warmi Power was launched by Laura Roca and Kimberly Nosa – both taekwondo black belts – in 2015. “Violence is not solved with violence, but learning to defend ourselves can save our lives,” said Nosa, who has been practising the martial art for 18 years. Roca is a trained psychologist who said she took up the discipline despite her father insisting it was the preserve of men. Together, the pair have trained more than 35,000 women countrywide. At the class in El Alto, most of the women are Indigenous and engaged in informal trade.
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Lidia Mayta, taekwondo instructor, works at her business in El Alto. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Most women have never dealt a blow in their lives and seem uncertain with their first air punches. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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But they soon get into the routine. They kick, they scream, and they learn to identify an assailant's weak spots. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Women's rights groups in Bolivia say gender-based violence is normalised in a society where many men see women as property. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Since 2013, Bolivia has had a specific law to protect women from gender-based violence. It prescribed a 30-year prison term for the crime of "femicide" - when a woman is killed for being a woman. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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But since the law entered into force, 1,085 femicides have been reported, and critics say not enough resources are dedicated to fighting gender-based crime in Bolivia. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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An Aymara Indigenous woman practises with taekwondo instructors Laura Roca (C) and Kimberly Nosa (R) during the personal self-defence and therapy workshop called Warmi Power to prevent sexist violence in El Alto. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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Taekwondo instructor Lidia Mayta gives a lecture before the self-defence and therapy workshop. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
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At the end of their class in El Alto, the taekwondo pupils walk one by one through a tunnel formed by two rows of women holding hands. "You're beautiful, you're powerful, you're valuable, you're a warrior, you're strong," they are told, and slapped on the back encouragingly. The class ends with a group hug. [Aizar Raldes/AFP]
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2024/3/6/indigenous-bolivian-women-take-up-taekwondo-against-gender-based-violence
The UK's grooming gangs and the lessons never learned (trigger warning)
(sickening and heartbreaking and absolutely disgusting)
The UK’s grooming gangs and the lessons never learned (trigger warning)
It is high time for Britain’s criminal justice system to stop failing vulnerable girls victimised by predatory men.
Julie Bindel
Journalist, author and feminist campaigner
Published On 23 Feb 202423 Feb 2024
An independent report published in the UK last month found that girls in the Greater Manchester town of Rochdale were "left at the mercy" of grooming gangs for years because of failings by police, council authorities [Al Jazeera]
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When it comes to official responses to criminal justice failures, the phrase “lessons will be learned” has become a wretched cliche. Once uttered by a cornered police chief or politician, it is hard to respond to it with anything other than raised eyebrows and a sardonic scowl because we have come to know it means nothing at all. I clearly remember it being repeated over and over again after the extent of child sexual exploitation in the northern town of Rotherham was exposed in the United Kingdom a decade ago. In August 2014, a groundbreaking report by former senior social worker Alexis Jay revealed that an estimated 1,400 children had been sexually abused in the town from 1997 to 2013, predominantly by Pakistani-British men. It revealed that council staff and others knew of the abuse but turned a blind eye to what was happening and refused to identify the perpetrators in part for fear of being branded racist. The report laid bare the disastrous consequences of failing to prevent predatory men – of whatever racial background, for whatever reason – from accessing vulnerable victims. In response to the report’s damning revelations, so many in positions of power looked straight into the cameras and said “lessons will be learned.”
Tragically, however, what happened in Rotherham was not an anomaly. About 60km (35 miles) down the road in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, girls were also being abused, as they were all over the UK. Last month, the latest in a long line of reports found that the National Health Service crisis intervention team in Rochdale had referred 260 victims to children’s social care services and these referrals has “not been acted on over the years”. The report was commissioned by Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, when he was first elected in 2017. Covering the period from 2004 to 2013, the report identified at least 96 individuals who still pose a serious risk to children, most of whom have yet to be prosecuted. Apologising to the victims, Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson promised a “day of reckoning” for those men. But so far, not one of the men identified in the report has been arrested. Every state agency, the review found, has failed hundreds upon hundreds of girls targeted by organised sexual abusers. In short, girls were “left at the mercy” of predatory men for years. Once again, authorities responded to the report with empty promises and platitudes. “Lessons will be learned,” they said.
. . . .
But the problem is neither immigration nor a particular racial or religious group. The problem is the incompetence of those tasked with protecting the most vulnerable in our society and a criminal justice system that is geared to fail all victims. Indeed, there are countless white, British-born men abusing girls and getting away with it in this country. In fact, the majority of child abusers in the UK are white men, most of whom are never reported to the authorities let alone prosecuted and jailed. The police forces working in areas with large Muslim, South Asian populations being reluctant to go after predominantly Muslim, South Asian grooming gangs in fear of accusations of racism is just one part of the problem. In many cases, girls subjected to such abuse, no matter the racial and religious background of their abusers, are not believed by the police – and at times they are even blamed for what happened to them.
. . . .
“What the police and CPS did to me was worse than the abuse,“ Amber told me. “I agreed to help the police to stop it happening to others. I trusted the police and thought I would be helped.” “I was the victim of these men at the age of 14. I should’ve been helped, not punished.” Amber is but one of the countless victims of sexual violence whose trauma has been compounded by shockingly poor police practice. Because she and others chose to speak out and call the police to task, it can no longer be denied that our criminal justice system is not fit for purpose. The extensive report published last month into the systemic failures in the handling of Rochdale grooming gangs is undoubtedly a step in the right direction. Let’s hope that this time “lessons learned” means exactly that.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/23/the-uks-grooming-gangs-and-the-lessons-never-learned
Project 2025: The Right's Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women
(absolutely frightening, important read)
Project 2025: The Right’s Dystopian Plan to Dismantle Civil Rights and What It Means for Women
2/8/2024 by Carrie N. Baker
With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent—no matter what happens in future elections.
Kevin Roberts, president of The Heritage Foundation, during a news conference on government funding with the House Freedom Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Wealthy right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation has published a detailed plan for the next Republican president to use the executive branch of the federal government to attack the rights of women, LGBTQ people and the BIPOC community, by eliminating the agencies and offices responsible for enforcing civil rights laws and placing trained right-wing ideologues in staff positions throughout the federal government.
Called the 2025 Presidential Transition Project—or “Project 2025,” for short—the plan has “four pillars”:
an 887-page policy agenda,
a presidential personnel database of vetted conservatives,
a Presidential Administration Academy to train these people to achieve the Project 2025 policy agenda, and
a 180-day playbook, which is what they hope to achieve in the first 180 days if Trump takes office in January 2025.
To develop this plan, the Heritage Foundation organized a broad coalition of over 90 conservative organizations—a who’s-who of groups that have led attacks on reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, gender studies, the Equal Rights Amendment and #MeToo initiatives. The coalition includes Concerned Women for America, the Independent Women’s Forum, the Eagle Forum, the Susan B. Anthony Foundation, Moms for Liberty, AAPLOG (the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists), Students for Life of America, Alliance Defending Freedom, First Liberty and Turning Point USA.
The white male leadership team of Project 2025. (“About Project 2025,” The Heritage Foundation)
. . . . .
Led and funded by multi-billionaires, such as oil moguls Charles and David Koch, conservatives have fought for years to cut taxes, deregulate business, ban abortion, eliminate civil rights protections as well as public health and environmental regulations, privatize government institutions such as public schools and prisons and eliminate welfare programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and food assistance. In 2017, Donald Trump enacted many of these policies, which were later reversed by the Biden administration. With careful planning, conservatives today are working to make their policy priorities permanent, no matter what happens in future elections.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/02/08/project-2025-conservative-right-wing-trump-woke/
I had the oddest encounter yesterday, and would welcome some feedback
from my DU family.
I was going to a wine tasting at my favourite local bookstore/cafe/wine bar. As I was a bit early, I was about to grab the last table available when a young man sort of pushed ahead of me and claimed it. I asked if I could join him, since there were no other tables. He seemed, even at that point, not quite connected. I sat, and took out the book I am currently reading, "The Woman's Hour", by Elaine Weiss, about the incredible fight in TN to ratify the 19th Amendment.
After a couple of minutes, he asked me, apparently in reference to something he was watching on his phone, if I liked "The Office". I said that I was not familiar with it, not having a tv, which astounded him. Then he asked me about the book I was reading, so I told him. He did not know about 19A, had no idea why it was necessary, had never heard of ratification, or state legislatures. I tried several times to answer his questions, to explain things. Nothing seemed to sink in. He did not seem to know that women don't have equal rights in this country. We did not even get to reproductive rights. He seemed completely clueless. I kept wondering if he was deliberately trying to play me, but I continued to answer his questions as if he were serious.
I have encountered a great many low-information people in my time, but nothing like this complete lack of knowledge of even the most basic workings of government. As I said at the beginning, there were some indications that he was not entirely functional, but I do not know if it was real, or put on. It was truly one of the most bizarre encounters I have ever had.
Has anyone here exerienced something similar? If so, how did you handle it? I am seriously glad I had a wine tasting to take my mind off the weirdness! Any observations will be most welcome.
The Daily B***h*: "I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up."
*Both noun and a verb, depending on the context.
Ahhh, Shrove Tuesday. Sun is shining. I annoyed a trumper. Snow melting.
The weather is lovely today, after a nasty weekend, so I ran errands. I needed several items from Dollar Tree, picked them up, and got in line. The guy in front of me was talking to the clerk about a huge bequest (18 million) being made to a college here. Said he didn't know which one, but what a boost for education. I told him that it was an alum from my college, and the entire CC community is still in a bit of shock. Then he smiled and said, "Maybe they could use some of that money to get rid of #####," and left.
The clerk (with whom I usually exchange pleasantries when she checks me out), said, "That wasn't nice. I love #####. I voted for him." I said, "why, since he doesn't give a damn about you?" She sputtered, then said, "It isn't nice when people have murder in their hearts." To which I replied, "you mean, like the man you love and vote for?" She sputtered again, "No, he does not". I said, "oh, I guess bragging about shooting someone on 5th Ave, or inviting an enemy to do whatever he wants to our allies is okay?" No response. I took my receipt and left.
And, no, I am not giving up annoying trumpers and magats who get in my face for lent. Why do you ask?
Just out of idle curiosity: I keep hearing about how Taylor Swift is the most
successful FEMALE artist, the the highest grossing FEMALE artist, the whatever-the-hell-category FEMALE artist. So I wonder-- which male artist equals her wealth, her crowds, her. . .well, everything, as a male artist? The not-so-subtle implication with the emphasis on FEMALE artist, that she doesn't quite equal male artists.
By the way, I just watched Taylor and Carole King at Carole's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame two years ago. Taylor's speech was great, such a loving tribute. And Carole's speech, calling Taylor "my professional granddaughter". It also cracked me up about the cat references!
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