ismnotwasm
ismnotwasm's JournalIndian Prime Minister Uses Biggest Speech Of The Year To Slam Rape Culture
Wow.
Modi swept to office in June after the largest election in history, which saw his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) win big over the long-ruling Indian National Congress. Modi’s electoral victory came just days before a horrific gang rape in the Uttar Pradesh saw two young girls murdered and left hanging from a mango tree for their village to find. The violent incident was just the latest in a string that have earned international headlines and placed a spotlight on the fact that in India “every 60 minutes two women are raped” as a 2012 United Nations-linked report found.
Though large-scale protests were mobilized — and local officials often commented to disastrous effect — the newly installed government had remained mostly silent on the matter of rape culture throughout the country. Modi changed that with his speech on Friday, India’s independence day, given without script or notes.
In speaking out, Modi challenged citizens and government alike to change the way that rape is thought about. “Today as we hear about the incidents of rapes, our head hangs in shame,” he said in his wide-ranging address. “I want to ask parents when your daughter turns 10 or 12 years old, you ask, ‘Where are you going? When will you return?’ Do the parents dare to ask their sons, ‘Where are you going? Why are you going? Who are your friends?’ After all, the rapist is also someone’s son. If only parents decide to put as many restrictions on their sons as they do on their own daughters.”
http://thinkprogress.org/world/2014/08/15/3471675/modi-rape-culture-speech/
Why We Should ALL Be Pissed Over The Misogynistic Tampon Tweet Shit Storm (NSFW)
Valenti unwittingly unleashed an insane, angry, nasty and stuck in the 1970s’ stylie (one would think) misogynistic-to-the-Nth-degree, social media shit storm over the weekend after sending— what the vast majority of the sane world would view as—a totally innocuous tweet about feminine hygiene products.
Yeah, really.
“Twitter friends: Anyone know a country where tampons are free or somehow subsidized?” the Guardian columnist pondered Friday via her (PERSONAL) Twitter account.
How very dare she!!!!
Seriously… how VERY DARE she?!!!!
Who does this woman think she is?!!! To post such a vile missive on her personal twitter feed! Outrageous… disgusting… unforgivable…. Whore. Bitch. Cunt!!!
I mean, let’s face it—this radical feminist is literally RAMMING her crazed, insane agenda down our throats, isn’t she?
I mean, let’s face it, she tweeted this poison…this unspeakable poison… from her own personal twitter account!!!
Thankfully, there were trolls aplenty out there in good old Twitter-verse to back up this obviously TOTALLY SANE AND JUSTIFIABLE sense of outrage we are all feeling right now over Valenti’s unspeakable actions—and to quickly put this (and I quote from a selection of responses) gaping vagina, whore, loud mouth feminist, FIRMLY in her place.convictions that we in the Western world live in a gender equal society—should take a minute to check out the unbelievably vile, shocking and disgusting comments on New York-based journalist Jessica Valenti’s Twitter feed.
http://popdust.com/2014/08/12/free-tampons-tweet-fight-misogyny-jessica-valenti-gender-inequality/
Man Violently Attacked for Standing Up for Women Being Catcalled
The 39-year-old Texas man (whose name has not been released) was visiting Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square on Saturday night. Police said the man observed a car of men pull up to a group of women. Via NBC Philadelphia:
The men inside the Nissan began taunting and catcalling the women, according to investigators, prompting the victim to get involved.
"The male victim took offense to something that the guys were saying to the girls and said 'hey, watch what you're saying,'" said Philadelphia Police Captain George Fuchs.
Police say one of the men inside the Nissan then got out of the car and punched the victim once in the head. The man was knocked unconscious after he fell and struck his head on the concrete.
Police say the suspect's Nissan had Delaware tags. They are currently looking through surveillance video to see if they can find the license plate number.
The man is in stable condition at a local hospital. "This is a tragic, tragic story," Captain Fuchs said. "Here's a guy trying to stick up for these girls and he gets victimized."
Good to know that there are men who are so irrationally fixated on their need to publicly demean and shame women they are willing to beat the shit out of anyone who gets in their way or dares call it into question. Great. Add another layer of fear to all the reasons why I hate catcalling.
http://jezebel.com/man-violently-attacked-for-standing-up-for-women-being-1620564085
23 Female Cartoonists On Drawing Their Bodies (NSFW)
So what happens when women draw their own bodies in a medium that has represented them so poorly? While graphic books published by men each year still outnumber those by women, the exclusionary landscape of American comics has been called into question. From blockbuster successes like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, to rising indie artists and vibrant online communities, female cartoonists are producing some of the most exciting work in the genre. Here, 23 successful graphic artists share their illustrations and discuss how women are reshaping a form that has marginalized them nearly since its inception.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/kristenradtke/draw-naked
The reader's editor on… the online abuse that follows any article on women's issues
"I'd love to create something like the 'Mary Beard Prize for women online' to support people who are supporting women to be able to use the internet safely," he said in the article, which was published on 8 August.
A great idea and one that would win support from many editors at the Guardian who see the amount of the moderators' time spent weeding out either off-topic or offensive comments in threads attached to any article loosely related to feminism or women's issues.
As one moderator told me:"There seems to be a huge backlash against the Guardian's increasing coverage of feminist issues, from more frivolous pieces (body hair, sunbathing topless, anything to do with Beyoncé) to pieces on domestic violence, FGM etc. WATM (what about the men) is now something we look out for on any piece about women as standard."
Alex Needham, acting network editor, raised the issue at the Guardian's morning conference following an article by Hadley Freeman on 5 August about the arguments for and against women shaving their body hair.
He told me in an email: "On any article by Laura Bates or Jessica Valenti, or most recently this piece by Hadley, the first 15 or 20 comments always say 'not this again, Guardian, where are the men? We face this kind of problem, so cover that instead.' Because the comments are off-topic they're then removed, which leads to cries of censorship and the claim that the Guardian is sexist – that the problems of white working-class males (who these commenters say are the real victims in society) are ignored."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/aug/10/readers-editor-online-abuse-women-issues
So I went to a reunion
This is going to be hard to write, and may be long-- But bear with me.
30 years ago a movie was made about the street kids in Seattle. It was entitled "Streetwise"
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetwise_(1984_film)
Now my time on the street predates that movie by a couple of years. I had children early and was into worse things at the time the movie was made. But my heart was there. My teenage years were there, my innocence was lost there. My sense of how unfair the world could be was there. My feminism was born there. My passion for Gay rights was born there. I knew people in that documentary. I lost almost every one I knew, way too young. The women mentioned who was stabbed? I know her brothers to this day.
I knew (still do) plenty of prostitutes, mostly male but many female. I know what happens on the street and although the clean up centers are much nicer, there seems to to be more resources for those who want help--heroin and meth are more common-- I don't that see much has changed.
What drives a child to the street? That's the first question, kind of like "what drives a person to prostitution?" The first question has a variety of answers, the most common one being abuse of some sort. In the case of prostitution-- it's demand, and a kind of desperate supply, it could be an economic choice, it could be coercion or forced, but the bottom line is male sexual entitlement
My oldest daughters father was turning tricks at 13. It didn't occur to me until years later, that paid or not-- he had been raped by pedophiles. Same thing with a 12 year old named Angie. She was tough, but pulling tricks at 12 is rape. Those are by no means the only examples. Tip on a very deep iceberg actually.
So, the surviving adults from streetwise--not many had been in the documentary, but ALL had been on the street living the life at the time. One woman in particular began gathering the survivors-- I'll tell you right now I didn't think there were any.
We, the ones that lived, here we are, a middle aged group having a fucking picnic, a barbecue, a meeting. 30 year old resentments were buried and there was a lot of laughter. A lot of "remember when" sentences 'Retired' prostitutes and pimps, thieves, people who had done serious time in prison, success 'I made it through all that shit' stories (I'm one of those)
But there were ghosts. So many ghosts-- HIV was called "the Gay disease" when it was called anything-- in the '70's we didn't know anything about it-- just rumors. Then the dying started. And it didn't stop-- not for years.
At the picnic I kept turning my head, hoping to see particular faces, although I knew it was futile. It wasn't just AIDs, it was murder and suicide, and horrible accidents. Serial killers.
Ghosts.
So it was profound and profane at the same time-- it was beautiful.
Don't let anyone tell you prostitution is a fully informed adult choice. It rarely is. It starts young, far too young. It's fed by sickness, and 'I deserve this' need.
We, the survivors are fully aware how lucky we are. We plan on meeting again next year. It's the only 'high school' reunion I'll ever experience. (since I went to a number of high school and was kicked out of one or two-- never did finish-- got my GED) Funny that, I mentioned it in just that way, and so many agreed.
Thanks for listening you guys--I didn't go into particulars-- some of them in my past are ugly indeed but it's something I needed to say. And this is the best place I know for this right here and right now.
And for our stalkers: no I'm not "damaged" I'm a fully-formed self actualized women, in healthy relationships, just one who realizes her past can be useful for others to hear. The damage and the pain are far less than the ghosts of my past. Healing is a incredibly powerful experience.
Woman Discovers Husband, Father of Her Unborn Child, Is A Disgusting Internet Troll
Good read. Some of you may know, we have a misogynist troll that usually hits HOF sooner rather than later. It may a sock, or a small group, or a single, determined person-- any number of options. Nonetheless, sooner or later they appear. MIRT is very aware of this troll, and usually finds them quickly.
So I thought this article very apropos
The revelation came about when Mr. Troll left his browser window open after going to work. “He leaves horribly mean comments to all kinds of people,” wrote the woman.
“They’re filled with racist slurs, awful insults, he tears into fat people, ugly people, etc. He loves to troll around places like /r/progresspics to discourage people, etc. He’s sent PMs to people to call them names, calls women who post on /r/gonewild sluts and whores and cunts, etc.
I was horrified. Completely horrified. My husband is a nice, gentle man who is supportive and kind. In our 9-year relationship, we’ve fought three times total. I never thought this is a behavior he would take part in.
But this is something else. It made me wonder what else he did on the internet, so I looked at the browser history to find him also harassing teenagers on tumblr. Telling them to kill themselves, calling cute girls ugly and fat and stupid, etc. It horrified me to think this was the man who could be raising our daughter with me in a few months.
http://www.themarysue.com/woman-discovers-husband-is-internet-troll/
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