General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I find the use of the word "pussy" [View all]seabeyond
(110,159 posts)Before learning more about the case, the first thing that made me frown was the fact progressives were hailing P Riot as the new feminists, despite that their name is fairly insulting to women. It is certainly not apolitical, since we are in a context in which pornography has deeply colonised our movement and the only groups that the media presents as feminist are those that either insult us or reclaim the very instruments of our subordination, that is, male sexual violence, PIV, pornified femininity and all the associated harmful cultural practices. These tactics of destroying the meaning of feminism form part of a general worldwide backlash against women.
I found it suspicious that P Riot was getting so much media attention, even for pseudo feminist standards. You can measure the degree of feminism of an action by how men react to it, and if men collectively cheer and celebrate it, then you can be pretty sure theres something wrong about it, or that it doesnt somehow support our liberation from men. And as far as I can recall, even the slutwalks didnt get as much coverage or public appraisal. What was it that men liked so much about P Riot?
Well, under closer inspection I discovered that the high level of coverage was related to though indirectly promoting mens right to womens sexual subordination and the pornification of our movement. The arrested women actually form part (and are victims of) a mixed anarchist group called Voina (meaning war), founded in 2007 by two men called Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolaïev, who regularly engage the women in extreme and degrading women-hating pornography as part of their public political stunts. Some of Voinas men have actually already been incarcerated in 2011 for hooliganism which is punished for 7 years of prison in Russia, but their bail was paid for by an artist named Banksy four months after their imprisonment. (More information can be found here and here)
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Now what does this mean for us, what can be understood from the medias silence about Voinas pornographic exploitation of women, when all the attention is focused on promoting P Riot as our modern heroines? The effect and intent is political. While all the public eyes are set on the Russian representatives of the state and religion as the ultimate fascists, dictators and machos, we are made to forget that the primary oppressors and tyrants of these particular women are the men closest to them, that is, Voinas men and their use of pornography to demean, oppress and enslave their female comrades. They are their everyday police, the fascists and colonisers breaking the womens resistance, occupying their souls, sentencing them to public humiliation and subordinating them through sexual abuse. We are made to forget that these women are doubly victimised: first victims of the violence by the men of their own group, they are then punished and held responsible for the abuse committed against them.
http://radicalhub.com/2012/08/20/pussy-riot-whose-freedom-whose-riot/