Posts Tagged ‘rape’
Friday Roundup: Splitting the World Open
In the newsletter I sent out this past week, I began with this quote from the late feminist poet, Muriel Rukeyser:
“What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.”
This week’s Roundup links to a selection of articles, each of which represents a way that women are using their “power to” by simply telling the truth, which is so often the most difficult thing of all. And we are seeing the world split open as these women challenge millennia of gender-based oppression rooted in sexual abuse, assault, harassment, and even verbal disparagement of women. Check them out and share your thoughts. I’m especially interested to know whether you feel as I do that despite the pain of seeing and knowing these horrific acts, the fact that they are coming out in the open–the truth-telling–is splitting the world open in ways that ultimately are positive.
Statement/petition from Change.org to unite people around the world in support of the alleged rape victim of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Sign on!
French feminists could care less that Strauss-Kahn is a fellow countryman, and are protesting his actions, loud enough for the entire world to hear. Please check out the great protest pictures in this Gotham article.
Join the Nobel Women’s Initiative today by going to the UN Action Stop Rape Now website and download the sample letter asking your elected official for increased action against sexual violence in conflict.
For more information on rape as a weapon of war, please read this great article by NYC writer Anna Louie Sussman.
The response of the Women’s Media Center and many feminists around the country to Ed Shultz and his sexist remarks is right on the money: men have no right to use sexist language to keep women in their place, regardless of their political affiliation.
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Nobel Laureates Fight Sexual Assualt
My grandmother used to say: “The rich suffer too but they suffer in comfort.”
Apparently for the wealthy deposed IMF chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, suffering in comfort won’t come easy. He has been denied the right to live in one comfortable NY apartment after another as a consequence of his alleged sexual assault upon a hotel maid.
Without making judgments about “DSK” who will soon enough have his day(s) in court, I take this shunning as a positive sign that the world is awakening to the dirty big secret of sexual abuse, which is almost always perpetrated by men against women they perceive as less powerful than themselves.
As further proof of this awakening, this week, Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, and Mairead Maguire are leading a conference to addresses sexual violence in conflict regions at the Nobel Women’s Initiative Conference. The conference is entitled Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict and includes over 120 leaders from around the world.
The highlight of the conference will be Thursday’s online day of action, which will seek to target governments and pressure them to give sexual violence the attention it deserves. The link provides several ways for women around the world to participate, and I would love to hear if any of you, Heartfeldt readers, take part.
I’m hoping that in light of the many kinds of sexual abuse, harassment, and just plain bad behavior that has dominated the media in the last few weeks, these influential Nobel Laureates will address a broader range of abuse issues than those that occur in areas of conflict, and will use their platform to connect the dots among the various ways sexual violence and harassment are used to maintain gender inequality.
You can also follow each day of this important event by following Feministe writer and author of Yes Means Yes, Jaclyn Friedman, as she live blogs about the event.
No one, rich or poor, should have to suffer the pain and indignity of sexual abuse.
Read MoreWear jeans for more than comfort
Did you know that today you can turn your favorite pair of jeans into a powerful statement against sexual assault? That’s because today is Denim Day, part of the week-long Sexual Assault Week of Action being observed across the globe.
Denim Day was started in response to a 1998 Italian Parliament decision overturn a rape conviction because the victim was wearing tight jeans at the time of her assault. Believe it or not, the court’s official statement on the case read: “it is a fact of common experience that it is nearly impossible to slip off tight jeans even partly without the active collaboration of the person who is wearing them.”
It’s no wonder that the decision prompted an international movement. By the next year Denim Day was observed in California, and has grown to be a worldwide protest against victim blaming and rape apologism.
The movement is yet another example of the power of feminist activism. Visit the Change.org site to learn how you can get involved.
Be sure to check out the wonderful poet and musician Brooke Elise Axtell telling her personal story and why she is committed to nurturing healing through feminist leadership as she speaks on Fox TV in Austin TX.
I am wearing jeans, what about you?
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At the UN, Criminalizing Rape as a Weapon
By Bia Assevero, a dual French-American citizen and a graduate of the American University of Paris with degrees in international politics and international communications.
A Women’s Media Center exclusive, reprinted here with permission of the WMC.
In the last week of October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made headlines and sparked anger in travels to Israel and Pakistan. Her role some weeks earlier was less controversial yet critically important, as she led UN diplomats forward in an action that could ease the suffering of countless women and girls living in conflict zones around the world.
Last year, the United Nations classified the deliberate use of rape as a tactic of war and a major threat to international security. On September 30, 2009, the Security Council went one step further.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chaired the session as the Security Council unanimously adopted a U.S. sponsored resolution (S/Res/1888) that called for the appointment of a special envoy charged with coordinating the efforts to combat the use of rape as a weapon of war and assist governments in ending impunity for the perpetrators. Having met with women who survived rape and violence in her recent visit to the Congo, Clinton said in remarks to the council, “The dehumanizing nature of sexual violence doesn’t just harm a single individual or a single family or even a single village or a single group. It shreds the fabric that weaves us together as human beings.”