A Radical Profeminist

On being intergender and anti-gender: a profeminist statement

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 20:07:00 +0000

image is from here

A while ago, sometime last year or the year before, I 'came out' as intergender. I understood this name to apply to a set of experiences I'd had since childhood in which I didn't socially or spiritually fit into one or the other of two dominant/enforced gender categories. What's important for me to remember is that gender categories themselves are part of a vicious set of interlocking systems of oppression by race, region, and sex.

In English and in the US, "woman" is a term that linguistically and structurally place women beneath men as both less advantaged and as socially inferior. "Man" is a term used to mean "humanity" which, if you follow the male supremacist logic, means women aren't human--at least not AS fully human as men. Were this a linguistic matter alone, I might decide not to pay it much attention. But given that women worldwide, relative to men in their own communities, cultures, and civilisations are often enough economically and sexually subordinated to men, we must note how language and treatment fuse in the human experience.

A white Lesbian once challenged me on my use of the term "intergender" to describe myself. I have never forgotten her challenges. What I realise now is that it is in vogue--and has been for decades--to privilege the naming of ourselves in anti-radical, anti-feminist ways over being responsible to radical activists, including feminists seeking to abolish sex as an oppressive system and gender as a hierarchical and terroristic force.

Nowhere in contemporary white Academic queer-positive theory do I see any commitment to radical social change wherein systems of race and sex are understood as both inhumane and unjust. Instead I see lots of acquiescing around sex and race as naturalised and normalised phenomena. Perhaps now more than ever, we have terms proliferating through our communities that uphold rather than challenge race and sex as markers of who gets treated like shit and who gets treated as if they were fully human.

In our raced and sexed system, only white men are fully advantaged, which isn't to say white men have it all good. And on the class level, whites and all men fare better than women of color.

In white- and male-dominated queer theory, transgender identity has become one way for liberals to test each other's "tolerance" of "difference", sometimes quoting Audre Lorde when challenging cis people to respect trans existence. But to take tolerance of difference as the end all and be all of political work is, imo, to misunderstand or ignore what Audre Lorde, a radical feminist and a lesbian, was speaking out about. As I see it, her call for oppressed people--namely and specifically, women across sexuality, age, and race--to find mutual regard and respect across such differences, was not to claim that accomplishing this was the sole goal. It was, rather, a means to a far more difficult end: the eradication of gendered and raced oppression entirely. To fight oppression based on sexuality, sex, age, and race is unlikely to be successful if in-fighting and horizontal hostility (to use Flo Kennedy's term) isn't also challenged as employing the master's tools.

I don't see hostility directed against trans people as appropriate, personally and politically. And everything I write, I write from the structural location of someone with lots of social advantage, as a male and as a white person. As a radical, I see the liberal acceptance of terms put forth by conservative and liberal people as inappropriate or pro-status quo.

I want to clarify that me naming myself "intergender" is a subjective experienced molded by social mistreatment in childhood (and beyond), including bullying and harassment by males naming me things that meant "girl" as if being a girl was something all males should avoid. Many males in my childhood seemed preoccupied with avoiding being seen as "like a girl". This preoccupation was never my own in part because I respected girls at least as much as boys, and often more so than boys. But also because I didn't feel like a boy and so wasn't so keen on trying to be something I wasn't.

My political work in adulthood has been to not behave like a man in the male supremacist sense while acknowledging that being a man isn't something I control in the structural or macro-social sense. And to the extent that women experience me politically and personally as a man, I am one, regardless of whether or not such a name feels accurate to me. To try and silence women by saying that they are trans- or inter-phobic for stating their truth is, to me, yet another act of male supremacist bullying on my part.

One of many things that troubles me in the current male- and white-dominated queer discourse on being transgender is the ways in which it is either naturalised--an oppressively conservative intellectual tactic--or made to seem as if it ought to trump all other social and structural realities, such as whether or not someone born and named as "male" acquires and benefits from the various advantages handed to males in male supremacist societies.

There is an argument put forth by some conservative-to-liberal politically active M2F people and some allies of such politically active M2F people. (Such activists are a very tiny minority of trans people who ought not be seen to be representative of most trans people; most trans people do not medically or socially transition and don't identify as M2F.) The argument is this: as soon as someone comes into a M2F transgender (in this case, transsexual) identity or transitions medically or socially to be more like a woman--as some trans and non-trans people narrowly and often oppressively define the term and experience, that necessarily means they don't have any of the advantages that being male has given them.

As someone who accepts and regrets how powerfully oppressive racist and hetero/sexist socialisation acts on us, especially but not only in the first few years of life, I find it untenable that all the ways we males learn to disrespect all who are female, and position ourselves as superior to girls and women, would vanish when we alter our social and personal understandings of ourselves. Similarly but not in perfect analogy, I find it untenable that if someone white came to realise that they were of mixed ethnic heritage in their mid-twenties, for example, with some of their heritage being European and some of it being African and Indigenous, this would result in all their racist views, values, and political practices simply and suddenly disappearing. I mean really: how could that happen?

Even if our structural location shifts somewhat with this new information and identity, old patterns and habituated practices are well-established aren't they? (I'm not saying gendered and raced ways of being are "fixed" in any absolute sense. I'm saying we learn to be racist and sexist, and as anyone can tell you, such socialisation is difficult to uproot. This is why males who identify as profeminist and whites who call ourselves anti-racist ought not be assumed to be non-sexist and non-racist. But beyond that, our structural, institutionally protected locations as males and whites are not as fluid as our intellectual and emotional locations.

If someone is raised white, does a childhood of believing one is superior to people of color evaporate with the news later in life that one's grandparents and great grandparents weren't all of European and white descent? What are the political means or social mechanisms through which this psychic and structural transformation occurs?

If our political lives worked this way, we need only work together to transition every white person to being, in appearance and identify, a person of color. And voila, white supremacy and its future genocidal ravages would disappear. We need only convince all men that they are really women to end male supremacy's death-grip on humanity. As someone who has been a peripheral part of white-dominated and white supremacist gay male society for decades, I've seen how white gay men accept the idea that we are girls-not-men, and also how we resist, in pro-patriarchal ways, heterosexist and homophobic males who insist we are girls-not-men. In no instance does this social viewpoint result in gay men not being misogynistic. In fact, many of the ways gay males embrace "femininity" and "effeminacy" are grimly and glaringly woman-hating. This hasn't gone unnoticed and unchallenged by many feminist lesbians and a few profeminist gay men.

A claim I hear from some white trans- and queer-identified people is that they/we are unfairly targeted for political interrogation and critique. I'd argue that gay males and lesbians, as well as heterosexual women, have been targeted for such critique for as long as we've existed in heteropatriarchal times and environments. And to confuse the radical critique of lesbian feminists with the critique of patriarchal het men is to turn structural political reality on its head.

I take the white Lesbian's challenges to heart and mind. And I conclude that my political position with regard to gender is to be anti-gender, not pro-gender, not pro-gender binary, not pro-gender hierarchy. Especially, my political position as a white Westerner isn't one of pretending the gender binary or dual sex system I grew up inside, isn't a hierarchy. Sex and gender are hierarchies that exists fundamentally and foremost to allow and encourage non-transitioning men and males to oppress women, girls, and females as patriarchal men define and enforce the terms.

P.S. After publishing this post, I was sent *this* found at Feminist Reprise, by a friend and colleague. It is written by someone who is not anti-trans but will likely be termed "transphobic" for critiquing some of the behavior of a few white M2F trans activists. Here is an excerpt from the whole piece, titled "Radical Feminism and the Transgendered, or, how to write a post that will infuriate everyone", by Jane Doe, 05/15/2006:

Many MTFs I know minimize the effect male privilege has on their behavior. I suppose it is like the proverbial fish who asks "what is water?" - being the beneficiary of male privilege during one's formative years, even if one begins to question one's identity as a man, confers benefits upon one that are invisible to the recipient (although obvious to women, who do not receive these benefits). Since MTFs do not want to be male, they would like to imagine they can just toss male privilege away along with their unwanted boys' clothing. The human mind does not work in this way, however. It is ironic that those resorting to violent, invasive tactics in order to enter the Michigan Women's Music Festival, for example, with the excuse that they are NOT men and should be accepted as women, are resorting to an ingrained male privilege which tells them they have a right to go anywhere they want to go.

I see it is a critical matter of radical sexual politics, not liberal or conservative gender theory, when female's and women's spaces are contested as appropriately exclusive or sovereign by people with male privilege and male supremacist power. It is also a matter of radical sexual politics when a vocal group of people--a tiny minority of class-privileged whites pretending to represent the whole of the population--declares its members immune and exempt from radical and feminist critique of the ways white and male supremacy is enacted socially. Surely white and male supremacy is being enforced when such a declaration of immunity takes place.

Woggy on Answerbag is at it again: this time with the myth of man-hating among white feminists

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:40:00 +0000

image is from here

I've written a great deal about the myth of man-hating, including about the allegedly anti-man quotes, that misogynists and other anti-feminists promote and peddle online as "truth". Here's the latest incarnation of it, presented as a seemingly innocuous question:

by woggy on January 15th, 2012

Did Andrea Dworkin hate men?
How about Susan Brownmiller?
Catherine MacKinnon?

An answer, by JulianReal

Andrea Dworkin didn't hate men and the proof of it is in her work and her life. She was very close with and respectful of her father, brother, nephew, and life-partner, who was a man. People who accuse her and other white feminists, like Susan Brownmiller and Catharine MacKinnon, of hating men just don't appreciate it when women of any color name and challenge the myriad ways men hate women in law, custom, and daily personal life. Not respecting or catering to men's misogyny (in the form of rape, battery, trafficking, sexual harassment, sexual and economic discrimination by men against women) as God-given or natural-and-inevitable isn't an example of women being "hateful" to men; it's a simple declaration of respect and love for women.

Andrea Dworkin, Susan Brownmiller, and Catharine A. MacKinnon spoke out eloquently and intelligently about patriarchal abuses, male supremacy, and misogyny perpetrated and perpetuated by men. What's hateful to anyone about doing that?

The more relevant question, imo, is why do so many men hate women, discriminate against women, harass women, batter women, rape girls and women, traffic and enslave girls and women, and insult and degrade women for entertainment and economic profit?

Read more: http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2652040#ans11727702

Women Activists in Haiti: Two Years after the Earthquake

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 17:40:00 +0000

photo of activists, including Elvire Eugene (second from left), is from here

It has been two years since the devastating earthquake devastating Port-au-Prince, killing hundreds of thousands and leaving many people vulnerable to the ravages of gross governmental neglect, the violence of globalisation and poverty, the on-going efforts at colonlisation by the US, and the ceaseless threat and violence of men against women.

Many women like Elvire Eugene fight back. Here is an exceprt of a news story about the work of Elvine and other women in Haiti (source: vday.org, *here*)

Lawyers and women's activists representing 30 grassroots organizations from across Haiti came together to discuss what needed to be done to address gender-based-violence in post-earthquake Haiti.

The meeting was coordinated by longtime V-Day activist Elvire Eugene, who is connected to many local partners and national networks working on women's issues in Haiti and is well suited to lead critical work on the ground. Judie C. Roy, a former presidential candidate and prominent activist, was also in attendance, as well as members of the Women's Ministry. During the meeting, a Task Force was formed to see the group's work through to completion. Members chose Elvire Eugene, Judie C. Roy and activist Marie Gislhene Mompremier to lead the Task Force.

Here are some links to other stories about activist women in Haiti.

From the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti:

“Haitian Peasant Women as Poto Mitan, Central Pillar”: An interview with Iderle Brénus Gerbier (Other Words)

20 December 2011 Comments: 0

By Alexis Erkert, Other Words

[Excerpt:]

The Haitian society is essentially macho, and the Haitian politicians and international interests oppress Haiti’s own children. Farmers become victims again and again and women are always held back. But these women continue to support their country.

Our goal is to achieve respect for the rights of Haitian women. Despite their position as poto mitan, as the main carriers of the national economy, rural Haitian women always suffer in our society. Most of these women have no direct access to agricultural lands and income is strictly controlled by men, despite their role in agriculture.

See also:

Two Years Later, Where Is The Outrage? (Lethaitilive.org) — January 3, 2012

and,

http://ijdh.org/projects/rapp

And finally, for now, From MADRE's website (please click on the title just below for more):

Press Release: Groups Release Report Analyzing Sexual Exploitation in Haiti
Posted on: Thursday, January 12, 2012
Keywords: Haiti, Latin American and Caribbean, Combating Violence Against Women, Human Rights Avocacy
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
CONTACT: Stephanie Küng, MADRE, media@madre.org;
Blaine Bookey, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, bookeybl@uchastings.edu;
Margaret Satterthwaite, NYU Global Justice Clinic, satterth@exchange.law.nyu.edu

Haitian Women and Girls Trading Sex to Survive
Groups Release Report Analyzing Sexual Exploitation

January 12, 2012—New York, NY—Two years after an earthquake devastated Haiti, a report detailing the impact of sexual exploitation on displaced Haitian women and girls has been released. The report is authored by MADRE, the Commission of Women Victims for Victims (KOFAVIV), the International Women’s Human Rights (IWHR) Clinic at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law, the Global Justice Clinic at NYU School of Law (GJC) and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law (CGRS).

The drastic increase in sexual violence in displacement camps has been well documented since the disaster. But another face of the epidemic has emerged as a pressing issue: the sexual exploitation of displaced women and girls.

Displaced women and girls have lost family and community members, along with the protection and safety nets those relationships offered. Because of poverty and a lack of economic opportunity, many women and girls are forced to trade sex for shelter, money or even a single meal. In many cases, those demanding sex are the very people who hold themselves out as representatives of the people—members of camp committees.

The report was compiled based on interviews with Haitian women and girls who have either engaged in transactional sex or who know people who have. Information was also collected through interviews with Haitian government officials, service providers and women’s rights advocates. The report highlights current barriers to addressing sexual exploitation and offers recommendations to protect the human rights of women and girls engaging in transactional sex. In addition, the report offers a unique legal analysis of the protections available for women and girls who have experienced a wide range of human rights violations associated with sexual exchanges.

Marie Eramithe Delva, co-founder of KOFAVIV said today, “Displaced women and girls are being forced by circumstance into survival sex. It is an epidemic, but one that has gotten little attention from the Haitian government or international community.”

Lisa Davis, MADRE Human Rights Advocacy Director and Clinical Professor of Law for the IWHR Clinic at CUNY Law School said today, “International law recognizes that an individual’s decision to engage in sex should be the result of free choice. The majority of women and girls interviewed do not have a choice. They are displaced and with few other options. In turn, they are at increased risk of sexual violence and health threats. We must shed light on this crisis.”

Blaine Bookey, Staff Attorney for the CGRS said today, “Although almost all individuals interviewed for this report recognized that sexual exploitation is widespread, representatives of government agencies responsible for addressing sexual exploitation hold stereotypes related to gender and poverty that present an obstacle to implementing practical solutions. Beyond this, the Haitian government’s inability to develop a meaningful response to sexual exploitation is also due to a stark lack of resources. I am hopeful the report will help breakdown these harmful stereotypes and bring much needed resources to bear.”

Margaret Satterthwaite, Professor of Clinical Law for the GJC and Faculty Director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU School of Law said today, “Survival sex will not end until Haitian women and girls can access what they need to live. Haitian women want economic opportunities and the capacity to access basic resources. The international community should work closely with the Haitian government to create jobs, extend microcredit to women, and provide free education to all.”

Virtual Briefing: Join the authors of this report on Tuesday January 17 at 1 pm EST, for a conference call. RSVP at media@madre.org for call-in information.

To read the report in full, click here.

Someone on Answerbag.com asks a really misogynist question about feminists

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:45:00 +0000

image is from here

Just another of a billion examples of how the Internet makes promoting and perpetrating misogyny all too easy. All that follows is on Answerbag.com. The link to the site is below.

Question
Help answer this question below.
Did the existence of Andrea Dworkin prove that Neanderthal women were feminists?

response to the above question is by JulianReal

Your question is obnoxious and insulting.

Andrea Dworkin (1946-2005) was a very important US white feminist philosopher and political activist. She was also a brilliant writer. She worked for justice and human rights for and with women across race and class.

Her work including fighting to establish for all women the right to be free of ridiculous and misogynist attitudes like the one glaringly displayed in your question. Your remark proves we haven't come nearly far enough in the struggle to attain justice and human rights (or, even, basic respect) for women, including feminists.

People, like you, who promote the insulting mischaracterisation of women, including of feminists, are contributing to the overall oppressive condition of women being publicly and privately disrespected and assaulted--verbally and otherwise--by men.

Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.
-- Andrea Dworkin

Read more: http://www.answerbag.com/category/life-and-society_32

Interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva on sustainability, seed banks, organic agriculture, and spirituality

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Uploaded by DedanZumbi on Jan 9, 2012

This is what the male interviewer says about the interview:

Dr. Vandana Shiva and I speak on sustainable ecological agriculture and how it relates to the environmental, culture, nationality and spirituality. I was a bit nervous meeting my heroine and kinda sick from the new Indian environment.

The Radically Feminist Vandana Shiva on Patriarchal Economics and Agribusiness

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:14:00 +0000

image is from here

Small farmers, many of them women, are threatened the world over by corporate agribusiness that follows an aggressive economic-cultural-political anti-Life practice steeped and infused with Western White Male Supremacist values and worldviews. In India, among many other places, there is a crisis. Dr. Shiva has been addressing this crisis, offering radically feminist solutions to the problems of an increasingly globalised conservative capitalist patriarchal way of being that is as unethical ans it is unsustainable.

For some of the written history of this analysis and protest, please click on the following link (title):

Monocultures, Monopolies, Myths And The Masculinisation Of Agriculture
by Vandana Shiva
Director Research Foundation for Science,
Technology and Ecology - India

I found what follows at Toward Freedom *here*. But the original is from Al Jazeera and may be linked to at the end of this excerpt.

Vandana Shiva: No Therapy in Retail
Monday, 09 January 2012 09:15 Vandana Shiva

Share
Al Jazeera

The entry of big corporations into the food chain pushes up retail costs and decreases the share of the farmer.

New Delhi, India - In November 2011, when the UPA government announced that it had cleared the entry of big retail chains such as Walmart and Tesco into India through 51 per cent Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, it justified the decision saying that FDI in retail would boost food security and benefit farmers' livelihoods.

But the assurance that FDI in retail would ease inflation did not resolve the political crisis the government was facing; it deepened it. Parliament was stalled for several days of the Winter Session, after which the government was forced to withdraw its decision.

The story of FDI in retail goes back to 2005, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh signed an agriculture agreement with the US, along with the nuclear agreement. On the board of the US-India Knowledge Initiative in Agriculture, as it is called, sit Monsanto (the world's leading producer of GM seeds), ConAgra (among the world's biggest agribusinesses, along with Cargill) and Walmart (the world's largest retail giant).

Protests had prevented Walmart's entry into retail, but, in 2007, it did get a backdoor entry through a joint-venture with Bharti (their stores go by the names of Easyday and Best Price Modern Wholesale). No back-end infrastructure has been built so far, one of the other claims of the government about why we need retail giants.

The way the UPA government tried to ram through the decision on FDI in retail - without consulting the opposition parties, or even its allies - was clearly undemocratic. But the decision itself was also flawed. It illustrated a disconnect between an ideology based on market fundamentalism - which is the leaning of the present government - and the Indian reality of small farms and small retail.

Continue reading

Caribbean Feminist News for the first few days of 2012 and links to CODE RED

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:33:00 +0000

SEEING RED

Links and things from the CODE RED feminist collective. Visit our website for critical Caribbean feminist commentary.

CODE RED for gender justice | Promote your Page too

what appears above is from CODE RED's tumblr *here*

This is cross-posted from CODE RED. I encourage you to link to them directly by clicking
just below and reading more news there.

Feminist conversations on Caribbean life

You may also click on the title just below to link back to what follows. With thanks to everyone in the collective.

The Good, Bad and the Ugly of Caribbean feminist, gender & sexuality news this week
Here are some of the top stories in Caribbean feminist and gender news for Jan 1-9, 2012:

The Good
Guyana to begin vaccinating girls against HPV this week! This month is Cervical Cancer Awareness month. What a great way to begin the month! Time for the other Caribbean countries to follow Guyana’s lead!

WIN-Belize is in the process of revitalizing its Young Women Mentorship Program and you can get involved.

Some Good, Some Bad
Dominica and The Bahamas have been ranked among the top 10 ethical destinations in the developing world for 2012. Countries were evaluated in three main categories: environmental protection, social welfare and human rights. Dominica was lauded for its renewable energy policy and for being one of the few Caribbean nations to sign a statement of LGBTQ rights at the UN in 2011. The Bahamas received kudos for its commitment to shark conservation. Both Dominica and The Bahamas were ranked highly in terms of political rights, civil liberties and press freedom. Barbados was on last year’s list, but wasn’t included in the 2012 ranking; the reason given was that the government has not shown itself to be committed to its promises of environmental protection and sustainability.

The Bad
Woman in Guyana dies after unsafe abortion even though abortion has been legal there since 1996. Former Minister of Health says that women may be uninformed about certified abortion providers.

The Ugly
JLP described PM Portia Simpson Miller’s decision to appoint three women to the Cabinet as ‘jobs for the girls’.Three woman cabinet members dismissed as illegitimate, unnecessarily costly excess baggage just because they are women, no, girls!

Want more Caribbean feminist/women’s/gender news?
Find CODE RED on facebook or follow us on twitter.
CODE RED is a feminist collective of Caribbean women and men. We are the only online source for daily updates and aggregation of Caribbean news and links related to feminist, gender and sexuality issues (via our facebook page)

Do the Ends Justify [the Meanness of] the Means? What are the Values and Practices of the Internet Blog-and-Comment Culture?

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 20:36:00 +0000

DO THE

image is from here

A friend recently reminded me that a blogger colleague of hers insists on a strict set of values and practices at her blog: no insults, no ad hominen attacks, no disrespect, no tearing down of other human beings to build oneself up. The blog is defined as feminist and that understanding of 'feminist' is one I grew up with. Audre Lorde took issue with stuff Mary Daly wrote; Andrea Dworkin and Audre Lorde had very different perspectives on the erotic; Dworkin and MacKinnon weren't on the same page with what happened to their anti-pornography ordinance in Canada, but that didn't mean they couldn't be respectful of one another. Audre Lorde wrote explicitly about the need for oppressed people to find respectful and compassionate ways to engage across differences such as race and sexuality. Alice Walker has demonstrated an increasingly rare form of compassion for people who structurally oppress women. See this piece for more, from her blog:

http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2009/12/a-letter-to-tiger-woods-from-alice-walker/

I don't see much care, respect, or mutual regard on the internet any more among people who are not the most socially dominant. Or, even, among those who are--to each other. Insults fly easily. Disrespect and snark is the increasingly defaulted mode of communicating disagreement.

The whole of contemporary Western society, of many societies, is set up to infuse spoken and unspoken acts with misogynist hatred and degradation. When women notice and speak out about it, the act of objecting or resisting or organising against such misogyny is itself termed another form of hatred: misandry. I don't believe objecting to one's people being denigrated as a class by another more powerful class of persons constitutes a form of hatred. Self-love on the class level is not hatred. Resistance to being used and abused on grand and grotesque scales isn't hatred either. So we have to be careful about how language is used to mean anything at all.

In my own experience, any challenge to white power and entitlement by anyone who isn't white is considered an insulting thing to do--to whites. As noted above, the same holds true for women's serious challenges to men's unearned and lethal power over and against women and girls. It makes sense, in a perverse sort of way, for the uplift and mutual support among members of an oppressed group to be portrayed as action that is hostile to their oppressors. Such a portrait of marginalised and subordinated people by those who exploit and assault them is part of how social dominants maintain control and power over them/us. The very use of the term "uppity" for politically active anti-racist African American men and women and for anti-sexist women across race is proof enough that trying to get where white men are structurally located is not acceptable to most white men. The amount of anti-feminism among men across race demonstrates men's contempt not only for women but for women's efforts to be free of men's dominance. Andrea Dworkin, among other feminists, noted that whether women resist men's dominance or not they will still be degraded by men. This truism applies to many oppressed people and is reason enough to resist and organise revolutionary strategies of social change.

I have tried to create a blog space that is free of snark but I have failed at times. I think I used to be a snarkier person than I am now, only in part because I see it taking over what were once reasonably compassionate zones of discourse. Snark is "in". I've never been one to do what is fashionable, especially if it is part of how the status quo stays empowered. But another reason for doing away with snark is that I've come to see the raced and gendered dynamics of snark and self-satisfied insult-hurling. It wears thin, in my experience, as a way of communicating important ideas and political challenges. If I had it to over again, I might withdraw all the insults I've hurled at MRAs here. Not because I think MRAs are respectful of women or care about being respectful even among themselves. I see most MRAgendas as profoundly dangerous to women and I've seen how bullied MRAs are among each other. I guess I now see how being snarky towards MRAs is practicing their own well-honed values.

I just want to opt out of the pattern of anti-feminist disrespect and degradation. It isn't what brilliant radical feminist authors and activists like Audre Lorde and Alice Walker taught in their own work.

I believe in having role models as long as we don't turn them into idolised G-ds. I've been accused of doing just that with the use of a term I occasionally have used here, "Lorde knows..." My point in bringing Audre's last name into the term wasn't to pretend she wasn't human. It was to note that her humanity was as divine as anyone else's, and so why not say "Lorde knows" instead of "Lord knows"?

I understand Audre Lorde and Alice Walker to be deeply human beings. I studied their work to understand what "feminist ethics" means, in practice, in daily life. It means, in part, not participating in bully-culture.

A lot of what I've seen men and whites do is bully other people to bolster their/our own already structurally well-supported sense of self. Of course any individual's sense of self may be worn down by verbal or physical assaults against them. Or by various injustices flowing from institutionalised heterosexism, racism, and misogyny. People with white power don't necessarily have the powers afforded people who are heterosexual and male. Men are degraded socially by class, race, and sexuality if not by gender.

Among males and among whites, I've seen many hierarchies develop and how the values of social dominance infuse interactions designed to have a few control the many.

I was bullied for seven years in grade school. I felt the emotional burn of humiliation and the visceral fear of being beaten. I generally avoided being hit but not always. I'm not into physical fights. I was called a coward for not fighting boys. "Cowardice" in male supremacist and masculinist world is often understood to be akin to "pacifism". As I recall from my early life and accounts since of the era, white male hippies were called misogynist names by old-fashioned patriarchal white men who believed real men shoot and kill one another--well, not one another necessarily, but shoot and kill men and women of color in many parts of the Americas and across Asia. I was too young to be part of hippy culture but I did grow up with an erotic aesthetic build on the idea that males could be gentle and caring people. One of the boys who bullied me when I was young was degraded at home by his father. I didn't know this at the time. I kind of wish I had, as it might have helped me despise him less. That I despised him wasn't evidence of me being a man-hater. It was evidence of me trying to find some way to feel better about myself by distancing myself from him and his hurtful behavior.

On MRA sites over the years, I've seen little to no evidence that any of those men value care and gentleness. I see how the culture of bullying, meanness, and self-aggrandisement pervades particular disagreements and overall discourse. I see how terrorism and threats of gross brutality are collectively passed off as appropriate treatment of those they disagree with.

The last time I engaged with an MRA on this blog, I did so with the understanding--his and my own--that we would attend to each other's perspectives with regard and respect, no flame throwing, no verbal assaults. I regret he ducked out of the conversation. It was indeed refreshing to have one like that with someone I strongly disagree with on several points. See the links just below for more of that. They are from the blog in late May and early June of 2011.

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/05/can-enemies-become-allies-conversation.html

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/06/enemies-or-allies-part-2-of.html

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/06/can-enemies-become-allies-conversation.html

http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-womens-rights-also-human-rights-for.html

Some women have written to me privately about how much bullying there is among white self-defined feminist bloggers and commenters online. Facebook, in particular, can be a vicious place to hang out in: I go there rarely. I know women who have been driven out of there by other women who apparently valued being very mean and hurtful. (And by men too. Lots and lots of men.) The women who have written to me don't or won't speak out against the very patriarchal practices (their determination, which I agree with) of woman-demeaning and woman-hurting done by white women; they don't want to be more targeted for harm and degradation than they already are by people they want to believe are on the same side of their political struggles.

I've witnessed some white women engaging in the very threatening tactics of the men's rights activists they claim to oppose and be so different from. According to some radical feminist women of color I know, they are behaving in similarly cyber-terroristic ways in the name of doing feminist work. I can't say for sure but I don't believe Audre Lorde, Andrea Dworkin, or Alice Walker would call such behavior "feminist". Alice is still alive and perhaps somewhere in her work she addresses this directly. If you know of such passages, please let me know of them. Some of Andrea's and Audre's work is still being published and somewhat available to be read. I'll refer you to their writing to verify my hunch and not to rely my own suppositions about it.

Meanness, callousness, and cruelty weren't feminist values according to every feminist activist and writer I grew up reading and adoring--unless I greatly misread their work, of coure. Given what I've witnessed early in my life and more recently, I currently understand being mean and cruel as definitionally white and male supremacist ways of being human. And while anyone can participate in such behavior, the practice of it seems to only reinforce and maintain white and male supremacist power not ameliorate, mitigate, or eradicate it.

I don't mean to put value on a liberal kind of humanistic kindness or on "civility", which as I understand it, is a dishonest and despicable form of covering up the bloodiness of a society's genocidal and gynocidal practices by appearing to be 'good-natured' and 'reasonable' in the classist, racist, misogynist sense. I admire oppressed people who don't prioritise caring about oppressors over caring about the oppressed. And all of the most radical activists I've known personally didn't make it their practice to consider any class of people inhuman, no matter how entitled or oppressive.

I've encountered some white women, mostly women who don't identify as radical feminist, who consider men to be less-than-human. When I've asked them if they'd advocate a political perspective that supports women of color viewing whites--men and women, as less-than-human, they don't answer the question. I believe this means they don't see how lethal and horrific the power of their institutionalised whiteness is. I've encountered men of color who believe they are more oppressed than women of color. When I note that men of color systematically assault women of color in their homes and beyond, they don't respond.

More startling still, I've encountered many white men--heterosexual and economically-empowered at that--who believe they are the most oppressed and put-down group on Earth. To this there isn't much to say, really. Such avoidance of knowing how other people live demonstrates a kind of self-centeredness and willful refusal to empathise with people-not-oneself. Meaningful intervention into such normalised sociopathy, unfortunately, is difficult for me to imagine. I've certainly not had much luck shifting that kind of political self-unawareness and spiritual myopia through conversation. I attempted to address these issues with James Huff in the posts linked to above but he disappeared before we got that far.

I wish us all luck and strength as we find ways to radically transform a very mean society into one that cares about humanity and all life on Earth, off-line if not also on.

Audre Lorde Remembered

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:26:00 +0000

Lorde in 1983. Photograph: Robert Alexander/Getty Images. Click *here* for where I found this photo of Audre Lorde

It startles me to write it: Audre Lorde left us twenty years ago this November. I had the great pleasure of meeting Audre Lorde at a conference a few years before her passing. I shall never forget it. I was nervous, the way people talk about being nervous about meeting a great leader or famous actor whose work they've admired. I held back, wanting to be sure the women in line had the opportunity to greet her and share their own moments. Finally when there was no one else in line, I moved towards the table where she sat and greeted her. We exchanged a few words. She was kind and strong. Beyond that meeting, both before it and since, my overall politics and understandings of "what's wrong with the world" have been profoundly shaped by her work and words; the deep insight and wisdom in each enriches me to this day.

I've come across the following article and am reposting just an excerpt linking you to the full story. This is an account by Jackie Kay of how Audre Lorde affected her life. The article may be linked to *here at The Guardian*.

Lorde was openly lesbian before the gay movement existed. Her wise words often seem eerily prescient. "Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time and the arena, and the manner of our revolutions, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing." Back in the 70s and 80s Lorde's was an important and singular voice: "I began to ask each time: 'What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?' Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, 'disappeared' or run off the road at night … our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered for ever."

For more with Jackie Kay, please see this (you may click on the title just below to link to the web page that has the podcast):

Guardian children's books podcast: Jackie Kay talks about writing for young people and reads a poem
Audio (7min 28sec), 29 Sep 2011: Jackie Kay talks to children's books site member Luke Shore about her half-Nigerian, half-Scottish upbringing and her creative process.

Indigenous Day of Resistance press release

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:13:00 +0000

What follows was found *here* at the Inteligenta Indigena Novajoservo™ (IIN). You may also click on the title below to link to this news at another website. With thanks to the activists at both sites and with support for all who attend.

INDIGENOUS DAY of Resistance, Friday, January 27, 2012, San Francisco, CA

INDIGENOUS DAY of Resistance, Friday, January 27, 2012, San Francisco, CA on Betty Tuininga's TwitWall: INDIGENOUS DAY OF RESISTANCE

INDIGENOUS RIGHTS RALLY & FORUM

January 27, 2012
Indigenous Unity March at 10:30 AM

Meet at the Human Rights Commission
25 Van Ness Avenue
San Francisco, CA

March to the United Nations Plaza
Indigenous Rights Forum & Rally 11:00 AM

An Indigenous led Movement to Decolonize and Occupy the United Nations to demand repatriations for the theft of Tribal Lands, gold & other natural resources; and address issues of Civil Rights Violations, Hate Crimes, Broken Treaties, and the Human Rights inherent to ALL Indigenous People.

For More Information Contact:

United Native Americans,Inc.
United Native Americans,Inc@gmail.com
(510)672-7187

Censored News Honors Many Indigenous Women, selected by readers

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:00 +0000

poster image is from here

There are many groups of activists and heroes who are utterly ignored and willfully shut out of dominant society's cultural, economic, and political news. One such group is Indigenous women. In North America, there is a corporate media policy of not reporting news from an Indigenist perspective, or that is produced by Indigenous people. Anti-Indigenist white male supremacy works very hard to leave all of us with the idea that if Indigenous people exist and are activist, they must be men.

Leave it to Brenda Norrell at the very appropriately named "Censored News" website to publicly honor and make more widely visible the centuries-long reality of Indigenous women's activism. What follows is copied and re-posted with permissions granted by Brenda. She states:

Please feel free to repost this article and photo, with author and Censored News credits appearing at top of the article. Media, for contact info for interviews of the heroes: brendanorrell@gmail.com

Thank you to all the named and unnamed, recognised and unrecognised Indigenous women activists who fight battles unseen by most non-Indigenous people. And thank you, once again, to Brenda Norrell. Love and justice to you in 2012.

You may link back to the original site by clicking on the title just below. There are many more honored Indigenous activists named in that post beyond what I have re-posted here. I also provide at link back to the original site and article at the bottom of this post.

Censored News Person of the Year: The Indigenous Woman

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Who made a difference this year?

The Indigenous Person of the Year, selected by readers of Censored News, is the Indigenous Woman.

Debra White Plume, Morning Star Gali, Waziyata Win, Tantoo Cardinal, Kahentinetha Horn and her daughter Dr. Ojistoh Horn, Corrina Gould, Kandi Mossett, Louise Benally, Buffy St Marie, Rigoberta Menchu, Hacha C Norris, Cheyenne Bellecourt Eagleman and many more were selected by readers as the Person of the Year. Censored News focuses on Indigenous Peoples and human rights.

Debra White Plume, Lakota grandmother and longtime activist from Pine Ridge, S.D., received the most nominations. Shown in the top left photo, White Plume, grandmother and voice against uranium mining on Lakota lands, was among those arrested this year at the White House during the action to halt the Tarsands and Keystone XL dirty oil pipeline during September.

Gwen Caldwell said that Debra White Plume was her top choice. "I selected Debra, because she sets an excellent example of what we as women should be doing and how we should be living. She is humble courageous, speaks her truth with honor and integrity!"

CJ Christian said, "Debra White Plume has made herself visible before the UN, fighting to save the Black Hills and to stop the Keystone pipeline. She works tirelessly for the First Nations People with sincere devotion, dedication, spirituality and integrity."

Roxann Karonhiarokwas selected Kahentinetha Horn, publisher of Mohawk Nation News, and her daughter, Dr. Ojistoh Horn, the first female Mohawk medical doctor from Kahnawake. Roxann described the mother and daughter as, “An amazing duet and strong women."

Roxann said, “I nominated Ojistoh because she delivers our babies. Being a matrilineal society she is responsible and takes a hands on role in the delivery of the mothers of our nation." She added, "That woman does not sleep. She does house calls and even looks after people during family events on her time off! I love that beautiful woman. She’s an inspiration and deserves it!”

"Kahentinetha is a woman who always worked for our people! I am honored to say I know these lovely ladies personally.”

Ben Manuel selected four dynamic, tireless human rights warriors: "Waziyata Win, Jessica Yee, Morning Star Gali and Debra White Plume." Richard Flittie added another voice of recognition for Morning Star Gali and Corrina Gould, both longtime activists struggling to save sacred places and reclaim Indigenous lands in California.

Manuel was among many who selected Dakota activist Waziyata Win for her work to bring Indigenous perspectives to the Decolonize/Occupy movement. (Shown in top right photo. Click for Oakland video.)

Among the dynamic Native American youths honored was Kandi Mossett, who hosted the Indigenous Environmental Network annual gathering in her homeland this summer, was arrested at the White House protesting the Tarsands Keystone XL pipeline in September, and was featured as a voice to protect Mother Earth at COP 17 in Durban, South Africa, in December.

Hahana Bear selected Kandi, shown in lower left photo at top of page. Kandi was compelled to speak out after the deaths of friends and family from the oil and gas trucks, and devastating pollution, on her homeland, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nations in North Dakota, also known as Three Affiliated Tribes and Fort Berthold.

Indigenous Women Honored

Ruth Nolan honored Cahuilla Indian Elder and Tribal Leader Dr. Katherine Siva Sauvel, Morongo/Cahuilla, who passed away this past November.

Nolan said, “I selected Dr. Katherine Siva Sauvel, Cahuilla elder. elder, teacher and Cahuilla culture bearer (1920-2011) because she has been instrumental in saving the endangered Cahuilla language and way of life, and dedicated her life to passing along the oral histories and language and culture of the Cahuilla into the modern world. She was the first American Indian inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame, and is a co-founder of the Malki Museum, the first American Indian museum in the United States.

“I had the incredible honor and good fortune to have met and learned much from Dr. Sauvel through my California desert Indian scholarship and position at College of the Desert, and was and remain incredibly touched, professionally and personally, by her extreme generosity and gentle yet strong touch in all matters related to sharing with so many others her native culture, to which she dedicated her passion and life's work. She is deeply appreciated by people across the country and globe, and truly missed.”

Toni Reynolds selected Cheyenne Bellecourt Eagleman. “She tells it like it is. She doesn't care if people get upset with her or not. She fights for Native rights, works with young people, raises her own children as a single parent, and works with numerous other issues. She is very respected and well known.”

Richard Flittie honored Pte San Win. "She is a young Lakota woman who lives on the Pine Ridge Reservation and works hard to take care of all the people there who need help. She is raising money for propane and for firewood and continues in her fathers footsteps on the political front for the Lakota people.Things like the Keystone XL pipeline. And she is always supporting and encouraging the carrying on of tradition and ceremony for her people."

Jeanne Combo selected Wangari Muta Maathai, who passed away in September of this year. She started the Green Belt Movement in Africa in 1977. She was honored for working with women to improve their livelihoods by increasing their access to resources like firewood for cooking and clean water. "She became a great advocate for better management of natural resources and for sustainability, equity, and justice."

Becka Nan Amos selected Hacha C. Norris. “Hacha is a strong and fearless woman who has taken her own education seriously -- and by this I mean learning truths and concepts the overculture has tried to hide and/or eradicate. She understands deeply the wrongness of the overculture and speaks out about it regularly with her actions as well as her words. I have learned so much from her, especially concerning my own white privilege -- and that's what I respect the most about her -- she's not afraid to call out people on the ways of thinking that we so badly need to change but often cannot even see. She's got guts, and not the greedy kind.”

Hacha C Norris, said, “Debra White Plume, Bertha Gutierrez, Buffy St. Marie, Tom BK Goldtooth, Alex White Plume, Kris Barney, Evo Morales, Subcomandante Marcos, Rigoberta Menchú, and yes all the 'Protestors' (whose names are many) who fight for Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination, truth, justice and an end to capitalist exploitation and plunder of Mother Earth, and those who fight for food, heat, housing, education, jobs, health care and a voice.”

Bertha Gutierrez thanked Hacha C. Norris for selecting her. "I am humbled. All the people you have mentioned are people who inspire me and in no way shape or form do I feel I could fit in their shoes. Thank you for also inspiring me. Mi respeto para ti."

The women of the Blood Reserve are honored who faced off with oil and gas trucks this year in Alberta, Canada. On the southern border, O'odham Ofelia Rivas, and O'odham struggling against border agents and repression are honored. Northern Paiute traditional gatherer Wesley Dick, Kwassuh, is honored for refusing to accept the charges of Nevada Fish and Wildlife, and demanding justice. The longstanding efforts of Western Shoshone Carrie and Mary Dann are also recognized for their decades of struggle for the land and people. Lakotas Kent Lebsock, Debra White Plume and Alex White Plume, are honored for the Owe Aku International Justice Project.

The Navajo and Hopi of Black Mesa are honored who work together in their struggle to protect the land, air and water. Navajo Louise Benally and Ofelia Rivas, O'odham, are honored for speaking out at protests in December against the corporate profiteers, now coopting Arizona legislators, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Phoenix.

Please click *here* for the rest of the post.

Yanar Mohammed on The War (Men's Against Women) In Iraq

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:33:00 +0000

photo of Yanar Mohammed with a male soldier is from here

What follows is an excerpt from an article I read at OpEdNew.com. For the whole article, please go *here*.

... Yanar Mohammed , founding director of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI), was interviewed on the state of Iraq as the American occupation ends. She described Iraqi cities full of destroyed buildings and broken streets, with intermittent electricity and unsafe drinking water. Iraq, she said, is now a country of 99% poor and 1% rich living in the Green Zone, burdened with the most corrupt government in the world that is giving control of oil resources to multinational oil companies.

Iraqi women "are the biggest losers" in this war, Mohammed asserted, ending up with extreme lack of freedom, lack of social security, lack of opportunity, and increased sexual terror. Her organization has conducted extensive high-risk investigations into the prevalence and plight of Iraqi widows, women kidnapped and killed, and women trafficked into prostitution. Fifteen percent of Iraq's 1 to 2 million widows are seeking temporary marriages out of economic desperation and extreme insecurity in being a single woman. By 2006, OWFI had observed an "epidemic rise" in the number of women prostituted in brothels, workplaces, and hideouts in Baghdad. Through covert investigation, they learned of the trafficking of women within Iraq for Iraqi men in all regions and for US military, as well as to nearby countries. Democracy in Iraq has been crushed for women.
American women soldiers in Iraq were big losers, also. Nearly 200,000 served there, in as dangerous situations as men. Though barred from combat, they patrolled streets with machine guns, served as gunners on vehicles, dismantled explosives, driven trucks down bomb-ridden streets, and rescued the dead and injured in battle zones. These same women found themselves, concurrently, caught in a second, more damaging war - a private, preemptive one in the barracks. As one female soldier put it, "They basically assume that because you are a girl in the Army, you're obligated to have sex with them." Resisting sexual assault in the barracks spills over to battlefield, according to many women veterans, in the form of relentless verbal sexual harassment, punitive high-risk assignments, and the morbid sense that your back is not being watched. ...

Andrea Dworkin Quote on a T-shirt made by activists!

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:11:00 +0000

For more about what you see below, including how to purchase the t-shirt, please click *here*.

Feminist Political Patch -Feminism is hated because women are hated -Andrea Dworkin
From DuckDuckClothing

Black patch with print of Andrea Dworkin quote:

'Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.'

Patch measures approx 20cm x 10cm

Lovingly hand printed by friendly activist types.

For more about the shop that produces this, please see:

Duck Duck Goose, Adelaide, Australia

Thank you to all the activists in Adelaide!

Feminist Action and Event Alert: The 12th AWID International Forum: "Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice", April 19-22, 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 22:06:00 +0000

This was sent to me and I'm happy to post it here for all who are interested:

EARLY BIRD DEADLINE EXTENDED TO JANUARY 20th 2012
The 12th AWID International Forum:
Transforming Economic Power to Advance Women's Rights and Justice
April 19-22, 2012 | Istanbul, Turkey

The deadline to register and take advantage of the Early Bird rates has been extended to January 20th, 2012. http://www.forum.awid.org/forum12/registration/

Join us at the 2012 AWID International Forum where 2,000 women’s rights leaders and activists from around the world will come together to strategize, network, celebrate, and learn in a highly charged atmosphere that fosters deep discussions and sustained personal and professional growth.

Exhibit Hall and Marketplace: From publications and products to handicrafts and textiles, the Exhibit and Marketplace has something for everyone. Shop around and peruse the latest publications, tools and resources from publishers, funders and others. Or stock up on one-of-a-kind, handcrafted treasures from women-owned businesses and collectives in the region. If you are interested in being part of our exhibit or marketplace area please download the application form. http://www.forum.awid.org/forum12/about/activities-and-events/

Campaigns Corner: This is a space where organizations currently involved in campaigns can share information and literature about their campaign and how to take part. Campaign exhibitors should be present at their table for the duration of the display. If you are interested in being part of the campaign corner email us at forum12@awid.org

Hotels: Hotel rooms have been blocked at various hotels in various locations and can be booked when you register for the forum here. http://www.forum.awid.org/forum12/registration/

Free shuttles will be provided between Forum hotel areas and the AWID Forum 2012 venue twice daily. Meeting points will be announced closer to the date of the Forum. Please make your hotel reservations early; bookings are on a first-come first-served basis. Deadline for hotel reservations is April 10, 2012.
For any queries about hotel matters, please contact us via email: info@awidregistration.org

Visit the 2012 Forum website and find out more http://www.forum.awid.org/forum12/ about the Forum theme, program, logistical information and answers to frequently asked questions.

If you have any questions on registration, please contact us at forum12@awid.org . Be sure to check the website regularly for frequent updates on Forum 2012 preparations including fundraising information.

Please help us spread the word and forward this message to all your relevant networks, colleagues and friends!

Warmest Regards,

AWID Forum Team

A Message from Gloria Steinem to the Public Regarding the Trafficking of Girls and Women

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:31:00 +0000

While I wish it were the case that Western whites asking for money wasn't necessary to achieve justice and liberation for all girls and women worldwide, it remains the case that whites asking for money to support the activism of women of color is an on-going necessity. This is so in large part because whites in the West have much more money than people of color in the West, and whites listen to whites more than to people of color, especially female people of color.

With gratitude to all the women and girls, white and of color, who work so hard to liberate women and girls from systems of gross exploitation, economic abuse, and misogynistic harm.

I was what follows by email and may also be found *here*:

Dear Friend of Women and Girls,
Many things have changed in the years since I lived in India as a student, but one thing that has continued - and grown worse as the worldwide network of sex trafficking has spread - is the destruction of the lives of women and girls bought and sold in the sex industry.
When I go back to the India that I love - the world's largest democracy, one in which a greater percentage of people vote than in the United States - I know I can go to a section of all major cities and see young women lined up in the street like cattle. If I look through the doorways of brothels in, say, Sonagachi, the main sex trafficking district of Kolkata, I can see the little girls of six or ten that brothel owners tell reporters don't exist.
Among the brave people in India fighting this lethal sex trafficking industry is my friend Ruchira Gupta. A journalist herself, Ruchira was reporting on rural poverty, and was surprised to find villages with almost no young girls and women. When she asked why, she was told, "Don't you know? They've all been taken to Mumbai and Kolkata."
Once she discovered the depth of this reality for at least three million women and girls in India - entrapped, de-humanized and often sent to an early death by injury, despair and disease - she started Apne Aap, which means Self Help; a healing and respectful safe place where women and girls could find refuge, support, advocacy, community and skills to support themselves and their children.
Ten years later, Apne Aap Women Worldwide has grown into a model for anti-sex trafficking activists in other countries. It now has centers in New Delhi and Bihar, as well as Kolkata, and it supports human rights against the sex trafficking and prostitution industry, from working for legislation and law enforcement at the top to offering alternatives and community at the bottom.
The truth is that if Apne Aap had as many supporters outside India as the brothel owners have foreign customers - men from rich countries who literally buy "sex tours" to exploit the poverty of women and children in India - Apne Aap would win.
At an Apne Aap community center, each woman and girl gains access to vocational training, literacy classes, basic education, and learning about her rights and how to recognize when they've been denied. She learns how to file a police report. And I'm proud to announce that in the last year, four teenage girls campaigned against their traffickers and helped to put those criminals behind bars. This is the way the law should function, but sadly, this story is the exception.
In addition to your financial contribution, Apne Aap appeals for your support to help strengthen the Indian anti-trafficking law, the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act. By signing on, you will be joining Apne Aap's thousands of members in asking for measures that protect girls and women, and impose realistic penalties on the pimps, johns, and traffickers who exploit them. Click here to sign the petition.
I am personally inspired by the bravery, wisdom, innovation and impact of this small organization. It has transformed the scared, abused, uneducated girls and women I met when I first visited India into women who are speaking out for themselves and for others, from the halls of government to international survivors' conferences.
I ask for your support for all the women of Apne Aap. They have given you and me a practical, hopeful way out of the worldwide human rights abuse of sex trafficking.
No longer will you feel helpless, with nowhere to start, when you see and read the news.
And that is a gift in itself -- for you -- or for friends and family in whose name you contribute.
With new hope,

Gloria Steinem
Advisory Committee Chair
Apne Aap Women Worldwide

** Donations made in India to Apne Aap Women Worldwide or in the United States to Apne Aap International are tax deductible.

Happy Solstice, Kwanzaa, Christmas, and Hanukkah to all my readers

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 17:18:00 +0000

image is from here

And to those who celebrate none of the above, a very Happy New Year if you celebrate that holiday at this time of year.

Thank you to each of you, dear reader--whether you are new or have been reading here for a longer time.

Thank you for being part of the efforts of this blog to expand and deepen consciousness, and also to support and incite activism geared to bringing into the present a wider world of women of all colors and ages free from patriarchal and white/racist abuses and systems of political and economic oppression.

Blessings to every one of you.

Love, Julian

Yanar Mohammed on the On-going White and Male Supremacist Occupation of Iraq by the US: "This is not a democratic country." ... "Women are the biggest losers in all of this."

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

image of cartoon is from here

I am hearing arrogant and ridiculous reports in the US from media (owned by corporations that wish to control the minds of any who listen) that Iraq is now a sovereign state. We must ask: if Iraq had as much "presence" in the US, on US soil, would conservative racist/white supremacist white men in the US consider this a sovereign state? Doubtful. What we'd do in response to even a threat of such an occupation is amp up our racist/white supremacist campaigns against all people of color, wage more wars against Central Asia, and do so in the name of "freedom". The arrogance is also showing up in the brazenness of corporate media representatives admitting why US forces occupied and are still illegally and criminally in Iraq. (Not that the US media calls it a crime or a violation, mind you.)

Recently, NBC News, on a program called Rock Center, admitted in very clear language that the US is NOT leaving Iraq, and that many forces remain, including the CIA and other cover operations. (See *here* for more.)

When major corporate news sources admit, also, that the US went to war against the Iraqi people to occupy the country to protect unjust, criminal access to oil reserves there (as if the US has a right to all oil everywhere, and may stake out claims to it using the most blunt and horrific military force at will). But possession of oil and possession of land is all part of a larger struggle at global imperialism which, as you may know, is laid out in a plan concocted by the likes of Donald Rumsfeld--who you'll hear from later in this post--Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney. Each of those men should be in prison for life for crimes against humanity. For more on this blatantly white male supremacist/Western imperialist effort, see *here*.

What follows is from Democracy Now!, *here*.

December 16, 2011
Iraqi Women’s Activist Rebuffs U.S. Claims of a Freer Iraq: "This Is Not a Democratic Country"
Share768

Yanar Mohammed, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq, joins us to discuss the impact of the nearly nine-year U.S. occupation, particularly on Iraqi women. "The Iraqi cities are now much more destroyed than they were, I would say, like five years ago," Mohammed says. "In the same time, we have turned to a society of 99 percent poor and 1 percent rich, due to the policies that were imposed in Iraq." Mohammed decries the repression of Iraqi protesters that joined the Arab Spring in a February 25th action. "The women are the biggest loser in all of this. We went to the Iraqi squares. We demonstrated. The Arab Spring was there very strongly but got oppressed in ways that were new to Iraqi people. Anti-riot police of the American style was something that we witnessed there... This is not a democratic country." [includes rush transcript]

AMY GOODMAN: We wanted to also bring into this discussion Yanar Mohammed. She is president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq. Usually in Iraq, she right now is joining us from Toronto.

Yanar, talk about this last more than eight years of the invasion and the occupation.

YANAR MOHAMMED: If I start with the basics, the Iraqi cities are now much more destroyed than they were, I would say, like five years ago. All the major buildings are still destroyed. If you drive in the streets of the capital, your car cannot survive more than one month, because all the streets are still broken. So there was no reconstruction for the buildings, for the cities.

And in the same time, we have turned to a society of 99 percent poor and 1 percent rich, due to the policies that were imposed in Iraq. While Iraq has more than one million widows—some of the counts say one million, some of the counts say two million widows—these widows try to survive on a salary of $150, and most of them cannot get this salary because they don’t have proper ID due to internal displacement. And in the same time, the 1 percent, who lives—of Iraqis, who lives in the Green Zone, they drown in a sea of money. And there was a scandal of losing $40 billion from the annual budget of the country, and nobody is accountable for it. So we have—after nine years, we have the most corrupt government in the world.

We are divided to a society of Shias, who are ruling, and Sunnis, who want to get divided from the country of Iraq. We are now on the verge of the division of country according to religions. And to ethnicities, it has already happened. We know that the Kurdish north is now a Kurdistan, the region of Kurdistan. And the constitution that we have in Iraq allows everybody to get divided or to get their autonomy. So now the Sunni parts of Iraq, they want to be their own agents. They don’t want to be part of the central government anymore. And in the same time, destruction is everywhere. Poverty is for all the people but the 1 percent who are living inside the Green Zone.

And I would like to add one thing. If President Obama wants to make it sound like one unified society, that’s not the true story. We are living in a huge military camp, where one million Iraqi men are recruited in the army. And on top of that, there’s almost 50,000 militia members, of the Sadr group and the other Islamist group, who are not only local militias, like army within the country, but they are now being exported to other countries to oppress the Arab Spring in Syria and maybe later on in other countries. We are not a united country, because the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is another country, has the upper hand in Iraq. And the decisions that were done lately about who stays from the Americans and who doesn’t stay inside Iraq was due to the pressure of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They are the decision makers in Iraq.

And the biggest loser out of all of this are the women. Now, by the constitution, there are articles that refer us to the Islamic sharia, when this was not in action in the times of the previous regime. Under Islamic sharia, women are worth half a man legally and one-quarter of a man socially in a marriage. And we still suffer under this. As a women’s organization, we daily meet women who are vulnerable to being bought and sold in the flesh market. We see widows who have no source of income, and nobody to get them IDs for themselves and their children, because they have been internally displaced. So poverty and discrimination against women has become the norm. And the government doesn’t care much about this. They talk about it a lot, but not much is being done about it. And—

JUAN GONZALEZ: Yanar, I’d like to ask you, on another matter, the—we had a quote earlier in the show from President Obama saying that, unlike historical empires of the past, the United States doesn’t go into countries for territory or resources, but because it’s right. Could you talk to us about what has happened to the resources of Iraq, to the oil of Iraq? To what degree now are American companies involved that they were not before the war?

YANAR MOHAMMED: In the last year, we were told that Iraq’s economy is going to be changing, and there’s going to be a new phase of investment. But in reality, those who were invited into the Green Zone were surprised to see that it’s all about privatization, that we have new foreign oil companies. Some of them are already functioning in the south, like British Petroleum, who have an oil field from which they are extracting oil.

They are beginning to—they have brought some foreign workers to work in there, and they have totally discriminatory workplaces where the foreigner is paid much more than the Iraqi. I was told that the foreigners are paid in the thousands of dollars monthly, while an Iraqi employees is paid something like $400. And even the workplaces are very discriminatory and racist, in the sense that the foreigner workers are treated much better than the Iraqi employees.

And the question is, how did they get these foreign oil companies to come into Iraq? Like British Petroleum is one of them. It has many oil fields. It’s functioning. It’s extracting Iraqi oil. On which terms? We, the Iraqi people, don’t know. On which agreement did they come and they are functioning fully in Iraq? We, the Iraqi people, don’t know.

And the question is, why is all the money being shared by the 1 percent who are ruling Iraq and the U.S. administration and all these multinational companies, while the Iraqi widows cannot even have $150 as a salary? Most of the widows we’ve met in our organization do not have one penny coming into their pockets. No government finds themselves accountable for the women of Iraq, who have been turned deprived because of this war.
And I would like to add one thing. There is a new generation of women and men in Iraq who are totally illiterate. You see a woman in her twenties. She might have children, or not, and that’s another story about the widows. But she has witnessed no schooling because of the sectarian war, because of the war on Iraq. It’s a generation of illiteracy in Iraq, while, before this war, you know, we know that Iraq in the 1980s, and even in the following years, it had the highest literacy rate in the Arab world.

And the last point I would like to add, and I would have liked you to ask me about it, is the Arab Spring, when it started in Iraq, specifically on the day of February 25. When the government held a curfew in all the Iraqi cities, especially in Baghdad, we had to walk three hours to reach to the Tahrir Square of Baghdad, and 25,000 people were in that square expressing their political will that this is not the political system that they want to rule them—the Islamist government of the Shia, who is oppressing all the others, the Sunni, who are oppressed in the west, the ethnic divisions on the people.

And mind you, the gender divisions? In the Tahrir Square of Baghdad, many of us women were there, and we were so respected. Nobody told us to put on the veil on, while in these days the prime minister’s office is spreading out policies that all the female workers in the public sector will have to wear decent dress code—decent as in respecting our culture. The prime minister is imposing a mentality of discriminating against women based on Islamic sharia, while the demonstrators of the Arab Spring in Iraq want an egalitarian society.

And one thing that this new democracy, so-called democracy, proved in Iraq is that they were the best in oppressing the Arab Spring in Iraq. They sent us police, army and anti-riot groups to shoot us with live ammunition in the Tahrir Square. They detained and they tortured hundreds and thousands of us demonstrators. And this is because we only led a free demonstration.

And this is not only one demonstration. All the Fridays since the beginning of February have witnessed demonstrations in the main squares of Iraq—Baghdad, Sulaymaniyah, Basra, Samarra, all of Baghdad. People went into the squares, and there were no slogans of asking for a religious government. The U.S. administration came into Iraq: it divided the Iraqi people according to religion, according to their sect, according to their ethnicity. It’s divide and conquer. And now the women are the biggest loser in all of this. We went to the Iraqi squares. We demonstrated. The Arab Spring was there very strongly but got oppressed in ways that were new to Iraqi people. Anti-riot police of the American style was something that we witnessed there. The big vehicles that sprayed us with the hot water, polluted water, pushed us out of these squares. And sound bombs were thrown at us, live ammunition, the full works. This is not a democratic country. And it is not united, because it’s being divided into Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanar, I wanted to end by going back to the beginning, if you will, going back to 2003 to the words of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld after the fall of Baghdad.

DEFENSE SECRETARY DONALD RUMSFELD: Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad, are breathtaking. Watching them, one cannot help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. We are seeing history unfold, events that will shape the course of a country, the fate of a people, and potentially the future of the region.
AMY GOODMAN: That was Donald Rumsfeld in 2003. Yanar, we have 30 seconds. Your final response?

YANAR MOHAMMED: I think that the victims and the parents of the victims of this war, the half-a-million dead of this war, were not invited to the celebration of the U.S. and the military in Baghdad. They should have been invited to give their say about this Iraqi war that left their families hungry and poor and really unable and helpless.

AMY GOODMAN: Yanar Mohammed, I want to thank you for being with us, president of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq.

CNN Heroes: Soap, Water, Land, Shelter, are all Feminist Issues

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 21:12:00 +0000

Diane Latiker Nonprofit: Kids Off the Block What it does: Gives young people in Chicago a place to hang out and learn valuable life skills so they can stay off the streets and away from rampant gang violence
Diane says: "What I want people to know is that the work that I and so many others do can literally be the difference between life and death for a generation that seems to have lost all hope. ... If I can make a change in a generation, then my community's going to get better -- because they're going to be the ones that take it over."
Exploring the issue: In several cities around the world, streetwise "interrupters" are trying to stop teen violence before it starts.
Donate to Kids Off the Block

Robin Lim Nonprofit: Yayasan Bumi Sehat What it does: Offers free prenatal care, birthing services and medical aid to low-income women in Indonesia
Robin says: "Because the cost of childbirth often exhausts the family's income, the poor and even the middle-income people of the world find themselves in a downward spiral of suffering and loss, just when they should be celebrating the births of their babies."
Exploring the issue: Many women in the developing world do not have access to contraception or maternal care.
Donate to Yayasan Bumi Sehat

Derreck Kayongo
Nonprofit: Global Soap Project What it does: Collects partially used hotel soap in the United States, reprocesses it and then sends it abroad to save lives in impoverished countries
Derreck says: "Because of our work, this world is going to be a better place than we found it -- with no soap being thrown away and with no child or woman ... or any vulnerable populous left without a bar of soap to fend off disease."
Exploring the issue: In developing countries around the world, millions of children lack access to soap and clean water.
Donate to Global Soap Project

What appears above is from *here*.

Watching CNN's annual presentation of honors to various activists around the world, called CNN Heroes, reminds me, once again, of how many issues there are facing women and girls around the world. Far more issues than face those of us who are relatively wealthy, sheltered, and regionally advantaged.

Soap is needed to cleanse the skin of lethal bacteria. Clean, safe, accessible, free water is needed to live and be well. Unpoisoned and unoccupied land is a requirement for self-determination, community, spiritual health, and overall well-being. If one's land and water is occupied and possessed, or ravaged and poisoned by corporate power, by men, or by White-World settlers and invaders, it is difficult to sustain one's own life and the life of one's people. Safe, sturdy shelter is an increasingly rare thing. For women and girls to be physically safe, walls must offer protection from harmful forces both outside and inside.

What CNN Heroes does is to highlight (for two hours each year) activism by individuals, not collective activism designed to overthrow tyrannical and oppressive regimes, including regimes of men warring against women and girls. You will not hear the terms "white supremacy" or "male supremacy" or "the savage blood-thirst of the Western World" named as such in programs produced for CNN. It will honor amazing individuals only as long as those individuals do not publicly call for massive systemic change that disadvantages US corporate, raced, and patriarchal power.

What would the effect on the world be if all Western news media reported 24 hours a day/365 days a year on the necessity and value of anti-oppression activism? When will activists be given more than a few minutes to express thanks to CNN and instead detail how US corporate and military (patriarchal, imperialist) power murders millions of people, mostly poor, of color, and female?

When will Anderson Cooper speak to this in ways that educate his audience to the systemic, institutionalised dimensions of the harms spoken of in this annual special? I wonder. Because as long as the masses of media consumers are led to think that globalised atrocities and injustices are caused by unorganised or merely unfortunate events, we are left ignorant about how to properly support those activists who are working for radical social-political-economic change. And how to be those activists too.

Hiding in Plain White: the problem of protecting institutionalised power in allegedly radical political theory and practice

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:03:00 +0000

archived photo of feminist activists is from here

Across the web and offline as well, there are many arguments being made about "men" or "women" or "transgender people" that fail to mention this: only a small minority of people in any of those groups are speaking on behalf of everyone else.

So, we ubiquitously hear white rich men speak about the value of capitalism all the while ignoring how it is fused to both white and male supremacy. They do not speak for "the 99%" of men who do not benefit from capitalism.

We also hear socially empowered transgender people speak about what it means to be trans, using elitist terms like "transmisogyny" and "cisgender" without considering that most trans people are cisgender and most trans people internalise misogyny that is acted out against women and trans people too. We also see some white lesbians speak out against trans people as if trans = M2F or F2M transsexual people. As someone who has described myself as intergender--a politically problematic term I continue to wrestle with--I see most trans people as not being described or represented anywhere in dominant social discourse.

The invisiblisation of most trans people, most women, and most men, by social elites, be they whites, men, or the wealthy, is part of the problem for those of us seeking to end all forms of oppression and for those seeking to survive those systems of callousness and cruelty.

When we put forth theory or advise others on political practice, we ought to consider who we speak for, who we represent, and who has the ability to do what we promote if we promote acts of resistence and revolution. To what extent are our views white? To what extent do they reinforce male supremacy? Do our theories center the experiences of girls and women of color? Of women who do not live in white-majority countries? Of women who are not part of the Western world?

This blog supports the work of women who name how race, region, sexuality, and class impacts their own and other women's lives. Whites--women and men--who refuse to do this are not acting in radical ways. Pretending "white-majority" views are not only representative of all women but are also radically feminist is a well-known practice of misogyny and racism both: it is white male supremacy in action. What's "radical" about that?

A Call for Contributors to Black IS an Emotion: Essays on the de-racialization of Queers of Color by their White Lovers

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 22:12:00 +0000

photo is from here

This was sent to me and I hope some of the readers of this blog will find (or be) contributors:

Black IS an Emotion: Essays on the de-racialization of Queers of Color by their White Lovers

White lovers who have attempted to diminish our right to have a wide spectrum of emotions by attaching negative and racially charged connotations to things we say: “I’m afraid,” “hurting,” “lonely” or “unsure,” suggests that there is still not enough honest discussion occurring in interracial relationships. In our attempts to understand and support our partners in their quest for wholeness, legitimacy, direction and self-awareness, we often put aside the essence of who we are, thereby allowing ourselves to be compartmentalized into “lesser” roles, such as: caretaker, sounding board, strong and/or silent other.

As lesbians and gay men of color, we believe that turning a wide range of personal experiences into literary disquisitions on racism in intimate interracial relationships, might in some way illuminate our own internal struggles at locating, naming and ultimately reversing the slow erosion of our unique identities/voice. We ask: “Have we, for the sake of love and/or acceptance, allowed ourselves to become racially and culturally neutered in order to make our lovers more comfortable being next to ‘our skin?’” Have we allowed our emotions to become pathologized?

Through an interdisciplinary approach--relying in part on anti-categorical complexity to intersectionality as a possible jumping off point for discussion--this project will explore the largely unexamined issues of race/racism/sexuality in interracial queer relationships.

We are interested in engaging work that questions the social, political and racial divides within interracial relationships. Writers should avoid the over-use of jargon as this work seeks to present nuanced ideas in clear, straightforward language that will appeal to a broad audience.

Criteria

Send an 850 word abstract via email attachment to Monalesia Earle at: soho2paris@gmail.com or Russell Campbell at: rhotsoup@aol.com

The deadline for abstracts is December 15, 2011.

For general enquiries: soho2paris@gmail.com

Include a cover page with your contact information and a brief biographical statement of approximately 150 words. Final essays will be approximately 3,500 to 5,000 words, with an estimated deadline (if abstracts and the subsequent proposal is accepted by a publisher) of March 2012. Please put “BIAE” in the subject line.

Pornography: Andrea Dworkin (1991) a British documentary about her work against graphic sexxxism

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 21:49:00 +0000

portrait of Andrea Dworkin is from here

What is sometimes forgotten when one considers Andrea's work against the pornographers, pimps, traffickers, and men who consume pornography as a way to get a sexual male supremacy fix as well as another lesson in how to be a misogynist, is that Dworkin was not a single-issue activist. Her work was against white and male supremacy and that included a lot of social-economic-political terrain.

The problem with the pornography industry, first and foremost, is that it is white and male supremacist and promotes anti-woman and anti-feminist practices in men. It also promotes those practices in women and trans people too.

When I hear her addressing an audience or crowd, what strikes me is that it is so uncommon for anyone in media or in front of a camera to be deeply outraged by any form of structural violence that targets women and girls specifically and systematically, perhaps most especially if the women and girls are not privileged by class and race. We all know that the chances of dominant media caringly, insightfully, and consistently reporting on the disappearance and murder of poor women and girls of color are low to non-existent.

To hear Andrea address a group on political matters is to be reminded of what an appropriate response is to white and male supremacist and racist-misogynist violence.

Here is the link to the documentary, on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9j7-zZks08

Yeah, what they said... Lierre Keith, Debbie Cameron, and Joan Scanlon on Radical Feminist Theory and, for example, Liberal Queer Theory

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 17:48:00 +0000

I just want to place these discussions front and center for the time being, for others to read, listen to, and find clarity of political purpose within.

First up: Debbie Cameron and Joan Scanlon *here*.

Second, third, and fourth up, these videos by Lierre Keith:

Liberal vs. Radical, and the Politics of Critique

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 19:53:00 +0000

image is from here

I begin by asking: what's problematic or privileged about categorising differences in strategies to challenge the status quo “liberal vs. radical”? I don't want that question ignored or to pretend it ought not exist.

I move on to say: my experience is that there are dominant ideologies ruling the society I live in and that white and male supremacist pro-capitalist liberalism is one of them, with white and male supremacist pro-capitalist conservatism being another. “Radical” is a term used a lot of different ways by people all along the dominant political spectrum, but it is also used by people off that spectrum too.

I am working to be one of the people off the spectrum. That means I am conscientiously trying to figure out strategies for surviving and overcoming CRAP (corporate racist atrocious patriarchy) that is responsive to the struggles of people with less social privilege and structural advantages than I have.

I see unacknowledged liberal perspectives and points of view far more than I see radical ones, as I understand those terms, anyway.

For example: I see people write about ideas as if they are exactly as powerful as systems of brutal force exercised against people in order to oppress and kill them. I consider that part of what Liberalism in my “Western” country wants us to believe, so that if someone is said to be “a Communist”, “we” will all be more afraid of them than if they say they are a “Capitalist”.

Another example: I see people treat, act out, and discuss gender as if it were more a matter of difference than of dominance (in patriarchal societies the ruling ideology and system of force, violation, and control is male supremacy: dominance of people who are not men by dominant men; especially: the subordination and gynocide of girls and women by men).

Another example: I see people treat race as a matter of difference than a matter of white supremacist violence and control of people who white supremacists do not consider to be white.

Another example: Among region-, class-, and/or education-privileged people, I see the privileging of gender over sex when discussing “oppression by gender and sex”. Part of this involves considering the core social-political problem “the gender binary” rather than experiencing or naming it as male supremacy and female subordination. Part of the this involves considering the problem as being limited to two choices (girl or boy, woman or man) rather than two gendered realities being enforced and rigidly controlled within a virulently and violently girl-hating and woman-hating male supremacist society.

“Radical Queer” or “Sex Radical” are two terms often used to describe people who consider the social practice of transgression to be politically and structurally revolutionary, or to describe people who don't consider the need for revolution at all. For example: many people see Western Civilisation as basically good but in need of being more tolerant of “deviates” (a term reclaimed by some radical queers and sex radicals as affirmative) and non-dominant people. I see the problem more as this: Western Civilisation, capitalism, white supremacy, male supremacy, heterosexism, ecocide, and anti-Indigenism.

I see transgression as more or less acceptable within the dominant society, more or less tolerated depending on region. (In parts of San Francisco, transgressive actions and behavior may be tolerated—which ought not be taken to mean that people who transgress some boundaries are always safe or free from violence from the most terroristic and controlling members of society. I see revolutionary action, for the most part, as not tolerated at all anywhere. I see transgressors calling things that are oppressive to many people “acceptable” such as sexual violence and sexual abuse. I see revolutionaries seeking to end sexual violence and sexual abuse.

A practical matter is this: given how anti-revolutionary and anti-radical society is, most of us grow up only having liberal-to-conservative forms of naming and understanding available to us. That means many of us will use liberal terms if we have experiences and responses to us that place us outside various norms. We may then consider identifying with those differences as “radical” whether or not they are. Is it “radical” to be a vegetarian or a vegan in a meat-producing society? I'd say no. But I think some v'gans would say yes. Is it “revolutionary” to be into bdsm? I'd say definitely not. But I think some people into bdsm might not agree with me.

One of the components of having a radical perspective on social matters is that everything must be open to being interrogated including the terms we use to describe ourselves. I see it as a profoundly and problematically liberal-to-conservative posture of many social dominants, and some subordinates, that such questioning, in and of itself, is seen only as a threat, not a constructive activity. As Pearl Cleage writes, it is incumbant on social dominants, when challenged by social subordinates, to maintain a posture of listening, openness, and humility, rather than a posture of self-centered and too often aggressive defence. It is argued that the interrogations by subordinates brought to dominants ought to happen in ways that are not overtly violent and in ways that are not designed to be terrifying and shaming. But some of those guidelines are likely shaped by privilege and an unowned wish to maintain oppressive power structures, or a fear of being assertive and appearing non-accommodating and not deferential to social dominants. Those of us who have occupied positions of social subordination learn quickly to appear to appease our masters or risk being harmed either individually or as a group.

One key question I ask in critique of that point about style of critique is this: when people who are systematically harmed by a social and structural practice—a practice that is enforced and controlled by an oppressive group and by institutions—how “shaming” and “terrifying” is it to the oppressive group to hear criticism of that practice? That is, what are the politics of “feeling shamed and terrified”? I bring this into focus because many whites feel very threatened and in danger around many different people of color (regardless of what the people of color are doing) while white supremacy in practice, in society, in reality, systematically snuffs out the lives of people of color while most whites don't give a damn in visible ways—and even more rarely in well-organised ways. Men often speak about fearing being shamed by women. (While women speak or remain silent about fearing being killed by men.)

A privilege of many oppressors is to equate what happens interpersonally and subjectively with what happens externally, institutionally, to groups of people. So “feeling and being hurt, harmed, degraded, or oppressed by someone's words” is equated with “feeling and being hurt, harmed, degraded, or oppressed by individuals' verbal actions and institutional non-verbal actions”. In my liberal society, a woman calling a man a prick is the same kind of harm as a man calling a woman a “c—t”. Liberals I know believe there is a war between the sexes. I believe there is a war among the sexes: men's war on women.

In conservative society, a man being insulted or disrespected by a woman individually or anecdotally is a much greater offence, or speech crime, than a man insulting or disrespecting a woman interpersonally and systematically.

Liberals, operating out of a value for an abstract idea of “fairness” and “equality” might condemn me for writing out the word “prick” but not spelling out the word “c—t”. But I don't see the terms as equal in their capacity to do harm, and nowhere is fairness practiced systematically. In the real world, women are called c—t (or the b word, or any number of other misogynist terms) before being punched and beaten by a man. Or when scripted and videotaped by a corporate pimp's photographer to mass produce misogyny sold as “hot sex” for male consumers. I know of no men at all who were beaten by women while the women called the man a prick.

Abstraction of values is a key tool of the liberal worldview in which lived ethics are assumed to be present institutionally and meaningfully prior to coming into existence. Liberals tend to abstract or isolate social phenomena in ways that either disappear institutional and structural realities or downplay their significance and role in maintaining systems of oppressive harm and horror. Or, the institutional and structural dimensions of harm and horror are only paid lip service to but are not substantively addressed in critique or other action.

So, for example, words used to shame and harm people are thought to exist on an as yet non-existent playing field. In my world, words are one tool used by oppressors against the oppressed in many social, political, economic war zones. Playing fields are mined and dangerous. Wars don't happen between sexes: they happen by men against women. Wars also are perpetrated by adults against children; by whites against people of color; by the rich against the poor; by settler-colonist-imperialists against Indigenous Peoples; by the white-dominated Global North against the non-white American, African, and Asian Global South; by structurally dominant humans against the Earth and its living beings.

While there may well be various forms of social privilege layered into the practice of radicals naming some political strategies of resistance and challenge to oppressive controlling forces liberal and not radical (or, transgressive but not transformative, or rebellious but not revolutionary), I find meaning and value in at least preliminarily identifying such differences in perspective and approach among members of CRAP-loaded societies. I do this hopefully with sensitivity to their various locations as both privileged and marginalised people. By and large, in my experience, it is the radicals who see the problem with liberalism; self-identifying liberals, in practice, in my experience, hold little to no comprehensive critique of their own paradigmatic beliefs, terms, or agendas. And, for me, systematic critique is a fundamental, crucial tool for radical (not liberal or conservative) social change.

Andrea Dworkin on Transsexuality, and my own thoughts on Trans and "Rad Fem" Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 21:19:00 +0000

image of book cover is from here

There is an update following the main post, which is below.

Earlier this year I wrote a great deal here about concerns regarding liberal queer politics, including liberal trans politics. Please see those posts for more detailed discussion on those topics, if you wish to. In this post I'll take on some current mischaracterisations and oversimplifications of radical feminism. (I've also posted a fair amount here over the years about misogynist men's nonsense about radical feminists. This post won't concern itself with those virulent anti-feminists.)

Any time anyone speaks of what "those radical feminists" or "those radical lesbian feminists" are doing, or believe, or feel, I'm skeptical to disappointed. For one thing, when "they" are accurately referenced, the criticism of radical feminism tends to reference only a very few region-, race-, and academically-privileged white women.

Two women who get touted as exemplars of radical feminism are Mary Daly and Janice Raymond. So let me begin by saying that while Mary Daly and Janice Raymond are two voices in the herstory of US radical feminism of the last forty years, they aren't "US radical lesbian feminism" to me. Alice Walker and Audre Lorde are two key voices in US radical lesbian feminism. Their work has had a much greater impact on me. Why are they rarely-to-NEVER referred to when anti-radical feminist spokespeople are expressing their own critiques?

One answer is racism: the obnoxious and erroneous contention that all radical feminists are white women is but a wee part of the on-going effort within and beyond the cultivators and purveyors of anti-feminism to erase women of color from the "canon" of radical feminist writers and activists. Another answer is that Lorde and Walker's written views and values don't necessarily match up with those of Daly and Raymond. And this inconvenience for those who wish to lump all radical feminists together as being all "transphobic" or "anti-male" or "anti-sex", isn't so easy if one contends with the depth and breadth of US radical feminist writings.

Personally, I never read Janice Raymond during the long years of my own initial education in radical feminism. I've read very little by Mary Daly. Neither woman represents "radical feminism" to me, while I fully acknowledge the significant--and amazing--contribution to radical lesbian feminist thealogy by Mary Daly. As noted above, Lorde and Walker, and also Andrea Dworkin, have been far more influential in teaching me what radical feminism can do in responsible theory and activist practice.

I found what follows typed up online, on a Tumblr account called Head Girl (*here*), and so cannot vouch for the accuracy of the text, but it sounds like what I remember reading in Woman Hating (1974). I'm checking online for the text and from what I can find there are several inaccuracies in what was at the Tumblr page and so I've made some corrections in what appears below.

Transsexuality

How can I really care if we win “the Revolution”? Either way, any way, there will be no place for me.

A transsexual friend, in conversation

Transsexuality is currently considered a gender disorder, that is, a person learns a gender role which contradicts his/her visible sex. It is a “disease” with a cure: a sex-change operation will change the person’s visible sex and make it consonant with the person’s felt identity.

Since we know very little about sex identity, and since psychiatrists are committed to the propagation of the cultural structure as it is, it would be premature and not very intelligent to accept the psychiatric judgment that transsexuality is caused by a faulty socialization. More probably, transsexuality is caused by faulty society. Transsexuality can be defined as one particular formation of our general multisexuality which is unable to achieve its natural development because of extremely adverse social conditions.

There is no doubt that in the culture of male-female discreteness, transsexuality is a disaster for the individual transsexual. Every transsexual, white, black, man, woman, rich, poor, is in a state of primary emergency (see p. 185) as a transsexual. There are 3 crucial points here. One, every transsexual has the right to survival on his/her own terms. That means every transsexual is entitled to a sex-change operation, and it should be provided by the community as one of its functions. This is an emergency measure for an emergency condition.

Two, by changing our premises about men and women, role-playing and polarity, the social situation of transsexuals will be transformed, and transsexuals will be integrated into community, no longer persecuted and despised.

Three, community built on androgynous identity will mean the end of transsexuality as we know it. Either the transsexual will be able to expand his/her sexuality into a fluid androgyny, or, as roles disappear, the phenomenon of transsexuality will disappear and that energy will be transformed into new modes of sexual identity and behavior.

Andrea Dworkin, in Woman Hating, 1974

At another blog called Transmeditations, with posts written by Joelle Ruby Ryan, there was a post documenting tensions between a few non-trans radical feminist-identified people and one trans-identified person (who I believe also identifies as a radical feminist). The account of what happened is one person's experience of it; I've heard differing accounts by people who were also there about inaccuracies in Joelle's description. But of course that is likely to be the case with any upsetting or triggering experience.

I've commented there, most recently to another commenter. I just saw that my comment was not posted (so far) and I'd like it to be on record here. First, the link to the post and comments is *here*.

Amber is the name of the recent commenter. Here's that comment edited slightly (please see the full comment in context at the site linked to above), and after that is my response to her:

[...] The vicious hate related here truly upset me. Dont these so-called “rad-fems” understand that the people they hate so badly are real people with real things and that they detest am entire group of people, with no reason, who mean them no harm and who are often a great danger but only to themselves.

amber said this on October 26, 2011 at 11:26 pm | Reply

Hi amber,
I know of countless examples of trans-identified people demonstrating willful, purposefully aimed misogyny and anti-feminism at lesbians. From arrogantly insisting on invading lesbian spaces, to disrespecting lesbians interpersonally, I’ve seen it happen and I have read so many accounts of it happening that I really have to challenge, as woefully inaccurate, the statement you make above. Misogyny and anti-lesbianism is flourishing right now in many queer spaces. Gay and bi men have been perpetrating it for decades and more recently far too many trans people do too. Do you doubt that?
JulianReal said this on Your comment is awaiting moderation. November 3, 2011 at 8:39 pm |Reply

I probably ought to note that people who identify as "rad fem" are not necessarily representatives of radical feminist thought or exemplars of radical feminist practice. I'll tell you a story that illustrates the necessity of me making that point. A pro-radical, pro-feminist male I know told me a year or more ago that he was considering giving up on radical feminism as a valid political theory and practice. I asked him why. He told me that he found some of the beliefs there absurd, such as the anti-sex viewpoints. I told him that radical feminism, in my experience, isn't anti-sex at all. He referenced an online discussion among a few privileged white women that did seem to be anti-sex. I suggested that he not assign to those few women what is most notable and necessary from the vast writings and activism by radical feminist women. It hadn't really occurred to him to doubt the validity of what some "Rad Fem"- identified women said as allegedly accurate about "radical feminist" on the whole. So if Amber is also referring to a few privileged white women online who express themselves as if speaking for all of radical feminism, that might be important to know.

Given the significant contributions to radical feminist theory and practice made by heterosexual and other non-lesbian women, radical lesbian feminism and radical lesbian politics are not the sum total of radical feminism. In fact, I know of at least one Radical Lesbian who doesn't ascribe to what many "traditional" radical feminists believe about gender and sexual oppression. And I know of another woman who has identified more as a revolutionary lesbian feminist than as a radical lesbian feminist for most of her long activist life. Her own views are different than either the Radical Lesbian woman I am referring to or the views of many other radical feminists.

All of this should help build a case for the danger or saying that a single person or group's viewpoints are representative of what all radical feminists believe and do. I find the whole herstory of radical feminist accomplishments--named as such in writing and in life, to be complex, compelling, and anything but monolithic, which isn't to say the term "radical feminism" refers to anything at all.

But the assumption that some online and offline white, class-privileged trans activists or spokespeople--who often enough seem to speak for all trans people--do no harm and mean no harm is nonsense. There are too many examples of gross insensitivity and blatant hateful behavior towards radical lesbian feminist people to pretend that all actions by trans people are benign and free of misogyny and anti-feminism. (How could it be, really, that trans people, as one of many diverse populations of people--many of whom don't identify as "trans"--are free of misogyny and anti-feminism? I know of no group of people who have managed to accomplish that, including the group "radical feminists".)

I don't know what Andrea Dworkin would say about the various contests for safe space and the power to name reality that are currently occurring between those two groups in some places on- and off-line. I also wouldn't presume to know. What I've found in Andrea's writing is a commitment to name male supremacy wherever and whenever it exists, displays itself, and asserts dominance in social and personal spaces. I've seen some trans and many more non-trans people be (or, rather: act) male supremacist in many different ways, almost never owning the male supremacy embedded in the behaviors.

I think there is plenty to critique in contemporary liberal, white, class-privileged trans and non-trans understandings of gender and social justice. I make it a point to have this blog be a space that values such critique. And people telling me I'm "transphobic" or "anti-male" for doing so won't silence me. I find those sorts of accusations typical derailing strategies almost always by people with significant social privilege and power. And I see such strategies being designed and implemented to stop the radical inquiries and interrogations, not deepen and expand them.

Andrea Dworkin's own views developed and deepened. She has critiqued some of what she wrote in Woman Hating and that self-critique may be found in a 1998 book by Cindy Jenefsky titled Without Apology: Andrea Dworkin's Art and Politics. Part of Dworkin's own critique has to do with lack of interrogation of the Freudian influence she accepted in her own understandings of sexuality in her first feminist book. I have never read anything else she wrote since that demonstrates a lessening of regard and respect for transsexual people, however. (Please see the update in purple for more.)

9 Nov. 2011 UPDATE:
I just found this post, which is a cross-post from other Tumblr accounts but is added to at The Trans Woman's Anti-Violence Project:
http://transfeminism.tumblr.com/post/12371381560/andrea-dworkin-wasnt-a-friend-to-trans-people

As an anti-misogyny/anti-patriarchal violence activist, I don't agree with the writer's assessment or conclusions. I think regarding Andrea's views as identical to Jan Raymond's is a spurious thing to do: Andrea had her own voice. What she wrote in her own voice is what should be used to either agree with or disagree with her, not the writings of other women. The guilt by association tactic for condemning a writer-activist is not a respectable or responsible thing to do, imo.

The fact that Andrea didn't speak directly to this issue after writing Woman Hating means something. What it means is up for interpretation, of course. But what I know about Andrea is that she was a deeply compassionate person towards anyone who enduring the violence and violations of male supremacist harm and horror. I do not know Jan Raymond at all. But I did know Andrea and I regard Dworkin's work as a tremendously important resource, theoretical base, and activist approach to all anti-misogyny work. That someone is framing her work as being pro-misogyny (supportive of misogyny directed at some trans people) is rather absurd to me. On that Tumblr page, there is a statement about Dworkin's promotion of "androgyny" as being terrifying. I'm troubled that an idea in a book that has no institutional or social support in the actual world, is regarded as more of a threat than the rampant, unowned, unacknowledged white and male supremacy inside and outside white-dominated queer communities. Here is that passage:

Also, I think Dworkin’s militant advocacy for replacing the sex binary with a monolithic compulsive androgyny is terrifying. Androgyny as the socially enforced norm would lead to something like the gender repression featured in “The Outcast” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, or Tobi Hill-Meyer’s The Genderfellator.
privilegedandgoodlooking:

“Andrea Dworkin (yes, THAT Andrea Dworkin) on Trans people: …
WOMAN HATING- by Andrea Dworkin 1974
BRB, Continuing to be amazed that Dworkin is like, right next to Raymond and Delay as the patron saints of 2nd wave hardline anti-trans stances.
(via unobject)

As discussed a bit below in the initial post I wrote recently, Dworkin repudiated what was in parts of Woman Hating and what she believed in 1973 and 1974 ought not be held against her, given the amount of more thorough work she did on male supremacy in the twenty years that followed.

I find it troubling that people working to stop misogyny don't attach that work to addressing and challenging male privilege and male supremacy in our lives--including in the lives of people who are queer and trans. I experience that as far more terrifying than Dworkin's later-rejected theory of androgyny from a book published over 35 years ago.

CRAPPY HALLOWEEN: The Today Show, Brian Williams, Rock Center, and their collective CROCK OF CRAP

noreply@blogger.com (Julian Real) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:25:00 +0000

The CRAP-loaded media has been pissing me off a lot lately. I'll highlight a few reasons why.

Watch at 2:20 into this clip from the Today Show. How many things are disgustingly wrong with dressing a white-appearing woman and a chihuahua in "Indian Chief" costumes?

The Today Show cast, writers, and producers, and the writers and producers for Brian Williams and Rock Center are collectively nothing more than shills and sold-out vehicles for the Racist-Misogynist Right-wing and for ecocidal Big Oil.

On the Today Show on Halloween, there was an unbelievably blatant display of white supremacist racism. There was a segment on costumes for human and dog, and it was presented as a fashion show. Much to my disgust and horror (not the kind one might expect on Halloween), a white-appearing woman and a dog she was carrying came out dressed in what I can only refer to as a perverse native Amerikkkan costume: feathered headdress on each of them and a “Pocahontas”-type dress on the woman. And no one—not Matt Lauer or anyone else bothering to comment on how inappropriate, hurtful, and racist such an exploitive display of religious and cultural callousness and cruelty is. In case Matt and other NBC news and entertainment cronies are not aware of it, we live in a country where genocide against American Indians is on-going, and one of the ways it occurs is by appropriating and exploiting Native American cultures and religions; also by honoring with holidays the genocidal rapist savage named Christopher Columbus and by celebrating the beginning of the end of life as it was lived for thousands of years on Turtle Island, when Murderous Settlers sat down with Wampanoag Indians in "New England". See the following link for more:

http://www.uaine.org/dom.htm

We are also being fed the most racist-misogynist story--an endless story about how missing white girls and women matter, and missing or murdered girls and women of color do not:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/295168/nbc-today-show-investigator-takes-tour-of-missing-baby%E2%80%99s-home

Let's read a report about all the stories that are "too dark" for the Today Show and the NBC Nightly News to report on:

http://madamenoire.com/79158/no-one-misses-the-missing-black-girls/

Also on NBC is a new "news" program hosted by the nightly news anchor for NBC, Brian Williams. It is called “Rock Center” for Rockefeller Center in mid-town Manhattan. Let's keep in mind that Rockefellers helped make Corporate Capitalism the sleazy, greedy, unjust system it is. The Rockefellers have been the largest beneficiaries of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed makes damn sure the Filthy Rich stay ever filthier and even richer. For more, please see here: http://www.apfn.net/doc-100_bankruptcy27.htm

The first story of the hour was about there is an economic oasis in this miserable-for-the-middle-class economy. (This is an economy and economic system that has been miserable and murderous for working poor people for far longer than three years.) The media loves to toss us bones and pretend it is good news. In this case it's worse than that. There is no oasis, only the opportunity to make Big Oil Execs and their Shareholders ever more filthy rich than they already are. In a small town in Montana fracking is taking over, destroying the Earth, using up and polluting water, and turning the land of the Black Feet into wasteland. It is being funded by Big Oil and we are led to believe “it's all good” there. There's absolutely nothing sustainable about what's going on. It's same old ecocidal, genocidal atrocity packaged up NBC with by Brian Williams as the friendly-faced deliverer of more bad news that he actually believes is good. White people get to move there and get jobs doing awful things. They may get a house for a home out of it. When oil is no longer in the rocks there, the economy will die and the area will likely become a Ghost Town.

Let's see how sleazily the story-writers for Brian Williams and the very white Harry Smith evade responsibility for the systemic problems with the US globalised economy, which murders millions worldwide and is utterly unsustainable. Instead of responsible reporting, we are told that all any one needs is "opportunity" which is code for "Our immoral economic system will not offer you any meaningful way to live; but if you're privileged enough, or are willing to do work that most people cannot do, you may get the chance to earn enough money to stay in debt for the rest of your life."

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/boomtown-north-dakota-town-becomes-hot-job-market/60kg0iy?cpkey=70e0703b-3ba2-434e-aabb-1c56c22aecf9%7c%7c%7c%7c

See, for the unacknowledged future of the story above:

From Boomtown to Ghost Town
Overview:
In order to fully understand the geographic concept of natural resource use, students should learn about the ways that resource extraction affects the physical and human landscape. In this lesson, they will discuss how a specific economic activity in a region can facilitate the creation of towns, which often turn into ghost towns if the economic activity ends.

On the same program, xenophobia, racism, and misogyny combined forces to produce a vile segment on the danger of Chinese women coming the US to give birth, so that their child is US-born and entitled to all that the US has to offer, such as a failing (and murderous) economic system, gross and rampant racism, wholesale destruction of the Earth, and heteropatriarchal practices that the US Right thinks are good for what ails Amerikkka. While it was noted that not many women from China are actually doing what the report said Chinese women are doing, it was also noted, in a way that made me think FOX News and NBC were now one and the same, that any and every incident of this occurring was an outrage and must be stopped.

From *the Asian Nation website*:

Empress Tsu-his ruled China from 1898 to 1908 from the Dragon Throne. The New York Times described her as "the wicked witch of the East, a reptilian dragon lady who had arranged the poisoning, strangling, beheading, or forced suicide of anyone who had ever challenged her autocratic rule." The shadow of the Dragon Lady -- with her cruel, perverse, and inhuman ways -- continued to darken encounters between Asian women and the West they flocked to for refuge.

Far from being predatory, many of the first Asian women to come to the U.S. in the mid-1800s were disadvantaged Chinese women, who were tricked, kidnapped, or smuggled into the country to serve the predominantly male Chinese community as prostitutes. The impression that all Asian women were prostitutes, born at that time, "colored the public perception of, attitude toward, and action against all Chinese women for almost a century," writes historian Sucheng Chan.

Police and legislators singled out Chinese women for special restrictions "not so much because they were prostitutes as such (since there were also many White prostitutes around) but because -- as Chinese -- they allegedly brought in especially virulent strains of venereal diseases, introduced opium addiction, and enticed White boys into a life of sin," Chan also writes. Chinese women who were not prostitutes ended up bearing the brunt of the Chinese exclusion laws that passed in the late 1800s.

Racist-Misogynist Corporate greed and exploitation of the poor, working class, and middle class is apparently not an outrage to The Filthy Rich. Neither is the destruction of the Earth. Why doesn't Brian Williams report on the history and present of forced sterilisation of women of color in the US? Why doesn't the CROCK Center report on how Right-wing Republican cockholes work so diligently to control US women of color's and white women's reproductive organs and choices? Would such reports reveal that it is not Chinese women who exploit and abuse our system, but rather Filthy Rich White US Men?

What “offends” the big white cockholes who run this country is a very few Chinese women coming here. Last time I checked—and thanks to a friend of mine for reminding me of this—the US is heavily indebted to China because The Filthy Rich have run what was an apparently functional (while completely dysfunctional and deadly) economic system into the ground, where it now must blow water into rocks to get oil and call that “good”.

Why doesn't Brian get any other point of view—utilising all the many news reporters and newscasters he boasts will be appearing on the program over the weeks—on things like fracking, the harm of Big Oil to people, animals, and the Earth, and xenophobic racism and misogyny? Is Brian not able to do this? Is he just a puppet for his show's corporate producers. (Yes, he is.) Brian Williams is not allowed to say anything at all that might threaten the profits of those he serves—those who have bought his soul and who own his spirit.

If he does have a soul that is not thoroughly possessed by NBC Execs and Shareholders, then let him do a half-hour interview with Dr. Vandana Shiva on all that is fucked up about fracking and Big Oil's solutions to economic problems faced by the middle class. The sad truth is that even if he wanted to do it, his bosses wouldn't let him. You won't see Dr. Shiva on Rock Center any time soon. The only Asian women you'll see are the ones filling up a propaganda segment pretending it is Chinese women, not white US men, ripping us off and taking advantage of our allegedly moral and honorable and good systems of governance and commerce.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/born-in-the-u-s-a-chinese-women-escape-one-child-policy/6c5e6t7

NBC wants us to believe that everything out of the friendly-faced Brian Williams' mouth is truthful and responsible, when most of what he reports is neither.

Shame on you, Brian Williams and Harry Smith--and, especially, on your writers and producers--for misleading the US public and doing so to fatten the wallets and pad the off-shore bank accounts of the Filthy Rich. Does NBC stand for Nothing But CRAP?

(Note: CRAP: corporate racist atrocious patriarchy)

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Question

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How about Susan Brownmiller?
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Links and things from the CODE RED feminist collective. Visit our website for critical Caribbean feminist commentary.

CODE RED for gender justice | Promote your Page too