"the destruction of the female species"

as usual, eve ensler has hit it out of the park with her piece on huffpo from last week.

the women of the congo still live in fear every day.

Over twelve years, this war, this brutally inconceivable violence has raged on.
Almost six million dead. Almost 500 thousand raped. You tell the story of horror
and atrocity one too many times and then you realize nothing is changing and
that the world goes on getting its minerals, supporting its luxuries and the
death, massacres rapes and tortures of millions do not matter. And then you
can't find a real reason for wanting to live in humanity or be part of this
world but you don't want to kill yourself so you start screaming out, screaming
and screaming out and then you get called intense, angry and then mad. Because
that is what people who have crossed over get called.

At what point are we all going to cross over?

let's try this- instead of these women's names sounding unfamiliar and their location seeming remote, why don't we substitute our own names and hometowns? really. read that article again, and insert your name.

Mwamirindi/Carolynn was held as a sex slave and pieces of her flesh were cut every
few days. She was raped for months and watched them rape her sister in law who
they killed and cut open and served for dinner and then when Mwamirindi/Carolynn finally escaped and returned home, she was expelled by her husband who sold her land and house and threw her and her children into the street. Now she is three months pregnant with a baby from the rapes.

terrifying, isn't it? but it is REALITY for these women.

eve calls the situation there "the destruction of the female species of the Congo".

how can it be anything else?

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in related news, evidence is piling up that the recession is indeed sparking an increase in violence against women and children domestically. BIG surprise there.

support V-day, support your local women's shelter, support your lawmakers who DO SOMETHING to stop gender-based violence (and ask those who don't if they consider their mothers, sisters, daughters and wives just collateral damage?)

more than half our population is at risk.

danger: woman ahead.

"one of the biggest dangers is to be a woman."

that particular sentence is in reference to afghanistan, but truly, it could be said of nearly every country around the globe.

for the sake of illustration however, afghanistan is the example du jour.

"Afghanistan is a country where for centuries women have been considered property -- not equals, like the constitution states. They are often beaten, raped and even sold to the highest bidder."

"Nearly 90 percent of Afghan women suffer from domestic abuse, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women. Despite that, there are less than a dozen shelters...in Afghanistan."

"In Afghanistan, a woman is blamed for the injustices she must live through."


if this happens to one woman, we all suffer.
it actually happens to millions of women every day. imagine the consequences.

reminder: the world does not consider you to be human.

i mean, if you (female reader) were considered human, your life and rights would be treated as sanctimoniously as the purported "life" which exists between two blobs of cells from the moment they touch. personhood? what about the personhood of WOMEN? living, breathing, (voting) women.

also, if you were considered human by the world at large, we wouldn't be reading another story about a woman kept prisoner for decades, raped as a matter of course, forced to bear her rapists multiple spawn, and fear for her life if she so much as thought about seeking help. this woman wasn't considered human. she was considered property. and although we've heard 3 stories like this now in the past year (Fritzl in Austria, Garrido in California, and now this Australian case), i realize it's still extreme.

what isn't extreme is the similaries between the way these women were treated and the way that women all over the world are treated every day! rape, psychological and physical torture, control over mind and body, imprisonment, threats of violence if help is sought...

every day. everywhere. we are attacked, from every angle.

it's not acceptable. we are human, and we deserve equal rights. period. full stop.

still waiting...

today is women's equality day!!!

on august 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote, took effect. and in 1923, alice paul introduced the Equal Rights Amendment, which has still not been ratified today.

"sex discrimination should be just as unconstitutional as discrimination on account of race, religion or national origin."- Laura Callow.

tell me again why can't we agree that discrimination, PERIOD, should be unconstitutional???!!!



also- look at this revolutionary photo from Glamour magazine! great analysis from ms. snarker in that post, btw.

"The beauty industry isn’t about making women feel beautiful. It’s about making us feel so horrible about ourselves for not being beautiful that we buy whatever they are selling. Making us hate who we are is a billion-dollar industry."

AND

"Right now, think of three things you don’t like about your body and then three things you love about your body. Those first three came easier, didn’t they? Now f*ck those first three things. Because only those last three things matter. We are as beautiful as we feel. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise."

and finally- more details about chris brown's abuse come out after sentencing. i know that there's probably something to be said against making such a big deal out of this case- all the sympathy rihanna has gotten just because she's a celebrity is sort of a slap in the face to all the women who are abused daily and get ZERO attention or help. but it's also a useful example of just how bad it is for women, and the national fixation is at least bringing some of these skeletons out of america's closet.

"Brown punched Rihanna... numerous times and put her in a head lock, restricting her breathing and causing her to start to lose consciousness. He threatened to beat her and kill her, according to the statement, and he bit her ear and her fingers."

clearly, women are not treated equally in the u.s., or around the world. so today,

say something about equality.

do something about equality.

support equality.

tell your state congresspeople to ratify the ERA!!!

check out http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/ and http://www.eracampaign.net/ for more info. The states that have NOT ratified the Amendment are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

recession-proof

guess which area of our society isn't feeling the pinch due to the recession? in fact, it's flourishing!

domestic abuse.

shelters are seeing increased demand for their services, and the national DV hotline has seen over a 20% jump in calls.

BUT the good news for all you abusers out there is: if you DO get caught, and somehow miraculously ARE convicted...don't worry. you'll just have to spend the equivalent of 2 months picking up some garbage while on parole.

friday screams

LOTS to scream about this week.

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forced child marraige (aka rape)
Highlights:

"World-wide 82 million girls are child brides."

"To be sure, childhood marriage is not an easy problem to address. Some of the causes are poverty, parental desire to prevent sexual relations outside of marriage, fear of rape--which would shame the family and either ostracize or lead to the murder of the victim--lack of educational opportunities for girls, and traditional notions of the primary role of women and girls as wives and mothers. It's perpetuated by religions that aim to keep women subordinate and deeply-rooted cultural norms in which men are encouraged to dominate women--If a wife is a child you can guarantee male control."

*please note- there seem to be a variety of causes listed in the paragraph above...but it's really all just different ways to say the same thing...that's self-evident, i hope.*

"Children like Kidan deserve to have a childhood."

*and, i would add, children like Kidan also deserve a FUTURE THEY CHOOSE FOR THEMSELVES.*


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ending the CULTURE of violence against women
Great article. Highlights:

"The last meaningful federal survey took place in 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration. A Department of Justice survey on the "Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence" found that nearly 25% of surveyed women said they had been raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, partner, or date. That equates to roughly 4.8 million violent attacks against women annually in this country. And many women were the victim of repeat attacks (an average of 6.9 assaults by the same partner).
The study also found that "approximately one-fifth of all rapes, one-quarter of all physical assaults, and one-half of all stalkings" experienced by women will not be reported to the police."

*Key paragraph:
"It's curious how blind we become to our own culture. We can criticize tribal Muslim societies for their abuse of women, yet fail to see how ours sometimes does the same thing. What can we do? We can support organizations like DASH, which provides alternate housing for victims of domestic violence. We can press for public policies that address domestic violence. We can speak out against the culture of violence -- a culture that's strengthened every time a women is treated like an object. "


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End the world's two deadliest wars (and save women and girls in the process)
Highlights:

"Together, Sudan and Congo represent two of Africa's largest countries, two of Africa's richest natural resource bases, two of Africa's longest wars, two of the world's deadliest conflicts in the past half century, two of the continent's most predatory governments, and two of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman or a girl. "

"Rape is employed by these conflicting groups as a tool of war and social control,..."

*who bears the brunt of the conflict, in real life, on the ground, every day? women and girls.*


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domestic violence in japan
Highlights:

"The latest data from Japan's national police find a 20 percent jump in the number of women reporting domestic violence. But advocates say there is a long way to go in a country that only criminalized family violence in 2001."

but " Forty percent of people over age 20 don't know there is a domestic violence prevention law and only 14 percent of people over 40 are familiar with it, according to the Gender Agency Bureau, based in Tokyo."

and "A Cabinet Office survey, which was conducted in October-November of last year, found that 33.2 percent of married women have experienced physical and mental abuse from their husbands"

*so, ONE THIRD of women report abuse when surveyed, but a large majority of women, especially over 40, don't even know yet that there is anything they can do to escape their abusers.*

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and finally, just a short snippet, a blurb, if you will, to top off alllllll the screaming today:

rape victim blamed for being raped at gunpoint in front of her children.

*Please people, don't ever stay at this mariott again.*

EPIC humanity FAIL.