Posted at Pisaquari’s place, Buried Alive

“From an early age I knew my ambition was to be in a plot. Or several plots–I thought of it as a career. But no plots came my way. You have to apply for them, a friend of mine had told me. He’d been around, though he hadn’t been in any plots himself, so I took his advice and went down to the plot factory. As for everything else, there was an interview. So, said the youngish bored man behind the desk, you think you’ve got what it takes to be in a plot. What sort of character did you have in mind? He was fiddling with a list, running his felt-tip pen down it. Character? I said. Yes, that’s what we do here. Plots and characters. Well, I said, I might as well try out for the main character. Or one of them–I suppose every plot needs more than one. You can’t be a main character, he said bluntly. Why not? I said. Look in the mirror, he said. You’re an exotic. What do you mean, an exotic? I’m a respectable person. I don’t do kinky dancing. Exotic, he said in his bored voice. Consult the dictionary, Alien, foreign, coming in from the outside.”

“Plots for Exotics,” Margaret Atwood

Maybe you’re curious like me. How do people get from place to place, idea to idea? What’s their story? I’ve fascinated with the details of people’s personal journeys ever since discovering online feminism. The idea for interviews this time around is nothing more than my curiosity given a voice. I’ve not set out to prove any major trends between radical feminist stories–rather the opposite. You will find some similarities, perhaps every 2 interviews, but nothing notably more conclusive than the words themselves.

This has been such an enjoyable process–I will say it again and again: thank you wimmin, of the time and mind, for coming forward and sharing these personal journeys. I did not expect a great response at the outset–I anticipated an introverted bunch, not used to talking about themselves, shying away from the idea their life story was of any value (doesn’t that sound mean?). There are probably still a lot of those out there (note for future hosts: I am happy to pass along the interview website admin info should you wish to reel these wonderful wimmin in for future carnivals).

However, I am happy to say 9 wimmin eventually tip-toed their way into my inbox! Their stories are linked here, laced in with the rest of the wonderful submissions. Enjoy!

Amy Interview

I felt like being smart was all I had as a little fat girl who didn’t conform to femininity particularly well, who wasn’t attractive or charming or athletic. My attachment to book knowing is apparent on the website, although hopefully I’ve been able to transform loyalty to patriarchal knowledge into loyalty to feminist knowledge.

Demonista Interview

Radical feminism was a deep, long lasting kind of intellectual stimulation. Reading a couple points had my brain buzzing for days

Suzie at Echidne of the Snakes explains further why interpretations of drag (re: huge learning curve) under a patriarchy are not as subversive as some may like to believe.

Some people think drag subverts gender by bringing its performativity into the open. But parody works only if people get it. A straight man at a drag show does not necessarily think: “If that man can look and act like a woman, then that means my girlfriend and I are just performing gender.”

Allecto Interview

I’ve always been a radical feminist. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t see that there was serious dominance/submission issues in male/female relations.

Illustration by Own Smith

Nine Deuce at Rage Against the Manchine takes an ice pick to the issues and concepts differentiating “rights” and “privileges” for porn use. She even later goes onto assert men in relationships who deceitfully use porn are being emotionally abusive. Daring!

Deciding what falls under the rubric of “rights” is a difficult task, and gaining any kind of universal consensus (even on the most basic of human rights) is nearly impossible because the discussion is landmined with the participants’ conflicting cultural and religious values. Fuck, we haven’t even reached the point where we can agree that we all have the right to not be murdered.

Maggie Interview

Well, that day I was feeling bad. I discovered that there was a dimension of this world that i hadn’t known about. It seemed ‘mechanical’ and ‘inhuman’ to me; these are the 2 words i remember thinking.

Amananta at Screaming into the Void shows off her songwriting chops in a political parody of South Park’s “Blame Canada.”

White guy 4: My son could’ve been a doctor or a lawyer rich as me,
But he flunked out when he saw Hillary’s ugly face on tv
Everyone: Should we blame his study habits?
Should we blame his ADD?
Or the teachers who didn’t do their jobs?
White guy 1: heck no!
Everyone: Blame Hillary!

Samantha Berg Interview

When you’re in your anti-porn star shirt seriously discussing plans to humanure while ripping up old political placards into the compost pile for your organic garden, American affluenza seems more like slow suicide than a normal lifestyle.

Via binthebunny.wordpress.com

Rebecca at her personal blog Rmott62 takes no prisoners with some fierce reality checking in “Abolition is a Dream” and “A Revolution in Me.”

They are black women and girls, they are indigenous women and girls, they are women and girls who have be fucked as children, they poor women and girls, they are homeless women and girls, they are addicted women and girls – mainly they are women and girls who have forgotten that they can hope.

&

Each time a man chooses to rape a prostitute, each time a man uses a prostitute as real-life porn, each a man batters a prostitute, each a man kills and throws away a prostitute – it is a slow destruction of all women rights to be fully human.

BBB Interview

I am stubborn, strong-willed, and as my mother and father can attest to, if you tell me to drop it, I’m going to continue talking about it.

Dr. Violet Socks at Reclusive Leftist scarily but beautifully recalls the day her once carefree hiking trips became a reminder of the inevitable: no woman lives free.

I turned back to the trail, deliberate-like, not running, trying not to be scared. Nothing very bad is happening here. I’m just going to continue on my hike. I will continue on my hike and I will drive home and I will make dinner. When I reached the trail I turned around. He was following me.

Julia Interview

How did I bring feminism to the countries I lived in? By being a woman on her own doing what I wanted. Traveling alone in Brazil was very rare for a woman, so was hiking, running…

Sonia at el parador califas tells of her own experiences with domestic violence and how the silencing effects manifest as an epic erasure of it’s pervasiveness.

my self-esteem was at issue, but that’s a setup. women having low self-esteem doesn’t occur in a vaccuum, and it’s not resultant of pms, or high levels of emotion or just being chicks. low self-esteem in women is a requirement for the social status quo.

Amananta Interview

Although I guess I was always feminist, inside. I have never met a woman who believed that the world was fair to women. I suppose the difference is in how women handle that.

Marcella Chester at abyss2hope reveals yet another mindless imbecile who sees his self control astonishingly dependent on womens’ actions.

He wants to be seen as no more responsible for his behavior than a TV is when a woman uses a remote control device. Yet I doubt that he sat as still as a TV when women turned him on.

Jenn Interview

If something really offends me, others may think that my reaction is extreme, but it’s usually the culmination of dozens of slights that just can’t be ignored anymore.

And for a good dose of laughs we end with a little preherstory lesson presented by none other than the great Phemisaurus.

Hey sisters,

Welcome to the 16th Carnival of the Radical Feminists. I’ve finally gotten it finished and it is LOOONG. Um, sorry about that. It couldn’t be helped. I blame all of the awesome women out there who write too damn eloquently and blog tirelessly for women. Thank you so much for all existing. Thank you so much for finding your voices. Putting together this carnival has opened up my eyes to the wholeness of what women have forged here on the internet. Together we are a brilliant and dazzling force. Our words shine strong. The few links I’ve collected here barely scratches the surface of the work that women are doing collectively online. As Renee from Womanist Musings put so beautifully, “we are the foundation of all that matters”. Believe it.

Reflections on Feminism

It really annoys me when some feminists distance themselves from other feminists, saying shit like, “not all feminists are hairy, man-hating lesbians”. I consider this distancing behaviour, and as such it is lesbophobic and woman-hating. Which is why I really appreciate Cellycel’s lastest post over at ‘Cause Knowledge is Power which she writes On Being a Good Feminist.

“You’re one of the few sane feminists” Or “You’re one of the good feminists” or “For a feminist you’re not so bad” and similar statements are not compliments. The first one is disabilist, and the whole thing is shitty anyway. Like “Your values are shitty, but you’re not so bad” or “I like you, but I don’t like most people who beleive the things you do.” or any other version of ‘your value system sucks’

Feminism is my value system. I use a lot of what I’ve learned from my feminism to guide my life. That means small things, like just trying not to be a jerk, trying to pay attention to people etc. For the most part. Other things too, like trying not to be a privileged ass, and such. You know.
These are my values. Stop insulting them.

L at Editorializing the Editors reviews Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, by bell hooks.

I’m loving dredgirl’s writing over at fuckthepostpolitical (such a great name for a blog too). In Thinking Feminism dreadgirl talks of her own experiences and queries post-feminism.

Postfeminism doesn’t speak of living in a male-dominated world. It also seems to be a specifically ‘Western’ idea; it speaks of the equality granted to privileged women, failing to acknowledge the global condition of women, or the way in which women’s experiences are differentiated according to race, class, sexuality, ability etc. even in these privileged nation-states.

Anxious Black Woman from Diary of an Anxious Black Woman writes of the National Women’s Studies Conference in her entry NWSA 2008 Repositioning Black Feminism.

After reading Beloved and Michelle Cliff’s Free Enterprise – forget about fiction, let’s just look at history (and I certainly suggest you revisit my Black Herstory series) – after Harriet Tubman, do we really need to construct a patriarchal narrative about the Underground Railroad when this journey required the strength of both women and men, black and white? I did find it quite amusing, after this filmic introduction, that the tour guide – when describing one of these fugitive slave stories to us – kept getting one of the names wrong by mentioning the name of Mary Ellen. It finally dawned on the group: right across from the tour guide was a big old portrait of Mary Ellen Pleasant, looking all impressive and big-eyed and “angry” like how black women get when they cut their eyes at you (and, yes, that’s how she looked in the photo). Heh. I knew, when I gazed into her portrait, that Mrs. Pleasant was feeling the way I was since, ONCE AGAIN, she was being erased from this narrative. So, every time the tour guide kept inserting her name, I felt her spirit in tune with mine: if I could high-five her at that instant, you know I would.

Don’t you just love it when black women, dead or alive, refuse to be silent or forgotten?

Ruby Sales over at Something Within posts I Can’t Deal With Her: Black and White Women in the Movement.

In the Movement, I worked met and worked alongside white women who were just as fierce about democratizing the south and the rest of the country by breaking the backs of economic and racial injustice. Like black women, they took the body blows and the vicious name calling without backing down or finding easy ways out. We stretched each other’s lives! Thinking back on it now, had we gone through life without meeting each other our lives would be the poorer for it.

Hellen at Hell on Hairy Legs talks up Feminism.

As a feminist I’m not going to dispute how women label themselves. I understand why some people might want to distance themselves with the racist, classist and ultimately unprogressive elements of the feminist movement. When people say feminist is about equality, I don’t see it as being equal with where man is right now. I see it as creating a world where all people are equal, regardless of genitalia. That world would not look anything like the world we have now.

Renee over at Womanist Musings rocks it out in her post Colluders and Stepford Wives.

I’m going to let you in on a little known secret, women matter. Despite the hegemonic role that men play globally, the labor of women is necessary to keep this little blue planet from going completely off kilter. I know that everywhere you turn women are minimized and reduced to accessories, but we are the foundation of all that matters*. It is on our shoulders that civilizations have risen and fallen, and it is from our wombs that life continues to be nurtured. [*quoted in post title: thanks, Renee!]

Debs from The Corvid Diaries writes beautifully and movingly in Dark Moon Musings.

I talk about rape a lot, I know I do. It’s something that’s in my head a lot, so I talk about it. I have only just learned to talk about my own experience in that area, so I am not going to shut up now, not for anyone, not until every last nuance is dealt with, and even then I’ll probably still keep talking about it, because, well, it was 17 years ago for me, but for other women it’s today and tonight and tomorrow and next week, and on and on, until at some point some miracle happens and the men Stop Raping. I suppose, until then, which will be a long time after I die I should think, I’ll have to keep talking about it.

Documenting and Resisting Male Terrorism

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff speaks out against the Quiverfull Movement in the documentary Quiverfull: Shunned from God’s Army. Watch the clip.

I’ve mentioned before that I disagree strongly with the idea of stem cell research. A large factor in this has to do with the fact that there are many, many reasons to be deeply distrustful of reproductive technologies. This is a link to a video about a woman who was seriously harmed by these technologies, her story is not an uncommon one: The Calla Papademas Story. From the awesome women over at Hands Off Our Ovaries.

Digital Dryad writes angrily about men getting away with rape in the military in her post Military: The Ultimate Rape Club.

The US military has a long history of not wanting women in the boys club. This case just goes to show what happens to countless numbers of women within that institution.

This Colonel will get a slap and life will go on, except for the fact that the women who were assaulted never got justice.

Eeni B. Bella over at Radical Misfit wants rapists to be held accountable for rape (as they fucking should be) in her post Hold the rapists accountable!.

Now, get this: ABC NEWS IS CALLING THIS 14-YR-OLD RAPE VICTIM JACQUES’ “TEENAGE LOVER” AND “ACCOMPLICE”!!! Then, the author refers to Jacques and Brooke’s 40-year-old stepfather “having three-way sex” with the 14-yr-old girl. NO, THAT IS CALLED TWO MEN SIMULTANEOUSLY RAPING ONE GIRL!

The author is David Schoetz. I want his fingers fucking cut off so he can’t ever write again.

Jennifer writes of her experience of the American courts and her father’s domestic terrorism.

At one point I was relieved when my told them that she couldn’t do it. She said that she couldn’t make us go with him. Then Michael London grabbed me and pulled me out of my mother’s arms. I wouldn’t let go. I remember all these people prying my fingers loose from my mom’s dress. When Michael London had me, I kept kicking and screaming “MOMMY I WANT MY MOMMY.” I told Michael London “BUT HE HURTS ME AND HE HURTS MY BROTHER!” I still remember him saying “I know!” as he handed me to my father.

That was the worst day of my life!!!!!

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff from Women’s Space writes in support of Jennifer’s mother in her post In Support of Holly Ann Collins, a Battered American Woman Granted Asylum in the Netherlands Because the U.S. Wouldn’t Protect Her.

Holly Collins’ adult daughter, Jennifer, has created a blog attempting to raise awareness of the family’s situation. She and her adult brother want to come home to the U.S. They want their mom and their younger brother to be able to come home, too. They are rightly horrified over the treatment they are receiving at the hands of officials in the United States. Their father continues to abuse them whenever he gets the chance. The one ray of hope is, they have a good attorney with lots of experience representing survivors of battering, “domestic violence,” so-called, male terrorism, really, plain and simple.

One of these days there will be women’s country, and women will have asylum, sanctuary, peace and safety. One of these days.

Rebecca Mott’s writing is always incredibly powerful. It is very hard to quote Rebecca, as every sentence she writes is full of truth. Her post Entitlement is no different, where she talks about the male-dominated left and their inexcusable attempts to justify prostitution.

Men that the left will “othered”. Say those men are bad, so when they do “bad things” to prostituted women and girls – the men in the left can ridiculed their behaviour.

But when men use prostituted women and girls, they come from all backgrounds.

Where is the criticism of poor men abusing prostitutes, men who called themselves left-wingers, then rape prostituted women.

When I was prostituted I was raped by students, unemployed, rich men, elderly, men from different cultures or counties. I was raped by men who it was their first time, men who may never do such a thing again, and men who who abuse prostitutes as a hobby.

Rebecca also writes of the pain of never being able to seek justice for the crimes that were committed against her by so many men, in her post titled On Justice posted at rmott62.

A huge part of my grief and depression comes from that I know I will never get personal justice for all the tortures I was on the receiving end when I was prostituted.

All I can do is to use my experiences to help fight the battle to get justice for other prostituted women and girls.

This eases some of my grief and pain. It will never be a complete cure.

But that sense of frustration fuels my anger.

Professor Tracey from Aunt Jemima’s Revenge blogs about the murder of Sparkle Reid-Rae in her post Former Professor Convicted of Hiring Hitman to Murder his African-American Daughter in Law for “Cultural Reasons”.

Reid-Rai’s husband has since completely abandoned their child to be raised by her parents and has not seen the child in years. I do not envy those grandparents having to explain this horrific story to that child when she grows up. How do explain that your grandfather who has never seen you, hire people to murder your mother?

Fire Witch over at Fire Witch Rising writes So Much For Sorry: Canada Beats Grandmother’s.

On Saturday, border agents were pulling over every Native person. Kahentinetha and Katenies were traveling in Akwesasne in the course of their regular activities and were caught up in the dragnet. Did Fantino set up a trap for the two outspoken, Mohawk grandmothers? We suspect that Kahentinetha would have been killed at a secret location had she not had a heart attack and been taken to hospital.

Nine Deuce from Rage Against the Manchine writes about the misogyny of radio hosts in her post What About the Poor Rapists?

These two radio dildoes then began to wonder aloud what it must feel like to be Mr. Tarrant. The poor guy has to go to class with a bunch of people who know he’s been accused of rape. Aw, that really sucks, man. (Wait, why the fuck hasn’t he been suspended from classes at the school?) The radio hosts didn’t wonder what it might be like for the victim, who has, you know, been raped and all, and who has to go to school on a campus where people are more concerned with football stats than women’s human rights.

Nine Deuce again with How to End Rape: Deuce’s Law.

If I had my choice, we’d do away with rape by changing our cultural attitudes toward gender, toward sex, toward power, toward everything, thereby creating a world in which rape could not possibly occur. That would most certainly be ideal, and I believe it’s possible, but I think it might take an awfully long time, and I’m ready for rape to stop right now. Rape and other forms of sexual violence are hate crimes and are among the most heinous manifestations of the misogyny that characterizes our culture. As such, eradicating rape, in my opinion, is one of the most pressing feminist issues.

Sarah from Fort Worth Feminism writes about a christian minister’s justifications of male terrorism in the home with her post Theology Professor Connects Domestic Violence to Feminism.

Bruce Ware, a professor of Christian theology at a seminary in Kentucky, spoke from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church recently. His sermon focused on his belief that men abuse their wives because women rebel against the man’s God-given authority and because women “desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husband’s because of sin.

Marcella Chester from abyss2hope: A rape survivor’s zigzag journey into the open examines the male apologist’s arguments for why men rape in her post Kathleen Parker: Save The Sexually Violent Males.

I’ve walked down many streets and I’ve seen attractive women with bared midriffs, but I’ve yet to see a bared midriff taunt men or boys into physical or sexual violence or into fear for their safety. Same goes for tattoos. I’ve seen plenty of them, but I’ve never seen one taunt men or boys. However, I have seen men and boys actually taunt girls and women based on a variety of excuses or for no reason other than gender.

Renee from Womanist Musings writes movingly about Esmin Green… Yes She Mattered.

Women akin to Esmin don’t matter, they never have, and I doubt that they ever will, in my lifetime. Really who cares about some mentally ill, poor black woman. If she cannot be exploited any longer, she might as well die and decrease the surplus population. It was with callousness, and disregard for the sanctity of life, that the hospital staff acted.

Debs from The Corvid Diaries has started a new project, Medical and Obstetrics Rape Awareness Group, to resist the invasion of women’s bodies by medical practitioners. It is a really fantastic project that everyone must check out.

The Medical and Obstetric Rape Awareness Group (MORAG) is an international project aiming to raise awareness of and get people talking about the terrible violation, and even rape, that some women experience at the hands of medical staff when giving birth or undergoing a gynaecological procedure.

I have read many stories of women suffering inhumane treatment from doctors, midwives and other medical staff in situations when they are at their most vulnerable and should be able to trust the medical staff to have their best interests at heart. Some of the stories have been harrowing to read, yet women all too often feel unable to tell their stories, or name what happened to them, as it is so frowned upon to say anything detrimental about the medical profession.

Anne Bartow over at Feminist Law Professors posts on Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Is Running A Misogynist Porn Site.

Holly Ord at Menstrual Poetry writes on the hypocrisy of anti-choices groups in her post Pro-Lifers Say No to Habitat for Humanity.

We all know that “pro-lifers” want to destroy everything relating to reproductive health care and limit the types of reproductive health care women seek and are given. We also know that pro-lifers hate hate hate Planned Parenthood because they are “baby killers” (even though not all Planned Parenthood clinics perform abortions) and they distribute that evil poison-in-pill form known as birth control!

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff from Women’s Space Publishes Suki Falconberg’s Open Letter to PBS: Why Didn’t You Film the “Carrier” Rape-Stops?

I would like to know what the women sailors aboard the ship think of this rape of their prostituted sisters—do they make the connection? High rates of sexual assault in the military are directly related to the time-honored rape of for-sale women by sailors. Train and allow men to rape one group of women, and they will rape others as well.

I read that the Nimitz is planning to dock in Hong Kong this month. Perhaps PBS could do some ‘postscript’ filming–follow the men into the brothels. As a woman who was raped and prostituted by the U.S. military, I would like my side of military history to be told. What is ‘fun’ for the sailors is life imprisonment in rape hell for us prostitutes. I wish women journalists and filmmakers would cover what happens to us.

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff over at Women’s Space writes a powerful critique of the male left in the South Americas in telling the story of INGRID BETANCOURT FREED.

I have spent much time writing this post not only because Betancourt is an amazing woman whose work and life may well be pivotal to the history of Colombia and for that matter, the world, but also because it so illuminates the experiences and difficulties of being a woman who aspires to political power, and ultimately wields it, in a male supremacist world.

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff over at Women’s Space draws attention to COINTELPRO 2008: New Justice Department Policy Will Authorize Racial Profiling.

For those unfamiliar with COINTELPRO, it is an acronym for the FBI’s notorious Counter Intelligence Program of the 50s, 60s and early 70s which targeted, infiltrated and destroyed individuals and groups it considered a “threat” — ”communists” (communism was illegal in the U.S. in the 50s), labor unions, leftists, Civil Rights movement leaders, including Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Indian Movement, radical feminist groups, the women’s liberation movement, Angela Davis and many others, including Viola Liuzzo, a Civil Rights worker who marched from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965 and who was shot by a COINTELPRO informant who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Cheryl Lindsey Seelhoff again, highlighting the highly disturbing medicalisation of birth and women’s resistance to this form of male terrorism in her post American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Launches Attack on Home Birth and Home Birthing Moms.

Since the earliest days of the women’s movement, women have been fighting for our right to birth our babies in our own way. For as long a time, patriarchal, allopathic medicine has attempted, in every conceivable way, to assert, establish and maintain control over our bodies and our lives. It has consistently attempted, often successfully, to establish policies and procedures, rules and regulations, which forbid home birth, birth with midwives, and unassisted birth.

Michelle Obama Watch is a very awesome website dedicated to calling out the media’s sexist and racist attacks on Michelle Obama.

Women Speaking Up and Stepping Out

SheCodes over at Black Women Vote lets her incredibly powerful voice shine in her post The War Over the Souls of Black Girls.

So far, we have been losing this war horribly. Our dead litter the brothels and the crack houses, our prisoners of war are held captive by the porn industry, and our would-be warriors are enticed away to serve the destroyers of the souls of Black girls. Our survivors wander through a wasteland of damaged social standing, reduced life choices, and meager economic opportunity; many become locked in a cycle of self preservation.

Below is footage of a rally in defense of Karen Salazar, a teacher in the US who was fired, quite literally, for teaching her students.

Focused Purpose writes passionately against the degradation of Black women and girls in her post: Heart of a Whore.

In light of our history, and the sexual horrors and atrocities we have sustained and continue to endure at the hands of white and black men; standing against ANYONE that does not treat us respectfully is the only acceptable behavior. Black skin does not afford you impunity, even if you are suffering racism. We all are in black skin and suffering racism.

Justice Walks over at My Perspective provides clarity in her post I Eat Male Babies for Breakfast.

Abandonment is not murder. Certainly, men faced with the prospect of abandoning their daughters aren’t jumping to the frenzied conclusion that it’s exactly the same thing as just snapping their little necks. Men go on with their lives, generally never to consider their abandoned little girls again, except in some cases when men come back tired of life’s thrills expecting a little of the family time they missed out on. (And they’re generally obliged.) Yet, mothers so deeply identify with their little patriarchs that, at least at that forum, they immediately leap to exactly this conclusion.

Fantasia from Fantasia’s World writes of her dream of getting more women moving in Egypt in her post D for Dream.

Thus, motivation and strong will are other big challenges in a woman’s world. Many women think that whatever they can achieve is not worth being stoned for it. Therefore, they follow the safety instructions listed in their old grannies’ manuals, which they learned to trust and treasure so dearly. Wisdom is always good, you know. What they don’t know, however, is that wisdom never built anything or invented anything. If we allow ourselves to get stuck in this old wisdom safe box, we can never move a single step ahead. Stepping ahead has got its risks.. and you can never be able to take those risks unless you are a dreamer. If you dream, you dare take risks. Only then will you discover, and grow, and make a change.

Maggie Hays from Against Porn debunks the porn apologist’s myths in her post Porn Apologist Bullshit Arguments List.

See this? Yeah, that’s a broken record. I chose this image for this post because I sincerely believe that all the pro-porners, pro-prostitutionists, pro-sexploitation folks, pro-hate speech & pro-”sex work” activists (or whatever you rad fems wanna call them) sound like a fucking broken record with all their “same old shit” reactionary arguments that do nothing whatsoever to help women as a class, arguments that, on the contrary, bolster the patriarchal anti-woman status quo.

The video below is part of the We Are More: Empowerment campaign. I hope to see more like it. This one is called Ain’t I a Woman?

Anne Bissell’s Website is really fantastic and worth a visit. Anne Bissell is a survivor of prostitution and has written a book titled Memoirs of a Sex Industry Survivor. There is also a radio segment here that is worth listening to with interviews with survivors of prostitution: Wendy Barnes, Anne Bissell and Heather. The transcript is here.

Yawning Lion over at feh-muh-nist writes up her Dating Advice.

Cultural Commentary

Dissenter over at The Mermaid’s Garden does what she does best, literary analysis, in her post The Golden Compass, Billy Thunder and the Night Gate, Sabriel and Lirael: A Comparison.

Thus we have the usual patriarchal lies being perpetrated, in which women are presented as being controlling and power hungry, while men are presented as oppressed beings risking their lives for freedom. Tell me, how many women can you think of who have courageously given their lives in the pursuit of not only women’s freedom, but freedom for all, even the men who hate them? Who is it who is stopping these women, who murder them and put them in prison, who ridicule their books and their intellectual achievements, who viciously silence their voices? Men. Men are the ones who do these things to women. It is not women who do these things to men.

dredgirl at fuckthepostpolitical writes a great critique of The Gruen Transfer. (For non-aussies The Gruen Transfer is this cool, hip, new, aussie show that supposedly critiques advertising. There is a panel of four white men and one white woman and ah… not a whole lot of critique. But as a bonus we get lots of sexist jokes, as well as justifications and advocation of advertising. Yay!)

As a tutor in cultural studies, i spend plenty of time teaching students about the semotics of advertising; I teach them about the social politics of representation, often discussing the gendered and racialised aspects of media in general, and advertising in particular. In the courses I teach on, we ask students to unlearn, to defamiliarise themselves with the representations and experiences they may take as natural, normal or common. Unlearning is often experienced as uncomfortable, as an affront, or critique of privilege (whether it be race privilege, gender privilge, class privilege etc), but it can also be incredibly invigorating, allowing students to see the world differently.

Amanata at Screaming Into a Void writes an incredibly insightful post Islam Vs. Christianity, Re. Feminism.

I hear people say women are forced into marriage in those “other” cultures. Define forced. Do you think every married woman in the Islamic world is dragged in chains to her wedding? I mean – do you really think that? Are some marriages there forced? Sure. But as a young white Christian girl I knew of at least two forced marriages in my teen years – forced marriages of young girls who’d “gotten themselves knocked up”.

Richard Leader from Adonis Mirror concentrates on the real perpetrators of white, male supremacy… white men, in his post The Pimp and Ho Primary.

However, my dislike isn’t arbitrary or capricious. It has a very specific origin. I detest progressives who claim to be against unchecked capitalism, up until the issue of sexual exploitation is raised. These are the sort of people who mock Wal-Mart shoppers, McDonald’s workers, and other inferior beings in the liberal universe, only to turn around and celebrate the selling of sex as liberation itself. Some of these people are so far gone as to be in favor of human trafficking, if only because George W. Bush had the sense to be against it.

Pisaquari from Buried Alive writes Reassigning Looks examining our notions of physical attraction.

Seeing physical attraction for the media-frenzied, constructed, cruel bull shit it is has some far-reaching implications. Re-worded: it changes the way we see everyone. For women, it changes a great deal of how we view ourselves.

Renee from Womanist Musings writes along similar lines in her post Sexiest Black Women Alive.

I am not saying that light skinned sisters are not beautiful, I have a problem with the fact that they are commonly used as a representative of ALL black women. We come in many different shades, and to point to one as particularly more beautiful than another, is to reinforce a hierarchy based in skin tone. This is not a sign of loving ourselves, rather it is the internalization of black hate. The cruelty of slavery has left us with this terrible legacy.

Rainbow Girl over at Team Rainbow completely cracked me up with her post How to Victimize Yourself Before Others Victimize You!.

Trust your instincts. Women are very intuitive. Yes, actually women have magical animal instincts because they are genetically closer to vampires/bats than humans. That’s why we don’t allow them full human rights. You know how an ordinary flower looks different to a bee because the bee can see the ultraviolet colours? Women are like that. Bad men have RAPIST written in a colour called ultraviolator, which women can see if they look really hard.

Professor Tracey at Aunt Jemima’s Revenge asks Why Is Anyone Watching Or Debating About BET’s Hip Hop Vs. America Series?.

And if the discussion was supposed to be about women and hip hop, why wasn’t the discussion panel and host all female? What is exactly is the point of having men discuss women and their history and role in hip hop music and culture? Men, particularly black men have clearly already had more then enough say about women and hip hop.

Buggle from Buggle’s blog writes quite frankly about how Abortion should be free and on demand.

People talk about abortion as if it’s this big moral thing. I don’t think it is. It’s a question of: do you want a kid or not? For some of us, that may be a hard decision. For others, it may be incredibly simple and easy. Now, I have never had an abortion, or been pregnant, so you can say “well buggle, easy for you to say! Just wait until you get pregnant and have to make that choice.” And, you have a point But to me, there is no moral issue. It’s not about murder, or killing babies. It’s just not about that at all. It’s about me, as a human being, being able to decide if I want to spend the rest of my life parenting, or not. And I choose not.

I found this post by Aimee over at Black Girls Rule interesting in its analysis of racialised sexual stereotyping in her post Reinterpreting Wesley Snipes.

As Halima’s concept of racio-misogyny articulates, for some black men, sexism against black women is not merely a function of gender but also of race—resentment is derived as much from black women’s nappy hair, dark skin, broad features, “lack of femininity,” the way in which her blackness precludes her from being the trophy that Snipes describes (“the guys are like, `Oh man, you’ve got a great women.’ And the man says, `Yeah, I do. ”)–as it is from her being a woman. His words here remind me of the scene in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in which Tea Cake brags about the fair-skinned Janie’s susceptibility to bruising after a beating. Black equals strong, loud, unsusceptible to bruising–mule-like in toughness and resiliency. As Snipes notes, a man wants to be proud of his woman: he wants someone pleasing, someone compromising, someone compassionate—to him.

Focused Purpose writes on the same theme in her post: A different energy…

i have oftentimes conversed with brothers that date out and heard how much “easier” it is to “deal” with white, asian, hispanic, persian, armenian, and other women. of course, there never is consideration given as to why this might be the case. these brothers usually make these women out to be superior and us sisters inferior, deficient, lacking, and unworthy of love.

m Andrea over at miss Andrea’s chooses a fun, troll attracting topic in the second part of her deconstructing transgender posts: PART TWO: Deconstructing Transgenderism for non-radical feminists.

First, we have someone who claims to not feel comfortable in hiz own body. All well and good, many people are uncomfortable about some aspect of their physical appearance that they wish to change. This individual claims to be a different gender then hiz birth body indicates. Well we have a problem with that word gender. Because feminists keep saying that there is no gender. So if transgenderism is a valid medical condition, and transfolk really do need to change body parts, then the reason they need to change those body parts is because gender is real. Which automatically makes the favorite feminist theory invalid — yanno, the one where they screech that gender is a social construct. Yanno, the one theory which has formed the foundation for all other subsequent feminist theory for the last three centuries. Yanno, the one theory which if rendered invalid automatically reboots every other feminist theory in existence.

Polly Strene over at you know that I’ve been drunk a thousand times covers pretty much everything in her post The opposite of sex.

Yes that is from an official home office document (international readers, – the Home office is one of the most important central government departments). Men and women have different brains, understanding and thought processes. Men are naturally aggressive whilst women just love fluffy little kittens and know nothing about the gold standard. And what is to blame for this bizarre belief? Have they spent too long reading the Daily Male? No it’s gender – the new hallucinogen of choice.

Creative Feminist Resistance

Yawning Lion over at feh-muh-nist lets us know about a cheap way of accessing female artists in her post I’m in love.

My sweet CDBaby introduced me first to Ebony Washington and her “Revolutionary Kind of Girl” CD which I love. I love anyone who can work words like gentrification and patriarchy into music along with references to Rudy Guiliani. Ebony’s CD is my favorite of the surprise CDs. As many of you know, I’ve been wrestling with my whiteness and struggling to understand the dynamics of race in this country, and Ebony deals frankly with the subject. In her song, “Movin’ On Up,” she tells it plain as can be, “at the sight of color, you were quick to scatter.” In her moving tribute to global solidarity among women, she says, “I could have been right there with you, but instead I constructed new ways to create miracles and I’m asking Victoria to keep my secrets… I’m right here with you – a commodity, bought and sold.”

Debs writes a raw piece on rape: Only She Remembers.

Lynn Sweeting writes up women’s revolution in her poem Good Boots.

Tami from What Tami Says posts a powerful poem by the incredible Black female poet Nikki Giovanni: Woman Poem.

dredgirl from fuckthepostpolitical uses poetry to describe her experiences of domestic violence in her poem today i listened to the air.

Naomi Downie from Sacred Beauty: Visionary art and Poetry is a woman-centred poet I had the pleasure of seeing perform recently. All of the poetry and artwork on her site is fantastic; beautiful and women-centred. I particularly recommend The Universal Mother.

My sister Dragort started writing when she was seven years old. Her stories have long been a source of strength, inspiration and women-centredness during some desperately bleak times. She has started writing a brilliant young adult novel, The Chosen, the first part of which has been published at Spinning Spinsters.

Miriam who blogs over at Black Fire, White Fire is writing an awesome story for teenagers designed to empower and inspire young Black girls. It is really awesome and I hope she continues Jumping In!

Madeline Begun Kane at Mad Kane’s Political Madness asks the pertinent question Is Olbermann Turning Into O’Reilly?.

Tori Amos is one of my favourite songwriters. Here she performs Me and a Gun, one of her most intimate pieces, which deals with her experience of being raped by a man, at gunpoint.

Thanks again, sisters, and thank you Heart, for starting this ball rolling. You can contribute posts to the next carnival on the Carnival Submission Page and the carnival home is here.

Hello, my fine-feathered friends, and welcome to the Fifteenth Carnival of Radical Feminists. I’m Nine Deuce, and I’ll be your guide through this round-up of some of the best current radical feminist writing on the internet. I am, quite simply, stoked to be hosting this installment of the Carnival, and I’d like to thank all of the women who submitted these excellent posts, as well as Heart at Women’s Space for putting the whole thing together. I won’t bore you too much with corny platitudes, but I do want to say that I am thrilled that this Carnival exists to provide women around the world with a means to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a free and supportive environment, and to allow us the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with each other in our efforts to make the world a safer and better place to be a woman. That’ll be enough from me. On to the posts…

L at Editorializing the Editors has written a series of posts on apologizing in which she discusses the gendered aspects of apology-making and of holding grudges. The first of the series (I recommend the other two as well), On apologizing and holdging grudges, explains the ways in which apologies and the act of forgiveness reduplicate social hierarchies, and the ways in which holding a grudge can be a feminist act:

Holding a grudge requires remembering what happened to you. Holding a grudge recognizes that apologies are often empty, fake, political, or disingenuous. Holding a grudge acknowledges reality, the reality of a harm done and the reality of what that harm means about the person who did it. Holding a grudge recognizes that sometimes — if not often — an apology just isn’t enough. Holding a grudge is a slap in the face to patriarchal asshats who would say that women’s memories of the harms done against them are wrong, lies, impossible, or not a big deal.

However, holding a grudge does not necessarily require that the wronged person seek revenge against the wrongdoer, nor that the grudge-bearer act or think in terms of violence, as these would be yet more incantations of the annoying, overdone Campbellian monomyth. Holding a grudge is another way of saying “I remember what you did, and it’s not okay, no matter how much you regret doing it.”

Holding a grudge is a way for the disempowered, the marginalized, the fringe-sitters, to draw a boundary and maintain it. And women are generally disempowered and marginalized.

Allecto at Gorgon Poisons, in her post Women’s Liberation, explains why she is no longer a feminist but rather a Women’s Libber:

My name is feminist no longer. I walk as a woman, just a woman, hand in hand with the Dark Mother. We walk together, as women, towards liberation.

I do not seek equality with those who wouldst rape. I do not seek equality to those who would plunder for the sake of pleasure, laugh at destruction. I do not seek equality with those that would murder, buy women as sex, wank to women’s dis-memberment, take pleasure from the destruction of Our Dark Mother.

I do not seek equality with killers, with those who hate my kind, my grandmother’s skin, my mother’s rage. If I name myself, if I am named, feminist, I am not whole. I must deny. That Dark part of me. I must deny/hide/pretendpretend… She does not exist. I do not exist.

On a related note, Debs at The Burning Times, in Walking to Liberation, asks us whether equality with men, rather than liberation from them, really ought to be our goal:

Women’s liberation must not be measured in relation to men at all.  One of the problems with the concept of equality with men is that, once again, men and male-centric ways of going about things are being used as the benchmark against which women’s rights or equality are measured, the idea being that once we measure up, have equal pay, no discrimination and all the rest, our battles are over and we can rest.  And of course, this is ideal for patriarchal society.  They would just love it if women won equality, and could be happy with that and stop whining.  But when or if we ever achieve equality (and it won’t be any time soon, if at all), we will still not be free.  Behind the concept of “equality”, in a feminist context, there seems to be the underlying idea that “man” is the ultimate a human can be, and we should all be aiming to be like “man,” or at least have the same rights as “man.”  It just can’t work like that.  Women do not want or need everything that “man” has.  In a world of truly liberated women, why would there be any need for the nuclear capability to obliterate the whole of Europe several times over, as the UK currently has, for example?  Everything “man” has is neither admirable or desirable, and women should not be working to get their hands on it.  They should be working to get “man” to give it up, as many women are and have been in the past.  The goal has to be literally “women’s liberation,” meaning liberation from the rule of men, the laws of men, the religions of men; liberation into a world where everything is not measured against “man” as though “man” is the goal.  Women need to recreate the world in their own image.

Also from Debs, A choice between suicide and submission draws parallels between the growing number of Afghan women self-immolating in order to escape abuse at the hands of men, modern-day witch hunts taking place in India in which women are being burned to death, and the witch hunts of Medieval Europe:

The fire once used by men to dispatch the ‘wayward’ woman, the ‘other’, is now a viable option of the ‘other’ in dispatching herself.  It is most notable that men do very little to prevent this.  It is horrible to think it, but it is in my head anyway, that men are pleased at this outcome as the women, if driven far enough, and treated appallingly enough, will do it to themselves, thus preserving ‘man’ from the responsibility of the act.  I have yet to hear it said, but surely it is only a matter of time before some learned male says the women are suffering some kind of “mania” or are all “hysterical” thus divorcing himself even further from any responsibility for the situation.  Of course, if it were not for man’s law, religions, and hatred of women, this would not be happening at all.

In Women in the Workplace: Ask a Woman, Holly at Menstrual Poetry has posted a link to the Ask a Working Woman survey being carried out by AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees and Working America. Despite MRA attempts at skewing the data, we all know from experience that the working world is still a tough place to be a woman. Head over there and fill out the survey and make your concerns as a working woman known. The deadline is June 20.

Holly also wants you to know that The Emma Goldman Clinic Wants to Hear About Your Experience. The clinic is collecting stories form women who have faced financial obstacles to abortion services in the state of Iowa. If that includes you, check out Holly’s post for info on how to contribute your story to the project.

Renee at Womanist Musings, in Men Troubles, rebuts the interconnected claims that the route to happiness for black women is through landing a man and that the way to find a man is through learning to be submissive and “soft”:

Since black women were brought on this continent in chains we have never been given the luxury of being “soft”.  We have been the ultimate un-woman. We lead because that is how we have been able to survive in a world that has proven to be predatory.  The whole idea that gender can be split into one dominant and one submissive belies the fact that these are social constructions, and are not “natural” characteristics of either gender.  We experience gender in a state of flux therefore each sex takes on characteristics of dominance, and submission.  To request that black women submit in order to empower the black male patriarchy eschews the vitality of female agency. Yeah lets all stand and clap our hands, and celebrate that men will agree to lower themselves to marry. Of course they don’t benefit from marriage in anyway.  They are only entering the institution (note: the fact that marriage is an institution should scare any sane person) out of a true desire to be magnanimous.  They don’t live longer when they are married right?  They don’t get a live in housekeeper, nanny, cook, and built in sexual release? How many damn buttons, and hems do we have to fix before we acknowledge that men benefit far more than women do from marriage?

Rebecca Mott of rmott62, in her post entitled Something That Makes Me Uncomfortable, discusses the Myra Hindley case and argues that feminists ought to hold women accountable for abusing others. It raises the issue of women’s agency in a patriarchy with regard to violent crimes:

I do believe the vast majority of women who use violence are pushed into it. I believe it understandable to kill a man who has battered you for long period. I understand girls joining gangs for identity and protection…

I would never make an excuse for any man who kidnapped and took part in the torture of children. I would not care if he claimed he was manipulated.

I would not take his word as the truth.

But I am told to believe the word of a women who kidnapped and take part in the torture of children.

I am told I should sorry for her.

But every day women and girls are mentally, physically and sexually tortured by men. The vast majority of those women and girls do not torture children.

Also from Rebecca is a post entitled It is Not the Same discussing the difference, from the standpoint of a survivor of both kinds of rape, between the experience of rape at the hands of a family member and the experience of a prostituted woman/girl who has been raped for pay:

One thing that I have from being raped by my stepdad and the men who pretended to my friends, is that I know them.

I can remember their faces. I can still hear their many words to convince me that they care about me. I see them in a clear light.

I have no image left with the men that rape in prostitution.

There was too many of them, they became a mass.

There is a difference.

The men I thought I knew I choose to look them in the eye before they had raped me. So, after the raping I could hold in my heart my hate at their betrayal.

I knew it was a crime. I knew I had not wanted it.

This was held in my heart, not expressed outwardly.

But with prostitution there was never that clarity.

I survived by refusing to see the men who paid to rape me. I refused to see their eyes.

But I could not think it was rape when I took the money. When I perform sometimes with a smile what they demanded.

I could not name that rape.

The men who rape me and rape prostituted women and girls do not think of it as rape.

I do believe that violent men will and do rape any woman or girl who is easy reach.

Prostituted women and girls are like a candy store for these men. They are so convenient.

Pisaquari over at Buried Alive, in her post entitled No More (Sexual Stigma p.2), delves into our cultural norms and stigmas with regard to sex and how these play into the idea of consent on the part of women:

At the intersection of power, stigma, and sexual socialization there has been made an incredibly thriving market to the tune of billions of dollars and, what’s more willing worldwide participants, in the celebration-the orgasmic celebration if you will-of no “No.”

And what I am talking about is not limited to rape and sexual assault though they, of course, are some of the darkest manifestations of this. No–I am talking about the ubiquitous, ever-existential, concept of sexuality and how much of our sexuality has been formed on the erasure and undermining of “no.”

In sexual stigma p.1 there were two main points that I wanted to make clear:

1. Consent and sexual readiness has been presented to us, through marketing and media, to be a look-a set of features-embodied by women/girls. Thus creating a situation wherein, if the “look” is present, the sexual meaning is implied. When sexual meaning is implied the first layer of consideration for the women’s interest in being considered sexual by another, as well as her legal ability to even be so, is removed. A layer of “no” is gone.

2. We are being conditioned to find people sexually attractive and ready in way that is supposed to be against our will. From early ages we are presented a set of sexual norms that we are supposed to want yet what we are supposed to *not* want is most sexualized. Thus our capitulation and lack of control is sexualized. Thus we perceive our own responsibility and agency as a bit of a continuum–vulnerable to change given how desirable we find the subject. As the stigmas normalize and mainstream our ability to achieve this same arousing effect diminishes. We are now searching out new sexual ways to breach our own will.

Exactly how many ways can one say Rape Culture?

Next we have two posts from Heart at Women’s Space. The first, Smackdown Time for Max Hardcore: Jury Finds Paul Little Guilty on 10 Counts of Criminal Obscenity, made my day when I read it.

In the second, Heart asks, Democrats, Why Should We Support You? She poses a very important question:

Can we count on your support for — or even acknowledgement of the importance of –- any of the following issues?

Punishing Women and Children Because Men Have Raped and Abused Them (Fundamentalist LDS)

New Jersey Four
Dunbar Village
Anti-Pornography Education
Vigorous Pursuit of Sex Traffickers
Prostitution Legislation (Swedish Model/De-Criminalize Prostitution,Criminalize the Buying of Sex)
Cyberterrorism of Woman Bloggers
Sexism and Misogyny in the Media, as Exemplified in the Presidential Campaign
Rape of Women Employed by Defense Contractors Abroad, No Right to Pursue Criminal or Civil Charges Against Their Rapists
Recourse to Persons Harmed by Pornography and Pornographers
Rape and Pimping of Women in the U.S. Military

Also on the subject of politics, Violet over at Reclusive Leftist explains, in Why I will not vote for Obama even if he’s the nominee – and why you shouldn’t either, why feminists ought to consider not voting for the newly-nominated Democratic candidate, offering a bit of a switcheroo to highlight the misogyny in the media coverage of Clinton’s campaign:

Imagine this scenario:

The shoe is on the other foot, and Obama, not Hillary, is the punching bag of the media — a media that is blatantly and unapologetically racist. And I do mean blatant. Jokes every night on the cable news shows about Obama’s hair and his fondness for fried chicken. Pundits laughing about what a problem uppity Negroes are.

Across the country, racists openly ridicule Obama and his candidacy. In mainstream stores there are gag gifts playing on racist themes: maybe a (water)Melon Baller with Obama’s head on the handle, maybe a Barack Obama Shoeshine Set — you get the picture. 501c groups invoke the most grotesque racist slurs with their advertising; T-shirts say “Quit Running for President and Shine My Shoes!” Anybody who protests is branded a fool and a spoilsport

Maggie over at Meta Watershed might not agree that we should boycott Obama (she says she’d vote for Spongebob Squarepants, should he turn out to be the nominee, rather than a Republican, which I thought was a good one), but in her post What She Said, Maggie argues that we ought to remember who engaged in misogynistic bombast during the primary:

And I’ve been sick inside as I’ve watched the testosterone-fueled fist-pumping victory dance. Because for some of these guys, too many of them, it was not just Hillary who was going down in flames. It was all the uppity bitches who ever denied their male superiority. We really can tell the difference, you know. You asswipes fool NOBODY but each other. And your exalted candidate did not lift one fucking finger to interrupt it. Which means when it’s time to let YOUR values get assaulted, he’ll choose silence if it serves him in the long run there, too…

Also from Maggie, Women at the Start of Human Time discusses the work of Judy Grahn on the role of menstruation in the development of human consciousness:

The unanswered question is how did we cross the divide from primate consciousness into human consciousness: Who first made hatchmarks, and why?

Modern studies of how the brain works have revealed that all human learning involves metaphor. On a rudimentary level, when we encounter something new which needs interpretation, we do the equivalent of the Sesame Street singing game which goes “Which of these things is not like the other?” We compare and contrast, using metaphor. This occurs in at least three of the main languages used by humans — verbal, mathematical, and musical. When we find a similarity, we link the new thing to the old, a synapse is formed, and we have the basis for retaining memory of the new thing so we may continue learning about it.

We actually cannot take in information and render it as a retained abstract in any other way.

Thus, to understand how the first humans took such a strikingly different path from all other life on earth, we need to imagine what they were experiencing, seeing, contending with to make that first leap — and it needs to be common to every culture, every region, because this did not happen on one place only. Many different groups of humans were counting in prehistory.

One counting object does reliably appear in numerous early human cultures: Sticks, bones and stones marked with lines which add up to 29.5 days.

In another post from Maggie, The White Night Riot, 21 May 1979 and Lesbians Against Police Violence, we get a glimpse into the riot and into the Lesbians Against Police Violence, of which Maggie was a member:

At the LAPV meeting the following evening, we talked for hours about what we had seen and what it all meant. We agreed we were the inevitable target of any investigation–no one would believe we had tried to stop the riot, and by this time it wasn’t even a claim we wanted to make. We knew the first attack would come in the form of a grand jury. Enough of us had read Grand Jury Comix and followed the Susan Saxe case to know our greatest threat came if we refused to testify. But there was no way we were going to testify. If you refuse to testify to a grand jury, you do not have the right to claim the fifth amendment. Instead, you are granted immunity (meaning your testimony cannot be used to directly incriminate you) and if you still refuse to testify, you are declared in contempt of the court and thrown into jail. You can be kept in jail without recourse for the length of the grand jury, and if the grand jury reconvenes, you can be sent back to jail over and over again–no trial, no due process of law. It’s an excellent tool of reprisal used in this country against political dissidents.

There were around 30 of us involved in LAPV at that time. We sat in a big living room, most of us on the floor, and someone kept detailed minutes. One by one, we each talked about what we stood to lose personally by going to jail, and what we’d like to have done for us by the rest to keep our lives intact until the boys gave up and let us out of jail. Two of us were parents; after a long discussion, it was agreed that if, at all possible, we two would avoid grand jury summons, leaving town if necessary. Women talked about their jobs, their pets, their leases, their houseplants, and their bills. At every turn, one or more of us volunteered to cover for her if she was jailed, with no time limit. By the end of the night, we had a solid contingency plan, a sworn commitment to never break silence, and enough resources to cover the jailing of several (though not all) of us. I don’t know what would have happened to us if we had been sorely tried, but I remember believing every woman in the group with all my heart, and feeling ready to go down fighting for any one of us.

Sarojini Sahoo at Sense & Sensuality, in her post Is It Risky for a Woman to Deal with Female Sexuality in India, analyzes the cultural biases and restrictions that female fiction writers in India (and elsewhere) face:

In India most of the female writers either quit writing or make them more adjustable to male dominated values, after their marriage. You find shyness in their voice while relating the truth and exposing their innerself. Even their weaknesses or love relations are also not expressed clearly in fear of social scandal of their character. A typical womanish shyness prevents them to write their actual feelings towards sex and love. This is not only due to any restriction imposed by their family, but many times we find that an idea of being a good girl pursues them to hide their own feelings and experience.

Also from Sarojini Sahoo, Pleasure at Par argues against the prevailing idea that women in India’s classical period enjoyed more sexual freedoms than they currently do. She discusses the long-standing patriarchy-defined role of women within romantic relationships:

… this patriarchal society always tries to reject women’s sensibility towards love. The patriarchal concept of love between a man and woman actually means, how it is politicized, how it is socially and culturally manipulated with masculine view which is constructed by the idea how to love a man, and how to care for him not only by our instinct, but by the socially expected gender roles. A woman may totally love a man, and refuse to cook for him, but it would not be acceptable behaviour for a ‘woman in love’ according to our cultural codes. Social needs to sustain families on specifically prescribed gender roles also instruct us on how to love a man. There is a hidden code to exploit women in the whole cultural and social scheme of romantic love, mostly because the concept of romantic love has been authored by men, and is based on men’s fractured understanding of women as primarily sexual objects. The patriarchal concept always denies the individuality of a woman as a human being.

At abyss2hope, Marcella Chester offers us her analysis of the American Life League’s claim that birth control pills amount to attempted murder in Protest The Pill To Protect Life Or To Mock It?:

If giving information about the killing of babies (meaning fertilized eggs) is so important and these people want to ensure that potential parents know that their actions will lead to killing babies, why isn’t this group working to inform men that having sex with a fertile woman who are on birth control is a murder attempt?

If women on birth control can be considered killers the moment a sperm reaches an egg then those who inject the needed foreign ingredient for these deaths are actively and deliberately sending their children to their deaths. Except for cases where a girl or woman rapes a boy or man, the boy or man is making a deliberate decision prior to any egg being fertilized and therefore has made the decision to send his child to certain death unless he knows that the girl or woman isn’t using birth control and will not use birth control.

So what is the American Life League doing to prevent men from killing their own children?

Thanks again to everyone for these kick-ass submissions and for the opportunity to host the Carnival. I thoroughly enjoyed reading each and every one of these posts and I hope everyone else will, too! The next edition of the Carnival will be at Allecto’s place, Gorgon Poisons, and you can submit posts by clicking here.

Cheers!

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To US!

The 12th Carnival — that’s a YEAR OF RADICAL FEMINIST CARNIVALS! — is UP at Debs’ place, The Burning Times.

Note:  Debs deleted her blog before I could archive this carnival. — Heart