Diana, Gretchen of Drifting Though, and I have been talking about feminism and women’s issues since December. Last Friday, we invited our friends to join the discussion, and they showed up in a big way. This post will catch you up if you’re just joining us, and hopefully keep the discussion going.
We talked about it on Twitter for a week beforehand, and I devoted several posts to letting everyone know they were invited. This post will show you how the day went from my point of view. It includes links to eight bloggers other than me who supported this and helped make it work (it also includes one of the best live music videos ever posted on YouTube).
We did so well we attracted a couple of commenters who used feminism to attack the idea that we should talk about more equality for women. Their arguments were not very good. We responded firmly but politely, and I ended up banning one of them and writing a post about it.
He responded with a post of his own which I find too offensive to link to. Diana did link to him. So she could rip his argument to shreds. She did it respectfully, and was kind enough to actually engage in a real conversation about feminism on his blog. And then our friend Jolene of CreightonCreation really nailed the issue of labels and categories.
In the meantime, our new friend Vic wrote one of the most powerful posts I’ve read in a long time. It’s about what your life looks like if you’re born in Bolivia, and you happen to be born female. If you only click one link while you’re reading this, click this one. Vic has a couple of other posts in her archives that you want to read, and she doesn’t pull any punches with this stuff. Which is good, because it needs to be talked about in the strongest terms possible.
As of December, 2013, 66,oo0 U.K. women had been subjected to genital mutilation. In many cases, transported to their parents’ countries of origin to be subjected to it. Don’t even think about comparing FGM to male circumcision on my thread. If you do that, you’re not going to get the usual kind and gentle smackdown. You’re going to get the blogging equivalent of a black eye.
And here’s one that talks about rape in very stark terms:
The US fares no better. One of six U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape. Yet did you know that in most states the legal definition of rape continues to require the use of physical force?
Rape is sex without consent. That can happen in all kinds of ways that do not require physical force. So, I think it’s more like one in four, and I think the laws need to change. It’s even worse in other parts of the world.
So, we’ve discussed the label to death. Let’s talk about issues. Here’s a question:
What’s the most pressing issue for people who care about equality for women? If you had to prioritize, what would you put at the top of the list?
I almost framed the question to start a discussion about rape, but I think it’s better this week to be a little more open with it and see where the conversation goes.
(Thanks for all the support, Alva, Rose, Hannah, Natacha, Ali, Holly and David. It’s much appreciated.)
Sourcerer 
well, i’m gonna get slammed because i don’t support the agenda and i’m a failed english major who hates capitol letters and loathes the npr style voice of talking to a three year old. i have a daughter and the last thing i want is for her to feel that she is not or can not be equal in today’s world, so i am all about equal rights (even before she was born twenty years ago) for everyone. personally i feel the most pressing issue in the conversation of equality is labels. until we drop the whole us vs. them attitude people are going to focus on the differences that separate rather than the unity that is humanness. of course their are differences in sex and/or gender (and yes they do, or at least did, mean the same thing until recent restructuring) that are physiological and have nothing to do with current or archaic societal norms and there always will be those differences. i personally am a fair skinned (there is no race, that is a myth) semi-heterosexual male (see my label) and have been discriminated against all my life, based on my appearance and outlook on society, and expect to be discriminated against for the rest of my life, because humans are humans. as long as there is a way to differentiate oneself, humans will (and always have) be biased (regardless of age sex creed gender appearance race capability incapability you got food in your teeth) as a way to uplift themselves on that imaginary ladder of better than.
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Not going to slam you, but I am going to respond. Everyone’s welcome, regardless of their academic attainment or typographical preferences, and I hope I do not sound like NPR. As far as the agenda goes, everyone participating in this conversation has their own. Mine – on this thread – is to have a discussion about how to address inequalities that women experience because they are women. I’m all about equal rights for everyone, too. But I believe specific groups face specific forms of inequality, and that requires specific discussion. I also talk about other forms of inequality when I feel that I have something to say about them.
The “us v. them” problem is a thread that runs through this conversation all the way back to its beginning in December. It’s one of the reasons I started doing these discussions. Labeling does create problems, but it is also necessary. You can’t have a brand or a set of analytical categories without using labels. And if your thing is analyzing society and marketing social change, labeling people is required. So trying to get rid of labeling is not only unrealistic, it’s counter-productive to me. Last Friday’s thread would really be a better place to discuss labeling, and I don’t view it as something that should be put in the same category with the problems that are being discussed here today.
I honestly have no idea when we started talking about gender as distinct from sex. I can think of at least half a dozen people who probably do, and I’m making a mental note to ask them about it. But societies have been constructing what we currently call gender, and it has been distinct from sex, for as long as societies have existed. It did not appear just because we started studying it.
Race is a real thing. I understand what you’re getting at with that, but calling it a myth is a gross oversimplification at best. It’s a real thing because it affects the way people form identities, how people relate to one another, and the way governments categorize people. I can’t look at Mississippi’s prison statistics and deny that race exists. I’d love to discuss race further sometime, but this isn’t the thread for it, so it would be good to leave that for another day. I’m usually a bit more loose with my moderation, but this is a regular, prompted discussion and I pinged a dozen bloggers with those links. That’s like a personal invitation, so we’re talking about inequalities that are specific to women on this thread.
Distinctions aren’t going away, and neither are biases. But we do have some control over what’s considered an acceptable expression of those distinctions and biases in our societies. I am a great believer in human rights. It would be fabulous if we could just say we all need to focus on the unity that is humanness and leave it at that. But we can’t. If we just do that, the things we want done will never get done.
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Well said, Gene’O.
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Thanks!
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It’s really difficult for me to pick a most pressing issue. I think if I had to, though, it would be rape and rape culture. They’re profoundly damaging, both to women and to men.
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I agree, that’s my choice, too.
Not as happy with this one as with last week’s post.
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I will add my vote to yours. Gene’O, thank you for including a link to my article on rape. It was a difficult one to research and write. I shudder every time I come across these figures. I was surprised how many bloggers commented to say they were not aware of the extent of the problem, and yet it is such an important one: for me, it is indicative of the broader problems that feminism faces. I believe it is not accidental that countries where misogynistic attitudes prevail have the greatest difficulty in both ensuring that rape is reported and prosecuted. I agree with you, Diana, that it is a problem for both women and men.
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You’re welcome, and I also agree. that it’s a problem for both men and women. There seems to be a social principle at work in rape culture. I see it things I’ve studied about practical Nonviolence, I see it in capital punishment, I see it in torture and genocide, both of which I have well and truly studied. Dehumanization cuts both ways. It affects both victim and victimizer. It’s everywhere, really. It’s one of the very few social principles I am sure of.
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I really meant to comment on your last two posts in order to come out of my lurking on your blog – and “Hi” *waves* I still might.
But one major thing stopped me in tracks – because those UK numbers were so frighteningly high – but WHO on earth is daring to compare FGM with male circumcision?!
For your readers (not you, obviously) –
Emphasis on the M for “mutilation”, the mental distress by such a practice is catastrophic, not to mention the myriad of physical issues it causes – many leading to massive infection resulting in death.
Speaking of WHO, from an abstract –
“The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide have experienced genital mutilation…FGM has long been regarded a critical public health issue.”
The horror -http://youtu.be/pUpToERm0q0
Catastrophic.
There is the symbolic “medically controlled” FGM for religious reasons that is apparently less harmful – one that girls actually volunteer for (as dictated by their society and parenting) – but that is still “mutilation” and hideously repressive to me.
Although it may be debatable as to its actual need, male circumcision removes a “piece of skin” for the most part, NOT an entire cluster of nerves and tissue containing glands that connect and affect sensors throughout, where its removal results in injuring the entire body as well as the mind.
I really hope there is not somebody that stupid out there, but I know the unfortunate truth.
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Hi! Thank you for mentioning FGM and how catastrophic it is. I just realized after hitting send on my own reply that it was the other I wanted to bring up.
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I’m still reeling from the video I linked to. It made me cry and I am so angry. It should make everyone so very angry.
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Hey, welcome, and thanks for your comment. The only reason I put that bit about male circumcision in the post was because we had a discussion with someone last week who was basically saying the two are equivalent.
I wouldn’t mind discussing male circumcision sometime, but I don’t think it should be lumped in with FGM and treated as the same thing, and don’t view it as on-point for this thread, because we’re talking specifically about women.
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I’m glad you mentioned this. As Gene’O said in his comment, we had some conversation about that last week because of a response that was written to our discussion. It equated male circumcision and FGM–calling them “infant genital mutilation” as an umbrella term. I think we need to discuss both FGM and male circumcision, but I think they’re fundamentally different problems. This, of course, was what the poster was getting at–erasing the distinctions we use to discuss sex and talking about everyone as a whole. But as I’ve found myself saying more than once lately, that would only work if we were starting from a place of equality; but we’re trying to get there, and we’re working against centuries and societies to do it. Distinctions have been set up–male and female, homo- and hetero-sexual, class, race–that cannot be undone by simply saying that the terms create the differences and moving on.
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Thank you for hosting this new conversation! And you’re welcome for any help I can provide. It is wonderful to read so much discussion about a topic close to my heart.
Picking just one pressing issue is difficult, to be honest, but two things that come to mind, even before closing the pay gap between men and women and gaining better employment equality (no matter how important I find it!) is two fold:
* Making/keeping abortion legal and provided in the safest conditions possible. I think that the time frame we have in France, which is 12 weeks (except if the mother’s life is endangered later on) is a good one, because longer than that, I think it’s too long, too far. I believe that recognizing a woman’s right to dispose of her own body is pivotal. Rape issue aside, I also think that if birth control and sexual education were better handled, there might be less accidental pregnancy especially in teen and college students’s cases. Pardon me for the French examples, but they are these I know best in this case. Birth control information is a mess, and while abortions are covered by health care in most (or all) cases, many birth control means aren’t, which I don’t understand at all. In the same misinformation manner, the contraceptive implant that lasts 3 years without having to think about it until you need to change it, is completely covered, but if you don’t bring it up to a gynecologist because you did your own research,, basically they won’t put it on the table as an option.
* Getting rid of rape culture. I know this is a huge one and that it will take decades if not more to achieve that goal, but it’s sorely needed. When you see the number of sexual assaults and how many times, it is still the victim who is facing issues from the society, besides the personal tragedy that already happened, I am angry every time I see this. I always find it interesting when people bring up how it shouldn’t be just parents teaching their daughter to be careful but also how parents should teach their sons to be respectful.
I feel that I’m forgetting other elements, but I wanted to make time to take part to the conversation before working on other things on my to do list for today!
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I’m just going to agree with Natacha, here. I don’t have much else to add to her comment. But thanks for the link, and you’re welcome.
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Thanks, Natacha. One of the problems I’m seeing emerging from this convesation is that there just so many issues to deal with. I agree with all this – especially the part about birth control and sex education. To my way of thinking we don’t do a very good job of it here in the U.S., especially in the south.
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Yes, there are a lot of problems to deal with, which is probably a huge part of the fragmentation of feminism. It only gets more complex as we add identity politics–gender and sex are only one of the many distinction classifications we use for people. We actually have quite a complex way of doing so, and all of those complexities affect experiences and perceptions–and so much else.
Birth control and sex education (on a different note) are huge issues that we need to address. It seems as though that’s a transatlantic issue.If we can get a better handle on those things, abortion will be such a smaller issue. I’ve never quite understood why they haven’t been a more commonly held and worked for concept in the past 50 years.
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I agree about the birth control and sex ed. The fact that it’s 2014 and we still don’t have rational, consistent policies to govern them in all 50 states with regular monitoring of results is pretty shocking.
The complexity is disorienting sometimes.
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In my opinion before we can reach equality and stop the rape culture mind set and stop the mutilation we have to empower women. I know that in lots of places this is not an issue but there are still a lot of cultures (abroad but also here in the states) where women in my generation fully believe they don’t have the right to be equal. I have met quiet a few women in this area who are utterly blown away that my husband “allows” me to work and to continue my education. This is not a third world country. This is ten minutes from Hattiesburg. I have been in a situation where my husband and I were looking at a vehicle to purchase and I asked what the bottom line price was. The man selling it told me that he and my husband would discuss that privately because that did not concern the women. I hit the roof. This man’s wife was shocked that I would have expectations of being a full partner in my marriage. Needless to say we did not purchase anything from this man. These women need to be reached and empowered with the knowledge that they are worthy of being equal and that by wanting and demanding equality they are not being bad women or wives or mothers.
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This is a good point, and it unfortunately makes some of the other points just symptoms, no matter how bad they are. Empowering women, and teaching men that women are empowered and valuable, might be the underlying issue that needs work.
The documentary Girl Rising – which is phenomenal and everyone should see – talks about the impact that educating girls can have. Education is empowering – something I think we have forgotten here in the states – and has a huge impact.
Because there are other large world issues this can help with as well – like human trafficking, which hasn’t come up on the thread yet. And how do we solve these sorts of large issues? I think it has to happen from an early age, has to be part of education. Because after that, all we can do is try to save people one at a time, or comfort them when it’s too late, or bang our head against the wall trying to change the mind of even one person online… like your recent troll.
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That’s a good point about starting early. We talked about that early on a thread about the importance of teaching empathy to children.
I don’t know all that much about child psychological development, but my feeling is that for the most part, the core of the personality is formed by 6 or 7, and barring big life-changing events, all you can do from that point on is correct problems.
I agree with you that education is critical. I’m wondering if I need to write about education next time I do this.
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Yes….I think education is a huge start. It’s important…Both education in the classroom sense and education outside of it.
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I agree empowerment to women is definitely the way we need to start change. I also think the right to education is a huge issue for many!
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Welcome, and thanks! I’m getting the sense that I need to think about doing one of these threads for education at some point.
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Power outage at work put me behind schedule. I’ll be a little late today, but will be around to respond and moderate comments in a couple of hours.
Thanks to everyone for joining in.
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Last weeks troll wrote an insane blog answering me. LoL.
He is far to insaneto bother with, making up more stats and comparing apples to oranges (he thinks harassment and rape rates are the same, makes up his own definition of rape, etc.)
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Yeah. I know. It’s why I tried to shove him down the memory hole, and refuse to link to him. If Diana didn’t have access to my trash and moderation queue, he’d be entirely forgotten by now. Some of the things he’s doing with rape stats on that site make me think of Holocaust deniers.
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Yeah, he pinged me.
I didn’t block him myself, but Im thinking about it.
I do like to monitor what the nuts are saying just in case they actually build an audience, though.
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Lol, the lack of audience was one of the things that convinced me that I didn’t need to respond. That, and his blog would be honestly offensive to people I’m having a productive conversation with about getting some shit done. He’s screaming into space, I am pretty sure. Did you let his ping through? Just curious.
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No, spammed it.
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I need to go and read, just to see.
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He has decided that .01 of men are the harassers and therefore not the problem.
He makes up his own stats…
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couldn’t even get through it. He lost me with the dog chasing its tail. He’s not right.
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Yeah, haha
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I’m torn between rape culture and education — maybe education is the best way to disperse all these notions that women are anything other than people who are completely and intrinsically equal to men. I know I’m basically describing everything under the feminist umbrella, but it’s that notion that needs to disappear, and education is probably the best way to do that, and touches on everything else.
If I had to pick one personal vendetta, it would be the conservative religious concept that men are the heads of households. I have no problem with that if a woman really chooses it, but I’m thinking more of those extremely sheltered families where women really don’t know about any other options. It’s not the most horrifying manifestation of inequality, but it bothers me because it looks so CLOSE, like it should be so easy to fix, but it’s not.
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Yeah, that’s a good point about heads of households. I agree with you that education is an important part of this. I also think the sort of education we’re talking about has to start at home before children are school-age.
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That would be ideal, but I don’t know of a way to encourage that other than changing the whole culture children are embedded into, and doing that is the point of education in the first place. Examples from my life are sort of fractured, but I don’t think that kind of education necessarily has to start before school age, and a large part of what’s needed is just general education so women have the ability to create careers, confidence in handling their own money, etc.
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My answer is two-fold. (I know this maybe defeats the purpose of the question) In the Western world I think the pressing issue is rape culture and rape. The numbers are staggering. Rape and molestation have almost become the norm in our culture (not to the victim, but we are no longer shocked or surprised by it. Which is crazy) If you’re talking about the developing world I would say FGM. It’s a definitive issue, it is not vague. It is pervasive, it sets girls up at a young age for a lifetime of mental and physical issues. Are we asking in reference to Western culture? Should we consider it a dual approach and consider the needs of both the First and Third World? Sorry I’m answering a question with a question… Also, thank you so much Gene’O for keeping the conversation going.
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Thanks for chiming in, Gretchen. I purposely left out the geographical distinction because I wanted to give people a chance to look at the overall picture(s) that’s emerging from all these different blogs and see where to go next. I agree with you about the rape and molestation not being shocking any more – I hadn’t thought of it in those terms.
And yes, I do think we need to separate developed/developing countries. I’m actually for being more specific than that. The reason I started off so general is that everyone has their own priorities and I don’t know what those are unless people tell me.
I’m looking at a constellation of related issues at this point, and considering the possibility that a comprehensive approach to them might simply be impossible; but if we’re able to keep this going, I want everyone who’s engaging here to eventually have a discussion thread devoted to their issue of greatest concern.
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That’s a very difficult question to answer, and I am (almost?) persuaded that it is part of the reason why feminism appears so fractured at present. Different groups with different priority, even though all are ultimately contingent.
More to come soon.
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Yes, it is difficult, and I think you’re right about it being one of the reasons feminism seems so fractured. I had real difficulty formulating the question. I felt as though it was too broad, but I couldn’t think of another way to phrase it and still generate the types of responses I’ve gotten today. The comments are just the sorts of responses I was hoping for.
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I am reading through the responses at the moment. Many thoughtful suggestions and this discussion re-emphasises how important the project truly is.
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The mentality is so entrenched in our society, as Step Daughter points out. I have had men (contractors, etc) shrug off something I have said but as soon as my husband says it they all of a sudden take it seriously. It’s basically a patronizing pat on the head. It is infuriating!!! I think the rape culture, which includes (I assume) general violence towards women, is epidemic and the most pressing issue for women in our culture. So, I am going to say that this is what I think needs to be the focus. I care greatly about FGM, but I also know there are many great organizations dedicated to that cause. We can still write and talk about it and support those causes (because frankly, people in the U.S. aren’t aware enough of this issue), but I don’t see anyone focusing specifically on rape culture (at least not that I am aware of, I’m sure they are out there).
I didn’t feel good about the vagueness of my last comment so I reread the thread and decided to be more decisive.
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Thanks. Somehow I missed this until just now. I’m pretty sure, after talking to a few people and re-reading this thread, that rape is next on my list to write about.
I do want to talk about education, but it will take a bit of research, because we haven’t written very much about how it relates to these issues up to this point and don’t have a lot of links in our archives.
My thought on FGM is that we do need to dedicate a discussion to it soon. But I think that discussion will need to be the most closely moderated thread we’ve ever had, so it will need to be on a day when I’m sure I am up for it.
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Hello everyone! I am glad Vic informed me / invited me about this. I like to discuss and I am a feminist. I am not ashamed to say so. My boyfriend is a feminist. All of my family are feminist – although they will not say that without being asked. Why are we all feminists? Because a feminist is a person, female or male who wants equal rights for both genders.
Sometimes I have a feeling that we are light years away from real tolerance because it is still (!!!) needed to bring the attention to women issues and we haven’t even start to talk about homosexuals and trangender people and their integration into sociatly as normal, which they are. I am sorry I haven’t read the comments, here in Cro it is really late and I’m tired, but i will read them tomorrow.
I have written a few times about my personal attitude towards LGBT community and about feminism. We in Croatia had extremely hateful and disturbing last year, when the referendum for baning gay marriage in constitution passed with 61% (I can put a link to my post). It was devastating, not just for the result, but for all the hate gay people were exposed in my country that few months (more than usual) Why am i comparing women issues with gay? Because they have similarities and are considered less equal – even though women are half of the population!
The most important thing for me is being equally payed, but I also feel very strongly about street harrasment and any kind of sexual abuse. I have writen (not on my blog) about Hollaback! movement which is awesome, for you who are not familiar with it, you can look more about in on internet.
Something very disturbing has started to happen, not only around the world but in my country also, esspecially last month(s) and I suggest that maybe that would be the next topic… If you wish.
It is about cyberbulling women through internet, esspecially Facebook – creating pages for different cities and encouraging men to send photos of their gf, neighbours, friends… They download or print screen photo from someone’s profil and make terrible, disgusting and sexist comments about it. They take photos of women in traffic, waiting at the line in the supermarket, in the bathroom!! Anything that shows butt or tits or is slightly provocative gets there for “the judgement”. And frankly that kind of behaviour makes me sick. And it is also troubling because other women don’t seem to realise that it could really be them! There is a lot slut shaming – well, if she didn’t want the comments, she wouldn’t post it. But they are not posting it, someone else does that for them… Uh, there is soooo much more in this topic and I and the organisation I volunteer for are very involved in reporting this and getting this pages down. What hurts me the most is that there has happened the case of Amanda Todd and many more and nobody realise how much of a problem cyberbulling can be and is.
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I’m glad you found us and chimed in! Welcome; I’ll be peeking at your blog, as I’m really interested in that post you mentioned. We’ve been talking about marriage equality a lot this week. Gene’O is in Mississippi, where we are both from, and past few weeks there’s been a flurry of activity because of discriminatory bill that almost passed.
The connection of marriage equality to feminism is absolute. I think that the basic reason feminism is so splintered right now and that this conversation has taken so many turns is indicative of the ways feminism has changed. Not paying attention to the ways that gender performance, sexuality, race, disability, and class affect womanhood was a downfall of second wave feminism.
On another note, that cyberbullying thing you mentioned is something else we’ve been talking about around here–the internet as a space that isn’t safe for women. Gretchen has written about it in a post that was Freshly Pressed, and I’ve written about it, and Andy rather consistently writes about it. The voyeurism of photos being uploaded of women who are just on the street or the beach or wherever that a guy uploaded is a really big issue–it’s so invasive. And then there’s the slut-shaming that goes with it. I think some of those things are indicative of rape culture, and in how we perceive the female body.
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Thank you for the welcome 🙂 I will link my post here when I find it… I am happy to join as I have so many to say, what I have writen about (on blog and off), what others have write about… It is a burning issue and I don’t know with all of what is going on we still think feminism is not needed or important. I was hesitant on the labeling myself as a feminist at first when I started my education at a feminist media but when I saw the missconception people have about it and what power that label carries I think that feminism doesn’t need to re-label itself, as i have read. When I say I am a feminist I get a reaction and that is what I want. When I say rape is an issue, cyberbulling is an issue I want a reaction. Because there is no need for me to “tone it down”… Oh, and now I remembered one clip I have watched yesterday and is so typical. I will link. Also, I provided links for the movement “Why do we still need feminism” ans about FGM on cupcakes on the last week’s topic.
http://www.upworthy.com/a-tv-host-decides-to-not-report-the-facts-or-news-gets-spectacularly-called-out-by-co-host-2?c=ufb1
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Welcome, and thanks for sharing that story with us. I don’t have anything to add to what Diana said, but I read every word of your conversation.
I don’t have any trouble at all seeing a connection between LGBTQ rights and feminism, and I’m grateful for your first-hand perspective on what’s going on in Croatia. We don’t see things like that in our media very often – it’s something we really have to dig for.
I’ll definitely check out your blog.
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Thank you 🙂
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I haven’t read any of the comments yet, but I am going to have to go with rape culture. Head to the comments section on “Saturday Night Fever” on IMDB and you will see what I mean. Many people do not see the final scene as rape because she is “being a tease.” How patently ridiculous and disgusting:
f you do not consent, it is rape.
That’s that. No further discussion warranted or needed. It does not matter if you don’t say no (but as an aside, in the movie, she did say no, many times); it does not matter if you are drunk. Nothing matters, really. If you don’t consent, it is rape.
And rape culture deals with much more than rape. it is about catcalls and being expected to get sex because you pay for a nice meal. It is about calling a woman a “tease” and talking about “the friend zone” (which is ultimately just a way of attacking a woman for being “selfish” and wanting to be friends with someone who–GASP, the HORROR–has a penis). It is about the slut-virgin dichotomy.
Rape culture is about culture.
And like many things, I think that all of this (most of this) stems back to education. Real sex education. I don’t mean telling people where the uterus is or what it does (though that is important). I mean actual, real conversations about sex. That’s what I think we really need to work on. Sex is simultaneously mystified, glorified, and disparaged in our society. This leaves people with no way to act without getting attacked.
And this works in concert with men as well. They need to have lots of sex to be real men. They need to make conquests. And it is that mentality which leads to rape culture, and which makes us think that men can’t get raped.
I had an argument with a friend a few months ago because he was asserting that it was “impossible to rape a man because,” because if he is hard, he must want it. A man said that. Seriously. What kind of culture is it that leads people to think about their own gender, their own sex, in this way?
…a really shitty one.
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Jolene, you are my spirit animal.
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haha, thanks. I would feel a bit more epic if there wasn’t that glaring typo where I forgot to put in the “I” in “if.”
But such is life 🙂
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😉 Indeed. But it’s epic enough. It does a lot of tying together what we’ve been discussing, and you managed to hit a lot of the points we’ve been discussing without even reading through all the other comments first.Bravo. 🙂
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Maybe that’s something we should include in those lists… Being drunk is not consent, attractiveness (of either party) is not consent, wearing revealing clothing is not consent, “not saying no” is not consent, and AROUSAL is not consent.
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It sucks that it’s 2014 and we’re still having to say these things to grown people.
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Damn, Jolene. You rock.
Part of what I am doing here is reading this thread to see what I need to talk about next. I think you might have convinced me that education is the next thing (lots of education chatter on this thread).
The way you turn that comment back to men thinking they can’t be raped is beautiful, rhetorically speaking. It is also true. And I totally agree with you about the “friend zone.” All of it.
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Thanks. And I really do believe that ignorance (education or lack thereof) is the cause of nearly all of our problems. The problem is, of course, that education is related to so many other things: Home life, economics, etc. So it’s not an easy problem to solve because it involves simultaneously solving *a lot* of other problems. Still, if we focused on education, I mean honestly focused on it and made it an priority, I think it would take us a long way.
As an aside, when I was having this conversation with my friend (about how men can’t get raped) there was another man there who had been sexually abused as a teen. The friend I was debating/arguing with didn’t know this. The whole thing, really, was just horrifying and sad.
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I found and reading the last week’s thread, and so I remembered this page when I read “Do we still need feminims?” I think it is great. http://whoneedsfeminism.tumblr.com/
Also, about the femal genital mutilation, I have watched a video I think few days ago (or yesterday) about it so I will link it here:
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“”What’s the most pressing issue for people who care about equality for women? If you had to prioritize, what would you put at the top of the list?”
where does one begin. i’ve known a few who have been raped, unfortunately and regrettably. regrettably that they’re related to me. i’ve been sexually assaulted and felt too ashamed to report it campus police. this person grabbed my breast sunning. i can’t imagine what it would be like to be brutally raped. that’s beyond the pale. an understatement.
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Thanks for joining in the conversation. “Where does one begin?” is right. That’s why I made the question so open. I wanted to know how other people prioritize these issues. And thanks for that link.
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another fight worth trying to get people riled up about: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-sexist-jobs-in-america-2013-11
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media images of impossibly thin models held up as great role models. we’re in wonderland territory now
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indeed.
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Here’s a piece of evidence that might support what I said in one of my earlier posts about not being sure we’ve seen any progress since the early 2000s. From that link Axiomatika shared above:
Most of that progress, however, came between the 1980s and the early 2000s. Improvements in the gender wage gap largely stalled after the onset of the Great Recession, and women’s salaries have hovered around 80% of men’s for roughly the past decade.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-most-sexist-jobs-in-america-2013-11#ixzz2xNGBJx23
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