Il corpo delle donne, The Body of Women. An Italian feminist documentary by Lorella Zanardo

[photograph of filmmaker Lorella Zanardo, from here]

Warning: The film mentioned here contains lots of graphic objectification of women, but is deeply critical of it from a feminist perspective. The film was made by Lorella Zanardo.

In Italian:
Potete trovare un feminist's blog in Italia @ http://ilcorpodelledonne.blogspot.com/, che è circa la pellicola il corpo delle donna. Il documentario è circa il objectification delle donne nei mezzi italiani della televisione.

Troverete un collegamento là alla pellicola.

Usi prego un Web site quale Babelish per la traduzione.

In inglese:
You can find a feminist's blog in Italy, which is about the film On Women's Bodies. The documentary is about the objectification of women in Italian television media.

For more of an introduction, and a link to the film with English subtitles, go to this UK blog, The F-Word, linked to here.

Liberazione per le donne!

END OF POST.

A letter to Andrea Dworkin, on what would have been her 63rd birthday

[this image is from here]
26 September 2009 ECD, and also year 5770.
Dear Andrea,

It gets harder each fall to say "Happy New Year" and believe it will, in fact, be happy for over half the population on Earth. It's been another very rough year, in fact. The gynocide continues unabated, with white men as collectively self-absorbed as ever about what's going on around us, particularly what we do to other people without taking responsibility or feeling remorse. As a group, we white men show ourselves daily to be the most heartless, callous, and cruel group of bastards on Earth. And it's our astounding passivity as well as our racist woman-hating aggressive behavior that makes us so.

I remain sad and angry at the way your books are misread, misunderstood, and just plain ignored by the people who do have access to your work, who can read, but won't read it.

That people can't see your work as humanitarian, as loving of humanity, well, that alone says a lot about the fucked up ways our dominant educational systems and media teach "reality".

You fought so hard to have the most basic things understood: that women are human, for example, precisely to the degree that men are human. And for that you are still called "a man-hater".

You fought to make the case that the pornographers and their white male supremacist values and practices beyond the pornography industry, not genes, not G-d, not hormones, make men rapists. And for that you are still called "a man-hater".

I have been puzzling over that one, especially in this last year, and I wanted to share with you what I think is going on here, in a world I am at least thankful you don't have to live in any more, much as I selfishly wish you were still in it.

What I think is going on is that white heterosexual men, especially, but men generally, get really accustomed to having our asses wiped by women from a very early age. And fed all of our first meals, sometimes from women's bodies directly.

We really do believe, in those early years and later, that women are "for us". "FOR US", as if women couldn't possibly exist on this Earth for any other reasons, and not for that one at all.

We men grow up seeing all the many ways women are degraded and humiliated, often in our own homes, but if not there then from the apartment next door, or the house down the block, or from the latest news story of a husband or boyfriend killing his female partner, always, always sensationalised rather that appropriately analysed in the most powerful media. And the story of a woman killed by her male co-worker. Or the many untold stories of some random man on the street who felt like "expressing his feelings" by murdering a prostitute who just possibly may not have wanted another procurer, another renter of humans, another possessor of women, in her face that day or night; or those untold stories of the man who harasses or murders some other woman who he thinks is a prostitute, "for him", because she's Black or Brown and has the audacity to be outside on a street, talking on her cell phone, not turning in his direction when he arrogantly and predatorially beckons her to him, never calling her by her full name, never calling her by any name with respect; or those untold stories of men murdering the women someone once proclaimed "to be his" wife; or those women, lesbian or not, trans or not, who may or may not be prostitutes, who, regardless, tell him to "fuck off" for following and harassing them.

You wanted people to understand that prostitutes are human beings precisely to the degree that any man is, including the men who would use and abuse and kill her. And for that you are stigmatised as "a man-hater".

You spoke truths about men, about us as a politically active class of people, who commit atrocities few seem to want to identify as such. You were sometimes, and not very often, angry. You were usually humorous and deeply caring and deeply concerned about the state of terror and subjugation women, as a political class of human beings, live in daily.

You spoke those truths without taking care of men's feelings. You didn't write to make men feel good about themselves while they were faced with coming to terms with what we men do that is in no way good, in groups and as individual men, against and to women.

You didn't take care of men's feelings. You didn't wipe our asses or spoon feed us baby food. You expressed anger angrily. You expressed pain painfully. You expressed social truth truthfully, and THAT is why I think men call you "a man-hater" rather than a lover of humanity. Also because you focused on women's suffering under male supremacy, not men's suffering that is accompanied by privileges and entitlements to use women as if "they are for us". Because of that narrow focus on over half the human population, men can't imagine that being "humanitarian work". How misogynistic is THAT? Like I have to ask you. You taught me how misogynistic that is.

You taught me that caring about the political realities: the economic exploitation, sexual violence, and social subordination by gender, sexuality, and race, of women and girls by men and boys, was, according to men on the white Right and the white Left, not WORTH focusing on. I heard you. And I believe you not because you said it, but because it is socially true. I listen in my heart for your many words of insight and wisdom. If white Christians can listen for a white Jesus or an imagined white male sky-god, I can listen for you and Audre Lorde. And I do.

Thank you for all the unbelievably hard work you did to educate us about what is and has been happening to women. Thank you for peeling away layers of incomprehension, delusion, and denial that keeps so many men from knowing, let alone feeling, what women experience individually and collectively because they aren't men--because they are women.

I await, not passively, the time when men, collectively, will feel outrage and demonstrate focused action against white male supremacists, including ourselves.

Maybe next year the report will be better. You, more than any other person, taught me to have hope for just such a time. And there will be a time after that, when white male supremacy is no more, when people--seen as fully human, not as objects or things--will be humane to one another.

Thank you for writing it down as it was (and still is). Thank you for not shying away from speaking women's truths to men's power. Thank you for so many years of radical political work on behalf of women and girls, which is to say, on behalf of humanity.

Thank you for being human in a way no man I know is: a human being who loves women so much; who refused to be silent about the terrorism and atrocity women face, endure, fight against, and still die from on a massive scale; who refused to call it anything but terrorism and atrocity. Men can be as humane as any caring souls, if we'd be willing to let go of our collective callousness and refusal to believe women have a right to be free of men's needs and desires. And to know that's not just a right. It is a reality awaiting its entrance through men's rusty locked gates of ignorance and inaction.

I love you. I'll continue to defend your work for what it was and is, and praise it for what it did and still does. I'll continue to defend and praise you, Andrea, as long as I'm mentally and physically able to do so.

With hope that you are resting in peace,

Julian

* * *

For her work, go to:
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/
http://www.amazon.com/Andrea-Dworkin/e/B000APLG8A
http://www.nostatusquo.com/ACLU/dworkin/OnlineLibrary.html
http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/

END OF POST.

"What Would The Average Man Do" Standard: What's Wrong with THIS Picture?

[image is from here]

White middle class heterosexual men are considered to be a population of "reasonable" people, generally and legally. It apparently hasn't crossed enough legal minds to wonder about what "a reasonable person" is.

Most white middle class men routinely and regularly access images online of incested, raped, and pimped women and girls. On and off the record, white middle class heterosexual men of many ages will readily admit they do this.

To all white heteromale supremacist assholes: this is not "a feminist" claim. It's something you all brag about and take pride in. It's a behavior you feel so entitled to that should any woman you are with recommend you not do it, you will find every reason in The Oppressors' Handbook for Dummies to try to shame and silence the women who are around you, in your lives, impacted by this behavior.

Given that white middle class heterosexual men's values are shaped by their profound ignorance about what oppressed people experience, and given that oppressed people are the majority, why does a population which admits wanting 24/7 access to raped women's bodies online, when in courts of law, get to argue that an act was not rape because "a reasonable white middle class man" wouldn't call it rape?

If we determine a demographic's values by their practices, in this case of either committing or permitting gynocide and genocide, what hope for women is there of rapists ever being charged as such?

If heterosexual men, generally, want and enjoy 24/7 acccess to incested, raped, and pimped women's bodies online, can we say that this is a population of "innocent men"? What legitimate or sensible meaning does "innocent" have in this context?

There was a story in the news recently about a batterer (surprise: a white heterosexual middle class husband!) who was found not guilty of raping "his" wife. He was found to be "innocent". The court acknowledged he had battered her. He'd been charged and found guilty of committing battery of women in the past. I believe anyone with their head up their ass all day and night ought to be able to register "what's wrong with this picture!?"

END OF POST.

Danny's Corner of His Delusional Universe... Tap, tap, tap: Hey Danny, try living in the world of systematic human suffering

[image is from here]

I'm posting this to demonstrate why men's rape of women continues. It's because men like Danny would rather spend their time blogging about insignificant shit than to deal with CRAP.

Check this bullshit out as a prime example. And please read the comments, if you can.

Here's what Danny says about his own blog, called, appropriately enough, Danny's Corner:
"Over the years I've often had lots of thoughts swimming in my head and after reading different blogs here and there on different subjects I have concluded that perhaps the best way to flesh out said thoughts is to share them with other people. That being said I don't expect this blog to only focus on one subject. There will be focusing in individual posts but there wont be any all encompassing theme to it."

He's got that right, no "all encompassing theme" at all, except, well, not dealing with reality, if ya wanna call that a "theme".

Danny, you're behaving like a P.R.I.C.K. Wake up and smell the blood on men's hands, and note that it's not from our own bodies.

END OF POST.

Father-Daughter Incest that extends into adulthood: Mackenzie Phillips bravely shares a terrible secret about "Papa John" Phillips

[photo of John Phillips with his daughter Mackenzie is from here]

[24 Sept 2009 update: see here for more about how her family has reacted to the news--as she notes, it's in a very typical way in families with incest. Her half sister and member of the all-female band Wilson Phillips with Beach Boy Brian Wilson's two daughters, will be the guest on Friday's Oprah Show, with Mackenzie via satellite. As someone who comes from a family loaded up and torn apart by incest, I'll be watching to see what kind of support Mackenzie gets.]

I welcome you to click here for an article about Mackenzie's story, which is where I found the image above.

I used to watch all the talk shows, or chat shows, in the 1980s that dealt with matters of sexual violence against women (and girls and boys): incest, rape, battery, prostitution, pornography. I kept looking for pieces of my own story, and to understand how people survive it all. I'm not sure I learned anything too useful, as too many of those shows refused to highlight a radical feminist analysis of these crimes against children and women. But at least in the 1980s feminism had something of a voice, a presence, in dominant media. That has been completely replaced by apolitical analysts, who refuse to see male and white supremacy's abuses as such even when they're staring the psychologists and relationship experts in the face.

http://www.oprah.com/media/20090826-tows-mackenzie-rape [there is more of her story there, and more videos from Oprah's talk show]

Oprah Winfrey's last show to air in the U.S., a portion of which is played in a video above, featured child actor, singer, and daughter of the creator of the famed musical group of the 1960s, The Mamas and The Papas. His name is John Phillips but because of the band, he was known just as much as "Papa John". He died in the spring of 2001 at the age of 65. Eight years later the oldest of his many children, daughter Mackenzie, co-star of the 1970s hit TV show "One Day at a Time", has a new book telling of her life's many serious struggles. She was a child in L.A. with a drug using father; she developed a decades long drug habit herself when she was an adolescent; and her father, the one and only Papa John, also raped her when she was nineteen and unconscious. He then continued to sexually violate her over the next ten years. There is a term Mackenzie uses to describe the sexual abuse that happened when she was, in her painfully honest words, old enough to know better. That term is "consensual incest". That term makes me very uncomfortable, but probably not exactly for all the reasons you might think.

From the perspective from which I analyse social reality, I'm not sure the term "consensual incest" has any merit or meaning. Once a man rapes his daughter, so many things happen to a person that what happens later by him cannot, in my mind, be said to be "consensual". For me, it is all abuse--his against her. And I realise that is a contentious position to take. But I take it based partly on my own childhood experience.

_______________________

[added on 24 Sept. 2009] For more discussion of this by Mackenzie Phillips, see this:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

________________________

When I was a prepubescent boy, I was deeply attracted to a man who lived for several years in my family's home. He was at least ten years older than me. He engaged me in some incestuous behavior that confused me. (He was, from my point of view, a part of my family.) And, because he never frightened me in his approach, I longed for more contact, which never happened.

I grew up, and after a family member of mine that he knew well had died, I contacted him to let him know. He was not born in this country and had, years ago, returned to the country of his birth, where he had lived with a U.S.-born woman--his spouse, with whom he had two children. And he was divorced by the time I reconnected with him by phone. Of course he didn't recognise my voice. It had deepened considerably since I was eleven. But he knew my name and the name of my relative who recently died.

Learning of his divorce sent many thoughts through my head, such as: I wonder if he could possibly be gay? (The answer is no.) And, more bizarrely, "I wonder if he'd consider resuming our relationship." I thought about going to visit him, and us picking up where he left off. I was in therapy at the time, and my therapist reminded me it wasn't "a relationship" in any healthy understanding of that term. She reminded me of something I'd said about him in an earlier session: He exploited me, plain and simple. I hated to think that, though. I wanted to believe he was in love with me, because that way there'd be some way for me to stay in denial about being so utterly and callously used by him. (He wasn't in love with me, ever. And even if he were, that wouldn't make this story any less abusive.)

I have brought up "the past" and he has said he doesn't remember much from that time. How convenient for him. When he said that, when he dodged responsibility for his actions, I realised he was fully capable of being an asshole. Of course he wouldn't consider taking responsibility for what happened, he wouldn't apologise, he wouldn't explain what the fuck he was doing to an eleven year old boy who longed for affection and closeness and got what he wanted from me. Nothing terribly "overt" happened between us, on the spectrum of what can happen to children. But any violation is a serious one, and every form of abuse and betrayal does damage. And part of the damage to me was my insistence in thinking of him as someone who loved me.

What I'm relieved about is that this story told on Oprah's show and in Mackenzie Phillips' book, High on Arrival, makes it clear John Phillips actions were always wrong and always an abuse of power. The way Mackenzie speaks of her father is the way many of us speak of those who incested us, who we loved.

My heart goes out to her, and to all survivors of incest and rape, the forms which vary considerably from heinously sadistic and horrifying to the forms that are gentle in approach and appear to be caring, but aren't.

[25 Sept. 2009 addition:]
John Phillips shot up his daughter with heroin and had nonconsensual sex against her while she was unconscious. To those who do not know, can you imagine what either of those things does to a person's sense of self? To their sense of "what's right and what's wrong in the world"? Would you EVER volunteer to find out?

END OF POST.

Humor Time: What did the doctor say?

[you can click on the image to enlarge it to make the text easier to read]

LMWAO!


END OF POST.

A.R.P. POST # 300: what can a woman say to a man when she notices him visually violating her??

[image is from Holla Back NYC's website found here]

This is what they say about themselves and what they do:
Holla Back NYC empowers New Yorkers to Holla Back at street harassers. Whether you're commuting, lunching, partying, dancing, walking, chilling, drinking, or sunning, you have the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy, without being the object of some turd's fantasy. So stop walkin' on and Holla Back: Send us pics of street harassers!
* * *

I got the following question posted as a comment to another thread which can be found here. This is the question:

what can a woman say to a man when she notices him visually violating her??

thanks

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

This is my answer, slightly modified from the one I posted over at that original post, but I strongly encourage women reading this to respond.

I've looked up some stuff, and found this self-serving male supremacist anecdote; for me, this is a really good example of what NOT to do. To see that, go to the website girlsaskguys.com. What the men say there makes me want to puke.

Now, on with my answer which I pray is more appropriate than theirs:

Blogger Julian Real said...

THAT is a GREAT question.

First, I'm sorry you are having to contend with that level of violation from men, and I'm not at all surprised that any woman has to, given the gross ways men treat women all the damn time while thinking they aren't doing anything harmful or wrong, oh, and also while getting SUPPORT and ENCOURAGEMENT from other men to do so!

Second, please visit this website for more support (also linked to below the image): http://hollabacknyc.blogspot.com/. My strongest suggestion would be to contact them and ask for support and advice.

It's such an important question that I'm going to make it into a separate post, but will also offer some answers below.

I'm going with a scenario where you don't know the man at all. I support you handling any situation like this with a clear assessment of you own sense of relative safety. So, for example, if a man is objectifying you and you wish to confront him, do you have a route out/away? Is he blocking your route of escape? He may get hostile. Challenging men's fucked up entitlements often angers men. I would hope he'd just be embarrassed and feel appropriately ashamed. And my support to anyone who challenges men around our violating practices toward women.

Again, I'd visit any of the holla back city websites and seek counsel there.

As you may know all too well, men's practices of ("only") visually violating women fall along quite a spectrum, from being whistled at on a street, to be gawked at, to being stared at and propositioned, to being followed, to being "up-skirted" by a man with a small digital camera or cell phone camera, to being photographed in other ways, without the woman knowing it, to being in a hotel room and being spied on and/or videotaped.

So one question is: "What's the context? Where is this happening?" Because depending on where you are, there might be various resources available to you beyond personally confronting him. (And when I say "confront" I include "simply speaking to him and asking him to stop".

I am also wondering if we're talking about an asshole in a bar kind of situation--where he's likely to have male support for being a prick, a workplace situation (which has its own protocol on what to do), a school context (which also hopefully has its own protocol), or a public space like on a street or in a park or public beach.

I've seen men on beaches with giant telephoto lenses on their cameras, pointed at women lying down resting quite a distance away. I want to kick the camera out of their hands and break it. And if their hand gets broken too, oops!

I stopped going to the beach because I didn't want to deal with the objectification issues, and the likely lawsuits that could follow me doing just that.

Regardless of what you say, if the man is a major jerk, you're likely to get responses like "It's a free world. If you don't want to be looked at, why are you here?" To which I'd say, "It's not a free world for women who wish to be in it without being visually violated by men like you."

I have just come up with a list of possible things to say to a man, and would really like to hear back from you about which feel most doable, which seem like they might work, or, if you try some of them (or anything else) out, to let me know what happened.

I'm concerned about your safety and well-being. Obviously in the situation you're describing, your safety and well-being are already being compromised. But it's not clear how compromised or empowered you are in the abstract.

For example, when I've been objectified by men I feel like my sense of wholeness is being assaulted, and that I am being turned into a thing, which can be scary or creepy or terrifying, depending on what's going on, and how I'm feeling that day. It can be a very triggering experience for me as a sexual assault survivor. (I'm reflecting now on whether I have ever called a man out who was objectifying me... No, but, I have told strangers who ask to touch me not to do so.)

Some people I've spoken with advise against letting a man know you are frightened or uneasy. Some rapist men sadistically "enjoy" knowing they are making a woman uncomfortable or afraid. Obviously this "masking of emotion" is easier said than done. I'm not terribly adept at having a stern or solid demeanor in the face of being visually violated.

And no matter what response you get, know that HIS BEHAVIOR is the issue AND the problem, not you confronting or challenging him to stop it.

So, here's a short list, and I welcome women especially who are reading this to offer their suggestions, or to share stories of successfully getting men to stop violating a woman visually.

"I need to let you know I am not at all comfortable with you staring at me. Please stop it."

or...

"Are you aware you are staring at me? Please stop doing so."

"Excuse me. I didn't come to this place to be visually inspected."

"Sorry to interrupt your objectification session, using my body, but STOP LOOKING AT ME!"

Some non-verbal options:

Just hold up your middle finger.

Turn around, and look back at him in disgust.

Take out your cell phone and, whether or not it has a camera, pretend to, or do, take his photograph, again and again if need be. Send the pic to the appropriate holla back website.

If you're with a female friend, ask her to stare at him angrily with you. Stare him down, with arms crossed in front of you.

Yell at him so everyone around can hear: STOP STARING AT ME, YOU CREEP! (I'd only do this if I were with a friend or three.)

Tell him loudly or sternly, "Keep your fucking eyes to yourself!"

END OF POST.