MutherFuckerForLies, aka "MotherForTruth" on how the raped are responsible for being raped

 

[image of anti-rape poster by men's anti-rape group is from here]

I encourage anyone who is anti-rape to visit this website and respond to this piece of writing in need of feminist analysis, titled:

Concern over 'Women say some rape victims should take blame' survey

Below is a comment posted to that "discussion". And below that is my reply, calling out that pro-rape het-man. Please add your comments.

• 
  
  • MotherForTruth   
  It is not ok to rape someone.
  But what is considered a rape? It is not so simple. Our emotions interfere to see clearly and we tend to react to the word “rape” picturing a bad guy taking advantage of this poor innocent girl.
  In my opinion it is not what she is wearing or how she talks it's the intent of attracting sexual advances. I hear first-hand stories all the time.
  
  Picture this party; heavy drinking, sex games, stripping, dancing with sexual intent where a female turns her back towards the male and shaking her body against him. Now all heavily drunk the two have sex. The next morning she regrets the whole thing. Was she raped? She wants to put the blame on him because it's easier for her to be a victim then facing the circumstances of her actions.
  
  In this scenario I believe there was a consensual sex not rape. But all too often such circumstances resulting in women claim rape. We now have laws allowing prosecution of men having sex with intoxicated woman and the law is blind on one eye by ignoring that the man was also intoxicated. Resulting in men in prison and registered sex offender for life while she can go on to another party.
  Rape charges like these take away from real victims of rape who do need to come forward and get help.
  
  Well known radical feminists view on rape is as followed, it's up to each of us to follow these beliefs or not.
  
  " all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent"(Catherine MacKinnon in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies, p. 129.)
  
  "All men are rapists and that's all they are"(Marilyn French Author, "The Women's Room”, and advisor to Al Gore's Presidential Campaign)
  
  "All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."(Catherine MacKinnon)
  
  "Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience."(Catherine Comins, Vassar College Assistant Dean of Student Life in Time, June 3, 1991, p. 52.)
  

• julianreal

responding to

• MotherForTruth:"In my opinion it is not what she is wearing or how she talks it's the intent of attracting sexual advances."
  
  Rape is not AT ALL about the intentions of those who are raped, but ENTIRELY ABOUT the effect of the rapers on those they violate and harm.
  
  "Picture this party; heavy drinking, sex games, stripping, dancing with sexual intent where a female turns her back towards the male and shaking her body against him. Now all heavily drunk the two have sex. The next morning she regrets the whole thing. Was she raped? She wants to put the blame on him because it's easier for her to be a victim then facing the circumstances of her actions."
  
  Get this:
  As Andrea Dworkin once famously said about date-rape victims:
  the punishment for getting drunk with a frat boy and taking him to your room should be a hangover, not rape.
  
  "In this scenario I believe there was a consensual sex not rape. But all too often such circumstances resulting in women claim rape. We now have laws allowing prosecution of men having sex with intoxicated woman and the law is blind on one eye by ignoring that the man was also intoxicated."
  
  In your fake scenario, you get to believe whatever you want. And so what? If a drunk driver hits another drunk driver, does that means there was no accident? And if drunk driver A kills drunk driver B, is B not dead because they also were drunk?
  
  If I start to have sex because I want to, and then stop, and say I want to and he doesn't respect it, then guess what? That's rape. See here for more:
  
  http://radicalprofeminist.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-...
  
  By your logic no harm is can be done if two people are drunk. Well that lets all rapists know how to get away with it, doesn't it? Just get the woman [and yourself, the rapist] drunk. (Hmmm. And how many frat boys and guys out at a bar do exactly that?)
  
  "Resulting in men in prison and registered sex offender for life while she can go on to another party."
  
  Not likely. Most rapes aren't reported and most reported rapes don't result in a conviction. Even a woman with a knife at her neck who was raped will have a hard time proving it. Because people like you will say she intended to have sex. He won't be harmed at all, but she will be called a "wh*re" and a "sl*t" and be told she now deserves to be raped, and she'll be threatened and probably raped by some jerks who are pissed because she "falsely" accused a man who DID date raped her. And he's not even likely to see jail time! So get a clue, please, about how rape prosecution really works... for men who rape, not for women who are raped.
  
  "Rape charges like these take away from real victims of rape who do need to come forward and get help."
  
  Comments like yours take away from believing any woman who is date raped.
  
  "Well known radical feminists view on rape is as followed, it's up to each of us to follow these beliefs or not."
  
  You're statements that follow are "false accusations" (lies) that are typically passed around the internet without any fact-checking. They were never said by Catharine MacKinnon, whose misspelled name you copied and pasted without correcting. (Hint: That's how you know she didn't say it: the misogynist misquoter can't even spell the name right!)
  
  " all heterosexual intercourse is rape because women, as a group, are not strong enough to give meaningful consent"(Catherine MacKinnon in Professing Feminism: Cautionary Tales from the Strange World of Women's Studies, p. 129.)
  
  That's not one of CathArine A. MacKinnon's books, first of all. And she never said it. Ever. Or wrote it down. Try and find it in one of her books or speeches: you won't.
  
  "All sex, even consensual sex between a married couple, is an act of violence perpetrated against a woman."(Catherine MacKinnon)
  
  That's not a comment ever made by MacKinnon either. Your credibility as a commenter--and you are a man, not a woman at all, by the way--is busted.
  
  Check this out for some truth-telling about what MacKinnon did and didn't say and write, and please note how to spell her name, so the next time you copy and paste lies here, you can at least correct that inaccuracy, while you seek to promote the rest:
  
  http://www.snopes.com/quotes/mackinnon.asp
  
  Guess what? You lied. Now how many people have you harmed by doing so?

Sexual Disorientation and the Problem of Eracism: Which Wins Olympic Gold: Misogyny, Racism, or Homophobia?

[image of U.S. white male figure skater Evan Lysacek is from here]

[image of U.S. white male figure skater Johnny Weir is from here]

Click on the following heading for the link to the original site.

Tanith Belbin, Johnny Weir Share Room in Olympic Village

by Daniel Kobialka on Feb 17, 2010 12:14:57 AM 

U.S. figure skater Evan Lysacek can't be a happy camper.

According to The Philadelphia Inquirer,  Lysacek's ex-girlfriend Tanith Belbin -- an ice dancer -- and his nemesis Johnny Weir are sharing a room in Vancouver's Olympic Village.

A housing problem forced Belbin to choose between sharing a room with Weir or Lysacek.  
Belbin's choice was obvious.

"Johnny and Evan were both in the same boat. It was just the three of us, and there was one room with two single bedrooms," Belbin told the newspaper. "If you take Johnny and myself and Evan and do the math, the only logical answer was me and Johnny."

But Weir's decorating skills have made him the perfect roommate.

"There are aromatic candles, and he had Audrey Hepburn posters and motivational quotes on the wall," Belbin said.

After Tuesday's short program of the men's figure skating competition, Lysacek is in second place, while Weir stands sixth. The free skate is scheduled for Thursday.

The Olympic ice-dance finals take place next Monday, Feb. 22. Both should be well-rested for the competition.

*     *     *

Get it? The assumption is that Johnny is gay, and that since a (presumably) heterosexual man is sleeping alone, and this presumably gay man is sleeping with Tanith, both boys will sleep well due to not having any sex. As if Evan having a room to himself precludes him from having a guest. And as if Tanith ahd Johnny are only ever going to be "just friends". And as if Tanith and Johnny sharing a room automatically pisses off Evan. (Why would it? Seems to me Evan would be a far less gay camper--I mean happy camper--if Johnny or Tanith were Evan's roommate, under the personal and athletic circumstances.)

There are so many assumptions about the rigidity of sexuality, and one of those assumptions, the most oppressive, is that heterosexuality is inevitable and natural. I'm not disputing that hethood is a norm, but being lesbian and gay is currently also normal in the West, just not as common. Left-handedness is normal, but less common than right-handedness. That doesn't make being a lefty abnormal. Because if the assumption is that things that appear less frequently in society are "abnormal" then whiteness and manhood would be abnormal, relative to the entire global human population. 

But back to happy camping. Forty years into what is considered by white gay male historians to be the beginning of the Gay Liberation Movement--when mostly white gay men and gay male drag queens just said no to being harassed and arrested for being in a gay bar in NYC, heterosexism is still rampant, virulent, and unrelenting. (Misogyny and racism too.) 

The pressure to be publicly quiet about being lesbian and gay is required, to varying degrees, wherever I am in the West. Among white conservatives, homosexuality is incorrectly perceived as "morally wrong and unnatural" white liberals incorrectly perceive it as "entirely natural--just like heterosexuality". In my view, there's nothing natural about one's sexual identity and being lesbian and gay is, by definition, NOT like being heterosexual. Identity, after all, is social and cultural, meaning that any identity is infused with political meaning and value). That progressives seek the end to unequal valuing and treatment of people with differing identities doesn't make the case that identity is asocial.

I find that from white conservatism to white liberalism, the general view is that heterosexuality is, when homopboic push comes to lesbophobic shove, more natural than any other orientation. But white progressives, in my experience, value queerness uber all, with the meaning of queerness being about as elusive as Johnny's answers to questions about his sexual orientation. This is curious to me, as progressivism tends to be deeply white het male supremacist, in a deeply unrecognised and therefore unowned way. Upon closer inspection, the political mandates of contemporary queerness are often antifeminist and, with bitter irony, antilesbian.


But never mind the L word; you won't be hearing about any lesbians at the Olympics. And the references to anyone being gay are veiled--there's code among the sportscasters commenting about Johnny Weir. He's "controversial" or "notorious", as if tabloid news-making white male hetheads (think David Letterman and John Edwards) aren't either of those things. 

Only coded lingo will be spoken because the athletes themselves face fierce pressure, most especially from potential corporate sponsors who won't touch them with a ten foot vaulting pole if they are absolutely "out". It's also not polite, apparently, to remark on television that someone is lesbian or gay. When k.d. lang performed at the Opening Ceremony, there was no public celebration of her as a lesbian artist. But if the artist is heterosexual, we are likely to hear TMI about her or his romantic proclivities--think John Mayer--especially so close to Valentine's Day. Heterosexuality is publicly displayed and gushes like a punctured jugular around this time of year, and perhaps that's one reason why the color of "the holiday" is red.


What follows is an excerpt from a rather fucked up interview by Oursport with Johnny Weir. It is from *here*. Outsport appears to me to be a white middle class gay male focused sports website.

OS: You once wrote on your Web site that, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” I don’t know you, but I’ve followed your career for several years. I saw Pop Star on Ice. I know lots of straight guys, and I’ve never seen any of them do the things I’ve seen you do . And it seems to me that you haven’t just shown us the cover of the Johnny Weir book, you’ve shown us several chapters. You’ve shown us the 10-page glossy photo insert. From everything you’ve shown us over, can’t we at least discern whether Barnes & Noble would put the book in the gay & lesbian section?
Johnny: My hope is that Barnes & Noble will put it in the best-seller section.

OS: How many sequins are too many?
Johnny: What kind of question is that? There are never too many.

*     *     * 

Amidst Johnny's candor on book sections and costume accessories, come the other questions just around the bend, so to speak, about who he fucks. Evan Lysacek has been paired romantically with the presumed flagrantly heterosexual Ice Dancing champion, Tanith Belbin, who has won many competitions with her skating (but not romantic) partner, Ben Agosto. Tanith and Evan are, apparently, ex-romantic partners. I'm not sure when they broke up but they were allegedly together for a while. 

In a curious twist of fate that would be well-suited to a Shakespearean comedy or a Greek drama, Tanith's current Olympic Athlete's Village roommate during the Vancouver Games is... Johnny Weir. He had a choice as to whether to room with her or Evan, and as he and Evan are arch competitors, he went with Tanith. That, and Johnny and Tanith have known each other forever, and feel very comfortable rooming together. She had decisions to make as well: she could have roomed with two other woman athletes, but wouldn't have had her own bedroom. With Johnny, they each get separate rooms and some shared living space as well. So she welcomed him to be her only roommate. They get along famously as the media has reported, noting how he perfumed the rooms before she arrived because they smelled of wet dog prior to his aromatic and artistic redecorating. 

What follows next is a twist on the usual homophobic CRAP. And I applaud it. I found it *here*.

Are Johnny Weir and Evan Lysacek gay?

I know it angers and enrages many Republicans when such a question is asked. But it seems strange that George Bush paraded his lover constantly on the campaign trail in 2000 and 2004. And now McCain is doing the same thing with his opposite sex lover Cindy.

Why do straights publicly flaunt their sexual orientation and even display their sex partners in public when it has absolutely nothing to do with their job? Yet the minute a gay person is discussed, we are told to shut up because it is such a private and intimate personal issue. We are told by heterosexual militants that "who cares" and "their private life is nobody's business.". Yet strangely when the tables are turned, straights consider their domestic partners to be the most important person in their lives. Dubya said in 2004 that his decistion to marry his bedroom partner Laura, was the most important of his life. WTF?

• 1 year ago

Additional Details

In the case of Johnny Weir, what proof do you have? Liberace insisted that he was straight. Should we accept his word as proof? Republicans don't like a person labelled as gay and demand to know what proof you have.

We all know that many many men involved in figure skating are not only actively homosexual, but unrepentant about it also. Why is it considered an insult to assume that a man involved in figure skating is gay? Couldn't it be considered a compliment?

*     *     *

Next we have another related matter. Race. It seems Winter sports are associated strongly with being Caucasian. And there is talk among white people that the Winter Games are white, and the Summer Games are, well, less white (meaning Black). But let's consider, for a moment, that race is only Black and white. Let's consider that there are, for example, Indigenous people, whose culture gets exploited in the Opening Ceremony to entertain a largely non-Indigenous audience, and that there are also East Asian people, who are not white and are not Black.

We find Southeast Asian (Filipino) and East Asian (Japanese and Korean) heritage just among the men's short track speed skating teams. Here is the results of one race (that's competition, not ethnicity):

Men's 1500 m Records

Final Ranking

Final Rank	Helmet No	Country	Name	Best Time
1 011243	243	Korea	LEE Jung-Su	2:10.949
2 021256	256	United States	OHNO Apolo Anton	2:11.072
3 031252	252	United States	CELSKI J.R.	2:12.460

This is what the medalists look like:

Korea
LEE Jung-Su

United States
OHNO Apolo Anton

United States
CELSKI J.R.

Not a one of them are socially raced white. So the next time you hear someone remark about the lack of people of color in the Winter Games, please remind them that people of Asian descent are of color.

A point being made here in this post is that perceptions are sometimes deceiving, and deceptions are sometimes required if one seeks profitable levels of achieving.

Violation in Vancouver: Indigenous Activists Protest WHM Supremacist Canadian Government and Media's Gross Disregard of First Nations (as usual)

Since being a kid, I have loved the Olympics. I still do. I've been watching the Vancouver Winter Games and enjoying them. Go Apolo!!! Break the record! And a huge congratulations to Alexandre Bilodeau, on his Men's Moguls Gold Medal accomplishment, and for the love between him and his brother, Frédéric, who has Cerebral Palsy and inspires Alexandre. Congrats also to the self-possessed and super smart Hannah Kearney for her Gold in Women's Moguls.

I've also been considering, at least during commercial breaks, how enjoying things that require genocidal activities is required to be part of dominant society.

I suspect one key dynamic in dominant cultural apathy and resistance to being conscious of what is actually going on to allow the dominant West to be dominant is that it manufactures and promotes so many ways for all of us to be "entertained" and distracted, deluded, in denial, caught up in dominant cultural spectacles, as well as financially invested or economically dependent, socially and institutionally tethered, and politically obligated and obliged. I'm sure there are whole books on this subject. I don't think I'm saying anything new, and I've thought about this on and off for years. But it really sinks in and hits nerves when reporting here on atrocious activities that I am "enjoying" the practice of--off-camera, to be sure. I plan to write more about this. For now...

All that follows is from *here*, with thanks to Brenda at Censored News.


Olympic Resistance: Indigenous Groups, Anti-Poverty Activists, and Civil Liberties Advocates Protest 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.

Our Olympic coverage begins today in the streets of Vancouver, where some say a historic convergence is taking place. Indigenous groups, anti-poverty activists and civil liberties advocates are some of the voices being heard in protests against the Olympic presence. Franklin Lopez of the Vancouver’s Media Co-op has been following the Olympic protests. He filed this report. [includes rush transcript]

Ruchira Gupta is a Changemaker

 

[photograph of Ruchira Gupta is from here]

All that follows is from *here*.

Ruchira Gupta is a journalist, activist, and policymaker who has worked relentlessly for the past 25 years to end human trafficking and to empower some of the most marginalized girls and women in the world. She is best known for leading girls and women in prostitution to advocate for their own change though Apne Aap Women Worldwide, a community-based initiative in India that builds up the capacity of girls and women through small “self-help” group structures.

Apne Aap has had overwhelming success in assisting thousands of women and girls working in prostitution, transforming them from victims into leaders. Employing its strategy of learning, livelihood and legal protection , the organization has enrolled 2,500 children of women in prostitution in school, offered over 7,500 women survivors skills in small business management, and has trained more than 1,097 police officials in Bihar and Maharashtra to fight trafficking.

In addition to her work with Apne Aap, Ruchira provides policy support to the Government of India, and the United Nations. In 2009 and 2008, Gupta addressed the UN General Assembly on human trafficking and took the first ever panel of survivors of trafficking to speak at the UN. She has been awarded the Clinton Global Citizen Award for leadership in civil society (2009), the Bharat Nirman Award (2009), the Abolitionist Award (2007) at the UK House of Lords and the Emmy for outstanding investigative journalism (2005).

She played an important role in the passage of the US Trafficking Protection Bill through her first-hand testimony to the US Senate on the flesh trade. She has worked in the United Nations for the last ten years and helped the Government of Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Kosovo and Philippines to develop National Action Plans and laws against human trafficking. She has written two anti-trafficking manuals for police officials and prosecutors developed with UNODC and UNIFEM.

Her work has been cited in the following books: Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and A. Wu, Revisiting India by Ramin Jehanbegloo, Sale by Patricia McCormick, That Takes Ovaries by Rivka Solomon, Adventure Divas by Holly Morris, Ten Thousand Miles without a Cloud by Sun Shun Yun, Breaking the Earthenware Jar by Ruth Hayward, and In the name of Ram By Abid Surti. Documentaries that she has worked on include:

a) Paul Merton in India, BBC, Channel 5, UK, 2008
b) Land of the Missing Children, Channel 4, UK, 2005, on teenage sex-slavery in India.
c) Saffron Warriors, Channel 4, UK, 2003 on Nazi style Hindu fundamentalism in India
d) Rape for Profit. (Life in the Mumbai Brothel): News Night, BBC-1999
e) Kali’s smile: Radio 4, BBC documentary on role of Gods and goddesses in Indian popular culture. 1998
f) Shiva's wedding: Radio 4, BBC documentary on role of Gods and goddesses in Indian popular culture. 1998
g) The Selling of Innocents. (On sex-trafficking from Nepal to Mumbai, India): Documentary screened on CBC and HBO. Awarded the EMMY for outstanding investigative journalism by the United States Academy for Television Arts and Sciences in 1997 and used by NGOs, activists, government agencies as educational material to combat trafficking. -1997

On Lesbianism. One View. For Valentine's Day: A Day for Women to Be Liberated by Loving Women Fiercely and Affectionately

 

[image is from here]

Source: *here*.

On Valentine's Day, my thoughts always turn to Andrea Dworkin

"It is no secret that fear and hatred of homosexuals permeates our society. But the contempt for lesbians is distinct. It is directly rooted in the abhorrence of the self-defined women, the self-determining woman, the woman who is not controlled by male need, imperative, or manipulation. Contempt for lesbians is most often a political repudiation of women who organize in their own behalf to achieve public presence, significant power, visible integrity."

Posted by Phonaesthetica at 6:46 AM

A Very Happy New Year to Everyone!!

Happy Chinese New Year 2010: The Year of the Metal Tiger – This year, the first day of the Chinese New Year has landed on February 14^th (which also happens to be Valentine’s Day). Chinese New Year is China’s most important holiday, a joyous occasion complete with days of feasting, giving gifts, decorating, spending time with family, well-wishing, and celebrating the New Year. This is the Year of the Tiger. To celebrate the Chinese New Year 2010 watch the Hong Kong fireworks on Earth TV’s webcam. The fireworks over Victoria Harbour take place at 12pm British time on Monday 15 February, one day after the start of the Lunar New Year. Thousands of people pack onto the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront to watch the firework display, which is totally controlled by computer. Despite the snowy, inclement weather currently overtaking China, tonight will be the annual parade organized by the Hong Kong Tourism Board (HKTB), and it will follow a new route in Tsim Sha Tsui this year. HKTB Chairman Mr. James Tien said: “Hong Kong enjoys a global reputation for its vibrant Chinese New Year celebrations…[and this year] we will show to the world the excitement that awaits our visitors.” The government has predicted that 210 million passengers are expected to take the train there to attend the festivities, and nearly 30 million more will travel by air and millions of others by bus. The line to Jing’An Temple, one of Shanghai’s oldest Buddhist temples, “stretched around the block as people inside burned incense to bring wealth, health and happiness in the new year.”

Source: Happy Chinese New Year 2010: The Year of the Metal Tiger | Daily World Buzz http://www.dailyworldbuzz.com/happy-chinese-new-year-2010-the-year-of-the-metal-tiger/19940/#ixzz0fZqZtOgd
Via: Daily World Buzz

Facing HIV/AIDS: How Dominant Society and Marginalised Community Conspire to Kill. Racism + Misogyny + Heterosexism + Classism = GYNOCIDE for Black Women

 

[photograph of Linda Royal-Herman is from here]

What is blockquoted is from *here*.

Look at me, take a long, hard stare.
I'm the face of HIV. I represent every woman 25-34 who has died or is dying from AIDS.
AIDS is the leading cause of death in African American women in this age group.
So, LOOK at me!


Do you think I'm ready to die? I'm not ready. I don't want to leave my children, family, and friends. LOOK at me!


Can you honestly tell me we can't change the statistics by raising awareness? Can we not see the Consequences of our actions? Oh God, is anybody even listening to me? LOOK at me!


Now, take a long hard look at yourself and answer this question:
What am I going to do today to raise awareness of HIV & AIDS?


To learn more about Linda R. Herman and her passion for saving lives by raising awareness, please visit www.LindaRHerman.org.

*     *     *

What follows is from *here*.

Reproductive Control and Race: the Hidden Side of Domestic Violence
6 07 2009

Please try to overlook the amateur and somewhat sensationalist writing style of the author and read this very important and revealing article on reproductive control in abusive relationships between men and women.

Now, for many of you reading this, this may not really be news. Many of you seasoned feminists/women’s liberationists are familiar with the fact that abusive and controlling men use various methods to oppress and control their female partners. Hell, these abusers all seem to follow a “Domestic Violence for Dummies” manual. But rarely ever do folks in the mainstream, and, more disturbingly, most social workers, doctors, nurses, and counselors, recognize pregnancy or repeated requests/questions for and about contraceptives and condoms as red flags for spousal abuse. I’ll admit, I didn’t really think too hard about the particular issue of reproductive control until reading the above article.

But here is a part of the article that really stuck out at me:

And it’s not just about pregnancy. Dr. Anne Teitelman, Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania, is an expert on partner abuse and HIV risk. In her published review on this link among adolescent girls, she found six studies identified an association between intimate partner violence and increased risk for HIV (as in condom non-use). Among adolescent girls, survivors of partner abuse are significantly more likely than others to be diagnosed with an STD.

When I lived in the Washington D.C. area, and marched many years ago at The March For Women’s Lives, I remember learning that D.C. has some of the highest rates of HIV infection in the country. D.C. has a huge black community, and black women, in particular, are at much higher risk of HIV infection than their male or white and other non-white female counterparts. This should be raising a red flag. Nay, sounding an alarm call!

So why do many folks not associate higher rates of HIV/STD infection with possible partner abuse? I think there are many reasons: one, that consciousness regarding domestic violence and partner abuse is practically nill in our society; two, that much of the dialogue we DO have about hetero male-on-female partner abuse is rife with myths and misconceptions (“she drove him to get angry and hit her,” “he couldn’t control or help himself” “visible bruises and lesions are the main or only indicator of spousal abuse” etc. blah blah de blah) combined with the fact that dialogue surrounding HIV and STDs is also laden with misogynist myths (“people (i.e. women) who sleep around are more likely to get STDs/HIV,” “gay people are much more likely to get HIV/STDs because they’re promiscuous, evil, etc.” yadda yadda); and three, black women (who are, in various regions of the U.S., at much higher risk of HIV infection) are certainly not thought of as typical victims of domestic violence. If you are fortunate enough to even get a news report on a homicide related to domestic violence, you often hear about a pretty middle-upper class white woman who’s been shot or stabbed by her husband. If one was to use the news as a representative of all that’s going on in the world (and, yes, many folks do this, without even knowing it) one would think that only pretty, affluent, virginal white girls are the victims of rape or abuse.

But this is not the reality. The stereotypes surrounding black women include the idea that they are too “tough” or “unfeminine” to be physically or mentally abused by male partners, that they have animalistic or “wild” sexualities that make them “unrapeable.” Add to that the oppressive and eerie silence withing the “Black community” regarding domestic violence, incest, and other forms of violence against women…And the fact that society and the media don’t really care about the lives of black and poor women. These misogynist and racist tendencies in our culture make it hard for people to consider that many black women are indeed on the receiving end of partner abuse. In fact, out of all of the racial and socioeconomic groups of women in this country, black women, I believe, are the most susceptible to rape, domestic violence, and spousal abuse particularly BECAUSE of the stereotypes that surround black female “sexuality” (as if there was only one) and femininity. I am not at all arguing that other groups of women do not experience rape and abuse at the hands of men on a massive scale. But I am claiming that pervasive ideas about black women and sexuality/femininity in American culture have created dire consequences for many working class and poor black women (I am not even going to debate with anyone on the clear link between classism and racism in the U.S.) who are stuck in abusive relationships. If a poor black woman is even lucky enough to have access to condoms or birth control at a clinic or institution, it might more easily be tampered with or taken away by an abusive male partner that wants to control her through her body. Combine that with the idea that black women are immune to, or “tough enough,” to handle such a boyfriend or husband and you have a recipe for disaster. The crazy and disturbing thing is that these misconceptions about black women are pervasive both in mainstream (white-centered) society and the “black community.”

We need to deconstruct and rid of common myths regarding women’s bodies, black women’s sexualities and lifestyles, and men’s behavior, in addition to lifting the shunning silence surrounding violence against women and girls among many black folks, if we want to make a change.