Feminist Action Alert: Tell the New York Times to Apologize for Blaming an Eleven Year-Old Girl for Being Gang Raped by 20 Men and Boys

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times. Photo of Bill Keller is from here

Earl Wilson/The New York Times. Photo of Arthur S. Brisbane is from here

photo of Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. is from here

Will these three particular powerful white men get it?

What level of disregard and disrespect of the humanity of Black women and girls is tolerable in the U.S.?

You decide:

For the initial news about this, please see *this post* at What About Our Daughters. With many thanks to The Blogmother and also to C.W. for sending me the links.

Source website:
http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape#?opt_new=t&opt_fb=f

Tell the New York Times to Apologize for Blaming a Child for Her Gang Rape

Overview Letter Targeting: Arthur S. Brisbane (Public Editor, The New York Times), Bill Keller (Executive Editor, The New York Times), and Arthur Sulzberger Jr (Publisher, The New York Times)

Started by: Shelby Knox

On March 8th the New York Times published a story by James C. McKinley Jr. titled "Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town." The assault it described was, indeed, heinous: an 11-year-old was gang raped in an abandoned trailer house by as many as 18 men, with suspects ranging in age from middle school students to a 27-year-old. The attack came to light because several of the suspects took cell phone video of the assault.

Also appalling was the way in which New York Times reporter James C. McKinley reported the victim blaming sentiments of members of the Texas community in which the rape occurred as truth. McKinley insinuated the young woman had it coming, writing, "They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said."

Mr. McKinley also gave ink to community members who are more concerned about the impact raping a child will have on the suspects than being raped will have on the young victim. Mr. McKinley quoted Sheila Harrison as saying, "“These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

1 in 4 American women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. A culture that blames victims for being raped - for what they were wearing, where they were, and who they were with - rather than blaming the rapist is a culture that tacitly condones rape. A society that is more concerned with how being held accountable for rape will impact the perpetrator than for the well being of the victim is a society that doesn't take rape seriously.

The New York Times contributed to this dangerous culture by publishing this article by Mr. McKinley without asking him to edit out his and community members' editorial victim blaming.

Tell the New York Times to issue a published apology for their coverage of this incident and publish an editorial from a victim's rights expert on how victim blaming in the media contributes to the prevalence of sexual assault. No one ever deserves to be raped and no victim should ever be told it was their fault. New York Times, we expect better. We demand better.

What Peter Rothberg at The Nation forgot to tell you about International Women

image is from here

A problem for U.S. reporters and journalists is that they don't know how to understand the plight of women internationally if by international we mean women in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Worlds. What most U.S. writers want us to know is that it is very, very, very bad for those women over there. And that it is "infinitely better" for our women over here. But what is the relationship between what's happening to those women and what's happening to our women? And what is going on globally that isn't named below? Given the ways that various patriarchal systems of misogynist harm are globalised by the Western world, I'd say that we had better take responsibility for the crimes against women and girls globally that are our fault. And this means taking a hard look at what is happening to women and girls everywhere.

Why is there no mention of white U.S. men trafficking women and girls in the U.S.? Why aren't connections made between women and girls trafficked in the U.S. and women and girls trafficked internationally? Rape is a weapon men use against women. It is not a product of other conflicts. It is the defining feature of THE conflict of men's war against women. Why no mention of that war in those terms? When I say "THE conflict" I don't mean there's only one. I mean the one that the U.S. media refuses to name, is the war that men wage, as men, against women and girls because they are women and girls.

Around the world, in many places, but not all places, women and girls are sexxxualised, harassed, incested, molested, pimped, procured, beaten, raped, and enslaved. Around the world in many places, U.S. white het men travel to have unlawful sex with nine, eight, and seven year old girls and will not ever face one day in prison for doing so. In the U.S., white het men will rape one in four women, nationally, but one in three women among American Indians. At least 80% of the rapists of American Indian women are white men who do so knowing they will face no days in jail for committing such racist-misogynist atrocities.

Across the U.S., and elsewhere, men rape their daughters, step-daughters, the daughters of their girlfriends or wives, the daughters of neighbors, and the female friends of their daughters. Why is this not understood as part of the problem of men's war against girls and women? A percentage--who knows what percent--of those girls who are raped at home will run away, and on the streets waiting for them will be pimps and procurers, eager to season them to be prostitutes. This happens in many countries internationally.

Among that population of girls raped at home who are runaways, who are pimped and procured, a percentage--I don't know what percent--will show up in pornography videos and still images with their legs spread for het male viewers to consume as if her open legs didn't tell a story of rape that is on-going. Are men--all the many millions of normal het men who consume pornography, really so callous and inhumane as to not notice an atrocity when it is staring them in the face?

Among that population of girls and women in prostitution and pornography, some will be trafficked, bought and sold into slavery and sexual servitude. This happens to First, Second, Third, and Fourth World women.

What women also face is the patriarchal nature of capitalism and white supremacy, militarism and law, religious teachings and medical invasions. Across the globe, women who are good parents will lose their children to men who are batterers and rapists because the courtrooms where a percent of these women get to testify are told by their attorneys not to mention the violence they experienced by the childrens' fathers. And the judges and juries don't want to know either. They want, instead, to believe the men who beat and otherwise terrorise women and children domestically. And they do. And so women lose their children to rapists, batterers, and incest perpetrators. It happens often. We can leap around from the U.S. to the UK to Australia and see it happening. And in many other countries too.

Women of color, globally, face additional problems created by white supremacy, patriarchy, and capitalism: poverty, loss of life during childbirth, forced sterilisation, assault by U.S. and NATO military weapons and by U.S. male soldiers--who also systematically rape U.S. women soldiers. When will The Nation make the connections explicit among those systems and the above practices of gross violence, exploitation, and subordination of girls and women, by men?

Mr. Rothberg, the women of RAWA are not fighting for "gender rights". They have been fighting, militantly, since the 1970s, to end patriarchal atrocities: men's violent assaults against women and girls. There's quite a difference there in language and meaning, don't you think? Please start talking about patriarchal harms that men do to women, domestically, nationally, and internationally, in those terms. And don't forget to mention the region of origin, race, sexuality, and gender of the predators and perpetrators--particularly when they are U.S. white heterosexual men. Because that group of men, unlike all men of color and all gay men, are not stigmatised as dangerous predators.

The problem isn't "gender violence", Mr. Rothberg. It's MEN'S violence against human beings who are female, of all ages. It is not until the next to last paragraph that you mention the perpetrators' gender at all. Why do you keep hidden the fact that all of the atrocities you name are men's? White men's. Heterosexual men's.

You mention fashion parades as something women do to celebrate. But women also take up arms against men, Peter. And more women probably should. Because unless and until men start fearing being held immediately and directly accountable for the violence that men--including rich, white, heterosexual men--do to girls and women, unless men are terrified, collectively, of being shot to death, point blank, by any woman who attempts to rape, beat, pimp, or sell her, we likely won't see much change in the condition of women globally. And you can bet that any woman who kills more than one male predator will see the inside of a jail cell. But men rape hundreds and girls and see little to no time. Why do you think that is? And what is The Nation going to do about it?

Will your magazine support laws that make it not a crime for women to shoot to kill any man who is raping, beating, pimping, or selling her? Would you see such a law being more inhumane that all the rapes, beatings, pimpings, and murders of women men commit with impunity? If you would not support making women's self-defence when attacked or enslaved by a man not a crime, what solutions to patriarchal men's against women and girls, right here in this nation, do you propose?

image is from here

What follows is from *here*.

100 Years of International Women's Day

Peter Rothberg

March 8, 2011  

The world has been celebrating International Women’s Day since 1911 when it was established thanks to the efforts of activist Clara Zetkin. The idea was to create a global forum for celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women and provide a forum for women's issues to be raised, discussed and addressed. This video offers a nice capsule history of the occasion.

Today, the occasion is 100 years old. Yet, women around the world still face a phalanx of abuses ranging from wage inequality to femicide. The most urgent cases are those of women in war zones; seventy-five percent of people killed in war are women and children, and places like the Democratic Republic of Congo where tens of thousands of females have been terrorized by the widespread application of rape as a weapon, are downright horrific.

To help women living in the most blighted and war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan, Women for Women International have started the "Join Women on the Bridge” campaign, which will bring women from Rwanda and Congo together in peace on a bridge between their countries to demand an end to war and to demonstrate that women can build the bridges to peace and development.

In Guatemala, women also have it rough; more than 4,000 women and girls have been raped and murdered in the past decade. In response, Guatemalan-based Women Worker’s Committee, a sister organization of the international women’s human rights group Madre has organized neighborhood watch groups. Flashlights and whistles -- inexpensive asks -- are essential for this project.

In Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, although no accurate statistics are available, almost 500 women have been said to have been tortured, raped, murdered, and dumped onto the streets since 1993. Groups of women have been demanding justice, yet despite international support, the majority of the cases are still “unresolved.” The “Neighbors Helping Neighbors” project, part of the civil organization Las Hormigas, is trying to raise awareness about gender violence and discrimination by supporting a female cooperative that promotes women’s rights while providing a safe space serving hot food.

The plight of women in Afghanistan has been well documented, as has the role of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) in fighting for gender rights since 1977. Yet the group still faces many obstacles, compounded by a lack of international support. Despite a struggle with finances, RAWA is helping female Afghan refugees in Pakistan by running schools, mobile health teams, and handicrafts workshops among other things.

And though conditions are infinitely better for women in the United States than the aforementioned nations, 1,181 women were murdered by their intimate partner last year; reproductive rights are still practically restricted through both state and federal legislation, and women earn just 78 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Annually on March 8 and throughout the month, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate achievements. A global web of rich and diverse local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women's craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more. Find an event near you and help spread the word.

Peter Rothberg

Associate Publisher, Special Projects

Peter Rothberg, the Nation's Associate Publisher for Special Projects, has been writing the Act Now blog covering the world of activism since 2003. His previous positions with The Nation  include publicity director, web editor, special projects director and intern. A former contributor to Air America radio's daily Nation Minute commentaries, Rothberg is also a former speech-writer for civil rights leader Julian Bond. A member of the Brooklyn Literary Council and the board of Living Liberally, Rothberg lives in Brooklyn, where he was born and raised.

Happy 100th International Women's Day! Celebrate! And please support MADRE and activist sisters around the world!

image is from here

What follows is from *here*.

MADRE News

Happy International Women's Day!

Posted on: Tuesday, March 8, 2011

For 100 years, women worldwide have demonstrated for their rights every March 8.

In honor of this 100th International Women’s Day, MADRE is mobilizing 100 people to each give $100 to help secure the rights that women have won over the last century.

We want you to be a part of this campaign to celebrate the past and shape the future by propelling the gains of the global women’s movement into the next century. 

Despite our many achievements, women’s voices are still too often ignored by world leaders.

We want women like Malya Villard-Appolon of our sister organization in Haiti to be heard when she denounces the epidemic of rape in the displacement camps. We want women like Sandra Gonzalez of our sister organization in Guatemala to be heard when she condemns violations of women’s labor rights in sweatshops. We want women like Yanar Mohammed of our sister organization in Iraq to be heard when she sounds the call for democracy and women’s rights in her country.

You can help Malya, Sandra, Yanar and other MADRE partners raise their voices as they work for justice and human rights.

Click here to donate.

The $100 you raise or donate helps MADRE to:  

• Give women community-based activists the training they need to participate effectively in political processes—from local government all the way to the United Nations.
• Create popular versions of legal texts so that international law can be a powerful tool in the hands of women at the community level.
• Advocate at the United Nations and within governments for local women’s organizations to have a seat at the table when policies are being made that impact their lives.

As we amplify our sisters’ voices, we want to amplify your voice, too.

When you raise or donate $100 this month, you will have the opportunity to send a message of support and connect directly with one of our partners: Malya Villard-Appolon in Haiti, Sandra Gonzalez in Guatemala, Yanar Mohammed in Iraq or Fatima Ahmed in Sudan.  These are women who, with MADRE’s support, have helped change the course of international debate on women’s human rights issues.

There is no better time to help amplify their voices than this 100th International Women’s Day.

In June 2010, Malya Villard-Appolon, MADRE partner and women's rights activist from Haiti testified before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.  She spoke about her experience as a woman living in a camp for displaced people and about the devastating levels of sexual violence she has witnessed in the camp. She spoke about the life-saving work she helped lead through KOFAVIV, a grassroots women’s group that provides urgent care to rape survivors. Malya’s courageous testimony helped galvanize support for a groundbreaking legal decision upholding the rights of women in Haiti.


In December 2009, the UN launched a Latin American regional initiative, to combat violence against women. MADRE partner Sandra Gonzalez of Guatemala spoke at the launch of this campaign about violence against women sweatshop workers. Sandra has done more than just document labor and human rights violations. Her organization, the Women Workers Committee, has built a community for women workers and provides them with opportunities for empowerment through literacy classes, health fairs and sexual rights trainings.


 Yanar Mohammed co-founded the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) after the US invasion in 2003. She set up a series of shelters that served as an underground railroad for women escaping the violence and death threats that escalated dramatically during the occupation. In March 2010, she traveled to UN headquarters for a major gathering on women’s human rights to demand global action to protect women. Now, she is a leading voice among the protestors demanding real democracy in Iraq.


 In December 2009, Fatima Ahmed, the head of our partner organization in Sudan, Zenab for Women in Development, attended the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen.  She told hundreds of government representatives and civil society activists that smallholder women farmers must be an integral part of our global response to climate change. Then she went home to continue to lead the first ever women farmers union in Sudan, and make sure that the women have the training and resources they need to adapt to climate change.

These are some of the voices you support by being part of our campaign to raise $100 from 100 people in honor of 100 years of International Women’s Day.  

Join the campaign today.

"The Disposable Woman" by Anna Holmes. The disposable woman is "she" who Charlie Sheen and Piers Morgan most likely will never see as fully human--as human as Charlie and Piers are to one another

image of Piers Morgan and Charlie Sheen is from here

“You’re entitled to behave however the hell you like as long as you don’t scare the horses and the children.”  -- Piers Morgan to Charlie Sheen

"I Like Crazy People Who Don't Give a F**k." -- Robert Pattinson, about Charlie Sheen

Who don't give a fuck about women, I'd add.

A huge hug and grand thanks to Anna Holmes for writing this piece!!!! THANKS, ANNA!!!!!! I saw the same program Anna did, and was nauseated by it. I've written a bit about it last week, I think, soon after it aired--well, probably in the hours immediately after it aired. I believe Piers, Mel Gibson, and Charlie Sheen represent--and are--a very particular kind of man. A super-privileged man--super-privileged by fame or fortune or popularity or celebrity or things more mundane, like class and appearance of race/ethnicity privilege, or actual race/ethnicity privilege in the case of Mel and Piers. Even teen heart-throb Robert Pattinson have come out strongly in support of Charlie's anti-social, anti-woman antics. Nice to know where you stand, Robert. If also disappointing.

These men are either flagrant serial abusers and/or exploiters of women, or they're vehement defenders of such male abusers and exploiters of women. These men seem to go out of their way to make sure we all know they support one another--that the Misogynist Brotherhood is alive and well. These men also tend to have egos the size of a rather large and supremely unfathomable god.

They also seem to be in need of protecting themselves a lot--these men who abuse or exploit others with a casualness or callousness more typically found in non-human (or human) animals with no evident conscience. It's not to say that Piers, specifically, is a sociopath. I think the jury is out on Mel Gibson, however. And I'd put Charlie between the two. To me, Piers is a willful exploiter of women, who could care less about attending to the matter of being responsible and humane with his enormous privileges and media power, tepid though it may be.

I don't expect Mr. Morgan's show to last more than one or possibly two seasons, honestly. It's so fucking uninteresting most of the time. Oh, and so pro-bro and pro-sexism. He's so hung up on talking with his fellow het dudes about their uses of women, including of women in pornography, as he did with Brett Michaels. Piers, if you're watching, do you really think men who grossly, and perhaps compulsively, sexually exploit women for fun are going to be enough of an audience to keep your show on the air? These are not men who, typically, watch chat shows, after all. And these are men, who, during those hours that your show typically airs, are too busy hunting down women to fuck, or have their faces plastered to computer monitors with dick-in-hand. I've avoided watching most of your episodes, thus far, and don't see that changing any time soon. I watched Larry King far more often and his ratings weren't good enough for CNN execs, were they?

Now, Charlie Sheen has told Piers he's never hit a woman--not even once, not even accidentally, apparently. I'll just say "Charlie, given how damned out of it on drugs you've been, how would you know?" Does throwing Brittany Ashland to the floor not count? Does shoving Denise Richards count? Does a tight grip around a woman's throat not count? Do you consider either of those acts to be demonstrating this glorious regard and respect for womankind you seem to be extolling as one of your virtues? (See more details, reader, in Anna's report below.)

Charlie appears to be saying that all women should be treated as goddesses, which I'll assume he doesn't use as a synonym for "prostitutes who exist to please men"--or does he? On Piers Morgan's show, C. Sheen declared himself innocent of EVER having hit a woman with an earnestness that, to me, overflowed with insincerity. Does he not believe the women who have spoken out about how, exactly, he has frightened, terrified, or abused them? Are they not real to him? Do their voices not count as "the voices of goddesses"? If a woman speaks out against him, must she hand back her "goddess" membership card, and join the ranks of the mere wh*re?

To Charlie: Is Capri Anderson a goddess who only deserves to be treated with respect and regard by all men on Earth? You seem to only acknowledge two categories of women: goddesses and wh*res. And maybe mothers as a third category, as long as they aren't trying to protect their children from your excesses and abuses. You've heard of the madonna/wh*re complex, haven't you, Charlie? It was a psychoanalytic evaluation of a way of thinking about and treating women that men in very misogynistic, patriarchal societies seem to keep accomplishing with little to no social or civil intervention.

Charlie Sheen is not so much a pop cultural folk-hero as he is a male supremacist fuck-hero for men who believe abusing and otherwise fucking over women ought to be men's right and entitlement. In the article that follows, terms for women are used that I don't generally use here without interrupting them with at least one asterisk, as they are very triggering for many women who have heard them before being battered or while being incested and raped.

Please click on the article's title to link back to the source website.

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR 

The Disposable Woman

By ANNA HOLMES 

Published: March 3, 2011 

FORTY-THREE minutes into his “special live edition” with Charlie Sheen on Monday night, Piers Morgan finally got around to asking his guest a real question. Before that, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Sheen had mostly traded chuckles and anecdotes about multiday benders, inflated network salaries and meet-ups in Aspen, Colo. But then, after three commercial breaks, Mr. Morgan inquired, “Have you ever hit a woman?” 

Ruth Gwily 

Two minutes later, with Mr. Morgan apparently satisfied with the actor’s answer that no, women should be “hugged and caressed,” that line of questioning was over. 

That Mr. Morgan didn’t press the issue of domestic violence shouldn’t have come as any surprise. CBS executives, not to mention the millions of viewers of his “family” sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” have consistently turned a blind eye toward Mr. Sheen’s history of abusing women. Part of this, of course, is about money. The actor’s F-18 of an id — to borrow a metaphor from Mr. Sheen himself — had long provided the show a steady stream of free publicity. It also helped make Mr. Sheen the highest-paid actor on television, at $1.2 million an episode.   

[Julian's note: closer to $2 million per episode, according to Charlie. And he feels profoundly underpaid. Poor dear. Poor impoverished dear. Considering he makes more in one week than who nations of people earn in one year--or is that ten years?--I'm going to say he's a tad out of touch with reality. He'll only return to the show if he's paid $3 million an episode, for all the emotional wear and tear his producers have, allegedly, put him through.]

But it’s also about apathy. Even now — after Mr. Sheen began carpet-bombing his bosses in radio rants, prompting CBS to shut down production on the show — observers still seem more entertained than outraged, tuning in to see him appear on every talk show on the planet and coming up with creative Internet memes based on his most colorful statements. And while his self-abuses are endlessly discussed, his abuse of women is barely broached. 

Our inertia is not for lack of evidence. In 1990, he accidentally shot his fiancée at the time, the actress Kelly Preston, in the arm. (The engagement ended soon after.) In 1994 he was sued by a college student who alleged that he struck her in the head after she declined to have sex with him. (The case was settled out of court.) Two years later, a sex film actress, Brittany Ashland, said she had been thrown to the floor of Mr. Sheen’s Los Angeles house during a fight. (He pleaded no contest and paid a fine.) 

In 2006, his wife at the time, the actress Denise Richards, filed a restraining order against him, saying Mr. Sheen had shoved and threatened to kill her. In December 2009, Mr. Sheen’s third wife, Brooke Mueller, a real-estate executive, called 911 after Mr. Sheen held a knife to her throat. (He pleaded guilty and was placed on probation.) Last October, another actress in sex films, Capri Anderson, locked herself in a Plaza Hotel bathroom after Mr. Sheen went on a rampage. (Ms. Anderson filed a criminal complaint but no arrest was made.) And on Tuesday, Ms. Mueller requested a temporary restraining orderagainst her former husband, alleging that he had threatened to cut her head off, “put it in a box and send it to your mom.” (The order was granted, and the couple’s twin sons were quickly removed from his home.) “Lies,” Mr. Sheen told People magazine. 

The privilege afforded wealthy white [Julian's note: his ethnic heritage is also Latino] men like Charlie Sheen may not be a particularly new point, but it’s an important one nonetheless. Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears are endlessly derided for their extracurricular meltdowns and lack of professionalism on set; the R&B star Chris Brown was made a veritable pariah after beating up his equally, if not more, famous girlfriend, the singer Rihanna. Their careers have all suffered, and understandably so. 

This hasn’t been the case with Mr. Sheen, whose behavior has been repeatedly and affectionately dismissed as the antics of a “bad boy” (see: any news article in the past 20 years), a “rock star” (see: Piers Morgan, again) and a “rebel” (see: Andrea Canning’s “20/20” interview on Tuesday). He has in essence, achieved a sort of folk-hero status; on Wednesday, his just-created Twitter account hit a million followers, setting a Guinness World Record. 

But there’s something else at work here: the seeming imperfection of Mr. Sheen’s numerous accusers. The women are of a type, which is to say, highly unsympathetic. Some are sex workers — pornographic film stars and escorts — whose compliance with churlish conduct is assumed to be part of the deal. (For the record: It is not.) 

Others, namely Ms. Richards and Ms. Mueller, are less-famous starlets or former “nobodies” whose relationships with Mr. Sheen have been disparaged as purely sexual and transactional. The women reside on a continuum in which injuries are assumed and insults are expected.

“Gold diggers,” “prostitutes” and “sluts” are just some of the epithets lobbed at the women Mr. Sheen has chosen to spend his time with. Andy Cohen, a senior executive at Bravo and a TV star in his own right, referred to the actor’s current companions, Natalie Kenly and Bree Olson, as “whores” on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program on Tuesday. Arianna Huffington sarcastically tweeted that Mr. Sheen’s girlfriends “symbolize modesty, loyalty and good taste.” Mr. Sheen’s own nickname for Ms. Kenly and Ms. Olson — “the goddesses” — is in its own way indicative of their perceived interchangeability and disposability. 

It’s these sorts of explicit and implicit value judgments that underscore our contempt for women who are assumed to be trading on their sexuality. [Julian's note: Let's be clear. Charlie is doing little else other than trading on his sexuality and his fame, which is largely currently due to him trading on his sexuality.] A woman’s active embrace of the fame monster or participation in the sex industry, we seem to say, means that she compromises her right not to be assaulted, let alone humiliated, insulted or degraded; it’s part of the deal. The promise of a modern Cinderella ending — attention, fame, the love and savings account of a rich man — is always the assumed goal. 

Objectification and abuse, it follows, is not only an accepted occupational hazard for certain women, but something that men like Mr. Sheen have earned the right to indulge in. (Mr. Sheen reportedly once said that he didn’t pay prostitutes for the sex; he paid them “to leave.”) One can’t help but think that his handlers might have moved more quickly to rein in their prized sitcom stallion if his victims’ motivations weren’t assumed to be purely mercenary. (Or if they enjoyed parity and respect with regards to their age, influence and earning power.) 

These assumptions — about women, about powerful men, about bad behavior — have roots that go way back but find endorsement in today’s unscripted TV culture. Indeed, it’s difficult for many to discern any difference between Mr. Sheen’s real-life, round-the-clock, recorded outbursts and the sexist narratives devised by reality television producers, in which women are routinely portrayed as backstabbing floozies, and dreadful behavior by males is explained away as a side effect of unbridled passion or too much pilsner. 

As Jennifer Pozner points out in her recent book “Reality Bites Back: The Troubling Truth About Guilty-Pleasure TV,” misogyny is embedded within the DNA of the reality genre. One of the very first millennial shows, in fact, “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire,” was notable in that it auctioned off what producers called the “biggest prize of all”: a supposedly wealthy B-movie writer named Rick Rockwell — who was later revealed to have had a restraining order filed against him by a woman he’d threatened to kill. According to Ms. Pozner, the reaction of one of the producers of “Multimillionaire” was, “Great! More publicity!” 

On reality television, gratuitous violence and explicit sexuality are not only entertainment but a means to an end. These enthusiastically documented humiliations are positioned as necessities in the service of some final prize or larger benefit — a marriage proposal, a modeling contract, $1 million. But they also make assault and abasement seem commonplace, acceptable behavior, tolerated by women and encouraged in men. 

Which brings us back to Mr. Morgan, who, like many of Mr. Sheen’s past and present press enablers, showed little to no urgency in addressing the question of violence against women. “You’re entitled to behave however the hell you like as long as you don’t scare the horses and the children,” Mr. Morgan said at one point. Scaring women, it seems, was just fine. 

During the interview, a series of images played on a continuous loop. One of them was a defiant and confident-looking Charlie Sheen, in a mug shot taken after his 2009 domestic violence arrest. 

Anna Holmes is a writer and the creator of the Web site Jezebel.

A piece of writing about men and masculinity: "Fighting Dogs"

image is from here

This is a short piece of writing by my new friend, Miki, who is a very dear and smart bisexual male who lives in Spain and usually writes in Spanish. For the English readers/speakers coming to this blog--I'll go out on a limb and say that just might be a majority of y'all!!--I am glad to have this piece in English to post here.

I told Miki recently that this sort of image does NOTHING for me. I'm gay; I'm not interested in males who put lots of effort into making themselves look like steroid cases. I am disgusted by the media obsession with males-as-rough-and-tumble-fighters.Who have to murder someone to be considered heroic.

You may click on the title just below to link back to the source website. 

Fighting dogs

Posted by: mikiencolor on: August 9, 2009

This is a translation. Original post: http://mikiencolor.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/perros-de-pelea/

They want soldiers, not companions.

They want men, not humans.

Violent, rough, brutes, not lovers, manly men in a perpetual search for blood and submissive female to mount. Implacable to compete, violent to war, fierce to triumph and make proud.

Warriors and conquered is that they want, not citizens. Warriors to invade and subjugate. Sociopaths to execute without a second thought, dead from the waist up to do what needs to be done, not empathic beings with whom to share. Love is conquest, they say, which is consummated by invasion. Conquest, invasion, occupation.

Rough, harsh for working is how they want us, and productive. Disgusting, repugnant, vomitous, repulsive, that’s how they want us. Frightening, terrifying, not sweet, not fearful. Dangerously handsome they want us, not impotent and ugly, soldiers in reserve forever ready for a fight.

Warriors to war with other warriors they want, survivors to initiate future warriors, executioners to educate future executioners, an endless cycle of tyrants, experts in pain and cruelty, they want. Fighting dogs, that’s all they want. What shame gentleness causes them. What contempt they feel for tenderness. Fighting bulls, they want, not docile. Fierce bulls for the ring, bread and circus and unappealable insanity, that’s what they want.

Where are the objectors? Where are you? This is some hell.

Yanar Mohammed Reports on the Protests and Revolutions for Freedom

image is from here

All that follows is from MADRE News website, *here*.

The Day of Iraqi Rage

Posted on: Thursday, March 3, 2011

Keywords: Iraq, Middle East

We just received the following update from Yanar Mohammed, the director of our partner organization in Iraq, the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). She writes about the spread of demonstrations from the wider region into Iraqi cities and about the violent tactics that Iraqi security forces are using against protestors.

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Last Friday, February 25, was a historic day in Iraq. The revolution earthquakes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya sent shockwaves in our direction.

(Photo at left: Yanar Mohammed, OWFI Director)The main squares of most Iraqi cities were filled with protestors raising the same demands of providing electricity, employment, an end to governmental corruption, and a plea for general freedoms.

Although the government announced a curfew and closed all streets from vehicular movement, and the highest religious clerics discouraged the people from protesting, almost 70,000 people gathered in the main squares in all of Iraq, united around their main demands.

For the first time in eight years, the demonstration united people of different religions, ethnicities, sects, and political affiliations to denounce the extreme and continuous corruption and demand a share for the people in the countries resources from oil.

OWFI plays a role in the political participation of women within movements for national freedoms and liberties in Iraq. Although our numbers are small when compared to the huge demonstrating masses, the purpose was to help organize some of the freedom-loving youth groups which had started from facebook, but grew and multiplied in February. OWFI was one of the organizers of the demonstrations in Baghdad and Samarra raising slogans of change, right to work, and of course, equality.

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Al Tahrir Demonstration in Baghdad

Although the demo was announced as a peaceful one, the security forces ended it at 5pm by throwing sound bombs, splashing hot water, shooting plastic bullets, and live bullets at the demonstrators.

When we would not move, but chant slogans of relentless struggle, the security trucks began to drive down the square to chase and shoot us with live bullets, and beat up many of the demonstrators who fled into the alleys surrounding Al Tahrir square. One of our male supporters was shot in the knee, while two others were beaten by the US-trained anti-riot police and the Iraqi army. Almost 20 people were shot in that day around the square, although the announced numbers were much less. Some died while the wounded were detained.

For those of us who ran to safety, we had to walk 5 hours in order to reach our homes in streets where cars were not allowed to drive.

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In the western city of Samarra, OWFI women and men were leading the demonstrators, and raising banners demanding support for the widows who are a majority among the women of Samarra. It was a precedent for a tribal community protest to be led by women.

At the same time in most Iraqi cities, the army shot the demonstrators in the evening, attempting to disperse the demonstrators. 7 were killed in this city, while 15 were wounded.

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Demonstrations happened in parallel in the Kurdish North and the South, making it clear that nobody cared for the artificially created division lines of sunni, shia, Arab, Kurd, Turkmen, etc… It was a day of a unified struggle against corruption, oppression, basic rights and freedoms.

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While most demonstrating groups carried banners demanding reform of the government, the shooting and harassment of the demonstrators by anti-riot police and by the army shifted the slogans toward ones which rejected the oppressive measures.

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OWFI had carried the banner of "change" since the beginning of the demonstration, and advised groups of cooperating youth demonstrators to do the same. The opposition media picked up the slogan and announced it on local TVs:"…that OWFI activist Yanar Mohammed will demand (Change) in the coming demonstration next Friday."

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We are organizing for the coming Friday, hoping that the streets will be open, and that the army will let us into Al Tahrir square after 30 hours from now.


Wish us good luck,

Yanar Mohammed

Photos:

[Yanar also sent the videos below with this note: "please take a look at the short video clips we took of the demonstration before the shooting. We were still smiling as the shooting had not begun."]

You Can't Inspire, Sustain, or Spell Revolution Without LOVE

photo of James Baldwin is from here

photo of Audre Lorde is from here

photo of Andrea Dworkin is from here

What follows is written with gratitude and love to James Baldwin (August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987), Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992), Andrea Dworkin (September 26, 1946 – April 9, 2005), and Chrystos (born November 7, 1946), whose photo appears below.

And to She who speaks wisdom, whether I listen to Her or not.

One my deepest frustrations about white and male people--including myself--is our inability or unwillingness to ground our political actions in radical love. Radical politics must have a root spiritual base, because the struggles will always been more challenging than we can endure. And so we need forces beyond our individual selves to access when we are feeling or are beaten down.

photo of Malalai Joya is from here

photo of Yanar Mohammed is from here

photo of Vandana Shiva is from here

I've seen revolutionary activists who act with love. Malalai Joya and Yanar Mohammed are among them. So too is Vandana Shiva. I call upon the love found in the work of James Baldwin, Audre Lorde, and Audrea Dworkin; I keep their spirits and their work in my heart. They transformed rage into a deep loving regard for humanity. It was still rageful, at times, but not without love as its base. I'm not saying they didn't hurt, exploit, or abuse anyone. I know better. But in their life-long radical political practice, they made sure to keep a profound respect and deep regard for humanity as a foundational revolutionary value.

Sometimes I wonder if part of the pact whites and men make in order to maintain their whiteness and manhood (or whatever I, as intergender, hold in myself) is that we give up our capacity to love, deeply, radically, and in ways that will support and sustain revolutionary action. Because what I see is that we whites, for example, too often use disagreement as a way to disconnect. And there's too little love to be found in the oppressive institutions we passively and actively support.

There will always be compelling reasons to part company. And we will always have reasons to turn away from one another, in hurt, in anger, while triggered, when too tired to speak what needs to be said to move forward towards healing. But we cannot afford to not move forward, more deeply into ourselves, in community, if we are to create a movement that can resist the forces of the white Master. When we are using  and holding tight to all the most anti-humane tools of the white Master, we can be sure he will continue to rule our lives and destroy the lives of those of us with fewer privileges and dominant social visibility.

In North and Central America, African American, Caribbean, Latina, Asian, and Indigenous women are systematically disappearing without regard or notice from whites and men. This gross human destruction is due, often enough, to men's and whites' violence and our refusal to join forces with Black and Brown women globally to intervene and stop the atrocities which appear in many forms.

Girls and women across ethnicity are incested, battered, raped, trafficked, and enslaved by men--of all races. Why do men, collectively, care so little about this? Is it really because men need some women to be tortured and terrorised, exploited and violated, in order to have a good life as men define it?

This is not to say that people of color have some God/dess-given ability to love. To survive being oppressed and abused, we often absorb society's messages about us, too often open- or close-hand delivered by our alleged loved ones--family members and people in our communities. This lack of love may be delivered with looks and tones of voice that lack compassion, care, regard, and respect. And internalised oppression and self-hatred are viciously successful means through which the oppressor maintains his rule.

But class and race privileged do make disconnection into a kind of sign of righteousness, I find. I see that in the white blogosphere, and offline also. If you're REALLY radical, you'll shut up, shut down, or shut out those who disagree with you. You'll cut people out of your life so swiftly because, well, you can afford to do so.

I know from some of the women of color in my life that this "deleting" of people is a luxury many women of color cannot afford. To cut people out is, often enough, to be entirely without support--however uneven that support is. And with no friends there is also no institutional support. In a society that is founded on your invisibility or that requires your slavery, imprisonment, destruction, or death, without human contact there isn't much else. There's no summer home with a room of one's own in which to write and gaze out at the sea. There's no police force that isn't terroristic. There's no court system that wants to see you and justice meet. Every white-man-made institution is designed to make women of color do the hardest work of all people for the benefit of the very few who do not ever have to work so hard, collectively. Exhaustion and exasperation doesn't make love easy.

So why is it that whites and men are so versed in uncompassionate action when we are disproportionately cared for and about by other people? When we have more social resources with which to take care of ourselves? When we make all kinds of pacts to stick together when challenged by women of color but not so much when we challenge each other?

Watching the news, seeing the revolutionary struggles that have been occurring with amazing bravery and compassion for one's citizens being oppressed, I am reminded of how much love is missing from the more privileged classes of people who might join forces with the most disenfranchised among us.

I'll pray to the Goddess that somehow, She will lead us to each other across difference, across disagreement, and across the divides that become chasms and mass graves most often for those of us who are neither white nor male.

photo of Chrystos is from here

Chrystos once said to me, after an embrace, "Make beautiful things."

Disrespect and disharmony aren't all that beautiful, are they? While honesty requires telling truths that can be unintentionally hurtful, it ought not require any willfully harmful action. Goddess help me understand the difference, with what I do and what I receive that others do.

Goddess be with me and help me through my triggered states of being. Goddess bless me, and those working for a better, more beautiful world. Goddess inform my choices about how to act towards my enemies, my friends, and all our relations.